Vegan Chocolate Coffee Cake

When you think of a “vegan dessert,” you may imagine a not-so-enticing pecan blob or an oatmeal cookie mush of some sort. For some people, it’s hard to picture a vegan dessert that you can’t get enough of or that is so mouthwatering that you may even prefer it over it’s non-vegan counterpart.

If this is true for you, you’re in for a treat!

Vegan Chocolate Coffee Cake

Backstory: This is a simple recipe that I absolutely love to make! I tried the vegan lifestyle for about 3 months after several years of being a vegetarian and found this gem during my trial period. Although I am no longer a full-time vegan, I still enjoy so many delicious dishes that I discovered when I was and this is a personal favorite of mine.

Ingredients

(For the Cake Part)

1¼ All Purpose Flour

1 Cup Sugar

⅓ Cup Cocoa Powder

1 Teaspoon Baking Soda

½ Teaspoon Salt

1 Cup Coffee

1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract

⅓ Cup Vegetable Oil

1 Teaspoon Apple Cider Vinegar

(For the Yummy Glaze Part)

½ Cup Sugar

4 Tablespoons Vegan Butter

2 Tablespoons Soy Milk

2 Tablespoons Cocoa Powder

2 Teaspoons Vanilla Extract

First and foremost, get that oven hot! Preheat oven to 350F

Start with the cake part ingredients and mix the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt together in a bowl. You can use a whisk or a fork for this part, I found it doesn’t make too much of a difference here. Add the coffee, vanilla extract, vegetable oil and apple cider vinegar. You can use white vinegar as a substitute for the apple cider vinegar, but I prefer the latter. Mix it all up! Again, a fork or whisk will do the trick here. Pour the mixture into an 8x8 inch square pan (8” round is acceptable as well) and bake for 30 minutes. After you remove from the oven, remove from the pan and allow the cake to cool on a cooling rack.

While the cake is in the over or while cooling, it’s time to prepare the glaze! In a small saucepan, combine all of the glaze ingredients except the vanilla extract (you add that in at the very end) and bring to a boil. Make sure your eyes are on the prize here and you are stirring the glaze frequently so you don’t burn it. (I learned that the hard way!) Simmer for two minutes. When bringing to a boil, I usually keep it on medium heat and lower it slightly to simmer. Remove from heat and stir for five minutes. To finish it up, stir in the vanilla extract.

Pour your glaze all over your cake and let cool for up to one hour. You can cut it short if you can’t wait to taste your mouth watering vegan chocolate coffee cake, but try to hold out for at least 30 minutes for optimal results.

And presto! You’re a vegan pastry chef!

This is a slightly more complex recipe than a lot of others with ten ingredients and the two part process, but it definitely pays off. Prep time is about twenty to thirty minutes with some extra time tacked on for baking and cooling so you're looking at maybe an hour to two hours from the moment you start to diving in, but again, I’ve deemed this recipe worth it! I typically use 80% cocoa for this recipe but that’s really up to preference.

If you aren’t looking for the caffeine boost you can use warm water instead of coffee. I hope you enjoy my vegan chocolate coffee cake recipe and have fun making it too!

You’ll definitely earn some bragging rights by pulling this recipe off and have a divine cake recipe to add to your arsenal.