The tartlets were quite yummy on the day of making, but they actually got even more delicious after a night in the fridge: the crusts absorbed some moisture from the filling, which made it creamier and more flavorful.

The Crust:

• 2 and 1/2 dl hazelnut flour (hazelnuts finely ground)
• 2 dl wheat flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 dl sugar
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoons egg replacer powder (we have No Egg – can be replaced with corn/potato starch for example)
• 1/2 dl canola oil
• 3/4 dl plain soy yogurt

I mixed the dry ingredients – hazelnut, flour, salt, sugar, and egg replacer – with a fork until combined. Then I added the oil and the soy yogurt and mixed until the dough came together. I divided it in 12 parts and placed them in the fridge for 10 minutes.

Then I greased and floured our muffin tin, and preheated the oven to 175 degrees. I rolled each portion of the dough into a ball, flattened with my hands, and then pressed in the muffin tins. I tried to make the shells as high as possible without making them too thin, and they didn’t quite reach the upper rim of the muffin cups.

Now, I baked the shells 15 minutes on the middle rack of our oven, when they had browned a bit and started to come off the sides of the muffin cups. I let them cool in the tin for 10 minutes, and then removed to cool on a rack.

The Filling:

• 2 dl unsweetened, plain soy yogurt
• 3/4 dl plain soy milk
• 1 teaspoon agar powder (not flakes)
• 1/2 dl sugar
• 3 teaspoons vanilla sugar
• grated zest of one lemon
• 1 tablespoon canola oil

I let the soy yogurt come to room temperature before starting with the mousse. This way, it won’t cool down the agar mixture as quickly as cold soy yogurt would, and there’s more time to work with it before it starts to set.

First, I whisked together the soy yogurt, sugar, vanilla sugar, canola oil, and lemon zest. Then I heated the soy milk in a small sauce pan on medium heat until it started to bubble, and then whisked in the agar agar powder. I kept on whisking for half a minute or so until the agar had dissolved, and the mixture started to get very foamy.

Then I quickly poured the agar mixture in the yogurt bowl while whisking it vigorously, and when everything was all combined, I immediately poured the filling in the cooled shells. It settled quite quickly in room temperature, but I popped the tartlets in the refrigerator at this point as we were about to have dinner.

Right before serving, we decorated the tartlets with fresh raspberries.

Waiting for the raspberries.

The crust wasn’t actually as thick as it seems in the photo – that’s a really tiny slice of pie, since there wasn’t much left the next day…

Crust:

• 20 Digestive graham crackers (about 300 g)
• 5 tablespoons margarine, liquid or melted
• 2 tablespoons dark syrup

Filling:

• 3 dl frozen strawberries
• 1 and 1/2 dl granulated sugar
• 2 dl vegan whippable vanilla sauce (or vegan whip cream)
• 1 dl plain unsweetened soy yogurt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
• zest and juice of 2 limes (1/2 dl juice)
• 1 (and 1/2) teaspoon agar agar powder

Heikki made the crust while I was preparing the filling. He ground the digestives, and then mixed the crumbs with margarine and syrup until thoroughly combined. Then he covered the bottom of our spring form pan with a piece of parchment paper, and pressed the crust evenly in the bottom and up the sides of the pan with his fingers.

I didn’t have time to defreeze the strawberries, so I placed them in a bowl with the vanilla sauce, soy yogurt, lime zest, and sugar, and mixed the whole thing with an immersion blender until it was smooth and pink. Now, I filled our kitchen sink with hot water, and placed the bowl in the sink. This warmed up the mixture, so that the agar that I added later wouldn’t get shocked by the coldness.
Now, I heated the lime juice over medium heat in a small sauce pan until it was barely boiling, and sprinkled the agar powder in the pan while whisking vigorously. I kept on whisking until the agar had dissolved, for about a minute or two, and then removed the pan from heat. Then I spatulated the agar lime mixture in the strawberry bowl, and whisked the filling briskly for a minute or so. I poured the filling in the pie crust, levelled the surface of the pie, and refrigerated it until we were too impatient to wait any longer.

By the next day, what was left of the pie had firmed up the way it should. I still think it could have been a little firmer, so using a little extra agar would be a good idea in this recipe. I used 1 teaspoon, but I think that adding 1/2 teaspoon more would be just the perfect amount.

DAY ONE:

The Cake Base:

Dry things:

• 3,5 dl wheat flour
• 1 dl spelt flour
• 1,5 dl cocoa powder
• 2,5 dl sugar
• 3 teaspoons vanilla sugar
• 1,5 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
• 2,5 dl vanilla soy milk

Mix together:

• 2 teaspoons egg replacer (or corn starch)
• 1/2 dl water

Add also:

• 1 dl water
• 100 g vegetable margarine, in room temperature

Oven 175 degrees.

First, I mixed the soy milk with the vinegar and set it aside to curdle up a bit. Then I mixed the dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. I made the egg replacement by mixing the egg replacer with water until smooth.

Then, I added margarine, soy milk mix, rest of the water, and egg replacer to dry ingredients, and mixed until moistened. Now, I beat the batter with an electric mixer for a few minutes, until it was smooth and a little fluffy.

We only have one round cake pan, so I had to improvise. I lined a cookie sheet with baking parchment, but since there wasn’t enough batter for a cookie-sheet-sized cake, I made corners in the parchment with paper clips, like this:

Now I had a baking pan of the right size (about 30X35 cm) for my cake.

I baked the cake for 25 minutes, when a toothpick inserted in center of cake came out clean. Then I removed the cake from oven and let it cool.

Raspberry Mousse:

This mousse is a little bit complicated to make, but agar makes it nice and creamy, not at all jelly-like.
Raspberry mix:

• 200 g plain soy yogurt
• 200 g frozen raspberries
• 1 dl sugar

Whipped oat cream mix:

• 4 teaspoons vanilla sugar
• 2 dl oat whip cream (or whippable soy cream, we used “gogreen vispi”), chilled
• a bowl, chilled in fridge as well

Agar mix:

• 1 tablespoon crushed lingonberries (or a few of the raspberries, crushed)
• 3/4 dl water
• 1 teaspoon agar powder

First, I spooned the soy yogurt in a colander lined with a kitchen towel to get rid of some of the moisture. This will take an hour and a half, or as much time as you have. Raspberries must be defrozen, and then mashed in a mixer until a smooth paste results. Then I mixed the yogurt, the raspberries, and the sugar together.

Now, Heikki took the chilled bowl and oat cream from the fridge, and whipped the oat cream until fluffy, and then mixed in the vanilla sugar. Now, we had two bowls, one filled with berry mixture, and the other with vegan whipped cream.

Next, I placed a small saucepan on the stove, put the crushed lingonberries and 3/4 dl of water in the pan, and heated it up until boiling. When the liquid started to boil, I sprinkled the agar powder in the pan, while Heikki was whisking it briskly. Then he whisked the liquid rapidly while it was boiling, until the powder was dissolved, and the liquid was quite clear, and started to thicken a bit. This took about half a minute or less.

When the agar mixture was done, we folded it in the raspberry mix quickly with a spatula. Then Heikki poured the whipped cream into the raspberry-agar-mixture and I whisked it, until everything was nice and fluffy.

Assembling the Cake:

Now I cut the cake in half, to have two layers. I had to cut a few strips off the edges to have even rectangular shapes. Then we spread two thirds of the raspberry mousse on the bottom half of the cake, it made an about 2,5 cm thick layer. Now, we stored the cake base layers in the fridge overnight.

DAY TWO:

Chocolate Mousse:

• 350 g firm silken tofu (Mori-Nu from the Asian market)
• 130 g vegan chocolate
• 1 dl raw cane sugar
• 4 teaspoons vanilla sugar
• 1-2 tablespoons Grand Marnier or other citrus liqueur

This is easy, first I melted the chocolate in a water bath on the stove top, like this:

And then let the melted chocolate cool down in room temperature, for 10 minutes or so, while I was smoothing up the tofu.

I imagine this would be easiest to do with a food processor, bit since we don’t have one, I used a hand held mixer. I just patted the tofu dry with paper towels, crumbled it in a bowl, added sugar, vanilla sugar, and liqueur, and then mixed it. I scraped the sides of the bowl a few times and just kept on mixing until the sugar had melted and the tofu was completely smooth, with no signs of crumbly texture, as seen in this picture:

Then I added the melted chocolate and whisked it in. Now I just refrigerated the chocolate mousse for an hour or so, until it had thickened quite a bit.

Assembling the Cake:

First, I covered the top layer of the cake thinly with the chocolate mousse, and now we had two mousse-covered layers of cake, like this:

Now, I just had to make magic happen and insert the layers on top of each other, without messing it all up. With the help of some plastic wrap it was actually easy, since the cake base was pretty stable.

Finally, me and Heikki frosted the cake thoroughly, using a butter knife and what was left of the raspberry and chocolate mousses. Chocolate on the sides, since it was firmer, and raspberry on top, since it was pink:

Then I piped little decorations around the sides of the cake with a vegan whippable vanilla sauce, because I just didn’t have enough energy to make a third topping for the cake. And then I wrote on a cake for the first time in my life, that was fun!

And it was a success, the birthday girl said it was the best birthday cake anyone’s baked for her! Yay!