Cardamom Vegan Chantilly Cake

Take your everyday box cake from basic to chic with these minor changes.  Mother’s Day is two days away and I felt like experimenting by making a vegan cake.  Although I am not vegan both my mother and sister law are vegan I wanted to make something they could enjoy.  We tasted the first version at our weekly family vegan dinner and it was hit with everyone.

I made a few minor changes to the typical recipe to ensure my cake would taste and look more professional.  I’ve included what I used in lieu of the box instructions down below in parentheses.

Ingredients:

Cardamom Vegan Cake

1 box traditional Pillsbury Vanilla cake

1 1/4 cups water (1 1/4 Milk)

1/2 cup oil  (2/3 cup butter)

4 egg white (substitute 8 tablespoons aquafaba) 

2 teaspoon ground cardamom

2 teaspoons rose water

Rose Chantilly Cream

2 cups whipped cream

2 teaspoons Rose water

2 cups fresh strawberries

** crushed pistachios, edible rose petals, flowers, fruit, or macarons to decorate**

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350℉.

Coat 2 5in pans with nonstick cooking spray.

Beat cake mix, milk, butter, cardamom, rose water and egg substitute in a large bowl by hand or with electric mixer till there are no more lumps, scrapping bowl occasionally.

Fill the pans halfway with cake batter. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes before removing from pan and placing on wire rack to cool completely.

Once your cake has completely cooled trim the dome top to create a flat surface and the cut in half to create two layers.

Separate your cake layers on cooling rack and brush with simple syrup to keep them moist before layering and frosting.

Place bottom layer cake onto cake stand or serving tray .  Pipe or spread your first layer of rose Chantilly cream on to the flat cake surface next layer sliced strawberries onto rose Chantilly cream and last pipe or spread another layer of cream on top of your strawberries.

Place your top layer of cardamom cake onto the rose Chantilly cream.  Then begin to pipe or spread the rest of your Rose Chantilly cream onto your cake.  I used a flat scraper to smoothen the sides creating the naked cake effect.

You can leave this Cardamom Vegan Chantilly cake as is or decorate using crushed pistachios, edible rose petals, flowers, fruit, or macarons.  Using items I already had at home from the store. I topped with Aldi macarons, freeze dried strawberries gold flecks and rose petals to decorate.