Dairy Free Lemon Layer Cake with Vegan Mocha Frosting

I hope that you have some fun weekend plans, and I think a layer cake can sweeten whatever they are! I have a pretty exciting weekend planned, actually. On Friday night Official Taster and I are celebrating our upcoming nuptials with some of our friends here, and then we'll catch a late screening of Harry Potter. I'm both excited and a little sad that it's the last movie. I also have some highly anticipated girl time scheduled. What about you? Big plans or just enjoying some sunshine? If you have any to spare, Seattle could use some.

If you made a Rainbow Cake, you may have some egg yolks in your refrigerator just crying out to be used. I know I did. So I dug through my books and ended up adapting a recipe for gold layer cake from the classic Joy of Cooking.

It was a significantly simpler process (2 layers instead of 6 makes quite a difference) that yielded delicious results. I'm not sure how long egg yolks stay ok in the fridge, but I used mine within 24 hours. If you choose to use real butter, you'll also need to add 1/4 tsp salt.

Lemon Layer Cake
2 C cake flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 C vegan butter at room temperature
1/2 C sugar
3 egg yolks at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla or grated lemon rind*
3/4 C almond milk, or other non-dairy milk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Oil and line your 9" cake pans with parchment paper.

Sift the cake flour and baking powder (and salt if using real butter) together into a bowl and set aside. 

Cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl. Beat in the egg yolks and then vanilla or lemon rind. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in three parts, alternating with the milk. 

Divide the batter evenly between two 9" cake pans and bake for about 18 minutes. When the layers are done, allow them to cool for about 10 minutes in the pan before turning out onto a cooling rack. 

Mocha Frosting - Vegan
1 stick vegan butter at room temperature
3 C confectioners sugar
1/3 C cocoa
1/4 C strongly brewed coffee at room temperature (ish. NOT an exact measurement)

Cream the butter and then add the sugar and cocoa a little bit at a time. Add the coffee slowly, until you've reached the desired consistency. It should take 10 minutes or so to combine everything and beat it enough to give it some volume.

When the cakes have cooled and the frosting is ready, layer the cake and frost! Raspberry jam would also make a great filling flavor.


*I actually used a 1/4 tsp Fiori di Sicilia (a little goes a long way. it's quite potent) and 3/4 tsp vanilla