Raise your hand if you love chocolate mint everything!!
If you raised your hand then I have just the cake for you! Butter cake, chocolate frosting, mint frosting, and chocolate mint sandwich cookies between every layer of cake!
This is one of those cakes that dreams are made of! This vegan mint chocolate cookie cake may seem a little more ambitious than some of our other cake recipes, but its actually pretty easy to make. It just takes a little time, but I promise it will be totally worth it!
The actual cake recipe was adapted from the genius Gretchen Price’s cookbook, Modern Vegan Baking. This book is basically the vegan baking bible as far as we are concerned in this house. We actually came to know Gretchen online after we bought and obsessed over this book. As it turns out she is as amazing in real life as I has imagined through her book! GO BUY HER BOOK right now!!!!! And poke around her blog. You will not be disappointed in any recipe you ever make from her.
We made mad a few changes and additions to her easy vanilla cake recipe based on what we had on hand and the fact that we wanted a minty cake, not vanilla! But if you want the vanilla version, and her actual recipe since we changed a few things, I repeat, go buy her book!!! We use our copy ALLLLL THE TIME!
This cake is a bit ambitious. You can always frost the entire cake in solid green if you don’t want to dye the frosting various shades. It will taste just as good! If you have never used a star tip, squeeze the piping bag in small little burst making a little shell like shape while going around the cake.
This take practice, so maybe try on a paper towel before starting on the cake. Youtube is full of tutorials for frosting cakes. Try the video we linked or search “star tip shell boarder”, or “using a star tip.” You can always just flat frost the cake, or make little waves with a frosting spatula or butter knife to give it some texture. It will still be a pretty and delicious cake!
So if you’re looking for the perfect spring or St. Patricks Day cake, here it is!! I hope you love it as much as we do!
INGREDIENTS:
1 large pack of mint sandwich cookies
1 1/2 cups oat milk, you can use ANY non dairy milk, but we prefer oat for baking
3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 cup vegan butter, melted
1 3/4 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons mint extract
3 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
Chocolate butter cream frosting:
1/4 cup vegan butter
1/4 cup shortening
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups powdered sugar
splash of non dairy milk
Mint Buttercream Frosting:
1/2 cup vegan butter
1/2 cup vegan shortening
3 3/4 cups powdered sugar
2 teaspoons mint extract
splash of non dairy milk
green food dye
INSTRUCTIONS:
preheat oven to 350 degrees
Sift baking soda, flour, and salt into a small bowl.
In a cup combine milk and vinegar. Let the mixture sit for a few minutes until the milk begins to curdled.
In a large bowl cream the butter, sugar, and mint extract with an electric mixer. Pour the milk into the bowl and mix. Next, add the flour mixture and mix until the batter is smooth.
Prepare two 8 inch cake pans by rubbing a light layer of oil around the pan. Add a few teaspoons of flour to the pans and shake it around to coat, shaking out the excess flour. Divide batter evenly between pans.
Bake for 40 minutes or until a tooth pick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Allow cakes to cool completely before removing from the pans.
While cakes are cooling, prepare the frosting. First combine all ingredients for the chocolate frosting together in a large bowl and mix with an electric mixer until smooth. Add just enough milk to get the desired consistency. You can also put all of the ingredients into your stand mixer and mix until smooth. Set frosting aside.
Repeat the same process with the ingredients for the mint frosting. If you want to frost the cake in an ombre style like in the picture, divide prepared frosting into 4 bowls. Put around 1/3 cup of the mint frosting into each of three smaller bowls, with the remaining frosting in the 4th bowl. One bowl of frosting will stay white, the other three will be gradual shades of green, the darkest green being the bowl with the most frosting. How much dye you use in each bowl is dependent on what type dye you are using. For example, gel dyes yield a stronger pigment than your average grocery store liquid dye. You will just need to add a drop or two more of dye to each bowl to achieve the gradual color difference.
Crush up about half of the sandwich cookies and set aside.
Carefully remove the cakes from the pans. Normally turning the pans upside down onto a flat surface and tapping the bottom works, as long as the pan was well prepared. Divide each cooled cake in half. A sharp serrated knife normally works well for this. Begin frosting the cakes by coating one layer in 1/2 of the chocolate frosting and sprinkling with 1/3 of the crushed cookies. Stack a second cake layer on top and frost with some of the darkest green frosting. Sprinkle with crushed cookies. Top with another layer of cake and frost with the remaining chocolate frosting and cover with remaining crushed cookies. Place final layer of cake on top. Take about a 1/4 cup scoop of the darkest green frosting and crumb coat the entire cake. This is just a SUPER paper thin layer of frosting that forms a barrier and helps keep the crumbs from getting into your finished frosting. I like to put the cake in the fridge for a bit to let the crumb coat harden before I decorate the cake. It just makes decorating the cake easier.
Fill a piping bag, or a zip lock bag with a corner cut out, with a small star frosting tip. Add the white frosting first, and go around the cake in 2 rows, starting at the bottom. Repeat this process with the remaining colors lightest to darkest, circling around to the top of the cake, ending with the darkest green until the entire cake is covered.
Cut remaining chocolate cookies in half and decorate the top of the cake. Store cake covered at room temperature.
