So it turns out that this vegan version of love cake takes a little longer to bake to brown up, but otherwise, it seems to work just fine! I’m happy with the texture, which is the important thing that was worrying me.
I want to try another variation (using egg replacer instead of bananas & aquafaba) before I settle on something final for the cookbook, but this is totally acceptable. It’s a little bit like a cross between banana bread and love cake. Interesting!
I admit, I had some doubts about the whole chickpea-water-aka-aquafaba-as-vegan-egg-substitute thing, but I was willing to try it. And today was the day.
It’s a lot easier to include lots of candied ginger in everything if you happen to have a partner who loves candied ginger and is therefore willing to chop it up into little pieces for you. 🙂
Hm. Is this chickpea water really going to turn into something like beaten egg whites? Check back for stiff peaks in 6-10 minutes, be careful not to overbeat.
Toasted semolina added to the vegan batter — which has five very ripe bananas instead of ten egg yolks. Is that going to work? We’ll see. I was expecting the end result to be somewhat more banana-ish than normal, but I was pretty sure the flavors would work well (and be culturally appropriate).
Here’s the chopped candied ginger, along with plenty of finely-chopped cashews for the love cake. Cashews are expensive, but what price love?
Whoa. I mean, if you didn’t tell me this was chickpea water, I’d totally have assumed these were egg whites. Wacky. You’re apparently supposed to add a little cream of tartar to stabilize it and help it firm up, but I tried it without, and it was fine. If I were making meringues, I might do that, but for folding into a cake, this seems just fine.
Folding in the whipped up chickpea water (!) into the vegan love cake batter.
