vegan chocolate cake for those of little faith (me)

The Sunday afternoon picnic cake for today was destined to be vegan, given the invitation to our beautiful friends Greg and Jan's place. 

A vegan cake? No eggs? No butter? No milk? What would make it rise? 

I, predictably, googled it madly. There were a whole bunch of recipes, SOME OF THEM WRITTEN BY GREG. No pressure. Greg is only the producer of THIS app. They're really good friends of ours, so you know you can comfortably show up with something a bit shite and they'll still dig it. But because they're really good friends of ours and veganism has kinda changed their lives in so many good ways, I wanted to make something not shite. 

So I had a red hot go at a chocolate cake. I combined a few recipes including my own favourite chocolate cake recipe and came up with an egg-free, dairy-free choc cake... that rose its little heart out. How about that. I went heavy on the bicarb and vinegar and self raising flour just in case, and the flavour was lovely and the texture terrific. I even made frosting out of raw cacao powder, pure icing sugar and organic coconut oil. It was not shite, not a bit. 

If you have any favourite vegans, you could make this! It's simple:

Ingredients:

Mix with a whisk -

1.5 cups self-raising flour +

1 cup brown sugar (I think you could reduce this) +

1/3 cup raw cacao (unsweetened cocoa will do) +

1 tsp baking powder +

1/2 tsp salt

Mix seperately -

1 cup hot coffee +

1 tsp vanilla extract +

1/3 cup grapeseed oil (if you don't have this handy you could use just about any vegie or nut oil)

1 tsp apple cider vinegar (again, if you don't have this you could use distilled white.)

Mix wet and dry ingredients together and scrape into a greased and paper-lined 20cm round cake tin. 

Bake for approx 35 mins or until baked through and springy, on 180 degrees celcius. 

Icing: I'm so sorry, I have no measurements. I'll make it again and write it down and update this. I used approx 2 tbsp raw cacao + approx 1.5 cups pure icing sugar + approx 1 tbsp organic coconut oil + approx 2 tsp boiling water. I used electric hand beaters and mixed until thick and glossy. I used flaked organic coconut on top. 

YUM. 

Next it'll be kale and quinoa at dawn, watch out.

xxx

P.S. Food photography today, the good shots, by Greg Twemlow. 

Comments

[June]

Just thought I'd let you know that I love the new website. Easy to follow and well laid out. I took myself on a tour of your offerings and home that at some stage I can come for a picnic lunch and buy some of your farm fresh/made goodies. Good luck.

[Cassandra Allen]

Looks delicious! I love coconut oil, eat it daily. An idea for vegan stuff is cashews, they whiz up in a good processor or Vitamix blender and make a dreamy creamy mouthwatering paste to use as part of icing-type stuff. And blended dates (soaked a bit first if they are too hard) make a seriously scrumptious contender for sugar.
I love Sarah Britton's ideas for unusual but easy recipes. Here are two of many many...(the salad is tooo yum)
http://www.mynewroots.org/site/2011/01/raw-cashew-dreamcake-2/
http://www.mynewroots.org/site/2010/06/the-best-lentil-salad-ever-2/
xx.c

[Helena]

Beautiful cake, Fi! Gorgeous photos. Loveliest part—you can feel the love you have for your dear (and my dear) friends… it's just shining out. Delicious. :)

[trixi]

This cake looks so delicious and I'm not even vegan and i want to make it!

[anna @ annamayeveryday]

This cake looks great and clearly it rose a treat - what a thing. When I need a vegan cake I will make this and when I just want a really delicious looking chocolate cake I will make this!

[GretchenJoanna]

I have often needed a such a cake, and have a similar recipe, but judging from your photos yours does have a better rise and therefore a better crumb, so I will use it next time. Thanks for sharing your experiment!