Vegan Chocolate Orange Cake
My mums birthday is on Christmas Eve, and since I was around 16 the duties of making her birthday cake have fallen to me. This year she requested a chocolate orange cake, probably wanting me to make a cake using Terry's Chocolate Orange chocolate, however as this is the first time I've been vegan at Christmas I took it as "challenge accepted" and decided to make a vegan one!
To achieve a vegan chocolate orange cake, I used mostly the same technique that I did for my Chocolate Orange Brownies, just with a cake recipe instead and icing for the top. This called for orange zest and orange essence. Another (slightly selfish) reason for making this cake is that for every year as long as I can remember, I've had leftover birthday cake from my Mum's birthday for my dessert on Christmas Day instead of Christmas Pudding. So this year, I had to make sure there was something I could have for pudding 😅 Mum absolutely loved this cake and said it passed her test of yumminess!
Total time: 1 Hour 30 Minutes
Yield: 1 Cake, Serves 8 people
Ingredients
- 150g Dairy-free Butter
- 175g Granulated Sugar
- 3 Tbsp Maple Syrup
- 300ml Soya Milk
- 1 Tsp Coffee Granules
- 275g Self-Raising Flour
- 4 Tbsp Cocoa Powder
- 1 Tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
- Zest of Two Large Oranges
- 200g Icing Sugar
- 75g Dairy Free Butter
- 30g Cocoa Powder
- Splash of Dairy Free Milk
- Orange Zest
- Dried Orange Slices
- Preheat oven to 180 degrees, grease and line two 7-inch round cake tins.
- Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Stir in the maple syrup and soya milk.
- Fold in the coffee granules, flour, cocoa powder and bicarbonate of soda.
- Mix in the orange zest until fully combined.
- Divide the mixture equally between the two cake tins.
- Bake for 25-30 minutes until a skewer inserted into the cakes comes out clean. Leave to cool completely on a wire rack.
- To make the icing, beat the butter until soft, then mix in the icing sugar and cocoa powder.
- Add a splash of dairy free milk to make a smooth icing.
- To assemble, place one of the cakes onto the plate/ cake board.
- Spread icing across the top of the cake, then place the other cake on top.
- Spread the remaining icing across the top of the cake then along the sides.
- Decorate the cake with the orange zest and dried orange slices (I made my own by slicing an orange, placing on a cooling rack on a baking tray and baking at a low temperature for 4 hours).