Moist Chocolate Cake

Chocolate cake is a classic dessert and makes for a perfect birthday centerpiece, and this moist, fluffy vegan dessert is as great as they come!  It's amazing by itself, but pairs incredibly with the chocolate fudge recipe below, or you can try with your favorite frosting too!  It's a tasty canvas and the only limit is your imagination! 

The chocolate fudge that goes on this cake is easy to make and goes great not just with this cake recipe, but also as hot fudge for a sundae bar!

Recipe

Ingredients

For the cake:
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce*
1/2 cup coconut oil or vegan butter (melted)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder**
1 1/2 cup cane sugar
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups oat milk

For the Fudge:
3 7.4oz cans of coconut condensed milk
3 to 4 tbsp. cocoa powder (depends on how rich you like it) 

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and grease 2 9 inch cake pans with coconut oil.
2. To make the cake, in a large mixing bowl, beat together the applesauce and coconut oil with a fork until the mixture is smooth and there are no lumps. Whisk in the milk, flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking soda, and salt until all of the ingredients are thoroughly combined.
3. Pour the batter equally into the 2 greased cake pans and bake them for 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
4. Once out of the oven, allow the cake to cool completely before removing from the pan.  
5. While the cake is cooling, make the fudge by stirring together the condensed coconut milk and cocoa powder in a small pot over medium heat.  Cook for five minutes, stirring continuously to keep from burning. Remove from heat and the fudge is done! 
6. Assemble cake, alternating between layers of cake and fudge, or using the frosting of your choice.
7. Blow out the candles and serve.  Enjoy!   

Notes 

*If the applesauce that you're using was previously refrigerated, you might want to leave it out for a while so that it becomes room temperature.  If you don't then the coconut oil might clump up when it comes into contact with the applesauce.  Also, if don't have applesauce, 1/2 cup of mashed banana or 2 eggs worth egg-replacer will work too!  Haven't tried using flax eggs, but that should work (please let me know if that works for you!)
​**Yes, that is the correct cocoa powder measurement ;)