Chocolate Amaretto Skillet Cake (dairy-free, egg-free)

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.