How to Make a Perfect Eggless Chocolate Cake?

Most of the chocolate cake recipes contain eggs. If you need to make an egg free chocolate cake or vegan, it is always challenging to convert the classic chocolate cake recipe into an egg free version or even vegan. There are a plenty of egg replacements or egg substitutes are available in the market for using in baking. The common egg substitutes are silken tofu, flaxseed powder, Pureed fruits (such as mashed bananas, applesauce, apricots, pears, prunes, etc), vinegar/baking soda, buttermilk/yogurt or commercially available egg replacer powder (like EnerG). In terms of vinegar types, there are white distilled vinegar and apple cider vinegar. Here is the tried and tested chocolate cake recipe using silken tofu as the egg substitute:

Cake Ingredients

All Purpose Flour - 2 cups

Salt - 1 teaspoon

Baking Powder - 1 teaspoon

Baking Soda - 2 teaspoons

Unsweetened Cocoa Powder - 3/4 cup

Granulated Sugar - 2 cups (See My Notes)

Vegetable Oil - 1 cup (I used Canola Oil)

Hot Coffee - 1 cup (I mixed 1.25 teaspoons of instant coffee powder with 1 cup of hot water)

Milk - 1 cup (I used 2% milk)

Silken Tofu, pureed - 1/2 cup (I used Nasoya Brand Silken Tofu)

Vanilla Extract - 1 teaspoon

Vegan Option: Use soy milk instead of regular milk and you have your decadent vegan chocolate cake!

Frosting Ingredients:

Dr Oetker's Organic Chocolate Icing Mix - 1 packet

Hot Milk/Hot Water - 1/4 cup (heat it in the microwave oven for 15 seconds)

Butter, at room temperature - 1/3 cup (which is 5 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon)

Vanilla Extract - 1/4 teaspoon

Baking Soda - a pinch

Yield: One 9-inch layer cake or 8-inch layer cake and 6 cupcakes

Cake Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 325F (160C).

2. Grease and flour (I used cocoa powder to flour the base of the pan because it's a chocolate cake) two 9-inch cake pans.

3. Sift together the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa and sugar into a large mixing bowl.

4. Make a well. Add the canola oil. Then the hot coffee decoction.

5. Add milk.

6. Add the pureed tofu. (Remove the silken tofu from the packet using a spoon add it to the blender and puree it to a creamy mixture)

7. And a couple of drops of vanilla essence.

8. With an electric mixer, beat at medium speed for 2-3 minutes. (At first I did not use the hand mixer to combine the batter, because I remembered reading somewhere that while using egg substitutes, in this case tofu, beating the batter is not recommended and was so worried to see such a diluted batter and it was also having a lot of small lumps. So anyhow I decided to use my hand mixer to get rid of the lumps, but still the batter was considerably thin).

9. Pour the batter evenly into both 9-inch cake pans. (or fill the 6 muffin cups halfway with batter and divide the remaining batter between both 8-inch pans).

10. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until a wooden tooth pick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. (Check the cupcakes after 15 minutes). I placed 1 pan in the middle shelf and the another in the bottom shelf and set the timer for 25 minutes and switched the pans around 12 minutes. Switching the pan means moving the pan from the middle shelf to the bottom and the bottom shelf pan to the top. This is done to ensure even baking of both the cakes. One of my make was done exactly at 25 minutes and the other one took 30 minutes.

11. Let the cakes cool completely before removing them from the pans. The time mentioned in the original recipe was 15 minutes and so I tried to transfer the cake to a wire rack after 20 minutes and it was little messy. So I left the other cake in the pan itself for quite some time. Maybe after an hour I touched the bottom of that pan and found that it had cooled completely and so transferred it to the wire rack.

12. The cake should cool completely on the wire rack before frosting. I baked the cakes on Saturday and frosted them on Sunday. I left it out on the kitchen counter and covered it with a bamboo basket. You could also refrigerate the cake to cool it off.

Frosting

1. Sift the mix.

2. Add the butter, hot milk, vanilla and baking soda. (I read in the same book that adding a pinch of baking soda to icings prevents hardening and cracking so icing stays moist)

3. Beat the mix using a hand mixer at medium-high speed. Add few drops of water/milk if required.

Frosting the Cake:

This was my first experience with frosting a cake, so I simply followed the steps listed in the book.

1. First I placed the bottom layer upside down, so the rounded side (top of the cake will be on the serving plate). If you have dome top on the cake, even it out by slicing it with a serrated knife and then place it upside-down.

2. Spread about 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup of frosting on top of the bottom layer. Don't use hard strokes, but spread it gently using an offset metal spatula or plastic spatula.

3. Now place the second layer on the first, cut or domed side up.

4. Frost the sides of the cake first with another 1/2 cup of frosting.

5. Finally frost the top of the second layer.

It was slightly difficult for me, but somehow I managed to frost the entire cake. Before and while frosting the cake I was not sure about the consistency of the frosting. Later after seeing quite a few cake pictures I realized that my frosting was definitely thick and that's why was I having hard time spreading it. I should have added a few more drops of water to thin it and frosting would have been a breeze.

Decorating

As you all know the options are endless. Being a rookie that I am, and because my son loves M&M's I used them to line the cake. I also used the ready made Cake Mate decorating pens which are available in the grocery store in the baking aisle to write the birthday message and draw some flowers.

My Notes

As a whole the cake was excellent. But considering healthy eating I would modify the recipe a little bit the next time. Like reducing the quantity of sugar in the cake recipe from 2 cups to 1.5 cups. Since the frosting is also sweet enough, we don't need that much sugar in the cake too. Next reducing the quantity of oil too. Instead of 1 cup of oil, 1/2 cup can be replaced with unsweetened applesauce.