Vegan Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge Cake #GBBO #Veganweek

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This decadent Vegan Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge Cake is great for those following a plant based diet. It is fudgy and delicious and the iced cobweb and added spiders are optional!

It is Vegan week on the Great British Bake Off tonight and for someone who has never made a vegan cake before, this proved to be a little tricky. However, thankfully after a third attempt in the kitchen last Friday, this Vegan Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge Cake was created and I was very happy with it. 


Welcome to week 7 of the GBBO and therefore week 7 of my bakes along linky (aka GBBOBloggers2018 / GBBOBakeoftheweek) and it is Vegan Week. 

Don’t forget that at the bottom of this post is some exciting news regarding a fantastic prize for the final week of the bake along/show, thanks to Sage Appliances and of course the round up from last weeks linky (aka Pastry week) and discover who Helen and I chose as our Star Bake of the Week.

So this week was very exciting for me because I got to be in the audience for GBBO Extra Slice!!!!! However, this meant that I was to take along a homemade bake and of course it had to be vegan week. Now I have to confess that I have never made an eggless cake before. Dairy free, yes, but not egg free. What was I to cook? Truth be told, I did not actually have to take along a vegan bake, I could take anything really. However, because I bake along each week anyway and would be away from home at the weekend (when I usually bake my GBBO inspired bake) I decided that I may aswell break my van baking cherry.

A savoury tart would have been the easiest bake, but it is not what I am known for as a baker. A vegan meringue would have been ok, but I figured it would not make a journey to London in one piece. Therefore, it had to be a cake that I make. Sadly though, as much as I would have loved to have made a Mummy Mishaps style cake and decorated it in my own unique style, I was not sure if I could make a vegan version and also there is no way I could travel with it to London and it not fall over or collapse or even fit inside a cake tin! 

After two failed baking attampts last Friday trying to veganise one of my own recipes, I found a recipe for a chocolate vegan cake and adapted it according to what I had in my kitchen. It was actually easy enough to make and smelt lovely once cooked. Once I had covered my cake in the amazing peanut butter chocolate frosting, I thought I should decorate it further. The only thing I could think to do was give it a Halloween feel. Therefore, I kept it very easy and just iced a spiders web over the top and stuck a couple of plastic spiders on it. Job done. Now to get it to London without it collapsing or going wonky. 

As it happens, I managed to travel by car, train and tube to television centre without any damage to the cake. 

Once inside the studios, we were met by some of the Extra Slice team and after filling in some paperwork, telling them a bit about myself and trying my cake in front of them to prove it was not poisonous (!?), I got as quick chance to look at the other bakes that were going to be in the audience. There were some amazing vegan bakes and clearly by people who were well practised in plant based baking. I am not sure if I am allowed to share any photos ahead of Friday’s show, so to be on the safe side I had better not. 

After a chance to go and get some lunch, I returned to the studio and I bumped into Kat aka The Baking Explorer and she is lovely, as was her vegan baked Carrot Cake Doughnuts . 

We, along with my friend Natalie, watched tonights GBBO episode. After watching the show and seeing who exited Vegan week,  it went straight into filming of the Extra Slice. Again, I cannot say who the guests were but they were very entertaining, although I was very disappointed that there was not a GBBO judge or presenter. It was a long time to sit on a wooden chair, we were there from 4pm-9.15pm , but it was good fun being there. 

You were not allowed to take any photos inside the studio, so taking the one of Kat and I and this sneaky one of my cake was rushed. It is a shame that photo are not allowed once the panel had departed,  because it would have made a lovely back drop for my cake for the purpose of this blog post!

(If you look closely you can see the hole where I , well it was Natalie actually, had to sample the cake before recording).

Tom Allen came around us all with his whisk and selected some of the audience to interview about their bakes, and some were tasted by the panel. Sadly, mine was not one of them. In a way I was relieved because I was so nervous.  Mind you,  despite my Vegan Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge Cake not looking as amazing as some of the ones there, it really did taste delicious. 

Once back at my brother’s flat, he lives in London, my cake was sampled and here is what it looked like inside. I should have taken some blog worthy photos of my cake at home before I left for London, but it was too much of a rush to fit that in too. 

It is a moist and fudgy cake, and whether you are vegan or not trust me this cake is very yummy. 

Vegan Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge Cake Recipe:

Vegan Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge Cake
 
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Cook time
Total time
 
Author:
Serves: 12
Ingredients
  • 300ml dairy-free milk (I used almond milk)
  • 1 tbsp orange juice
  • 150g non-dairy margarine (I used Vitalite Dairy Free Spread )
  • 3 tbsp maple syrup
  • 1 tbsp crunchy peanut butter
  • 275g plain self raising flour
  • 150g light brown sugar
  • 4 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
  • *For the frosting*
  • 150g dairy free margarine
  • 250g powdered icing sugar
  • ½ jar of smooth peanut butter (organic is preferable as more natural ingredients )
  • 4 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
  • almond milk
  • *Decoration*
  • Icing sugar
  • cold water
  • plastic spiders
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 180° C/160° C fan
  2. Lightly grease 2 x 8inch round baking tins.
  3. Stir the orange juice into the milk and leave to one side.
  4. In a pan over a medium heat, melt the dairy free margarine, maple syrup and peanut butter together. Put to one side to cool slightly.
  5. Put the flour, cocoa, sugar and bicarbonate of soda into a large mixing bowl and stir together.
  6. Now add the milk and melted margarine liquid and pour it over the flour mixture and beat well until it becomes a smooth batter (I used my stand alone mixer for this )
  7. Divide the cake batter between the two prepared tins and bake for 30-35 minutes or until cooked right through
  8. Let the cakes to cool in the tins before turning them out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
  9. Once completely cold, cut each one into two to give your 4 thin sponges
  10. *Frosting*
  11. Beat together all of the ingredients, except for the almond and milk, until smooth. Add a little almond milk if you need to make the frosting looser and easier to spread on the cake.
  12. When the cakes are completely cold, sandwich together with half of the frosting .
  13. Spread the remaining frosting over the top of the cake.
  14. Now chill in the fridge for at least 1 hour
  15. *Decoration*
  16. Mix the icing sugar with a little cold water to make a thick taste and spoon into a piping bag
  17. Now pipe a cobweb design onto your cake. Then add some plastic spiders.

 

The #GBBOBloggers2018 / #GBBOBakeoftheWeek Linky

This year I am teaming up with my fellow BAKE OF THE WEEK co host Helen to share the baking work load of the GBBO bake along. Therefore, welcome Helen and thank you in advance for your help 🙂 The linky will be shared on both of our blogs and we will chose our favourite bakes each week in the round up. 

You are welcome to bake along with me and Helen and I am hoping to see some other long standing GBBOBloggers join in too.  You can read the rules here which are not strict really, but they just explains our twitter accounts and all that jazz! All I ask is that you please add my badge, a link to mine and Helen’s blogs and share the GBBO love by sharing or commenting on some of the bakes that link up. Your posts will be pinned too. 

Please link to both mine and Helen’s blogs and use these hashtags on twitter, IG, FB etc so we can share your pics / blog posts :

#GBBOBloggers2018 #GBBOBakeoftheWeek @JennyPaulin @CasaCostello (plus another hashtag – see below under big, exciting news!)

The linky will open either Tuesday after the new episode, or Wednesday morning, depending on how organised Helen and I have been! It closes the following Monday at 11.59pm.

Mummy Mishaps

 

BIG EXCITING NEWS PART 1 – Win a Sage The Bakery Boss !!!

Before we go any further I am delighted to announce that we have a fantastic prize to offer in our final week of the #GBBOBloggers2018 / #GBBOBakeoftheWeek bake along. This is all with huge thanks to the amazing Mummy Barrow , or Tanya, (or even T as some of us refer to her as) who put me in touch with the lovely team at Sage Appliances. They are going to offer one lucky person one of these as a prize 

Yes a Sage The Bakery Boss (worth almost £400). I am very envious because it looks amazing! So, to be in with a chance to win one, you have to join in with our bake along at least 3 times – and this must include the finals linky. The Sage team will select their favourite finals bake from your entries, and that person will win one of these fabulous mixers. How exciting 🙂 

**Please add their hashtag @SageAppliances to your social media posts connected with #GBBOBloggers2018 and #GBBOBakeoftheweek to help promote their online presence, and hopefully some RT’ing might occur too. 

Last week was PASTRY WEEK week and we had some fantastic bakes linked up :

With thanks to:

Jacqueline and her Puit’s D’Amour with Rhubarb Compote

Helen’s healthier take on Vegetable Samosas 

<phttp://www.mummymishaps.co.uk/ style=”text-align: center;”>My Cherry and Chocolate Mummy Pie

Louise’s Minced Beef Pasties 

Anca’s creative Caravan Pie 

Rebecca’s Speedy sweet and savoury Samosas

Shell Louise’s Steak and Guinness Pie 

Anca’s Cabbage Filled Individual Pies

 

Star Bake of the Week

Thank you so much to all of you who bake along every week. This week I feel the accolade of Star Baker has to go to Jacqueline and her beautiful Puit’s D’Amour with Rhubarb Compote

Ok so now it is your turn…..On your marks, get set and baaaaaake!


7 Comments

  2. Well done Jacqueline. Her Puit’s D’Amour look amazing!

    Your cake sounds delicious. I like the flavours and the texture looks great too. xx

    Reply

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