Vegan Ombre Cake
Trine Rask is a Danish Pastry Chef and Food Photographer with a passion for beautiful and decadent desserts. This vegan ombre cake is a delightful symphony of flavors and colors, perfect for any occasion. With its layers of moist, tender cake in varying shades of rich cocoa, topped with decadent buttercream frosting and a luscious drip ganache, it’s a true masterpiece of vegan baking.
Building a Layer Cake
Building a layer cake makes me nervous! It’s like, is it going to fall apart, is it going to look and taste good enough to justify spending so so so much time on it, am I going be disappointed, am I going to want to throw it into a wall? You know, quite a lot of pressure to put on a cake. And yet, I have made quite a few of them, because I can’t seem to help it. They are fun. They make me feel anxious x 57634, but they are fun. And practice really does help. Make one, love it for what it is, make another, try something new, make one more, start to get the hold of it, and then keep going. You’ll start to feel confident around layer cakes soon enough.
And when that day comes, try making an ombre cake. You know, where the colour of the layers form a gradient, maybe from light blue to dark blue, from purple to red, or in this case, from vanilla to chocolate. If you want something a little more simple, this recipe is just for a chocolate cake with a chocolate espresso frosting, but I have added notes at the bottom of the page on how to make it into an ombre cake, if you would like to try it.
Ingredients You’ll Need to Make this Chocolate Ombre Cake
The 4 Layers
- White Flour
- Cocoa Powder
- Cane Sugar
- Almond Milk
- White Vinegar
- Coconut Oil
- Baking Soda
- Vanilla Bean Powder
- Sea Salt
The Buttercream Frosting
- Vegan Butter
- Powdered Sugar
- Cocoa Powder
- Vanilla Bean Powder
- Espresso
- Sea Salt
Drip Ganache
- Dark Chocolate
- Vegan Double Cream
- Golden Syrup
Vegan Ombre Cake – Recipe Card
Ingredients
For the Batter
- 3 cups All-Purpose Flour - Divided (see instructions)
- 1 3/4 cups Cane Sugar
- 2 cups Almond Milk
- 2 tablespoons White Vinegar
- 2/3 cup Coconut Oil
- 2 teaspoons Baking Soda
- 2 teaspoons Vanilla Bean Powder
- 1 teaspoon Sea Salt
- 1 cup Cocoa Powder - (see instructions to create the ombre effect)
The Buttercream Frosting
- 3/4 cup Vegan Butter
- 4 cups Powdered Sugar
- 1 cup Cocoa Powder
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Bean Powder
- 1 1/2 shots - Espresso
- 1 pinch Sea Salt
Drip Ganache
- 1 1/2 ounces Dark Chocolate
- 1/4 cup Vegan Double Cream - or coconut cream
- 2 tablespoons Golden Syrup - or maple syrup
Instructions
How to Make the 4 Ombre Cake Batter Layers
- Whisk together the almond milk and the white vinegar and let it sit for a few minutes. Now whisk together the 2 1/2 cups of the flour (set the other 1/2 cup aside), sugar, baking soda, vanilla, and sea salt. Add the melted coconut oil to the almond milk and give it a quick whisk. Now add the wet to the dry and combine.
- Now, divide this batter into four equal portions. We are going to call them batch #1, #2, #3 and #4. Batch #1 will be the lightest, and #4 will be the darkest. Line them up on your counter. Add 3 tablespoons of flour to batch #1 and mix. This batch is done. Add 2 1/2 tablespoons of flour to batch #2, 1 1/2 tablespoons of flour for batch #3 and 1 tablespoons of flour to batch #4. To batch #4, add enough cocoa powder to make the batter pretty dark, like, darker than milk chocolate. To batch #3, add a little over half the amount you added to batch #4. Lastly, to batch #2, add just a little bit of cocoa powder. You should now have four different shades: beige, light brown, medium brown and dark brown.
- Line four cake tins (20cm / 8″ each) with parchment paper (or grease them), then pour each of the layers into a tin and bake for about 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.
- Let the cakes cool completely and refrigerate for a few hours and then cut off the domed tops of the cakes to make them more even.
The Buttercream Frosting
- With a stand mixer or electric whisk beat the butter until softened and light. Now add in the remaining ingredients (except the cocoa powder) and whisk until fluffy. Divide into four portions and add an increasing amount of cocoa powder to batch 2, 3 and 4, to make four different shades. Once your cake layers are fully cooled, add the frosting as you build the cake (see "Assembly" below.)
Drip Ganache
- Finely chop the dark chocolate. In a small saucepan, heat up the cream and syrup and stir. Take it off the heat before it starts to simmer. Pour over the chocolate and quickly whisk together.
Assembly
- On a cake stand or plate, place the first layer of cake followed by a dollop of buttercream frosting. Spread the frosting to the edges and add another layer of cake. Keep going until all four layers are in place. Add a thin layer of buttercream frosting all over the cake and then refrigerate for about 30 minutes until the frosting layer has set. Now add a final layer of buttercream frosting to the cake. Refrigerate again so the ganache will set fast when it hits the cake.
- Pour the ganache over the top of the cake and quickly spread it to the edges so it will start to drip down the sides. Decorate with leftover frosting, sprinkles, truffles, chocolate shavings, little candles or whatever you are in the mood for.
Notes
- This recipe yields 8 large or 16 small slices.
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