Layered cake with passionfruit custard

Nigella Lawson has long been one of my baking idols. Not only does she have foolproof recipes, she has a seemingly down to earth way of writing them out, encouraging people to just get into the kitchen and tinker around rather than focusing on perfection and aesthetics. In her book, "Kitchen" I eyed off her Swedish Summer cake longingly with its beautiful berries and yellow custard oozing out of the layers of stacked cake. It dawned on me then that I had never attempted a homemade custard since going plant based and that's highly out of character because custard is one of my favourites. Whenever I wanted to experiment with custard recipes, I put the idea of eggless custard in the too hard basket.  Temptation won over laziness thankfully, and I took on some of Nigella's bravery. I grabbed coconut cream and custard powder and started tinkering. This was the result..

Ingredients for cake
1 cup soy milk
1 tbsp Apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup sunflower oil
1 cup caster sugar
1 1/2 cup self raising flour
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
Method
Grease a round cake tin, I used a 10 inch one here. Heat fan forced oven to 180 degrees. In a bowl let the milk and apple cider vinegar sit to curdle. Meanwhile mix the other ingredients together in a separate bowl. Then add milk mixture and mix until smooth and combined with a wooden spoon. Pour into greased tin and bake for 30 minutesor until golden brown. To test press fingers lightly to see if cake has spring. Let cool before cutting in half, so you have two halves of a cake. While cake is cooking, make your custard.

Ingredients for passion fruit custard
3/4 cup coconut cream
1/2 cup unsweetened almond
Passion fruit x2 1/4 cup vegan custard powder
1 tbsp caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Method
Chill coconut cream in freezer for two hours before use. Scoop out 3/4 cup of coconut cream, avoiding the watery parts. Place in saucepan on low heat until coconut cream starts to get some small bubbles, and steam coming off , but is not boiling. Add the 1/2 cup almond milk and custard powder and caster sugar and whisk by hand until thickened and combined. Remove from heat and add vanilla. Allow to cool before using to sandwich the cake and topping on top of cake.

Assembly
The cooled cake halves can be sandwiched with half of the custard and the rest of it on top of the cake. Top with berries, almonds and icing sugar. Keep in fridge in airtight container for up to 3 days in the fridge.