Vegan Angel Slices {GBBO vegan bake along}

Monday, September 02, 2019




Bake Off is back and, boy am I excited about it! Much to the annoyance of my colleagues, friends and family, I've been going on about the approaching tenth anniversary of Bake Off for at least a couple of months now and now that it's here, you'd better believe I'll be making the most of it. In my personal ode to, what I'm sure we'll all agree is, the best TV show - ever, I'm going to be veganising one Bake Off challenge a week for the duration of the show and, of course, sharing the results (good or bad) here on the blog, as well as on my YouTube Channel. Naturally, I realise that this is either a bloomin' brilliant idea or a terrible mistake but, stubborn as I am, I'm going to be seeing the challenge through and hoping to whip up a few delicious vegan treats along the way!

In keeping with tradition, week one was, of course, Cake Week and this week, I challenged myself to take on the classic - Angel Slices (aka this week's technical challenge). Although this was potentially the hardest challenge of the week, I was a huge fan *cough cough* addict *cough cough* of the Mr Kipling Angel Slices before I went vegan so I knew this was the challenge for me! It gave me the chance to finally try out the fabled aquafaba and, much to my delight, my first attempt at vegan angel slices was quite the success!

My angel slices were fluffy (albeit a tad delicate), sweet and delicious and although, with a slightly rustic finish, they probably won't be winning me Star Baker, taste is, of course, paramount and these slices tasted incredible!

If you'd like to bake along with me, you can find a recipe video of my full experience over on my YouTube channel too!

You Will Need: 

For the Slices:
- 120g self-raising flour
- 120g caster sugar
- 12 tablespoons aquafaba (about 1 can of chickpea water)
- 60g vegan butter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- yellow food colouring
- pink food colouring
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice

For the Icing:
- 75g vegan butter
- 175g icing sugar
- pink food colouring

After pre-heating your oven to 175 degrees celsius, measure the length of your tray-bake tin and, using tin foil, divide the tray into three equal sections. Line each section with baking paper, using vegan butter to stick the paper down.

Setting out three bowls, sieve 40g of self-raising flour into each bowl and place to one side.

In another three bowls place, 20g of vegan butter in each bowl. Into one bowl of butter, add a teaspoon of vanilla extract, mix until fluffy and then place to one side. In the next bowl, add your lemon juice and a few drops of yellow food colouring, again mixing until fluffy before placing to one side. In the final bowl of butter, add a few drops of pink food colouring, stirring until fluffy and pastel pink in colour.

Into a large glass bowl, drain your chickpeas, leaving all of the aquafaba in the bowl and placing the chickpeas to one side to use in another recipe of your choosing.

Add your caster sugar to the aquafaba and place the glass bowl over a pan of simmering water to heat gently.

If you have a sugar thermometer, you're looking to allow the aquafaba mixture to reach 43 degrees celsius. But if not, you'll probably heat the mixture for around 5 minutes and, once your sugar has entirely dissolved - you're good to go!

Taking the aquafaba mixture off of the heat, it's time to whip it up using an electric whisk. Similarly to meringue, you'll need to whisk the aquafaba into stiff white peaks. It should take around 10 minutes, but you'll know you're done when the mix can hold its own shape.

Once your mixture is fully whipped, split the aquafaba mix into 3 equal portions and, working one at a time, fold one bowl of flour into the mixture followed by one bowl of butter. At this point, take your time because it's really easy to knock the air from the mixture which, spoiler alert, can quickly ruin all of the hard work you've already done!

When you've mixed all three sections of the angel slices, it's time to pour the mixture into the three sections of the tray bake tin, then bake for 10-12 minutes.

When the cakes are done, you'll be able to stick a knife in and it will come out clean.

After the cakes are out of the oven it's super important to let them cool fully (I learnt this the hard way).

As the cakes cool, mix your remaining butter with 75g of the remaining icing sugar to make a butter cream.

In another bowl, mix a further 75g of icing sugar with a few teaspoons of water to make a thick icing.

Finally, using the last 25g of icing sugar, combine the sugar with a couple of drops of pink food colouring and a couple of teaspoons of water to make a thick pink icing.

When the cakes have fully cooled, trim any rough edges then, using the butter cream to sandwich together, layer the cakes on top of one another - vanilla cake on the bottom, then pink and finally, yellow.

When the cakes are stacked, cover with a layer of white icing and, while the white icing is still wet, drizzle with pink icing and, using the point of a sharp knife or skewer, feather the two colours together.

Having allowed the icing to set slightly (again, a mistake I learned from!), use a sharp knife to slice the cake into six equal angel slices.

Once sliced, all that's left to do is pop the kettle on and enjoy with a cuppa!

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