Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Vegan Date, Raisins and Coconut Cake

Among all the dried fruits, dates are my favorite. They are great as snack but are quite sugary if you are watching your sugar intake. Even though I have seen so many date nut cake and bread recipes, I had not baked one till today. Well, I still haven't if you ask me since I don't have any nuts in this cake. I used coconut flakes instead. The consistency of this cake is almost like a pudding cake. Very moist. I have used regular whole wheat flour and if you use whole wheat pastry flour or all purpose flour, I am sure you will get a better texture than what I got. Even with so much of dried fruit, this cake is not sickeningly sweet.

One year back - Vegan Vanilla Cake, Almond Butter fudge Balls
Two years back - Spiced peanuts / Congress kadalekayi
Ingredients:
Pitted chopped dates - 1 cup
Black or dark raisins - 1/2 cup
Golden raisins - 1/2 cup
Sweetened or unsweetened flaked coconut - 1 cup
Whole wheat flour - 1 1/4 cup (If using APF, use 1 1/3 cup)
Canola oil - 1/3 cup
Boiling water - 1 cup + 3 TBSP
Baking Soda - 1 tsp
Salt - 1/4 tsp
Sugar - 1 cup
Flax meal - 1 TBSP
Vanilla - 1 tsp (Or you could use cardamom powder instead)

Glaze - optional:
Confectioner's sugar - 1/2 cup
Non-Dairy milk - 2 - 3 TBSP or to get the pouring consistency.

Method:
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Spray a 9 X 5 loaf pan or a 6 cup bundt pan with vegetable oil spray and dust with flour. In a bowl, take raisins, dates, baking soda. Pour boiling water on that. Let it sit for 5 minutes or so. It should cool down to room temperature. Add flax meal to the same bowl. In another bowl, whisk together flour, salt, sugar. When the mixture has cooled to room temperature, whisk in oil to it. Add vanilla and dump the flour whisking gently. Stir in the coconut flakes and pour into the prepared pan. Batter will be thin. Bake for 55 - 60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes and then turn on to the wire rack to cool completely. Pour a thin glaze or dust with confectioner's sugar and serve.

Today is day 14 of the Bake-A-Thon.  My fellow bloggers doing this are - Preethi, Veena, Priya. Linking it up to Kid's delight - Vegan and egg less bakes hosted by Priya, started by Srivalli.

Enjoy.

15 comments:

  1. love coconut cakes and this combination is tempting.

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  2. this cake looks amazing.. just when i think what else will you bake,. u come up with even more yummmier goodies!:) this week i am running out of ideas.. or maybe its the dreary dark cloudy weather which has put a cloak over my thinking brain:) gotta pick up some holiday food mags!

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  3. Hallo Champa, I am here for the first time, I am also a vegetarian and here there are a lot of lovely recipes :-).

    I am following you, if you like to come and visit me I am here
    http://alessandrazecchini.blogspot.com/

    ciao
    Alessandra

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  4. Delicious looking coconut cake. Wonderfully prepared.

    Deepa
    Hamaree Rasoi

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  5. Nice recipe champa...can i omit coconut flakes completely and still bake this cake with the same measure of the other ingredients??
    Basically, what I was thinking was, if I replace dates with 1 cup of a mixture of tutti fruiti, almonds and cashews and moti coconut, I could get a nice vegan christmas cake..Do you think I can try this..Will it come good..Pleeease let me know..

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  6. Priya,
    Yes. you can bake it like that. If you like, you can add up to 3/4 cup of any other chopped nuts in the place of coconut or increase the dried fruits by 1/2 cup.

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  7. This cake looks so delicious champa... and such a lovely combination!!!

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  8. Cake looks exactly like sticky pudding and absolutely incredible..

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  9. looks very nice champa...probably will bake this for the bake-a-thon

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  10. I made this cake over the weekend. They were so good. Thanks for the receipe

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  11. i in plan ti make this..luks yummy...n wat is flaxmeal..is any substitute is thr for that?can u reply me in my place?plz

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    Replies
    1. Maha, Flaxmeal is powdered flax seed which is acting as a egg replacer. If you are alright using egg, use one egg in this recipe and reduce the water by 3 TBSP. That is the only substitute or you could use ener-G replacer to replace one egg instead of the flax meal.

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