Chocolate Spice Cake: Vegan Cake is a Cheap Way to Party

Awhile ago in high school, when I realized I had no eggs, milk, or butter, and wanted to bake a cake, I flipped open the Joy of Cooking, and discovered that there IS such a thing as vegan cake.

How fortuitous--that I could be both cheap and lazy, all while being supportive of a cruelty-free culinary movement. I would win the alliance of every vegan at the party for which I'd decided to bake a cake, all while saving money AND having a good time.

Additionally--basic vegan cakes are the same risk level of basic cakes that use dairy, in that they require the same basic skills and procedures, and are probably going to turn out edible.

Tonight, I find myself in a similar position: Cheap, lazy, and headed to a party.  What to do?

I KNOW!!! VEGAN CAKE!!!!

Even worse, I'm using Extra Virgin Olive Oil instead of a more neutral tasting "Vegetable Oil", and actual, Balsamic Vinegar--yes--instead of the standard neutral white vinegar that is often recommended for vegan cakes. Because that's what's in my cabinet, so too. damn. bad.

Here's the special thing about MY balsamic Vinegar however: it's ridiculously sweet. it's almost drinkable by the glass, and, you may notice, organic.

Yeah, I did some pretty weird shit--I'm like the Miles Davis of cooking. No one performance can be duplicated.  Here's what I did with THIS cake:

Balsamic Chocolate Cake with Treacle Glaze.

CAKE
1 1/2 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup olive oil
1/8 tsp salt (I used black hawaiian salt)
1/4 cup raw organic cacao powder
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 cup hot water (I had some balsamic violet tea bags from EATALY so I thought "Wow-this says 'Balsamic' on it too--I'm sure it will work with the recipe." And it DID.)
1 tbsp Treacle
1 tbsp instant espresso powder (I used Si Cafe, a Dominican brand that is sold in my neighborhood)

GLAZE (It's a good idea to use glaze with Vegan cakes because they dry out quicker. Glaze keeps the cake moist and adds a boost of sweetness)
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp treacle
1 tbsp instant espresso powder

Preheat Oven to 350 Farenheit.

(If you feel like adding some weirdness, take your one cup water, heat it,  and steep 1 bag of lavender or violet tea in it for 5-10 minutes.)

Make the Cake: Sift together the dry ingredients--or, as I haven't a sifter, place them in a large bowl, and use a whisk to mix the particles together, until it appears homogenous.  A sifter has a much better result, however.

Take the one cup water (or tea), and stir in the treacle until dissolved.  Add vinegar and oil.

Gradually blend the liquid into the flour mixture with a spatula.

Take a cake pan (Or as I used, my trusty Giant Eagle Supermarket brand non stick pie pan from 1984 that is probably leaking cancer by now), grease with olive oil , and then flour.  You can also parchment the pan, then grease and flour the parchment.

I moved the rack to the top of the oven, but every oven is different.  I'm still exploring mine since I moved to this apartment in May and haven't baked much since.  The texture turned out well.

Pour batter into the pan, and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.

When cake is finished, remove from oven and set to cool. I actually put another upside down pan or bowl on top of vegan cake while it cools to help seal in moisture, because the vegan cakes dry out more easily.

After the cake has cooled for at least 30 minutes, loosen the edges from the pan with a knife and gently flip it onto a platter.  I was an Impatient-Imogen, and violently shook the cake onto a platter after like 5 minutes.   Thus, a small patch of cake, about 1/4 inch thick and 3inchx3inch wide, was left on the bottom of the pan.  To conceal this, I crushed up a handful of pecans and placed them in the center.

MAKE THE GLAZE
place the sugar in a small saucepan over medium low heat, and sprinkle the water over it evenly.  Gently shift the pan back and forth over heat until sugar is dissolved and liquid is clear. Do not allow to simmer. Add treacle and espresso powder, and then bring to a simmer.  Remove from heat, allow to cool for no more than 5 minutes, and brush all over the surface of the cake.

Everything I make is brown.

Update: After I took the above picture, I impulsively decided to add ANOTHER layer of glaze, after dusting it with cinnamon, ginger, and raw organic cocoa powder.

I made another batch of glaze with the above recipe, minus the espresso powder.  this gave the cake more moisture, sweetness, and sheen.  It was a good decision.  

It's Krazy Kustard Time

Oh my gosh.  I did it again tonight u guyzzz.  I made some motherfucking custard.  I had: a[sic] egg, a persimmon, and some other shit, plus I threw in my room mates two soon-to-be-rotten bananas which she left behind for a 7 day jaunt towards creative glory.  They were perfectly ripe, and I thought "How super fucking perfect for the custard they would be"--in fact, I didn't think it, I said it, aloud, while wearing my polka dotted apron,  holding a spatula, and staring into the eyes of my 4 lb. teacup Yorkie.

True story.

Soooo anyway... about that recipe:

Good Times Holiday Persimmon Custard

LOS INGREDIENTOS:

2 very ripe bananas Quick, shove the peels down into the garbage and chop the 'nanners into the bowl before your other roomate sees you stealing!!!

6 oz. Persimmon, any kind.  It must be ripe--meaning squishy, and a slightly translucent deep orange.  If it is not ripe, metaphor alert, you can't just chop it up and add sugar and expect it to be okay,  because it contains tannins which will not go away, but ruin the whole thing. It's like chemical or something. I don't have time to explain this shit to you any further, what are you a fucking amateur? google it.

1 apple, Granneh-granneh-granny Smith. Where did they come up with that name? I'll tell you where: 

Dillon Smith, and his granny, Granny Smith

1/2 cup sugar Pretty self explanatory. I always try to one-up the bitch shopping next to me with whatever is the most organic-y and unprocessed seeming.  Or you can go hardcore and use no sugar. Not me this time, assholes, it's the Holla-Dazzzzeeee. Seriously though,  I do get organic when I can afford it because it's less chemical-tastic and then Monsanto will just have to wait that much longer for me to die.

1 egg

1/2 cup milk

1 Pinch of cinnamon adjust according to fatness of fingers

Preheat the oven to 325 Farenheit, and place a baking dish, large enough to fit your custard dish within it, filled with an inch or two of water. This is the hot water bath for your dirty, dirty custard.

I brought the Sauce. How the fuck do you keep pictures from being upside down?
 Or are my eyes doing that thing again from those experiments they did on me in the army.

1.) I probably should have warned you about this earlier, since you don't like surprises but--you're gonna be making apple sauce!! Yayyyyy!!!! So peel that apple, core it, and quarter it.  Throw it into a saucepan with 1 cup water and the sugar, and boil it.  Just boil it and boil it, and pretty soon the apple will disintegrate and it will indeed begin to look like the heretofore commercial phenomenon we know as apple sauce.  When civilization crumbles and we return to a primitive farming society, you'll need to know how to make and can your own apple sauce. basically, let it continue to boil and boil, destroying all of the nutrients and live enzymes in the apple, but making it somehow special, and reduce it to like, meh--1/2-3/4 cup? Oh and--don't be a fool.  Put a pinch of cinnamon on that. Let it cool a bit once you've reduced it to 1/2 the apple it once was.

2.) Peel the skin off the persimmon with a little knife, or scalpel if you want to be creepy and have one around.  It will be thin , but be sure to get it all off. you'll take some of the flesh with it, but you can just suck it off and eat it if you're cheap and crazy like I am. Cut off that dried green leafy tuft up top of the persimmon, obviously. Then, mash the persimmon flesh about with a fork in a large bowl, and it will quickly devolve into a gloopy mass, as everything eventually does.  Then, slice up the bananas, mash them in best you can with the fork, then (game changer) bring in the electric mixer, should you be fortunate enough to live in a community where there is not only the internet, but also working electricity. Mix the fruit on the lowest setting, until its as homogenous as you can get it without actually grafting a persimmon tree onto a banana tree, which I will address in my next flog post(food blog-my boyfriend always uses the term).

What now, Persimmon? What now???

Like I'd ever eat anything that wasn't a Power Food.

3.) Next: in a small bowl, stir the cacao powder into the slightly beaten egg, and then finish it off with the electric mixer.  When I have people over and really want to impress, instead of a bowl, I use my cupped hand, and sometimes even my mouth. Just be sure to run the mixture through a sieve in case of any teeth should you decide to do this. Then, slowly blend the egg mixture into the fruity one, also using the electric beater. Then do the milk in kind.

4.)  You must then mix the fruity sugar apple sauce into the eggy persimmon surprise.  Now, always in custards, you must not accidentally scramble your egg by adding too hot of a liquid, cause thats effing nasty. So, after letting the apple sauce cool, by stirring it, or setting the pan in some cold water, or leaving it to cool, or any combination of these three, obvious, common sense approaches that I should not have to explain, you can then blend it in, once again, with the electric mixer.

This is what I mean by "Water Bath".
You can put back the bubbles and appletini mix now :(

5.) Surprise--it's time to bake that motherfucker. Pour the batter into a fancy glass rameken, or as I used, a crappy non stick pie pan that reads "Giant"(of Supermarket fame) on the bottom and I cannot quite remember how I got.  In fact, it works out perfectly when I make custards, because the lip of the pan fits over the edges of my Le Crueset (Is that even how you spell it?) grill skillet ( or as I like to say "Grillet") which I purchased at the housing works thrift store in Flatiron for $15, barely used.  It then suspends the pie pan, which is probably giving me cancer because of that non stick shit thats probably like 10 years old, perfectly in the hot water bath.

No need to talk about any of that, however, since most of you probably aren't fortunate enough to have this kind of $15 le creuset/piepan suspension situation happening for you--don't worry, a regular old water bath  with the bottom of the custard pan touching the bottom of the water pan will work just fine, or you can figure out some logical way to suspend your pan in the water bath, which I'm not going to bother coming up with for you since I don't want to deprive you of this fun way to spend your Saturday afternoon. P.S.--I'm not an actual bitch, I just act like one sometimes.

6.) Bitch: (N) Someone who says they aren't an actual bitch but only acts like one at times. Put the Custard in for 60 minutes.

Another great reason for ovens to have doors.

7.) You've put the custard in, and will have to find another way to "cover the silence" for the next 60 minutes.  Don't worry, if you're a control freak like me, you'll go to the oven 7 or 8 times just to peer inside, and make sure the oven isn't trying to screw you over or slack off while you're away.  Or, if you're a narcissist, you can go up and stare lovingly into the oven at how awesome the custard is, simply because you made it.  Don't go run an errand even though it is a whole hour--you might burn down your whole goddamn apartment, and I doubt buying renters insurance is something you can do online in like 15 minutes, right?

8. Oh Boy! CUSTARD TIME!  I wonder how it

Custard and Puddin'

turned out??  Guess what--I started writing this post while it was baking and had no idea how it was going to turn out but I figured apples and bananas are starchy and persimmons are binding (like the law, and certain contracts if you don't have a good lawyer)--so it just HAS to work.  it just HAS to!!!  Guess what--IT WORKED!!!  Whoa--I don't know about you, but this "custard"  is actually, legitimately, like the texture of straight up cake. What. Whoa....lets see what happens when it cools. BUT YOU HAVE TO LET IT COOL.

9. Stick it in the fridge.  it may be the texture of a cake, but deep down inside, it's still a tender custard.  Custard is best off refrigerated for, like, 4 hours before serving.  You have. To be patient.  after this, loosen the edges with a knife, and flip onto a plate.  Custards make great vehicles for impressive sauces or compotes, but not your film career.

Sorry guys for getting a little carried away with all the ALLCAPS and excalamation points!!!! towards the end.  I just get too psyched about custard--I'm a little cust-tarded. Anyhoo, it's 2AM, and I can't stay up 'til like 6AM to wait for the custard to set, taste it, and then flog about it, so...g'night.

Or can I

Okay so: It tastes like an awesome fruity explosion, and I was wrong about the cake part.  It was just the surface of things deceiving me again.   It's definitely a custard texture.  Somewhat grainy for a custard, not like a smooth flan, partially because of the fruit and the fact that there is only one egg.  It still binds though, and the fresh fruit taste is really refreshing and makes me want a second piece.  This would be a delicious treat for breakfast (The excuse being it contains egg and fruit), and is definitely sweet enough to bring to a holiday party.


Epilogue: Those bananas belonged to my room mate who was still home.  I stole! But then bought him some more :(

Custard: My New Big Thing, and the Scrooge-Redemption effect of Holiday Games

Okay. So I had to go to Thanksgiving Potluck yesterday.  And by "had to go to",  I mean went eagerly, sitting amongst people I have known and admired for a while now, and voraciously consumed as much as would physically fit into my various digestive compartments. By the way, they live in a giant, Williamsburg Artists loft, with a massive square artisan wooden table in their kitchen.  It is an archetypal Brooklyn artists loft and I'm sure when I am an old hot yoga grandmother, many memories will remain from my having frequented it so much.

Then, we all were, unknowingly, drawn into the Hostess' bizarre family tradition of literally scraping the leftovers off the plate of the guests, and fashioning some sort of food sculpture/performance art with it. Then, they decide who made the best work.  Stephanie immediately drafted all company to commence the creative process. I had eaten so much, I felt I might rupture something were I to move with too much enthusiasm, feigned or otherwise.

I am an only child, and always grew cross when I was young and others tried to force me to play house, attend a parade, or have a talent show in their backyard.  I don't know why--my lack of siblings somehow makes me rather brittle when it comes to "co-operating" and I have to warm up into it. However, now that I am an adult, I am able to recognize these non-constructive tendencies, and take the plunge.

So, while many of the guests and inhabitants of the loft were flurrying around the table as I looked on with glazed and sated eyes, I underwent a 10 second internal drama of physical discomfort and a sense of resentful alienation.  Those who were caught up in the whirl of the game kept shouting out tasks that needed to be contributed--"Someone needs to start arranging the Christmas lights on the table to make it look like a stage!" and "I think if you put some mashed potato onto your knuckle it will be more clear that the cranberries are supposed to be her boobs."

You see, it had been decided there was to be an all-food version of the Roquettes Christmas Spectacular, and everyone was busy dressing up their hand in foil cupcake-tin-tutus and mashed potato stockings--which are surprisingly adhesive.  I reluctantly volunteered to fashion a Christmas tree out of Leftover Taro and Bits of Kale--straining not to impose my neuroses on the revelry.

 As I began, my reluctance fell away, and my interest grew, and as I held my iPhone awkwardly over a bowl of fruit in order to shoot the performance to be uploaded online for The hostess' brothers and parents to compare, I realized that this is the traditional joy and wonder of holiday gatherings.  This is what they mean by "revelry and games".  I, like Scrooge, had been transformed, in the most stereotypically bourgeois, artsy-fartsy way possible.  And it was wondrous.  The performance was inspired, and every food encrusted hand stayed impressively in character.  Needless to say, Stephanie won, though her brothers made a valiant effort with their own sculpture of a lactating breast, in honor of the many babies being born in Steph (The hostess)'s family that year. Yes--we're all pretty strange.

I actually went to the Potluck because, though I live in Philadelphia, I did not go home for Thanksgiving.  I decided to stay and do a catering gig, because it pays double on Thanksgiving, and though I was very tempted to go with my Boyfriend to his family's in Cincinnati, he left of Tuesday and I felt that I needed to amass more income, and that discretion is the better part of valor in this case, as I somewhat dropped the ball financially last year.  Well, my boyfriend introduced me to the people at the loft a few years ago and it has been a crucial part of my life since.

So he encouraged me to, instead of spending thanksgiving alone in my room with a bottle of wine and some excellent examples of Joan Crawford's work (though that definitely has a time and a place as well), go to this Thanksgiving potluck after finishing my 6am-12pm catering gig.

And go I did, after that afternoons preparations which I will now describe:

I had initially only planned to bring a bottle of wine, Because that's what Johnnie, Stephs boyfriend and housemate, said to bring.  I wanted to be the most useful house guest I was able, so I bought a large, lovely bottle of wine from the local wine store.  My boyfriend said "There are like 10 girls going, so don't be surprised if there is an excess of cake".  Since my first comment to the invitation had been "OOh, why don't I bake a CAKE!", I reckoned this was probably a good prediction on his part.  So, I took the easy, commitment free route of buying the bottle of wine, two days in advance, thinking how great it would be not to fret over what to make and have some extra hours to write and work out before the dinner.

When I arrived back home from catering around 2pm, I was in a state of paralyzing indecision.   I thought perhaps I should nap, since I only slept 2 hours the night before, waking up at 5am for the catering gig and being a habitual night owl.  Then I thought "I'll go out for a jog"  but I didn't go right away.  I thought "I'll walk my dog, Lemon".  But I remembered her leash was actually soaking in a pitcher of laundry detergent and water because it occurred to me the other day that maybe it wouldn't look so brown if I washed it once and a while.

But some internal force jerked me back from any intention towards these various purposes, like a dousing rod, and finally I admitted to myself "I cook something for this dinner".  I knew I'd only be burdening my hosts with more excess leftovers, that nothing would be lacking.  But I simply had to.

Because I will be going to Philadelphia for two days, and because I got a bunch of free Fage yogurts, grapefruit juice, and organic single serve milk boxes from the catering gig, I was feeling non-consumery, and wanted to challenge myself to make something using only the ingredients I had in my pantry and fridge.  I had no flour, sugar, butter or cream.  I had only organic skim milk powder, 4 eggs (which I later discovered to be three because a room mate borrowed one.  I keep track of these things, being an only child.) some pure maple, and a few other random bits.  Pecans, cranberries, persimmons. Raw organic cacao powder.  Festive  things I buy to surround myself with festive colors and smells, but have no actual recipe in mind at the time of my sentimental compulsions.

I decided, much to my chagrin, I would have to make a custard.  Custard, puddings, double boiling, hardball/softball stages, thermometers--these are all words that shut down a recipe for me.  They make me say "Nope." Because for some reason, maybe because when I tried making a few such items in high school, they were too runny, too hard, the wrong temperature, and I just gave up.  But I decided--if I just breathe, and follow the directions exactly, and it's still ruined, I can just leave it and bring the bottle of wine.

I looked up various custard recipes.  I found nothing with the exact ingredients I had.  but it looked like the basic premise of the whole custard thing was  just dairy and eggs.  I had both those things--why the fuck shouldn't I be able to make a custard just like anybody else? And so, I went ahead with it.

All I did, was I looked at a custard recipe, and made sure that in my substitution of maple syrup for sugar, and my use of 1 cup of powdered skim milk to compensate for not using heavy cream or condensed milk, added the oz. of liquid that they asked for. The result was a very not-sweet, subtle coffee table item with, the greatest obstacle of all achieved, PERFECT texture.  It was not the sweet or rich one at the party.  The amazingly rich chocolate tart or the lemon curd apple crumble are the first items I remember from my food induced delirium.  But I decided that I love custard now, and this is an incredible coffee table, teatime, or brunch item, as well as a vehicle for a brilliant sauce.  As I write this post, I am eating the remains with a cup of hot earl grey tea.

Um the Actual Recipe Vs. my blathering:


Fragrant  Maple Custard:


3 eggs
1/2 cup pure maple syrup (and then the leftover 2 tablespoons that appeared to be in the bottle)
13 oz. water
1 tbsp. raw organic cacao powder
3/4 cup Organic skim milk powder
Cinnamon powder, for looks
I placed a pecan in the center after I took it out of the oven, also for looks.


Preheat the oven to 350 Degrees F., setting your rack in the center of the oven


In a large bowl, blend the milk powder and cacao with a small amount of the water to make a creamy, thick mixture, about the consistency of cake batter.


Add in the eggs with an electric mixer on lowest speed.  Add maple syrup, and slowly add in the remaining water.


Pour the custard in 6 small ramekins, or a larger glass baking dish such as a Pyrex, round, and about 9 inches diameter.  


The Ramekins or custard dish much be placed in a larger metal baking dish, which is filled with water to 1 or 1.5 inch high on the side of the custard dish.


I used a non stick pie pan, and I preheated the water in the oven.


Place the custard dish(es) into the pan of water, and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean. 


Then, it's ideal to let the custard cool on a rack to room temperature.


I don't have a special rack for cooking things, so I remove one of the oven shelf-racks and place the custard level on two overturned pans on top of the stove.


I did make a mulled cranberry persimmon sauce to go with it, but I don't consider that particular one notable though I might post a mulled sauce recipe later on, as I think mulled things are AWESOME.


The important discovery for me here is the custard.  Key points to reiterate: it's NOT VERY SWEET.  It reminds me of the sweetness profile of certain favorite Chinese and Korean bakeries of mine, that have cookies cakes and rolls European in appearance but are much, much less sweet.  This custard is an excellent breakfast custard, vehicle for a rich sauce or reduction, or lovely item for a brunch or tea party.


Do what you want with it--I will be making another to bring to on my visit to Philadelphia this weekend, that's for sure. :)