Really Exceptionally Delightful Vegan Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cake

Here at CakeandEdith.com, you can have your cake, and Edith too on occasion, and then more cake and only cake. At least in 2023. I swear we eat other things, they just aren't as fun to share.



Plus: I'm not even vegan.

This cake was assembled in under fifteen minutes before my youngest got on the bus to school - a haphazard effort to amp up my morning's sense of productivity and, multitasker that I am, infuse our arctic home with a little oven heat. Also the co-op's running a sale on Enjoy Life chocolate and my spouse and I both but separately opted to milk it for all it's worth, so we have like ten bags of chocolate chips. Did you like my literary play there? Using the word "milk" to talk about vegan chocolate chips? No? Just me?

I'm not a nerd, you're a nerd. 

 

Anyway this cake quite exceeded expectations, especially given its slapdash origins. I started with a recipe from Snacking Cakes, which is wonderful and I'd probably just make all her recipes exactly as written but for egg-allergic child and that pesky insatiable obsession of mine to veganize baked goods. Absolutely worth memorializing here for at least myself, but maybe you too! (Critics unanimously acclaim: "Mom, this is, like, really good." "Can I have more?" "You used all the sugar in the recipe this time, didn't you?") The edges have a nutty-crisp thing going on while the inside is soft and v. chocolaty. Like so: 

I will make this again, probably next week.

So what else is new, friends? Just watched a couple episodes of Russian Doll last night, which had escaped my radar until yesterday, when the New Yorker mentioned it, thank heavens, because I don't want to miss anything involving Natasha Lyonne or that rad raspy voice of hers I've loved since she was slumming it in Beverly Hills and I was slumming it on the Newport Beach peninsula. So that romance has been rekindled (it's a really good, really funny show full of hilarious women) and all is again right in the world. Or will be soon enough, once I've binge-watched both seasons. Correction: most things in the world are not right. I'm being flip, which maybe shouldn't be allowed in 2023. Things seem kind of dire, right? Cake is still allowed though.





Vegan Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cake
Yield: One 8" pan / 12ish servings

1 cup oat milk
1/2 cup neutral oil
1/2 cup applesauce*
1/2 cup brown or white sugar
2 tablespoons ground flax seeds*
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom (optional but lovely)
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour (or pastry flour or cake flour)
1 tablespoon baking powder*
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup oats, plus 3 tablespoons for topping

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 8-inch baking dish.

In a large bowl, whisk oat milk, oil, applesause, sugar, flaxseeds, cinnamon, vanilla, salt, and cardamom until combined. Sift in flour, baking powder, and soda and stir until just combined. Gently stir in half cup oats and chocolate chips.

Pour into pan and sprinkle 3 tablespoons oats on top. Bake for 35-45 minutes. Mine took 45 minutes. Be sure not to confuse molten chocolate perfection for uncooked batter. 

 * You could sub 2 eggs for the applesauce and flax seeds. You might want to add an additional tablespoon or two of sugar - your call - and reduce the baking powder from one tablespoon to one teaspoon. 

 xoxo E-NC