Tantallon cakes are not cakes at all, but crisp lemony shortbread biscuits with a scalloped edge, named after a ruined mediaeval castle on the east coast of Scotland.
This recipe for vegan Tantallon cakes follows a recipe from a 1940s cookbook, using equal amounts of ground rice and wheat flour. The lemon zest is an addition which often features in Tantallon cakes, and complements the creamy flavour of the rice.
It’s better to use a vegan margarine with a higher fat content (similar to butter, which is around 80% fat) for pastries and biscuits that should have a crisp texture, like these. Most soft vegan margarines available in the UK contain less than 60% fat, but you can substitute some coconut oil (which is 100% fat!) for some of the margarine. Of course, you can still use a lower fat margarine in most recipes – you’ll just have less crispy results.
These biscuits take minutes to prepare and just ten minutes in the oven, so they couldn’t be much quicker, and they’re lovely with a cup of tea or as part of a dessert with fresh fruit and ice cream.
Vegan tantallon cakes…
ingredients
- 70 g vegan margarine
- 60 g ground rice
- 60 g plain white/unbleached flour
- 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 60 g granulated white sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
- zest of 1/4 of a medium lemon
method
- Set the oven to 180°C/360°F and line or lightly oil a baking sheet (with enough room for 10 x 7.5 cm biscuits).
- Place all the ingredients in a bowl and use a pastry blender (preferably) or a fork to blend everything together as you would do to make pastry. (If the margarine is very hard, soften it a little beforehand.)
- Use your hands to bring the dough together into a ball. It will feel like a slightly gritty, oily pastry dough.
- Roll the dough to a thickness of around 3mm on a floured board. If you find the edges splitting, just press them back together and keep going.
- Use a 6.5 or 7 cm scallop-edged cookie cutter to cut out ten rounds, and transfer these to the baking sheet. They will expand a little, so allow some space between them.
- Bake for around ten minutes, until they are starting to turn golden at the edges.
- Sprinkle them liberally with granulated sugar as soon as you remove them from the oven, then leave them to cool completely.
- They will store well in an airtight tin.
If you would like to receive e-mail alerts when new recipes are published, please see my contact page.
