Vegan Chocolate Cake

[magid]

I keep on finding myself making this cake for birthdays. It surprises me: I am not a dessert baker. Bread baker, yes, but baked goods, not much.

I was planning on making two tonight, one for the work birthday party tomorrow, and one for either potluck or Shabbat dinner. Unfortunately for me, I ran out of soy milk. At least there was enough for the one cake...

It's mostly a recipe from More Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin, in the essay titled "Three Chocolate Cakes". I modified the third cake, originally called Karen Edwards's Version of Buttermilk Cocoa Cake, to be vegan. (Btw, this is a wonderful book, along with her other book of food essays, so surprisingly named Home Cooking. She's a real person cooking, not a chef, and she writes wonderful stuff about food. Though I didn't care for her fiction at all.)

I like this recipe for a bunch of reasons: I'm lazy, so a one-bowl recipe is great (no melting chocolate, etc); it's actually pretty quick to mix together; it's chocolate, so almost everybody is happy with it (I have one friend allergic to chocolate. I pity him.); it's vegan, so pretty much everyone I know will eat it. (Add a name in chocolate chips across the top and it's a lovely personalized birthday cake, apparently...). And if it's underdone and really squidgy, at least no one's worried about salmonella (same thing with licking the spoon after, too).


1. Preheat oven to 350. Butter (aka spray w/ whichever of those sprays you use, or use margarine, whatever) and flour a 9 inch round by 2 inch high cake pan. (Note: I doubled this recipe and used a 9 x 13 inch rectangle. I suspect I should've added time to the baking time (more than an extra 5 min or so), but if you like it squidgy, keep to the original timing.)

2. Mix 1.75 c flour, 0.75 c cocoa powder, 1 c sugar, 1 tsp baking soda, 0.25 tsp salt.

3. Add 1 c buttermilk (for the vegan version I used soy milk with a bit of vinegar added (Well, I did that the first time, and have since dispensed with the vinegar, since it's not noticed)), 0.5 c veg oil/ melted butter, and 2 tsp vanilla. Mix.

4. Put batter in pan (not a runny batter (but the cake was a home run. (couldn't resist :-))). bake in the middle of the oven for 30 min, or until a toothpick comes out clean. (I didn't try the toothpick, since I made it to a squidgier cake, more brownie-like). Cool for 5 min before attempting to turnout of the pan. (I never bother to turn the cake out of the pan.)

Comments

here's another one...

[gingicat]

...this one is from my Too Much Food recipes webpage.

Merv's Mom's Chocolate Wonder Cake

My friend Merv claims that his mother never taught him how to cook.   Nevertheless, she did manage to share this wonderful eggless, milkless, fudgy chocolate cake recipe, which Merv has been bringing to Arisia staff parties for years. It's even pareve/vegan if you make it with vegan margarine instead of butter.

Ingredients
Items in parentheses indicate measurements for a double batch.
1.5 cups flour (3 cups flour)
1 cup sugar (2 cups sugar)
3 tablespoons Hershey’s Cocoa (6 tablespoons Hershey’s Cocoa)
1 teaspoon baking soda (2 teaspoons baking soda)
0.5 teaspoons salt (1 teaspoon salt)
6 tablespoons butter (12 tablespoons butter)
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar (2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar)
1 teaspoon vanilla (2 teaspoons vanilla)
1 cup cold water (2 cups cold water)

Mix all dry ingredients together in a pan. Make a hole in three corners. Put vanilla, butter, vinegar in each hole. Pour cold water over all ingredients. Blend well with fork; make sure there are no lumps.

Bake 350°F for 25 – 30 minutes.

Re: here's another one...

[magid.livejournal.com]

size of pan?

Re: here's another one...

[gingicat]

Tall round 9" cake pan, I think. It's been a while since I made it.

Cake permutations

[magid.livejournal.com]

with chili
with coffee
gingerbready version