Cake Without Frosting (Cookies N Cream)

♫ Listening to: Ten Girls by Circe ♫

These mini vegan cookies n cream cakes without frosting are decorated to look like Pusheen, the cat.

A lot of my friends like Pusheen cat, but I think out of everyone, Lulu was the first to openly profess her love. Today is her birthday, so I obviously had to make her Pusheen-themed mini birthday cakes.

While trying to think of a cake flavor that would make a natural gray color, I came up with 2 ideas: a cookies n cream cake or a black sesame cake. Of those 2 flavors, I thought Lulu would appreciate an oreo cake more (I hope I’m right about that).

This recipe makes a single layer 8 or 9” cake yielding 3 pusheen mini cakes (and some scraps to munch on).

Vegan Cookies N Cream Cake Ingredients

• 1 cup nondairy milk (I used 365 brand organic soymilk)
• ½ tablespoon apple cider vinegar (or substitute white vinegar)
• 1 ½ cups unbleached white flour
• 1 teaspoon black cocoa powder
• ¾ teaspoon baking soda
• ¼ teaspoon baking powder
• ⅓ cup sunflower or safflower oil
• ¾ cups organic sugar*
• ½ tablespoon vanilla extract
• 2-3 Newman O’s
• a handful of vegan chocolate chips

Vegan Cookies N Cream Cake Directions

Coat one of your 8" round cake pans with sunflower or safflower oil.

Cut a piece of parchment paper for the bottom of the cake pan by setting the pan on the parchment paper and tracing it and then cutting it out. I make so many cakes that I made a template out of cardstock (fine, it was actually an old donut box because I reuse everything) that I store with my cake pans for making the process of tracing onto parchment paper quicker and easier.

Stick the parchment paper on the bottom of the cake pan.

Oil the top of the parchment paper too. This may seem like overkill, but if you’ve ever broken a cake trying to get it out of the pan, then you’ll understand why taking all precautionary measures is of the utmost importance.

Preheat the oven to 350°.

Combine ½ tablespoon vinegar and 1 cup nondairy milk and let sit.

Sift the dry ingredients together in a medium bowl: 1 ½ cups flour, 1 teaspoon black cocoa powder (if you don’t have black cocoa powder and don’t have time to order some, just double the number of Newman O's you use), ¾ teaspoon baking soda, and ¼ teaspoon baking powder. I use the back of a spoon to force all the little lumps down through the sifter.

Whisk or mix the dry ingredients.

Mix the wet ingredients in a large bowl: ⅓ cup oil, ¾ cups sugar, ½ tablespoon vanilla extract, and the vinegar and milk mixture. You can do this with a stand mixer or a handheld electric mixer, but I’ve also done it by hand when I’m too lazy to get my mixer out from the garage. (These ones in the pictures were mixed by hand.)

Mash the Newman O's into crumbs. I use a mortar and pestle for this, but if you don’t have one, you can put them into a plastic bag and roll it with a rolling pin or a can.

Pour only half of the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix until there’s no visible powder. Add the rest of the dry ingredients and mix again until there’s no visible powder.

Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl with a silicone spatula to ensure you incorporated all of the powder into the batter. Mix again.

Add the Newman O's crumbs and mix until it’s incorporated.

Pour the batter into the cake pan.

Bake for 35 minutes, until when you insert a toothpick into the center, it comes out clean.

Set the cake pan onto a cooling rack and leave for 10 minutes.

Flip the cake pan upside down onto the cooling rack and leave it there until it’s completely cooled.

Cut circles out of your oreo cake once it’s completely cooled. I was able to get 3 circles out of mine.

Freeze the cake circles for a few minutes while you melt the chocolate and cut the ears out of the cake scraps.

Melt a handful of vegan chocolate chips in the microwave for 1 minute, and stir until there are no more lumps. If you don’t like using a microwave, you can melt the vegan chocolate chips using a double boiler.

Transfer the melted chocolate to a squeeze bottle or a piping bag with a small hole.

Draw the chocolate eyes, mouth, whiskers, and forehead stripes on the sides of each pusheen mini cake.

Pipe a little melted chocolate on the bottom of each ear and press it onto the top of the cakes. You just want enough chocolate to glue the ear on, but not so much that it squeezes out the sides.

Freeze the cakes for 10 minutes to harden the chocolate.

If you like cats as much as lulu, you might also like my tacocat cake and my funfetti cat cake.

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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.