Three Layer Silky Chocolate Espresso Cake
2 cups of unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 a cup of cocoa powder
2 teaspoons of baking soda
1 1/2 cups of unrefined sugar
1/2 a teaspoon of salt
1 3/4 cups of strong coffee
2 tablespoons of natural rice vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoons of pure vanilla extract
4 tablespoons of vegetable oil
For the icing:
2 350g packages of medium silken tofu
4 tablespoons of maple syrup
2 teaspoons of pure vanilla extract
a double shot of espresso (optional)
2 cups of vegan dark chocolate chips
Preheat the oven to 350 Fahrenheit. Grease 3 equal sized cake pans.
Sift the flour, cocoa, and baking soda into a large bowl and mix together. Then add the sugar and salt and mix well.
In a separate bowl, combine the coffee, vinegar, vanilla, and oil. Stir them together until they're just well combined. If you over mix the cake, it wont be as fluffy.
Pour the mix equally into the cake pans. Tap the pans on the counter to let any air bubbles out.
Bake for about twenty minutes. Let the cake cool before removing from the pans so they don't break.
For the icing: in a double boiler melt the chocolate chips. Blend the melted chocolate in a food processor with the tofu, maple syrup, vanilla, and espresso. Put in fridge to cool, this will thicken the icing. Spread the icing on each layer and refrigerate for a few hours so the cake can set.
SO HOW'D IT GO?
Okay this is my first review, so bear with me. I didn't make this cake exact. I LOVE coffee and chocolate, but my friends aren't really coffee lovers so I converted this recipe into a chocolate peanut butter cake! Mmmmm......
Here's what I changed: Instead of three layers, I made two using 9" round baking pans. Instead of the coffee I used a few tbs of Silk Soy Creamer and the rest water. I made a PB frosting for only in the middle of the two layers using Silk Soy creamer, powdered sugar, and PB. For the outside frosting I used everything but the espresso and I used half tofu, half PB instead of the 2 pckgs of tofu. The tofu was soft, not medium because my grocer only carries soft and firm. Also I don't own a food processor, so I tried making the Chocolate-PB icing with a electronic beater... it didn't turn out well. THen I put it in the blender and it was perrrrrrfect!
Here's what went wrong: The choc-pb frosting was good, but not as sweet as I would have liked it (I wasn't looking for buttercream sweet or anything but it needed to be sweeter). I would Add more choc chips to it. But the biggest problem is that my cake fell apart. It wouldn't stay together! The frosting made it slide around even more! I even added flax seed for the egg substitute. So if anyone has any tips on how to make the cake hold up better, let me know.
ive had this recipe sitting around forever, and i finally made it today.
it.
was.
so.
excellent.
:>
that frosting...yummm.
wilton apparently has a spy in my head and somehow KNEW i would pee my pants over mini cake pans and so they MADE mini cake pans and put them at meijer so i could see them and drool over them and my mother could buy them for me as gifts :)
i one fourth-ed the recipe so i wouldnt have a bunch of extra batter, and it worked perfectly. i used apple cider vinegar instead of rice vinegar, and then the two teaspoons of baking soda and no baking powder seemed a little strange so i did 1/2 tsp of powder (one half because its one fourth of two) and then one eighth of soda because i realized that baking soda and vinegar was providing the lift-y part of the cake. im not sure if it made a difference because it was such a small amount, so maybe dont follow my advice :)
that frosting was excellent though! i would probably add a little more coffee to it..maybe some instant espresso powder or something..but the texture was wonderful! i just..i cant get over it haha. i drizzled a little quick melty ganache from vctotw over the top for added cuteness too.
my mom and i really enjoyed this! if i can figure out how to rate the recipe, its getting five stars! (: