Vegan Chocolate Cake

You knew I'd kick things off again with pics of the Father's Day cake, didn't you??!! :)

This is my Triple Layer Chocolate Cream Cake from The Everyday Vegan. You may think it 'sounds' difficult, but trust me guys - it's not!! And, I have to tell you that this cake is always a crowd pleaser, and I have non-veg people ask me for the recipe all the time - seriously!

It's actually quite easy, particularly if you do two things:
1) Make your frosting and cake on different days. This is what I normally do, it make for less mess and clean-up in one day. Make the frosting a day or two before making the cakes, and refrigerate in containers with tight fitting lids
2) Let the finished cake refrigerate overnight if possible before cutting into it. This helps the frosting 'set up' with the cake layers.

Set up your chocolate to melt. As you can see, I use a bowl fitted over a pot with water.

The water should be simmering, not boiling, so that no water/steam gets into the melting chocolate. This would seize up the chocolate, and that's not fun!

While melting the chocolate, blend the SILKEN tofu and other frosting ingredients in your food processor. DO NOT use regular tofu (I've had people use regular tofu instead of silken firm. This will result in a chocolate veggie burger!!) Also, use a food processor, NOT a mixer. You need the blade to cut through the tofu until very smooth. The beaters on a mixer will not do it for you.

When the chocolate is silky smooth, as it is in this picture, add it to the tofu mixture, while pureeing the tofu. You will need to scrape the bowl down several times and puree it through again.

Once it is all blended and smooth, you can transfer to containers and refrigerate (and just try not to dip into it with a spoon!!)


Then, the next day, make your cake. You just need a large bowl and a spoon, don't even need a mixer. Pour the batter fairly evenly into three round pans, as so.

After baking, and cooling, you can frost the cake. My daughter is helping here, and the whole time she was saying "can I lick the spatula now?". Put a good amount of the frosting between the cake layers... don't scrimp! After smoothing out the frosting, I decorated most simply by grating dark chocolate over the top...

...voila!




Cooking Note: I used dutch-processed cocoa powder in the batter this time round, and I have to tell you that regular cocoa powder works better for this cake. Unless a recipe specifically calls for dutch-processed cocoa, use regular. They differ in how they react with baking soda/baking powder, and in this case the cake was not as springy and was more difficult to cut than usual. Still tasted amazing, just not as "clean" to remove from the pan and then cut.

Now, go make this cake, already!! :)