Vegan Gingerbread House Cake Recipe

To make the cakes

1. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees c and line three 6 inch square cake tins with grease-proof paper.
2. In a bowl, combine the dairy-free milk with the apple cider vinegar and whisk until fully combined. Set aside for 10 minutes to curdle. This creates a vegan 'buttermilk'.
3. In a large mixing bowl, sift the flour, ground ginger, sugar, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda. Mix well to combine.
4. Add the melted coconut oil into the 'buttermilk' and whisk to combine.
5. Add the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix.
6. Pour equal amounts of batter into the lined cake tins. Make sure to tap the tins on the worktop to remove any air bubbles.
7. Pop the cakes into the centre of the preheated oven and bake for around 28-30 minutes. You will know they are baked when you put a knife or skewer in and it comes out clean and they are springy to the touch.
8. Place the cakes on a cooling rack and allow to cool fully. Once cool, pop them into a sealed container to keep them fresh before frosting.

To make the buttercream

1. In a bowl/stand mixer, cream the butter on high then add in the icing sugar.
2. Divide the buttercream into 3 separate bowls.
3. In the first bowl, add in 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder and 1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger, along with 2 Nakd Gingerbread bars (crumbled). This is for the filling. In the second bowl, add in 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder and 1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger. This is for the coating. In the third bowl, leave it plain. This is for the decoration.
4. Stack and fill the cakes with the Nakd buttercream, then crumb coat the whole cake with the darker cocoa buttercream and pop into the fridge to set. This will take around 1 hour. To decorate, I added leftover cocoa buttercream into a piping bag fitted with a medium patisserie tip nozzle and piped some swirls around the top edge of the cake.
5. Add the white buttercream into a piping bag and pipe on the gingerbread house details, windows, stitching etc. I topped off the cake with some mini gingerbread cookies and a dusting of snow (icing sugar). Serve fresh or store in a sealed container in the fridge, the buttercream will firm up at room temperature. Best eaten within a few days!