I'm usually a chocolate cake with peanut butter icing kind of girl, but I decided to step out of my usual and try something totally different- vanilla cake with matcha icing, using Golde's Matcha Turmeric Superfood. And this cake did not disappoint! Sometimes I am afraid that GF makes things hard as a rock or dried out, but hooray, this cake was the complete opposite. It retained it's moisture and had a nice density to it. And with the icing, the turmeric added a nice warm little spice to it.
To make a double layer round cake, I used two 7" cake pans. You could also do a 9" for a regular one layer version.
FOR THE CAKE:
1 + 3/4 cups Gluten-Free All Purpose Flour
1 cup White Sugar
1 + 1/4 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Salt
1 cup Almond Milk (I used unsweetened Califia Farms)
2 tsp Vanilla Extract
1/2 cup EVO
1 Tbsp White Vinegar
2 Tbsp Applesauce
FOR THE FROSTING:
6 cups Powdered Sugar
2/3 Cup Vegan Butter Softened (I love the Earth Balance Sticks)
6 Tbsp Almond Milk*
1 1/2- 2 Tbsp Golde's Matcha Turmeric Powder*
INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
2. Sift flour into mixing bowl and add sugar, baking soda and salt and mix together
3. Add almond milk, vanilla extract, vinegar and applesauce. Mix on low with a power mixer, or use a hand whisk, mix until lumps are gone
4. Lightly grease pans with vegan butter. If you are doing 2 round cakes, split the batter evenly into the two cake pans.
5. Place in oven and bake for 25 min. After that, check every minute with a toothpick until it comes out clean in the center of the cakes. My oven took 28 minutes total, but every oven is slightly different.
6. Let the cakes cool before removing from the pans and adding the icing.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE ICING:
1. I like to make sure the butter is softened before trying to whip. Whip the butter until it's creamy
2. Fold in one cup of powdered sugar with a little bit of milk into the butter mixture at a time and re-whip. This makes it less messy than trying to add 6 cups of powdered sugar and it exploding everywhere on the counter (trust me!).
3. Continue doing step 2 until all of the sugar and milk are added and you have a nice consistency. (*You may need more or less milk than the 6 Tbsp noted in the ingredients. If the icing is too thick, add more milk. If it gets too thin, add more powdered sugar)
4. Add in the matcha powder. I added 1 Tbsp to start, and then tasted the icing and added almost another Tbsp. That is going to be your preference!
5. After the cakes have cooled, add an even layer to the top of the first round cake. Set the second round cake on top of the icing layer, and then shmeer the icing on the sides and the top. This is a double icing recipe (one serving was not enough to cover the cake), so if you have some leftover, you could have some fun with piping the edges!