Black Widow Cake Recipe

Dairy-free • Egg-free • Vegan

Prep:

10 minutes

Cook:

45 minutes

Ingredients

For the cake

100g vegan, soft eating liquorice pieces
175ml water
250ml vegetable oil
165g self-raising flour
100g sugar
25g cocoa powder
50g walnut pieces, ground
2 tbsp gram flour mixed with 4 tbsp water
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp baking powder
A few drops vanilla extract

For the icing

60g icing sugar
½ tsp food colouring (optional)
1 tbsp water

To decorate

Black icing pen
1 piece of soft eating liquorice

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C/gas mark 4. Chop the liquorice into small pieces and put in a small pan with 175ml water. Boil for about 5 minutes until the liquorice is starting to go soft and mushy. Remove from the heat and pour in the vegetable oil, stirring well.

2. Put the remaining cake ingredients into a large mixing bowl and stir in the liquorice mixture.

3. Put in a small (18cm) lined cake tin and bake in the oven for 35 minutes, or until a skewer comes out of the middle of the cake clean.

4. Leave in the cake tin to cool for about 10 minutes, then remove onto a wire rack to cool completely.

5. Mix together the icing sugar, food colouring (if using) and water, then spread over the cooled cake with a palette knife, gently and evenly. Using the black icing pen draw a web pattern on top of the icing. Then make a spider out of the spare piece of liquorice!

Recipe courtesy of The Vegetarian Society: www.vegsoc.org

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