This is an unusual recipe for a moist vegan coconut cake. Thsi is not something that you see very often. As a cake, once you’ve mastered the baking, it’s a very tasty treat. As you might expect, it goes well with vegan vanilla ice cream, coconut soya yogurt, or single soya cream.
The original recipe wasn’t vegan and used all white flour, and too much sugar, which is very common failing. I’ve introduced wholemeal, reducing the white flour, and sugar to make it more healthy, but without spoiling the taste or texture.
When baking any kind of sponge cake I reccomend using bake even strips. Essentially they are heatproof strips that you soak and put round the outside of the cake tins. This helps stop the edges cooking before the middle, and avoids to a great extent the usual dome forming.
Finding coconut essence can be a little tricky too. Waitrose sell it, but not many other places that I’ve tried.
The icing can be tricky to get to the right texture so that it stays on the cake, and can be spread easily. When you get it right however this moist vegan coconut cake will have your guests coming back for seconds.
Super moist coconut cake
Equipment
- 2 by 7 inch loose bottom cake tins - Silverwood are a good brand
- accurate digital scales
- Electric whisk/mixer
- large bowl
- Food processor
Ingredients
For the layers of cake
- 150 g vegan butter or coconut oil
- 150 g light brown sugar
- 300 ml/g whole fat coconut milk canned
- 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon coconut flavouring
- 125 g S/R whole-wheat flour
- 125 g S/R unbleached white flour
- 50 g Coconut flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 tbsps 2 chia eggs So, a chia egg = 1 tbsp of chia seeds plus 2.5 tbsps of water
For the coconut frosting/icing
- 40 g icing sugar
- 40 g stevia crystals
- 70 g of coconut oil
- 70 g of coconut flour
- 50 g soaked cashew nuts was 40g
- 250 g coconut yogurt
- 2-3 tablespoons plant-based milk
- 1/2 cup coconut flakes sweetened
Instructions
Making the layers of cake
- Preheat oven to 350F° 180°C
- Grease and flour two round 8-inch cake pans. Cut circles of parchment paper to fit in the bottom of the pans. Place rounds in bottom of pans and top with additional margarine.
- Using an electric mixer, cream together vegan butter, sugar, coconut milk, vinegar, vanilla, and coconut flavouring. Cream well for 6 to 8 minutes.
- In a separate bowl, mix together the flours, baking powder and baking soda. Add flour to creamed mixture, beating until just mixed.
- Divide batter equally among prepared pans. Level batter in each pan by holding pan 3 or 4 inches above counter, then dropping it flat onto counter. Do this several times to release air bubbles and assure you of a more level cake.
- Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until tester inserted in the centre comes out clean. Cool in pans for 10 minutes. Invert cakes onto cooling racks. Cool Completely.
Making and applying the frosting
- In a food processor bowl combine all the ingredients apart from the plant milk – so the sugar, coconut oil, cashews, coconut flour yogurt etc. Process until completely smooth. After this stage, add the plant-based milk one tablespoon at a time until you achieve the desired, spreadable consistency.
- Fill and spread cake layers with frosting and garnish with coconut flakes.
