Easy Vegan Black Forest Cake

For my husband's birthday this year I made him a black forest cake to take into work.
Using my Vegan Chocolate Cake recipe (and doubling it), combined with my easy Cherry Sauce recipe you have a delicious Vegan, lower fat version of this decadent German dessert.
I added whipped cream to cover it - which of course you can skip if if you are sticking to a vegan diet.

I am pretty darn pleased at how it turned out and it was a hit at my husband's office!


What You'll Need: Vegan Chocolate Cake

• 2 round cake pans 
• 1 large bowl, 1 small bowl
• 3 cups of all-purpose flour
• 1.5 cups granulated sugar (I used Ideal instead)
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder (I use the extra dark kind that is virtually sugar-free)
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp salt
• 2/3 cup vegetable oil
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 2 tsp vinegar (plain, not cider or rice, etc)
• 2 cups room temperature water

What You'll Need: Easy Cherry Sauce

• Heavy-bottomed sauce pan
• 2 cups of seedless frozen cherries
• 1/3 cup of sugar (I used Ideal, a xylitol-based sweetener instead)
• 2/3 cup water and 1/4 cup of water
• 2 Tbps cornstarch
• 1 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

What You'll Need: Whipped Cream Topping

• Electric mixer or hand mixer
• 1 large container of whipping cream
• 1/3 cup of sugar (I used xylitol-based Ideal sweetener)
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon (optional)
• 1 tsp vanilla

Now you have assembled everything you need - let's get baking!

What You'll Do: Vegan Chocolate Cake

• Pre-heat your oven
• Lightly grease your baking pans
• In your large bowl sift your flour, sugars, cocoa, baking soda and salt together until fully combined
• In your small bowl pour in your oil, vanilla, vinegar then water
• Quickly whisk up until combined and bubbly
• Pour your liquid mixture into your flour mixture and stir until smooth
• Pour half of the batter into each of your baking pans
• Depending on the depth of your pans, cooking times vary. For me it took around 25 minutes. I could tell it was done when the centre was no longer wiggly when moved about and when I could stick in a toothpick and it came out 'clean' (not gooey)
• Let cool completely before removing from your pans

What You'll Do: Easy Cherry Sauce

• Ensure your cherries are pitted
• Place your thawed berries into your saucepan
• Pour in 2/3 cups of water
• Stir until boiling
• In a small measuring cup, pour in your 1/4 cup of water and stir in your cornstarch
• Pour your cornstarch and water mixture into the boiling cherries
• Stir rapidly as the sauce will thicken instantly
• Pour in your lemon juice
• Reduce the heat and stir for another 2-3 minutes or until desired thickness is achieved
• Let cool

What You'll Do: Whipped Cream Topping

• Using your electric mixer, pour the whipping cream into your bowl
• As your are whipping, pour in your sugar, cinnamon and vanilla
• Whip until you have very stiff peaks. As this will be used as an 'icing' for your cake, you do not want this to be runny
• Chill in the fridge until your cakes are prepared

What You'll Do: Assembly!

• Once your two cakes are completely cooled, use a large knife and gently cut each cake in half, horizontally
• Gently remove the top half and turn upside down, so the top is now resting on your counter
• Stir your cheery sauce until it has loosened up a bit, as it may have become quite gelatinous as it cooled
• Using a flat back spoon, portion out the cherry sauce and place one dollop at a time onto one side of the split cake

• Make sure cherry sauce covers the complete half and then, gently, take the other half of the cake and place it back onto its partner, 'top' side up
• Repeat this with the other baked cake
• You will now have two cakes with cherry middles. You are not done yet! Using the remainder of your cherry sauce, cover the top of one of the cakes completely then place the other cake on top - you will now have three layers of cherry sauce to four layers of cake

• Now - take your whipped cream and smooth all over the cake until completely covered
• Then, as a final touch and something I know Martha would do, I grated dark chocolate over top
• That is it - your delicious, moist, chocolatey Black Forest cake is all ready to be eaten! Enjoy!

The STEWART SCORE:
Appearance: 2 (you can also pimp your cake out and add some whole cherries on the top, or even another layer of cherry sauce if you have extra)
Taste: 2
Ease: 1 (there are a lot of steps, this is not a fast cake to make as you must let it cool before you assemble it)

Easy Cherry Sauce

This is a super simple and tasty recipe for an easy cherry sauce.
Cherry sauce is great for a cake topping (especially for chocolate cakes, like this vegan chocolate cake), ice-cream sauce or, if you are feeling daring - a lovely tangy accompaniment to pork tenderloin (for this I would remove the sugar in the below recipe).

What You'll Need:

• Heavy-bottomed sauce pan
• 2 cups of seedless frozen cherries
• 1/3 cup of sugar (I used a xylitol-based sweetener instead)
• 2/3 cup water and 1/4 cup of water
• 2 Tbps cornstarch
• 1 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

What You'll Do:

• Ensure your cherries are pitted
• Place your thawed berries into your saucepan
• Pour in 2/3 cups of water
• Stir until boiling
• In a small measuring cup, pour in your 1/4 cup of water and stir in your cornstarch
• Pour your cornstarch and water mixture into the boiling cherries
• Stir rapidly as the sauce will thicken instantly
• Pour in your lemon juice
• Reduce the heat and stir for another 2-3 minutes or until desired thickness is achieved
• Let cool
• Easy as that

The STEWART SCORE
Appearance: 1 - it looks like a crime scene
Taste: 2
Ease: 2

Vegan Chocolate Cake

I ran out of butter and am making my husband his birthday cake.
I remembered making a Vegan chocolate cake once for a colleague's birthday (who was Vegan) and I dug out an old and trusty recipe I thought I would share with you all for days you want cake and have no butter.

What You'll Need:

• 1 cake pan - you can make this a square or round cake, or even cupcakes if you fancy - I chose a medium-sized round pan
• 1 large bowl, 1 small bowl
• 1/5 cups of all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cups granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder (I use the extra dark kind that is virtually sugar-free)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp vinegar (plain, not cider or rice, etc)
• 1 cup room temperature water

What You'll Do:

• Pre-heat your oven
• Lightly grease your baking pan
• In your large bowl sift your flour, sugars, cocoa, baking soda and salt together until fully combined
• In your small bowl pour in your oil, vanilla, vinegar then water
• Quickly whisk up until combined and bubbly
• Pour into your flour mixture and stir until smooth
• Pour into your baking pan
• Depending on the depth of your pan, or if you decided to make cupcakes, cooking times varies. For me it took around 25 minutes. I could tell it was done when the centre was no longer wiggly when moved about and when I could stick in a toothpick and it came out 'clean' (not gooey)
• Let cool and serve with your favourite ice cream or fruit topping - here is a link to a super simple cherry topping that is really easy to make and adds a nice zing

The STEWART SCORE
Appearance: 1.5
Taste: 2
Ease: 2

Low Fat 'Chipits' Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

You can't find bags of chocolate chips in the Netherlands like you can in North America, so last time I was home for a visit, I picked up an extra large bag of 'Chipits' milk chocolate chips.

On the back of the package is a recipe for their 'Original Chipits Cookies' that I thought I would try today.

The original recipe has a lot of butter in it and so I thought I would practice what I preach and substitute half the butter for 1/4 cup of low fat Greek yogurt - like I posted a couple weeks ago, here.

The cookies turned out marvelously and were really easy to make. They are lower fat than the original recipe - but they still contain quite a bit sugar, I chose to use a xylitol-based sweetener to substitute out some of the sugar as well.

What You'll Need:

• Cookie sheets
• Hand mixer or electric mixer
• 1 large bowl (or your electric mixer's bowl) and one medium bowl
• Baking paper/parchment paper
• 1/2 cup room temperature butter
• 1/4 cup low-fat Greek yogurt
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 room temperature medium-sized eggs
• 1.5 tsp vanilla 
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar (I also substituted this for my xylitol-based sweetener, called Ideal)
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 cups 'Chipits' chocolate chips (or your favourite kind that is available where you live)

What You'll Do:

• Pre-heat your oven to 375F (190C)
• Cover your baking trays with baking paper
• In your mixer's bowl (large bowl) cream together your butter, yogurt and sugars. To read more about the fine art of butter creaming, feel free to read this
• When fully creamed, add in your two, room-temperature eggs (having them room temperature is important - here is why!)
• Beat until mixed
• Pour in your vanilla extract and mix in completely
• In your medium-sized bowl, add in your flour, baking soda and salt
• Using a fork, stir until fully combined
• Gradually mix in the flour mixture into the butter mixture
• Ensure you scrape the sides of the bowl once or twice while you are mixing to ensure everything is totally combined
• Once combined, pour in your two cups of chocolate chips and hand blend until combined
• One your covered baking sheets, roll out tablespoon full amounts of batter onto the tray, well spaced apart as these cookies spread
• Bake in your pre-heated oven for 8-12 minutes or until just lightly browning on the outside edges - you will want these cookies to be a little gooey in the middle still
• Enjoy with a glass of milk...or wine, your choice...Martha doesn't judge and neither do I

The STEWART SCORE
Appearance: 2
Taste: 2
Ease: 2

Substituting Fat Free Yogurt for Fats in a Recipe

 

Just follow this easy chart in your recipes - love it - thanks Chobani! I usually use Total Fat Free Greek Yogurt, so use your favourite and let me know how it works out!