Vegan Chocolate Almond-Swirly Bundt Cake (Scenes from "Snleet" Midwest Storm Shut-Ins)

After about the third hour of watching weather maps and dopplar radar loops yesterday, I began craving cake and an ice pick. The cake won. Mind you, I had baked chocolate cupcakes the night before, piled high with a glob of frosting--these would be part of our "provisions"--holding us over should "the end" come sooner than we expected given the "Tons of snow" we were anticipating! Tons! That's what the local weatherman said we'd see: TONS of snow. Seemed strange to me. I'd never, in my Almost Fifty years of living, heard a forecast calling for a TON of snow.

We got two inches of snow. Now, just to be fair, we got about two-to-five inches of ice and sleet under the snow. There are parts of our driveway we won't see again until May. There are trees so heavy from the ice, they form an arc now and their tops reach the ground in a very sad upside down droop.

Well, enough of this weather nonesense. I am talking cake today. (I've included a few pictures of the "snleet" below for the curious.) I'll be honest, this cake would stand on its own unadorned. I am quite against serving a cake this way, but after playing in the snow this morning and having my dogs drag me down our steep back hill nearly face first several times, I was all about a piece of this cake after our snow play. It is delish on its own, it's delish with the ganache. So easy, so yummy!

I was lucky. I had a stack of library books here, not least of which was, Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. Oh, her again. I am too cheap (so far) to spend the money for this cookbook. This must be my fifth time bringing it home from the library. Maybe after I get my next forty percent coupon from Borders, I'll think about it. Meantime, it's on my shelf and will remain until my "renewals" run out.

So, I flipped through this baking tome yesterday as the sleet kept piling up. It sent a panic through me, because I imagined me not having my stove for several days were the power lines to snap. Nothing scared me more than that. Not even the fact that I'd be stuck here, inside, for possibly up to a week with only my husband and dogs and NO Idol to watch! Being without my stove just about sent me though.

I was scrambling for yet another confection to add to the top of my microwave (which is where all baking/sweet/snack-stuffs) land. I have no more room there, so my only option was for cake--and one that could suffice at room temp, under my cake keeper.  

The secret to this cake is that you add just a touch of almond extract. Combining that with the almond flour and the chocolate almond swirly--you have a really, really tasty, moist, dense, buttery cake. In Dorie's cookbook, the original recipe was for Mocha-Walnut Marbled Bundt Cake. My husband can smell a walnut a mile away and will high-tail it in the opposite direction if any said nut appears anywhere near our food stuffs. Right off the bat, I had some fixing to do. But I just could not resist the sound of a "chocolate swirled bundt cake". I made a chocolate ganache topping for the cake--just melt a cup of chocolate chips or squares with a bit of vanilla extract and a tablespoon of soy milk. Whisk until it's smooth and warm it as needed for topping the cake. Or not. The cake is fine as is.

Spreading first layer of batter in bundt pan.

Second chocolate/batter layer over first. Then you take a knife and run it through the batter to swirl it a bit.

My poor pine tree. It's completely bent over from the weight of the ice and sleet. Still that way today. I really will cry if this tree is not "better" in a few days.

Vegan Chocolate Almond-Swirly Bundt Cake

(Adapted from Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan)

1/2 cup almond flour

2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup unsalted vegetable margerine (2 sticks)

1 3/4 cup Florida Crystals Sugar

5 teaspoons Ener-G Egg Replacer mixed with 6 tablespoons warm water plus 1/2 teaspoon canola oil

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/8 teaspoon almond extract

1 cup unsweetened soy milk

For the chocolate swirl mixture:

3 ounces bittersweet chocolate baking squares

2 tablespoons unsalted vegetable margerine

1/4 cup water

2 teaspoons strong coffee

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly spray a 10-12 cup bundt cake pan with non-stick spray. In a microwave safe bowl, place the ingredients for the chocolate swirl. At thirty second intervals or less (depending upon the strength of your microwave, either way, do this melting part slowly)--heat up the chocolate until the mixture is smooth. Set aside once this is done. Mix your egg replacer ingredients together in a small bowl, whisk until smooth and set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together all dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, salt. Set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer add the margerine and sugar and mix well--until the mixture is smooth and creamy. About 3-4 minutes. Next, take your egg replacer mixture and add about a tablespoon at a time to the sugar/butter mixture, until all the egg replacer has been added. Blend well until the mixture looks almost silky--about four minutes of mixing time. Now, take the flour mixture and add a third of it at a time to the butter/egg mixture, mixing just until it's incorporated. Then add 1/2 cup of the soy milk and mix a bit more, just until incorporated, then add your second third of flour mixture and mix a bit more, and the second half cup of the milk, mix a bit more. Finally, add the last third of the fllour mixture. Now mix the batter just until the mixture looks nice and blended--may have a few lumps, but that is okay. Now, take the batter and add about a cup and a half of it to the chocolate mixture. Whisk this together well, until it is all blended. Pour the remaining non-chocolate batter into the bundt pan. Then, pour the chocolate batter over this (see my photos above). Now run a knife through the batter once around, or twice, whatever you feel like doing, really. Bake for 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean. Allow cake to cool in cake pan for ten minutes. Turn cake pan upside down onto a cooling rack and allow it to cool completely before sliding it onto your serving platter or cake keeper. I found the cake comes off the cooling rack nicely after it has cooled for about two hours. Just need to be careful with moving it too soon.