Coffee Almond Cake with creamy frosting- vegan

The creamy frosting will stay firmer if you keep the cake in the fridge- but hang on; this may dry out the cake... forget it; just eat all the cake in one go ;)

If ever there was a cake with which to impress upon non-vegan friends that eggs and dairy are just not necessary, this could well be it. This cake has it all- it's sweet, light and fluffy but deliciously creamy and rich as well. 
It's always good to use the least processed ingredients possible, so although it's easy to make frosting with vegan margarine, it's not the healthiest or the tastiest option. That's where coconut milk comes in handy, because you can separate out the solids and whisk them into a delicious and light cream. Provided you keep it in the fridge, it will stay that way too. For this cake, I also added unrefined icing sugar.

400g self-raising flour
4 tsps baking powder
200g soft light brown sugar
100ml strong Barleycup "coffee" (powder/ granules mixed with water)
150ml melted coconut oil
300ml unsweetened soya milk
For the filling and frosting:
the solid "cream" from 2 cans of coconut milk
8 level tabs unrefined icing sugar
1 tab Barleycup powder
slivered almonds to decorate (walnuts also work really well). To sliver them, just put them in a plastic bag and bash them with the end of a rolling pin- great fun!

• Make the cake by beating all the wet ingredients into the dry mixture for two minutes.
• Spoon the batter evenly into 2 prepared cake tins/moulds (2x 8" tins is probably about right- I used heart shapes so they didn't have a diameter measurement.
• Bake for 20-25 min in an oven preheated to 180C- if a thin skewer inserted into the centre of the cakes comes out clean, they are done.
• Leave your cakes to cool completely. Meanwhile, make the frosting: beat the coconut cream until smooth and fluffy, adding the other ingredients. Mix thoroughly. Put in the fridge for about half an hour.
• When the cakes are cooled, whisk the frosting until stiff, and sandwich the cakes together with it, plus a generous layer of nuts. Top with the rest of the frosting and decorate the top with the rest of the nuts.

It looks conventional enough to take to a potluck with non-vegan friends, but is completely free from animal products.

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