Simple and Rich Vegan Chocolate Cake

Moist, rich chocolate cake that is quick and easy to make and you would never guess is vegan!

If you are looking for a go-to vegan chocolate cake recipe that you can whip up fairly quickly and with minimal effort, which will please the crowds, then look no further!

This was an old favourite recipe that I used to make often as a birthday cake, celebration cake, or just when that chocolate craving hit.

Initially when I read the recipe I could not understand how the ingredients I was reading could translate into a tasty chocolate cake. It makes use of an ingredient which one doesn’t traditionally think of in the context of sweet food.

Let me tell you though that this ingredient is the one that creates the moist, dense texture that I love so much about this cake!

That ingredient is mayonnaise!

I know, eeuw right?

Not at all though, trust me on this. If you think about it, a traditional chocolate cake would ordinarily use flour, sugar, cocoa powder, eggs, oil, milk, baking powder etc. Traditionally, good mayonnaise was made as an emulsion of mostly eggs and oil, so it would make sense to substitute it.

In this recipe I used B-Well mayonnaise which is vegan, and it turned out just like the original eggy version. I also used margarine for the icing instead of butter, to make it vegan.

With a bit of experimentation, I found that this vegan chocolate mayonnaise cake would be made 100 times better by using a chocolate ganache icing instead of the standard ‘butter’ cream variety.

Recipe for the decadent vegan chocolate ganache frosting is coming up, and I will link it into this post as soon as I have perfected the quantities.

In the meantime, why not invent an occasion to try out this fudgy chocolate cake?

It is Tuesday and I am alive! That is celebration enough to try a new chocolate cake recipe right?

This vegan chocolate cake is rich, chocolatey, dense, moist, not too sweet, and very simple to make.

Just the way I like it!

Simple and Rich Vegan Chocolate Cake

0 from 0 votes

Recipe by Catherine Stevenson Course: Sweets, Cake, DessertDifficulty: Easy

Servings

8

servings

Prep time

20

minutes

Cooking time

30

minutes

A moist and dense vegan chocolate cake with a surprise ingredient!

Ingredients

• 3 cups plain flour

• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

• 200ml cocoa powder

• 375ml sugar or xylitol

• 2 tsp vanilla essence

• 375ml cold water

• 1 cup B-Well tangy original mayonnaise

• 1 tsp instant coffee granules

• Chocolate Butter Cream Icing

• 115g Flora vegan margarine

• 230g icing sugar

• 6Tbsp cocoa powder

• 1 tsp vanilla essence

• Dash of plant-based milk, to make a spreadable consistency

Directions

• Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
• Sift together the dry ingredients.
• Dissolve the instant coffee granules in a small amount of warm water, then add it to the cold water.
• Add the remaining ingredients and mix well.
• Pour into 2 greased 20cm cake tins and bake for between 25-30 mins, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
• Allow to cool for 5 mins in the tin, then turn out onto a cooling rack.
• Once the cake is completely cool, ice with butter cream icing, or chocolate ganache icing (recipe coming soon).
• Chocolate Butter Cream Icing
• While the cake is cooling, make the icing.
  Cream the margarine and icing sugar in a medium sized bowl with an electric beater.
• Add the cocoa powder and vanilla essence and beat again.
• Add in the plant-based milk little by little while beating, until a spreadable consistency is achieved.

Recipe adapted from Pam Hirschsohn’s Treasury of Recipes cookbook.