Viewing entries tagged
cocoa
The cake is tender and chocolatey and, when cut open, reveals a molten centre. The raspberries add that vital fresh astringency to cut through the sweetness and make a second piece impossibly hard to resist.
Once again, this recipe comes with a disclaimer that despite being vegan, the cake does not vaguely taste “vegan”.
Checkerboard Cookies: This cookie is partially inspired my nostalgia for playdough, and partially by my extreme jubilation about the fact that Drag Race (both UK & US editions) has just started again (the cookies represent the Drag Race flags that Ru Paul holds, obviously). If you like either of those things, especially playdough, are feeling crafty, and/or are seeking some fun on day 323 of lockdown, then these cookies are for you.
if I have a vegan chocolate cake, it needs to meet or surpass its non-vegan equivalent in taste, in texture and in appearance.
And, it most certainly cannot have any weird artificial or suspicious gunk holding it together.
Anyway, I stumbled across a basic recipe online: it came out disturbingly black, and tasted acrid. And I tried an online vegan icing recipe: it was revoltingly oily, and tear-inducingly bitter. So, I’ve chopped and changed and adjusted and refined, and this is the result: cupcakes that are juicy, fluffy, tender, and moist, with a smooth, creamy chocolatey icing.
They are so good that I guarantee no one will guess they’re vegan.
Candlelit dinner in a restaurant suddenly eye-wateringly expensive, a single rose rattling in its cellophane wrapper, chocolates filled with chemical cherry liqueur, and greetings cards covered with hearts and teddy bears and hearts and pictures of champagne and hearts: these are contemporary references to St Valentine’s Day.
How much more seductive would it be to celebrate Lupercalia as the Ancients did?
On the 15th February, naked youths of noble birth, anointed with the blood of sacrificed goats, and carrying strips of the animals’ hide, would run through Rome in a spirit of hilarity and lash waiting females in order to promote fertility and assist with pregnancy.
If this sounds too overtly carnal, how about taking the advice of Ovid in his Ars Amatoria on how to secure a woman or man, how to seduce him or her, and how to keep him or her from being stolen by another? His tips include knowing where to look to find the beloved as he or she will not just fall from heaven.
According to Ovid, the theatre is a particularly good place to meet beautiful women. He warns men to wear well cut and spotless togas, and to avoid having dirty, long fingernails and visible nasal hairs.
Beware, too, the persuasive effects of low lighting and alcohol which can mask a woman’s true looks, he says.
Women, however, he advises, should use to their advantage all the tricks that cosmetics can offer, while not letting any man observe their application: hide the work in progress, he suggests. Wear simple, unostentatious clothes, revealing a slightly exposed shoulder or upper arm. Sing, play an instrument and learn to play board games, he tells women, and beware of fops.
But if all this sounds too much like hard work, I heartily recommend that you make these cookies. Simple to make, they are rich and decadent and infinitely seductive.
Ingredients (Makes 24)
300g good quality dark chocolate (70% cocoa)
160g Nutella
45g unsalted butter
225g plain flour
35g unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
4 large eggs
300g caster sugar
finely grated zest of 2 medium-sized oranges
1 tbsp fresh orange juice
80g icing sugar
2 baking sheets, lined with non-stick baking parchment
Method
It’s suffused with herbs and umami spring onions, and laced with tongue-tingling sour barberries, sharp and salty feta, and warming toasted walnuts which add necessary texture. I add chilli, too, which means that every bite is an avalanche of flavour.
Kuku is high in protein, and basically carb-free (if that’s your thing), and really filling, too. I’ve adapted this one from a more traditional Persian recipe (where this dish originates).