A Chocolate Cake

{chocolate cake, The Joy of Vegan Baking}

I tried to hide the Halloween candy from The Mister. Truly, I did. Actually, I was hiding it from The Mister’s notorious, insatiable, unrelenting sweet tooth and a certain 2.5 year old scamp with a nut allergy. I picked out a few favorites for Mikey and put it in my little salt and do-dads cabinet to the right of the stove. I was doing a fine job doling them out piece by piece in Mikey’s lunch box, until this Tuesday I opened my cabinet and found it devoid of candy. Not a Snickers in sight. Clearly, The Mister found my stash.

The apple cake I made on Monday? Gone by Tuesday night. Two boys, a husband, and roughly 86 sweet teeth champing at the bit* to eat dessert will do that to Mother Hubbard’s cupboard.

Today I made the Chocolate Cake from The Joy of Vegan Baking. We’ll see how long it lasts.

*yep, it’s champing. Geeky word trivia from your friendly neighborhood word nerd.

**I normally don’t reprint recipes from cookbooks without the express permission from the author, but since Colleen Patrick-Goudreau has this recipe available on her site, I’m going to go ahead and reprint it here.

Chocolate Cake

This chocolate cake might be the easiest cake in the world to prepare, and it’s incredibly versatile, lending itself to a layer cake, bundt cake, or cupcakes. Though this is a pretty common recipe, I want to give credit to Jennifer Raymond, for it was in her cookbook The Peaceful Palate that I first saw it.

Ingredients

* 1-1/2 cups (188 g) unbleached all-purpose flour
* 3/4 cup (150 g) granulated sugar
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/4 cup (30 g) unsweetened cocoa powder
* 1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
* 1/3 cup (80 ml) canola oil
* 1 tablespoon white distilled vinegar
* 1 cup (235 ml) cold water

Preheat the oven to 350° F (180° C or gas mark 4). Lightly oil a Bundt pan, 9-inch (23 cm) springform pan, or muffin tins.

Combine the flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, and cocoa powder in a bowl until thoroughly combined. Create a well in the center of your dry ingredients, and add the vanilla, oil, vinegar, and water. Mix until just combined. Pour into your prepared pan, and bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. If making cupcakes, check for doneness after 15 minutes.

Cool on a wire rack. To remove the cake from the pan, run a sharp knife around the inside of the pan to loosen the cake. Cool completely before frosting with Chocolate Frosting (see below) or with Buttercream Frosting (page 231). You may also dust with sifted confectioner’s sugar and top with fresh raspberries.

Yield: One 9-inch cake (23-cm) or 8 cupcakes. Double the recipe for a layer cake or a bundt cake.

Serving Suggestions and Variations: Add a teaspoon of cayenne pepper or a teaspoon of chili powder for a ‘Mexican Chocolate Cake.’

Chocolate Frosting

A chocolate lover’s dream! Though many of the commercial brands of frosting are ‘vegan,’ they’re also made with unsavory ingredients, such as partially hydrogenated oil or high-fructose corn syrup. This recipe is as easy as it is delicious.

Ingredients

* 1/2 cup (112 g) non-hydrogenated, nondairy butter, softened
* 3 cups (300 g) powdered (confectioner’s) sugar, sifted
* 1/3 (42 g) cup cocoa, sifted
* 1 teaspoon vanilla or 1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract
* 3-4 tablespoons (45 to 60) water or nondairy milk

With an electric hand mixer, cream the butter until smooth. With the mixer on low speed, add the sugar, and cream for about 2 minutes. Add the rest of the ingredients, and turn the mixer to high speed once all the ingredients are relatively well-combined. Beat on high speed until frosting is light and fluffy (about 3 minutes). Add l or 2 tablespoons more milk if it’s too dry. Cover the icing with plastic wrap to prevent drying until ready to use. Store it in a covered container in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. Re-whip before using.

Yield: Enough for one 9-inch (23-cm) cake or 8 cupcakes

The Chef

Yesterday Mikey announced he had created a recipe in his head that he would like to make for dinner and “I want you to take pictures of it and put it on your website, okay, mom?  Then I want you to tell me what the people say.”

So that’s exactly what we did.  This isn’t the first recipe Mikey’s come up with and not the first time he has expressed an interest in cooking.  Last week he developed a tomato and carrot salad that he instructed me to roast for exactly one minute.  I have to say, it tasted great! (But I did roast it for longer than one minute.)

Last night we ate pasta tossed with olive oil, sauteed mushrooms, roasted butternut squash, spinach, and carrots.  We added many seasonings and decided as a team to leave out the dried mustard and garlic chili powder.  It needed a little more flavor, so we ended up drizzling it all with balsamic vinegar.

It wasn’t until he was looking at the pictures I took (he printed one out for show and tell today) that it occurred to him you would be reviewing his work in the kitchen.  I could tell that he suddenly wasn’t so sure of his idea to share with everyone his creation.

“Are the people going to give me a grade, mama?”

“I’m sure they will just tell you that your recipe looks delicious.”

And it was.  I had the leftovers for lunch.

He Likes Them Apples

Something tells me that I wouldn’t be shaped like an eggplant if I went through this much trouble to eat apples.

p.s. This was his third apple in less than an hour.  He was mad at me because I refused to give it to him another one, so he went to the bathroom, dragged out the stool, and got it himself.

Coke Bloat: Not Just For Lindsey Lohan

Last Friday we went out to dinner with friends.  In honor of the occasion, I spent 20 minutes getting ready and all but flew into a red cotton dress that feels like I am wearing pajamas.  The dress accommodated my watercraft-sized breasts nicely but, more importantly, was two sizes too big.  As nervous as I was of having a wardrobe malfunction and exposing my kapows to Pepe, the restaurant owner, I was more thrilled I could pull off an empire waist without looking 6 months pregnant.  As luck would have it, my bodice clung firmly in place and my stomach appeared relatively flat.  That was Friday.

On Sunday, emboldened by Friday’s success, I put the dress on again.  It didn’t look the same.  In fact, I looked “end of first trimester.”  I chalked it up to bad angles, stretched out cotton, and the heat.  I decided to take off the dress and put on jeans instead.

On Monday I put the dress on again, this time for an appointment with my nutritionist.  Only this time, I didn’t look “end of first trimester.”  I looked “on my way to Lamaze, somebody hand me a pickle.”  I stood there in disbelief, staring at the tight, round belly jutting past my breasts.  Now, mind you, my breasts do more than their share of jutting, so for my stomach to actually gain the lead is akin to two Quarter Horses vying for victory in the last 10 meters.  It was a tight finish, but the spoils of victory went to the basketball in my torso.

I ripped the dress off and kicked it across the room.  Then I put on jeans and a parachute and went to my appointment.  Sitting across my nutritionist a scant hour later, I presented my case.  Actually, I presented my belly.  I stood up, pulled my parachute taught across my mound of flesh and exclaimed, “Now, what, pray tell, have you to say about this?!”

She looked me over calmly and said, “Is it possible you might be pregnant?”

I gnashed my teeth and considered violence.  “No, but thank you for confirming my worst suspicions!”

“Are you sure you can’t be pregnant?”

It took some doing, but I convinced her I was not about to whelp children, puppies, or kittens.  Having ruled pregnancy out, she concluded I suffered from “veggie bloat.”  Veggie what?  I was dumbfounded.  She was amused.  She asked me if I had any of the typical bloat producing vegetables, cabbage and broccoli being two of them.  I looked back on my 4th of July weekend and acknowledged that I had hot dogs and sauerkraut in every possible variation.  As a side dish, always broccoli or salad.

My nutritionist considered the case closed, but I wasn’t convinced of her diagnosis.  How can I put this delicately?  It’s not like I spent the weekend whistling Dixie. I think I would notice my stomach filling with 10 pounds of pressure, right?  Suddenly I thought of the old, tin pressure cooker my mom used to cook tough meat when I was a child.  My eyes grew wide remembering the burst of steam escaping from the valve.  I didn’t want to know, but I had to ask.

“How does the bloat disappear?” I asked, my voice cracking at the end.  If I went off like a pressure cooker, The Mister would never, ever let me live it down.  I imagined him 50 years from now, still chuckling from the grave.

“Oh, there’s nothing to it.  Just don’t eat any bloat producing vegetables and within 24 hours everything will break down on its own.”

She was right.  My stomach disappeared as quietly (thank God!) as it arrived.  I can resume wearing a dress that feels like pajamas.  Everything is right in the world once again.

And now, as a PSA for those who toy with the idea of wearing empire waist dresses, a list of fruits and vegetables that have the potential to make you look like a former child star on a bender.  You can thank me for your flat stomach with books, iTune cards, and items featuring elephants.

• Legumes (kidney, pinto, lima benas)
• Broccoli
• Brussel Sprouts
• Cabbage
• Cantaloupe
• Cauliflower
• Corn
• Cucumbers
• Garlic
• Honeydew Melon
• Lentils
• Onions
• Peppers (green, red)
• Radishes
• Turnips
• Raw Apples
• Watermelon
• Iceberg Lettuce

Fat Free Vegan

Golden Spice Pancakes from Fat Free Vegan

I’m not, but SHE is.  I’ve always loved her site.  It’s clean, gorgeous, and the pictures of her recipes are fantastic. If you haven’t tried her recipes or visited her site, I recommend you check both out.  Susan makes sure to detail the nutritional value of all her recipes, but lately she has also been including the Weight Watchers Point Value!  Yahoo!  I now have a new source for fantastic, healthy, and Weight Watcher friendly recipes, and you do, too.