Vegan Orange Cranberry Cake
Vegan orange cranberry cake – this delicious loaf cake consists of a vegan orange pound cake studded with tangy fresh cranberries. It is moist, flavourful and perfect for snacking.
Servings 10 people
Ingredients
- 150 g (1 ½ cups) fresh cranberries
- ½ tablespoon plain (all-purpose) flour
- 120 g silken tofu* excess liquid drained off
- 180 ml (¾ cup) orange juice
- 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 250 g (2 cups) plain (all-purpose) flour
- 25 g (2 ½ Tbsp) cornflour (cornstarch)
- 1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 250 g (1 ¼ cups) caster (superfine) sugar
- 110 g (1 stick) vegan block butter (I use Naturli Vegan Block) melted
- 30 ml (2 Tbsp) neutral oil (sunflower/mild olive etc)
- finely grated zest of 2 oranges
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan/350°F/gas mark 4. Grease an approx 11.5 x 21.5 cm / 4.5 x 8.5 in loaf tin (2lb loaf tin) and line with a strip of baking parchment.
- Mix the cranberries with the ½ tablespoon flour until they are well coated, set aside.
- Place the silken tofu, orange juice and vanilla extract in a blender and blitz until smooth. (I just put it all in a large jug and use a stick blender).
- Place the plain flour, cornflour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, salt and sugar in a large bowl and whisk to combine.
- Add the melted butter, oil and orange zest to the dry ingredients and stir until no dry patches remain. Adding the fat to the flour before adding the wet ingredients helps to make the cake more soft and tender.
- Gradually whisk the wet ingredients into the dry to form a smooth batter. Fold in the cranberries.
- Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake for about 75 minutes until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. You can loosely cover the top of the cake with tin foil towards the end of baking if it starts to get too dark.
- Leave the cake to cool in the tin for 20 minutes then carefully turn it out onto a wire rack and leave to cool completely before slicing.
Notes
- For the best results make sure that you follow the recipe closely. As always, I highly recommend weighing your ingredients using the gram measurements (with a digital scale), rather than the cup conversions. Cup measurements are simply not accurate enough for baking and I cannot guarantee the best results if you use them.
- *You need to use firm silken tofu, NOT regular tofu. It is most commonly the shelf-stable kind, not the fridge kind. In the UK it can usually be found either in the ‘Asian’ section of the supermarket (by the soy sauce), or next to the tinned beans. I use Mori-Nu or Clearspring. Make sure you drain off the excess liquid (no need to press it though). I don't know what you could substitute it with I'm afraid.
- You can use frozen cranberries instead of fresh but do not defrost them first, use them straight from the freezer.