Chocolate Orange Snack Cake (Vegan | Refined Sugar-Free)

This snack cake is a fun combination between orange and chocolate! It’s incredibly tender and moist (sorry, not sorry) with pockets of melted sweet chocolate and juicy orange. They’re vegan and refined sugar-free too.

This may just be the best vegan cake I’ve ever made. And no, I’m not exaggerating! These guys are perfectly sweetened, tender and contain pockets of melted chocolate and juicy oranges throughout. They’re sweet and zesty, with the most beautiful brown colour.

And can we just take about chocolate + orange?! This snack cake is the perfect marriage of the two flavours, now I feel like making chocolate orange flavoured everything.

Steps to prepare the oranges

In this recipe, we want to remove as much of the white pith from the oranges as possible. After doing it a few times, I’ve found that this is the fastest and most effective way to prepare them:

1. After zesting the oranges, cut the top and bottom of the orange so that it can stand on it’s own.
2. Slice away the skin following the curve of the orange. You might cut off some of its flesh, but that’s okay.
3. Follow the white lines on the top and cut the orange into slices.
4. Gently peel the flesh away from the pith. It’s alright if they break into small pieces, because we need smaller pieces anyway.
5. Slice into bite-sized pieces and set aside until ready to use.

How to make perfect chocolate orange snack cake

• Measure each ingredient with a digital scale. Measuring cups and spoons can produce inconsistent amounts, which can mess up the ratios in the recipe.
• Be gentle and patient when preparing the oranges (view above) as we want to keep as much juice in the orange as possible.
• Remove the pith from the orange over a bowl, because we’ll be adding some orange juice into the batter.
• Do not add more orange juice than the recipe calls for. Tempting, I know but that will increase the amount of liquid in the batter and affect the texture of the cake.
• Using coconut sugar helps to produce a dark brown colour. I use Medella Organic Coconut Sugar. If you use a lighter sugar, the cake will turn out grey. For more substitutions, refer to the notes below.

Substitution tips

• Can I use cake flour instead of all-purpose flour? Cake flour is lower in protein and produces lighter and fluffier cakes. I’ve tested this chocolate orange snack cake with cake flour, and I don’t recommend subbing it for two reasons. Firstly, all-purpose flour already works perfectly to produce a tender cake in this recipe. Secondly, swapping for cake flour may cause the cake to become too soft.
• What other type of sugar can I use? The purpose of coconut sugar in this recipe is to sweeten and give colour to the cake, because we don’t have eggs or butter. It can be replaced with fine brown sugar (not coarse!), but the colour will be a much lighter brown. I wouldn’t recommend using white sugar/unrefined cane sugar because the cake will turn out grey. But if you’re in a pinch and the appearance of the cake doesn’t really matter, go ahead!
• Can I use a chia egg instead? Yes, you can! The recipe is the same as a flax egg, 1 tbsp + 3 tbsp water. Again, the flax seed helps to make the cake dark brown but if you’re using coconut sugar then it won’t affect the colour so much.
• Feel free to use chocolate chips or coins instead of chopped chocolate!

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My family absolutely loves this cake! Every time I tested them, they were gone before midnight. You’re going to want more than one square (I’ve eaten three in a row, immediately after dinner HAHA). I hope you’ll love them as much as we do!

If you liked this recipe, here are a few desserts I know you’ll love too:

• Vegan Ondeh-Ondeh Cake/Pandan Cake with Coconut Gula Melaka Filling
• Vegan Carrot Cake + Cashew Cream Frosting
• Vegan Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls (Oil-Free)
• Vegan Brown Butter Almond Chocolate Chip Cookies

If you made this recipe, do leave a comment and rating below because I love hearing your feedback. Make sure to tag me on Instagram @eatwkriss so that I can see your recreations!

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