White lemon cake with raspberry filling

This is a delicious combination. And looks lovely.

Ingredients:

For the cake:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup soy margarine, soften at room temperature, but not liquid
• 1 1/4 cups white sugar
• 3 egg replacer (powdered for the most “white cake” result)
• 1 teaspoon lemon flavoring
• 1 cup soy creamer (soy milk would suffice, but make sure it is white, not light yellow)

For the filling:

• You can use raspberry jam ( about 1/2-3/4 cup)
  Alternatively, if you have fresh or frozen raspberries, you can cook approx. 2 cups of raspberries with 1/4 cup water and 2 tablespoons sugar. Puree the raspberry mixture, then if you wish, press through a sieve to remove the seeds or leave the seeds in. Return to the sauce pan. Add 2 teaspoons of corn starch to a bit of water to become liquid. Add the corn starch mixture to the raspberry mixture and heat until the raspberry mixture become thick. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

For the frosting:

• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 1/4 cup soy margarine, softened to room temperature
• 1/4 cup shortening (I use coconut oil)
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons soy milk (optionally if more liquid is needed)
• 1/2 cup coconut

Directions:

For the cake:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F,
2. Grease and flour an 8″ round pan.
3. In a large bowl, cream together soy margarine and sugar until light and fluffy (about 5 minutes) beat in the egg replacer, and the lemon flavoring.
4. Beat in flour, baking powder and salt.
5. Beat in the soy cream until just incorporated.
6. Pour batter into prepared pan.
7. Bake in the preheated oven for 35 minutes, or until a tooth pick inserted comes out clean.
8. Cool on wire rack in pan for 10 minutes, and then invert onto wire rack to cool completely.

To make the frosting.

1. Be sure the soy margarine and coconut oil are soft at room temperature, but not liquid.
2. Beat them together until light and fluffy. This will be quite a long time of beating.
3. Slowly add the powdered sugar and some of the lemon juice.
4. Continue beating until all the powdered sugar has been used.

To assemble the cake:

1. Slice the cake in half.
2. Put a generous layer of raspberry filling on the bottom half.
3. Be careful not to go all the way to the edge of the cake with the raspberry filling, as when you put the top half of the cake on it will spread to the edge. If it is at the edge, then it will run over the edge giving a pink side.
4. Put a generous amount of the frosting on the raspberry filling. Be careful while spreading it not to mix them together, or push any too close to the edge.
5. Put the top half of the cake on and begin frosting. Be very careful to clean your frosting knife in case some of the raspberry filling gets on it.
6. Sprinkle the coconut on top of the white frosting and decorate with a few fresh raspberries.

Notes:

This was not as white white as I had wanted. One could have used the coconut oil in the cake also perhaps. Or if possible, find a non creamy colored soy margarine. It was delicious and the affect was right – it was just that I wanted it white white. I would also use more lemon juice in the cake. If you want the slices of cake to come out “clean” without “smearing” the filling, then you should place the cake in the refrigerator to harden the frosting a bit.

White cake inspired by http://community.livejournal.com/vegancooking/434218.html