Super moist, chocolatey chocolate cake (or cupcakes!)

Chocolate cake or cupcakes (originally cake, so it makes an odd 13 big cupcakes or lots of mini ones)

These are incredibly moist, fantastically chocolatey cupcakes/cake (especially with the frosting) but the surprising thing is that they're also really easy! No whipping and folding like normal cakes, just a bit of measuring, mixing w/a spoon and pouring into moulds, and bingo, there you are!


Ingredients:

Dry-
* 2.5 cups flour
* HEAPING 1/3 cup cocoa
* 1.5 cups sugar
* 3/4 tsp salt
* 1.5 Tbsp baking soda (I usually add a bit more to ensure it rises well)
* my addition: zest of 2 oranges (leave a bit for the frosting)

Wet-
* 7 Tbsp oil (a bit more makes it more moist!)
* 1.5 Tbsp white vinegar (yes, vinegar- but it all reacts away, so there's no lingering taste!)
* 2 tsp vanilla
* 1.5 cups cold water

Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. (Sifting helps break up the cocoa & flour). Make three wells in the mixture, one larger than the others. In separate wells pour in the oil, vinegar and vanilla. Pour the water over the top and mix thoroughly. (Don't worry if it bubbles a bit, that's just the vinegar & baking soda doing its thing... and that's what helps it rise to be fluffy! Don't be shy about mixing the bubbles out either, lots more will form.)


Pour into non-stick cake pan or fill cupcake wells 2/3 full and bake in a medium oven (350 F, about 175 - 200 C) for about 20 min, until a skewer comes out clean. Let cool.

Frosting:
Melt 1-2 bars of chocolate (mix 70% and 85%) with soy cream (Alpro cream, or Silk soymilk both work, but not Alpro soymilk) in a double boiler (keep temp below 55C) with 1 tsp of vanilla, and any other flavourings (more orange zest or extracts). The more cream/soymilk you add, the softer the frosting will be. Make sure it doesn't get too hot or the chocolate will cook & get a weird texture! Frost cool cake/cupcakes.

Re: choice of diary-free chocolates... In the UK, Green & Blacks recently added milk onto all of their ingredient labels due to higher than acceptable levels of milk cross-contamination. If you're not fussed about that, G&B's dark chocolate is yummy (though word on the street is that they're opening up a fully dairy-free factory soon!) Otherwise, Plamil has fully dairy-free vegan chocolate bars that work well for this. I used half dark and half 'milk-type' chocolate, one bar of each. They're at Planet Organic, Whole Foods or online. In the US, last I checked Ghiradelli's semi-sweet and double-chocolate chocolate chips were vegan. 

Happy baking!