RASPBERRY LIME DRIZZLE CAKE

The extremely engaging tale behind this week’s cake that I’m very unsurprisingly writing whilst falling asleep on my keyboard begins when you find yourself signing a lease for a flat an impressive amount of Overground stops away from where you’ve spent over seven hundred and thirty days of your existence.

Now it so happens that my occupation in the past couple of months has switched from that of full-time hermit to head of the wild puppy and trouble making department, which implies spending Saturday mornings staring at the empty space at local cafes that go under the name of Healthy Stuff, and filling yourself spherical with the aforementioned healthy stuff in an attempt to readjust brain functionality levels and regain a human appearance (and arguably sometimes failing).

Moving the other side of London sadly leaves me healthy stuff-less, and the vegan berry lime drizzle cake that has multiple times saved me from irreversibly turning into a zombie will be greatly missed.

So here’s my own version of it, if there’ll ever be a Saturday-morning-after-the-Friday-night when I’ll wake up all emotional for having run away from North East London; but also to salute the coolest little flat in the coolest former Victorian orphanage and a microwave and a sofa and three (three!) windows, and don’t hate you all, a heated Olympic-size swimming pool in the back garden, and a part of town that looks like an even better version of my dear Bushwick, just with the added bonus of an arcade bar and a much higher quantity per capita of plantain sellers; and to officially say, good night Dalston & good morning Peckham.

RASPBERRY LIME DRIZZLE CAKE

110g (1/2 cup) margarine

150g (3/4 cup) unrefined golden caster sugar

120g (1/2 cup) soya yoghurt or other non-dairy yoghurt

zest of 3 limes

195g (1 ½ cups) plain flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

60ml (1/4 cup) soya milk or other non-dairy milk

2 tablespoons lime juice

200g (2 cups) fresh raspberries

Glaze:

60g (1 cup) icing sugar

3 tablespoons lime juice

zest of 1 lime

Preheat oven to 175°C (350°F) and lightly grease a 22cm/9” cake tin. In a large bowl cream together margarine, sugar and yoghurt until fluffy. Add flour, baking powder and mix until combined, then beat in soya milk and lime zest and juice. Last gently fold in the raspberries. Pour the batter into the tin and bake for 35 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Leave the cake on a cooling rack without removing it from the tin. When the cake gets fairly warm, make the glaze. Mix icing sugar and lime juice and zest until you get a smooth, syrupy glaze. Prick the surface of the cake with a skewer or fork, then pour the glaze all over. When completely cool remove from the tin and eat in Dalston or Peckham or Canada or wherever your heart is.