Dairy-free chocolate birthday cake

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“Use a dairy-free frosting of your choice. I like the vegan chocolate birthday frosting from onelovelylife.com explained below.” – Thando Moleketi-Williams

Ingredients

1 x 650 g box Woolworths’ Easy to Bake chocolate cake mix
2 large free-range eggs
1⁄2 cup oil (we usually use coconut oil)
3⁄4 cup any dairy-free or nut milk (we usually use oat milk)
1 cup hot water
1 double shot espresso
2 t vanilla extract
Oreos, to decorate
For the vegan frosting:
85 g unsweetened chocolate or Woolworths dark chocolate drops, roughly chopped
2 T coconut oil
1⁄3–1⁄2 cup almond milk (or oat milk)
1 t vanilla extract
1⁄4 t almond extract (optional)
32 g unsweetened baking cocoa powder
375–625 g icing sugar

Cooking Instructions

1. Prepare the cake batter according to package instructions, adding the coffee and vanilla extract to the wet ingredients.

2. Pour into a 20 cm rectangular cake tin lined with parchment paper and bake at 170°C for 1 hour, or until a skewer comes out clean. You could also bake this cake in two round cake tins if you prefer a layered cake. Allow the cake to cool completely.

3. To make the frosting, gently melt the chocolate and coconut oil in a small saucepan until smooth and glossy.
Remove from the heat and slowly stir in the almond milk, vanilla and almond extract. The mixture will thicken.

4. Transfer the chocolate mixture to a large bowl. Add the cocoa. Using a hand mixer (or your muscles), mix in 1 cup icing sugar
at a time until you’ve reached the desired consistency.

5. If the mixture is too dry, thin it out with a little more almond milk. If the mixture is too thin, add a little more icing sugar. You should reach a nice thick texture between 4–5 cups icing sugar.

6. To assemble a sheet cake, dollop the frosting over the cooled cake and spread with a spatula or palette knife. Decorate with original Oreo biscuits and serve.

7. To assemble a round cake, spread half the frosting over one of the cakes, then top with raspberries. Top with the remaining cake, the remaining frosting and Oreos. Alternatively, you could spread blueberry or raspberry jam between the cakes and only ice the top of the cake.

Cook's note: 70–74% of chocolate slabs usually don’t contain milk solids

Find more birthday cake recipes here.

ALSO READ: No-dairy queen: how finding dairy-free alternatives for a toddler led to new discoveries

Photograph: Jan Ras
Production: Bianca Strydom
Food assistant: Hannah Moerdyk