Retreat Chocolate

So, I needed one of those desserts that would help the organization holding an afternoon luncheon and work retreat at my house say–wow, I’m never usually this alert, imaginative and creative at 3:30! Think Grand Rapids Coffee Roasters coffee and something chocolate… maybe double chocolate. And throw in some sugar–and some dates, too, in case the sugar doesn’t do the trick.

Most of the time, I’m cooking for health, but this time it’s pure chocolate decadence. A feast day! (Lunch was super healthy… I’ll post about that tomorrow.)

One of my go-to books for this kind of treat is “Sweet Vegan” by Robin Asbell. I didn’t modify the recipe much, so I had my fingers crossed that it was on the web already and, yes indeedy, it is my lucky day–or yours, depending on how you feel about chocolate brownies. You have to go to page three of this article to get it, but it’s worth it.

You will be able to tell from my photo that I didn’t crush the pistachios and create a layer (I wanted to, but I did not have the time–plus someone was not into nuts in the group). I would definitely do that next time as I love pistachios. I also didn’t make the ganache topping (see aforementioned reason). There’s a ton of chocolate in this already. I don’t think it’s necessary, but it is a lovely touch.

And, when Robin called for a tablespoon of baking soda, I balked. I live in fear of my baked goods tasting like baking soda. I put in two scant teaspoons and they rose just fine. You have to make these far enough ahead so that you can cool them and chill them to cut them. But she recommends you serve them at room temperature.

The salty, dense, super-chocolatey treat went over very well!

German Chocolate Cake

Happy Vegan Month of Food! Let’s start with some cake.

This cake is so good and so easy.  There are a million recipes for the cake.  Those Depression-era recipe testers have given us great egg-less, dairy-free chocolate cakes.  I have lots of variations, but for the base of this cake, please refer to either this one given to me by friend, Caitlin,  Or this one that I modified from a recipe in Bon Appetit.

I love making this cake for birthdays–and it is also my birthday cake of choice.  I made it for our last supper club to celebrate friend Beth Leeson’s birthday, and I got several requests for the recipe.  After you make and bake your chocolate cake of choice, here’s the topping (which I have modified slightly) from the Chicago Diner cookbook to use less Earth Balance and more other ingredients than called for.  If you don’t have barley malt (which I didn’t recently), see the substitution below.

The big trick here is to quickly spread this on your cake.  It really does firm up quickly, so have everything ready.  You can use the chocolate frosting provided in Caitlin’s recipe on the outside of the cake, or you can choose to be more authentic and just use the coconut-pecan topping.  Either way it is delicious.

German Chocolate Cake Topping (adapted from Chicago Diner)

Ingredients
3 T soy margarine (or coconut oil)
1/2 cup Sucanat (or other raw sugar)
1/2 cup barley malt (or 1/3 cup brown rice syrup and 1/4 cup molasses)
1 cup unsweetened coconut
1 cup chopped pecans
2 eight (or nine) inch chocolate layer cakes, cooled

Directions:
In an iron pan, dry toast the coconut by placing it in the pan and stirring over medium heat. Stay around and watch it. When it begins to turn brown and you smell a nice nutty aroma, remove from pan and set aside.
Melt margarine in a small heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat. Add sugar and barley malt and stir until incorporated and sugar is melted.
Add other ingredients and stir until well mixed. Divide in half and smooth half over each cake layer. Start by mounding in the middle and spreading outward. This requires a delicate touch so you don’t tear your cake, but it’s the only challenging part. You can do it! Especially for this delicious result.

Thank you, Chicago Diner! We love you!

Summertime Song

It’s my fault.  I’ve repeatedly said any and all plant-friendly eaters are welcome.  I should have said humans!

Bambi here has been wreaking havoc on our yard.  She’s even reminded me that I also say ‘bring your friends’ to the buffet.  So, we are trying to live together in ‘nice’ peace and harmony.  But if she eats my Michigan lily, then defensive measures will be taken.

But who could be concerned about anything at our June supper club?  The weather was perfect, the food delicious and accompaniment by our special guest–singer Claire Corriveau–was divine.  Claire now has her very own facebook page and–soon–an album!  So be nice and like her page and cheer this hometown girl on…

And here she is with her beautiful and talented mom, fine artist Molly Alicki-Corriveau.

And the amazing quality of these photos is due to my old friend and my new photography teacher, Dianne Carroll Burdick.  So the guests were divided–

listen to Claire?

Or head inside for the beautiful buffet?

Fortunately for us, we could partake in the entire! embarrassment of riches.

Every supper club is different. There was a special sense of nostalgia as we all committed to meeting someone new in memory of Marie Catrib.  So the evening was about making new friends and cherishing the old…our dear friends, Russ and Kiran, who went vegan last September, visited us from Kalamazoo.  They love music as much as they love food.  They are forefront, eating and making new friends….

Dianne captured K.C. Andrews in the grape arbor.

And Caitlin Prins as the group gathered to listen to Claire.

Old friends, Rob and John catch up.

But only after Rob had his quiet time in the tent.

Dianne captured our lovely Sophie–rescue shepherd mix puppy–who has protected us for 11 years at 1080 Knapp.

Be still my heart, Austin and Bob are back for the summer–in plaid!

Don’t forget about dessert!  Isidore Okoro and Brian Doane tried to claim ownership of the orange chocolate mousse.  But we know who really brought it.  Kelly LeCoy from Uptown Kitchen.

Samantha Gallagher is loving Theresa Hogerheide’s energy bites.  You can find the recipe here at Theresa’s very cool local food blog.

Dianne taught me about the golden light at sunset….

Enjoy the summer!  We’ll see you July 17!

Springtime in May!

During that brief hot spell (between snow and freezing rain), we had a beautiful night for our May supper club. Our special guest was Bea Jokusch, owner of Baked by B. Her authentic pretzel rolls and bread speak for themselves. Delicious and affordable, you you can order by emailing her at jockusch@comcast.net or calling 676-8752.

Everyone was interested to hear about my trip to New York with my literacy project Wireman.  You can see wonderful (short!) videos of kids and teachers on my youtube channel.

While in New York, I ate at 3 well-established and famous-for-their-delicious vegan food restaurants: Candle 79, Blossom NYC and Angelica’s Kitchen. While there I sampled dishes like the Morrocan-spiced chickpea cake at Candle 79. It was served on a bed of sauteed kale, broccoli, onions and jalapenos with a red pepper coconut curry sauce and date-apricot-ginger chutney and sprinkled with toasted almonds. It was good–no doubt about it–but it wasn’t more flavorful than entrees like Dave Ogren’s roasted vegetable and chickpea patties with cucumber mango relish and coconut curry sauce.

Or Melissa’s Hot & Cold Thai Salad or my spicy black bean cakes with guajillo rojo sauce, roasted tomatillos and cilantro-lime sour cream.

And that’s just for starters, we had delicious roasted vegetables, homemade bread…well, here’s the rest of the photo gallery–we’re saving the desserts for last!

Above K.C.’s roasted veggies, below Nancy’s amazing sweet potato salad.

My mizuna salad, adapted from this one in the NYTimes (a little smoked paprika and jicama stood in for the smoked turkey)

Marilyn’s Herb Vegetable and Orzo Salad

And Shawn’s fried green tomatoes–stop!

I don’t have lovely pics of the garlic sauce, the arugula pesto, the bok choy salad, the double pea stew or the marinated salad.  It was such a bounty.  Thank you everyone.  Please note that there are simple and elaborate dishes.  The most inventive dish (he always wins!) went to Geoff Fields who, admittedly, had to handsell his Thai tasting vinegar.  Geoff made a rhubarb, grapefruit, lemon and mint simple syrup infusion and paired it with balsamic vinegar.  What a palate cleanser. Plus, it looked just like a glass of red wine!

And we needed to cleanse our palates for the amazing array of desserts.  Fortunately, for all of you I have recipes or links to many of these.

First up, Christina’s ginger-spice cupcakes, made famous by Chloe Coscarelli, the first vegan baker to win Cupcake Wars.Here’s Christina with her husband, Dave.

Vegan Banana Bread made for us by Liddy and Ruth’s Heart-Healthiest Chocolate Chip Cookies in the World

Here are Ruth and Terry.  It was their first time at the supper club!

Kris Siegel brought her son Bennett and this lovely chocolate cake.  Find the recipe at the end of the post.*

Last but not least, here are Cindy’s beautiful mini banana splits

Because it was spring! some of us opted to sit outside…

Melissa and I took the opportunity to snap some photos.

Appreciative diners, Ryan and Dorothy.

And clean-up helpers spearheaded by Molly made the evening fly by.

We hope you will be encouraged to join us if you, too, are interested in healthy (and sometimes indulgent) plant-based food, good conversation and nice people!

We’re especially hoping to see Marie Catrib as our special guest next month.  As you may have noticed from last month’s post, Marie cooks a lot of our dishes….

But she never gets to sit down and enjoy herself. So we made her a big invitation and are hoping–fingers crossed–she can come with some of her staff to be served by us. Even if she’s not able to come, we wanted her to know how much we appreciate her food.  Thank you, Marie!

Last but not least, thanks to Melissa and Marilyn for helping me with the photos and a big thank you to Christine who supplied us with re-usable name badges!

*Deep Chocolate Vegan Cake & Chocolate-Peanut Butter Frosting
(with Kris’s notes in parentheses)

Chocolate Cake: (This recipe makes an 8” square cake-not nearly enough, in my opinion. Double it to make a 2 layer cake, or a 9”x 13”)
1 ½ c. all-purpose flour
1/3 c. unsweetened cocoa powder
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
1 c. sugar
½ c. canola oil
1 c. cold coffee (or water)
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 T. cider vinegar
Chocolate-Peanut Butter Frosting: (I tripled this recipe to frost 2 layer cake & had some frosting left over.)
1/3 c. semisweet chocolate chips
¼ c. smooth peanut butter
3-4 T. water
1 tsp. vanilla
1 c. powdered sugar
Directions for Cake:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease and flour your baking pans.
2. Whisk together flour, cocoa, salt and sugar. In another bowl, combine oil, coffee or water, and vanilla. Pour liquid into dry, and mix until smooth. Add vinegar and stir briefly. Pour into prepared pan(s).
3. Bake 25-30 minutes.
Directions for Frosting:
1. In heavy saucepan, melt chocolate chips over medium-low heat. Beat together peanut butter, water, and vanilla until smooth. Beat in powdered sugar, add melted chocolate, mixing until blended. (My frosting was too thick, so I added a few tablespoons of soy creamer.)
2. Spread frosting onto cooled cake.

Bon Appetit Cake Goes Vegan!

For a girl who has a healthy eating blog, I sure do fancy chocolate cake recipes. I have this philosophy that my cakes aren’t exactly health food, but they’re so much healthier than other–yes, even vegan–versions. So if you want a little indulgence, start here. My latest creation is a vegan version of Bon Appetit’s Chocolate Peanut Butter Fun Cake.

The cake wasn’t too hard since it was already vegan and similar to other cakes I’ve made. I modified it by using full-fat cocoa powder from Penzey’s and coffee instead of water. Coffee in a chocolate cake makes it just that more chocolate-y.

One More Chocolate Cake Recipe
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup cocoa powder (full fat if you can get it)
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/4 cup coffee (I use decaf, but really good stuff from Grand Rapids Coffee Roasters)–or water
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup finely chopped semisweet or bittersweet chocolate (if you’re gonna make if vegan, check the ingredient list for milkfat)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Oil an 8 X 8 pan and put parchment paper in the bottom (to make your life easier, of course). Whisk dry ingredients together. In a 2 cup measure, whisk wet ingredients together. Don’t combine wet with dry until your pan is ready and the oven is preheated. In this story, the dry and the wet have chemistry and you don’t want them making out on your counter, but in the oven so the cake rises. When everything is ready, mix the ingredients together until just combined, pour into your pan and slip the pan into the oven. It will take 35-40 minutes to bake. I never got the hang of sticking a toothpick in the middle. They always come out with stuff on them. I like to gently touch the top of the cake. If it feels firm to the touch and the cake is coming away from the sides of the pan (even a little), it is probably done.

Here’s where I get all proud. The mousse in the Bon Appetit recipe comes from egg whites. And so many vegan versions of this use tons of Earth Balance and Spectrum Spread (the health-food version of Crisco). Yukky! Here’s what I did and it tastes as good as it looks. Maple syrup balances the beaniness of tofu. Trust me. No one will know if you do this right.

Peanut Butter Mousse

1 box extra firm tofu
2 T maple syrup
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/3-1/2 cup smooth 100% peanut butter (no Jif, people!)
1/4 cup refined coconut oil, melted

Put all ingredients except coconut oil in your blender and blend until completely smooth. Add coconut oil through blender hole in a thin stream (you are running the blender). Transfer this peanut butter pudding to the refrigerator to chill while the cake cools and you prepare your toppings.

Chop 1/4 cup dry roasted peanuts and 1/4 cup bittersweet chocolate. Once the cake has completely cooled, invert it onto a platter. I cut this into wedges and you can see how pretty it is. The mousse is very well-behaved, light and fluffy. The whole cake kept very well in the fridge for several days on a cake plate. It did not dry out. I’ve been doing Kris Carr’s Adventure cleanse (no gluten, no sugar, la la) or I wouldn’t know this.

I’m already thinking about giving this hot little number a makeover with some crushed chocolate cookies and the mousse with its toppings in a martini glass.