I’ve been favoring the fresh simplicity of orange and lemon zest. To be honest, I haven’t been a huge fan of baking; but was inspired to make my own birthday cake this January. I wanted to make something atypical for my birthday cake and I didn’t want something super sweet. Having Italian roots, I searched for something that was simple and not overly sweet, and found several ricotta cake recipes. None of them were vegan so I thought it would be a fun challenge to try something out from a traditional recipe and veganize it. This recipe was a success and it was quite simple. The cake is dense and not too sweet; much like the traditional recipe, which I wanted to stay true to, and be authentic. Everyone enjoyed it and it tasted as good as it looked. So here is my vegan version of this traditional Sicilian recipe. It is vegan and glutenfree. Enjoy!
Directions
Preheat oven to 350F. Prepare the egg replacer ingredients according to package and set aside. In a large bowl, add the almond flour, plant milk, sugar, egg replacer, zest, lemon juice, maple syrup, cinnamon, vanilla and salt and mix together with a large spoon or spatula until well combined. Add a touch more milk if it’s too dry to combine. Grease a 9 1/2″ springform pan with the vegan butter and dust with some flour. You can use glutenfree flour or regular flour if you’d like. Pour the batter into the pan and place in the oven for about 1 1/2 hours until a light golden color. Let cool for a little while. I ended up cutting off the very top with a large bread knife to have a smooth surface, and to be sure that the top wasn’t too dry. I found that this worked very well and that the cake had a nice dense consistency. Then you can top with powdered sugar and more lemon zest, or strawberry preserves.
