vegan chocolate cake | lots of nice things

Introducing what I believe is the very finest vegan chocolate cake. It will turn heads, make people close their eyes and smile as they eat it..

It’s called the Affinities Cake. It’s not my recipe, I wish it was! No, it is taken from a feature in The Telegraph and was given to my mother-in-law when she was hunting for the perfect recipe to use for our wedding cake. The original recipe is by Chantal Coady, the only difference here is that I make a vegan ganache by melting chocolate into hot almond milk. I decorate mine with raspberries, rose petals, marigold flowers and cocoa nibs.

The Affinities Cake
Cooking time: 1 hour 20 mins

200g (7oz) plain flour
75g (2¾oz) unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
200g (7oz) golden caster sugar
100g (3½oz) ground almonds
A small pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp good-quality balsamic vinegar
6 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for greasing
400ml (14fl oz) prune juice
Fresh pink rose petals, to decorate
For the ganache
170g (6oz) good-quality dark chocolate
150ml (5fl oz) almond milk

Preheat the oven to 150C/300F/Gas 2. Grease the insides of a deep 20cm (8in) round cake tin, or loose-bottomed 20cm (8in) cake tin, with olive oil and line the bottom of the tin with greaseproof paper. If you are using a loose-bottomed tin, double-line it with greaseproof paper (line the base, the sides, then line the base again to seal the lining), to prevent the mixture leaking out.

Sift the flour, cocoa powder and bicarbonate of soda into a large bowl, then add the sugar, ground almonds and salt. Make three holes in the dry mixture with a spoon. Put the vanilla in one hole, the vinegar in the second, and the oil into the third. Pour in the prune juice and mix well. Bubbles will start to rise to the surface. Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin and bake for 45 minutes to one hour, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Remove the cake from the tin and leave it to cool on a wire rack.

To make the ganache icing, blitz the chocolate into crumbs in a food processor. Place the crumbs in a heat-proof glass bowl. Heat the milk to boiling point in a heavy-based saucepan, then pour the milk over the chocolate. Gently mix the chocolate with the milk, working from the centre of the bowl outwards with a rubber spatula, until you have a smooth and glossy emulsion. Let it cool to room temperature, then spread it on top of the cooled cake.

NB this cake usually takes about 1 hour 15 mins to cook! Keep testing it, but don’t take it out of the oven to do so, otherwise it may sink.

I love chocolate cake. The love affair has been going on for as long as I can remember. I have made and eaten quite a few and here are some of them. Have you got a favourite vegan chocolate cake? Where is the recipe from?

One of the nicest I’ve had recently came from Gluten-, Nut-, Egg- & Dairy-Free Celebration Cakes: 42 Simple and Delicious Recipes for Bakers and Cake Decorators, by Gemma McFarlane. It was rich and very moist, lasted for days and was a heavenly cross between a cake and wildly indulgent dessert.

Today’s cake was a recipe given to me by Andrew Norton, of Naturally Kind vegan bakery. It too was very soft, moist and delicious, smothered with buttercream.