Vegan Chocolate Cake Recipe

After Beth's soo funny email newsletter, we received TONS of requests for the Vegan Chocolate Cake recipe- so I am posting it here...all questions/comments/suggestions are welcome...I merged it with the Candy Cane Chocolate recipe seen in this month's Cook's Baking issue...

Ingredients

3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour (I used just whole wheat flour)

1 cup all purpose unbleached flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 cup good cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup plain soymilk

1/2 cup canola oil

1 1/2 cups pure maple syrup(not pancake syrup)

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

2 teaspoons vanilla

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 F. Spray a 9 inch springform pan with non-stick cooking spray.

Sift together flours and baking powder and baking soda.

In a saucepan, heat the soymilk on low-medium heat. When it is slightly bubbling, add the cocoa powder and whisk well until it is dissolved. Remove from heat.

Combine the other liquid ingredients in a bowl and whisk well. Add the cocoa mixture and combine. Add the wet ingredients to the dry.

Pour batter into prepared pan, bake at 350 for 25 mins (mine took 40) until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool completely then frost.

To make a two layer cake (what I want to do Friday) multiply ingredients by one half and divide batter into 2 separate pans. ( so whole wheat flour would be 1 1/8th cup, all purpose flour 1 1/2 cup etc)

Frosting

4 sticks margarine (1 pound)

1 cup confectioners sugar (or more)

4 tablespoons plain soy creamer

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 cup finely ground peppermint candies to make "peppermint dust" plus some for garnish

Whip the margarine for ~30 seconds until fluffy. Add confectioners sugar and whip about 1 minute. Add soy creamer and vanilla and again whip ~ 2 minutes. In another small bowl place 1/4 of the frosting and 1/4 cup "peppermint dust". Stir together. I split the cake and used the peppermint frosting as the filling in between the two layers. Then frost the rest of the cake with the "plain" frosting, press the rest of the "peppermint dust" on the sides. YUM!!

You can adapt to use the peppermint frosting for the entire cake-it goes really well with the dense chocolate-ness of this cake--ENJOY!!