Vegan chocolate orange cake – fool your non vegan loved ones with this chocolate orange cake made with cacao powder, teff flour with orange zest.
I’m so excited to share my very first vegan chocolate orange cake on my website. Admittedly, I was apprehensive about sharing vegan cakes recipes. I think it was due in part to the plethora of amazing predominately vegan bloggers that are out there.
While I’m not a vegan, as mentioned before I do enjoy eating vegan/plant based food. I like the idea of omitting eggs and gluten from cakes and replacing them with something that’s nourishing for the body.
Using teff flour to make this vegan chocolate orange cake
I feel that this vegan chocolate orange cake lives up to it’s reputation of goodness. It’s made with gluten free teff flour, a superfood, one that originates from Ethiopia.
Teff is one of the smallest grains in the world but don’t let its miniature size fool you. It’s packed with amino acid, protein, calcium and iron. It’s definitely an asset to the human body.
Working with gluten free flour
Moving onto the taste, well……it does have an acquired taste, like any gluten free flour, they have their uniqueness. One thing with gluten free cooking, particularly when dealing with the flour, is getting used to working the various flour blends.
You have to have an open mind and not compare conventional flour to gluten free flour. By doing so will only lead to disappointment.
That isn’t to say all gluten free flour is horrible, rather there’s a huge adjustment to be made.
The taste of teff flour
Teff has a malty almost earth like flavour, it’s quite dense which is why I made this vegan chocolate orange cake with tapioca starch and rice flour.
I find that the starch and brown rice flour helps to alleviate that earth tone.
How to make vegan chocolate orange cake
The egg replacement/binder – The key ingredient that binds the cake together is the bananas. The bananas act like a glue and help to combine all of the ingredients.
The addition of the bananas does not have an impact on the orange flavour of the cake. Reason being, the zest is added to the cake batter and also the chocolate ganache (topping).
The ganache – Speaking of topping, the ganache was made using dairy free chocolate and coconut cream. The coconut cream is simply the coconut solids extracted from a full fat can of coconut milk.
Chilled coconut solids – The can needs to be chilled or stored in a cool place so the solids, which is used, can separate from the clear liquid. Make sure you have a chilled can to hand in order to successfully prepare your ganache.
Melting the chocolate – I melted the chocolate by heating the coconut solids until they melt and heated thoroughly. I poured the cream onto the chocolate in a bowl, and left it to melt.
How to remedy the chocolate if it doesn’t melt – If you chocolate doesn’t melt because the cream isn’t hot enough, that is fine. Simply fit the bowl (should be heatproof) over a pan of simmering water and allow the chocolate to melt.
What should I do with the leftover ganache?
I found the ganache was quite excess so you can either freeze the remainder or use in either of these recipes –
avocado chocolate mousse (vegan).
Notes
- Delicious vegan chocolate orange cake that’s gluten and dairy free too
- Suitable for home freezing
- Eat within a few days or freeze
Vegan chocolate orange cake
Ingredients
- 1 cup of teff flour
- 1/2 cup of tapioca flour
- 1/2 brown rice flour
- 1/4 cup of cacao powder
- 1 tsp of baking powder
- 1 tsp of baking soda
- 2 large bananas
- 1 tbsp of orange zest
- 1/2 cup of coconut sugar
- 1/2 coconut oil melted
- 1/2 almond milk
- 1 tsp of vanilla extract
- 1/8 tsp of himalayan pink salt
To make the ganache
- 200 g of dairy free chocolate two large bars
- 2 tbsp coconut nectar
- 1 tbsp of orange zest
- coconut solids scooped out from can of coconut milk, discard clear liquid
- garnish with almond flakes
Instructions
- Break the chocolate bars into pieces and add to a heatproof bowl with the orange zest, coconut nectar.
- Bring the coconut solids to a boil then pour over the pieces of chocolate and allow to melt. If the coconut solids cools down before it melts, simply set the bowl over simmering water for it to melt in its entirety, then leave to cool before transferring to the refrigerator.
- Preheat the oven to 160 degrees.
- Line and grease a 9'' spring form pan with parchment paper so the side and bottom are covered and set side.
- In a bowl, sieve the teff, rice brown, tapioca four and cacao.
- Then add the baking powder, baking soda, zest, pink salt and coconut sugar and stir all of the ingredients together.
- In another bowl mash the bananas then pour in the almond milk, melted coconut oil and vanilla extract.
- Using an electric mixer (I used my hand held one) slowly add the flour blend to the wet ingredients until all the flour is incorporated.
- Continue to whisk all of the ingredients until a thick batter is formed.
- Transfer the cake batter into the spring form pan and use a spatula to even the top.
- Bake the cake for approximately 40 minutes or until a skewer or tooth pick comes out clean.
- Once baked, remove the pan from the oven and using oven gloves, release and lift the cake from the spring form pan.
- Transfer the cake onto a cooling rack so it cools with out bottom of pan still attached.
- Let the cake completely cool before adding the ganache.
- Use a spatula to evenly spread a layer of the ganache over the top and sides of the cake. Repeat this step if a thicker frosting is desired.
- Garnish with almond flakes.
- Serve with dairy free cream
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