Vegan Flag Cake (Gluten Free. . .Born in the U.S.A.)

All this cake needs is Bruce Springsteen and a sparkler and you'd be set. 

I became Flag Cake obsessed this morning while catching up on some reading. More specifically this article on Food52. It showed up in my Twitter feed as I was scrolling through the "what you might like" links. Wow. They REALLY know me. The article is about the history of the (wait for it): Flag Cake.

I read the entire history of this cake from Betty Crocker to Ina Garten and Taylor Swift til now. I always assumed Flag Cake was something our mom did to the store-bought angel food cakes to make us feel less poor. Turns out, we were poor, but this cake was not our mother's invention. (Let me give credit where credit is due, she did splurge on some sparklers and a few of those awful stick things where giant plumes of color flames flew out right there in our HANDs!) 

I thought my cake making days were behind me. I mean, it's been years since I've made a cake. But being the OCD person that I am, I could not stop thinking about Flag Cakes. All morning. Until finally I announced we'd be having Flag Cake (while hiding in our home with two terrified dogs and Netflix streaming at its highest volume, fans running in every bedroom to drown out the noise. . . until this godforsaken holiday passes). 

This cake typically gets made in a 9 x 13" pan. I opted to make mine a 9" square cake pan. There is nothing fancy about this cake. It's a basic vegan yellow cake (made with Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Flour--the 1-to-1 kind), and your basic vegan buttercream frosting. I've made a hundred cakes just like this. What you want to keep in mind is that it is not going to have that airy, super crumbly texture you'd get were you using eggs and making it GF. You'll get a denser cake, which is fine because just look at the amount of berries you'll use. The cake weighs a ton, too. But serve it with a side of vanilla coconut ice cream and be ready to cry with happiness.  

Couple things on the cake making front, you'll notice I've used Ener-G egg replacer in my cake AND a flax egg. Why? The original larger cake calls for SIX eggs! So as I was parsing out how to adjust for not only it being a no egg cake, but also how the GF flour would react to all this deviation and I figured it'd be best to err on the side of caution and did the more is better thinking here. It worked!

Vegan Flag Cake (Gluten Free)

1 1/4 cup gluten free flour (I used Bob's Red Mill 1:1)

1/4 cup cornstarch (or arrowroot)

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk

1 cup turbinado sugar

4 tablespoons vegan butter

3/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

3 teaspoons Ener-G Egg Replacer mixed with 6 tablespoons water

1 teaspoon ground flax with 2 tablespoons water plus 1 tablespoon olive oil

2 pints red raspberries

1 pint blueberries

Buttercream Frosting

4 tablespoons vegan butter

4 tablespoons vegan shortening

1/2 teaspoon clear vanilla extract

2 tablespoons vegan creamer

3 cups powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350. Prepare a 9" square cake pan with a smear of butter and a dusting of flour to make it nonstick. Then line the bottom with parchment paper. Place all dry ingredients in a medium bowl and sift together. In another bowl, add the vegan butter and sugar, vanilla and almond extract and mix until light and fluffy. Prepare the vegan flax egg and egg replacer--then whisk them together. That's right, prepare them separately, then combine. Add this to the butter/sugar mixture. Mix well until fully incorporated. Add a third of the dry ingredients to the butter/sugar/egg mixture, and then add a third of the almond milk and mix well. Continue adding the flour, then milk until finished. Mix the batter until it is a smooth consistency. Pour into the prepared pan. Bake for 30-35 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely before frosting. 

Prepare the buttercream frosting by adding the shortening and butter cream and extract to a medium bowl and mixing well until smooth. Then slowly add in the powdered sugar. Add more if the consistency seems too thin, and add less if the frosting seems too thick. Frost the cooled cake. Take a moment to outline with a toothpick or tip of a knife where you'd like the blueberries vs. raspberries to go. Chill in the fridge for an hour before serving. Serving the cake cooled yields a delicious cake. Trust me. 

Vegan Texas Sheet Cake for Two (eat chocolate: feel better. . . and Frankie's first year)

Well. I needed chocolate. You know how when you usually bake a Texas Sheet Cake, you're obliged to bake with an overly large thirteen inch cake pan--with a TON of leftover cake mocking you the rest of the week? (Nibbling away here and there until five more pounds creep up on you? Seriously, now that I'm in the "over fifty" range--if I look at a cake, I can feel my thighs growing.) Not so with this cake. It takes a six-inch round springform pan, less temptation--more reason to love, and viola: cake for two! Perhaps a more appropriate name for it would be: Rhode Island Chocolate Sheet Cake. (Okay, I have dibs on this name for my future restaurant.)

 It's delicious, moist, chocolate-y, nutty and cinnamon-y. Pure delish. Serve it with some vegan ice cream and really get your dessert fix on. But not five pounds worth, 'kay?

I found a wonderful little baking book: Dessert for Two by Christina Lane in the book store quite by accident a few weeks back (or maybe the book found me). Although not vegan in its design, you know I've never met a non-vegan recipe I couldn't veganize--I'll be busy baking from this book for 

awhile. 

Vegan Heirloom Tomato Devil's Food Cake with Fluffy White Buttercream Frosting (Yup, it's chocolate and tomatoes . . . and my rollerblading/knitting escapades)

If you think you're a purist with chocolate, like I am, you may very well look askance at the very idea of tomatoes and chocolate and tsk-tsk this recipe away. Well don't. It's rich, decadent, moist, chocolate-y and has a to-die-for crumb. Top it off with a luscious vegan buttercream frosting and you'll be sooo happy your kitchen has become tomato central--you'll keep this cake in your weekly rotation. . . because the world would be a much better place if we all sat down and had a piece of cake at least once a week. Right now, we're on the "daily" piece of cake ration plan.

 Happiness ensues. 

The tomatoes starting rolling in about three weeks ago. And they haven't stopped. Something had to be done. And with tomatoes coming in by the bucketfuls, I've made every iteration of pasta you can imagine. No. Seriously. I have. Basil's the same way--coming in by the bunches! Normally, I would never in a million years complain about eating pasta. Ever. It's in my DNA to love it: Croatian/Italian--we LOVE our pasta. But a woman has her limits.

Vegan Apple Cake with Caramel Glaze (Apple Pickin' in Fresh-off-the-Knitting-Needles Eyelet Raglan Cardi!)

This is a straightforward cake. A one bowl cake. A chunky apple cake--so the apples don't disappear in the cake. You taste apples. You're practically eating an apple with each slice. This cake is for a true apple lover (I am very much of this ilk).

 I had this crazy dream that I'd missed apple season entirely. No apple butter, pies, cupcakes or cake! That's how we ended up at the apple orchard last weekend--I was in a panic over the prospect of this calamity. Thirty pounds of apples later, we are all fine here. Now the apple baking palooza has begun and first up, this ridiculously easy, albeit quite ugly, but incredibly delicious cake. I was completely surprised by how tasty this cake turned out. I've scoffed at baking "cakes" with apples. I felt the cake too fine a vessel for carrying the work of the apple. Oh how I was wrong. I have apple cake recipes from my grandmother, from my mother's Amish cookbooks, plus instructions for beautiful bundt cakes made with shredded apples and fancy glazes throughout my cookbook collection. But then I stumbled upon this recipe for a plain "old fashioned" apple cake, and my vintage spirit could not resist. 

Vegan Semolina, Coconut and Orange Marmalade Cake with Chocolate Ganache (And. . . my first peach harvest that almost "wasn't")

I've had my eye on this cake for quite some time. But I needed two things to make it happen: sunflower oil and orange marmalade. I have both now. And the cake was completely worth the wait. The original recipe is from the cookbook Jerusalem by Yotam Ottogenghi and Sami Tamimi. I had a bigger than usual vegan challenge in adapting this recipe as it calls for four eggs! But this cake was happening regardless. The chocolate part is completely optional. Honestly, I wasn't going the chocolate ganache route until DH said, You ARE going to add chocolate to this, right?

The thing that I had trouble with in making this was achieving that little "bump" down the middle typical in loaf cakes. Or the crack on top where the syrup goes. When the baking time came to an end and I had no "bump" on top of my cakes, I was a bit crestfallen to tell the truth. I had my hopes set on this little feature. Could be my baking powder's time had run out, or something was wrong with my egg replacer (which is what I opted using for the eggs in the recipe vs. a flax and water mix or some other iteration of vegan egg helper). Truth be told, the lack of this little feature did not harm the cake's end result in the least little bit. Nada. So this past week, husband and I have enjoyed splitting a slice of this cake as an after dinner treat. It's loaded with flavor. Topped after just coming from the oven with orange flavored sugar syrup, there is really no need for more than a small piece. You will feel the love of this cake in one bite size and be satisfied. Trust me. Which is why I love it so much.   

I haven't told you about my peach tree yet. I'll try to make this short. Three years ago I brought home three fruit trees: a peach tree, apricot tree and pear tree. We planted them in our back yard (un-fenced area) and waited. 

Vegan Dark Chocolate Cake with Dark Chocolate Buttercream Frosting (Special Occasion Optional)

Chocolate as an afterthought. I baked this cake around four yesterday afternoon. I had only one kind of chocolate on hand, Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa. On the back of the box is a recipe for their Especially Dark Cake, but not a vegan version. I took matters into my own hands and made necessary changes (quite on the fly, I might add, but vegan "challenges" cannot and should not get in the way of a woman's chocolate cravings). 

Vegan Espresso Coffee Cake with Chocolate Chunk Crumble (My Own "Tara" and Why Gone with the Wind. . . Finally!)

Lordy, how long's it been since I last baked a cake for crying out loud?! My cake cravings kicked into high gear late yesterday afternoon. (So getting dinner finished sort of took a back seat. Sorry, honey.) Chocolate AND espresso are mandatory items to have on hand if you are to truly enjoy the finer points of what makes this coffee cake--well, a coffee cake.