Vegan Chocolate Cherry Cake
This Vegan Chocolate Cherry Cake is decadent and rich making it the perfect celebration cake!
Servings: 12 people
Equipment
- 2 x 6" cake tins
- Off set spatula
- Icing bag
- Piping nozzle
Ingredients
For the cake
- 350 grams self raising flour
- 200 grams cocoa powder
- 1 vanilla pod seeds only
- 500 millilitres golden syrup
- 300 millilitres almond milk
- 200 millilitres vegetable oil
For the filling
- 1 jar cherry jam
For the icing
- 200 grams cocoa powder
- 250 grams icing sugar
- 100 grams non-dairy butter
- 75 millilitres almond milk
- cherries to decorate, optional
- sprinkles to decorate, optional
Instructions
To bake the cake
- Line your cake tins with grease proof paper or grease well with non-dairy butter.
- Pre-heat your own to 180C / gas mark 4 / 356F.
- (Using the all in one method) put just half of of the cake ingredients into a large mixing bowl and whisk for 3-4 minutes or until you have a smooth batter.
- Pour the batter evenly between the two tins and bake in the centre of your oven for 25-30 minutes or until they are springy to touch and a skewer comes out clean.
- Remove the cakes from the tins and place on a cooling rack.
- Re-line / grease your tins before adding the remaining cake ingredients to your mixing bowl and whisking for another 3-4 minutes until you have a smooth batter.
- Again, pour the batter evenly between the two tins and bake in the centre of your oven for 25-30 minutes or until they are springy to touch and a skewer comes out clean.
- Again, remove the cakes from the tins and place on a cooling rack. Only once all four cakes have cooled completely move on to making the icing.
To assemble and decorate the cake
- Using a serrated knife, carefully cut off any "domed" tops from your cake - you want to make sure they are as flat as possible to make stacking them more easily.
- In a large mixing bowl slowly whisk together all of the icing ingredients except the almond milk.
- If the icing mixture is too stiff to spread or pipe, slowly add the almond milk and keep whisking until it is a smooth, creamy consistency.
- Spread a small amount of icing (just a teaspoon's worth will do) on to your cake plate/board.
- Carefully place your first sponge layer onto the plate and spread with 2-3 tablespoons of cherry jam.
- Repeat this process until each of the sponge layers has been stacked on top of the others.
- Cover the cake in a thin layer of the icing using an offset spatula and place into the fridge for 30 minutes (this will help the cake to firm up a little and become more stable - we don't want it falling over!)
- Remove from the fridge and cover with another layer of the icing.
- Fill an icing bag that has been fitted with your favourite icing nozzle with the remaining icing.
- Decorate around the base and top of the cake with the remaining icing adding cherries and sprinkles for a final flourish!
- Keep the cake in the fridge until you are ready to serve. Enjoy!