Every year, Emma’s birthday is a turning point for the amount of cooking/baking/cleaning/other domestic activities that take place in our home. It marks 6 weeks until Christmas which of course, sends me into a frenzy preparing for the holidays. There has been something in the oven pretty much every day this past week, and I anticipate much more over the coming weeks.
Earlier this year, I also “declared” that I hoped to change the types of gifts we give to our family and friends. Well it turned out to be my sister-in-law’s birthday recently and as a result of this declaration, and the baking frenzy, we got to all enjoy an absolutely delicious chocolate cake. I realized I happened upon something really good when my mother, a retired baker and a lifelong purveyor of excellent homemade goodies, tasted the cake and exclaimed “I can’t believe how good this is!”. Emma was much more subtle in her adoration – she just asked for another slice when we had the chance to share the finished cake with my sister-in-law.
Note: on top of the fact that this is a delicious, moist, and easy to make recipe, it is also vegan.
inspired by: this Vegan Chocolate Cake and Chocolate Frosting
Cake:
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 2 tsp vanilla sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 2/3 cup vegetable oil
- 2 tsp white vinegar
- 2 cups water
Frosting and garnish:
- 1 cup sugar
- 6 tbsp cornstarch
- 4 tbsp cocoa
- 2 tsp vanilla sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp oil
- 1 cup water
- 1 cup seedless raspberry jam
- 10 raspberries, washed and dried
Lightly grease 2 8″ cake pans and line with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 350F.
Whisk together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and salt (and vanilla if you’re using vanilla sugar). Next, add in the oil, vanilla extract, vinegar and water and mix until smooth.
Divide evenly across the two prepared pans and bake for 40-45 min. Remember to swap the pans about halfway through.
Remove from oven and cool in pan for 10 min. Turn onto wire rack and cool completely. (You can do this at least a day ahead. The cake is so moist, I found it didn’t dry even after I had it on cooling racks all evening. I wrapped them in waxed paper and then Ziploc bags overnight and left them on the counter until I frosted them the following day.)
For the frosting, mix sugar, cornstarch, cocoa, and salt together.
Whisk in the water. Heat slowly on medium high until it starts to thicken (~10 min). Boil for only 1 min. Remove from heat and stir in the oil and vanilla. Let cool completely.
Once the cake and frosting has cooled, level each of the cake layers. Place one layer, levelled side up, on to your cake plate.
Spread a large spoonful or two of the frosting over top of the layer. Once smooth, spoon raspberry jam over top and smooth it.
Next, take the remaining layer and place it levelled side down on top of the jam/frosting layer. Smooth another large spoonful or two of the frosting over that layer. There will be leftover frosting. It is delicious on these Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes.
Pipe 10 rosettes around the outside edge of the top layer. The frosting will be soft so these will not be stiff rosettes. Add a raspberry to the top of each rosette.
Serve and enjoy!
EmmaEats...and Katie too! 
Does this cake use baking soda or baking powder? The ingredients say baking powder, but the directions say baking soda.
It definitely uses baking soda – thanks for pointing that out! I’ve updated the ingredients list to correct that.
Thanks!