Vegan nut cake with salted caramel cashews
Nut cake always works, right? As a child I loved my mother’s hazelnut cake. It was super simple, but so good. And because I think all nuts are delicious and they’re healthy – I’m just saying: healthy fats – I’ve created a vegan version of a nut cake and pimped it a bit with chocolate icing and salted caramel cashews. Speaking of cashews: they are also in the dough. But you can also use other nuts of your choice for this vegan cake recipe, for example almonds, hazelnuts or walnuts. Tip: Whatever nuts you use, roast them before baking, that makes them much more aromatic. And instead of ready-made nut flour, you can also grind whole nuts yourself, like that the nut flour tastes fresher and juicier. To make the vegan cake nice and fluffy, I mixed Aquafaba into the dough. The liquid that is created when cooking chickpeas or other legumes. It can be whipped like egg white and is the perfect vegan alternative to beaten egg whites. This nut cake tastes best on the day after baking.
Vegan nut cake with salted caramel cashews
For 1 baking tin 25 cm
- 50 g cashew nuts (or other nuts)
- 250 g spelt flour
- 10 g baking powder
- 1 tsp vanilla powder or a little bit of grated Tonka bean
- 150 g ground cashew nuts (or other nuts)
- 150 g whole cane sugar
- 1 pinch of salt
- 150 ml chickpea water for Aquafaba
- (from approx. 1.5 jars of chick peas, 350 g each)
- 100 ml canola (rapeseed) oil
- 100 ml plant milk
For the glaze:
- 3 tbsp cashew nuts (or other nuts)
- 2 tbsp maple syrup
- 1 large pinch Fleur de Sel
- 150 g dark (vegan) chocolate coating
Preheat oven to 180°C. Coarsely chop 50 g cashews and roast them in a pan without fat until they smell nice. Grease the cake tin and dust with flour. Mix all dry ingredients (including the chopped cashews) in a large bowl. Beat the chickpea water with a mixer in a high bowl until the aquafaba is almost stiff.
Mix oil, plant milk and about 1/3 of the aquafaba with the dry ingredients to a dough. Then carefully fold the rest of the aquafaba into the dough – preferably with a dough scraper. The aquafaba should disintegrate as little as possible.
Pour the dough into the tin and bake for approximately 50-60 minutes at 180°C on the middle shelf. If the cake gets too dark, cover with aluminum foil.
Roast the cashews for the icing in a pan, add maple syrup and caramelise the cashews while stirring, then salt lightly. Melt the couverture in a water bath and spread it on the cooled cake. To do this, place the cake on a grid. Spread the salted caramel cashews on the glaze while it’s still soft.
