Posts filed under 'chocolate'
Raw Chocolate Chip Cheezecake Swirl
It’s been hot as balls here the last 2 weeks. Hot. As. Balls. Chocolate is melting, plants and trees are wilting, people are cranky and cooking is just impossible. One Saturday my sister threw a BBQ with a couple of friends and I decided to make dessert but refused to turn on the oven too do so. Then I remembered a dessert my friend Dianne made for a vegan dessert potluck we attended. It was Ani Phyo’s Chocolate Chip Cheezecake Swirl. I had all the ingredients, it’s raw which means the oven didn’t need to be used so it was decided that this is what I was making.
There are 3 parts to this, not including the raw cacao pieces aka..chips: the crust, which is super simple to make. You are just processing medjool dates and nuts and pressing them into a spring form pan.
the cheezecake layer made of cashews, lemon and a few other things well blended
chocolate sauce, which again is just about 3 recipes blended in a blender.
Now I don’t own a Vitamix. It is my ultimate dream product to own. I had to rely on my weak blender to blend up the cheezecake layer. My poor blender was really suffering through the whole process but it managed to do a semi decent job. It wasn’t as smooth as a Vitamix would have made it but it was passable and no one complained about the slight chunkiness of that part of the cake.
Once it’s all assembled you just pop it into the freezer and take it out about 20 minutes before you are going to serve it. If it’s hot as balls out you can take it out 5-10 minutes before serving because it will start to get really soft and melt a a bit. We had about 9 people at the party who ate this and there was still 1/2 a cake left. Its very rich. You can’t eat a huge piece of this which is great if you need too make a dessert for a large group of people. I really can’t wait to make this again!
July 17th, 2010
Me and some pals are throwing together a sorta last minute entry into the Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale on May 1st outside of Go Lightly Eco Store in Montclair, New Jersey. If you are in my area please stop by and say hi and buy some delicious treats to benefit a good cause. If you are not in my area of the world but have friends and family who are..please pass on the info to them. Do it for the animals!
April 21st, 2010
Dr. Cow Cheese Plate
Last weekend me and 4 other lovely vegan ladies had a girls day in NYC. Our first stop was the all vegan chocolate shop Cocoa V. What a lovely space! We entered through the chocolate shop which was filled with chocolate, cookies, cupcakes…etc…etc…. Then we entered into a really nice little dining room where you can order all sorts of things from quiche to cheese plates and chickpea melts and drinks like wine, espresso, juices and Iced Chocolate all of which are 100% vegan. You can even get shakes there! I so wanted the Peanut Butter shake but was so full after our experience there that there was no way I could fit it into my belly. Next time.
For our appetizer the 5 of us decided to share the Dr. Cow Cheese Plate for 2. Besides having a few rounds of Dr. Cow cheese on the plate there were crackers, strawberry, figs, hummus and what I think was a type of quava jelly candy sorta thing. This was my first experience eating Dr. Cow cheese and it won’t be my last. I loved it. If it wasn’t so expensive I would probably make sure I had it in my fridge at all times.
Cocoa V Quiche of the Day
For our main course the 5 of us each ordered the Quiche of the Day. Which was made with leeks and daiya cheese. IT WAS AMAZING! Hands down the best quiche I’ve ever eaten vegan or not. I truly believe you can feed this quiche to the most hardcore omni you know and they would have no idea that it was vegan. It was that good and its something I’m going to try to recreate at home.
Chocolate Fondue Offerings!
After our main course we all split the Chocolate Fondue dessert. I didn’t get a picture of the melted chocolate but let me tell you it was the most melted chocolate I’ve ever seen in my life. We dipped everything from strawberries, candied ginger, apples to brownie bits and biscotti into the melted warm chocolate. I won’t name names but one person in our group, and it wasn’t me, was dipping their spoon into the chocolate and eating it like soup.
This was seriously one of the best meals I’ve ever had outside of my home. Everything tasted perfect, I was with wonderful vegan friends and it was so nice to go into a food establishment and be able to eat whatever I wanted and not have to worry about hidden animal ingredients. If you have yet to visit Cocoa V I suggest you do ASAP.
April 15th, 2010
Chocolate Raspberry Crepe Cake
One thing you might not know about me is that I LOVE Martha Stewart or maybe just her magazines. Especially the holiday ones. The thing is..is that I don’t usually make anything out of them. I just like to look and say oooooooh!!! aaaaaaaah!! My sister and I spotted the picture of her Darkest Chocolate Crepe Cake and were just smitten with the picture and idea of the whole thing.
Knowing this would take a few hours to accomplish I set aside a Sunday when Peter and Reno would be out of the house for hours and set forth on making my very first Vegan Crepe Cake. First I made all the crepes which was 2 batches of the Crepe recipe in Veganomicon. Its a very easy crepe to make. I was very pleased with the recipe. Once all those “millions” of crepes were made and cooling off I heated up a jar of raspberry jam, some chocolate chips and arrowroot powder until the chips all melted and it was nice and thick from the arrowroot.
Then came time to frost. One crepe, layer of raspberry chocolate filling, one crepe, layer of raspberry chocolate filling, one crepe, layer of raspberry chocolate filling, one crepe, layer of raspberry chocolate filling, one crepe, layer of raspberry chocolate filling, one crepe, layer of raspberry chocolate filling, one crepe, layer of raspberry chocolate filling, one crepe, layer of raspberry chocolate filling, one crepe, layer of raspberry chocolate filling, one crepe, layer of raspberry chocolate filling, 0ne crepe, layer of raspberry chocolate filling, one crepe, layer of raspberry chocolate filling, you get the picture. I let that set for a few minutes in the fridge while I prepared the ganache topping which I then just dumped on top of the crepe cake then set it back in the fridge while I made the candied hazelnuts.
This was by far my favorite part of the whole recipe! The Candied Hazelnuts! There is just something about melting sugar in water and have it turn into a hard like glass that just thrills me to no end. The fact that it even worked and came out perfectly the first time made the whole experience even better then it already was. I followed this recipe to the T from the Martha Stewart recipe.
When it came time to eat dinner that night at my parents house downstairs we were all anxiously awaiting for it to be dessert time. To see if all those hours of work (about 4 or 5 hours) were worth it in the end. I can happily say that they were worth it even though I found problems with parts of it here and there. The main problem was the filling. It was delicious but it was too wet to use in a crepe cake. Next time I will use something a bit thicker. I also need to make more crepes next time because I want my cake to be as tall and marvelous as Martha’s!
November 19th, 2009
Chocolate Chip Marshmallow Cookie
When I was a young one I loved putting marshmallows into chocolate chip cookie dough because when they finished baking and were all cooled off there would be these pockets of sweet, chewy, kinda hard like goodness in every bite. It also made for a cool and shiny effect that I liked. Needless to say it’s been A LONG time since I’ve been able to use marshmallows in my baking. I’m happy to say that I’ll never have to wait that long again! I finally spied Dandie’s Marshmallows at one of my two local Whole Foods! Upon sight of them at the store I nearly squeeled like some nut job but kept my cool as not to embarrass Reno.
I finally broke into one of the 3 bags I purchased (total nut job) and knew that the first thing I would make would be my beloved Marshmallow Chocolate Chip Cookies. I used the recipe from the Babycakes cookbook and then just pressed one or two marshmallows on top of the dough. I didn’t want to mix it in since I didn’t know how it would come out and I couldn’t see ruining a whole batch of my favorite choco chip cookie recipe. Next time I will definitely add them to the mix so they can spread out and goo up my cookies like I liked them as a kid.
5 Minute Coconut Fudge
I went to a dessert potluck for my local vegan’s group and wanted to make something easy and something that I’ve never made before so I settled on My Sweet Vegan’s 5 Minute Coconut Fudge. Dessert really can’t get any easier then this. Super simple and also delicious and that’s coming from someone who doesn’t really care for fudge. It went over really well at the party and at home so I have a feeling recipients of my now annual Holiday Dessert Boxes will be seeing this fudge in there.
November 14th, 2009
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