Vegan Simnel Cake
It has taken me a few years and a few Easters to crack this vegan Simnel cake; I’ve always found vegan cakes the hardest thing to create and traditional Simnel cakes contain a lot of eggs, however I’m really pleased with this one as it’s quick (for a celebration cake), not crazy expensive, alcohol free, simple to make and just as rich and impressive as the real deal.
The decorations for this were done in true FoxAndLockes style, aka, what do we have lying around that will do the job. We used seasonal flowers that friends bought me from Bloom and Wild that were coming to the end of their life that we snipped and used to make the top look pretty.
A quick note that this recipe does need to be started the day before.
Ingredients:
- 13oz/375g mixed fruit
- 3.5oz/100g sultanas (I love them but you can always just use more mixed fruit)
- 3.5oz/100g dried cranberries
- 5.5oz/150g glace cherries
- 100ml orange juice
- 6oz/175g vegan butter
- 4.5oz/120g dark brown sugar
- 2oz/50g caster sugar
- 1 tablespoon treacle
- Zest of 2 lemons
- Zest of 2 oranges
- 120ml oat milk
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 12oz/350g plain flour
- 2oz/50g ground almonds
- 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
Decorations
- Apricot jam
- 454g Marzipan
- 500g – 1kg ready to roll white icing (depending on how thick you want your icing and if you are using it to decorate)
Instructions
The night before:
- Soak all your dried fruits in the orange juice.
Day of cake baking:
- Set oven to 140 degrees Celsius.
- Grease and line a round 8 inch spring-form cake tin. I put a layer of greaseproof paper on the bottom of mine too which I recommend for this cake as it makes getting it out much easier.
- Mix your vegan butter, sugars, treacle and zests together until creamy.
- Stir in your milk and lemon juice.
- Sieve in your flour, ground almonds, bicarbonate and cinnamon and fold together.
- Finally mix in your dried fruit and the orange juice it was soaking in. The batter will be very thick.
- Pour the mixture into your tin and make sure you smooth over the top as it is a thick batter so won’t really even out in the oven.
- Place in the middle shelf of the oven and cook for 1 hour 40 – 1 hour 50 minutes. It’s ready when a skewer comes out clean.
- Leave it to cool in the tin for 10-15 minutes before releasing the spring-form and removing the sides, but leave the bottom on. Once it has completely cooled remove the bottom of the tin and take the greaseproof paper off.
- Pop the cake onto your cooling rack and once you are confident it is 100% cooled you can marzipan and ice if you wish too.
Icing:
- Heat your apricot jam in a small saucepan until it is warm and paint in onto your cake.
- Roll out your marzipan in a circle, until it is a few inches bigger than your cake.
- Place the marzipan onto the cake and smooth it over the top and sides before trimming off any excess.
- Paint more jam over the marzipan, both the top and the sides.
- Roll out your icing until it is a few inches bigger than your cake.
- Place the icing onto the cake and smooth it out, before cutting off any excess.
- Add any decorations that you fancy, we went for fresh flowers.
If you make this cake for Easter or any other event please do share your results with us, we’d love to see them!
Happy Easter,
Livvy and Summer
