Vegan Lemon Curd Cake Sandwiches

I've been doing a lot of blog hopping at the moment, in fact I had three over three days. It started with my own blog hop - The Soup-Off Challenge which was my first ever so I was a bit worried about whether it would work. It turned out to be a flop unfortunately, but c'est la vie! Next time I will know just to sit back and enter other people's hops rather than have any of my own. Nevertheless, I made an awesome soup which you should check out here - Green Tea Noodle Soup with Leek and Shitake Mushrooms.

Then, the very next day I participated in the Eat-the-Alphabet Blog Hop, a monthly group which featured E and F as the letters this month. The idea is to base the dish around a fruit, vegetable, bean, grain or pulse that starts with E or F. I made Vegan Fig and Red Wine Ice Cream - yum!

So, I almost didn't get time to make anything for the Sweet Adventures Blog Hop, which this month is lemon themed and hosted by a favourite blogger of mine, Delicieux.  But I decided that I should try and get something in because I believe in supporting the blogging community by trying to make the culinary projects of other bloggers a success.

Lemons are a delicious theme! I don't know anybody who doesn't love lemon desserts. Several ones immediately spring to mind: lemon cake, lemon tart, lemon cupcakes, lemon meringue pie, lemon pudding, lemon pie etc. All delicious and classic recipes. However, I like to challenge myself with themes which is why I decided to invent something completely new which (to my knowledge) has never been done before. My answer was....

The Cake Sandwich.

These gorgeous tea party delights look very unassuming. In fact, they look like fairly plain and boring brown bread sandwiches. However, they are actually made from light lemony cake filled with wonderfully tangy lemon curd. They are perfect for a tea party because they combine two classic afternoon tea/tea party elements - cakes and triangle sandwiches. They can be almost completely prepared the day before and just assembled on the day - plus they are finger food so don't require plates or forks (=less washing up!).

Also - the lemon curd was to die for.


On another note - I've been nominated for the Best Australian Blogs 2012 People's Choice Award - you can vote for me by hitting up this link: http://www.sydneywriterscentre.com.au/bloggingcomp/peopleschoice.html


Lemon Curd Cake Sandwiches
Vegan Lemon Curd Recipe from vegnews.com


Ingredients
Lemon Curd:
Zest of 1 lemon
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice (should be about 2 lemons - note: zest lemons before juicing!)
3/4 cup coconut milk
3 heaped tbsp cornstarch
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp turmeric

Cake:
Zest of 1 lemon
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 cup soy milk
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup apple sauce
1 tbsp canola oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp orange essence
1 1/4 cups wholemeal plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarb soda

To Make
Lemon Curd (must be made a day in advance)
1. Zest the lemon. (You may as well go ahead and zest the other lemon as well and set it aside for later as you will need it for the cake.) Then juice the lemons.
2. Combine all the ingredients in a small saucepan and stir well.
3. Place the saucepan over a medium heat for 2 minutes, stirring continuously, to bring to a warm temperature (at no point should it simmer/boil - it it starts to simmer turn it down immediately).
4. Reduce the heat to low and continue stirring constantly. Leave over the low heat for 7 minutes. Remove from heat and transfer straight into a clean empty glass jar (don't leave it sitting in the hot saucepan).
5. All to cool and then refrigerate over night before using.

The Cake (can be made a day in advance)
1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
2. Mix the lemon zest, lemon juice and soy milk together and allow it to curdle for a few minutes.
3. Add the sugar, apple sauce, canola oil and extracts and mix well.
4. Sift the remaining ingredients into the batter and mix well.
5. Lightly grease a square 20cm x 20cm baking dish and line it with baking paper (mine was actually 21cm x 21cm, so don't worry about a few cm difference). Pour the batter in and smooth the top over evenly.
6. Bake for 25 minutes, or until golden on top and a skewer comes out clean.
7. Allow to cool completely before using.

Assembly
1. Take out your cooled cake and cut it into even quarter squares. Then cut each square along both diagonals so that you have 4 small triangles in each quarter. If you are having difficulty visualising what I just described then here is a (not to scale) drawing:

2. Cut each small triangle in half lengthways (like you would slice open a bread roll) so that now you have two small pieces of cake which look just like brown bread. Now here is the clever trick - you want it to look just like brown bread so you need to spread the lemon curd (the sandwich filling) on the darker "crust" of the bread so that the middle bits of the cake are facing out. (If you find that a bit confusing just have a look at the pics of the finished products - you will see the softer middle parts of the cake form the look of the bread whilst the top and bottom edges of the actual cake face inwards with the lemon curd filling.

3. Continue filling sandwiches until you use up all the cake (you will have lemon curd left over but that's just a bonus!).

4. For best results refrigerate the made sandwiches for about 10 minutes to help them stay together.

Serve with tea of course! 

Makes 16 triangle sandwiches (and 2 small jars of lemon curd).