СМЕТАННИК - RUSSIAN SOUR CREAM CAKE

Season 8, Episode 11 of “Vegan cakes and things” takes us all the way to Russia via a stream of black, deep sleep, mustard shoes, bus travellers, gifts of corner shops, no-need-to-fight’s, Soviet nursery rhymes that come to you in your dreams and blenders melting down upon attempting to combine utter madness and the cure for the illness of living. One may argue there must have obviously been some miscommunication between my head and reality; but this sweet and light and fluffy multi-layer sour cream cake is real enough to me.

СМЕТАННИК

Tofu sour cream:

Adapted from Veggies Don't Bite

Makes about 2 ½ cups

900g (31.7oz) silken tofu

60ml (1/4 cup) cider vinegar

2 tablespoons lemon juice

2 teaspoons nutritional yeast

Vanilla layers:

55g (1/4 cup) margarine

100g (1/2 cup) sugar

2 tablespoons soya yoghurt or other non-dairy yoghurt

110g (1/2 cup) tofu sour cream

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

120g (1 cup) plain flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

Chocolate layers:

55g (1/4 cup) margarine

100g (1/2 cup) sugar

2 tablespoons soya yoghurt or other non-dairy yoghurt

110g (1/2 cup) tofu sour cream

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

100g (1 cup minus 1 tablespoon) plain flour

1 heaped tablespoon cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

Sour cream icing:

330g (1 ½ cups) tofu sour cream

250g (2 cups) icing sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Start by making the sour cream for the cake: drain the tofu and place it with the rest of the ingredients in a blender. Blitz until completely smooth and creamy.

Preheat the oven to 180°C (360°F) and lightly grease two 20cm/8" cake tins. For the vanilla layers, cream together margarine and sugar until light and fluffy, then add yoghurt, sour cream and vanilla extract and mix until combined. Fold in flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda and mix well. Spoon half of the batter in each tin and spread it out with the back of spoon in a thin layer to evenly cover the base – the batter will be thick. Place in the oven and bake for 12 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the centre of the cakes comes out clean.

Whilst the vanilla layers cool, follow the same steps to make the chocolate layers adding the cocoa powder to the mixture of dry ingredients.

Next make the icing. Simply mix together sour cream, icing sugar and vanilla extract until well combined.

When the layers have completely cooled, assemble the cake spreading the icing on the top of one layer, sandwich the second one on top, and repeat for the remaining two. Spread more icing on the top and sides and coat the sides with biscuit crumbs or ground nuts or dust with cocoa powder.