The 10-Minute Vegan Chocolate Cake

Going to someone's house for quick weekday dinner, especially for the first time, means you don't show up empty-handed. At least I don't. I have determined that I have a compulsion, nay, a pathology about this. If I am going to someone's house, chance are I'm packing something edible or potable. It just doesn't feel right to arrive without a consumable offering. Yesterday, I threw together this vegan chocolate cake, which is so absurdly easy, there's no reason why dessert should be relegated to a weekend domestic project. A 10-Minute Vegan Chocolate Cake may fit the bill; the 10 minutes refer to assembly time, not baking time—which is hands off, anyway.

A note about substitutions: if you don't have coffee extract or espresso powder, swap it for 1 T of coffee, and add it to the liquid. If you have neither, no worries. Coffee related additions create depth in chocolate desserts and I almost always, with very few exceptions, bring it on. And because I've adapted this from the awesome book Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero, you can of course make these as cupcakes. Just reduce the baking time to 15-18 minutes.

10 Minute Vegan Chocolate Cake

• 1 cup almond, soy, or other nondairy milk
• 1 tsp. apple cider vinegar
• 1 C plus 2 T all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup Dutch process cocoa
• 1 tsp. espresso powder (I like this one from King Arthur Flour)
• 3/4 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. coffee extract
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar (of your choice; I used light)
• 1/3 cup oil of choice (I used coconut)

Instructions

 Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Combine the milk and apple cider vinegar in a measuring cup, stir, and set aside.

Sift together all of the dry ingredients (flour through salt) in a medium bowl.

Add the extracts to the measuring cup with milk and ACV. In a large mixing bowl, whisk the sugars, milk, and oil. Slowly add in the flour, gently folding it in with a rubber spatula. When it's mostly combined, switch to a small wire whisk to get out any last minute lumps but don't overmix it.

Pour into into a well-greased and floured 8-inch round pan (I used a Springform) and bake for 22-25 minutes until a cake tester or toothpick comes out mostly clean (a couple of small crumbs are fine) and the cake has started to pull away from the sides of the pan. Cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes and then remove the cake from the pan to cool completely.

Vegan chocolate cake with vegan chocolate frosting

You can serve this as is, with a snowy dusting of confectioner's sugar, or actually make some frosting. Or if it's berry season, quickly chop up some fresh organic strawberries, toss them with a squeeze of lemon juice and a tablespoon or so of granulated sugar, and serve them alongside the cake.