Sponge Cake with Strawberry Buttercream Frosting

Vegan sponge cakes are difficult to master, but after a few tries I have found something that works well! I have always loved the idea of strawberry buttercream but could never get behind its execution, it just always came out too watery. Finally, I had an aha! moment when I decided to use chocolate in the buttercream. Works like a charm!

Cake Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 cups white flour
• 3/4 cup +1tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 290ml sparkling water
• 1/3 cup + 2tbsp avocado oil
• 1/2 tbsp white vinegar
• 3/4 tbsp vanilla extract

Buttercream Ingredients:

• 1 stick unsalted Becel vegetable butter stick
• 5 ripe strawberries
• 1 1/8 cups confectioner's sugar
• 50 grams dark chocolate

Cake instructions

• Whisk all dry ingredients thoroughly and make sure there are no lumps
• Make a dent in the middle of your dry ingredients, pour oil and vanilla and, slowly, about half of the sparkling water and mix until the batter is smooth. Careful not to overmix or the cake will not rise as much.
• Add rest of the batter and mix just until batter is smooth (it will be a bit runny, that's normal)
• Divide batter into two oiled and floured 6 inch baking pans and bake at 350 for about 40 minutes. Make sure batter is thoroughly baked by inserting a wooden popsicle or barbecue stick. If the stick comes out clean, your cake is ready.

• while cake is cooling down, work on the buttercream.

Strawberry buttercream:

• Cut strawberries in half and broil them in the oven on low for about 10 minutes. If you don't have a broil function, leaving them in the over at 400° F for 10-15 minutes works too. Just make sure not to burn the strawberries
• While strawberries are in the oven, combine butter and sugar and mix them on low. If you wish to be less messy, it helps to add the sugar slowly.
• Once strawberries are out of the oven, puree them and put them in the fridge/freezer straight away so they can cool. It's important that they not be warm when you add them to the butter + sugar mix.
• While Starberries are cooling down, melt chocolate 50 seconds at a time, making sure not to burn it.
• Once strawberries are at room temperature, add 6-7 tablespoons to the butter and sugar, and beat ingredients together for at least 10 minutes. If the ingredients are not binding together yeat, don't worry. That's what the chocolate's for. At this point you chould taste the batter for taste. You should be able to taste the strawberry. If it's not too strong that's fine, the dark chocolate will make the flavour of the buttercream more pronounced.
• Once the mixture is partially combined but still a little separated, slowly pour the chocolate in and continue mixing for about 10 more minutes, or until they are well combined.

Assembling your cake:

• By now your cake should be well cooled, so pop them out of their pans. If they are a bit dome-shaped, trim their tops so they are level.
• Apply a healthy amount of buttercream on the bottom layer of cake. Don't be afraid to run out of frosting, but also don't go overboard on the filling, as it tastes very rich.
• If you'd like, add a layes chopped strawberries on top of the buttercream. it brings a nice fresh taste to the cake.
• Place second layer on top of the frosted bottom layer, and spread the remaining buttercream throughout the rest of your cake using a spatula. Dust your cake with confectioner's sugar and cocoa powder for extra cuteness if you'd like.
• Your cake is now ready! Enjoy it