Vegan Chocolate Cake

Recipe:

Start with the frosting.

If you can buy coconut cream, use it. If not, buy coconut milk and let it sit in the refrigerator overnight (or 3-4 hours). Then open it up and collect the top white part – that will be your cream. Anything left at the bottom can be used for a curry or Asian soup.

Chop the chocolate (if you have chocolate in drops, use it as is). Place in a bowl. Bring the coconut cream to a boil and pour into the bowl with the chocolate. Let stand for 2-3 minutes, then whisk until smooth.

Cover with plastic wrap and chill for a few hours.

Prepare the cake.

Brew the coffee – this can be done in any convenient way. I brew it in a Geyser coffee maker.

Sift the dry ingredients together.

Add the sugar. Pour in the vinegar, vegetable oil, and hot coffee and mix quickly. It will be about the thickness of pancake batter.

Pour the batter evenly into 2 greased baking pans (I also put a circle of parchment on the bottom to make it easier to remove the crusts). For this recipe, that will be 400 grams of batter in each pan. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 °C (355 °F). Bake for about 30-35 minutes. Remove and let stand in the tins for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

When cooled, cut the rims off the cooled cakes. Slice each cake into 2 layers.

Crumble the trimmings into crumbs.

To make the syrup, combine the sugar and water, bring to a boil, and let cool completely.

Remove the ganache from the refrigerator and let stand at room temperature for 15 minutes. Then whip with a mixer until soft and slightly fluffy. Do not over-whip or the ganache may separate.

Assemble the cake. Soak the cakes with syrup and spread with frosting.

Coat the assembled cake on all sides with the remaining frosting.

Sprinkle with crumbs. Refrigerate for 4-6 hours. Serve. I made mini popcakes from leftover cake trimmings with pistachio sprinkles for decoration.

Enjoy!