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some_stars) wrote2011-10-26 09:42 pm
some_stars) wrote2011-10-26 09:42 pm
Vegan chocolate cake
I've got cake in the oven again, and as I was pondering the depth of my wild untameable love for this recipe, I decided I would share it with you guys. It's a really common and simple recipe so you may well already know it, especially if you're vegan (which I am not, but I often don't have eggs around when I need cake), or if you read a lot of old recipes--every website I've seen this recipe on has someone commenting that their mom or grandmother made baking-soda-and-vinegar cake during rationing in WW2.
But just in case anyone doesn't, and on the off chance that anyone might actually benefit from my tips, such as they are, and because I actually have put a bit of effort into distilling the eighteen million versions of this recipe into the one that I like best, here's the recipe along with excessive commentary. I talk too much and it looks really long--I swear it doesn't actually have seven steps--but it seriously takes like ten minutes to prepare. Easiest cake EVER. If you have a fear of baking, this is definitely the cake to begin with. Also, and more relevant to my life at the moment, once you've bought the ingredients (and assuming you don't go all out on the cocoa and get that tiny tin that costs twenty bucks) it's so cheap, especially compared to buying a nice cake or some really good ice cream or gourmet cookies or the various other store-bought desserts I tend to mysteriously acquire, like lint, when I haven't had any proper dessert in a while.
The changes I made to the original recipe, which I found Somewhere On The Internet: reduced sugar from 1 c., increased cocoa from 1/3 c. I'm not one of those sophisticated people with sensitive palates who are always removing sugar from desserts, but I find that the chocolate comes through better if it's a little less sweet. It's not massively sweet to begin with, though, so if you're eating it without jam or frosting or anything and you're a dessert traditionalist like me, you might try using a full cup of sugar.
Ingredients (only in American, sorry)
1 1/4 c. all-purpose flour, sifted
1/2 c. cocoa, sifted (I use Ghirardelli so clearly you don't have to go way upmarket here, but it's a chocolate cake, so use something at least a little nicer than Hershey's)
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 c. + 1-2 Tbsp white sugar, or vegan equivalent *
1 c. water
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 c. vegetable oil
1 tsp apple cider vinegar**
Steps
1. Preheat oven to 350 F and get your small, clean cake pan ready, because you're going to be in a hurry at the end. I use an 8x8 square brownie pan and don't grease it, but then I basically never bother to lift the cake out of the pan after it's baked, I just eat it with a spoon (not all at once), so some greasing or flouring might be a good idea, IDK. This recipe makes one layer of an average-size layer cake. (See step 6 for thoughts on using a proper cake pan.)
2. Mix together the dry stuff in a reasonably large bowl.
3. Add the water, vanilla, and oil. I have determined no measurable difference between adding the water first or the oil first, although if you add the water and then mix it all up and then add the oil, you get an oil slick on top; after mixing there's no difference in the end, but it tends to slosh over the sides and is annoying.
4. Make sure the oven is fully heated and have your pan ready before step five.
5. Add the vinegar and stir it in, using more of a folding motion than really stirring. The reaction that provides the substitute for eggs starts immediately, so you have two conflicting goals: distribute that reaction throughout the batter, and get it into the oven as soon as possible. This sounds more dramatic than it really is; you don't need to (and shouldn't) integrate the vinegar fully--you want that pale-colored ribbon--and nothing disastrous will happen if you take 90 seconds instead of 30. Basically, stir it but not too much, then pour it into the pan and get it in the oven.
6. Since I use a smaller pan and therefore get a taller cake, I need to bake it for almost 30 minutes. If you're using a regular cake pan, start doing the toothpick test in the center at 20 minutes and every few minutes thereafter. You really don't want to overbake this cake or it gets dry, so don't be stingy with the toothpicks. NB: I have never actually made this recipe in a 9" cake pan, and have no real idea what will happen. For all I know it might explode. (But probably not.) I also don't really know the proper way to cool and remove cakes intended to be layered and served on an actual plate. I think there are wire racks involved? Clearly this is the most helpful recipe ever.
7. At this point you have options. The first several times I made this cake I was pretty inept and it came out too dry, which is how I developed the habit of eating it with massive amounts of good raspberry jam. Actually, when made right it's moist and delicious enough to eat plain or with a chocolate glaze or anything you like, but I still add the jam because that shit is delicious. What I do is I poke some holes in it as soon as it comes out of the oven and cover it with a thick layer of jam, which proceeds to melt and seep through the cake. Then when I eat it I add a little more jam to each serving. If you're not going the jam route, let it cool and then frost or not according to your preference. Or eat it hot and plain with a spoon, that's good too.
* I know nothing about converting white sugar to vegan sweeteners--there's vegan granulated sugar available, right? Plus many and varied syrups?--but I'm given to understand that this sort of information is widely available on the internet. If you're using a liquid sweetener, you probably want to add it with the other liquids, though again you should definitely not take my word over that of actual Vegan Baking Experts.
** I've seen recipes for soda-and-vinegar cakes using white vinegar, but if you use a little too much or some mysterious something-or-other goes wrong, your cake may end up with a very slight vinegar taste, and ACV ensures it'll still be good and even kind of intriguing, if not precisely what you were going for.
But just in case anyone doesn't, and on the off chance that anyone might actually benefit from my tips, such as they are, and because I actually have put a bit of effort into distilling the eighteen million versions of this recipe into the one that I like best, here's the recipe along with excessive commentary. I talk too much and it looks really long--I swear it doesn't actually have seven steps--but it seriously takes like ten minutes to prepare. Easiest cake EVER. If you have a fear of baking, this is definitely the cake to begin with. Also, and more relevant to my life at the moment, once you've bought the ingredients (and assuming you don't go all out on the cocoa and get that tiny tin that costs twenty bucks) it's so cheap, especially compared to buying a nice cake or some really good ice cream or gourmet cookies or the various other store-bought desserts I tend to mysteriously acquire, like lint, when I haven't had any proper dessert in a while.
The changes I made to the original recipe, which I found Somewhere On The Internet: reduced sugar from 1 c., increased cocoa from 1/3 c. I'm not one of those sophisticated people with sensitive palates who are always removing sugar from desserts, but I find that the chocolate comes through better if it's a little less sweet. It's not massively sweet to begin with, though, so if you're eating it without jam or frosting or anything and you're a dessert traditionalist like me, you might try using a full cup of sugar.
Ingredients (only in American, sorry)
1 1/4 c. all-purpose flour, sifted
1/2 c. cocoa, sifted (I use Ghirardelli so clearly you don't have to go way upmarket here, but it's a chocolate cake, so use something at least a little nicer than Hershey's)
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 c. + 1-2 Tbsp white sugar, or vegan equivalent *
1 c. water
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 c. vegetable oil
1 tsp apple cider vinegar**
Steps
1. Preheat oven to 350 F and get your small, clean cake pan ready, because you're going to be in a hurry at the end. I use an 8x8 square brownie pan and don't grease it, but then I basically never bother to lift the cake out of the pan after it's baked, I just eat it with a spoon (not all at once), so some greasing or flouring might be a good idea, IDK. This recipe makes one layer of an average-size layer cake. (See step 6 for thoughts on using a proper cake pan.)
2. Mix together the dry stuff in a reasonably large bowl.
3. Add the water, vanilla, and oil. I have determined no measurable difference between adding the water first or the oil first, although if you add the water and then mix it all up and then add the oil, you get an oil slick on top; after mixing there's no difference in the end, but it tends to slosh over the sides and is annoying.
4. Make sure the oven is fully heated and have your pan ready before step five.
5. Add the vinegar and stir it in, using more of a folding motion than really stirring. The reaction that provides the substitute for eggs starts immediately, so you have two conflicting goals: distribute that reaction throughout the batter, and get it into the oven as soon as possible. This sounds more dramatic than it really is; you don't need to (and shouldn't) integrate the vinegar fully--you want that pale-colored ribbon--and nothing disastrous will happen if you take 90 seconds instead of 30. Basically, stir it but not too much, then pour it into the pan and get it in the oven.
6. Since I use a smaller pan and therefore get a taller cake, I need to bake it for almost 30 minutes. If you're using a regular cake pan, start doing the toothpick test in the center at 20 minutes and every few minutes thereafter. You really don't want to overbake this cake or it gets dry, so don't be stingy with the toothpicks. NB: I have never actually made this recipe in a 9" cake pan, and have no real idea what will happen. For all I know it might explode. (But probably not.) I also don't really know the proper way to cool and remove cakes intended to be layered and served on an actual plate. I think there are wire racks involved? Clearly this is the most helpful recipe ever.
7. At this point you have options. The first several times I made this cake I was pretty inept and it came out too dry, which is how I developed the habit of eating it with massive amounts of good raspberry jam. Actually, when made right it's moist and delicious enough to eat plain or with a chocolate glaze or anything you like, but I still add the jam because that shit is delicious. What I do is I poke some holes in it as soon as it comes out of the oven and cover it with a thick layer of jam, which proceeds to melt and seep through the cake. Then when I eat it I add a little more jam to each serving. If you're not going the jam route, let it cool and then frost or not according to your preference. Or eat it hot and plain with a spoon, that's good too.
* I know nothing about converting white sugar to vegan sweeteners--there's vegan granulated sugar available, right? Plus many and varied syrups?--but I'm given to understand that this sort of information is widely available on the internet. If you're using a liquid sweetener, you probably want to add it with the other liquids, though again you should definitely not take my word over that of actual Vegan Baking Experts.
** I've seen recipes for soda-and-vinegar cakes using white vinegar, but if you use a little too much or some mysterious something-or-other goes wrong, your cake may end up with a very slight vinegar taste, and ACV ensures it'll still be good and even kind of intriguing, if not precisely what you were going for.
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Conversely, there are some vegans who do consume city water and who consequently have decided that they're not going to worry about any products that are processed using bone char; those vegans are willing to eat white sugar.
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