Every once in a while, during the course of the week, I make a cake.

Sometimes waiting till Sunday comes around just to dive into a delicious cake can be soo tiresome and Sunday always seems to take forever to show its ugly head again.

I came across this recipe in Chetna Makan’s recipe book. The original recipe contained eggs, but as you should all know by now, my mum is a vegetarian with a sweet tooth and also I feel bad every time the rest of the family stuff their faces with cakes and pastries and every sweet thing imaginable on the face of the earth and my mum just sits there and watches us.

So I substituted the eggs with my vegan eggs and hey presto we had a cake that she could enjoy.

The verdict, while the cake was chilling on the cooling rack, minding its own business I might add, my parents kept walking past, commenting that ohh the icing looked soo sweet they were starting to get tooth ache. A tad bit dramatic if you ask me.

Nevertheless when it was time to slice into the beauty, they had to literally eat their words lol. The icing was just the right consistency and the perfect sweetness to offset the tartness of the citrus that was added to the cake.

They were put off by the black sesame seeds.

My mum uses black sesame seeds when she prays and when my dad saw me putting it in and on the cake he kept asking me if this cake was going to be part of prayer or something or was I trying to act like Guru mum. All my mother wanted to know when she saw me putting the seeds in the cake, was that she hoped I did not use her prayer seeds otherwise I would have to buy her a sealed packet. Thank goodness I had evidence to show her I had my own bottle.

Ingredients:

• 1 x tbsp. black sesame seeds.
• 150g x castor sugar.
• 150g x self raising flour, sifted
• 150g x butter, room temperature.
• 1 x tsp baking powder.
• 4 x vegan eggs ( 4 x tbsp. crushed flax seed mixed with 12 x tbsp. boiling water).
• Zest of 2 oranges.
• Zest of 2 limes
• 1 x tbsp. orange juice.

Method:

• Dry roast the sesame seeds in a pan and then crush them slightly.
• In a bowl add all the ingredients including the seeds.
• Using a whisk, carefully whisk the batter till it comes together.
• Pour into a greased loaf pan and pop into a preheated oven.
• Bake at 180 degrees for 35 0 40 minutes or until the cake tester comes out clean.
• Allow the cake to cool for 10 minutes in the tin before carefully turning it out and allow to cool completely on the rack.
• Pour the icing over the top of the cooled cake, garnish with some extra black sesame seeds and allow to stand for a few minutes while the icing set before serving.

To make the icing, whisk together the following ingredients:

• 100g x icing sugar, sifted.
• 2 x tbsp. lime juice.
• Zest of 1 lime.