Vegan Chocolate Cake with Vegan Buttercream Caramel Frosting

In our life group we try to celebrate birthdays with homemade cakes. Just last week I got to enjoy a vanilla funfetti cake for my own. As a very proud red meat consumer when I found out my co-leader, who eats vegan, had a birthday coming up I was quite hesitant to even attempt a birthday cake. However, after scouring the internet and talking with a couple others in our life group I decided to take on the challenge. With just a couple hours in the kitchen (and running back to the store!) and by combining several different recipes I successfully made a very sweet vegan dessert! 

I'm not typically a food blogger so forgive my pictures, but I hope this can help somebody else! Here's what I did: 

Vegan Chocolate Cake 

1 ¼ cup flour 

½ cup sugar 

½ cup brown sugar 

⅓ cup cocoa powder 

1 teaspoon baking soda 

½ teaspoon salt 

½ cup rich coffee

⅓ cup vegetable oil 

¼ cup applesauce
1 teaspoon vanilla extract 

1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar 

Preheat the oven to 350ºF/175ºC.

In a stand mixer combine the dry ingredients. 

Add all other liquid ingredients and blend until smooth. 

Pour into a 9" round non-stick pan. 

Bake for 30 minutes. 

*If you want to keep the cake from rising in the center, cut an old towel into strips, wet them under the faucet and wrap them around the cake pan.

 

Vegan Caramel

1 cup sugar

2 Tablespoons vegan margarine

½ cup coconut milk

1 teaspoon of salt

First, have all your ingredients ready because it will burn if you walk away! Put a metal pan in the freezer to chill.

In a heavy bottom sauce pan heat the sugar on med-high stirring every 15 seconds. Within two minutes it will all melt. 

Reduce heat to low and add the margarine continuing to stir. 

Slowly add the coconut milk stirring it all together.

It will begin to boil and bubble up, remove from heat after 3-5 minutes (depending how fluid or thick you want the caramel sauce to be). Once it is all one beautiful creamy caramel, remove pan from freezer and pour sauce onto pan, this allows for the caramel to set quickly; I later put it in a Mason jar for safe keeping.

Vegan Buttercream Frosting

1 cup vegan margarine

2 lbs powdered sugar

½ cup coconut milk

½ cup caramel sauce

2 teaspoons vanilla

salt to taste

In a mixing bowl whip margarine for a minute or two until it's nice and fluffy.

Slowly add 1 pound of powdered sugar, no more than ½ cup at a time.

Mix in coconut milk, caramel, and vanilla. (I also added Kahlúa as it was a 21st birthday!)

Continue whipping on low and slowly add the rest of the powered sugar. 

Add salt to taste. 

Finally, after topping the cake with freshly made frosting I drizzled extra caramel over top! 

(I made a stencil and molded chocolate numbers that were later removed from the cake.)