BM # 77: Week 1, Day 3
Theme : Vegan Sweets
Recipe:  Mango crumb cake

I am mostly a recipe follower. I hardly venture into recipe creation or even something as simple as substitution. But this week, for a change, I decided to play with a basic cake recipe. Priya Srinivasan’s whole wheat buttermilk cake. , which I made Vegan by substituting the buttermilk with pureed orange yesterday, went through another change today. The buttermilk was replaced with mango puree for a different flavor. I also swapped the whole wheat for plain flour and added a thin layer of strawberry jam in between the cake layers. I decided to go with a crumb topping and substituted butter with oil to make it vegan.

If I have to do it again, I would skip the strawberry layer and the crumb topping. I felt the cake by itself tasted good and these two weren’t adding much to the cake. The jam leaked to the sides and got burnt a little which added a nice biscuit like texture to the cake. The burnt part didn’t ruin the cake in anyway, but it taught me that the jam layer should never reach the edges of the pan.

So read on for the simple recipe and step wise pictures.

Ingredients:

• 1.5 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• pinch of salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup buttermilk pureed mango
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil

Optional items:

• 1/4 cup strawberry jam
• 4 tablespoons flour for the crumb topping
• 3 tablespoons sugar for the topping
• oil as needed for the topping, about 1.5 to 2 tablespoons

Method:

The recipe makes an eight inch cake. I have made one six inch cake plus two cupcakes with the remaining batter.

Whisk 1.5 cups flour, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, 1 teaspoon baking powder, a pinch of salt, 1 cup sugar in a mixing bowl. Add 1 cup of pureed mango ( I used one big mango for this) and half cup of oil.

Using a spatula, fold the ingredients to get a smooth batter.

Fill half the batter onto a greased and lined 8″ cake pan. I added 1/4 cup strawberry jam, which I wouldn’t do it the next time. Add the rest of the batter on top of the jam. Try not to get the jam to the edges as it burns because of the high temperature inside the oven.

For the crumb topping, mix 1/4 cup flour and 3 tablespoons of sugar. Add oil, one teaspoon at a time and mix until you get the topping to your preference. I would have used about 1.5 tablespoons of oil. Put the topping on top of the cake batter and bake in a preheated oven at 350 F/ 180C for about 55 minutes or until a skewer comes out free of crumbs when inserted in the middle of the cake. Let the cake cool inside the pan, run a butter knife through the sides of the cake and carefully take it out of the pan. Slice and serve!

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing this BM#74