Amazing VEGAN cake

Sophia  was kind enough to post this VEGAN CAKE  recipe so I thought I would share it as I tried it and it is wonderful


I can't sleep this evening - I have a job interview in the morning and I am a bit nervous - so I am occupying myself by posting somewhat useless things on here.

Anyway - this cake is AMAZING! I discovered it while looking for a vegan recipe to serve to my boyfriends grandmother who takes Lent very seriously. Anyway - here is cake. It's vegan.. unless you're one of those vegans who doesn't eat honey. I have tried it with golden syrup instead of honey and that works pretty well too.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups of honey
1 T vegetable oil.
1 cup water
360g self-raising flour.
2 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp ground ginger.
250g chopped dates. (Fresh is best, otherwise soak in the honey and add when you add honey)
100g chopped walnuts
50g chopped slivered almonds
Extra honey, or sugar syrup to put on top.


Method

1. Preheat oven to 160 C (Haven't tried in convection oven... so make sure it's fan forced or this temp. may be wrong).
2. Grease shallow cake pan, or tart tin.
3. Stir honey and water in saucepan over a low heat.
4. Combine sifted flour and spices, dates and nuts in a bowl.
5. Add honey mixture to the dry ingredients. Stir!
(Mixture should be fairly wet, but not sticky - apart from the dates)
6. Spread into cake tin, and bake for 30-45 minutes.

It's easiest to tell if it is done by sight. It will be golden and the edges will look very very slightly crispy. Sticking a skewer through doesn't work as well because the dates stay moist and stick to it no matter how well done the cake is. The cake also gets harder as the honey cools, so it may seem a bit soft at first.

7. Cover the top with syrup or honey. (I put kumquats into the sugar+water as I am making the syrup!)

The Quiet Achiever