Vegan Okara Caramel Cake おからキャラメルケーキ

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Rice field

The humid summer has come.

The cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplants, corns are showing off their green, red, purple and yellow bodies, saying “Look ! here I am !!” .

My petite daughters, Tomato Chans

My son, Cucumber

My younger son, Eggplanto

Those summer vegetables are considered yin as they cool down our heaty bodies.

The climate of summer is yang, that’s why the nature blesses us those vegetables.

In other word, it is the law of the nature.

Therefore it is best for us to set those seasonal and local food as a pillar of our diet together with grains.

We can be more vital and healthy with those food because we are a part of the nature.

The exotic food imported distance away from other countries can be enjoyed once a while to satisfy our curiousities and cravings.

This is the fundamental idea of Macrobiotics.

I usually introduce the recipes of summer vegetable during this season as my table is always with those colorful and appetizing dishes.

But today it is not a vegetable recipe.

I am sharing one of the okara dishes that I showed you in my previous post.

Some people requested me to share one particular dish.

Guess what it was.

Mock sausage ?

Caramel cake ?

Japanese traditional simmered okara with vegetables ?

Cookies ?

Quiche ?

Bread ?

Carrot cake ?

It was a caramel cake!

They said it looks so delicious !

Yes, it is delicious !!

Actually making vegan sweets is easier than making normal sweets.

(There are many more advantages of making and eating vegan sweets, but I’ll tell you what they are in other occasions.)

But this cake may require a bit of experience to get the satisfactory result.

You need to make caramel sauce first to make this cake.

The taste of the cake varies dependig on the degree of the temperature of the sauce when it is made.

If it is too low, the cake does not taste like caramel.

If it is too high, it tastes very bitter.

If it is moderate, it would be perceived “nice caramel cake” in general.

But after all it’s all up to individual preference.

I personally prefer the bitter one when I use it for the cake, which color is black and might be considered “burnt and failed ” by other sweet making teachers.

So be brave to make any types of caramael sauce.

However you need to be careful not to burn yourself or damage your pot as the temperature of caramel can go up highter than 100℃.

Here’s the recipe step by step.

Caramel Cake

Ingredients

(A)

140g caramel sauce * refer to the recipe below*

50g orange juice

50g vegetable oil

( my regular oil for baking, Japanese canola, non GMO, of course)

1/4 tsp salt

(B)

50g okara – loosen

50g dried fig – chop into small pieces

(C)

120g wheat flour + 1 tsp baking powder – sift together

Procedure

1. Line the cake tin with the parchment paper.

2. Preheat the oven to 180℃.

3. Combine all the wet ingredients of (A) in a bowl and mix well with a whisk.

4. Add (B)/ okara and fig into a bowl, and mix with a spatula.

5. Add sifted wheat flour and baking powder, and mix.

*Do not over mix, otherwise the cake will not rise satisfactory.

6. Transfer to the prepared cake tin, flaten the surface with the spatula, and sprinkle the wallnuts.

Caramel Fig Cake Process 20180623 (2) 750x.jpg

7. Bake for 15 min in 180℃, reduce the heat to 160° and bake for another 25 min.

*Insert the bamboo skewer to check, if it gets wet batter, bake further.

8. Take out from the tin and cool down on the cooling rack.

9. Cut and serve.

*The cake cannot be cut nicely when it is still hot.

Tips

＊The cake rise higher when it is baked in a round cake tin compared with rectanglar or square shaped tin.

＊If okara is not available, soy milk can be replaced. The batter becomes looser, but it does not matter.

＊If you cannot afford to make caramel sauce, it can be replaced with maple syrup or beet sugar syrup.

How to make caramel sauce

Ingredients

30g (2Tbsp) water

15g (1Tbsp) lemon juice

80g beet sugar (make sure non-GMO)

1~2 cinammon stick

80g + 50g hot water

Procedure

1. Place water, lemon juice, beet sugar and cinammon stick in a heavy bottom pot, and heat up over medium flame.

Caramel Sauce Process 20180622 (3) 750x.jpg

2. It bubbles and foams when reached a boiling point. Let it cook further swirring the pot without stirring till the color changes to medium amber with slight burnt smell or to your desired color.