DF Chocolate Birthday Cake

We went to Ohio this weekend to visit my in-laws for my MIL's birthday and did a ton of yard work on Saturday and then made cookies and a birthday cake on Sunday.  My MIL requested a chocolate cake with raspberry so I found the "i want chocolate cake" cake from Smitten Kitchen and decided to make it dairy free so I could enjoy it too.  She's the baking queen (her cookies are amazing) so I'm sure it was hard for her to give up her kitchen to the kids for a time.

We made the cake first, doubling the recipe to make two 8 inch rounds:

12 tablespoons of Earth Balance vegan "butter"
1-1/2 cups packed dark brown sugar
4 Tablespoons regular sugar
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
1-1/2 cup vegan buttermilk 
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup Extra dark Hershey's cocoa (couldn't find Dutch cocoa in small town Ohio)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

Set the over to 350º.  Put parchment paper in the bottom of the cake pans, then grease them.  Make the vegan buttermilk first so it has time to sit, then cream the "butter" and sugars well in a mixer until they're fluffy.  I learned that with Earth Balance you have to extra cream it to make sure it doesn't start to separate on you.  Then add in the eggs, buttermilk and vanilla and mix.  Sift all of the dry ingredients onto a large piece of wax paper, then put the mixer on slow and slowly pour the dry ingredients in, pausing a couple times.  Then pour the batter into the cake pans and bake.  With two pans, it took about 45 minutes to fully bake.  These pulled away from the edges of the pan nicely and were really easy to flip out onto a cooling rack. 

Allow the cake layers to cool completely before frosting - so important!  Once cooled, I sliced the rounded top off the bottom layer so they would stack easily, then used raspberry jam to coat the top of the bottom layer and put the top layer on top.  

Frosting time!

We made the frosting a little early and being a hot summer day, it took the layers a bit longer to cool so the frosting was thicker than I wanted to spread it.  Next time I would start the frosting once the layers are completely cooled and we're ready to put the cake together.

4 oz dark DF chocolate (we used 90% Lindt), melted and cooled

3 cups powdered sugar

1 cup Earth Balance vegan "butter"

pinch of salt

2 Tbsp soy milk - original unsweetened is best here

1 tsp vanilla

Apparently you can just put all of the ingredients into the food processor and mix, but instead of getting another piece of equipment dirty, we decided to use the stand mixer that was already out. 

Melt the chocolate and then let it cool.  (We stuck it in the fridge for a few minutes and kept checking it so it didn't harden back up.)  Cream the "butter" and powdered sugar really well until nice and fluffy.  Then pour in the chocolate and mix, then add the salt, soy milk and vanilla and mix.   Lesson learned, don't add the milk and vanilla to the chocolate first as that will make the chocolate seize up and is much harder to add in.  It still worked out, but would have been easier the first way.

Then frost your cake!  Smitten Kitchen was so right about the small offset spatula - it made spreading the frosting so much easier than I've ever done before. 

Happy Birthday!