Vegan Chocolate Cake with Un-Vegan Peanut Butter Glaze

What to do when a hurricane is raging outside? Cook! At least, that's what I chose this morning. To be fair, we were driving up and down I-95 all weekend, so some of these are weekend projects we never got to - I wouldn't normally plan to do all this during a storm. Still, it was a great way to use my time earlier this morning when the storm wasn't so intense. Now I have a new batch of vegetable stock (soup tomorrow), a batch of white beans (dinner today), a loaf of whole wheat bread, another of banana bread, and a batch of granola. I also cleaned and prepped most of the greens that are in my fridge. We're definitely prepared to spend several days holed up at home.

I did not make this recipe today, but I easily could have. It's a wonderful quick cake using ingredients you probably have on hand already. Jeff and I first made the cake a few weeks ago when, half an hour before Monday night football, we decided we wanted dessert. It came together and went into the oven before the game and was ready to eat by halftime. We made it again for a Halloween party on Friday, this time with a peanut butter glaze to give it a little orange-and-black Halloween spirit. Again, the cake was ready in under an hour, and the glaze took seconds to whisk together. If you're looking for a nice dessert to throw together with little mess and no fuss, whether before a football game or in the middle of a hurricane, this is it!

Note: while the cake is vegan, the glaze does have a little milk. You could easily sub in soy milk or almond milk to make it vegan as well.

Vegan Chocolate Cake with Un-Vegan Peanut Butter Glaze
Cake is barely adapted from Joy the Baker. Glaze is adapted from Pixelated Crumb.

cake:
2 1/4 c flour
1/2 c cocoa powder
1 1/2 c sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 c warm water
1/2 c + 1 tbsp canola oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 c bittersweet chocolate chips

glaze:
3/4 c powdered sugar
2 tbsp skim milk
2 tbsp smooth peanut butter
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350° F. Coat a 9" bundt pan with cooking spray and dust with cocoa powder.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In a smaller bowl, whisk together water, oil and vanilla.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and fold together until just moistened. Stir in chocolate chips, then spoon the thick batter into the prepared pan.

Bake for 30-35 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool in the pan for ten minutes or so, then invert onto a rack to cool completely.

Once the cake is baked, whisk the glaze ingredients together in a small bowl (you may need to sift the powdered sugar to remove chunks). Pour over the top of the cake, letting it drizzle down the sides. The glaze will harden a bit after a minute or two. Serve and enjoy!