Vegan Chocolate Cake

From Moosewood Restaurant Favorites by The Moosewood Collective. Reprinted with permission. St. Martin's Press ©2013.

• Total Cooking Time: About 55 minutes.
• Servings: Yields one 13 × 9 × 2-inch cake or two 9-inch round or 8-inch square layers.

The recipe for the cake comes with one for a chocolate glaze as well as this introduction:

Dark and dense, moist and delicious. Over the years, we’ve made only minor changes to our Vegan Chocolate Cake recipe. We usually make a large, single layer cake topped with a simple chocolate glaze and we serve it right out of the pan. But sometimes we add peanut butter, or coconut or coconut milk, or raspberry purée, or orange zest and orange liqueur to the cake or to the glaze.

This recipe also makes the right amount of batter for a two-layer cake, two 9-inch round or 8-inch square pans (2 inches deep). To ensure that the cake layers come out of the pan cleanly, we recommend that you line the pans with parchment paper: oil the bottom and sides of the pans, cut the parchment paper to fit the bottom of the pan, oil it and then dust the bottom and sides with flour.

Ingredients

• 3 cups unbleached white all-purpose flour
• 2⁄3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (lightly packed with the back of a spoon)
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 3⁄4 cups water
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 1⁄4 cup apple cider vinegar
• 8 ounces semisweet chocolate
• 1⁄2 cup boiling water

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350° F.
2. Oil a 13 × 9 × 2- inch baking pan and dust it with flour.
3. To make the cake: In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, salt, and baking soda. Use a whisk or spoon to thoroughly mix the ingredients together. In a separate bowl, combine the water, vanilla, and oil.
4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and whisk until smooth.
5. Add the vinegar and whisk just until it is incorporated; the batter will be thinner than most cake batter. Pour the batter into the prepared pan(s).
6. Bake for 50 to 55 minutes until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean. With this cake it is best to err on the side of overbaking, if the middle is even slightly undercooked, the cake will sink in the middle as it cools.
7. When the cake has thoroughly cooled, make the glaze:
8. Put the chocolate and boiling water in blender and let it sit for a couple of minutes to soften the chocolate. Then whirl until smooth. You can glaze the cooled cake right away, but it is best to pour the glaze into a bowl and chill for 15 to 20 minutes until it is a spreadable consistency.