I've now started a new Facebook page where you will be able to read about my latest bakes and in particular my weekly forays into the world of baking cakes that are vegan-friendly. There are galleries of lots of the celebration cakes I've baked and I'll be adding further recipes and ideas there.

Pop along to Facebook and search for @MattsBakedGoodsUK to like my page and follow me!

Thanks and look forward to seeing you there!

Matt

Veganuary

What’s the difference between these two lemon drizzle loaves? They are both light and lemony and have a crunchy top to them. The one on the left is the traditional, never-fail Mary Berry recipe I have used for years and the one on the right is a vegan version…and you really can’t tell the difference!

For the past four months I have been the sole provider of cakes for Bora Coffee Co, an independent coffee shop in Shirley near Shirley in the West Midlands. I make a range of different cakes and slices – pear and ginger, banana, tiffin, cranberry and chocolate flapjack, sticky ginger bake with a lemon cream cheese topping, carrot cake, scones, fruit bread – the regular range of goodies you’d come to expect from a coffee shop. At the bottom of each of the labels is VGN; all of the cakes are suitable for vegans. Vegans don’t believe that they are suitable and when they do, they like the range of bakes on offer. Those who are not vegan can’t tell the difference. We don’t market the bakes and ‘vegan cakes’ but cakes that sure suitable for vegans and this is where the difference comes. The traditional image of vegan cakes is that they are very healthy and use alternatives to sugar, nothing refined and often a random vegetable or piece of fruit. These clearly have an important market, but working with Bora, we wanted to go for the ‘indulgent vegan’ market, after all, if you go out for coffee and cake, you want to indulge yourself, don’t you?

Until I started baking for Bora, I had never made a vegan cake and was quite anxious about how they would work. In reality I have found that there are so many alternative ingredients and methods, that I now really enjoy baking in a vegan way. I am forever looking at how I can make cakes that are suitable for vegans – the last was a Christmas cake traybake. It was so popular, I had order from customers for entire cakes to take home!

I have had to ‘unlearn’ some of the methods I have used for years, and my beloved KitchenAid mixer rarely gets used. The art to vegan baking is light mixing and combining rather than creaming and folding. This makes many of the cakes quick and easy to make.

Rising comes from a combination of flour and raising agents. Instead of using eggs, ground flax seeds combined with lukewarm water have never failed in a darker coloured bake such as my pear and ginger loaf. Egg replacement powder is used for some of the lighter bakes or in cookies that are the chewiest I have ever made. Sometimes no binding agent is needed at all – I’m still not entirely sure why, but I know that the bakes still work really well. Buttercreams and cream cheese toppings can still be made and enjoyed, with non-vegans unable to tell the difference. Even many kinds of chocolate are dairy free and they don't need to cost the earth - look at Vegan Womble's blog, you'll be amazed!

So in this Veganuary, try something different when you’re baking, give vegan a go! Here’s my recipe for a lemon drizzle loaf that is suitable for vegans, not a vegan lemon drizzle loaf!

Ingredients

250g self-raising flour

150g caster sugar

½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

220ml soya milk

120ml vegetable oil

zest of a lemon

For the topping

100g granulated sugar

juice of a lemon

Method

1.    Pre-heat the oven to 180/ 160/ Gas Mark 4 and line a 2lb loaf tin with either parchment paper or a loaf tin liner.

2.    Put all the dry ingredients and the lemon zest in a bowl and mix lightly.

3.    In a separate bowl, mix together the oil and soya milk

4.    Add the wet ingredients to the dry and gently stir in until just combined. Try not to overmix as it can make the finished cake heavy.

5.    Bake in the centre of the oven for 35 to 40 minutes until a skewer comes out clean.

6.    Meanwhile, mix together the granulated sugar and lemon juice.

7.    Use a cocktail stick to make holes across the top of the loaf while it is still hot and pour over the lemon and sugar.

8.    Leave in the tin until cool

A great inspiration and go-to book is Ms Cupcakes Naughtiest Vegan Cakes in Town. If you are ever in Shirley, pop along to Bora and try for yourself! I'm there on a Thursday morning too.

My vegan week

It's been an interesting baking week for me trying out new ingredients and approaches. That's because everything I've baked has been vegan friendly!
When you think of vegan cakes, you tend to think of brown flour, seeds and quite a dense bake. How wrong was I?! Talking to Ross at Bora Coffee in Shirley, Birmingham, we coined the phrase 'The Indulgent Vegan' meaning cakes that are just as gooey, chocolaty and sugary as any other bake after all, if you go out for coffee and cake, its as a treat and an indulgence.
My first sponge cakes used egg replacements such as those you can get in health food shop; these worked well but I found that they rose well in the oven but dropped quite quickly when coming out of the oven giving a slightly disappointing end to them.
My revelation was in reading Ms Cupcakes Naughtiest Cakes in Town. The methods used in this book omitted egg replacements entirely and just used raising agents to give a far more stable rise. Quick mixes as you would do when making muffins and regular 'tapping' of the mixture in the bowl and tin rather than creaming methods ensured that the agents didn't start working before they went in the oven. It actually made the mixing process very straightforward, but you have to be quick!
The book also gives ideas for toppings and fillings, some of which seemed a little odd to start with but actually worked brilliantly.
I am definitely a fan of vegan baking, especially if the indulgent nature of cakes can be maintained. I'll be using the principles I have learnt to adapt my current favourites and coming up with new combinations, some of which will be sold in Bora Coffee!
All of the bakes below are totally vegan and totally indulgent!

Pecan caramel slice and apple, date and ginger oat squares

Raspberry, blueberry and almond crumble muffins
Red velvet and coffee and walnut cupcakes

Scones!

Lemon and blueberry loaf

If you live near Shirley in the West Midlands, pop into Bora Coffee where some of these bakes will soon be on sale!

Peanut butter squares

After having had lots of orders of the past couple of weeks, it was quite nice to have an experimental bake this week. I'm really enjoying making different slices at the moment and am always obsessed with bakes with peanut butter in. After my baking buddy Amanda did a version of a caramel slice with hazelnut caramel on a brownie base (which were beyond divine and resulted in several long gym sessions after eating just one!) I started to wonder about other types of base and caramel.

I spent a long time looking at recipes on the interweb. The peanut butter topping was quite common, but most slices had either a brownie or shortbread base and I wanted to try something different. In the end I combined various recipes, mostly from Australia with some of my own.

The resulting slice had a chocolate and peanut biscuit base for which I used unsalted roasted peanuts. This was baked before being topped with a layer of peanut butter mixed with sugar and condensed milk and then baked, with thick crazy milk chocolate on top. As the peanut butter layer also needs to be baked to set it, I found it was easy to over bake the biscuit making its slightly dry and crumbly, so if you try this recipe, be aware of that. Not that it didn't taste nice! With all these lovely ingredients, how could it fail to tantalise the taste buds!

I was pleased with the outcome and will definitely make again, but I may need to go to the gym a few times before eating another slice!

Ingredients

For the biscuit base

200g baking spread

100g caster sugar

200g self-raising flour

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

80g unsalted roasted peanuts roughly chopped

For the peanut butter layer

397g can Sweetened Condensed Milk

280g crunchy peanut butter 

55g soft brown sugar

50g butter

1 egg, lightly whisked 

For the topping

200g milk chocolate

15g butter

Method

To make the biscuit base

1.     Preheat the oven to 180 C / Gas 4. Grease and line a 20cm square deep baking tin

2.     Cream together margarine and sugar until light and fluffy; stir in flour and cocoa powder

3.     Mix in the chopped peanuts so that they are well dispersed

4.     Bake in the pre-heated oven until firm around the edges for about 15 minutes

5.     Allow to cool in the tin for around 10 minutes

To make the peanut butter layer

1.     Reduce the oven to 160 C/ Gas 3

2.     In a saucepan, combine the condensed milk, peanut butter, brown sugar and butter

3.     Stir over medium–low heat until melted and smooth. Set aside to cool for 5 minutes.

4.     Whisk in egg and mix well. Pour over base.

5.     Bake for 15-20 minutes or until just set and golden. Allow to cool completely.

Add the topping

1.     Roughly break up the chocolate and add the butter

2.     Melt in the microwave in short bursts or in bowl over a saucepan of barely simmering water

3.     Pour over the base layer and spread evenly. Give the tin a little shake to get a nice smooth finish

4.     Allow the chocolate to set in the fridge – this should take a few hours

Remove from the fridge and cut into the amount of pieces you would like. You can get 16 normal sized pieces or fewer of the size you’d actually like to eat!