VeganMoFo 2019 Day 13: FRUIT SMOOTHIE CAKE!

I am easily amused.

Today is song puns on the prompts, while I'm doing 31 cakes in 31 days. Today is day 13, and I have a fruit smoothie cake for you made using red dragonfruit and pineapple. It made the most beautiful batter I have ever seen!

This was the batter before baking, it was gorgeous.

As this was a fruit smoothie cake, I went with Gretchen Price's marshmallow frosting recipe again.
It paired nicely. It's sticky so a little more difficult to work with for a naked cake.
Came out pretty in my opinion.

Remember we spoke about whether this frosting was firm enough to support a cake?
Here you see that it is. I just didn't do triple layers.
You can stake your cake if you want to make it perfect. 

I had an extra layer, so I made an extra cake!
This is a single layer, marshmallow frosting (torched)
and since it's a fruit smoothie cake, I went with local chopped mango for the topping.

Scroll to the end for recipe.

When I was considering my 31 cakes in 31 days theme, I looked at my books, the Internet, and my ingredients to decide if I could do this without losing my mind, or my wallet. One of the recipes that caught my eye was a fruit smoothie cake. It's very basic, and a flexible recipe. Basically any fruit you'd use in your smoothie is what you'll be using in your cake for flavor. The recipe as published says to include a packet of fruit punch powder or something similar, and this is where I deviated from the recipe as written. No, just no. I do not want that in my cake, but I understand why it was written the way it is, and I realize many people wouldn't care if it's there or not, so you do you. If you omit this ingredient as I did, add a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar. I didn't add any extra flavoring to my cake. I used a blend of red dragonfruit and pineapple for this cake because I had frozen pineapple to use up, and I had fresh red dragonfruits since they are in season. I figured when I made the batter adding a bit of beet powder would help keep the color redder through the baking process, but I wanted to see how it would be without. As you can see, all the beautiful red went away. If you don't already know, dragonfruit is almost flavorless. Not quite, but almost. Knowing this I chose to add pineapple because it's acidic and has a strong flavor. As I predicted the flavor was essence of pineapple, that's exactly what I was tasting. The texture was pretty good, not super light, but no where near as dense as say a carrot cake, nor was it soggy, spongy or dry. I wanted to keep the focus on the cake, which is why I chose to go with a naked cake style, and also I figured the marshmallow icing from Modern Vegan Baking would be a nice compliment to the cake (it was). I baked 3 6" layers, but only frosted 2 for the main cake (as you see above). I covered the third layer in marshmallow separately and torched it before I smothered it in diced mangoes because I had the blow torch sitting on the counter for a cake I had made the day before. Blow torches are fun in the kitchen, I am not kidding. For something that takes probably 1-2 seconds, it's a lot of bang for the buck in fun kitchen moments.

I am going to keep this recipe, it's budget friendly, simple, fast and exceptionally versatile. It's a perfect "clear our your freezer" cake when it comes to fruit, in fact the combinations are limitless. This is a perfect recipe for a beginning caker, or someone who isn't interested in caking but needs to make something. No special ingredients at all.

FRUIT SMOOTHIE CAKE

Recipe from www.cookingoncaffeine.com

2.5 cups fruit puree (540g)

2 cups sugar (400g)

2T flax meal

5T hot water

3.5 cups flour (440g)

2t baking soda

1 packet of KoolAid or other acid-based sweetener drink powder ***** NOTE: substitute 1T vinegar if not using, which is what I did

1/2t salt

Preheat oven to 350 (325 for convection.

Prepare pans (this cake yields 1 10" layer OR 2 8" layers OR 3 6" layers OR cupcakes

I used 3 6" layers

I prepped my pans with Vegelene.

Mix the hot water and flax meal in a cup, set aside a few minutes to gel.

Sift your flour, baking soda, sea salt and drink mix (if using).

Combine your fruit puree and sugar (and vinegar if using) in a separate bowl, whisk well, then add flax mixture and whisk again.

Pour your wet ingredients into dry and fold in gently to combine.

Pour into your prepared pan(s), bake about 20 minutes (depending on size cake pan, less time for smaller pans/cupcakes, a bit longer for large pans). Test for doneness with toothpick.

You can serve this plain with cut up fruit, dusted with powdered sugar, or any icing of choice. I think this would be a great cake for a trifle too! Scratch cake just cannot get any easier than this, you can thank Meggan over at Cooking on Caffeine. If you don't already follow Meggan, take a peek at her blog. She's an allergen-friendly blogger with really great recipes, of course vegan for the win!

xo