Ok, so I was feeling a little obsessed with the thought of making more caramel popcorn the other day–but I was PMS’ing, so I also had this really FEIRCE craving for some chocolate (not normally my thing)…and a little something was created that I think maybe the world needed to know about. That maybe, just maybe, there would be someone else out there that would NEED the Vegan Caramel Corn Chocolate Cake to make it through their week (even if it is just Monday…like it was for me). So, here it is, my lovelies, your little pick-me-up for your beginning-of-the-week-blues…heh.
So, I could have just made a whole meal out of this Vegan Caramel Corn Chocolate Cake. Seriously. I needed a gigantic slice…and then thought I might want another. The first slice was a need. Not a want. (I do know the difference, despite what the blog might make it sound like). So, I restrained myself on that second slice. Since it was JUST a want.
Until dinner. Then, there just “wasn’t anything in the pantry” and the leftovers in the fridge were “too hard to warm-up”. So, again, I NEEDED a slice. A big one this time (because I was going to feel all pissy when I decided to restrain myself for a second slice, so I decided to just skip the middle man…UGH!). Ok, so I ate like half the cake that evening. But I did share. And the popcorn was awesome. For real, it was probably the most buttery caramel I’ve ever made and the combo of the chocolate with that caramel butter? PER-Fection.
Ok, so we polished-off the cake in less than 24-hours and I may have been a large part of that.
And I think I need to make another…
Vegan Caramel Corn Chocolate Cake
Vegan Caramel Corn Chocolate Cake
I thought that maybe, just maybe, there would be someone else out there that would NEED the Vegan Caramel Corn Chocolate Cake to make it through their week like me.
Ingredients
- Cake
- 4 cups flour
- 2 cup granulated sugar
- 4 tspn vanilla extract
- 1 cup oil
- 2 cup water
- 1 tspn salt
- 2 tspn baking soda
- 4 tblspn cocoa powder
- Icing
- 4 cans coconut milk, refrigerated overnight
- 2 cup powdered sugar
- Caramel Popcorn
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1½ tspn vanilla
- ¾ tspn salt
- ½ cup coconut cream, chilled overnight
- ½ tspn baking soda
- 4 cups popped popcorn
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 170 degrees--or whatever the lowest setting on your oven is.
- Make your caramel by placing the sugar, salt and vanilla in a pot over high heat.
- Stir, stir, stir until the sugar mixture gets lumpy and brown-ish throughout.
- Add the coconut cream and keep stirring.
- Stir for a long, long time until all the lumps dissolve and the caramel is all soft and smooooth.
- Turn off the stove.
- Add baking soda and stir until it's mixed throughout.
- Remove from heat and allow to cool.
- In a large, large mixing bowl, pour 2/3 of the caramel over the popcorn and stir until it's all coated.
- Pour popcorn into a (or maybe 2) 9x13 baking pans in as thin a layer as you can manage.
- Place the popcorn in the oven for an hour and stir at 15-minute intervals.
- When the caramel popcorn is done it will be stuck together but not sticky. You'll be breaking it apart rather than stirring, if that makes sense.
- As soon as you pull the popcorn out of the oven, you should make your cake.
- To make the cake, preheat oven to 350-degrees.
- Grease 3-4 8-inch round cake pans/ Set aside.
- Mix all the dry ingredients together in a medium bowl.
- Mix all the wet ingredients together in another medium bowl.
- Mix dry ingredients into wet ingredients in ⅓ cup increments. Or, if you’re impatient, like me, just dump everything together.
- Blend until batter is smooth.
- Fill cake pans approximately ¾ full.
- Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Remove from oven and allow to cool in pan for 10 minutes.
- To make the icing, open your coconut milk cans and scoop the thick cream part into a bowl, trying to get as little of the coconut water as possible. Discard coconut water or just set aside for chugging later, whatever.
- Add the other ingredients.
- Mix on high 2-3 minutes with a hand mixer until it becomes stiff and fluffy.
- Slather a thin layer on your cake for a crumb layer, and between as you stack the layers--you know, just fill it and cover it. Nothing fancy this time. You'll just be covering with popcorn, if you do...
- Pile your popcorn on top of the cake, around the bottom, whatever makes you happy. It made me happy to eat about half of it while I worked--so there's that.
- Re-warm your remaining caramel in the microwave in 30-second increments, stirring between each increment.
- Drizzle that caramel all over the cake and popcorn and get ready for a taste-EXPLOSION in your mouth!
Alright, I wanna know what you think of this awesome Vegan Caramel Corn Chocolate Cake. You HAVE to leave me a comment below to let me know if it’s as drool-worthy for you as it was for me. This is a NEED, people. A NEED. I NEED YOUR FEEDBACK. Just kidding. LOL! I just need you to enjoy this. Heh.
