Description

This sinfully good mocha snack cake is a combo of super moist and fudgy chocolate cake with notes of coffee, paired with a fluffy mocha cream cheese frosting. Plus, it’s refined sugar-free, egg-free, dairy-free, and easily made gluten-free!

Ingredients

Scale

Mocha Cake Ingredients

2 cups (260 g) spelt flour
1 1/2 cups (210 g) coconut sugar
3/4 cup (60 g) unsweetened Dutch process cocoa powder, sifted
1 tbsp espresso powder
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 cup (220 ml) cashew milk or any creamy milk
2/3 cup (160 g) thick coconut yogurt
1/2 cup (115 ml) avocado oil
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
1 cup (220 ml) freshly brewed hot coffee

Mocha Cream Cheese Frosting

1/2 cup (4 oz or 115 g) unsalted butter or unsalted vegan butter, softened
1 cup (8 oz or 227 g) cream cheese or vegan cream cheese
1 cup (125 g) powdered coconut sugar*
1 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tbsp espresso powder
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
Flaky salt for garnish, optional

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Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350°F and grease a 9-inch square pan (I love USA Pan’s aluminized steel pans) with avocado oil (or any neutral oil) and line with parchment paper. I like to leave an overhang so I can easily lift the cake from the pan using the paper.
Whisk together the dry ingredients. Sift together the flour, coconut sugar, cocoa powder, espresso powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl, whisk and set aside.
Whisk together the wet ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the milk, yogurt, avocado oil, lemon juice, and vanilla paste.
Make the batter. To the milk mixture, alternate whisking in the flour mixture and freshly brewed coffee, starting and ending with the flour mixture. The batter will look thin; this is totally normal!
Bake and cool. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 28-30 minutes, or until a toothpick in the center comes out mostly clean. Allow the cake to cool in the pan until room temperature, about 3 hours. However, I prefer to make the cake a day ahead, as cake ALWAYS tastes better the following day,
Make the frosting. Using an electric mixer (I used an immersion blender with the whisk attachment), cream together the softened vegan butter and vegan cream cheese. In a separate bowl, sift together the powdered coconut sugar, cocoa powder, and espresso, then dump into the bowl of frosting along with the vanilla paste. Using a spatula, fold the dry ingredients into the frosting. I love doing this as opposed to whisking the powdered sugar as it minimizes the poof of sugar and cocoa that always ends up on your cabinets if you’re not careful. Once combined, cream the frosting together for 2 minutes on high. Taste and feel free to add in more powdered coconut sugar if you want the frosting sweeter.
Assemble and serve. Once the cake is done cooling, plop on all of the frosting (yep, all of it). Spread the frosting out creating loose swirls and loops. Sheet cakes are supposed to be rough and imperfect, plus they always look good no matter how much you play with the frosting, so don’t fuss with it too much. Sprinkle over some flaky salt, cut into squares, and serve.
Store any leftovers in a glass tupperware in the fridge for up to one week.

Notes

*How do I make powdered coconut sugar? Simply add 1/2 cup of coconut sugar into a spice grinder or coffee grinder and grind on high until powdery. Repeat this process for the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar. Dump the powdered sugar into a fine-mesh sieve and sift so you’re left with powdered coconut sugar that acts just like regular powdered sugar! And feel free to just use regular powdered sugar if you’re not refined sugar-free.