Just Desserts: Fruit of the Forest Chocolate Chestnut Cake

A little while ago I made a submission to Sweets Workshop for their annual Food Fight exhibition. Sweets is a retail art gallery run by the very talented John and Emma, who actively encourage and support local artists. The Food Fight exhibition is an invitation for artists, photographers, writers etc to submit a piece of work for a calendar which has a particular food theme. It is released in time for Good Food Month and the Summer Hill Neighbourhood Feast in mid October. This year's theme was The Festive Feast, and I was trying to think of something to do. When I began thinking about feasts, my mind drifted back to favourite books from my childhood -  Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame, Jill Barklam's Brambly Hedge, and the Redwall series by Brian Jacques. The Redwall series in particular has many descriptions of epic feasts enjoyed by English woodland creatures, and I thought it would be so fun to recreate some of that. My next thought was what is the feast for, and it had to be something easily recognisable. I decided on a wedding simply because of the cuteness factor! I set about making mice, squirrels, rabbits, and otters, from various fabric scraps gleaned form my grandmother's stash. She used to make toys when her sight was better and she never throws anything away! I next made various food items from polymer clay - asparagus tart, a cauldron of soup, biscuits, fruit, salad, bread etc, and a wedding cake centre piece which I then made a recipe for. I had SO much fun as I hadn't had time to do anything really creative like that for a long time, so it was a really nice way to start all over again!

A rich dense chocolate cake ( like a mud cake). Gluten, egg, and dairy free.

Ingredients

439gr tin unsweetened chestnut puree

2 cups hazelnut meal

2 cups very good quality dark chocolate bits

1 cup soaked dates, pureed

1 cup mixed berries (frozen is ok, thaw out and drain first)

2 tablespoons tapioca flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

Method

1.Preheat oven to 160C

2.Sift baking powder and baking soda into hazelnut meal into a large bowl.

3.Add chestnut puree and beat for a minute or two until well mixed, scraping down the sides periodically.

4.Add pureed dates, and melted chocolate and mix for another couple of minutes.

Fold in mixed berries.

5.Grease and line a 20cm round springform or loose bottom cake tin. Dollop mixture into tin, and spread evenly.

6.Bake in oven for approximately 50- 60 minutes, a light crust will have formed, and some cracks may appear on top as it will have risen ever so slightly. Allow to cool completely before removing from tin, placing it in the fridge will speed up the process. Keep it in the fridge until ready to serve. 

7.Serve in small slices with more berries and ice cream if desired.

Superhero Snacks: Rainbow Whoop-Ass Pies

Who is next? What hero would eat these somewhat girly but totally scrumptious multi hued whoop-ass pies (that's whoopie pies to the rest of us)? Rainbow Sprinkle, the totally manly action movie star unicorn (who is obviously in touch with his feminine side). I imagine Mr. Sprinkle would power up on anything brightly coloured, I would love these guys in mini form on a skewer while playing Pack of Heroes of course, but Rainbow would skewer it on his horn and eat on the run, or mid kick, or...whatever. These aren't regular whoopie pies, they're whoop -ass pies!

Although I would normally colour with fruit I basically couldn't be bothered and used the totally bad for you food colour gel. But hey, if you're loading up on white flour and sugar you may as well go the whole way!

To make these I used a basic vanilla cupcake recipe, my weapon of choice is from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.  These got me 12 regular sized whoopie pie sides, but if you were going mini you could get double that. I took a 1/4 cup of plain batter and coloured each lot separately in a jug, which got me two of the same colour. A word of warning here. I used gel colouring which is much more vibrant and doesn't effect the batter like a liquid would, so you may have to experiment with the batter consistency if you can't find them. Once baked I allowed to cool and sandwiched it with whipped vegan cream cheese because I can't stand buttercream. You could also fill them with choc ganache if you wanted to.

And once again guys, if you want to support this totally fun project please head over here!

Australia Day: Vegan Mango Lamingtons

There are some people that would say that it would be sacrilege to do anything other than chocolate. But those people can bugger off, cos I'm doing it my way. Lamingtons are an Australian invention from around 1901. There are many versions of how it was invented, but in any case, it was named after Lord Lamington, who was a governor of Queensland. Traditionally, it was a way to use up plain sponge cake. Cut into squares, and dipped in chocolate icing, it is then rolled in coconut and left to set. Sometimes it is sandwiched with jam, or jam and cream. There have been some modern twists that seem to be quite popular, including strawberry ones in pink icing, and lemon ones in yellow icing. But mine is going to be mango! I did forget I only had shredded, not desiccated coconut, so they are a bit rougher than traditional lamingtons, but they still look so pretty!

I made a plain vanilla cake in a loaf tin (you can use the cupcake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World). I let it cool, then cut off the crusts and cut into slices for easy rectangles.

To make the icing dip, I melted equal amounts of  melted cacao butter with pure icing sugar, and added a few drops of food colouring. I dipped the squares in, then dipped in shredded coconut (I should have used desiccated). I left it to set on a plate in the fridge - and here's a tip, do it on greaseproof paper so it's easy to peel off. 

I mashed some mango, and dolloped it onto one lamington slice, and sandwiched it with another. You could also add some whipped coconut cream, or whipped tofutti with the mango before you sandwich.