Chocolate and lime vegan cake

This is one of the most comforting cakes ever. It’s easy to make and delicious and I have already baked it several times because everyone seems to love it. I find it particularly suited to the holiday season (some of the more Christmassy pictures are from last Christmas in fact) so why not give this a go and try something different?

A festive version completely frosted with ganache

For the chocolate sponge (make two)

Chocolate sponge cake

150ml almond milk

1/3 tbsp apple cider vinegar

75g soft vegan butter

100g caster sugar

1/2 tsp salt

125g self raising flour

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

25g cocoa powder

20g melted dark chocolate

Pour the apple cider vinegar in the milk and let curdle. Beat the vegan butter and the caster sugar for ~5 minutes, until pale and fluffy. In another bowl, sift together the flour, the bicarbonate and the cocoa powder. Then start adding this dry mix to the beaten butter, but do it in batches and alternate a batch of dry with a batch of wet (milk+vinegar) ingredients. Do not mix, try to FOLD. Treat the butter as if it was beaten egg whites. Once everything is incorporated, add the melted dark chocolate and pour in the cake tin. Bake at 180C static for ~45 minutes. I have a temperamental oven, so for me it takes 50 minutes, for others it might take a bit less. Check with a metal skewer.

Chocolate lime ganache

150g dark chocolate finely chopped

100g vegan heavy cream

15g lime juice + grated peel of 1 lime

Put the heavy cream on the stove, so not being to a boil but heat well. Pour on the chocolate and let sit for 1’ then mix until all chocolate is melted. Quickly incorporate lime juice and peel.

Pipe or spread on top of the cake. Save some to spread between the two sponges.

Lime buttercream

Peel of 2 limes

150g vegan butter

130g icing sugar

1tsp vanilla extract

Beat the butter and sugar for a few minutes until fluffy. Incorporate vanilla and lime zest and keep beating until smooth. Pipe three rings of buttercream and leave a “well” in the centre. Put the ganache there.

Layer of clear lime gelee

175 g lime juice

40 gram caster sugar

2g NH pectin

2g agar agar +10 gram water, stir and let sit a couple of minutes

Warm up the lime juice and then stir in the sugar and pectin. Once incorporated add the agar and bring to a boil. Pour on the bottom of the cake tin with a ring of acetate or baking paper around and let set to create a disc. Place on top of the ganache layer and decorate.

The Christmassy version