Last weekend I had the perfect occasion to bake my very first vegan cake. I spent the weekend in Suffolk with friends and had a mini staycation at their house. We’ve all brought food and wine, and spent the nights at home, cooking delicious meals, drinking fantastic wines, and dancing until our legs begged for mercy. It was amazing 🙂
Getting to the point of this recipe, since one of my friends is vegan, I prepared a lot of vegan meals (the most appreciated one was the Caponata – Aubergine Stew). However, when it came to dessert, I felt quite unprepared and challenged. How to make a vegan cake???
This was a good occasion to read through various articles and recipes. My main worry was about how to substitute eggs and discovered a whole piece of literature around that (using chia or flax seeds, for example, and much more, depending on the recipe you want to make).
In the end, I opted for a very simple chocolate sponge cake recipe. I mixed white wine vinegar with baking soda which helps raise light sponges. The ganache is all with dark chocolate, but if you prefer, you can also use half vegan milk chocolate and half dark chocolate, which will make it less bitter. But if you are a dark chocolate lover, like me, follow the recipe as it is 🙂
Vegan Chocolate Cake
Ingredients
For the cake sponge
For the chocolate ganache
To garnish
Instructions
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Pre-heat oven at 170C (fan). Grease a 20cm round cake tin and line the bottom with baking paper.
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Mix all the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, cocoa powder and salt) in a large bowl. Then add the oil, vanilla, and white wine vinegar. Melt the coffee powder in the measured hot water and add to the mix and whisk all the ingredients together until you obtain a smooth batter. Transfer it into the cake tin and bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes.
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In the meantime, prepare the chocolate ganache. Place the chocolate chips into a large bowl. Pour the coconut cream and almond milk into a different bowl and heat it in the microwave for 1 minute at max temperature. Careful not to overboil it. Pour the hot milk in the bowl with the chocolate chips and whisk very well until you obtain a cream. Set aside for 30 to 60 minutes to cool down so that the cream gets thicker.
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Once the cake is ready, remove it from the oven and set it aside to cool down. By the time your ganache is cool enough, the cake should be ready to be decorated.
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Cut the cake in half in order to obtain two discs of equal thickness. Spread some ganache on one disc using a spatula. Top it with some fresh raspberries. Top with the second cake disc and cover the top with the remaining ganache (use as much as needed). Decorate with more raspberries (I also used fresh flowers!).
