Date and Tahini Honey Cake Vegan ταχινοπιτα

 

 

The honey in this year's cake is once again date syrup, the lush honey referenced in scriptural sources.  I was thinking of combining tahini and dates in a vegan cake first because dates love tahini, and also because tahini provides richness and structure to an egg-free recipe.  It turns out the tahini honey cake party already started long ago in Greek cuisine, where this cake and a few other intriguing vegan cakes are staples of the Lenten season. I hope I will get a chance to adapt many more of these.  As always, my favorite source for Greek recipes is Laurie Constantino, but this is adapted from Vefa's Kitchen.  I am generally wary of omnibus cookbooks, suspecting that the editors may have pressured the authors into including as many recipes as possible, but I have yet to find a dud in this one.

The cake is lovely.  This should not be a compliment, but no one will guess it is vegan. The moment you take the first bite, you think, oh, it's not sweet, I need to add more sugar or syrup, but then the sweetness sneaks up on you, and you just sink into sweet solace.

Things I substituted:

Instead of orange juice I used a whole orange.  I needed more liquid and added sparkling apple cider.  Probably water, soymilk, or orange juice would all be good.

Instead of raisins I used dates

I used date honey instead of bee honey

 

I reduced the amounts of cinnamon and cloves so the dates and tahini could shine.

Things I kept the same:

I used self rising flour PLUS baking soda AND cream of tartar (isn't baking soda plus cream of tartar just baking powder)? You might recall that in the final chapter of The Long Winter Ma finally has cream of tartar and saleratus to make a cake("“It seems strange to have everything one could want to work with,” said Ma. “Now I have cream of tartar and plenty of saleratus, I shall make a cake.”"). Both of these terms were mysterious to me the first time I read the book.  Of course I knew about baking soda, but had never heard it called saleratus.  I imagined "cream of tartar" must be something like tartar sauce, because it has the word "tartar" and it is, you know, creamy. It seemed unlikely that tartar sauce would be any good in a cake, but who knew baking better than Ma?

I was excited to use my White Lily self-rising flour for the first time.  My teachers in alimentary school held strongly from this flour, but I never felt the need for special cake flours at home until lock-down, when biscuits became my daily bread (and all-purpose flour works for these too).

Tahini and Date Honey Cake

14 ounces (3 1/2 cups) self rising flour (I used white Lily, for other flour add 1 tablespoon baking powder and 1 1/2 teaspoons salt and measure by weight)

2 teaspoons teaspoons baking soda 

1 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon cloves

7 big fat juicy dates (or any dates) 7.6 ounces before pitting, 7 ounces after pitting, 1 1/4 cup chopped 

1 cup tahini

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup date syryp

1 orange

1/4 cup date vodka or slivovitz plus a little more for drizzling, if you like 

apple juice or cider if needed

Heat the oven to 350F, 180C Mark 4. Prepare 2 nine-inch pans, or 24 muffin cups, or 1 nine-inch pan and 12 muffin cups.

Sift together the flour, leavening, and spices.  Chop the dates and toss them with a little of the flour mixture.

Cut the orange into pieces and put the whole thing, peel, pith, and pulp, in the processor with the tahini, sugar,  syrup, and vodka, and blend completely.  Fold the tahini pulp into the flour mixture and when it is about half-mixed add the date bits, saving a few for the top.  If the batter is too dry, add some apple cider.  Scrape into the prepared pans, top with remaining date bits, and bake 25 minutes for the cupcakes and 35 minutes for the cakes.