Lemon Poppy Seed Cake with Pomegranate Frosting

 

After visiting a restaurant that taunted me (and by taunt, I mean merely a cake sitting inside a display case) with large slices of lemon poppy seed cake smeared with delicious-looking frosting, I knew I had to make a vegan version. With a half of a pomegranate staring at me from the fridge, I had to incorporate it somehow. I know! Flavored frosting.

For the cake, I found a wonderful website, meatandeggfree.com, with a bunch of cake recipes. Here's the page... prepare to drool. I made the lemon version of poppy seed cake, although the orange did look quite enticing. Not to mention all the other cakes! Perhaps this is a good excuse to go on a baking spree?

Cake results: the actual cake itself was freaking delicious. Just the right combination of sweet and lemon-y goodness. The batter was much more strongly lemon-flavored than the finished product, but the lemon mellows out during baking. The epic fail came when I tried to remove the cake from the pan... breakage! Probably my fault for using pie pans instead of real cake pans. Now adding "cake pans" to shopping list. Otherwise, awesome cake.

For the frosting, I used this recipe. Instead of 1/2 C water for the simple syrup, I used 1/4 C water and 1/4 C fresh-squeezed pomegranate juice. (Anybody ever chugged that stuff straight? Whoa.) I don't if it was this factor or something else I did, but the frosting was an epic fail. The idea was to melt the sugar and combine with the shorting for a fluffy buttercream... but the sugar promptly re-crystallized upon cooling, resulting in a grainy mess, though it did taste rather good. But the texture... blah! I should have just stuck to a normal powdered sugar-style frosting.

Next time: better cake pans, powdered sugar frosting, raspberry jam filling instead of flavoring the frosting.