Chocolate Orange Star Cake

March 30, 2013

Chocolate Star Cake

I made this pretty star cake for a special little lady's birthday party and everyone - kids and adults - loved it. Even the crumbs stuck to the knife were gone;) Sadly, even though it was made from two cakes, it wasn't enough to honour all the requests for second servings.

For a winner party cake I almost always go for my favourite combination of chocolate and orange. I've made this recipe several times before and it never failed to impress.

Whole wheat flour keeps the cake moist and gives it a wonderful, slightly spongy texture. To save time, on this occasion I made the two cakes the evening before the party. When I started cutting them into shape the following day I realised they had become so moist, they no longer needed to be cut into layers and filled with more ganache, as I had done with the previous heart-shaped cake. A generous layer of ganache that evened out the top and covered the sides was more than enough and the combination of moist, orange-flavoured cake and melt-in-the-mouth chocolate ganache turned out to be insanely delicious.

Chocolate Star Cake

I was the luckiest, because I got to eat most of the cake trimmings. Believe me, it's really tough practising self-control around this cake, when it smells so good and fresh.

I initially intended to make one large cake and shape it as a star, but then I found this ingenious method on Clumbsy Cookie which calls for two cakes, one larger than the other - the small one is cut into a pentagon and the large one into 6 triangles, 5 of which are then attached to the pentagon to form the star (click the link for instructions and pictures).

You can find the full recipe with step-by-step pictures in my post Orange Cake with a Heart of Chocolate. The things I did different this time were to use Homemade Almond Milk instead of oat milk and demerara instead of caster sugar. For the large cake, for each ingredient I added 50% more.

Orange Cake

The recipe couldn't be simpler and involves just a little stirring. The dry and wet ingredients are mixed separately, then combined and poured into the pan. In 35-40 minutes the cakes are done. I used a 20 cm pan and a 22 cm pan. I previously managed to prevent the cake from getting cracks, but I guess making two cakes in the same time impacted the air flow inside the oven so they did crack a bit, but were still easy to cut and handle.

One helpful thing I did was to not peel off the paper. That actually made cutting the cakes easier and I was able to remove each piece of cake effortlessly.

You can use whatever math method you want to cut the cakes, the easiest for me was to use a ruler. The sides of the pentagon and the bases of the triangles were 11 cm. After cutting the large cake into six and trimming the edges I also used a little ganache to "glue" the triangles to the pentagon.

Star Cake

Chocolate Ganache
  • 1/2 cup creamy coconut milk, canned (smooth texture, high fat content - the one I used here had 75% coconut extract) - see note
  • 1/3 cup demerara sugar
  • 1 Tb pure coconut oil
  • 150 g vegan chocolate broken into small pieces (I used chocolate with 50% cacao solids)

Note: Refrigerate the can of coconut milk overnight so that the milk solidifies and separates. Turn upside-down, open and discard the transparent liquid. The cream is now ready to use.

Bring a little water to a boil in a small pan. In a glass bowl mix the coconut milk and sugar. Turn heat to low and let the water simmer gently. Place the glass bowl on top, without the bottom touching the water, and stir once in a while until the sugar is completely melted.
Add the coconut oil and stir until melted.
Add the chocolate all at once, leave it for half a minute to warm up and start softening, then stir until most of it is melted. Remove from heat and continue stirring until all the chocolate is melted. By then the ganache should feel warm, not hot.
Let the ganache rest for 5 minutes. If your cakes have cracks like mine did, start by filling them with a little ganache.
Use about 3/4 ganache for the top and even it out with a large offset spatula or knife. Use the rest to ice the sides of the star.


I didn't have a large enough tray for this cake, so I used a large piece of cardboard that I covered with aluminum foil.

Chocolate Orange Star Cake

Once the cake is iced, clean around it with some lightly moistened napkins.

Chocolate Star Cake

Icing
  • desiccated coconut
  • creamy coconut milk
  • icing sugar
  • coconut oil

After icing the cake sprinkle coconut flakes around the edges, so they can stick to the ganache.
To make the white icing, mix about 2 Tb coconut milk with 1 heaping Tb icing sugar and 1 Tb softened coconut oil until smooth. Use a plastic bag or make a paper cone and fill it with the icing. Decorate to your liking.

Chocolate Star Cake

In all the food preparation frenzy that day I was unable to take proper pictures to show you, so I made the whole cake again the next day. I hope you like it:)

Chocolate Star Cake

This cake can easily be turned into different shapes, layer cake, muffins, lamingtons and more.

Chocolate Star Cake

Enjoy and spread the magic!:)


If you've tried this cake I would greatly appreciate your feedback. Thank you in advance!

12 comments:

Ally @ Om Nom Ally

What a delicious birthday cake, I'm not surprised that even the crumbs were gobbled up :) Great little tutorial on how to make a star shaped cake too!

Karielyn@TheHealthyFamilyandHome

Hi Adriana! The chocolate-orange combo is one of my favorites so I will definitely make this. One question...I just made some homemade coconut milk and was wondering if I could use that instead of the coconut in the can. Would it work the same way or could it possibly be higher in fat since it's 100% coconut? It's the first time I made it but would love to use it for this recipe if I can. Thanks!

Vegan Magic

Ally, one's got to try this cake to believe how good it is:) Making it the day before was the best thing. Thanks so much for writing:)

Vegan Magic

Karielyn, I'm so happy you like it and plan to make it:) If this is full fat coconut milk, it's even better than the one I used, so it will surely work. If it solidifies, it's perfect. You just want a thick icing here, so you can adjust the amounts. I added coconut oil just to be on the safe side and it worked. I so look forward to your feedback when you try this cake, it's really amazing:)

Sandy

WoW! you're a cake genius!!! :D Chocolate and orange is the best flavour combination

Vegan Magic

Sandy, thank you!:) My job was so easy though, I already had a great cake recipe and with the star tutorial this was a piece of cake to put together;) I was surprised to read that there are people who don't like the chocolate orange combination, can't imagine why.

Anonymous

Shared and bookmarked the page! :-)

This celestial creation looks like something that would be especially made to honor someone, whether it be a birthday girl/boy or a celebrity! :-)

Vegan Magic

Thank you so much for sharing and for your kind words:)

Sailaja

I am going to try this soon. Love this cake

Vegan Magic

Sailaja, I'm so glad you like it and look forward to your feedback. I've just been over to your blog and found some amazing recipes that I can't wait to try:)

Suja

I can't wait to try this out! I have some canned cream of coconut, and was wondering if I could just use that instead of the coconut milk?? The ganache is going to be a challenge for me, but I'm gonna take it on, and try it out :) I will let you know how it turns out. Thanks Ady!

Vegan Magic

Suja, that's exactly the kind of thing to use. I guess it's marketed differently, but it's basically thick coconut milk which separates when solid. The ganache is really easy to make and the best part is that you can always add to it, like if it comes out too thin you can add more chocolate or cocoa powder, if too thick you can add more milk. And if you don't have coconut oil you can use margarine instead. I hope the cake and ganache come out great:) Thank you so much for your vote of confidence in my recipes, it means a lot:)