Vegan Chocolate Cake (easily made in Colombia)

I promised a post, and I'm going to deliver! With photos!

This is a very moist and fairly chocolate-y cake, especially considering how amazingly accessible the ingredients are. I imagine it would be easy to duplicate this cake almost anywhere in the world. Well, anywhere that has an oven. (Although, since the batter is vegan, you could just eat the raw cake batter. Mmmmm.) The best thing about this cake is that it is SUPER easy and contains really normal ingredients, so it is a great cake to make any time, even if you aren't vegan. Also, it avoids most allergies (except gluten!), so it's pretty friendly. It's low fat if you use the orange marmalade because you can use less oil... Plus, it's delicious. The texture is somewhat like a light brownie.

Essential equipment for vegan baking in Colombia:
a measuring cup
measuring spoons
whisk
2 mixing bowls
heaving spoon (plastic or wood) to do heaving mixing
Although it isn't essential, I highly recommend a spring-form pan for this cake. Just like a cheesecake, it's very moist and dense, so it would fall apart if you tried to remove it from the pan, and just like a cheesecake, it is prettier when you can see the sides. Obviously, it is up to you, but if you want a 12 inch spring-form pan, I know they sell them at La 14.

Moist Vegan Chocolate Cake, Egg-free, Dairy-free

Here's the basic recipe:
2 cups flour (harina de trigo)
1 cup cocoa (cocoa en polva--my favorite brand is Luker)
1 teaspoon salt (sal, I like sea salt best. It's called sal marina)
2 teaspoons baking soda (bicarbonato)
1 cup of white sugar* (azucar blanco)
1 cup of brown sugar** (azucar moreno)
2 teaspoons white vinegar (vinegre blanco)
2 teaspoons (at least) of vanilla (again, I can only find the fake stuff here, but it's called vainilla)
1 3/4 cups soy milk (leche de soya. I recently discovered that Exito marked down the price of Silk, and Silk changed its packaging so it is in Spanish on one side. Check near the cereal aisle. I prefer Silk Unsweetened Natural.) You can sub water for this if absolutely necessary. I wouldn't. You could also sub orange juice. That might be a bit better.
1/4 (maybe a bit more) of juice from fresh oranges
2 tablespoons of canola oil
1/2 cup orange marmalade (mermelade de naranja, my favorite brand is La Constencia)
3 tablespoons (or more!!) of shaved unsweetened table chocolate. I used about 2 squares of Luker.

*I think it is vegan here because the kind I buy is very unprocessed, but using only brown sugar, which is actually turbindo sugar in Colombia, would not hurt a thing.
** If you like a very sweet cake, go ahead and use 2 cups of sugar. If you like a slightly more bitter cake, I would definitely recommend cutting down the sugar to about 1 1/2 cups, maybe even a tad bit less.

Directions:
1. Add flour, cocoa, salt, and baking soda to a mixing bowl. Mix thoroughly with a whisk to get rid of clumps OR sift.
2. In a measuring cup, measure the soy milk. Add the orange juice to the soy milk and stir. Dump in another mixing bowl (not the one with the dry ingredients!).
3. Add the oil, vanilla, vinegar, and canola oil to the soy milk mixture. Then add the sugar. Whisk until it is well-blended. Then, add the orange marmalade. Stir.
4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ones. It should bubble a bit because of the chemical reaction between the baking soda and vinegar. Stir to incorporate, and then whisk until completely blended.
5. Add Luker shavings. Stir well.
6. Pour batter into a greased and floured baking sheet (9 x 13, 2 small loaf pans, or a 12 inch round pan).
10. Bake at 350 degrees F. Depending on the size of your oven and the size of your pan, this could take anywhere from 20 minutes to 45. Check on it often. The top should set (it shouldn't wiggle if the pan is shaken), and a toothpick should come out relatively clean (read: crumbs okay, raw batter not really) when inserted into the center.
11. Let it cool, and then top it with this quick icing:
Melody's best icing:
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/3 cup powdered sugar (you can make this, look up a recipe online, or buy it... azucar pulverizada)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon soy milk (may need more)

Sift cocoa powder and powdered sugar together. Stir well. Add vanilla and soy milk. Whisk. You might need to add more soy milk, but whisk really well before you do. It should be about the same consistency as liquid dish soap--easily pourable and spreadable. Pour it onto your cake and spread it with a knife. It will set quickly, so if you want to add toppings do it now. For this cake, I added coconut (coco) and Oreos, which are vegan if you eat white sugar. (They don't have Newman O's in Colombia.)

It makes a cute birthday cake!


Variations:
Orange-Chocolate: You can make this extra orange-y by adding shaved orange peel to the batter and using more orange juice to replace some of the soy milk. You can also use orange juice instead of soy milk in the icing, and then you can top it with orange peel.
Chocolate-coconut: Replace up to one cup of the soy milk with coconut milk, or simply reduce the vanilla to 1 teaspoon and add 2 teaspoons of coconut extract. Sprinkle with coconut.
Chocolate-strawberry: Use strawberry (fresa) jam instead of orange marmalade.
Plain old chocolate: Use 2/3 cup canola oil, get rid of the 2 tablespoons and don't use orange marmalade. Add another tablespoon of shaved chocolate to the batter, an extra 1/4 teaspoon salt, reduce sugar to 1 1/2 cups, and add an extra tablespoon of vanilla.
I made this YESTERDAY, and between my friends, my masseuse, Warren, and me, almost half of it is gone!