My friend Kelly and I have our birthdays two days apart, so to celebrate we had a joint birthday party this weekend! We both like themes and obviously brunch is one of my favorite themes, so we made the theme of the party a Brunch For Dinner potluck party!!! I loved my recent red velvet donut recipe using beets for color, and wanted to make a brunch-themed cake, so I came up with the idea of a pancake cake!
Originally I was thinking of just making a ton of pancakes and stacking them, but I thought that would take a long time and also could be tricky to make them large enough and evenly sized. So, I decided to bake a cake, but use aluminum foil to line the inside of the cake pan with ridges to make the cake look like a stack of pancakes.
It kind of worked, but I used a fairly wide cake pan and made the indentations pretty wide as well, so it only fit 3-4 “pancakes” in the cake, so overall it just looked a bit lumpy on the sides!
If I were to do it again I would:
Use a taller cake pan, as opposed to this wider (9 in diameter) one so there would be more “pancakes”.
Make the “pancake” indentations in the aluminum foil smaller so the “pancakes” are less thick, and then I could also make more of them.
I also would try pouring some batter (about the height of a pancake), then just adding some folded up aluminum foil around the edges, then pouring more batter on top. If this works, it would be a lot easier!
Overall, unless you really want your cake to look like pancakes, it’s much easier to just pour all the batter into the cake pan and make a regular cake! Either way it will still taste delicious! Also, I just discovered white whole wheat flour, which has the same protein and nutritional benefits of whole wheat flour, but is less dense so it is better for baking and has a similar texture to all-purpose flour! So I used this type of flour in this recipe.
For further brunch-ness, I decided to make a frosting with a slight coffee flavor. I don’t like or drink coffee, but I do like tiramisu (seems odd, I know!), and I had made a delicious vegan version of tiramisu last summer to celebrate my blog’s second anniversary! So I thought I would use the filling from that as a frosting. I actually ended up slicing the cake horizontally to make it more pancake-like, and then adding the tiramisu in between each layer! I’d recommend doing this soon before serving. If you don’t intend to serve it right away, then you could probably freeze it so that the frosting stays in place, and thaw it before serving.
Also as a side note, if you wrap the cake in plastic wrap, you can keep it fresh unrefrigerated for a few days. However, the tiramisu will deflate after a day or so even if you keep it refrigerated (and it will not regain fluffiness if you try to re-whip it), so it is best made closer to the date you plan to enjoy it!
Red Velvet Cake Recipe
I made one 9 inch diameter cake, but it was fairly short, so I would actually recommend using a smaller cake pan (maybe 6 in) so the cake would be taller!
Ingredients
Wet:
6 flax eggs (6 tbsp ground flax mixed with about ⅔ cup water, and refrigerated for at least 5 minutes until thickened)
⅔ cup oat milk
16 oz of cooked beets (I used two packages from Trader Joe’s - picture below) and their juice
¾ cup maple syrup
1 cup vegan butter/spread (I used Earth Balance), melted and cooled
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Dry:
3 ½ cup white whole wheat flour (or all-purpose - then the wheat gluten is not needed)
3-4 tbsp vital wheat gluten
4 tsp baking powder
4 tbsp cocoa powder
⅔ cup coconut sugar
Steps
1. Preheat oven to 350 F and lightly spray cake pan with cooking oil.
2. Prepare flax eggs in a bowl and place in the refrigerator to set.
3. Blend all wet ingredients except the flax eggs and apple cider vinegar until evenly mixed
and there are no beet chunks visible.
4. Pour the wet ingredients into a large mixing bowl and add in the flax eggs and apple cider
vinegar. Use a hand mixer to evenly combine.
5. Mix the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl, then mix gradually into the wet
ingredients. The batter will be thick and spoonable (see picture).
6. Add the batter into the cake pan. Bake for 35-40 minutes, until a skewer/chopstick
inserted all the way through comes out clean. Let cool before slicing.
P.S. If you make this in mini/small cake pans and only cook for 15-20 or so minutes, the inside will still be a bit gooey so it will be a red velvet lava cake! I had a bit of extra batter so to taste test the cake recipe, I used a mini cake pan and did this and it was so good.
Tiramisu Frosting Recipe
Makes about 3 cups
Ingredients
8 ounces vegan cream cheese
1 can coconut cream
Note - you can’t use reduced fat coconut milk or it will not whip - I tried this before and it just doesn’t work. You need the cream or the full fat coconut milk.
3-4 tbsp brewed coffee
Splash of vanilla extract
Splash of almond extract (optional)
Cinnamon to taste
About 1-2 tbsp cocoa powder (optional)
Maple syrup to taste
Here are pictures of the vegan cream cheese, coffee, and coconut cream that I used.
Steps
1. Pour the coconut cream into a large mixing bowl, scrape off any solids on top, and chill for at least 1 hour.
2. When the coconut cream is chilled, add in maple syrup to taste for sweetness, a few
dashes of cinnamon, almond and vanilla extracts, and cocoa powder.
3. Use a mixer to whip at high speed until it is fluffy and has the consistency of whipped cream. This doesn’t take long at all!
4. Whip with the cream cheese and coffee until evenly combined (the mixture will still be very thick and fluffy).
5. Place this back in the fridge to chill for at least a few hours (I chilled it overnight).
6. Spread the frosting on the cake, sprinkle cinnamon and cocoa powder on top, and enjoy! Alternatively, you can slice cake horizontally and add the frosting in between each layer to make a layer cake!
P.S. You can also use a smaller scale of this recipe to make an AMAZING red velvet mug cake! It can be a great way to use any leftover batter you have as well.