Vegan MoFo day 30 - Fusion challenge with a persimmon cake

Whaaaaaaa? It's MoFo over today! I actually had to double take when I looked at the calendar! I'm not sure what I'll be able to do with myself after September.

For today's fusion challenge (gentle, MoFo-missing sob), I thought I should I bring together two of my favourite foods: Japanese and cake.

Before you leap in to tell me that Japanese people do indeed eat cake, I should point out I'm mixing up traditional Japanese flavours like miso, soy, and sake with traditional cake flavours. Like cake.

I thought I'd hark back to an ancient MoFo too - a couple of years ago, when I was cooking my way through an A to Z of new ingredients, I ate my first persimmon, served up in a shojin ryori recipe (Shojin ryori being the vegan cooking of Japanese Buddhist monks).

Said persimmon was sliced up and wrapped in a sauce of brown sugar, sake, and walnuts, and it's my inspiration for this cake.

Persimmon and walnut crumble cake 

Ingredients - dry

225g self-raising flour

1tsp baking powder

50g dark brown sugar

25g light brown sugar

Two very ripe persimmons, cut into small chunks

Ingredients - wet

150g silken tofu

25g sesame seeds

1/2 tsp brown miso

1tbsp sake

75g vegetable oil

50mls non-dairy milk

Dash of soy sauce

Ingredients - crumble

50g walnuts, chopped

35g dark brown sugar

15g flour

Knob of vegan spread

How you do it

Preheat the oven to 200C.

Combine the dry ingredients in one bowl.

In a separate bowl, stir together the walnuts, sugar and flour until mixed, then stir in the vegan spread until you have a sticky mess.

In a separate bowl, using a hand blender, blend together the wet ingredients until you have a smooth paste.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and mix together until well mixed.

Pour the cake mix into a greased loaf tin, then top with the crumble mix.

Bake for 40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean. (Check after 25 minutes, and if the crumble is getting too brown, cover the cake.)