meansoybean

I was on vacation recently and had black forest cakes on the brain. But being stuck at home, without convenient transport to the grocery store, I had to pull a MacGuyver and use what I had on hand.

I had all the cake-making ingredients, a jar of blueberry preserves from IKEA and, luckily, had a box of Soyatoo in the cupboard. It was purchased a year ago, in the hopes of making a vegan crème brulée, and was nearing the its printed shelf life date. I’ll admit that this is not a stock pantry item and, without it, I would have had a hard time making a fancy-looking cake like this. I say “fancy-looking” because I had to use thawed blueberries, which were wrinkled and not pretty. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have used them to top the cake as well.

The chocolate cake recipe I used was from The Joy of Vegan Baking. I switched the suggested pan type to a square dish and watched it like a hawk while it baked in the oven. Once it was cooled, I sliced 1 inch off the edges then divided it in half, resulting in 2 rectangles. I then split each one horizontally to produce the 4 layers that would be stacked to make the cake. I tasted the discarded edges and was a little worried; it wasn’t very sweet or chocolately. But I continued on.

That morning, I had put the Soyatoo in the fridge. I also put a stainless steel bowl and mixer beaters in the freezer. Just before cake assembly, I whipped the already somewhat fluffy Soyatoo at high speed along with some white sugar to help keep the stiffness. I’m actually impressed by this product, but I felt guilty eating it. Consider this a special treat.

The layers went on like this: cake, preserves, whip, bluberries, cake, preserves, whip, bluberries, cake, preserves, whip, bluberries, cake. After all that, it was smothered in the remaining whip. The sides were covered in shaved semi-sweet baking chocolate and the top was decorated in piped whip and blueberries. It sat in the fridge for a few hours before the first slice was served — and the remains held up pretty well for several days.

In the end, it was good that the cake layers weren’t sweet because the entire thing put together was sweet enough. While it was fun making this I think it’s strictly a special occasions thing, ya know? Still, it’s not bad for a MacGuyver cake…