The World's Best (vegan) Citrus Cake!

This cake is so refreshing in the summer, and so easy to make!  I've simply tweaked a pre-packaged Lemon Drizzle Cake mix, and turned it into more of a Citrus Upside-down cake.  Can't go wrong!

The mix I used was from Asda, but you could use any pre-packaged lemon cake mix.  The original instructions called for it to be baked in two 8-inch cake tins, and it came with a lemon butter-cream frosting mix that you're supposed to whip up and then put in-between the two cakes to make a kind of a sandwich.  But I had better ideas.

First, I took one 10-inch spring-form cake tin and oiled it really well.  Then I cut out a piece of wax paper to fit exactly on the bottom (just trace the base of the tin), and stuck it on the bottom.  I then opened up one can of grapefruit slices and one can of mandarin oranges, and artfully arranged them, fan-like, covering the bottom of the tin.  You can't really see the design in the picture, but you will be able to see it in person so make sure you make it look pretty!

The next step is quite simple; follow the directions on the cake-mix box!  To make this cake vegan, I substituted egg replacer for the eggs, and added a little bit more than usual to help soak up the extra juice from the added citrus fruit.  Once assembled, pour the cake mix into the cake tin, over the beautifully-arranged fruit, and stick in the oven.   I followed the baking instructions on the box, but added about 5-10 minutes to account for the added size of the cake (one 10-inch instead of two 8-inch).  Just keep an eye on it, basically.  This cake will be so moist it will be hard to overcook it!

While the cake was baking away, I used some of the leftover grapefruit juice and about two cups of brown sugar to make a caramel glaze.  Click here to learn how to make caramel.

The cake mix I bought also came with a lemon butter-cream frosting mix, which was essentially a sachet of lemony, sugary powder.  Instead of mixing it with butter, as instructed, I mixed it with vegan (soy) butter, and it turned out looking and tasting exactly as it should have.  It was a straight 1:1 substitution.

Once the cake was finished baking and cooled down, I flipped it over onto a large plate and opened the spring-form tin, so the bottom of the tin was now resting on the top of the cake.  As there was a layer of wax paper in between, I could easily prise off the cake-tin-bottom. I then peeled off the wax paper to uncover the beautiful citrus fruit design now embedded in the top of the cake, and then poured the caramel over the entire cake.

Once the caramel had cooled and hardened into a thin layer coating the whole cake, I used the rest of my tinned citrus to make a pretty design on the top, and piped on the "butter"cream frosting.

I'll tell you what - a big slice of this with a tall glass of iced tea on a summer day, and the world couldn't get any better.