50 Recipes, #17: Vegan Rich Chocolate Cake

My brother-in-law's birthday is later this week, so my sister decided to turn today's barbecue into a surprise birthday party for him. I was in charge of making the cake, and since a couple of vegans were going to be present, I picked the Post-Punk Kitchen's rich chocolate cake recipe, which was fabulous – not just a terrific vegan cake, but a terrific chocolate cake, period. Its only drawback is one typical to many vegan cake recipes – it's very tender, so it's a little tricky to frost, and I wouldn't recommend trying to split the layers in half. Next time, I'll put the layers in the freezer to solidify first, and will make enough frosting for a crumb coat. (Frosting recipe, if you want it, is here; 1.5x the recipe will be just enough to frost a 9" cake with a layer of frosting in between. I also added seedless raspberry jam in between the layers.)

The best part of the cake besides eating it? The Darth Vader cake topper I found for my Star Wars-fanatic brother-in-law.



I tell you, it isn't a party until the Dark Lord of the Sith arrives.