Easy Vegan Desserts for Mother's Day

A vegan Chocolate cake with Vanilla "Cream?" Icing made especially for your vegan Mom, is the perfect addition for a perfect Mother's Day celebration. If a Mom is vegan, her diet does not include animal products including eggs, milk and other dairy products, and sometimes honey or yeast; but this doesn't mean that a vegan Mom can't have a tasty dessert on Mother's day. Create the following well-known chocolate cake, that happens to be vegan, to make your vegan Mom very happy on her special day.

A vegan dessert is a great way to make Mother's Day, a day of celebration and love for our vegan, or not vegan moms. One may ask how a dessert can be tasty without milk, eggs, butter and other "classic" ingredients, but very tasty vegan dessert recipes have been around a very long time. Often we don't recognize them as being vegan at all as they are simply a part of our lives. Many vegan recipes were actually created during the Great Depression and World War II due to shortages of dairy products and baking ingredients. Additionally, vegan recipes developed when a substitute replaced an ingredient not consumed in a vegan diet. Examples of substitute ingredients are soy milk, rice milk or margarine. Thus, often when a recipe calls for milk, soy milk or rice milk substitutes for the milk without affecting the outcome. Both of the following recipes are vegan, and without a doubt, a vegan mom will love her vegan sweet on her very special day.

Easy Vegan Chocolate Cake with Vanilla "Cream?"Icing

Many renditions of this chocolate cake grace numerous cookbooks as it has been around for decades. The following though is my recipe as I reduce the oil and increase the cocoa amount. Frost it with this vanilla "Cream?" icing that is equally as classic, but without the butter. Everyone I know loves this cake and it's quick and easy, as well as, vegan!

Flour - 3 cups
Sugar - 2 cups
Cocoa powder - 1/3 cup
Baking soda - 2 tsp.
Salt - 1 tsp.
Cold Water - 2 cups
Vegetable Oil - 1/2 cup
Vinegar - 2 TBs.
Vanilla Flavoring - 1 TB

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Blend all the dry ingredients in a bowl. In a second bowl, add all of the liquid ingredients together. Blend the liquid ingredients and add them to the dry ingredients. Stir until moistened. I have seen this recipe, and others have told me that they add the liquid ingredients directly into wells that they made in the dry ingredients. But I prefer the two bowl method as the phone always rings as soon as I'm ready to blend this cake together.

Once the batter is blended well, pour it into either a 13X9 cake pan or use two 8-in cake pans. Bake for about 30 -40 minutes or until a toothpick, when inserted into the cake, comes out clean and without any batter sticking to it. Let the cake cool before frosting.

Vanilla "Cream?" Icing

Margarine - 1/2 cup
Confectioners' Sugar - 4 cups (a 1 lb. box), sifted to breaks up the clumps and make a smooth icing.
Vanilla Extract - 2 tsp
salt - pinch

Beat the margarine until fluffy. Add the confectioner's sugar, salt and the vanilla extract to the creamed margarine and beat until fluffy. If this mixture appears too stiff, add water or soy milk one teaspoon at a time and blend well after each addition.

Frost the cake and decorate shortly before serving with some of mom's favorite fresh flowers, candies or fresh fruits such as raspberries or strawberries.

Mom will love this vegan sweet treat made especially for her on Mother's Day!