Vegan Easter Chocolate Cake

iced cake

I love baking and enjoy it as a relaxing pastime, especially at weekends. There is nothing greater than having a fresh cake sat in the kitchen ready to dig into of an afternoon, with a pot of tea or to bring out at the end of a meal with friends as the grand finale. I tend to go for simple uncomplicated recipes that are fool proof, with a greater chance of turning out just right...after all there are few things sadder then a failed cake.

Through the years I've always found it hard to find a simple but delicious chocolate cake that wasn’t a brownie; this may sound strange and I know there are many recipes out there but I assure you they are either complicated or tasteless and dry.

A year ago a close friend’s birthday was coming up and though I’m not a vegan myself, many of her friends are. So I set out to find a vegan cake recipe so everyone could enjoy the fruits of my labour, and my search led me to this wonderfully tasty and moist chocolate cake.

www.instructables.com/id/The-BEST-chococlate-cake-ever...that-happens-to-be/

I’ve converted this recipe from cup measurement as the original recipe is American.

ingredients

equipment

Preheat the oven to 180C

155g cups flour
225g sugar
40g cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
235ml warm water
1 tsp vanilla extract
80ml vegetable oil
1 tsp distilled white or apple cider vinegar

Greece and line an 8 inch cake tin or 9 inch, if using a 9 inch tin reduce the cooking time accordingly ( I take 10 min off, but just keep an eye on it).

dry ingredients mixed

Measure out all the dry ingredients: flour, sugar (I forgot it in the ingredients picture so here it is), cocoa, baking soda and salt. Mix it all together with a fork until everything is thoroughly blended.

wet ingredients

Make a well in the centre and add all the wet ingredients: water, vanilla extract, oil and vinegar. Mix together until there are no lumps; don’t worry if it seems runny, that’s just how it’s meant to be.

pour into linded baking tin

Pour the mixture into a tin, then place on the middle shelf in the oven and bake for 30 minutes at 180C. A good test is to press down lightly on the surface of the cake to make an indent and if it rises back again quickly it’s ready, or alternatively stick a knife in there and if comes out clean you can be sure it's ready.

cool for a few hours

Let the cake rest for 10 mins when you take it out the oven, then cool on a rack for 2 hours or until completely cooled.

How simple is that!? Good baking does not have to be complicated or hard.

As this is a Easter cake I decided to give it a festive topping, I chose a simple butter cream icing using no dairy butter and a hint of green food colouring.

300g Icing sugar
150g Non-dairy butter
½ tsp Vanilla extract

Put the butter and vanilla extract in a bowl and slowly add the icing sugar while mixing together with an electric whisk. If it becomes too thick a dash of soya milk will loosen it back up again. Then if like me you want coloured icing, drop in the colouring while mixing until your desired colour is achieved. Apply icing slowly so as not to end up with it everywhere, then finish itoff with some sprinkles.

iced cake

cake slice