I haven’t done a lot of baking for the past 10 years. I think it’s from many vegan and gluten-free recipe inventions that haven’t gone so well. Substituting one core ingredient? Easy. Substituting three? Thirty-times more likely to fail from my experience.
Recently, I’ve been educating myself on the magic of white vinegar. And it all started as an accident when I ran out of surface cleaner for the kitchen. (I mean, who knew vinegar, baking soda, water and a touch of eucalyptus made for a great all-purpose cleaning solution? You probably all did. I know I’m late to the party, but it’s changed my life).
Then I stumbled across a recipe that called for vinegar as a way to make a cake airy and moist. Airy and moist are terms few home bakers can describe a vegan and gluten-free creation (unless you’re some kind of baking unicorn). Apparently it was a ‘thing’ during the Depression when eggs and dairy products were difficult to come by.
Turns out, it was the missing ingredient in this recipe for blueberry upside-down cake that I’d been sitting on for months. My faith in gluten-free vegan baking has been restored *raising hands emoji*.
Blueberry upside-down cake {vegan, gluten-free}
Makes a 20cm cake
2.5 c frozen organic blueberries, rinsed
270mL (1 small can) full-fat coconut milk
1 tbsp distilled white vinegar
1 1/2 c gluten-free plain flour
1/2 c coconut sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
Pinch of salt
1/4 c coconut oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 200 degrees C.
Whisk coconut milk and white vinegar in a small bowl and set aside while preparing the remaining ingredients.
Lay the berries out on some absorbent paper towel and gently press on them to dry them off after rinsing and stop the colour from bleeding.
Line a spring form cake pan with some baking paper. Transfer the berries to the bottom of the tin and spread out evenly, trying to cover the entire base of the tin.
Mix the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl, then add the coconut milk with vinegar, as well as coconut oil and vanilla. Stir to combine.
Pour the batter on top of the blueberries and smooth out. You want to make the top of the cake as flat and even as possible because this will end up being the bottom of the cake when it is flipped.
Cover the cake with foil and cook in the oven for 10-15 minutes. Then, remove foil and cook for a further 10-15 minutes, or until top is browned and a skewer comes out of the middle clean.
Let the cake cool before releasing the sides of the pan. Carefully flip onto a cooling rack to cool further, or flip onto a serving dish. Slice and eat on its own or with some dairy-free vanilla ice cream.
Kale Mary 