Buckwheat heather cakes (vegan and gluten-free)

We are avoiding wheat at the moment (in addition to me doing Vegan Month for November), and as I had bought some buckwheat flour recently, I remembered the buckwheat tortes a particular German region of heather moorlands is famous for. They are basically buckwheat sponge cakes with a cream and cranberry jam filling. I made these little cupcakes to get a feel for the baking properties of buckwheat flour. I was pleasantly surprised by how well the nutty taste of buckwheat works in a cake, and how nice a texture it turned out. Expect the cakes to be slightly crumbly, but lovely spongy and moist, with a beautiful crust. These should be topped with a little (vegan) whipped cream or some vegan buttercream and additional cranberry jam. I will make these as a sponge cake one of these days with a layer of buttercream and jam in between. If you absolutely cannot find or do not like cranberry jam, use raspberry, blueberry or currant.

1 cup soy milk
1/3 cup oil
3/4 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extract
2 tbsp ground flax seed
1 1/4 cup buckwheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup ground hazelnuts or almonds (or increase the flour by this amount to make nut-free)
cranberry or other red jam

Line a muffin pan with liners. Preheat oven to 175 degrees C.
In a large bowl, whisk together soy milk, oil, sugar and extracts. Beat in the flax seeds.
Sift in the flour, baking powder and soda and salt. Mix to combine, folding in the hazelnuts or almonds.
Spoon mix into muffin liners. Drop a generous teaspoon full of jam into the centre of each cake.
Bake for about 20 mins. Allow to cool completely if frosting.