Get your party pants on because we are serving up birthday cake. In honour of Impact Hub Vienna’s seventh birthday we made a delicious baked confection to share with you all, in the form of a recipe, because we ate it all.

After waffling (baking pun intended) about how we should approach the recipe we opted to make a vegan cake. There are many reasons that we went with this option. First, and foremost, because Impact Hub Vienna is an inclusive group, we wanted everyone to be able to share in the celebration. Second, we wanted to adopt some of the principles of sustainable eating, one of which is eating fewer animal products. And third, we just thought it would taste super fantastic.

Making the Cake

We don’t often cook on the Impact Hub Vienna blog, let alone bake. So, this is relatively new territory for us. One of us (namely me), has been watching far too much Great British Bake Off and so volunteered to take on the task of making the cake.  Which also meant finding the recipe and adapting it.

After scouring the internet, and my shelves of cookbooks, I learned that there was a bit of a formula to vegan cakes. And so, we mashed a bunch of recipes together and created a brand new one – just for you.

We gathered all the ingredients together – and you can find all of them quite easily, in this case, your local grocery store.  As we went for a coconut flavour, we used coconut milk in the cake – which has a high proportion of natural fats. However, you can substitute this for one cup of any vegan milk with a half a cup of oil of your choice (coconut, walnut, whatever). Keeping in mind that this will affect the flavour of your cake – so chocolate soy milk and almond oil will taste a bit different than, say, hazelnut milk and hazelnut oil.

You really ought to use a smaller tin for this cake – 22 cm is the ideal size.  owever, if you do not happen to have a 22cm circular tin around your kitchen, then improvise. Like we did. We used a tin with a hole in the middle because it decreased the total surface area that the cake would have to cover, which meant it worked out just fine.

Now that we have the basics covered – ready, get set, BAKE.

The Good Stuff

Without further ado, here is the recipe that we cooked up for you.   We adapted this from Thug Kitchen’s first cookbook Thug Kitchen: Eat Like You Give a F*ck – The Official Cookbook.  These are also non-metric measurements – so you may need to do some conversions if you do not have measuring cups.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups spelt flour, with extra to dust the tin
• ¾ cup sugar (you can get organic and fair trade sugar – but I used what I had in the house which was from a local sugar refinery).
• 2 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 ½ cup canned coconut milk
• 1 tsp vanilla paste
• ½ tsp grated ginger
• Fun coloured sprinkles (optional, but it is a birthday cake, so you need to make it look festive)
• coconut oil, for greasing the tin

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 190°
2. Grease and flour your tin using a vegan oil – we used fair trade coconut oil. Spread oil all over the tin and then dust flour on the tin; turn the tin to evenly distribute the flour.
3. Put the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and ginger in a mixing bowl. Using a wire whisk, mix all the dry ingredients together (or use a sieve if you are a disciple of baking properly).
4. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix with a spoon, wire whisk, or electric mixer until it creates a smooth batter – be careful not to over work otherwise your cake will not rise well.
5. Bake the cake for 30-40 minutes – but check your cake often. It is ready when you stab it with a sharp implement of some sort and it comes out clean.
6. Let the cake cool for a while in the tin – at least 15 minutes. Then turn out onto a rack to cool a little further.  DO NOT put icing on the cake until it is completely cool.  Some of us learned that lesson the hard way.
7. Put sprinkles on the frosted cake.
8. Cut and serve to friends and family who decided that cake was enough of a reason to celebrate with you – regardless of the occasion.

We frosted the cake using a standard sugar and water icing and some sprinkles – because every cake needs some sprinkles. However, you can use coconut whipping cream to frost this cake or decorate with fresh fruit. There are so many options.

Don’t forget…

If you want to enjoy cake in a party atmosphere with all of us at Impact Hub Vienna, don’t forget that it is our birthday party on April 6. The festivities kick off at 16:00.  See you there!

 

Photos: Aneta Pawlik