Raspberry Blackout Cake from Vegan with a Vengance

As the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. Our Swedish family have taken the long flight home to sub zero temperatures (-28C on some days. Eep!!!).

Before we did the sad farewells at the airport, we managed to squeeze in one final dinner at our home with the whole family present. For after dinner I wanted to make a really special chocolate cake. Mum had a wonderful moist chocolate cake recipe she used to always make for birthdays and special occasions. Unfortunately I seem to have misplaced the furry book I wrote down all of mums best recipes in before I moved out of home so had to find another recipe to use.

After scouring through all my cookbooks, I settled on the Raspberry Blackout cake from Vegan with a Vengeance. This recipe just jumped out at me as something I really wanted to try, and Isa's recipes have never let me down yet. I've noticed that this recipe has already been published on a number of blogs (not all of which give her credit as the source) so it seemed to be a rather popular recipe too.

Raspberry Blackout Cake

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup Dutch cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups plain rice or soy milk
1/2 cup canola oil (I used almond as I had no canola)
10 oz jar of raspberry jam with 1/2 cup reserved for the batter (I didn't have enough raspberry so I made up the difference with sour cherry in the batter)
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups sugar
Fresh raspberries for decorating and yumminess

1. Preheat oven to 175C or 350F. Spray two 20cm/8 inch round springform cake pans with cooking spray. If you don't have springform pans, line the bottom of ordinary round pans to prevent sticking.
2. Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
3. Combine the milk, oil, 1/2 cup of the jam, the vanilla, and the sugar in a large bowl and mix with a hand mixer or strong fork. The jam should be mostly dissolved with the rest of the ingredients; some small clumps are okay.
4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet in batches and mix until everything is incorporated.
5. Divide the batter between the prepared pans and bake for 40-45 minutes, or until a toothpick or knife comes out clean.
6. Remove from oven and let cool in pans.
7. When the cakes have cooled fully, spread one layer of cake with a think layer of the remaining raspberry jam (give the jam a quick mix to get a spreadable consistency); spread a layer of chocolate icing on top of the preserves.
8. Place the other layer of cake on top and spread its top with preserves.
9. Carefully spread the chocolate icing over the top, then ice the sides.

A naked raspberry blackout cake patiently awaiting icing

In the book, the cake is topped with a 'ganache-y frosting' I didn't have choc chips, so made a chocolate butter cream icing.

Chocolate butter cream icing
1 cup of vegan margarine
500 grams of icing sugar (I used billingtons golden icing sugar which has a lovely flavour)
2 tbsp soy milk
2 tbsp dutch cocoa powder

1. Place all margarine in a mixing bowl and slowly blend in half the icing sugar.
2. Blend in the milk and cocoa.
3. Add the remaining icing sugar and mix well.
4. Chill till ready to use.

Getting there, but it needs something more...

As just an iced cake I thought it looked a little boring, so I cut some flower shapes out of rolled white fondant and left these to dry for 30 minutes. I then used these along with some fresh raspberries.

Decorated cake, not over the top at all...

The cake had a great flavour and the jam made for a really moist, fudgy, rich chocolate cake that everyone loved. This is a cake recipe that I think I will be using often and I think would be perfect as a base for some more fancy cake decorating or shaped cakes as it held it's shape really well and did not crumble or crack.

So so yummy!

Yum!