Saturday, September 12, 2009

(vegan)Chocolate(avocado) Cake




Here we come across one of the stranger specimins of cake recipes. It's a vegan recipe for chocolate cake with the addition of avocado as a replacement for butter and eggs. This cake was made on joy the baker's blog, and Julia and I had been eyeing it for awhile.
We made the cake vegan. But the frosting? Frosting just needs to have some cream cheese and dairy, I'm sorry! so, is it truly vegan? No. But if you don't tell I won't...
Indulge me if you will, it's a lovely looking cake, ain't it?



Cake:

3 cups all-purpose flour

6 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 cups granulated sugar

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup soft avocado, well mashed (about 1 medium avocado)

2 cups water

2 Tablespoons white vinegar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

to make:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour two 8 or 9-inch rounds.

Sift together all of the dry ingredients except the sugar. In another bowl, mix all the wet ingredients together, adding the mashed avocado.


see how pretty the avocado is when it's mixed with sugar?

Add sugar into the wet mix and stir.

Mix the wet with the dry all at once, and beat with a whisk by hand until smooth.
Pour into pans and bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Let cakes cool in pan for 15 minutes, then turn them upside down onto cooling racks to finish cooling.


The avocado buttercream frosting that came with the recipe was not a hit. The avocado blends in well with the cake batter without being overpowering. However in this frosting business the avocado took center stage and the powdered sugar gave it a sickly sweet flavor. The consistency was also undesirable, it was shiny and somewhat viscous. So? We added cocoa powder and cream cheese, phew! It balanced out the sharpness and added a creaminess that cakes just should have!

I will post a frosting recipe soon! I must say though, this cake would be great without frosting with a glass of milk or some hot tea.


Tuesday, September 8, 2009

balsamic strawerries

If you didn't know, strawberries with sugary balsamic glaze is great. My uncle has a recipe where he marinates strawberries in san marzano liquer and serves them warm with some whipped cream, or mascarpone, or ice cream, or...


Ingredients:
strawberries
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
whipped cream

Slice strawberries into quarters, length-wise. Mix the sugar and balsamic vinegar, and toss to coat with strawberries. Let sit for up to 1/2 hour to let flavors develop.

Flan!




Flan. Flan! There's a story here. Girl likes boy. Boy's family comes to visit. Girl wants to impress family by making spectacular flan. Girl makes puerto rican flan, with her new-yorican friend. Flan fails with the family, but girl gets authentic mexican flan pot from family with recipes from the grandma. girl now knows how to make two types of delicious flan. score.

I'm guessing you might not have a flan pot, but if you ask nicely we can make flan together : )

Ingredients:
1/2 cup of sugar
90 grams of cream cheese
1 cup of milk
1 can of condensed milk
4 eggs
4 cups of hot water on reserve

In a blender, combine all ingredients except sugar and whizzzzzzzzz it up for 2 minutes straight.
Place flan pot over high heat, add sugar. The trick is to melt the sugar without burning it. Burned sugar has an acrid, bitter taste, not so good for desserts.





Once sugar has melted into a dark amber color put the bottom of the pan into a cold water bath so the sugar sets. It should become hard and the surface should have small cracks. Now add the blended dairy goodness to the pot.
At this point the flan pot goes into a bano maria, or a water bath. You take a large, deep pot, and place the flan pot inside it. The flan pot should sit on a metal strainer, or inverted plate. Fill water up until it reaches 3/4 of the way up the flan pot. Cover, heat and let simmer for one hour. Check on it occassionally to make sure the water hasn't evaporated. When it gets close add the hot water as needed.
...



After an hour goes by shut off the heat, and carefully, CAREFULLY remove the flan pot. You should take it off the heat and let it cool for 10 minutes. Then gingerly lieft it out, and put it in the fridge to set. Once it sets (however long you can wait : )), at least 3 hours, you can take it out. It will invert onto a plate, et voila!