The Cake Merchant

Whole Wheat Vegan Chocolate Cake

Vegan Chocolate Cake

I’ve decided to up my chances of keeping my New Year’s resolutions by making them easier this year. Let’s call them goals instead, shall we? I figured I could handle one short term goal and one long term goal.

Long term goal- phone detox. You know that moment when you find yourself on your phone, iPad, and computer all at the same time? Guilty. I’m going to start my detox by NOT looking at my phone first thing in the morning. Doesn’t sound like much, but baby steps, people. I may have to buy a real alarm clock.

Short term goal- Go vegan for a month. You can do anything for a month, right? It’s not too far of a stretch from my current diet. I wish I could say that I had a really good reason for doing it other than I’m just curious about life without cheese, but I just want to try it. Needless to say, you’ll be seeing more vegan recipes than usual on the blog, starting with this one.

And guess what? It’s a mini cake! I can’t help myself, they are just so cuuute! I healthified it a little bit by replacing half the oil with applesauce and using whole wheat pastry flour. You could also use a half and half mix of whole what pastry flour and all-purpose flour to make it less obviously whole wheat if you want to.

Vegan Chocolate CakeVegan Chocolate CakeVegan Chocolate Cake

During my vegan month, I’m going to explore other frostings outside of the margarine/shortening/so much powdered sugar your teeth hurt variety. I gather from comments and emails that most of my readers don’t like overly sweet frosting (I don’t either), but I have yet to find a good version of vegan swiss buttercream. However, I know there are other good vegan frostings out there and I can promise you that this one is not too sweet and very chocolaty. I added corn syrup to keep the frosting shiny and smooth (keep in mind that this is not HFCS) but you can sub golden syrup, maple syrup, or omit it all together.

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Mint Chocolate Chip Cookie Crunch Cake

Mint Chocolate Cookie Crunch Cake

I will admit that December has pretty much been kicking my ass so far. In the balance of work/blog/life/sleep, blogging has been coming in last place. Not to mention the fact that I’m married to a non-Indian person now so I have to think about Christmas and presents and all that stuff more than I normally would. I did, however, have a few minutes to throw together this little cake. And by throw together, I mean I had 2 failed attempts because I tried to rush and ended up leaving out some important ingredients (like eggs) the first couple of times. Remember that whole post about having a relaxed holiday? Yeah, that totally didn’t work. But enough grumbling, let’s talk cake!

The cake recipe is from The Brown Betty Cookbook, which has been sitting unused on my bookshelf for entirely too long. The Chocolate Buttermilk Cake requires 2 egg yolks, which had me wondering what to do with the leftover egg whites. In hindsight, I probably should have used them in the frosting, but that would have been too simple. Plus, I have been stalking Katherine Sabbath’s instagram profile lately, and I love the idea of using meringues as cute little cake toppers.

Aaron loves mint chocolate cake, but he requires that it be paired with mini chocolate chips, so I threw some of those in between the layers. I also had a few Peppermint Jo Jos on hand so I crushed them up and threw some of those in along with some crushed meringue cookies because, why not? It’s a total smorgasbord of minty chocolate chippy cookie crunchy goodness. I didn’t measure how much of each topping I used, but after I tasted the finished product, I wish I had added more. You can add anything you want- crushed candy canes, peppermint bark, etc. And don’t be afraid to use a heavy hand. Texture = good.

Mint Chocolate Cookie Crunch CakeMint Chocolate Cookie Crunch CakeMint Chocolate Cookie Crunch Cake

If you don’t have 7-inch cake pans, you can get 3 shorter 8-inch layers out of this recipe or 2 9-inch layers. Keep in mind that if you use different sized baking pans, you will need to adjust the baking time.

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Mini One Bowl Yellow Cake with Malted Chocolate Frosting

Mini Yellow Cake

Sometimes I wonder why the holidays are the most stressful time of year. I mean, shouldn’t it be the opposite? They are called the holidays, after all. Last week, I found myself completely stressed out and trying to cram in a bunch of pumpkin recipes before I left for my trip to LA when I stopped and thought to myself, why am I doing this? It kind of got me thinking about why I blog in the first place. Perhaps one day I will take over the world with cake, but for now, the main reason that I blog is because it makes me happy. Baking cakes makes me happy, eating them makes me even happier, sharing them with you makes me the happiest, and if I’m not happy blogging then there’s no point. Cake should never be the cause of so much stress.

Most people know that it’s important to take a step back every once in a while and do something good for yourself, but sometimes it’s easier said than done. The last couple of holiday seasons have been all about to do lists for me, and I don’t want another one to go by in a stress frenzy. So today, when I should probably be posting something holiday themed, I am making myself some cake. A mini yellow cake with malted chocolate frosting and crunchy sprinkles. There’s just something about this combo that reminds me of childhood birthdays, and I can’t not be happy when eating it. Since mini cakes are my most favoritest thing ever, I made a 4-inch layer cake just big enough for two.

Mini Yellow Cake
Mini Yellow Cake
Mini Yellow Cake

I tried this recipe with both all purpose and cake flour, and I liked the lighter and fluffier cake flour version better. All purpose flour will work if you’re in a pinch, although you’ll end up with a slightly more dense cake and you’ll need to reduce the amount of flour by one tablespoon. If you don’t have buttermilk on hand, add a drop of vinegar to the milk and let it sit for a couple of minutes. The frosting recipe makes more than enough, but I like to have plenty on hand because since I like a smooth finish to my cakes. If you don’t plan to do a crumb coat and pipe a border, you can cut the frosting recipe in half. I also like the flavor of a little bit of malt powder in my chocolate frosting, but if you’re not a fan, you can leave it out.

Mini Yellow Cake

What dessert makes you happy?

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