Vegan Mounds Cake

♫ Listening to: Asido by Purity Ring ♫

This organic, vegan chocolate cake has coconut filling, vanilla buttercream frosting, chocolate ganache, and vegan mounds candy bar pieces on top.

I was the weird kid that traded my reeses cups for the other kids mounds bars on Halloween. Coconut and chocolate go together like Rilakkuma and Korilakkuma.

This recipe makes a 2-layer 8” or 9” round chocolate coconut birthday cake.

Table of Contents

(click the links below to skip to the section you’re looking for)

• Vegan Chocolate Cake Recipe
• Vegan Vanilla Frosting Recipe
• Vegan Chocolate Ganache Recipe
• Mounds Cake Decoration
• FAQ

Vegan Chocolate Cake Ingredients

• 2 cups nondairy milk
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar (or substitute white vinegar)
• 2 ½ cups unbleached white flour
• ⅔ cup cocoa powder
• ½ tablespoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ⅔ cup sunflower oil
• 1 ½ cups organic sugar*
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Vegan Chocolate Cake Directions

Preheat the oven to 350°.

Coat 2 round cake pans with any vegetable oil (or vegan nonstick spray).

Combine vinegar and soymilk and let sit.

Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and baking powder into another bowl.

Add the oil, sugar, and vanilla to the soymilk mixture and stir well.

Add the dry ingredients slowly to the wet, mixing continuously. Stop mixing when you can no longer see any dry ingredients.

Pour half of the batter into each cake pan.

Bake for 35 minutes, until when you insert a toothpick into the center of one, it comes out clean. (If making cupcakes, bake for 18-20 minutes. If making 4” cakes, bake for 22-25 minutes.) Set the 8" round cake pans on a cooling rack to cool in pan for 10-15 minutes before flipping the pans upside down onto the cooling rack.

Vegan Vanilla Frosting Ingredients

• ¾ cup vegan butter or margarine (if you avoid soy, buy the soy-free earth balance; otherwise buy the organic whipped earth balance)*
• ¾ cup organic palm shortening*
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 6 cups organic powdered sugar (a 24-oz bag of 365 organic powdered sugar from Whole Foods is the perfect amount)*
• up to 2 tablespoons nondairy milk (optional, to achieve a creamy consistency if needed)
• vegan food coloring (optional, but I used Color Kitchen)

Vegan Vanilla Frosting Directions

Leave the ingredients sitting out before using them. Best results come from using room temperature ingredients.

Whisk the shortening and margarine for 1 minute using a stand mixer or a handheld electric mixer.

Sift in the powdered sugar, 1 cup at a time, mixing for at least minute between each addition.

Add the vanilla extract, and mix for 2 more minutes.

Remove three-quarters of the frosting.

Blend 1 cup of shredded coconut, using the pulse button 3-5 times. (This step is optional.)

Mix the remaining white frosting with the coconut.

Fill the 2 cake layers with the coconut mixed with frosting.

Use the white frosting to complete the crumb layer of frosting.

Chill the crumb layer to harden to touch.

Divide the frosting into 2 bowls. Leave one white.

Add vegan food coloring to the other bowl of frosting and mix well (I used my stand mixer with the whisk attachment). If you use color kitchen all-natural food coloring, follow the directions for mixing on the packet.

Spread or pipe the white and colored frosting around the cake in any design you prefer. The top doesn’t have to be perfect since it will be covered with ganache.

Spin the cake while smoothing out the icing with an offset spatula.

Chill the cake while you make the ganache.

Vegan Chocolate Ganache Ingredients

• 6 ounces vegan chocolate chips
• 4 ounces nondairy milk

Vegan Chocolate Ganache Directions

Heat the nondairy milk on the stove until it starts to simmer.

Add the vegan chocolate chips and remove from heat, cover the pot, and swirl it around.

Wait for 5 minutes before uncovering and whisking the chocolate ganache until smooth and melted.

Cool the ganache for around 15 minutes before decorating cake.

Decorating the Vegan Mounds Cake

Spoon ganache around the perimeter of the cake at one-inch intervals to get the perfect size drips to start falling down the sides of your cake. To see more details on how to do this, see my recipe for grasshopper cake.

Fill the top of the cake once you have all the drips on the sides. Use an offset spatula to smooth out the ganache on the top. You can also tap the entire cake on the counter to get the spatula lines to settle.

Chill the cake while you prepare the decorations.

Fill a piping bag with the remaining frosting. I like to add the colored and white frosting side by side so that they pipe out like an ombré.

Gather sprinkles, colored coconut, candy bars, and any other decorative treats you plan to use. For this cake, I used the remaining color kitchen food coloring to color some coconut and sprinkled that on top of the cake.

Cut vegan mounds candy bars into pieces. Amy's Sunny candy bars are a vegan version of mounds candy bars. If you don’t have sunny bars, you can also make your own vegan mounds to put on top of the cake, or see the FAQ below for other options.

Remove the cake from the fridge.

Pipe frosting on the cake as you choose.

Decorate with whatever you have.

Questions and Answers

Can I make this cake with chocolate frosting instead of vanilla frosting?

Sure! There’s an excellent rich chocolate buttercream frosting recipe in my rocky road cupcakes recipe.

I can’t find Sunny Bars. Are there other vegan mounds bars?

Yes! Two of my favorite vegan mounds bars are Unreal coconut bars and Ocho dark chocolate coconut bars. Ocho makes ones that are vegan and ones that are not, so make sure you get the right one. If you can’t find either of those, you can also make you own using my mounds candy recipe.

If you make this mounds cake recipe, snap a pic, post to instagram, and tag me @vegandollhouse. I love to see your creations! You can also message me through instagram or email me if you have any questions about the recipe.

If you love the chocolate-coconut marriage, check out my heart-shaped mounds and my mounds waffles. If you like making fancy cakes, you might also like my chocolate blackberry cake.

For other cakes with coconut, check out my mini pastel coconut cakes or my german chocolate cake recipes.

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* I use mostly organic ingredients when I cook, but I realize that not everyone has the disposable income to purchase all organic ingredients. Therefore, I only specify organic on the ingredients that really matter - when buying the organic version is the only way to ensure that the item is vegan.