You can put us squarely in the “chocolate lovers” category. And one of the best things about chocolate is how deliciously it pairs with other flavors. For example, strawberries! So we wanted to share our fluffy, moist vegan chocolate cake recipe along with a strawberry frosting. But this isn’t just a regular strawberry buttercream. The frosting is a German buttercream using our vegan pastry cream as the base which is then whipped with butter. We flavored it with heavy cream and strawberry powder. In other words, it is ultra thick and creamy and tastes just like strawberry ice cream! Actually, the flavoring in the buttercream is essentially the base of our strawberry vegan soft serve ice cream.
We like to decorate this cake with dark chocolate-covered strawberries. They are super simple to make and they look really elegant on top of the cake. Plus they are the OG chocolate/strawberry pairing, after all. We truly love this vegan chocolate cake recipe, and we hope you will, too!
We used our favorite vegan milk chocolate bars from Charm School Chocolate and the strawberry fruit powder from Modernist Pantry in this recipe.
If you’re in the mood for another cake flavor, try our vegan Dominican cake or vegan honey lemon cake.
Make sure to check out the recipe notes for additional information and tips.
If you try this recipe, leave us a comment below to let us know how it goes. We would love to hear from you!
Vegan Chocolate Cake with Strawberry Ice Cream Frosting
A two-layer vegan chocolate cake with a strawberry ice cream flavored German buttercream frosting.
Equipment
- two 8-inch cake pans
- hand mixer
Ingredients
Chocolate Cake
- 250 g all-purpose flour (2 cups)
- 64 g unsweetened cocoa powder (½ cup)
- 200 g sugar (1 cup)
- 100 g brown sugar (¼ cup)
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp kosher salt if using unsalted butter
- 150 g vegan butter (⅔ cup) room temperature
- 60 g vegetable oil (4 tbsp)
- 380 g unsweetened soy milk (1 ½ cups) room temperature
- 210 g Just Egg (¾ cup + 2 tbsp) room temperature
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 180 g vegan chocolate, milk or semisweet (6 oz) melted
Strawberry Ice Cream Frosting
- 1 ½ cups unsweetened soy milk (350ml)
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 3 tbsp cornstarch
- ¼ tsp salt (omit if using salted butter)
- ¾ cup sugar (150g)
- 120 g Just Egg (~½ cup)
- 1 cup room temperature vegan butter (226g)
- 3 tbsp strawberry powder
- ¼ cup Silk heavy whipping cream
- red gel or oil-based food coloring
Instructions
Chocolate Cake
- If you haven't already, melt your chocolate. We break the chocolate into small-ish pieces and microwave them in a small bowl, stirring after every 20 seconds until the chocolate is completely melted. This should take 1-2 minutes. Set aside.
- Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Prepare your 8-inch cake pans using your preferred method. We like to use a piece of parchment paper on the bottom as well as buttering and flouring the bottom and sides.
- In a large mixing bowl, add the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt (if using unsalted butter). Use a rubber spatula to mix until well combined.
- Add the softened butter and vegetable oil. Use a hand mixer to mix on medium-low speed until no dry flour remains and the mixture is a sandy texture, scraping the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed.
- In a medium mixing bowl, stir together the soy milk, Just Egg, and vanilla extract. Then add half of the mixture to the dry mixture, and mix on medium-low speed until well-combined. Turn off the mixer then scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl. Add the second half of the wet ingredients, and mix on medium-low speed until well-combined. Turn off the mixer then scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl. Then mix on medium speed for 3 minutes.
- Turn off the mixer then scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl. Add the melted chocolate. Mix on medium-low speed until well-combined.
- Pour the batter evenly into the two prepared cake pans. Bake in the center of the oven for 50-60 minutes until the the sides of the cakes have pulled away from the pans, and a cake tester (skewer, toothpick, knife) comes out clean.Remove the cakes from the oven. Let them cool completely in the pans. The domes on the cakes will deflate as they cool, but they should not sink down into the middle of the cakes.
Strawberry Ice Cream Frosting
- Do this step first to avoid running around to get it together when the time comes! Place a medium or large sieve over a mixing bowl.
- Add the soy milk, vanilla extract, and salt to a sauce pan. Mix to combine and leave to simmer on medium heat. It will simmer pretty quickly, in a few minutes.
- In a small or medium-sized mixing bowl, combine the sugar, cornstarch, and Just Egg.
- Mix with a whisk until evenly combined.
- Once the milk mixture has started to simmer, slowly pour half of it into the Just Egg mixture while stirring with a whisk.
- Next, slowly pour in all of the mixture from the mixing bowl back into the pot with the remaining milk mixture.
- Whisk continuously on medium heat to cook and thicken the mixture. It should be thick enough to see the streaks of the whisk in it as you mix.
- Turn off the heat. Scoop the mixture from the pot into the sieve you prepared earlier. Using a rubber spatula, press it through the sieve to get rid of any lumps in the mix. Don’t forget to scrape the outside bottom of the sieve to get any of the mix that collects there.
- Cover the mixture with plastic wrap to prevent a skin from forming on the surface. Allow it to cool down to room temperature. The amount of time this takes will vary. You can also speed up the process by popping it into the fridge or freezer for a few minutes. Don't let it get cold though, because it can cause the buttercream to split when you add the room temperature butter to it.
- Add the custard to the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix with a whisk attachment to loosen it up.
- Add in the *room temperature* butter a tablespoon or two at a time while mixing at medium or high speed. Allow each addition of butter to fully incorporate before adding the next one.
- We added some violet food coloring to whiten the yellow mixture a bit.
- To flavor the buttercream we added in heavy cream and strawberry powder at this point. We also added a little bit of red food coloring for extra color. Mix it until it's well combined. And then add it to a piping bag. If your frosting is a little runny, you can refrigerate it for a few minutes to make it hold up a little better.
Assembly
- This recipe bakes fairly flat cakes, but if your layers are not as flat as you would like, level the cake layers by cutting the domes off of the tops.
- Place the first cake layer on the surface where you would like to assemble your cake. Using a piping bag or a spatula, place about 1 cup of frosting on top of the layer. Use an offset spatula to spread the frosting evenly across the top of the cake layer.
- Place the second cake layer on top of the frosted bottom layer. We chose to do a simple "almost naked" look for our cake. If you would also like to decorate in this style, use a piping bag or a spatula to place the remaining frosting on top of the second layer. Use an offset spatula to spread an even layer of frosting on the top, allowing the excess to fall down the sides of the cake. Spead the frosting thinly and evenly on the sides of the cake so that the cake layers show through the frosting in same sections.Add additional decorations as you wish.
Notes
- Like many of our recipes, this recipe uses Just Egg. We have tried making this recipe using an equal weight of applesauce as a replacement for the Just Egg, and the result was not nearly as moist and fluffy and delicious. At this time we do not have a substitution suggestion for the Just Egg. Please let us know if you try this recipe with a substitute.
- If your buttercream splits (looks grainy from the butter separating from the pastry cream), you can remove and microwave about 1/4 cup of the mixture. Add it back into the rest and mix on high speed to reincorporate. This might work for you.
