Vegan walnut cake with coffee frosting
Vegan walnut cake with coffee frosting
A big Friday slice of vegan walnut cake with coffee frosting anyone? Walnut coffee cake is one of my firm favourites as it combines my two loves…Nuts and coffee. I’ve been dreaming of making it for a while, but I have somehow managed to stop myself throughout the whole of January as I was trying to curb my insatiable sweet tooth.
I succeeded but I kinda failed too as instead I got myself quite addicted to a particular type of slightly salty dark chocolate and whenever I am in my local supermarket, I instinctively grab at least 5 bars at a time. Don’t panic, I don’t inhale them all in one sitting and Duncan helps A LOT, but they don’t exactly last me for ages either…So it’s sweet tooth 1, Ania 0.
This vegan version of a classic cake is dedicated to Duncan’s cousin, Sydney who confesses to loving this flavour combo as much as I do. Plus she is generally a lady after my own heart and loves any good cake, lucky she lives nearby, right? She sometimes pops round for tea or to taste test stuff for the blog.
When she was here this week, I roped her into walking our cat, Tina. Something that has earned me the nickname of a ‘helicopter mum’. Okay, I haven’t completely lost my marbles. I try to accompany Tina in our garden to give her more confidence to face the bully cat next door I wrote about a couple of posts back.
Syd and I were standing outside, ‘praying’ for the sunshine while Tina investigated the garden. Sydney was rocking a hot cup of tea in one hand and a fluorescent super soaker in the other – a device we acquired to dampen the other cat’s enthusiasm for trying to rip poor Tina’s head off. We haven’t had to use it yet, but I fear that it may come in handy as that cat is relentless and even me standing around Tina does not stop him from chasing her away from her own backyard.
So while Syd, the super-soaker and I had probably more fun than petrified Tina, we managed to get her out of the house, chasing some leaves in the wind, feeling the sunshine on her face and getting her confidence up. She has started asking to be let out now, even if it’s only for 5 minutes or so, instead of running away and hiding whenever I open the conservatory door, so I think that my plan is working and it forces me to take a breather from my work too. Plus, I love seeing how happy she is once she forgets about the bully cat and starts enjoying herself outside.
- 120 ml / ½ cup maple syrup or other liquid sweetener
- 3 tsp instant coffee, dissolved in 2 tsp warm water
- 1½ tsp vanilla extract or 1 vanilla pod, seeds scraped
- 16 g / 2 tbsp refined coconut oil, melted
- 300 g / 2 cups raw cashews, soaked overnight*
- 30-60 ml / 2-4 tbsp plant milk (optional, see instructions)
WALNUT CAKE
Dry ingredients
- 200 g / 1½ cups + 1½ tbsp** all purpose white flour
- 100 g / 1 cup finely ground walnuts
- ½ heaped tsp baking soda
- 1 level tsp baking powder
- 175 g / ¾ cup + 2 tbsp caster sugar
Dry ingredients (gluten-free version)
- 180 g / 1½ cups buckwheat flour
- 20 g / 2 tbsp cornflour / cornstarch
- 100 g / 1 cup finely ground walnuts
- ½ heaped tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp GF baking powder
- 175 g / ¾ cup + 2 tbsp caster sugar
Wet ingredients
- 240 ml / 1 cup plant milk, lukewarm
- 60 ml / ¼ cup brewed coffee
- 60 ml / ¼ cup melted refined coconut oil (or other mild tasting oil)
DECORATIONS and EXTRAS
- coffee beans
- walnuts, halves and chopped
COFFEE ‘BUTTERCREAM’ (make it a day ahead if you can!)
- Put maple syrup, dissolved coffee, vanilla extract and melted coconut oil at the bottom of a blender. Add approximately one quarter of the drained cashews (discard the water) and blend until super smooth.
- Proceed to blend the cashews until super smooth, quarter by quarter. If your blender is getting stuck and breaking an air pocket that tends to form under the mixture of the surface with a spatula does not help, add a touch of plant milk, but no more than 2 tbsp of thin milk (like almond) or 4 tbsp of thick, full fat coconut milk. This should help your blender churn the thick mixture.
- Refrigerate for a few hours, ideally overnight, for the mixture to thicken and for the flavours to develop.
CAKES
- Set the oven to 170° C / 340° F (150° C / 300° F fan forced). Grease a 16.5 cm / 6.5″ spring form round tin.
- Sift the flour into a large bowl, add the remaining dry ingredients (ground walnuts, baking soda and baking powder) and fine caster sugar. Mix everything well.
- Add all the wet ingredients and fold them gently into the dry ingredients. If using gluten flour, please take care not to overmix as otherwise the cake will be tough.
- Fill the tin with the batter – it should be thick but still pourable – and place in the preheated oven for 60-65 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.
- Let the cake cool down completely before removing it from the tin and cutting it into two round slices with a serrated knife.
ASSEMBLY
- Put a layer of cashew frosting on top of the bottom slice. You may want to sprinkle some chopped walnuts on top of the icing at this point.
- Place the second slice on top and frost the top of the cake and the sides (optional) with more cream.
- Decorate with chopped walnuts and coffee beans (remove these before consumption).
**1½ cups of all purpose flour is only 188 grams so adding an extra 1½ tablespoon (12 g) is required here if not using metric measurements.
The other day I was craving for some rich flavor chocolate cake and I combined your cake with chocolate ganache and choc mousse. And the result was perfect! The cake is moist and full of flavor. I baked it in 22 cm spring form and it was enough for 2 layers, thickness of 1,5 cm.
Thank you for all your hard work. Your recipes are reliable, so you are in my top 3 bloggers.
Sorry for my english!
Yes, pretty sure that macadamias will work just as well, but not so sure about almond flour, especially that the cake includes nut flour (walnuts) already so the may come out heavy. Feel free to experiment if you wish but I cannot assure you that it will work. Ania
Want to print the recipe.... but I would like to include a picture in the print. Is that possible?
I just love following this Lady, such an inspiration on my plant based journey
It shouldn't have much of an impact, I don't think. It might take a tiny bit longer as the cake will be taller. Hope it works out well. Ania
I made the gluten free version and it is just so successful!!!
I can't even taste the buckwheat!
The only slightly 'adverse' taste I have is the baking soda a little bit... maybe the lemon juice I used was not acidic enough to negate it? Would you suggest to swap the baking powder and soda maybe on my next trial?
Also - I had applesauce I had to use up so I ended up swapping 40g of the oil into appleasauce and then using an additional 20g rapeseed oil! Definitely thought this was a risk but it worked!!
I am also a huge fan of you banana buckwheat cake!!!
You are an amazing recipe developer!!!
I am so pleased you enjoyed this cake and thanks so much for letting me know, that means a lot! As for the baking soda, you are completely right that reducing it is a good idea. I made this more recent version for my husband's birthday recently and I used heaped 1/2 tsp of baking soda and 1 tsp baking powder for roughly the same amount of flour and it rose beautifully. I will amend this recipe now and I am sorry I have not caught this earlier. x Ania
1) Can I substitute the ground walnut for ground almonds or just use more buckwheat (for gluten free version) or normal white flour (the other version)?
2) If I wanted to make a bigger cake (I don't have a loaf tin or 16.5cm tin) do you think this recipe will work well if I doubled the ingredients or added an extra half of each ingredient?
Can't wait to give this a try!
1) Yes, you can use ground almonds instead - that's the safest bet!
2) Sure you can make a bigger cake, depending on the size of your tin increase the amount of all the batter ingredients by say 25%, 50%, 100% and you may possibly have to bake it for a touch (not much) longer too.
Good luck!
Ania
Sure, you can use coconut sugar instead. I am not sure about honey as it isn't vegan, which means I never use it. I am pretty sure you could also use maple syrup, but it requires the overall volume of moisture to be taken down a bit and I don't want to be guessing. Ania
Thank you so much for sharing this recipe. It was the first time I tried making a layer cake, but you made it simple to follow! It turned out delicious and everyone enjoyed it! I mixed extra coffee in the milk for the cake batter and it worked out great. I am curious to try this with hazelnuts some time. :) Thanks again for this amazing vegan recipe! <3
Scrape the mixture to the bottom of the blender and add a touch more plant milk, tablespoon by tablespoon. I also have this trick to get it smooth, but please use it at your own discretion: When the mixture becomes very thick and heavy your blender may struggle to turn. To remedy this, start making circles on the surface of your mixture (in the direction of the turning blades) with a spatula to prevent air pockets forming under the mixture’s surface. Be careful not to dip the spatula in too deep as you don’t want to accidentally touch the turning blades. If you follow the technique I’ve described above, there should be enough moisture in this recipe to turn the cashews into a smooth and creamy frosting.. I have not tried using a hand blender but it's worth a shot. Hope that helps! Ania
You can safely use gluten-free cake mix (especially if it has worked well in the cakes you've made in the past). I like buckwheat flour and it's healthy so that's why I used it. Yes, the dark spots are from walnuts. Hope that helps! Ania
I only found you on Instagram on Saturday, your recipes look amazing!
When you say 'curdled' - do you mean split? I am not sure, maybe a splash of hot water would have helped straight away, but not sure it will now and it will affect the consistency of the frosting. Sorry, I am not really sure exactly what you mean? Ania
Yes, there is - I included GF version of the cake in the recipe. Please take another look. Ania
This is a tough question as it isn't easy to make a delicious and fairly healthy (not sure if that's a concern for you) vegan frosting without cashews, I'm afraid. You could try silken tofu and some refined coconut oil / vegan butter to stiffen it, but I am not a massive fan as I find it to have a funny aftertaste that is hard to conceal when it comes to subtle flavours. You could also try a more traditional frosting with a vegan cream cheese if you found a brand that you like the taste of (I haven't found one in the UK as yet) or finally vegan butter and icing sugar frosting, but that's not healthy at all. Hope that helps! Ania
PS: you cannot really taste cashews in this frosting at all (I tested it on a few omnis and they were none the wiser) so perhaps don't tell you hubby what's in it :P
What is caster sugar? -I checked your glossary but not there
So regular baking powder has gluten? I had no idea!
So I have Red Mill GF all purpose baking flour -- it's made with garbanzo, tapioca, fava bean,and white sorghum flours, and potato starch. This ought to work, right? Thanks!
Cheers , can't wait to make (and eat) this one!
The dark bits in the cake are ground walnuts after they have reacted with sugar present in the batter, I believe. There is no coffee in the cake itself although you are welcome to replace some of the plant milk with coffee if you wish or simply soak baked cake with some coffee. Hope you'll enjoy it if you decide to make it. Ania
This looks amazing - my mouth is already watering! I can’t eat coconut products unfortunately so what could I use in place of the coconut oil in the coffee buttercream? Or can I just leave it out? Would agar agar maybe work to thicken? Thanks so much, Caitlin x
Thank you, I am glad to hear that you are thinking of making it! As for coconut oil, you are right, it is used to set the cream. Agar will most definitely work instead, but if you have flakes it needs to be activated first (I'm sure you know that anyway). I would start with 3 tsp flakes or 1 tsp powder. Alternatively adding a quarter cup of vegan butter will do too. Hope that helps! Ania