Chocolate Walnut Cake

I'm feeling creative this afternoon, and while I don't believe this introduction has any sense of direction, I've been questioning my motives in choosing "the vegan lifestyle" lately, so I'm going to go ahead and share...

I drank the Kool-Aid. I've gone from a raging college party girl with a penchant for clear alcohols, Marlboro cigarettes, and fast-food to a full-fledged kook that rambles on about topics such as the many uses of milled flax-seed. People that know me personally think I've lost my mind - they would have never imagined I would become a devoted yogi, a vegan, or a person committed to emotional, spiritual, and physical health. While I've actually found (most of) my mind in taking this path, I often feel that I must let myself stray from time to time in order to keep a sense of balance and sanity. That isn't to say that I regress into old habits - but every now and then I'll indulge in a few drinks, a cigarette, or a vegetarian meal rather than strict vegan. I suppose that's why I love sharing dessert recipes; I'm absolutely enamored by the idea that I can have the best of both worlds in these decadent desserts made vegan.

A slice of cake spurred this epiphany. That sounds insane, but it's true. The taste of rich nutty chocolate with a hint of berry flavor sent me spiraling out into thought - that if I can have a slice of THE MOST MOIST AND DELICIOUS chocolate cake I'VE EVER HAD and it's VEGAN and it was so easy I MADE IT MYSELF then why would I ever turn back?

And the answer, Ladies and Gentlemen, is that I'm not turning back - unless to get another slice of this heavenly cake. Enjoy!

 

Cake

• Canola spray 
• 1/2 cup walnuts, ground
• 1 cup unbleached white flour
• 2/3 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt 
• 1 teaspoon baking soda 
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder 
• 1/2 cup canola oil 
• 1 cup maple syrup 
• 4 ounces raspberry-flavored coconut milk yogurt or vegan sour cream
• 3/4 cup water

Frosting

• 1/2 cup maple syrup
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup vegan butter
• 1/2 cup chocolate soy milk or vanilla soy milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Garnish

• 1/4 cup finely chopped walnuts
• Raspberries, Blueberries

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.

2. Spray an 8" x 8" baking dish or a 9" round pan with canola oil.

3. Prepare Cake: Grind walnuts in the food processor until they have a flour-like consistency. Be careful not to grind them into a paste. In a medium bowl, mix walnuts, flours, salt, baking soda, and cocoa powder together. Set aside.

4. In another medium mixing bowl, stand mixer, or food processor, blend the canola oil, maple syrup, and coconut milk yogurt together until creamy. Add water and mix again.

5. Add the dry mixture to the wet mixture and mix until well combined, being careful not to overmix. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread batter evenly.

6. Bake about 30 minutes or until the cake springs back when touched in the middle and is pulling away from the sides of the pan. Remove from oven to cool.

7. Go around the sides of the cake with a knife and gently turn over onto a plate.

8. Prepare Frosting: Blend all ingredients in food processor or blender until creamy.

9. Assemble Cake: Frost the top and then the sides of the cake. Sprinkle with walnuts and garnish with fresh berries.

No Head for Money

How do I manage to continually make poor decisions with money? I must have been inebriated when I signed up for a mail order make up club, claiming to give free product...Oh! only free if you return it in 15 days? How is that free??? Now I am stuck with two shipments of mineral makeup plus brushes and a bill of (gulp) $201.50. Please everyone stay away from these scams. Oh, I guess you already do that, because you know better. So, am I also the only one who somehow overpaid my Nordstroms bill by $184.29??? Fortunately for me, they are sending me a check in the mail. Thank God! I really don't need any more of their merchandise during tax season. One recent good impulsive buy lead me to my new e-reader Nook. My niece visiting from Holland wanted to be the first in her country to own the i-pad 2. So, we got up early to stand in line at the Apple store by 6:30 am. She had her i-pad by 9:30, and I borrowed $30 from her to add to my $50 in order to buy my this gadget off the lady standing ahead of us. Since she bought a new i-pad too, she doesn't need her e-reader anymore. I love my new toy, but I stupidly forgot to pay back my 19 year old niece before she left. I think Suze Orman would put me in a straight jacket, at this point. Please don't tell my husband any of this!

I need a cookie: Comfort Cookies

1 1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup oat bran

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 brown sugar

2 ripe bananas

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup oil

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/2 chocolate chips

1. Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl.

2. In a medium bowl, mash the bananas, add vanilla, oil, peanut butter, and chips. Mix together.

3. Add wet ingredients to the dry ones and blend together just until it forms a large ball and refrigerate for 20 minutes. Cover if left over night.

4. Roll into small balls and place 1 1/2 inches apart on cookie sheet. Flatten the balls to a 1/4 inch thickness with a bottom of a glass dipped in flour to keep from sticking.

5. Bake for about 15 minutes in a preheated oven at 350 degrees until the bottoms are brown. Cool on a paper towel or cookie rack for a few minutes.

I found this recipe on vegweb.com, but of course I substituted a few items and changed it up to better suit my dire need of a delicious and real cookie! This comes pretty darn close. Enjoy! (If you don't squish the balls down they will stay round as pictured).

The Chocolate Cure

Chocolate - Mint Sorbet

From The Herbfarm Cookbook

by Jerry Traunfeld

3/4 cup sugar

3 cups water

6  4inch sprigs of peppermint, chocolate mint or spearmint

6 ounces premium bittersweet or semisweet chocolate - chopped

( I used Sunspire Organic 65% Cacao bittersweet chocolate - it's vegan)

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa

1.  Syrup: Bring the sugar and water to a boil in a medium size saucepan. Add the mint, cover, remove from heat, and steep for 30 minutes. Strain and return the syrup to the saucepan.

2. Sorbet: Return the syrup to a simmer. Add the chocolate and cocoa, remove the pan from the heat, and whisk until smooth.  Refrigerate the mixture until thoroughly chilled.  Freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's directions.

You get a chocolate fix from this sorbet, without the leaded gut you get from some chocolate desserts. It's simply refreshing.

Mid - morning B went off to the Market. Miss M wanted to stay home. She was very quiet for about 10 minutes. The she appeared at my office door and declared that we must make a fort. She had already started. I followed her to the front door where she had lined up a row of shoes to mark one side of the fort and block any ones entrance. Clearly she would get her Mother's attention when she returned from the Market. 

Miss M and I have made many forts, so I pulled out the big blanket and the card table. The blanket fits nicely over the table and then some.  We took then some and stretched it to the couch and secured it with pillows.  Then Miss M made a floor with a half dozen of her baby blankets.

At dawn I had sat on that very couch with my coffee, the house asleep, the cat brush and a pair of scissors in my lap. I hoped Kitty Hawk to join me. She doesn't always join me. But she had some dreadlocks that needed cutting and I was ready, just in case.

You're killing her, the vet told me a couple of weeks ago when he weighed Kitty Hawk. She should be 10#s and she's 15#. Talk about shame. I felt horrible. She's a long hair, you've seen her. I knew she had put on some weight when I couldn't get her into her cat carrier and had to load her by taking the top off the carrier, lifting her into the bottom half and putting the top back on. She was heavy for sure.

The first week of her diet, she complained a lot. I learned to rationed her food a little at a time throughout the day to keep the protests to a minimum. And I told her that if she was that hungry, she could take some initiative and catch one of many gophers out in the yard. (She'll never go vegan.) I thought I was so funny.

She did join me this morning and when I lifted her onto the couch and rubbed her belly I'm sure I felt a thinner cat. I cut off a few dreadlocks and she indeed looked like she had lost weight. Whew.

At about 4 this afternoon I'm on my way out the door, except getting out the front door, still blocked by a fort, was going to be tricky. I saw something flutter over there. It was a bird. A brown towhee I think. It was trapped between the fort and the front door. Kitty Hawk was stalking near by. The joke was on me. I went out the back door, around the house and opened the front door. No one flew out. I left the front door open, ran back in the back door thinking I'd get back to the fort and shoo the bird out.

I had to leave. I had an appointment at 4:30. I saw nothing. Either the bird had made it safely out the front door or Kitty Hawk, also MIA, was munching somewhere out of sight.

So you see why chocolate was required today. Good thing my sorbet maker is always ready for loading.

Happy Mother's Day!

I got my cookbook collecting fetish from my mother. If you follow the blog, you know her. She is Mary. She is a fantastic cook. She is the one who taught me to cook. Her first blog a couple of weeks ago was a very tasty Sweet and Sour Tofu. I have never had a sweet and sour dish that I thought was worth a damn. They are almost always sickeningly sweet. And then there's that orange Day-Glo color. Leave it to her to come up with a sweet and sour that tastes fabulous and is vegan for her once a week vegan day.


There were some lean times growing up but she is one of those people who can whip up a meal out of few ingredients and transform it into a feast. I never thought of her as a particularly patient person. When the barbarians were at the gate, she was most vocal. And she had a husband who was not easy. But when she is in the kitchen, magic always happens and there is an air of serenity. The results were and are always inspiring. My preteen waistline showed it.


So she is the spark that light the fire that made me want to cook. And eat. She spent hours and still does pouring over cookbooks investigating technique, reading about unfamiliar ingredients, planning that next family get together. To me there is nothing more comforting than turning on the light on the bedside table and browsing through my latest cookbook find. Or the one that I have been carrying around for many years. Mary is the inspiration. She tells me that she is enjoying blogging with us and the results look truly impressive. She worries that she may not be following the "rules". I tell her that there are no rules. It is her day to blog and she can blog about anything she wants. Dandelion greens picked by her dog? Go for it! Just as today is my day and I can blog about anything I want to. So this one is about happy memories. Memories of coming home from ice skating or sledding and having a sweet treat waiting. Memories of shared times in the kitchen.Memories of great meals at family get togethers.


This was one of Mary's staples. Whip it together in a hurry and it tastes great after sledding on a cold winter's day. I know of few people who make it or have even heard of it. As the name states, it is wacky. No eggs, no butter, no mixing bowls or beaters to clean. And it contains vinegar. Vinegar! All these years she has been making it and I bet she never even thought about it being vegan. I never did. It just tastes great!


Wacky Cake

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
6 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup water

Sift dry ingredients together and place in an UN GREASED 8' x 8" square cake pan. Make three wells. Put vanilla in one, vinegar in another and vegetable oil in the last. Pour over water and mix with a fork. Place in preheated oven and bake for 30 to 40 minutes until toothpick comes out clean. Cool. Serve with whipped soy topping or by itself. Enjoy.




Oh yeah, did I mention that at 72 she is still hot and a lot of fun? Happy Mother's Day Mom! Thanks for all the great meals. All the great memories!