It's Moist, It's Lustful, It's Chocolate

[plumtreeblossom]

Oh oh oh, the house smells chocolatey vegany good:



I just baked two vegan chocolate birthday cakes for pheromone's big birthday bash tonight. Chris and I had to use all our willpower not to nosh into them before the party, but now they're safely wrapped and ready.

I'm not a vegan myself, but I have a number of friends who are and I've had the opportunity to bake for them on quite a few occasions now. Let me tell you, with a few key ingredients on hand, you can veganize damn near anything. This cake didn't need eggs or butter to rise. Baking soda and vinegar do the trick, just like in 7th grade science class, along with vegan margarine some merciless whipping with the electric mixer. You could modify this recipe and make any kind of cake your little vegan heart desired. Personally I'm glad she requested chocolate. :-)

Way back in the day, I used to work at an ovo-lacto-vegetarian restaurant in Rochester called Jazzberry's. The vegan offerings were uninspired and not tasty in the least. Most of them were spit-into-the-napkin bad, in fact, and it was primarily due to lack of easily accessible vegan ingredients for more mainstream dishes. Now you can go into Star Market or Whole Foods and get vegan margarine or sucanat or vegan egg substitute easy as you please. No more scoops of plain brown rice as an entree and orange juice for dessert. You can make big fat lusty pies, ravioli, twice-baked potatoes, and of course chocolate cake! I think I could cook an entire sumptuous meal and veganize it in ways Jazzberrry's couldn't back then.

OK, I'm done. As I say, I'm not a vegan m'self. Time for a piece of cheese.

Comments

[guxx.livejournal.com]

You could eat rice cheese, Miss Veganolic.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Rice cheese isn't....cheeeeeeeese. But I do use it when cooking vegan and I definitely want to try making that porto bello and soy mozzarella ravioli sometime. You can be guinea pig if you want!

[guxx.livejournal.com]

No thanks. My mom keeps rice cheese in the fridge. She's no vegan but I guess white-colored foods are bad for her health.

I'll stick to the more normal cheeses like the feta with my morning omelette.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

I didn't see this post last night, but I figured it was okay to look today. :) Yay! Thanks for the nummy cake! I should go have anoter piece shortly...

FYI, there are no vegan rice cheeses. Most soy cheeses are dairy, too.

As for Jazzberry's, I honestly can't imagine that the problem wasn't the chefs, rather than the ingredients. Firstly, there are always vegetable oils and shortenings if you need fat (and a tip: non-dairy margarine can be found anywhere there are observant Jews). And as for sweeteners, molasses and mape syrup are generally not difficult to find. I've eaten or made plenty of amazing dishes that didn't use any "weird" ingredients. And heck, the cake recipe doesn't need any either.

[saturn939.livejournal.com]

OMG! Bake something vegan for me! There's only one or two places I can get cakes/pastries around here!

-Dej

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Send me your email addy and I'll send you the recipe! And the vegan chocolate frosting is simply to die for. It's tastes better than any traditional frosting I've ever had.

[saturn939.livejournal.com]

dejioinmexico at yahoo dot com

:-D

[majes.livejournal.com]

Best. Vegan. Cake. Ever.
And the singing... was that the best signing of "Happy Birthday" that you ever heard? Personally, I thought it was fuckin' awesome, and I've heard that song ... well, far too many times to recount.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

I was stupid not to make an extra one for me and Chris to have at home. I'm craving chocolate cake now!

[majes.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I had that problem when I read your post earlier. It got me thinking about that cake, and how good it was, and what such, and then I was like "mmmm... cake... I could go for that right now." Fortunately, I resisted the evil influence of cake today. Party eating is one thing - day to day eating is a whole nuther thing.