Flourless Spicy Chocolate Cake - Dairy Free & Corn Free

Dairy Free Flourless Chocolate Cake, a photo by zombie amelia on Flickr.

For my husband's 42nd birthday, I made a delicious spicy flourless chocolate cake with a chocolate glaze frosting :)

The recipes are adapted from the Joy of Cooking.

Cake:
1 pound Enjoy Life semisweet chocolate chunks (no vanilla/corn alcohol, no milk)
10 tablespoons Spectrum palm oil shortening
5 large egg yolks
5 large egg whites
1/4 cream of tartar
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

Have all ingredients at room temperature. Grease a 9 inch round springform pan and line bottom with wax or parchment paper. Preheat oven to 325 F.

In a large, heatproof bowl, combine the chocolate & shortening. Set the bowl in a large skillet of barely simmering water and stir often until the chocolate and shortening are warm, melted, and smooth. Remove from heat and whisk in the egg yolks and pepper.


In another large bowl, beat egg whites and cream of tartar on medium speed until soft peaks form.

Gradually add sugar, beating on high speed. Beat until the whites are stiff, but not dry (they should have a shiny, glossy look to them and look thick and rich but not choppy).

Use a rubber spatula to fold 1/4 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture, then fold in the remaining whites. Scrape the batter into the pan and spread evenly. Bake for 40-45 minutes. The top should have a thin crust and the interior will still be gooey.

Set the cake pan on a rack to cool completely, then refrigerate until chilled, or overnight. To unmold, run a thin bladed knife around the interior edge of the cake pan, set a plate on top, and invert. Peel off the paper, and then reinvert the cake onto another plate.

Then, make chocolate glaze and pour over cold cake. refrigerate atleast until set, about one hour.


Chocolate Glaze

3/4 c. soy milk (Westsoy unsweetend is corn-free)
8 oz. Enjoy Life semi-sweet chocolate chips or chunks

Heat soymilk in saucepan until almost boiling (boiling soymilk causes a film to form on top, you don't want that.) Stir in chocolate chips and stir until smooth. Let stand 20 minutes at room temperature, and use.

Just the right amount of spicy!

Sweet Potato Tortilla Stew

This is a new version of a tortilla soup recipe I posted a while ago... but this version is a) more delicious and b) corn free (since that's our new issue around here.)

You do need to make your own enchilada sauce, which I do ahead of time and freeze. Depending on your allergy issues, you can use a can of some sauce that works for you, or make your own. (But it's a really good recipe and freezes well.)

Enchilada Sauce recipe:

If you can get your hands on tomatillos, then peel, dice and throw those in the blender or food processor (about 2-3 cups worth)

If you can't, I've been using a jar of this per batch of tomatillo salsa. (these are larger batches of sauce, to allow for freezing some)

Ok, so either a jar of tomatillo salsa or blended tomatillos.

1 cup raw green pumpkin seeds

4 cups veggie stock

1 medium yellow onion

6 cloves garlic, pressed or minced

2 T chili powder

2 tsp coriander

2 tsp brown rice syrup

1/2 tsp salt

pepper to taste

Saute the onions & garlic together with the spices in a stock pot. Pour in the broth and the salsa/tomatillo puree and bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook for about 15 minutes.

veggie oil

1 onion, minced

1 package Upton's Chorizo-style seitan (corn free!)

3-4 cloves garlic, pressed or minced 

1 1/2 cups enchilada sauce

2 cups veggie stock

1/4 teaspoon chili powder

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

salt and pepper to taste

2-3 sweet potatoes, pre-baked

1 diced tomato

1 T tomato paste

4 (6 inch) tortillas, cut into strips and cooked on a griddle

You can either microwave the sweet potatoes until they are soft, or bake them in the oven. I do one or the other, depending on how much prep time I have. I bake them with the skins on, and once they're soft and cooked, soak them in a large bowl of cold water. This wrinkles the skin and makes it really easy to remove, as well as cooling the exterior so you can actually touch and remove the skin. Once you've removed the skin of the sweet potatoes, dice them.

In a large pot, sauté the onions and the garlic in the veggie oil. Once the onions are cooked well, add the seitan and saute for a few minutes. Add the seasoning and diced tomatoes, and saute a few more minutes. 

Once the tomatoes and seasoning have cooked a little, add the sweet potatoes, stock, enchilada sauce, and tomato paste. Cook for about 10 minutes. At the end of the cooking time, cook your tortillas on a griddle, slice, and add to the stew. Simmer for a few more minutes and serve!

In a separate bowl, mix the enchilada sauce and stock. Add the chile powder, cumin, salt and/or pepper. Add this mixture to the pot with the onions and Quorn, bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low. Mix in the beans and tomatoes. Cook the tortillas on a griddle until cooked enough for tacos, and then slice into strips and add to stew. Simmer until heated through. 

Thanksgiving Dinner, Take 1

So, since our beloved Tofurkey is out (big surprise, it has corn ingredients in it) I've been trying to come up with something else to bring to Thanksgiving dinner next week. Last night was dry run #1.

Recipes tried were:
Sweet Potato Biscuits from Vegan Holiday Kitchen: More than 200 Delicious, Festive Recipes for Special Occasions
Pumpkin Baked Ziti with Caramelized Onions and Sage Crumb Topping from Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook

The Sweet Potato Biscuits were delicious. I thought that the prep was a little weird, since you make the dough in the food processor, and I'm not used to doing that, but it was easy, and the taste was very good. These will be made next week.

The Pumpkin Ziti was eh. A little on the glue-y side, and pretty bland. I fear that this is the kind of vegan dish that non-vegans hate, and with good reason. It didn't have a lot of flavor, which was weird, because the cashew ricotta tasted good and the breadcrumbs and the onions were delicious individually. Put it all together and it's not a winner, which is surprising, since everything else I've made from Veganomicon has been delicious. Oh well, you can't win every time. This will not be made next week.

Friday I will be making the Baked Thanksgiving Risotto from the Vegan Holiday Kitchen, minus the corn. Fingers crossed!!

Make Your Own Almond Milk (It's Really Easy)

OK, when we figured out my husband's corn allergy this summer, and realized that the almond milk we buy had corn-derived ingredients in it (Almond Breeze Unsweetened, if you're curious) he suggested we make it. I was immediately against it. What a pain in the ass.

Boy was I wrong.

It's really easy, and I actually like how this stuff tastes, which I can't say that I did for the Almond Breeze. Why bother? Yes, we also buy corn free soymilk (WestSoy Unsweetened, Trader Joe's Unsweetened, and Eden Soy Extra Unsweetened are nothing but soybeans and water)- but baking with soymilk is pretty bad. Baked goods have this weird, smooth texture that I don't like. Baking with almond milk is (to me) just like baking with regular milk- baked goods turn out fluffy and delicious.

You do have to plan ahead a little, but we go through this stuff regularly enough that I seem to always have a cup of almonds soaking.

Ingredients:
1 cup raw (non-salted) almonds, soaked from anywhere from 4 hours to several days
3 cups water
1 T honey
your blender
a nut milk straining bag

Making Almond Milk- Soaked Almonds, a photo by zombie amelia on Flickr. 

Yes, I know that ideally, you should only soak your almonds from 4-8 hours, but I've not noticed any difference in the finished product if I soak them longer. You just get weird white fatty stuff soaking in your water. I soak the almonds at the ratio of 1 cup almonds to 2 cups water, and just set it out in a Pyrex glass measuring container on the counter and leave it there.

Once your almonds are soaked, strain them (discard the soaking water) and rinse them off. Put in the blender with the water and the honey.

Making Almond Milk- Before Blending, a photo by zombie amelia on Flickr. 

Puree that stuff. For a minute or two.

Making Almond Milk- After Blending, a photo by zombie amelia on Flickr. 

Once you've pureed it for a few minutes, pour it into a container through your strainer bag. The strainer bag is really helpful. I tried it with a mesh colander and it was all over the place.

Making Almond Milk- Straining Bits, a photo by zombie amelia on Flickr. 

Remove the bag from the milk and squeeze the milk out of the bag, discard the almond bits.
This recipe makes about 3 cups of milk.

Honey Oat Bread (Dairy Free)

Dairy free, delicious, honey oatmeal bread :)

Adapted from Bakingdom's Soft Honey Oat Bread and made in my new bread maker. Why a bread maker? With all our food allergies, it's hard to buy a bread that both my husband and I can eat. Clasen's bread, from Middleton, Wisconsin, comes closest, even nicely labeling when they use cornmeal on the bottom of bread, but we like a softer, honey oat type bread than the one variety of bread of theirs we can both eat. So, I bought a bread maker. I love the bread maker. It's so easy.

All you have to do is put the ingredients in the bread maker in the correct order and turn it on.

The bread maker requires correct layers of ingredients: bottom is the liquids, then the dry ingredients, and then the yeast.

This is a 1.5 lb loaf of bread, I set my bread maker to medium crust darkness.

So, in order to make this delicious bread, you need (in order):

1 cup almond milk (room temperature, not right out of the fridge- you can warm it to about 75-90F)
1/4 cup water (lukewarm/warm temperature)
2 tablespoons melted Spectrum palm oil shortening
1/4 cup honey (the tangier, the better)
2 & 3/4 cups bread flour
1/4 cup whole wheat bread flour
3/4 cup oats
1 & 1/2 tsp salt
1 package Rize yeast (no corn ingredients) it's about 2 & 1/4 tsp

The yeast actually goes into a little indentation you create in the top of your dry ingredients, a little well to hold the yeast.

Finished loaf!, a photo by zombie amelia on Flickr.

You can also opt to drizzle honey on top of your loaf and sprinkle oats- this can be done when your bread maker tells you the last rise cycle is starting- this is when you get the option to remove the paddles and reshape the loaf, sometimes I do this, sometimes I don't.

Either way, the bread is soft and delicious.

Trilbys

Trilbys
Originally uploaded by zombie amelia

This is one of my favorite cookie recipes- my grandmother and I used to make these for Christmas. Additionally, the recipe started out dairy free!

1 cup brown sugar
1 cup shortening
1 tsp baking soda
2 eggs
2 cups oatmeal
1 2/3 cups flour

Mix all the ingredients together, and roll fairly thin on a floured surface. Bake at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes. When cool, put together as sandwich cookies with the date filling.

Date filing:
1 cup dates
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup water

Boil until thick!

The date filling helps keep the cookies moist and delicious.

Dairy-free Dutch Pancake

Or Dutch Babies, as the Joy of Cooking called the recipe.

I usually make breakfast on Sunday mornings, something a little more exciting than the regular frozen waffles or cereal... this past Sunday I was looking for something new, and stumbled upon the Joy of Cooking's recipe for Dutch Babies, or Dutch Pancakes. (I recall that the "Baby" reference was to the size of the pancake, but this was just right for two people, accompanied by juice, coffee, and our favorite, Gimme Lean.)

I have come to like the cooking abilities of almond milk, rather than soy, and I have it in the house all the time, unlike goat's milk. (Attention vegans- this recipe has eggs!) It worked great with almond milk- rose wonderfully, fell quickly, and tasted amazing. I'll be making this one again.

Whisk/beat together until smooth:
1/2 cup almond milk (we use Almond Breeze Original)
1/2 cup all-purpose flour (I did sift this, too, for extra smoothness)
1/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature

Melt in a 10-inch ovenproof skillet (the recipe says "cast iron is ideal" and yes it was) over medium heat:
4 tablespoons margarine (I prefer Earth Balance)

Tilt the pan so that the margarine coats the sides. Pour the mixture into the skillet and cook, without stirring, for 1 minute. Place the skillet in the oven and bake until the pancake is puffed and golden, 12 to 15 minutes (though mine was more like 18/20 minutes.)

Sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Serve immediately, for the pancake loses its puff, and therefore its drama, almost immediately. Eat with jam of your choice!