Chocolate & graham cracker cake

So I was all excited to go see The Texas Chainsaw Massacre last night at the Alabama Theatre since TCM is my favorite movie (or at least tied with Taxi Driver) and The Alabama is an amazing place. The Alabama is one of the few remaining picture palaces from the 1920s. I saw A Nightmare on Elm Street there on Wednesday night, but was most excited about TCM on Thursday night.

Leatherface is not vegan.

And then my cousin called and asked me to come to her last dinner before she moves out of state..

OK Leatherface, you and I will just have to stick to DVD. Someday we will meet in an old theater with your face lit up at 30 feet wide and I can listen to your brother talk about headcheese and how bludgeoning cows provides jobs for people. (TCM is a rather vegan-inducing movie if you haven't seen it.)

So what should I make in about an hour and a half to take for dinner dessert? I wanted to do a recipe I hadn't done before and since vegan graham crackers were BOGO at the store this week, I went with the S'mores cupcake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World but in cake form. 

There's a high liquid to dry ingredient ratio and the batter ended up being superthin. This worried me a bit, but I didn't have time to do make anything else, so I just went with it. The cake took about 35 minutes and still wasn't 100% done in the middle, but I didn't have time to leave it in longer. And underdone cake actually turns out to be a good thing in many cases..that gooey center that slides out as your fork presses into the cake!

I also discovered I only had 1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar.. So I whipped out one of my favorite chocolate icing recipes from one of those old corporate recipe booklets.

Fudge frosting
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup non-dairy milk (I used lite coconut this time)
1/4 cup Earth Balance
2 tablespoons corn syrup
1-1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Mix granulated sugar, cocoa, coconut milk, Earth Balance and corn syrup in a medium saucepan. Heat to boiling, stirring frequently. Boil 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat. Beat in powdered sugar and vanilla.

I added a thin layer of icing to the bottom cake layer, covered it with graham crackers and then another layer of icing.

I did the same for the top layer and topped with graham cracker crumbs and chocolate chips. (The cake was still warm so the chocolate chips got soft and melty..it was awesome.) For a true s'mores cake, a tub of Ricemellow Creme would add in well (or Dandies melted with some Earth Balance), but the cake is very rich as is...and I didn't feel like stopping by Whole Foods on the way to dinner. 

The undone center mixed with the icing to make a supergooey rich treat that everyone loved. I recommend serving warm.

photo by Marina Cano