This light sponge cake from The Great British Vegan cookbook comes together easily with sweet marmalade and makes for an impressive, Instagram-ready dessert.
What you need:
½ cup vegan butter
1 cup sugar
½ cup unsweetened soy yogurt
⅔ cup unsweetened vegan milk
2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 cups self-rising flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
Vegan pink food coloring or beet juice
3 tablespoons marmalade
14 ounces vegan marzipan
½ cup powdered sugar, for dusting
What you do:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Use a double layer of foil to divide an 8-inch square cake pan in half. Line both sections with parchment paper.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Stir in yogurt, milk, vinegar, and almond extract. Fold in flour and baking powder.
- Pour half of batter into one divided half of pan. Mix drops of food coloring or beet juice into remaining half of batter until desired shade of pink is reached. Then, pour pink batter into other half of pan.
- Bake for 25 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool for five minutes in pan before turning onto a wire rack to cool completely.
- To decorate, gently transfer cakes onto a chopping board and cut each one in half lengthways, trimming edges to create straight and even layers.
- In a small saucepan over low heat, warm marmalade until thin. Brush one long side of pink strip of cake and one side of yellow cake with marmalade and stick together. Repeat to stick remaining two strips together. Spread marmalade over top of one pair of slices and place other pair on top, with pink on top of yellow and vice versa to create a checkerboard pattern.
- Dust a work surface with a little powdered sugar and roll out marzipan into a rectangle about 8 x 10 inches. Brush outside of cake with marmalade. Use a rolling pin to lift marzipan over cake and smooth it firmly around top and sides, joining underneath. Trim away excess and brush seam with a little marmalade. Finish by pressing edges together to create a seam at bottom.
