Season 8, Episode 11 of “Vegan cakes and things” takes us
all the way to Russia via a stream of black, deep sleep, mustard shoes, bus
travellers, gifts of corner shops, no-need-to-fight’s, Soviet nursery rhymes that come to you in your dreams and blenders melting down
upon attempting to combine utter madness and the cure for the illness of living.
One may argue there must have obviously been some miscommunication between my
head and reality; but this sweet and light and fluffy multi-layer sour cream
cake is real enough to me.
СМЕТАННИК
Tofu sour cream:
Adapted fromVeggies Don’t Bite
Makes about 2 ½ cups
900g (31.7oz) silken tofu
60ml (1/4 cup) cider vinegar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons nutritional yeast
Vanilla layers:
55g (1/4 cup) margarine
100g (1/2 cup) sugar
2 tablespoons soya yoghurt or other non-dairy yoghurt
110g (1/2 cup) tofu sour cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
120g (1 cup) plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
Chocolate layers:
55g (1/4 cup) margarine
100g (1/2 cup) sugar
2 tablespoons soya yoghurt or other non-dairy yoghurt
110g (1/2 cup) tofu sour cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
100g (1 cup minus 1 tablespoon) plain flour
1 heaped tablespoon cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
Sour cream icing:
330g (1 ½ cups) tofu sour cream
250g (2 cups) icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Start by making the sour cream for the cake: drain the tofu
and place it with the rest of the ingredients in a blender. Blitz until
completely smooth and creamy.
Preheat the oven to 180°C (360°F) and lightly grease two
20cm/8″ cake tins. For the vanilla layers, cream together margarine and
sugar until light and fluffy, then add yoghurt, sour cream and vanilla extract
and mix until combined. Fold in flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda
and mix well. Spoon half of the batter in each tin and spread it out with the
back of spoon in a thin layer to evenly cover the base – the batter will be
thick. Place in the oven and bake for 12 minutes or until a toothpick inserted
into the centre of the cakes comes out clean.
Whilst the vanilla layers cool, follow the same steps to make the chocolate layers adding the cocoa powder to the mixture of dry ingredients.
Next make the icing. Simply mix together sour cream, icing
sugar and vanilla extract until well combined.
When the layers have completely cooled, assemble the
cake spreading the icing on the top of one layer, sandwich the second one on
top, and repeat for the remaining two. Spread more icing on the top and sides
and coat the sides with biscuit crumbs or ground nuts or dust with cocoa
powder.