Tag Archives: vegan dessert

Grapefruit brown sugar pound cake: a recipe

Grapefruit with brown sugar was one of my favorite snacks growing up. I remember watching my my prepare it for me with love, then later emulating the steps myself: Slicing the grapefruit in half, carefully sawing around the outer edge of the flesh and loosening the wedges between each segment, and finally, sprinkling on a thick layer of brown sugar that instantly became a delicious sludge as it half-dissolved into the grapefruit juice. Looking back, I’m not sure why it was always brown sugar, specifically, or why we even had a collection of tiny, pointy, serrated grapefruit spoons in our otherwise standard cutlery drawer. But this flavor combination always brings back the memories for me; plus, it’s just delicious.

A few grapefruits recently came into my possession, and I wanted to recreate my nostalgic snack in a new format. I looked around online at recipes for grapefruit pound cakes (drawing the most from this one) and swapped out white sugar for brown and a confectioners-sugar icing for a crispy glaze. The grapefruit flavor is delicate, the cake itself heartier and darker than it might be otherwise due to the extra molasses in the sugar. Olive oil makes itself known flavor-wise in the batter, but mellows out once it’s baked. There’s no egg or egg substitute, so this cake can be a bit delicate; just handle with care and you’ll be golden. I hope you enjoy it!

Vegan Grapefruit Brown Sugar Pound Cake

Ingredients

  • ¾ cup nondairy milk
  • 150 grams (¾ cup) brown sugar, + 2 Tbsp for topping
  • ½ cup olive oil
  • ½ cup freshly squeezed grapefruit juice, strained, + 1 Tbsp. for topping (about 1 grapefruit’s worth of juice)
  • 2 tsp grapefruit zest, + 1 tsp for topping
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 212 grams (about 2 scant cups) unbleached all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp salt, + a sprinkle for topping
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • ¼ tsp baking powder

Instructions

  1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F and grease a loaf pan with neutral oil.
  2. To a large mixing bowl, add milk, 150 g brown sugar, olive oil, 1/2 cup grapefruit juice, 2 tsp grapefruit zest, and vanilla extract. Whisk until combined, then add the rest of the ingredients (flour, salt, baking soda and powder) and mix again until combined.
  3. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan and bake for 40 minutes.
  4. While cake is baking, prepare brown sugar glaze topping: mix together remaining 2 Tbsp brown sugar, 1 Tbsp grapefruit juice, 1 tsp grapefruit zest, and a tiny sprinkle of salt, until sugar is mostly dissolved.
  5. Remove cake from oven and use a pastry brush to apply the glaze to the the top of the cake, then return to the oven and bake for another 10-15 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out dry.
  6. Remove cake from oven and let cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Then, carefully take it out of the loaf pan and allow to cool completely before slicing (if you can be patient enough).

Notes

Recipe adapted from this one by Short Girl, Tall Order.

Vegan cream cheese frosting (no cream cheese required): a recipe

Cream cheese frosting, as a concept, is so far removed from cheese itself that it really only has a few attributes in common. Creamy? Yes. Tangy? Yes. Umami? No. Salty? No. Funky? Definitely not. Vegan cream cheese frosting, dare I say, is even further away.

So it never made sense to me to buy a pre-made vegan cream cheese to make cream cheese frosting. Can’t you replicate the qualities of a good cream cheese frosting without any…cheese, vegan or otherwise?

As it turns out, you can!

For my purposes, lemon juice is the secret ingredient. Adding just the right amount transforms a basic buttercream frosting into a tangy, cream-cheese-y, ready-for-carrot-cake delight.

I also like to use some coconut cream in my frosting to add richness in a different way than just vegan butter.

Check out my recipe below, and please let me know if you try it out!

Vegan cream cheese frosting

Ingredients

  • 1/4 cup vegan butter or margarine, softened
  • 1/4 cup coconut cream*
  • 1 Tbsp lemon juice (from about half a lemon, but definitely measure it)
  • 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
  • 2-2.5 cups powdered sugar
  • If needed: A splash of plant milk

Instructions

  1. If you haven’t already, soften your butter by microwaving it at 50% power for 15 seconds at a time until soft to the touch.
  2. Combine your butter, coconut cream, lemon juice, and vanilla extract in a large bowl and mix with a hand or stand mixer until well-combined, smooth, and fluffy.
  3. Add powdered sugar, about a cup at a time, and continue mixing until the frosting has reached your desired sweetness level and texture. (You want it to be soft enough to spread, and thick enough that it won’t fall of your cake once you frost it.)
  4. If your frosting is too stiff, you can add a splash of plant milk and re-blend. If it’s too runny, add more powdered sugar. If it’s not cheesy/tangy enough for you, you can add a little bit more lemon juice, but be careful! It’s a fine line between “cream cheese frosting” and “straight up lemon-flavored frosting,” and you can’t really go back from the latter.
  5. Ideally, cool/set it in the fridge for about 30 minutes before using it to frost a cake. Then, enjoy!

Notes

  • This recipe was adapted from Minimalist Baker‘s buttercream frosting.
  • *For coconut cream, you want the solid stuff in a can of coconut milk. Sometime these cans are already separated, but if not, you can stick it in the fridge the day before you’re going to use the coconut cream. Then, when you’re ready, open the can without shaking it and scoop out the solids. That’s coconut cream!
  • You could probably substitute more of vegan butter or coconut cream for each other in this recipe, if you have a preference for one of the other, but I haven’t tested the recipe this way. Let me know how it goes if you do, though!