Another Great British Bake Off vegan challenge – first up was retro classics and my Facebook followers voted for me to recreate the Black Forest Gateau. So with the help of a wee glass of Scottish strawberry wine and my taste testers – my husband, kids and parents – I was told it absolutely passed the taste test.
Below is my recipe and in true Bake Off style – I create my recipes from lots of different sources, always changing them to suit me so not all the measurements are exact – have fun with this and be sure to share with me your results.
Sponge
- 1 ½ cups of self-raising flour (you can use gluten free flour too but add an extra 1/4 cup of water to the mixture if doing this)
- ¾ cup of caster sugar
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 3 generous tbsp. cocoa powder
- 1/3 cup of vegetable oil
- 1 tbsp. vinegar
- 1 tsp vanilla essence or chocolate essence
- 1 cup cold water
Jam
- 10 cherries, with the stones removed
- 5 kirsch soaked cherries (I get mine from Tesco – they’re about £4 a jar and you’ll use half the jar for this recipe)
- A dash of kirsh juice from the jar
- Sprinkling of sugar to taste
Vanilla Cream
- 50g of soya/vegetable spread
- 50g of trex
- Icing sugar
- Soya Milk
- Vanilla Essence to taste
Cherry Cream
- 25g of soya/vegetable spread
- Icing sugar
- Soya milk
- Cherry essence or kirsch
- Pink food colouring
Chocolate fudge sauce
- ½ cup of icing sugar
- ¼ cup of cocoa powder
- 40 – 60ml of warm water
Method
- Place the cherries and sugar on a low heat and leave to break down while you are making the cake mixture. Keep an eye on it regularly – it takes about 20 to 30 minutes
- Sift the flour and cocoa powder together and then add the other dry ingredients, mixing well. Add the wet ingredients together then carefully mix in to the dry ingredients. Be careful not to over mix the batter.
- Divide between three equal pans – I use the Wilton Easy Layer cake pan set, which are six inches in diameter and 0.75 inches in height (equals about ¾ cup of batter per tin).
- Cook at 180 degrees centigrade for at least 12 minutes – checking regularly to ensure that a cake tester/skewer comes out clean. One ready, turn out onto a cooling tray.
- Next you need to make the vanilla cream – Mix 50g of soya spread with 50g of trex – beat together until light and fluffy, slowly adding icing sugar until you have a thick mixture, add some vanilla essence to taste and a little soya milk to soften. You want to create a mix that is medium to firm so that you can pipe it between the layers
- Check on your jam – setting aside to cool while you are finishing making the cream (you might need to blend it if the cherries are too big still)
- Make the cherry cream in the same way you did the vanilla
- To make the fudge sauce – just add all the ingredients and mix until smooth – add more or less water depending on the consistency of fudge sauce you want
- To assemble the cake – spread the jam on two of the tiers then pipe the vanilla cream on top, build up the layers then top the gateau with the chocolate fudge sauce – once set pipe the cherry cream round the top and a kirsch soaked cherry.
All that’s left to do is slice it up and eat it – serve with your favourite non-dairy ice cream for an extra special treat. Or do what I did and enjoy your cake with a lovely glass of Cairn O’Mohr Strawberry wine.
The Baking Biker Chic 