Story behind the recipe: I have made this cake for over a decade now. When I first met this cake, I didn't know about my food allergies. Since then, I've iterated the recipe to adapt to my needs. I've played with a variety of options and substitutions, and found these to be my favorite.
Description of the dish: If you've baked gluten-free or vegan (or both!) cakes before, you know how easy it can be to come out with a finished product that is dense and chewy, or dry and crumbly. This rich, dark chocolate cake will impress your friends and family - and it's so moist and fluffy they won't know it's gluten-free AND vegan unless you tell them!
This recipe makes 9 servings.
Time to prep: 10 minutes
Time to cook: 20 minutes
Ingredients:
- 1 1/3 cup gluten-free flour (Bob's Red Mill 1:1 Baking Flour)
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 3/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/3 cup apple sauce
- 1/2 cup oil (sunflower or vegetable)
- 1/2 cup non-dairy milk
- 1/2 cup hot water
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
Cooking Instructions:
- Preheat oven to 400 ̊F.
- In a medium bowl, thoroughly combine flour, brown sugar, cocoa, salt, and baking soda. Get any lumps out now, since you won't have time to do so once you add these to the wet ingredients in step 4.
- In a large bowl, combine apple sauce, oil, non-dairy milk, water, and vanilla.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, folding in until JUST combined. I'm serious. Over-mixing will lead to a dense and tough cake.
- Pour into parchment-lined 9"x9" baking dish.
- Bake at 400 ̊F for 20 minutes. The top should just start to split and a toothpick inserted into the cake should come out almost clean.
- After 10 minutes of rest in the pan, move the cake from the baking dish to a cooling rack to finish cooling. Serve as-is (less sweet), with a dusting of powdered sugar (more sweet), or with Coco Whip non-dairy whipped cream (my favorite)!
Recommended side dishes: So Delicious Coco Whip non-dairy whipped cream
Submitted by: Laura Graham, College of Music
