The Makeshift Cook

We had a little going-away potluck for a friend last week and I volunteered to be in charge of the sweets, which is most unlike me. It's not that I dislike baking. What I don't like is how nearly-impossible it is to salvage baking mistakes, whereas cooking mistakes can usually be turned around with a little improvisation.

Fortunately, this cake was super-easy and possibly idiot-proof (and also praised by omnivores who love them some rich, fatty cake). It mixes quickly, bakes up beautifully, and goes down easy. I can't take credit for the recipe--it's just a slightly bastardized version of the Moosewood Restaurant's Deep Chocolate Vegan Cake--but of course I changed a few little things. There's half the sugar, less oil, more cocoa, and tons of deliciousness. I also think it would be amazing with cinnamon and cayenne pepper, or banana, and definitely with peanut butter frosting.



Easy Vegan Chocolate Cake
3 cups unbleached white flour
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup vegetable oil
2 cups cold brewed coffee
1 tablespoon vanilla
1/4 cup cider vinegar

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Oil a 9 X 13 cake pan--I used Spectrum spray with flour. Sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar. In another bowl, combine coffee, oil, and vanilla. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix until smooth, using a hand mixer to pump some air into the batter. Add the vinegar and stir to combine. The vinegar and baking soda will start to react immediately, so pour the batter into your prepared pan quickly. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until a toothpick poked into the center of the cake comes out clean.

While it's baking, why not whip up some easy chocolate-raspberry topping?

Chocolate-Raspberry Topping
(I hate the word "topping," but this is neither frosting nor glaze.)
1 cup or more raspberry fruit spread
1 cup or more bittersweet chocolate chips
A few tablespoons of water

In a small, heavy-bottomed saucepan, warm the raspberry spread over low heat with a little bit of water, stirring until it is smooth. Add the chocolate chips and whisk until melted and thoroughly combined.

What you do next is up to you. Maybe you just want to take the sauce and go be alone with it. You could pour it directly on the (slightly cooled) cake, where it will fill in any cracks and drip down the sides. You could also chill it so that it thickens up, and then apply it to the cake more like a frosting.

I can also tell you that leftover chocolate-raspberry topping is excellent on plain, slightly salty wheat crackers.

There is a gathering of the ladies tonight, and the Buckeyes a la Kickpleat I made for the clothing swap a few weeks ago were specifically requested. I love these particular ladies, so I am willing to do a bit of manual labor to deliver the treats they desire. However, I was low on crunchy peanut butter and only have Kashi Go Lean cereal, and wanted to avoid making a special grocery store run, since I feel like I'm constantly food shopping. AND I made another batch of almond milk today and have all of this nut pulp (another hilarious nut-related phrase) left over. There was also some date soaking water, which is sweet and syrupy, and that needed to be used up. So I decided to combine all of my seeming problems into a single solution.

I'm glass half-full, it's true.

I don't recommend making this recipe modification I'm about to drop on you unless you've just made some almond milk and have a bunch of ground up, squeezed out almond stuff left over. Or I suppose you could pulse your own almonds into meal status, but I can think of better things to do with almonds. I spread the nut pulp out on a sheet and dried it out in the oven at the lowest setting for about an hour before adding it to the mixture.

I also cut the amount of sugar by more than half, and that definitely affects the texture. I found that I needed something to soak up all the delicious fat, so I chucked in some oat bran and coconut. I'd probably skip the coconut if I do this again. It really starts to make this taste aggressively like a healthy treat.

ALSO, I had some chocolate problems. My little chips melted just fine, but the chocolate was so thick I knew I was going to run out. So I tried to thin it with soymilk and the chocolate seized up and became unmeltable. I ended up laying a veneer of it on top of the balls, which was actually far less messy than the dip/roll technique. It tasted exactly the same--it just wasn't glossy.

Overall, an experiment with mixed results. But here's the recipe anyway.

Chocolate Salty Balls with Almond Meal
1 cup natural crunchy peanut butter, room temperature
1/3 cup Earth Balance, ditto
1 1/2 cups almond meal
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons date soaking water, if you happen to have any--otherwise just skip or add more powdered sugar to taste
1 cup Kashi Go Lean cereal, crunched up so that the long twiggy bits are nice and small
1/2 cup oat bran
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut
1 1/2 cups melted semi-sweet chocolate
1/2 tsp cinnamon (if you like)

Mix everything but the chocolate together in about that order. Roll into 1 inch balls and stick in the freezer to firm up (at least an hour). Melt the chocolate, but don't let it get too hot. Mix in the cinnamon. Dip/roll the balls in the chocolate and line them up on a tray for refreezing. They don't need to stay in the freezer particularly long--just long enough for the chocolate to harden thoroughly.

This version is less Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, more Hippie at a Potluck. It may not be the treat the ladies requested, exactly, but tis still delicious.

I have been a bad, bad blogger, but I have been cooking! Here are a few recipes I've followed lately, and then eaten:

1. Vegan Nacho Cheese Dip, from the (apparently abandoned) kid-friendly vegan blog, Shmooed Food. We have this non-vegan friend who is always raving about the home fries and vegan nacho cheese at the Triple Rock. I've never tried it myself, but I've been intrigued by the whole idea. The Shmooed Food recipe has gotten a ton of hits and positive comments, so I went for it. The result was pretty good, but didn't set my pants on fire, and believe me, I wasn't expecting it to be CHEESE, so that wasn't the problem. Also, I love nutritional yeast, so that wasn't the problem either. I think I would adjust the spice profile--maybe ease up on the garlic powder and cumin and add adobo instead, or in addition. We ate it with broccoli and cauliflower. Maybe that was my problem: I should have been eating it with chips. Or the aforementioned home fries. Oh heck, I might make it again.
   
2. Balls! To be exact, they were Peanut Butter Buckeyes from my friend Kickpleat's adorable food blog, Everybody Likes Sandwiches. I made them for a clothing swap two weeks ago, and they were a HUGE hit. I even used healthy cereal in them (Kashi flakes) and natural peanut butter, so they were, y'know, healthy. Also vegan, incidentally. I sustained an impressive burn while melting the chocolate, the aftereffects of which I am still suffering. The bowl sizzled my middle finger right across my writing callus, and the wound tends to crack every time I bend my finger, thanks to winter dryness. I know, you're welcome. Anyway, I would most CERTAINLY make these again, even though they are messy and my ball-dipping technique (hee) leaves something to be desired. If you're anything like me, you'll call them Chocolate Salty Balls and spend the whole day singing that song from South Park.
   
3. Also from Kickpleat and IN PROGRESS, these vegan Power Cookies are awesome. She sent me some of her first batch in the mail and I ate them for two days straight, to the exclusion of other food. I have eaten two of the first sheetful of my batch, and will probably eat more. The best part so far is that the contents are customizable and I can envision tweaking the recipe any number of ways. I subbed chopped dried apricots and some currents for most of the raisins, and topped off my maple syrup with molasses (didn't have quite enough maple syrup). Also, the cookies can be eaten for breakfast--well, all cookies can be eaten for breakfast. But these have nutritional value!! So you will feel virtuous.