Vegan Chocolate Cake with Vegan Buttercream Frosting

It wasn't the case when I first started blogging but I'm vegan now and I also found out that cane sugar gives me headaches. Between those two issues, it's not super easy to buy cake that fits my dietary restrictions so I've learned to just make my own. With lots of scouring the internet and tweaking other recipes to suit my needs, I've come up with the very best ever no cane sugar vegan chocolate cake with buttercream frosting. This stuff is TO DIE FOR!

First, a picture of my 40th birthday cake:

Photo Credit: Verb Photography with Angie Langford

I made this cake for my 40th birthday cake smash photo shoot. We had a ton of fun. But today I'm here to share the recipe with you (also so I'll have the recipe for my own future use).

Chocolate cake 

2 cups almond milk 
2 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 cups coconut sugar
2/3 cup avocado oil (you could sub any neutral oil but this is what works for me)
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract ok to just do all vanilla if you don't have almond extract)
2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup cocoa powder, Dutch-processed or regular (or a mix of both)
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Preheat oven to 350F.

Mix together the almond milk and vinegar in a measuring cup and set aside for a few minutes to curdle. Add the sugar, oil, vanilla and almond extract to your mixer bowl and mix well. Add the almond milk/vinegar mix and whisk well. 

Add in the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt and beat until mostly smooth. 

Line the bottom of two 9-inch cake pans with parchment paper and lightly grease the paper it as well as the sides of the pans. Divide the batter into the two pans and bake for 32-35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. 

Vegan Buttercream Frosting
NOTE: This frosting does NOT come out white. You will need to color it with gel food colors if you want something other than tan. 

This frosting holds its shape really well even before it has been refrigerated. I made it and had to leave it sitting on the counter for 45 minutes before I piped it onto the cake. Also, the picture of the cake above shows what it looked like after sitting in the refrigerator for a week. It did a good job of keeping the cake pretty moist and the frosting looked and tasted great. This wasn't the plan but my son got sick on the day of the photo shoot so we had to postpone the event.

Make powdered coconut sugar in the dry goods canister of the vitamix or a good food processor. 3 1/2 cups coconut sugar : 3 1/2 Tbsp arrowroot powder (precision on the arrowroot powder isn't imperative, just get close)

1/2 cup room temperature earth balance shortening

1/2 cup room temperature earth balance buttery spread (in the stick)

3 1/2 cups powdered coconut sugar

1 1/2 tsp almond extract

1/4 cup almond milk 

Gel food coloring if you want something other than tan colored frosting. I used burgundy to achieve the color for this cake

Using the paddle attachment for your mixer, beat the shortening and buttery spread until it's combined. Add the rest of the ingredients being aware that a puff of powdered sugar is going to attack your kitchen. I used what I think is the dust attachment for my Kitchenaid mixer (it's a clear plastic thing you can pour stuff through) with a clean kitchen towel laid over the whole thing as soon as I've added the sugar. It's a bit messy but it blends in pretty quickly. Add the food coloring and mix until everything is well blended.

This is thick enough to hold its shape if you want to use a tip and a frosting bag. It's rich and delicious too. Yum!

Thank you for reading,
Julie