Joan’s Rainbow Cake ~ Almost 100% Vegan!

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I actually wanted to wait to post this recipe, but then I thought, it is fine, I don’t need to wait! 😉 The third in the series of the 3 back-to-back vegan cake is this cake that I baked for our anniversary last month, Alhamdulillah… 🙂 I was actually not planning to bake anything. I was down with fever and body pain, it was a very normal dull day and unlike other anniversaries, where I would be up planning so much – you can refer to my previous anniversary cakes here, here and here –  this time, I had no plans at all! But as the day passed by, I became restless and I pushed myself into the kitchen to bake this cake.

The Joan’s Rainbow Cake has been on my to-do list, and I am so glad that I managed to veganize the whole recipe and make it guilt free, Alhamdulillah. Now if you are wondering why this peculiar name for the cake, then the whole credit goes to the Malayalam movie, Salt n Pepper. The protagonists in the movie bond over food and both of them bake the cake simultaneously as the movie progresses. As per the myth, the cake is baked by a French lady called Joan, who awaits the return of her dear husband who was in the army at war during the WWII. The first day she bakes an orange cake, he doesn’t turn up. The second day, she bakes a pistachio cake, he doesn’t turn up. The third day, she bakes a strawberry cake and he doesn’t turn up. But on the fourth day, he turns up with her favorite chocolates, which she melts and drizzles it over the layered cake, to celebrate his home coming. How much truth is there in this story, nobody knows but the whole idea of having a three layered cake with whipped cream and a chocolate dripping is nevertheless mouthwatering.

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I used Suhaina’s recipe as the base to work on this cake. Instead of making an orange layer, I made an apricot jam layer since I had some jam threatening to expire. Hehe… If you are making orange cake, then you need to use 1/4 cup of freshly squeezed orange juice instead of the diluted jam mix. I must say this was the most challenging cake I have done in my lifetime. Even though the entremet was exhausting, I was confident it would turn out well but I was really not sure how this one would turn out to be and more than that, how much it would be appreciated, especially considering that there is no butter or eggs to make it rich and decadent. I took my time to bake the cakes since I had only one 6 inch pan. As for the whipping cream, I used sachets of Dream Whip powder, which is a non-dairy powder, but still there is a mention of milk solids in the latter part of the ingredients and that’s why I mentioned in the post header that this cake is “almost” 100% vegan. I whipped them in cold soya milk and it tasted good enough to go on the cake. As for the chocolate frosting, I found it on food.com unfortunately I am not able to trace the link. 🙁 It is a versatile frosting that you can smother onto your cupcakes or full cakes and does not need any diary to work on it. Since I was trying to draw drips, I made the frosting a little thick but it became too thick to my liking that it refused to stick to the cream… hehe… Still I managed, or I think so. 🙂

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So after going through everything, I put the cake into the fridge and served it to HD the day after our anniversary. He quietly had his piece. B absolutely loved it that he ate up 1/4 of the cake. Rasha liked it, she particularly liked the pista layer and Azza was as usual, so-so, no response! 😀 That night we had guests over at home and HD reminded me to serve the cake, so I had to slice up half the cake into ten thin slices, a very difficult task indeed! But I was so happy that I got very good reviews from all who had it, especially from HD’s cousin’s wife (remember the sausage cutlets?), who herself is an amazing cook. I told her that it had no butter, no dairy and no egg and she was totally amazed. Don’t I love that sort of expressions!!! 😀 The texture of this cake was more like our normal cake, unlike the papaya and the strawberry cake, which I thought was because of the use of flax eggs and cornflour;  it is only my assumption. I found it a tad bit sweet because of the whipped cream, but nonetheless, HD and the others felt it was correct sweetness.

So there you go, from planning to bake nothing to baking something which turned out to be much better than I expected, Alhamdulillah… so that’s the third one in the series of vegan bakes! Hope all of you enjoyed this little attempt of mine… 🙂

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5 from 2 votes

Joan's Rainbow Cake ~ Almost 100% Vegan!

Course Cakes

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 2 hours hours

Total Time 2 hours hours 10 minutes minutes

Servings 6

Author Rafeeda

Ingredients

• FOR THE STRAWBERRY LAYER:
• 2/3 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 tbsp corn flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• A pinch of salt
• 2/3 tsp baking powder
• 1/8 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 cup oil
• 2 tbsp strawberry jam whisked into 1/4 cup warm water
• 1 flax egg refer notes
• FOR THE PISTACHIO LAYER:
• 2/3 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 tbsp corn flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• A pinch of salt
• 2/3 tsp baking powder
• 1/8 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1/3 cup pistachios soaked in 1/4 cup almond milk for 2 hours and ground to a paste
• 1 flax egg refer notes
• FOR THE APRICOT LAYER:
• 2/3 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 tbsp corn flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• A pinch of salt
• 2/3 tsp baking powder
• 1/8 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 cup oil
• 2 tbsp apricot jam whisked into 1/4 cup warm water
• 1 flax egg refer notes
• FOR WHIPPING CREAM:
• 2 sachets Dream whip powder
• 1/2 cup cold soya milk
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• FOR CHOCOLATE FROSTING:
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 tbsp corn flour
• 1 1/2 tbsp cocoa powder
• A pinch of salt
• 2/3 tbsp oil
• 1/3 cup water
• A dash of vanilla

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Grease and flour 3 x 6 inch baking pans and set aside.
• For all the cakes, whisk the dry ingredients in a bowl. Whisk the flax egg, oil and flavor pastes till combined. Add into the dry ingredients and fold gently till completely moist.
• Pour into the prepared pans and bake for 30 minutes or till skewer comes out clean.
• Allow to cool in the pan for 10 minutes, when the sides pull off from the pan.
• Flip onto the cooling rack and allow to cool completely.
• For the whipping cream, keep the bowl and beaters in the freezer for 15 minutes. Combine all the ingredients and beat well till stiff. Store in the fridge till the time for use.
• For the chocolate frosting, whisk all ingredients except the oil and vanilla in a saucepan and cook on low flame till the mixture thickens. Do not overcook. Add the oil and vanilla and whisk in. Allow to cool.
• For assembling, keep the apricot cake at the base. Spread a thin layer of the whipping cream.
• Put the pistachio cake on top, spread a thin layer of whipping cream and finally top with the strawberry cake.
• Coat the complete cake with a thin layer of whipping cream. Refrigerate for 15 minutes or till set.
• Use the remaining cream to frost the cake completely.
• Put the chocolate frosting into a piping back and draw the dripping design (kind of messed up there!) Use up on the cake till done.
• Allow the cake to set in the fridge for an hour, before cutting and serving!

Notes

For flax egg, mix 1 tbsp milled flax with 3 tbsp water and set aside for around 5 minutes, till the flax becomes glutinous.
I made the mistake of using coconut oil into my chocolate frosting and it tasted too coconuty! Use any neutral oil for the frosting.