Saturday 10 September 2011

A Farewell with Victoria Sponge with Raspberry.

My partner and I were invited over a friend’s house for dinner, as we are due to leave for our 10 months of travelling in about 6 weeks and one of the couple is off to New Zealand for the Rugby soon.

They cooked a lovely spinach and lentil curry with rice (and of course mango chutney) so I decided to take pudding over.

As most people (myself included) don’t usually have a Vegan Dessert lying around, and was in need of a bit of baking creativity!

As my Mr is wheat intolerant, as is one of the friends who’s house it was I tried my hand at a wheat free Victoria Sponge – I found a vegan recipe on the website of the flour producer “dove farm organic” I made according to instructions, and it uses quite simple and everyday ingredients; Sugar, Oil, Vanilla Extract, Half a mashed Ripe Banana, wheat free flour and water (mostly store cupboard essentials).

The end result was a surprisingly moist cake with a hint of banana, which I clever counteracted with a fresh raspberry sauce sandwich between the layers.

I bought 2 punnets of raspberries, and simply washed the berries (leaving some moisture to them) and added to a saucepan and very gently heated, I added two tablespoons of icing sugar to sweeten and thicken, though this does depend on the sharpness of the raspberries, please taste...lots.

When it reached a loose jam consistency, I sieved it to remove a majority of the pips (the ones left where really unnoticed when eating it) and when it cooled I spread it over the base of the cake. Placed the other half on top and sprinkled icing sugar and adorned a few fresh raspberries clustered in the centre.

Everyone enjoyed the cake - even us wheat lovers!

I think I have inspired some wheat free bakers to be too!