When I am baking for family I am limited to flavours and ingredients. Fussy eaters mean no fruit and nuts or decadent flavours, just simple cakes.. with the occasional twist.
If I had my way I would be baking peanut butter cakes, death by chocolate cakes, cakes with nuts upon nuts covered with more nuts ;-) I just love to experiment with flavours and textures, alternative bakes and ingredients. I mean why not add beetroot or avocado or ground almonds?
I have a list of experimental cakes I want to make, just need some testers.. who's in?
This week it was my birthday (Happy Birthday To Me) so you'd think I could have whatever cake I wanted? Well almost, I chose one I fancied but one I knew family would eat too!! I still did get the, "ooohh what's that inside - is it nuts?" NO, IT'S NOT haha!!
I decided to make a twist on a Traditional Victoria Sponge Cake. I had seen and tasted Becky's (aka Pin Up Pantry) GF Victoria Sponge Cake (which was super light and fluffy- going against all GF hearsay)!.. I decided to take the sponge recipe and adapt it slightly. Making it a Chai Vanilla Sponge and instead of the jam filling, I chose a banana custard buttercream. John Holland (aka BakerOnBoard) had made a Spotted Dick Cake with custard buttercream, and it really did taste amazing so since then I had wanted to try it... so decided on banana custard!
The cake was a simple sponge recipe, not very difficult at all- using GF flour and Becky's tip of Cornflour (which adds the fluffy, lightness to the cake!) It was super moist and full on the warming Chai Vanilla flavours I love. Then well, the banana custard buttercream <3
I decorated it simply with colour coordinated flowers and some popping candy for fun!
I didn't make this one vegan in the end as I used eggs, although all the other ingredients including the custard and butter were vegan. If you wanted to make it vegan you can just use an egg replacement (which can be brought in supermarkets).
I will start to share some recipes and show you how to make them suitable for vegans/ vegetarians/ dairy free/ gluten free etc..
For now just enjoy the pics, as there is none left to eat ;-)
It came with perfect timing too.. Afternoon Tea Week was last week so I had an excuse to enjoy tea and cake :-)