Thursday, June 14, 2007

Orange Chocolate Swirl Cake

I made this on Sunday night, it was gone by Tuesday morning. I made this recipe myself, using a basic guide to un-vegan cake batter (so some ingredients don't have exact amounts, instead I've listed the maximum I could have used)

The orange part of the cake actually tastes orange-y, and it blends very nicely with the chocolate swirls.
You can make your own homemade orange and chocolate frosting, but I used a premade one and added the flavoring.

Ingredients (Measured):
1 1/2 cups margarine (and some extra for the pan)
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 cups flour
2 TBS baking soda
3 or 4 oz plain apple sauce (1 package)
2 eggs worth of Ener-G egg replacer or other powder replacer (mixed w/ water)
1/2 tsp salt

(Unmeasured):
Plain soymilk (not more than 1 cup)
Orange juice concentrate (not more than 1/2 cup)
Cocoa Powder (not more than 1/2 cup)
Premade frosting (I used Better Crocker "Cream Cheese" variety, though it was 100% vegan!)

Other things:
Spoons
Bundt pan
Electric Mixer
At least 2 or 3 large mixing bowls (I put this here because we are in the process of moving and I had a lot of trouble finding enough bowls)

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Rub margarine on the bottom of a bundt pan.
2. Beat (with an electric mixer) the margarine, sugar, apple sauce, vanilla, and Ener-G together in a bowl until fluffy.
3. In a separate [large] bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, and salt.
4. Add the margarine mixture to the flour and stir in. Then add soymilk until you get a thick, but still flowing batter consistency.
5. Take 1/3 of the batter and put into a separate bowl (you could re-use the margarine mixture bowl.) Add a lot of cocoa powder to this batter and beat with a mixer. If if becomes too thick, add a little more soymilk. It should be very chocolate-y.
6. In the other 2/3 of plain batter, add orange juice concentrate. Be careful, it is very strong in flavor. Beat in using the mixer. The batter should taste very orange-y. (This is why you needed to have the original batter thick, so the liquid won't make this batter too runny).
7. Pour the orange batter into the greased pan. Then pour the chocolate batter on top of the orange batter. Using a butter knife, cut through [the batter] to the bottom of the pan and swirl the knife around. Do this in at least 3 or 4 places in the pan. This will create the swirl/marble affect.
8. Bake in the oven for 50 minutes, but do a fork test every 5 minutes starting at 40 minutes. (The basic [nonvegan] recipe I modelled this from said 50 to 60, mine was done in 46). Remove and let cool.

Frosting - You can either do this during the baking or while it is cooling. These instructions are for using premade frosting.
1. Put 1/2 the frosting in one cup, and the other 1/2 in another cup.
2. In one cup, add some orange juice concentrate and stir completely. It should taste very orange-y, but don't add to much or else it will burn your mouth (b/c it is concentrated.) Keep taste testing while you add the liquid.
3. In the other cup, add and mix in massive amounts of cocoa powder until the frosting is very chocolate-y. You may need to add a few drops of soymilk, but it still needs to be thick.

When the cake has cooled, cover it with the chocolate frosting, and then put the orange frosting on top (the chocolate is thicker and will stick better to the cake.) Put it in the fridge for a few minutes to let the frostings harden, and voila! While the process may seem lengthy, it really isn't. ENJOY

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

hi - just a note (cake sounds great btw): i have a dairy allergy (and no other food allergies), and i am allergic to betty crocker "cream cheese" frosting - it's not really vegan as they don't clean the equipment that they use between batches. this is true for MANY "vegan" items.

Unknown said...

Sounds scrummy and I canb easily adapt for local availability.
Thank you!
JudyMac

Anonymous said...

OK seriously could this sound any yummier!!! I think I am going to make it this weekend

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