I hope you all had a wonderful Easter holiday. I spent mine with my partner and his family, eating way too much food and trying not to eat all the chocolate too. His brother and sister-in-law hosted us all on Good Friday, and on Easter Sunday his parents did. Both his mother and sister-in-law put on an amazing spread of food that we all ate too much of, and that was before we even thought about dessert.
I bought along a couple of baked goods for the occasion, baking most of it vegan so everyone could eat some. I made a batch of hot cross buns to bring because they’re lots of fun to make, but also because it’s next to impossible to find any here that don’t contain palm oil, especially not vegan ones. And then there was this Easter-themed cake.
Making chocolate cake vegan is so easy. There’s so many recipes that are already incidentally vegan or an easy substitute away from it. This time I decided to spice things up a little with a Mexican chocolate cake.
Like most oil-based recipe, this cake recipe is as easy as it comes. Quickly sift all the dry ingredients into one bowl, and all the wet ones in a jug.
You’ll mix them up separately, then mix them all together.
Your batter should be chocolaty and thick with no lumps remaining, then it’s ready to pour into a tin and bake!
I often default to ganache when making vegan cakes, but I hadn’t tried doing a whipped chocolate ganache yet. I always substitute coconut cream in when I need to whip the cream, so figured it would work the same way in the ganache. I use cans of pure coconut cream and they always work for whipping, but if the can you have has water added to it you will need to let the can sit in the fridge overnight first. The cream and water will separate into two layers and you can pour off the cream first.
I baked two batches of cake and also double the amount of ganache so I could use it as the filling as well.
Then I covered the whole lot with ganache and left it to set.
To keep in with the Easter theme, I made a nest from shredded coconut I quickly roasted in the oven. Then I topped them with the speckled egg macarons from last week. The macs, quite obviously, aren’t vegan — that’s something I’m yet to attempt to figure out.
I only used a small amount of cayenne pepper, as some of the recipients aren’t overly keen on spicy food. If everyone eating the cake is, you can easily double it.
This recipe will make enough for a small cake with enough ganache to cover it. If you want a taller cake like I did, bake two of them and double the ganache recipe.
| Mexican Chocolate Cake |
| Ingredients |
| Mexican Chocolate Cake
225g (8oz/1.5 cups) plain flour 220g (7.8oz/1 cup) caster sugar 40g (1.4oz/1/3 cup) dutch processed cocoa powder 2 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 tbsp instant coffee powder, dissolved in 1 tbsp (20ml) boiling water 230ml (7.8fl oz) cold water 1 tbsp vinegar (I used apple cider vinegar) 100m (3.4fl oz) vegetable oil 1 tbsp vanilla extract Whipped chocolate ganache 200g dark chocolate, chopped 100ml cream (use pure coconut cream for a vegan cake) |
| Method |
Mexican Chocolate Cake
Whipped chocolate ganache
|
Cakecrumbs 
Wow…this looks amazing and not too hard! I am thinking of taking on the 22 day Vegan challenge so this would be amazing 🙂
Definitely as simple as it gets!
How gorgeous! I love the addition of macarons (even though they are not vegan obviously)–really gives it a nice Easter mood. Think this would be awesome for Cinco de Mayo too. 🙂
Definitely! That’s one holiday celebration that hasn’t really gained wings over here yet.
fyi, let this joyful vegan tell you that there’s an absolutely fantastic macaron on the market by Sweet Maresa’s, so it definitely can be done–google “sweet maresa macaron” and prepare to have your socks knocked off! 🙂
You may have just saved this mother’s reputation! My vegan daughter’s birthday is today and as I’m not yet up to speed on vegan recipes, so I’m hoping your Mexican chocolate cake does the trick! Thank you!
Oh that’s awesome! If you ever need another last minute cake, the chocolate cake I used for the base here is another goodie and just as easy: https://cakecrumbs.me/2013/04/04/chocolate-mousse-cake/
The Mexican one is very rich and mud cake like, the other one is more on the fluffy side (I use that other one all time time, for vegan and non-vegan recipient cakes). Both are the same method and crazy simple to make.
Reblogged this on KenMaursCorner and commented:
This looks perfect for a birthday cake!
Hi 🙂
I’m just interested in where you got your cake recipe from. It’s really similar to mine… I’d like to know why your recipe has half the flour that my recipe has, when the only other real difference between the two is the dissolved coffee. How does it affect the texture of the cake?
It’s based off of a another choc mudcake recipe I have, I just added in the cinnamon and pepper and added the dissolved coffee to the water. I’d have to try it the other way to know for sure, but I imagine if there’s twice as much flour it’s probably not going to be as mud-cakey (total technical term there). Perhaps it will rise more and be fluffier.
Okay, thanks! 😀
This is the first time I’ve heard of Mexican chocolate cake, thanks so much for sharing. This looks like a very rick chocolate cake, especially with the ganache. I think one piece will make me very, very, full. It looks like it takes a long time to make this cake? 🙂
It’s definitely very rich! I needed a very small slice.
As far as what I’m used to, this cake is one of the quickest and easiest to make. The baking time is quite short as well.
That is interesting to hear. I would have thought it would take longer than other fancy, creamy cakes as you have to be careful spreading ganache…it has always been a messy affair for me with cream and all. I think I’m just clumsy 😉
omg this looks so delicious!!