Ultimate Chocolate Cake

Friday was the birthday of both of my room mates, Carla and Helen. I am all about festivities, so I volunteered to make the cake.

Now, I will admit that I made the offer partially out of selfishness. I wanted to be able to eat cake too, which meant secretly making it vegan. Besides, I figured that they would be a game enough crowd to turn into my guinea pigs for a night.

If I hadn't told anyone, not a single soul would have suspected that this cake was not filled with butter and cream--that's how good it was. It was so fast, so easy, and so delicious. Incredibly chocolaty and very reminiscent of a moist brownie. Yum!

This recipe is from aliciak on Instructables.com.

First, combine 1 1/4 cups of flour, 1 cup of sugar, 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, 1 tsp baking powder, and 1/2 tsp salt in a baking dish (I used 7x9). Stir everything together with a fork.

Stir together dry ingredients.

Next, add to dry ingredients 1 cup of warm coffee, 1 tsp of vanilla extract, 1/3 cup of vegetable oil, and 1 tsp of distilled white or apple cider vinegar. This part is very important! If your vinegar isn't distilled and is diluted with water the cake will turn out to be a gooey brick. That would be a waste of perfectly good chocolaty awesomeness, so be careful. Mix everything thoroughly.

Cake batter after the wet ingredients are mixed in.

Next, bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until a knife comes out clean. Mine actually took only 25 minutes, so keep an eye on it and adjust for the size of the pan you are using. Let cool completely.

Fresh out of the oven.

Lastly, pour the icing mix on top (see recipe below). It will cool very, very quickly so spread it fast. Let cool one hour.

The icing is almost more like a ganache.

Finally, decorate and serve! I hope you enjoy this as much as we did--I think that every single one of us went for seconds!

So delicious!

For the frosting, combine 1/2 cup sugar, 4 tbsp margarine, 2 tbsp almond milk, and 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder in a small pot. Bring to a boil, turn down the heat, and then simmer for 2 minutes while stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir for an addition 5 minutes. At this point the icing should go from gloopy and bubbly to smooth, silky, and glassy. Stir in 2 tsp of vanilla extract and ice cake immediately.

So shiny you can see your reflection in it...

I will be playing with this recipe for sure in the future. I made it exactly the way the instructions said this time, but I'd like to experiment with whole wheat flour, apple sauce, and some sort of unprocessed sugar. Stay tuned!