Woah! It's been a while! I missed blogging so much. I'm still insanely busy, but I'm going to post something at least once a month.
What better way to make an awesome Valentine's Day than to make chocolate cake!? I'm using a modified recipe from Joy of Cooking This is the Devils Food recipe.
I substitute butter for coconut oil and Earth Balance; blended flax seed for eggs; and soy milk for butter milk.
Mix the cocoa powder and the wet ingredients (except the milk and vanilla). Stir to ensure the cocoa has no lumps - then mix in the milk and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients and gently stir until incorporated. Don't over mix or it'll be tough. ... Well, I added more cocoa than the recipe called for and the mix was a little dry. So, I tried to blend in a little apple sauce to compensate. It worked.
Then spread the batter into a parchment lined baking pan (9"x13"). Bake at 175˚C (350˚F) for about 25 - 30 minutes; until a toothpick comes out clean.
While it's baking, prepare some shimmering ganache and crack open a pomegranate.
Ganache is easy: chocolate (or cocoa powder), fat (coconut oil and margarine), glucose (or light corn syrup) and vanilla.
Allow the cake to cool and cut into squares. Why little squares? Because it increases the surface area, which means more hot ganache!
Place the squares on a wire rack and pour over that liquid chocolate. Then top with pomegranate arils and flecks of edible gold. Bam, it looks like like a million bucks!
Serve this sexy dessert to your loved one. Or just eat a pile of this chocolate cake to drown your sorrows. I mean cocoa is technically a fruit and it's topped with pomegranate AND it's vegan. It's totally health food ;-)
Just make sure that it's genuine edible gold. An imitation product may not be edible or may be harmful.
