I was craving a chocolate cake after browsing through my mother in-law’s copy of martha’s living cookbook  over the holidays. Of course I’ve been craving anything chocolate for the past few months. I altered Martha’s devil’s food cake recipe a little to eliminate dairy, and then altered and combined a couple frosting recipes from here to adorn my chocolate indulgence. It’s easy and delicious even if you aren’t vegan.

I also included a few tips for frosting cakes. I am by no means a professional, these are only a couple things that help me and in turn may help you. If you have additional ideas or tips feel free to add via comment!

chocolate marshmallow frosting - vegan!
3 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/3 cup cocoa
1/2 cup vegan/dairy free margarine
1 T almond milk in 1 cup (vegan) marshmallows,  microwaved 30 seconds and whisked until smooth
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1/4 cup almond milk, added one Tablespoon at a time, more if necessary (added by teaspoons)

Sift sugar and cocoa together. Cream the margarine, add the sugar and cocoa, followed by the marshmallows, and vanilla. Add the almond milk on Tablespoon at a time until you get the desired consistency.

Frost a delicious chocolate cake!

note: I did not use vegan marshmallows in this recipe, please let me know if you use them and this recipe does not work!

A few tips for frosting cakes:

Assure that your cake layers are cooled sufficiently, there’s nothing worse than finding the frosting between layers has melted completely!

You can put your cake in the refrigerator or freezer for a little bit until ready to frost, usually less crumbs come off as you frost after doing this; this is especially useful with cake-mix cakes as they tend to be extra crumbly.

For a two layer cake place the bottom layer top (rounded) side down, frost, then add the top layer with the top (rounded) side up.

Start with frosting between the layers, then dollop some frosting on the top of the cake and maneuver that frosting down the sides. Usually less frosting gets on the plate when you do this.

Sometimes I cut out a circle of cardboard, the size of my cake, cover it with foil, then place the cake on this foil “plate” and frost it while it’s sitting on top of a bowl turned upside down.

Tags: dairy free, vegan

This entry was posted on Friday, January 15th, 2010 at 1:48 pm and is filed under Jen, Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.