My friend Cara of Fork and Beans is celebrating her 33rd birthday today – Happy Birthday love! When I posted my recipe for amaranth couscous, I mentioned wanting to bake a cake using amaranth. When Cara dropped the hint that she wanted a cake for her special day…I was on it! I’ve been trying to come up with a cake using amaranth flour that is gluten free (of course) and vegan to fit Cara’s lifestyle as well as mine. After a few “okay” batches and batters, I decided to adapt the applesauce buckwheat cake recipe from the super cute and talented Pure2Raw Twins.

In celebration of the birthday girl, I made a recipe for a vegan poppyseed amaranth cake with a light vegan cream cheese frosting and a tart raspberry-beet coulis for drizzling. Cara, I hope you enjoy the photos – California is a bit too far to ship a piece of cake 😦

This cake is not a typical light and fluffy white one – it’s hearty, dense, healthy and I adore the nuttiness from the amaranth and the earthiness from the buckwheat flour. Tapioca starch helps lighten the texture a bit but it is similar to a carrot cake, but without the chewiness of the shredded carrot pieces. The base is lightly sweetened with a little stevia and 2 tablespoons of palm sugar (not bad for a whole cake!), but any granulated sugar would work here. I did attempt the cake with a liquid sweetener but it turned out a bit gummy.

The cream cheese “frosting” is simple, almost too easy that it didn’t even require a recipe. I used Follow Your Heart vegan cream cheese and added a bit of vanilla, brown rice syrup (to compliment the hearty flavors of the cake) and a pinch of pure stevia. No butter, no shortening, no crazy gums. It’s more of a lightly sweetened spread but I thought it worked beautifully with the lightly sweetened cake.

Since the cake was a little monotone in color, I wanted to add some pizzaz by way of fruit as a sauce for drizzling. I had a small amount of leftover roasted beets from a salad I made the other day and thought the flavors and juice from the beet would (again) marry well with raspberry and the cake and frosting. I was more than pleased with the outcome!

Here’s to Cara’s birthday – another delicious and fabulous reason to indulge in cake.

Confession – this cake is already gone – I ate it for breakfast, snack and dessert several days in a row…after all, it IS healthy, right? 🙂

Vegan Poppyseed Amaranth Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting and Raspberry Beet Coulis

Cake Ingredients (adapted from Pure2Raw)

1/3 cup amaranth flour
1/3 cup tapioca starch (arrowroot or potato starch could be subbed)
1/3 cup buckwheat flour (teff, millet or brown rice flour or a combo could be subbed)
3/4 tsp baking soda
3 Tbsp Mila* (see note – ground chia seeds)
2 Tbsp palm sugar (or other granulated sugar)
1/8 tsp pure stevia extract (I used NuNaturals)
1/4 tsp fine Himalayan pink salt (or sea salt)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2-3 tsp poppy seeds
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 Tbsp coconut oil, in liquid form

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 300 F. Grease two 6-inch round cake pans** and line bottoms with parchment paper. Add all dry ingredients (flours through poppyseeds) to a large bowl and whisk to combine.
2. In a medium bowl, combine your vinegar, applesauce and coconut oil. Whisk to mix well.
3. Add wet ingredients to dry and stir everything till combined (Batter will be a little thick).
4. Divide batter into two prepared cake pans. Bake for about 19-21 minutes. Let cool completely and remove from pans.

To assemble cake, spread cream cheese frosting (reciep below) over layer of cake and top with remaining layer. Serve cake pieces with a drizzle of raspberry-beet coulis and enjoy! Drizzle coulis when serving so the cake doesn’t get soggy. Refrigerate leftover cake (if there’s any left!).

*The recipe calls for Mila – this stuff is amazing! If you have followed my blog for a while, you know that I love chia! Mila is super charged ground chia seeds in a proprietary blend. I will be posting on the wonders of Mila soon 🙂

**You can make cupcakes if preferred, line or grease 8 muffin tins and bake for 18-20 minutes.

Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients

4-5 Tbsp vegan cream cheese, softened (regular cream cheese can be subbed if you can eat dairy)
2-3 tsp brown rice syrup (agave or maple syrup could be subbed)
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
pinch of pure stevia extract*

Directions

1. To prepare frosting, add cream cheese, rice syrup and vanilla in a mixing bowl. Whip until well combined. Taste and gradually add a sprinkle of stevia and mix until combined. Taste and adjust sweetness to your liking with your syrup or stevia.

Raspbery-Beet Coulis

Ingredients

2/3 cup fresh or frozen raspberries* (strawberries would also work here too!)
2 Tbsp beet juice (you could use pomegranate juice or more non-dairy milk if preferred)
1 -2 Tbsp non-dairy milk
liquid vanilla stevia or pure stevia extract to taste, I used about 8 drops (agave could be used here if preferred)
dash of sea salt

Directions

1. Add all ingredients in your blender or food processor (I use my high powered HealthMaster Blender – a less pricey Vitamix – to help puree seeds). Mix for one minute until mixture is completely combined and pureed. If using a food processor, feel free to strain the mixture over a bowl to help remove the seeds prior to serving.

*If using frozen raspberries, thaw prior to making coulis.