Vegan Vanilla Cake with Coconut Cream Frosting Topped with Fresh Organic Fruit

What better way to celebrate a birthday than with homemade vegan cake?  Made fresh from the oven with lots of healthy ingredients and that one special bonus you can't buy in any store......love, love, love!

This year I went all out - I wanted my sister's birthday to be extra special.  I've never made a birthday cake before so I took it heart when she asked me to make her one instead of her usual German chocolate cake request from the store.  I've been trying to convince her that vegan baking is so much better for you than the stuff she's used to eating and I think this cake may just do the trick.  This cake came out so moist, soft and delicious, I wanted to eat it all myself, but I held back the urge - it was hard though!

Growing up with 3 sisters had its challenges.  We fought about everything, but mostly clothing, that was the hot topic in our house.  Borrowing each other clothes was never an option, we would never ask each other for the right to borrow anything that didn't belong to us,  we would just sneak into the others room and put on whatever we wanted, then tried hard to sneak it back into the other one's closet without them knowing about.  Well, that never worked and the fighting would start.  My poor parents.

Now that we're all older we get along extremely well, and sharing is always something we practice.  We visit each other almost every month and have the best time together.  In fact, some of the best times I've ever had in life have been in the company of my three sisters.  I feel fortunate and blessed that God gave them to me, not to mention our amazing and patient parents.  Of course my dad always wanted a son, but never got one.  I have a feeling God knew that a house full of girls would bring him the most joy, especially when he would come home from work and all three of us would run and jump into his arms all at once hugging and kissing up on him - Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!  We'd pick his pockets searching for candy and goodies and he'd always play it off like he had nothing for us, grinning and laughing at same time.

My parents would always say, "A sister is a gift from God, sent from above, to make life worthwhile here below."  I'm so glad we were always remind of that as kids........Happy Birthday Sis! 


Cake Ingredients: (For 2, 8 inch round cake tins)

• 3/4 cup plain gluten free flour
• 1/4 cup ground almonds
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 cup raw honey 
• 1 cup almond milk
• 2 tsp. vanilla bean paste
• 3 TBSP. white wine vinegar 

Frosting Ingredients:

• 1 tin of coconut milk (refrigerated)
• 1 tsp. vanilla bean paste
• 1 tsp. maple syrup

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 180 C. 
2. Grease your 8 inch cake pan with coconut oil.
3. Combine all of your dry ingredients in a bowl and mix together.
4. Combine all wet ingredients and mix together.
5. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix everything together thoroughly.
6. Pour the mixture into your 8 inch cake tin.
7. Bake in oven until golden brown, check if done with toothpick, toothpick should come out clean when inside of cake is done.
8. Remove cake from oven and let it cool, while the cake is cooling, make your frosting.  Remove the refrigerated coconut milk and put into a Vitamix blender or food processor along with your vanilla bean paste and maple syrup.  
9. Put the frosting into the refrigerator for 20 minutes or so until you're ready to frost cake.
10. Once cake is cool enough, layer the sponge layers and the frosting alternately and decorate with fresh organic fruit, as much as desired.
    

Enjoy!

xxx