Blood Orange Cake
Back in my pre-vegan days, I used to enjoy eating a blood orange tea cake, which is just a hair sweet but has a wonderfully complex flavor. 4 eggs, though, makes for a rough recipe to veganize successfully.
The ever astounding V took a different route and, taking as base Isa’s Jelly Donut cupcake batter (featured in Veganomicon), created a new recipe which hits all the right spots. It’s rich and gooey, and would be perfect with a nice cup of tea.
Vegan Blood Orange Cake
1/3 cup olive oil
2 small blood oranges
1 cup soymilk
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
2 tbs cornstarch
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup + 2 tbs sugar
2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp almond essence
Glaze ingredients:
Juice and zest of one blood orange
1/2 cup of powdered sugar
For the Cake:
Preheat oven to 350ºF and grease a 9″ springform cake pan.
In a mixing cup, combine the soymilk, vinegar and cornstarch and set aside.
Roughly chop up the blood oranges – use organic to be sure they’re pesticide free – skin and all, discarding the tops and tails and being careful to remove the seeds. Put the orange chunks in a food processor and blend with the olive oil until you have a marmalade consistency puree.
Mix dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.
Mix the soymilk mixture with a fork to dissolve the cornstarch and pour into the flour mixture. Add the oil and orange mix, sugar and vanilla and almond essence, and mix well.
Pour mixture into pan and bake for 25-30 minutes
Glaze:
Combine glaze ingredients and mix until powdered sugar is dissolved.
If using springform pan, poke holes in the cake with a skewer and pour glaze over the cake while it is still hot and in the pan. Otherwise, turn the cake onto a plate and pour the glaze over it. Allow cake to cool and syrup to soak in before eating.
BEYOND STUNNING!!
Comment by VeggieGirl — January 18, 2009 @ 6:47 pm
Looks superb! I’d like to try that.
Comment by Carla — January 18, 2009 @ 7:46 pm
OMG!That looks and sounds wonderful!
I’ve not had blood Oranges in years….I must hunt some down!
Comment by Jeni Treehugger — January 19, 2009 @ 1:49 am
Mmm, this sounds SO lovely.
Comment by Melisser — January 19, 2009 @ 6:10 am
Looks like a very yummy cake! I added your link to my Vegan Info LJ – a plethora of Vegan Links.
http://veganinfo.livejournal.com/
Have a happy day :)
Comment by Vegan Info — January 20, 2009 @ 12:08 am
Hi, I made a quick bread with an almost similar recipe with less sugar and 1 tsp. soda instead of 1/2 and 2tbsp. lemon juice. It was horribly bitter though texture wise it looked great. Any idea about why it tasted bitter? Seeing yours I felt the only reason could be the soda but not too sure. I came here googling for the reason!! But I am happy to have found your site and this recipe – will try it soon!
Comment by Sunshinemom — February 26, 2009 @ 2:30 am
Hi Sunshinemom,
I’m not exactly sure about your recipe, but without enough sweetener to counterbalance the blood oranges, it would make for a very bitter cake! The lemon juice might have been enhancing the bitterness.
Blood oranges are mighty bitter as it, especially compared to regular oranges. The extra sugar in my recipe balances out some of that bite, while still leaving it tasting tart.
Comment by jeffrey — February 26, 2009 @ 9:13 am
Yay! My friend brought me a whole bunch of blood oranges and I had no idea what to do with them, but now I can try this recipe. Just in time for VeganMoFo too :D.
Comment by Kira — September 27, 2011 @ 5:40 pm