Decadent Vegan Chocolate Cake with Ganache or Chocolate Buttercream (recipes)

Image via Wikipedia

Chocolate is the first luxury. It has so many things wrapped up in it: deliciousness in the moment, childhood memories, and that grin-inducing feeling of getting a reward for being good.
Mariska Hargitay 

Cake Recipe

(all ingredients vegan)

1 1/2 cups of Self-Raising flour

1/4 cup of cocoa powder

1 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup light oil (oil of your choice, eg sunflower, macadamia)

1 cup of water

1. Preheat oven to 160°C / 320°F.

Line with baking paper and grease a cake baking tray

2. Sift together flour and cocoa, add sugar mix well.

3. Add vanilla extract and oil.

4. Add most of the water (better to reserve some water, than add all in one go; it is easier to add more water if the mixture is too dry than add more flour if the mixture is too wet).

5. Blend by hand, 4-5 minutes (or with electric mixer), until the mixture is a velvety smooth batter.

6. Pour into prepared baking tray, tap the sides with a wooden spoon to make an air bubbles come to the top.

Bake 40-50 minutes or until a wooden skewer comes out clean. (I like to spin my cakes around half way through baking, to ensure that it cooks evenly from all sides).

7. Cool in tray for 5 minutes, then remove and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before adding ganache and / or chocolate butter cream.

Ganache

100 – 150 grams of vegan chocolate (such as a block or choc-dots)

1 tablespoon vegan margarine

1. Melt the chocolate in a microwave (in 10 second bursts) or in bowl over a saucepan of simmering water (double-boiler) ensure no water gets in the melted chocolate, stir until melted.

2. Add margarine, mix.

3. Spread over cake as an icing / frosting.

Chocolate Butter Cream

1/2 cup of icing mixture or icing sugar (powdered sugar)

(icing mixture is icing sugar with corn flour, icing sugar is very fine sugar)

1 tablespoon cocoa

1 tablespoon vegan margarine

1. Mix the cocoa and the sugar, til blended, add enough margarine til mixture is spreadable.

2. Adjust the quantities to taste or til desired consistency.

3. Spread over cake instead of ganache or as a filling.

Image via Wikipedia

Optional extra

Top cake with crushed chocolate biscuits, sliced strawberries,

or a light dusting of powdered sugar.

* Tip

Wait for cake to cool completely before removing greased baking paper.

Animal Liberation Carrot Cake (plus vegan recipe)

This cake was based completely on a recipe found in NOW VEGAN: Fresh And Healthy (2008) by Animal Liberation NSW‘s Lynda Stoner. Stoner, went undercover for Animal Liberation to expose the brutality of the NSW (New South Wales) Government approved pig-dogging, described here – Lynda Stoner: Going undercover to reveal the bloody truths of pig dogging

Commercial, store-bought carrot cakes are loaded with additives. With home-cooking you can see every ingredient that goes into it, and you get to choose what additives you consume.

Carrot Cake with Passionfruit Icing

photo credit: MacLeod

The Carrot Cake
1 cup plain wholemeal flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon (or Allspice)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1/2 cup oil (example: macadamia, sunflower, light olive)
440 gram tin crushed pineapple, well drained
1 cup grated carrot

Preheat oven to 170°C fan-forced (180°C non fanforced/ 356°F).

Mix all the dry ingredients together: flour, spices, bicarb, baking powder, sugar, walnuts. Making sure it is well mixed.

Add the oil, pineapple and carrot, mix well.

Pour into a greased and line baking tin.

Baking for 35-40 minutes or until a wooden toothpick comes out clean.

Passionfruit Icing
Combine vegan margarine, powdered sugar, a little cornflour and lemon juice, til it reaches pouring/spreading consistency. Add sugar and lemon juice to taste.

Top with the seeds and juice of a passionfruit

Feedback welcome.

Vegan Starter Kit

Thinking about going vegan, or thinking about helping someone else go vegan?

A starter kit is a great way to kick off a new life journey, for you or someone you care about.

ACT NOW FOR ANIMALS
Free Vegan Starter Pack
The pack includes information on how animals suffer for meat, dairy, eggs, and seafood, how meat eating affects the environment, the myth of “free-range,” what’s wrong with leather and wool, vegan recipes, and even some free stickers.

You can either get one by visiting major animal groups, and providing a mailing address:
for example
ACTION FOR ANIMALS
Request a Free Vegan Starter Pack
The pack includes information on how animals suffer for meat, dairy, eggs, and seafood, how meat eating affects the environment, the myth of “free-range,” what’s wrong with leather and wool, vegan recipes, and even some free stickers. You may also request a free copy of Meet Your Meat. We only ship Vegan Starter Packs to the United States, Australia, and Canada.

COMPASSION OVER KILLING
vegetarian starter guide
Says vegetarian but has a huge slant towards vegan diet, issues include factory farms, animals raised for food, nutrition, and recipes.

MERCY FOR ANIMALS
Vegetarian Starter Kit
Strict vegetarian with information on reasons to make the change, health, recipes, factory farms and use of animals for food.

PETA
Meet Your Meat, free download
yes, it’s Peta, and everyone seems to hate Peta, yet, this can be a very powerful video for people needing inspiration to make the change, and it is free and it’s downloadable
Pam Anderson Takes on KFC
also for download

PCRM (Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine)
21-Day vegan kickstart
Sign up online for emailed inspiration, recipes and support.

Vegetarian Starter Kit
Downloadable Brochure
Presented by Vegetarian Times and PCRM (the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine)

VEGAN OUTREACH
has a large collection of resources available: booklets, translations of booklets,
for order or download, 10 letter size enlargements in a zip file, tabbed flyers (bulletin board size page with tear off strips), videos

brochures for download
the popular Why Vegan
Compassionate Choices: making a difference for animals
Even if you like Meat: you can end this cruelty
Guide to Cruelty Free eating
A Meaningful Life: make a real difference in today’s world

videos include
* Meet Your Meat
* 45 Days: The Life and Death of a Broiler Chicken
* Hope for the Hopeless: An Investigation and Rescue at a Battery Egg Facility
* Fowl Play
* The Auction Block: An Inside Look at Farmed Animal Sales

Or make your own Vegan Starter Kit: (for minimal cost)
be inspired by any of the Resources listed here, and make your own

find videos that have no copyright, and the makers encourage distribution, collect brochures from your favourite organisations and make your own using online tools and software, write PDFs,

Let’s pity the hard life of a vegetarian

Guest post: Del

I’m talking “ethical vegetarians”, if you are vegetarian for religious, health, taste, weight-loss, family or economic reasons or whatever your reason is, I admire the difficult stand you take in a world dominated by the meat and dairy industries. Eating less meat for whatever reason, you are doing a wonderful thing.

However, Reading a lot of vegetarian online blogs recently, and what gets me is how they think they have a “lifestyle”, how tough life is for them, with lots of people offering advice on how to “survive a vegetarian emergency” or how to travel as a vegetarian, how to survive a dinner with a meat eater … All I can say is W-T-F?

How hard is to take the meat off your plate. Because that is the only change to a life. If you say you are vegetarian “for the animals” but that is the only change you make to life, taking the meat off your plate, without taking a closer look at the battery chickens that produce your eggs, the sheep that produce your wool or slaughtered to produce your Ugg boots, or veritable Noah’s Ark of animals slaughtered to produce leather, or the absolute sadism involved in milk.

If someone says they are vegetarian for the animals, they must know that animals suffer for their food, clothes, personal care products, and so many other products, then why not take the next step. Life isn’t hard, you’re barely making any changes at all.

You’re a vegetarian not a vegan, take the meat out! How hard is that?

How complicated is to take a moral stand on the ethics of eating animals when the daily life of a dairy cow is insanely more cruel than for beef cattle.

I know that I hate the “corpse-muncher” comments, and believe there is a more effective way to get people to change their diets, away from death-for-profit eggs, dairy and meat, let’s just stop with the whining about how hard life is as an ethical vegetarian. While I admire your stance regarding the eating of meat, take the next step.

WARNING: CONTAINS VERY GRAPHIC IMAGERY

Narrated by the gorgeous Alec Baldwin

and

If you are an “ethical vegetarian” and can watch this all the way through, and still want to drink your dairy milk, let’s talk.

Feedback welcome.

vegan banana-toffee-caramel muffins

Recipe follows at the end

This is the recipe that got my boyfriend to go vegan. What made him take the final step from not caring what he ate to someone who wants to live a vegan life (and does, he is doing very well at it).

What makes that click varies between people, it might be seeing a piece of meat on a plate and thinking “that used to be a living creature” to a desire to change the world. It was eating these muffins that produced the click, he said “I get it now” and is now vegan.

This story came to mind recently, when I got into a discussion with my boyfriend about “how vegan is too vegan”. Does there come a point where you are avoiding too many things in ‘just in case’ that you cease to be a productive member of society. (Tyres of vehicles contain animal products, so do you walk everywhere, and what if trains and buses have leather seats? And what about rodents and insects that die when crops are harvested, do you only eat food you grow yourself. Books, may have animal products in the ink or the binding glue, does it still count if you borrow the book from a friend or library?)

Neither of us are big sugar eaters, but the issue of sugar does come up occasionally, and do we eat it.

It is something that I find interesting there are vegans (or “vegans”) who eat honey and think nothing of it (and no, honey is not vegan), and then there are other vegans who avoid sugar.

Sugar in itself is a vegan product. It is produced from the juice of sugar cane. It is the refining process which can in some instances make it not a vegan product. Some companies use bone-char to refine and bleach their sugar, this applies to white and brown sugar.

In the USA, the Sugar Association, and some of their largest sugar producers claim that the bone-char is from “cows have died of natural causes“… If you say so.

This might be the reason why people think vegans don’t eat dessert, or it might be they think vegan is a weight-loss diet, who knows. I know vegans who say they are often served fresh fruit as a dessert while everyone else eats delicious creamy, sugary concoctions, and know they are missing out. On the other hand, being served fresh fruit, you know what you are getting, and not taking the risk of someone assuring you that the cake they made is vegan and what they mean is it contains “free-range organic eggs” (yes, Judy Davie “Founder of The Food Coach”, I am talking about you).

Is there such thing as a perfect vegan? Or is it a case of trying each day to reduce the suffering in the world. And to never stop trying, in our own lives and in the world.

So here it is…

Vegan Banana Toffee Caramel Muffins

Muffins
2 1/2 cups self-raising flour
3/4 cups brown sugar
1 cup milk
2 ripe bananas
2 tablespoons vegan margarine OR cold pressed macadamia nut oil

Preheat the over to 180C (less for fan-forced: 160C).
Mash the ripe bananas til very soft, almost liquid. Mix with the milk.
Mix four and sugar in a large bowl. Add the milk mixture.
Stir til just combined. Do not over mix or will lose it airiness.
Pour into greased muffin tray.
Bake for 20 minutes or until a wooden toothpick comes out clean.

Caramel Sauce
Brown Sugar (quantities vary, equal quantity to margarine)
Vegan Margarine (quantities vary, equal quantity to brown sugar)
Soy or Nut Milk (quantities vary)
Cornflour – one tablespoon for every cup of milk

The amount of sauce is dependent on the amount of milk used.

Mix the cornflower into the milk until it is blended.
Melt the sugar and margarine, over a low heat in a small saucepan. Quantity depending on desired level of sweetness, for every tablespoon of sugar add a tablespoon of margarine. Do not allow to burn.
Slowly add the milk mixture. Stir continually. Should thicken and go sticky depending on the heat. If not, add more cornflour, blended with a little milk til dissolved. Stir through well.

(Also makes a good frosting/filling for cakes)

Toffee
200g caster sugar
12 tablespoons water
8 teaspoons lemon juice

Melt the sugar, water and lemon juice on low heat in a heavy based saucepan until fully dissolved.
Turn up the heat to high and watch constantly. After about 5 minutes, it should turn caramel. Thicken and darken.
Turn heat down to very low, enough to keep the caramel liquid but stop it turning more brown. Be very careful, the caramel is very, very hot and you can burn yourself very easily. It will cool within minutes.

Take two forks and cooling the toffee slightly, make strands by dipping them into the toffee and making circular motions around the muffin. The strands cool and harden. If strands do not occur then the toffee needs to cool a little further. If it cools too quickly, keep it on the stove on very low so that it can be reheated if the toffee sets too hard while you are spinning it.

Assemble
Make the muffins, and either split open or smother the outside with the caramel sauce, decorate with pecans optional. Then swirl over strands of toffee.

Shout out to The Sweetest Vegan: Vegan Dessert Connoisseur. Anyone who can blog about sweet desserts gets my full appreciation.

Feedback welcome.

Raw Chocolate Pudding (with vegan recipe)

Raw Chocolate Pudding: with celebrity chef, Leslie Bega

Raw Chocolate Pudding, posted with vodpod

This recipe comes from G Living: Darker Cooler Side Of Green video starts at 45 seconds.

Image via Wikipedia

Equipment:
A heavy duty blender
Serving Cups
Sharp spoon
Large cleaver knife
Spatula

Ingredients:
1 cup of Coconut Water from fresh baby coconuts
2 1/2 cups of fresh Coconut meat, scraped from inside the coconut
1/3 cup of fresh mint leaves
1/2 cup of raw chocolate beans (“nibs”)
1/2 cup of fresh dates (check for seed)
1/2 of a vanilla bean
1 teaspoon of coconut butter
1 to 2 teaspoons almond butter
1/3 cup of agave syrup
1/2 tablespoon piece fresh ginger root

Preparation:
Pre-blend or grind (eg: in a coffee blender) the chocolate beans if desired for a smoother texture.

Opening up 1 or 2 baby coconuts, as shown in the video, they are soft white husked coconuts. Make cuts to the top of the coconut, until the top comes off.

Pour off the coconut water (milk) that is inside, into a separate container. Depending on the size of the coconut, one maybe, two coconuts are required to make 1 cup of water.

Take a large spoon, and scrape out the soft coconut flesh (meat) from inside the shell. Now take a spoon and scoop out the soft baby coconut meat from inside the coconut. Remove any shell that sticks, do that until there is about 2/1/2 cups of flesh.

Add coconut flesh to the blender, add mint, raw chocolate beans, fresh dates, vanilla seeds, coconut butter, almond butter, agave syrup, fresh ginger root, coconut water to the blender.

Blend, pulse at first, until the mix is started, then set on a medium speed and continue blending.

Pause to use the spatula to scrape the ingredients to the centre. Don’t touch the blades while in use.

When blended to a smooth, thick texture, stop, and pour the mix into a glass cup, and chill in the refrigerator for about 45 minutes.

(*)Leftover pudding mix in the blender can be blender with coconut water to make a chocolate drink.

(Handy hint, if you cannot find any other recipes to use the ingredients on, that is a good reason to make more puddings/mousse)

Feedback welcome.

Rock cakes (vegan recipe)

Rock cakes
These are very easy to make and cook, can be adjusted on taste, by adding spices and fruit or leaving the spices and fruit out. They are similar to a cake-like version of English-scones.

Being able to cook for yourself is an important skill to have, if you cant, you are at the mercy of large corporations who put profits ahead of healthy food.

And when our children learn to cook, they have an appreciation of food and cooking and can get off the fast-food treadmill. Giving them skills that allows them to break free of being slaves of large corporations.

2 cups plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2/3 cups brown sugar
finely grated rind of 1 lemon
1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger
pinch ground cloves

1/2 cup sultanas, raisins, or currants, or any mix of (pre-soak, or cover with boiling water and let stand)
1/2 cup canned pineapple pieces, drained

1/4 cup sunflower oil
5 tablespoons soymilk (or rice milk)

Pre-heat oven to 200°C / 190°C fanforced / 400°F.

Lightly oil a large baking tray.

Sift together flour and baking powder, and spices. Stir in sugar and lemon rind.

Add drained sultanas and pineapple.

Mix the oil and milk and stir into the mixture, to make a dough which just binds together. (less liquid than if making a cake batter).

Spoon onto rocky heaps on the greased baking tray and bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean.

Feedback welcome.

Vegan Delight, Benjamin Zephaniah (plus vegan onion bhajji recipe)

By British poet, Benjamin Zephaniah, a poem called “Vegan Delight“
One of the item mentions in the poem, Onion Bhajee (also known as pakora), eaten as a snack food or starter, is included here. Adjust the seasonings and chillies to taste.

Onion Bhajji

100 g / 4oz chickpea flour (also known as besan or gram flour)

1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon chilli powder
salt

1 large onion, halved and thinly sliced
1 green chilli, deseeded and finely chopped (adjust to taste)
fresh curry leaves or fresh coriander

cold water to make batter
vegetable oil for frying

Sift the flour, baking powder, salt, and seasonings, herbs and chillies to taste. Mix well.
Gradually add enough water to the flour and spice mixture make a smooth batter.
Add onion.
Mixing very well so the onions are well coated.
Preheat enough oil, to cover the battered onion, in a fryer to 180ºC / 350ºF.
Carefully drop spoonfuls of the mixture into the hot oil and fry until golden brown.
Drain on kitchen paper towel, serve hot.
Repeat until all the onions are cooked.

---

Zephaniah also wrote the foreword to From Dusk ’til Dawn: An insider’s view of the growth of the Animal Liberation Movement, a book by Keith Mann about the Animal Liberation Front.

Speaking, here, in this video, Zephaniah talks about veganism, and how it has made him strong.

The poem, Vegan Delight, reproduced here, if anyone wants to (copy & paste)

Ackeess,chapatties, Dumplins an nan, Channa an rotis, Onion uttapam,
Masala dosa, Green callaloo, Bhel an samosa, Corn an aloo.
Yam an cassava, Pepperpot stew, Rotlo an guava, Rice an tofu,
Puri, paratha, Sesame casserole, Brown eggless pasta, An brown bread rolls.

Soya milked muesli, Soya bean curd, Soya sweet sweeties, Soya’s de word,
Soya bean margarine, Soya bean sauce, What can mek medicine?
Soya of course.

Soya meks yoghurt, Soya ice-cream, Or soya sorbet, Soya reigns supreme,
Soya sticks liquoriced, Soya salads, Try any soya dish
Soya is bad.

Plantain an tabouli, Cornmeal pudding, Onion bhajee, With plenty cumin,
Breadfruit an coconuts, Molasses tea, Dairy free omelettes, Very chilli.
Ginger bread, nut roast, Sorell, paw paw, Cocoa an rye toast, I tek dem on tour,
Drinking cool maubi, Meks me feel sweet,

What was dat question now?
WHAT DO WE EAT?

---

Although, dairy-free or not, omelettes are not vegan.

Feedback welcome.

ANZAC biscuits (plus vegan recipe)

Anzac Biscuits (it is actually illegal to call them Anzac Cookies) are sweet and crunchy and are very easily veganised for those missing out on cookies and biscuits.

Anzac Day commemorated on 25 April in New Zealand, Australia and some Pacific Islands as a National Day of Remembrance for those involved in War.

During World War 1, women in New Zealand and Australia made these by the thousands to ship to those serving overseas. A recipe was sought for a product that would last the weeks or months it would take to ship by boat to the other side of the world and get supplied out to the trenches.

ANZAC Biscuits seemed to be based on a Scottish recipe for Parkin, they are made without eggs or milk and designed to be long lasting, and ideal for storage. In the trenches of the front lines, soldiers would put these hard biscuits in their mugs and cover them with hot water to make a form of instant porridge (oatmeal).

This was part of the effort of those on the home-front to be part of the Resistance. The wives, girlfriends, mothers and grandmothers, not only ran the businesses and farms, raised the families and funds, and organised the communities while their loved ones were away, they also knitted warm clothing and made food for care packages.

Not every fight can be won or lost, only by foot soldiers. It takes a combination of good effective leadership, brave soldiers willing to make the sacrifice and the Resistance of civilian non-combatants to support the soldiers by any means required.

These are also easily veganised by replacing butter with light nut oil or vegan margarine.

ANZAC biscuits

8 (125 grams) tablespoons vegan margarine (or light nut oil)
1 tablespoon golden syrup (similar to light treacle or corn syrup)

1 cup rolled oats
1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup plain, all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar (white or brown)

2 tablespoons boiling water
1 – 1/2 teaspoon baking soda / bicarbonate of soda

Melt the margarine and golden syrup in a saucepan over a Low heat.

Combine rolled oat, coconut, well sifted flour and sugar.

Combine bicarb soda and water, add this to the melted margarine and syrup. Pour into the dry ingredients and mix to a firm consistency.

Put spoonfuls onto a greased baking tray and bake in a pre-heated oven at 150-160°C (300-325°F) a little less for fan-forced ovens.

Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking tray before moving. (Biscuits come out of the oven soft, hardens on cooling.)

Feedback welcome.