texas chocolate cake

It has been a while since I posted. My work life kicked into super high gear in May and has only just calmed down. Well, ok, it actually calmed down a week ago, but then I went camping with a friend in Kings Canyon to celebrate the end of the school year (the end of grading papers! the end of dissertation deadlines! sort of!), so now I'm actually back, in the kitchen, occasionally making postable things. I'm especially looking forward to catching up on all I have missed in vegan blogland--have there been any serious breakthroughs in the last two months? Has a perfect tasting, melting, stretching vegan cheese been invented? I have no idea!

Anyway, explanatory preamble taken care of, I have a recipe to post. This is my veganization of my aunt's famous Texas Chocolate Cake, which has been brought to family functions since before I was born and is basically the best thing ever. Knowing how good it was going to be, I actually cut the recipe below in half when I made it last night because I didn't want my 2 person household to gain 100 pounds from this cake. The half recipe worked perfectly--I cooked it in an 8x8 cake pan for the same length of time, and that seemed fine. If you've never had Texas Chocolate Cake, you should really give this a whirl--it's seriously incredible. My husband and I are not huge chocolate people and he's not a huge cake person, but we loooooove this cake.

Texas Chocolate Cake
Serves: a lot of people!

Cook to a boiling point:
1 cup margarine (I like to use Earth Balance buttery sticks)
4 or 5 Tbsp cocoa powder
1 cup water

Remove from heat.

Add the following to above:
2 cups sugar
2 cups flour
2 Ener-G eggs or 6 oz plain or vanilla yogurt (or, ideally, 1 Ener-G egg and 3 oz yogurt)
1/2 cup soy creamer
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla

Mix well with a whisk or spoon. Pour into an 11x17 greased pan or cookie sheet with sides. Bake at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes. Frost in the pan while both cake and frosting are warm.

Frosting:
In a heavy sauce pan, cook to a boiling point:
1 cup margarine (I like to use Earth Balance buttery sticks)
4 Tbsp cocoa powder
4 Tbsp soy milk

Remove from heat.

Stir in:
4 cups of powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Frost cake when cake has partially cooled (10-15 minutes) and cake and frosting are still warm. Sprinkle 1 cup or more of chopped walnuts on top of the cake after frosting. Cut and serve when cool.