Dairy Free Spiced Pumpkin Cake

So it turns out that ‘Something Missing’ is 1 year old today! I can’t believe that I have been blogging for a whole year; it seems like only yesterday that I was sitting in the pub after work when a colleague suggested that I should do something with all the slightly crazy recipes I was creating. Amazingly not only did I agree that maybe I should start to share these recipes with the world, but the next day once the beer induced fug had receded I actually turned on my computer and set about creating a blog. Since stating with an experimental recipe that resulted in a flourless, gluten free, vegan chocolate cake (it really is amazing what you can do with a tin of chick peas) I have posted 60 recipes, embarked on a journey into (what I now believe to be) the wonderful world of twitter, joined up to the quite brilliant foodie pen pal scheme as well as discovering so many other great foodie blogs that are out there on the world wide web.

To mark this anniversary I thought it was only right to celebrate with a cake. And as Halloween is fast approaching I decided upon using a seasonal recipe containing pumpkin. The cake is also dairy free using my tofu based buttermilk replacement. I then went and ruined the dairy free element of the cake by smothering it is cream cheese icing. But hey it is my blogging birthday so I think I can just about get away with this one can’t I?!?

INGREDIENTS

160g soya margarine

225g caster sugar

2 eggs

150ml pumpkin puree (see my pumpkin bread recipe for a pumpkin puree recipe)

280g plain flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon allspice

1 teaspoon ground ginger

150ml vegan buttermilk (see my previous recipe)

100g raisins

100g chopped nuts (pecans or walnuts would work well)

Preheat the oven to 180 deg C / 350 deg F

Grease two 22cm diameter sandwich tins and dust with flour.

Beat together the margarine and sugar in a large bowl until light and fluffy.

Add the eggs and pumpkin puree to the bowl and mix until all the ingredients are well combined.

Sift the flour, baking powder and spices into the bowl and gently fold the ingredients together. As all of the ingredients come together and the mixture begins to thicken up gradually add the buttermilk and continue to mix well.

Finally fold in the raisins and chopped nuts until they are evenly distributed through the mixture.

Then pour the mixture into the two tins, splitting the mixture evenly between the two tins. Transfer to the oven and bake for 25 to 30 minutes until golden brown and firm to the touch.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool before sandwiching together with icing, and spreading the top of the cake with icing too.

I added dairy to this otherwise dairy free cake by decorating with a cream cheese icing (by beating 200g of icing sugar into 120g cream cheese) but to keep it dairy free you could follow my cinnamon icing recipe as found here.