Belated Bonfire Night Post and Toffee Apple Cider Cake Recipe

I'm linking this post up to Mid Week Munchies over a Blissful Yoga Journey blog. Check it out to see what other bloggers have been buying and eating.

Last week was Bonfire night. We don't usually go to a bonfire or bother with fireworks these days but we do like to have some friends round. We had a little gathering at our house with some traditional Bonfire night food. On the savoury side I made some smokey paprika hummus and some little baked sausages in a sticky sweet hoisin sauce using this idea from the BBC website and Fry's sausages. It wouldn't be Bonfire night without some peas in a cup. Matt made Nottingham style peas which are mushy marrowfat peas in mint sauce and our friend Steve made Lancashire black peas which you serve with vinegar. Both are great traditional Bonfire night dishes and both naturally vegan too!

For the sweet nibbles I made some traditional Parkin cake using this great recipe for vegan Parkin from the Chocolate and Beyond blog. The only downside to Parkin is that you have to make it a week in advance and then wrap it in foil to let it get good and sticky. It's hard to resist and I had to hide it in the pantry! I also made some gluten free ginger biscuits from Babycakes Covers The Classics. I only made half the recipe and it made loads more than I expected. They weren't very gingery tasting though despite having 2 tablespoons of ginger so maybe I need to buy a new jar of ginger powder. They were delicious though. I gave them a simple icing glaze once they'd cooled down.

Something that's been in the specials section at Aldi for Halloween / Bonfire night is this Brothers Toffee Apple Cider that I was pleased to discover is vegan. We used it to make a cocktail for our guests taken from the Brother's website.

Toffee Apple Cocktail
Pour a bottle of Brothers Toffee Apple cider over plenty of ice.
Add a double measure of spiced rum and a measure of lime juice. Top up with apple juice and stir.

The flavour of the Toffee Apple cider is a bit like cream soda! I was quite intrigued by it and wanted to see if it would work in baking. I came up with an experimental recipe that was a great success and which I'm pleased I wrote down. I didn't add any other flavourings or spices to the cake batter as I wanted the cream soda flavour to come through and it did.

Toffee Apple Cider Cake with a Walnut Streusel Topping

Ingredients

1/4 cup of goji berries
1/4 cup of raisins
3/4 cup of Brother's Toffee Apple Cider
1/3 cup melted coconut oil
3/4 cup of soft brown sugar
2 cups of plain flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 tablespoon of ground flax seed
3 tablespoons of water

Walnut Streusel Topping

1/3 cup of chopped walnuts
1/3 cup of plain flour
1/3 cup of soft brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
2 tablespoons of coconut oil

Pre-hear the oven to 180C/ 350F/ Gas 4
Grease and flour an 8x8 inch baking tin.
Soak the gojis and raisins in the cider.
Mix the ground flax seed with the water and set aside for about 15 minutes.
Sift together the flour, and baking powder.
Whisk together the melted coconut oil, brown sugar and flax seed mixture.
Add the flour mix to the wet ingredients stir well.
Fold in the goji, raisin and cider mix.
Pour the batter into the baking tin and sprinkle with the streusel topping.

To make the streusel topping mix the dry ingredients together then cut in the coconut oil and rub with your fingers to get a breadcrumb like mixture.

Bake for 30 minutes.