The End of an Era: Vegan "Lex Luthor" Lemon Cake

With the two cake giants firmly under my belt, it was time to take a crack at other flavors.  I’ve always enjoyed cakes from the local Asian bakeries, with their spongy chiffon, lightly sweetened whipped cream frosting, and fresh fruit decorations.  There’s no more perfect ending to dinner during the warm summer months.  I’m not sure if a Vegan chiffon cake is possible due to whipped egg whites contributing greatly to its fluffy structure.  I’ve seen Vegetarian bakers beat ground flax seed with water to produce an egg white like substance, but it can't be whipped and I'm not sure it would hold up to baking.  I’ll leave this to future experimentation.  Meanwhile, I wanted to see if I could somehow recreate the whipped cream frosting from Asian bakery cakes.

After much research online, I learned that many of the Asian bakeries don’t actually use whipped cream.  Instead, they use a product called RichWhip Non-Dairy Topping, which also happens to be Vegan.  Purchasing this product is quite difficult as it is generally available only to commercial operations.  But through diligent searching, I found a store 40 minutes away that had some available.  After getting my hands on a small carton of the elusive RichWhip, I started on the frosting.  Problem is I didn’t have any whipped cream stabilizer on hand.  So the end product was a bit finicky to work with.

In my opinion, using RichWhip has more disadvantages than it's worth.  It contains high fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated oils (AKA trans fats), which defeat the purpose of eating a healthy diet.  And in order to stabilize it, I’d have to order a product online and wait for its arrival before I can toy with it.  I’m including the recipe that I used for the cake, but am currently searching for a more natural Vegan alternative.  Gluten-free Vegan author and blogger, Ricki Heller, has posted an entry for a vegan whipped topping recipe.  I will be giving this a try in the near future.

My favorite show of the past decade, Smallville, was sadly coming to a close.  What better way to mark the occasion than to bake a cake.  Throughout the series I’ve been enthralled with Michael Rosenbaum’s portrayal of the notorious Lex Luthor.  Since he was returning for the series finale, I decided to create a theme around Lex.  I am no Duff Goldman, so I needed to think outside the box and construct a design I could attain.  I started to think about Smallville's Lex Luthor and the iconic images surrounding this character.  There’s the Luthor “L” symbol on his kryptonite ring, and I’ve always liked the windows of the Luthor mansion.  So I put the two together.  But how was I going to create windows on a cake?  I’ve seen gelée on cakes, but it is made with gelatin (the collagen derived from animal skin and bones).  Then I remembered my Mom making cool and refreshing jelly-like desserts from Agar-Agar (a seaweed derivative) when I was a kid.  Off to the Asian grocery store I went.

Now onto the cake: Lex Luthor…initials LL…L, hmm…lemon cake!  I found out how much lemon juice was used in a traditional cake, compared it to the vanilla cake recipe and made the necessary substitutions.  And thus I had a Vegan lemon cake.  But true to form, the recipe wasn’t perfect.  Once I combined the wet and dry ingredients, the batter started to fizz and bubble up caused by the chemical reaction between the baking soda and the extra added acidity from the lemon juice.  It reminded me of the volcano projects from elementary school science fairs.  I poured the foamy batter into a cake pan and placed it in the oven to bake.  Probably due to the higher amount of acid in the recipe, the cake was slightly dry.  Nothing a little Limoncello syrup can’t fix.  I know, so far all of my Vegan cake recipes have liquor in it.  But cakes are celebratory, and so are libations.  I promise in the future I’ll have recipes that aren’t boozy.

(Note: I've baked this cake since, and have adjusted the recipe resulting in a more moist crumb than the original.)

Vegan Lemon Cake

Dry Ingredients:

3 cups Whole Wheat Pastry Flour

2 tbs Corn Starch
1 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Sea Salt

Wet Ingredients:

1/2 cup Soy Milk + 2 tsp Raw Apple Cider Vinegar

2/3 cup Canola Oil

1 1/2 cup Sugar
1/2 cup Lemon Juice (about 3-4 Lemons)
1 1/4 cup Water
2 tsp Vanilla

Zest of 2 Lemons, finely grated

Preheat oven to 320ºF.  Add vinegar to 1/2 cup soy milk and reserve.  Sift together dry ingredients into a medium sized bowl.

Pour oil and sugar into a large bowl and beat with a wire whisk until well incorporated.  Whisk in lemon juice, water, vanilla and lemon zest.  Fold in dry ingredients.  Lastly, fold in soy milk and vinegar mixture.  Pour into two 9-inch cake pans and bake for 27-35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.  Allow cakes to cool.

Limoncello Syrup (optional)

1/4 cup Limoncello

1/3 cup Water

1/2 cup Sugar

Place all ingredients in a small saucepan and stir over low heat to dissolve sugar.  Allow to cool to room temperature.  When cooled, brush syrup over cooled cake layers with a pastry brush until absorbed.

Lemon Whipped Frosting

(Based on Cool Whip Frosting from Cooks.com)

1 small carton RichWhip Non-Dairy Whip Topping (8 oz.)

3/4 cup Soy Milk

1 pkg Instant Lemon Pudding
1/4 cup Powdered Sugar
Zest of 1 Lemon

Using an electric hand mixer and a large bowl, whip RichWhip to stiff peaks.  In a separate bowl, whisk together remaining ingredients. Gently fold pudding mixture into whipped topping until well combined.  (Best made a day in advance and left in the fridge to slightly harden to a more spreadable consistency.)

Assorted Gelée

3/4 bar Agar-Agar

1 1/2 cup Water

1/4 cup Sugar

4 tbs Raspberry Jam

2 tbs Soy Milk

Few drops red food coloring (red)

Few drops blue food coloring (purple)

Pass raspberry jam through a fine mesh strainer if seeded.  In three small bowls, place 2 tbs jam in two bowls and soy milk in third.  Stir coloring into separate jams and reserve.  In a small saucepan, soak Agar-Agar in water to soften.  Stir over low heat to completely dissolve Agar-Agar.  Add sugar and stir to dissolve.  Remove from heat and pour, dividing evenly, into bowls of jam and soy milk.  Stir to combine and let sit at room temperature until thickened to desired consistency for spreading on top of cake (3-5 minutes).