Vegan Gorse Cake: remaking my swedish cream cake!

I am so incredibly proud of this creation! I am not a baker, not even remotely, I have a tendency to burn things or make things melt together when trying to make things vegan but ever since I saw vegan cream at the shops I just had to try to remake my all-time favourite strawberry cream cake. I am Swedish and when I was little this is the cake my mum would always bake for me on my birthday. It's a cake that just about everyone makes during midsummer and it has always been the one cake I never imagined I could make vegan and have it taste good too! But after three attempts I have finally figured it out and I'm so excited to share!

It was my intention all along to just try to recreate my favourite Swedish cake but while we were on one of our walks surrounded by Gorse Nixie came up with the idea of making it a Gorse cake so I thought why not?!? Let's see if it works and it does! She has lots of ideas up her sleeve and I'm looking forward to testing them out!

The first attempt I used apple sauce to replace the eggs and even though it tasted ok, the texture was all wrong and I just didn't really like it. The second attempt I tried to use flax eggs and this time it was the right texture and tasted good but I was annoyed that I could see the flax seeds and there was just something not 100% right about it. The third and final attempt was using store bought egg replacer and lo and behold it worked like a dream!

It also took two attempts for me to find the right custard/vanilla filling. The first time I used a store bought powder version but I hated everything about it. It just didn't taste right and the second time I tried to make it from scratch and it turned out amazingly! Not only did I discover my new favourite filling for the cake but also a new vanilla/custard cream to use on other desserts like apple or blackberry crumble!

And since the Gorse flowers are so abundant right now and super easy to pick we also picked enough to make our favourite cordial in the world to go with it: Gorse Flower Cordial

Ingredients:

cake

Free and Easy Egg Replacer (3 teaspoon + 6 tablespoon water)
235g flour
320g sugar
2 teaspoon baking powder
6 tablespoons hot water
handfuls of Gorse flowers (leave out if you want to make the traditional Swedish cake)

custard (I would make this first as it needs to set in the fridge)

1 tablespoon vanilla
1 Emle single cream tub (about 250g)
30g sugar
25g corn flour
pinch of turmeric
60g vegan butter (I used Stork)

Filling & Decorations

1 Emle double cream tub (about 250g)
powdered sugar
vanilla
strawberries (also raspberries work like a dream!)
strawberry jam or raspberry jam or make your own fruit sauce using frozen berries which I did the third time because we had no jam and absolutely loved it!
Gorse flowers

To make the cake: (grease a 9 inch springform pan and cut out a circle of parchment paper to line the bottom of the tin). Set oven to 180C.

1. In a small bowl mix up your egg replacement

2. Combine all your dry ingredients and mix. Then add egg replacement mixture and your hot water and mix. Then add a handful of Gorse flowers into your batter.

3. Pour into pan and bake for about 40 minutes but start checking it around 30 min. Let it cool for 10 min, then remove from pan.

To Make the Custard:

1. In a bowl mix together the corn flour, sugar, baking powder, and turmeric

2. Add 1/4 of the cream to your dry ingredients and whisk.

3. Heat up the cream and vanilla on the stovetop, for a couple of minutes until it reaches a slight simmer. Add in your dry ingredients with the cream and whisk continuously. Once it starts to thicken usually after a few minutes take off the heat and add your butter. Stirring it in until it becomes smooth.

4. Place the mixture on a plate with sides so it can't spill and cover with clingfilm so that it actually touches the top (this is so no skin is formed) then place into fridge to set for at least an hour)

To Decorate the cake:

1.Cut your cake into three layers.

2. in the bottom layer add the custard. (the photos below are using the cake with the flax egg, the cake for this recipe will be whiter)