Here’s a new vegan recipe using one of my favorite kitchen toys – my cast iron skillet! It’s a Chocolate Amaretto Skillet Cake (dairy-free, egg-free and soy-free). Bonus: it is NOT alcohol-free or caffeine-free! Although the alcohol gets heated (ruining all the fun – ha ha), and you can use decaf coffee if you prefer.
I was craving chocolate cake over the weekend, and I had picked up a bag of fresh cranberries earlier in the week (on sale after the holidays). I was originally thinking I’d make some cranberry orange muffins with them (a favorite in our house). But when the chocolate craving hit, I thought – what about a cranberry orange chocolate cake?
Then I thought … what about a chocolate amaretto cake!?
This recipe was inspired by chocolate gooey yumminess … and my new cast iron skillet. In the pictures below, I used my 12-inch skillet. Since then, I’ve added a 10-inch one to my collection, and I like to bake this cake in the smaller one too. I just adjust the baking times a little.
I adore this chocolate cake because it’s just the right amount of chocolate and sweetness, without being too rich. My daughter and I are pretty picky about our chocolate cakes — they can’t be too rich … nor too bland. This one hits the perfect note in the middle.
Vegan Chocolate Amaretto Skillet Cake
(dairy-free, egg-free, soy-free, vegan)
Ingredients for Cake:
- 1 1/2 cups of flour
- 1 cup of sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/3 cup cocoa powder
- Almost 1 cup of hot coffee (regular or decaf) – about 2 Tbsp shy of a full cup
- 2 Tbsp Amaretto
- 1/2 cup canola oil
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar (I use Bragg’s organic, my favorite)
- Your favorite berries (optional) and fresh mint for garnish (optional)
Ingredients for Glaze:
- 2 squares (or equivalent) of dairy-free baker’s chocolate
- 2 Tbsp Amaretto
- 1 Tbsp vegan “butter” (or regular, if you prefer; if you need to avoid soy, use a vegan soy “butter” – Earth Balance makes one)
- 1 Tbsp almond milk
- 1 Tbsp sugar
Directions:
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
- Coat a 12-inch cast iron skillet with nonstick spray (note: if you don’t have a cast iron skillet, you can use a 9×9 or 8×8 baking pan, although you’ll probably need to bake it a couple extra minutes)
- Mix all the dry ingredients in a medium-large bowl
- Pour the 2 Tbsp of amaretto in a measuring cup
- Add hot coffee to the measuring cup until it reaches the 1 cup mark and then add to the bowl
- Add the remaining liquid ingredients
- Whisk until fully blended
- Pour the batter into the cast iron skillet
- Place in your oven on a center rack (or one level below center)
- Bake 25-26 minutes if using a 12-inch skillet; 28-30 if using a 10-inch skillet (or until a knife or toothpick in the center comes out clean or mostly clean)
- While the cake is baking, mix all of the ingredients for the glaze in a pot on the stove, stirring with a whisk until melted and blended (be careful not to let it burn)
- When the cake is ready to pull out of the oven, pull it out and place it on a hot pad or heat-resistant surface and poke holes in it with a knife or the end of a spoon or fork
- Drizzle about half of the glaze over the entire cake, getting some of it in the holes
- Drizzle the remaining half on top of the cake and, as your pour or right after, use a rubber scraper to spread it evenly over the entire cake (it will be a thin coat)
- Put the skillet back in the oven, on the top rack, for another 3 minutes
- Serve warm. You can serve with your favorite berries and/or or add a little chocolate syrup (note: no syrup was added in these pictures – the top is just the chocolate glaze)
- Enjoy!
Note: the holes do not need to be large like these below. I used the back of a wooden spoon for this one to see if larger holes impacted the taste. Nope, it didn’t … it just made the cake look a little weird. 😉 It’s better to use a small knife or the small end of chopsticks.
Pin it/save it and make it any time a chocolate craving hits!
