CAPPUCCINO CAKE SLICES

The past two weeks have been super-hyper-mega hectic at work. To that, add a combination of birthday drinks on Mondays (it’s veeeeery challenging if you ask me), waking up at stupid a.m. because of abnormal sunlight (although yay, for summer finally approaching) and the desire of baking cake at stupid p.m. on weekdays, and consequently photographing it at stupid a.m., the following day before work. So all my good intentions about quitting diet coke have not only been put aside; they also have been accompanied by a considerable increase in my consumption of coffee. When I say coffee, I mean coffee in all sorts of forms: proper Italian espresso, Starbucks americanos, filter coffee, and instant coffee a.k.a. dirty water. So it was only natural to post a recipe for some coffee-related cake this week. And believe me, this is a good one! Of course, these vegan “cappuccino” slices are best enjoyed with...a cup of coffee.

CAPPUCCINO CAKE SLICES

190g (1 ½ cups) plain flour

160g (3/4 cup) unrefined golden caster sugar

40g (1/4 cup) ground almonds

1 tablespoon instant espresso powder (I used Starbucks Via)

2 ½ teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

240ml (1 cup) soya milk or other non-dairy milk

120ml (1/2 cup) rapeseed oil or other flavourless oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 tablespoons plain soya yoghurt

Glaze:

250g (2 cups) vegan cream cheese

2 teaspoons light brown sugar

cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 190°C (375 F) and lightly grease a baking tray/brownie pan. In a bowl, beat together sugar and oil. Pour in milk, soya yoghurt and vanilla extract and mix until combined. Sift in flour, baking powder and salt and fold in gently, followed by the espresso powder and almonds. When all the ingredients are well combined, spoon the mixture into the pan. Bake for 18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Remove from the oven and cool in the pan for at least 10 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack. Once completely cool, make the glaze. Simply beat together cream cheese and brown sugar and spread evenly on the top of the cake. For the finishing touches, dust with cocoa powder.