Ka-ching!: Vegan Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Buttercream Filling

This is my first commissioned cake.  Rachel had contacted me about making a cake for her father’s birthday.  Luckily for me, he wanted a simple chocolate cake, of which I’ve already had success baking.  After gingerly prying him for a theme (the cake was a surprise), Ted came up with “Papua New Guinea Warrior.”  Huh?!  Rachel quickly texted me some photos of Papua warriors, which in turn gave me the idea to paint masks.  When I was in high school, I would purchase small ceramic mask kits at a local dollar store to give myself and my young cousins an activity to do during the summer months.  Something fun to pass the time, these kits included paints, brushes and already baked ceramic masks.  I went online and found mask-shaped chocolate molds.  My next challenge was to figure out an edible way to paint them.

I flirted with a few options from airbrushing and edible spray paint, to ordering online edible paint (of which I wasn’t sure were Vegan).  What I ended up doing was thinning out buttercream with soymilk and coloring it.  This worked out great since after a while, the “paint” dried out.

Due to the thicker consistency of the edible paint, I wasn’t able to completely paint the masks in fear of losing the details of the mold.  So I tried my best to capture the idea of the Papua warrior’s face paint.  I left one as if the painting hadn’t been completed (I have a love of asymmetrical looks).  Maybe it turned out a little more Carnaval than warrior, but the important thing was that Ted understood what the theme was, and that it made him and his family happy.

Vegan Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Buttercream Filling

Dry Ingredients: 2 1/2 cup Whole Wheat Pastry Flour  3/4 cup Cocoa Powder  2 tbs Corn Starch  2 tsp Baking Soda  1 tsp Baking Powder  1 tsp Salt

Wet Ingredients:  1/4 cup Soy Milk + 1 tbs Apple Cider Vinegar  3 tsp Ener-G Egg Replacer + 4 tbs Water  4 tbs Earth Balance  1 3/4 cup Sugar  2/3 cup Canola Oil  2 cup Water  1/4 cup Apple Sauce  2 tsp Vanilla Extract

Preheat oven to 320ºF.  Add vinegar to soy milk and reserve.  Stir egg replacer and 4 tbs water, reserve.  Sift together dry ingredients into a medium sized bowl.

Using an electric hand mixer, cream margarine in a large bowl.  Mix in sugar and oil to margarine.  Add egg replacer mixture, water, apple sauce, and vanilla to combine until smooth.  Fold in dry ingredients.  Lastly, fold in soy milk and vinegar mixture.  Pour into two 9-inch cake pans and bake for 27-35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.  Allow cakes to cool.  

Vanilla Buttercream Filling

1/4 cup Earth Balance Vegan Margarine

1/4 cup Earth Balance Natural Shortening

1 1/2 cups Powdered Sugar

1 1/2 tbs Soymilk

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

Using an electric hand mixer, cream margarine and shortening until light and fluffy.  Add powdered sugar in stages.  Lastly, mix in soymilk and vanilla. 

Dark Chocolate Frosting  

1 box Firm Silken Tofu
8 oz. Vegan Chocolate Chips, melted in double boiler
1/4 cup Powdered Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla Extract

Blend all ingredients in a blender until smooth.  Chill in the refrigerator until thickened to desired spreading consistency (around 45-60 minutes).