Stupid Cake.

I don't even know why I'm blogging about this cake. Its two layers of Chocolate cake, with sweetened rice crispies (I used agave for some sort of adhiesive in case your wondering) smothered with a peanutbutter icing i whipped up and a dark chocolate ganache. I think it was about 1am when I put this cake together. There was no occasion for it except for that Alex likes chocolate and works late hours. I have been able to finish maybe half a slice of this thing. the icing is delicious, the cake is delicious. apparently this is the most "cakey" cake I've ever made (opposed to the eurotrash cakes I normally pump out) so that's a good thing I guess. But it's really just stupid and I wish I had some visitors to offload it to. I think the theory behind this cake is "I'll make a cake thats like those peanut butter balls I made. yeah. chocolate, peanut butter, rice crispies, where's the glitch?".

Sigh.

Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Marzipan

Home made marzipan (my million dollar eurotrash addiction that I've begun to budget down on by making my own) rolled in an organic dark chocolate ganash, set in the fridge and then jarred and kept to the bedside for easy comatose access! My up-coming debut into diabetes and possibly a premature death will be filled with almondmeal and blisss. Excuse me, I'll have another, alone. ta.


I tried to get a good shot of what the inside looks like, to show off my brown unhulled marzipan and how much it makes these little babies look like roo-poo but I kept eating them and got too excited to get a good focussed shot after this one.

Answer your cravings, They'll love you for it.

Lamingtons were made after Mandee wrote about her lamington cupcakes. I did the same thin as her except for I doubled the recipe and baked into a square tin. I'd been craving this treat for about 5 months and I was oh-so satisfied. Also feeding this uh, "national" cake to the two people I live with who come from Europe was pretty nice too, such a simple treat to be so impressive!

Change of Address.

I have been eating but nothing terribly exciting.
The last week was spent saying goodbye and packing up and was pretty hectic.

Philippa made me some beautiful cookies to eat whilst we travelled for 9 hours north, back seats folded forward and crowded with everything I've owned in Melbourne that I hadn't discarded. An entire pantry's worth of flours and grains and condiments in towe, the cookies lasted until I woke up this morning in my new room.
It's interesting for me to enjoy food made specifically gluten free (ie. using gluten free flours) by people who aren't gluten free but are mostly just being very kind towards someone with an intolerance. I would probably be stumped making a cake with wheat flour these days, not instantly assuming certain adjustments to liquid/flour ratios required when cooking with GF flours or subsitutes.

Alex kindly kindly kindly gifted me a chocolate cake with rasberries he bought from Rowie's Cakes, a gluten and dairy free bakery that makes some egg free cakes and cake/pastry mixes in Marrickville, where our warehouse is.
I feel very spoilt and lucky whenever anyone takes wheat out of food that they are preparing and sharing with me, and it is an extra special treat to be able to eat a cake that has come from a store. Such a novelty, more than anything. Last trip to Sydney before moving here included a taste of a raw cake our friend Lawrence had in his fridge from Concious Choice. I became giddy at the event of that cake particularly.

SO here I am now, in Sydney town. For as long as we last, perhaps. Expect updates with food pictures soon, when they happen and everything is more unpacked and settled. I haven't dug out my camera yet, but it'll happen soon.

White Goji Antidote CUPCAKED

It's been a really long time since I've invented a cupcake recipe on my own. Or since I've even wanted to. I don't make cupcakes that often anyway. The last time I created a cupcake recipe, I invented two at the same time and they travelled to New South Wales with me to feed lovers and stoners. The recipes were for a chocolate-licorice type (that was inspired by my partner as well as being stuck on reading Emma Goldman's autobiography, Living my Life) and a coconut-lime-ginger "butter"cupcake.

As I've been sick too often these days, I've actually been really slack with my eating habits or even being organised and motivated enough to cook something and eat it. The most I've been eating has often been different combination of spreads and salad on a corn thin. Seriously. It's been pretty fucked up and I get frustrated when people tell me to eat and I just-can't-do-it. The antidote to this sort of a rut is to bake something.

Even though I make sweets often and eat them often, I actually kind of feel really spiteful towards them. I can't even explain how that works, but baking or making sweet things when I'm unwell seems to get me in a mode of "I can do this cooking stuff, and then I have to eat it or it goes to waste" which is better than "I can't even think about chewing on food". It gets me to this good better-eating habit place because I THEORETICALLY dislike sweets, therefore I must be making sweets for someone else. right? like, that totally makes sense.
Except for in the house I live in now its just Riva and I and though she does love delicious things, she is a small lady, and its still just two of us.

ANYWAY
WHATEVERI made a white chocolate chip cupcake using Quinoa flour and hid Goji berries in 'em and a white chocolate ganache icing. You can do it too!

Preheat your oven to 180c. Learn the metric system if you don't know it.

Dry hump: 1.5 c quinoa flour
1 t bicarb soda
1 t baking powder
0.5 t sea salt
1 c brown sugar
5 T soy milk powder

Wet love: 1.25 c non dairy milk
(this is a rough estimate. see how much you feel is necessary after one cup)
1 T apple cider vinegar
2 t vanilla extract

And then: 0.75 c mini non dairy white chocolate chips
(i got mine from rishon's)
0.5 c dried goji berries.
-this is completely to taste. i think i probably scrimped a bit on the gogoji as their taste is pretty subtle.

These were done after about 20/25 minutes. I think if I do it again I'll look into using a different combo of flours, they tasted delicious but like, earthy. With a nice whisper of SECRET QUINOA LURKING WITHIN.

For the ganache (which there is too much of now sitting in a tub in the freezer) I did this:
double-boil 1c white chocolate chips with 3 T margarine. mixed with 0.25 c water, 3 c icing sugar, 1 t vanilla extract and the juice of half a lemon. oh and a pinch of sea salt. whip-it. freeze it. whip it. freeze it. whip it onto cupped cakes.

INFORMATION ABOUT GO-GOJI!

I Promised this was a Food Blog...

And so I've pirated pornography of my own efforts from Phillipa. I hope she doesn't mind (!!!)

During Alex's most recent trip to visit me down here in old cold Melbourne, we invited Pip and Tim to come and eat at my home.
This invitation was partly an act of mischeif and deceit as we're actually quite terrible at ever picking a place that has things that everyone can eat and enjoy without spending too much money/ending up at Shanghai dumpling (the deceit within the invitation).

The mischeif lies within the following meals we presented to our dear friends,


1. Cocoa Shepherd's Pie. I believe that the revolution is somewhere in the following "recipe".

We used: two carrots, pealed & diced, one onion roughly chopped, two minced cloves of garlic, a healthy handful of sliced cup mushrooms, a tin of diced tomatoes, maybe 500g of potatoes, two cups of TVP, and the following process:
Soak TVP in 1.5 cups (veg) chicken stock (or whatever you've got), tamari, sesame oil, heeeaps of salt & pepper. Sautee Onion, mushrooms, carrots, whatever veg you're keen on in your pie till it makes you happy (the potatoes are for the top, yo.), and through in the (thoroughly drained, no soggy pies please!) TVP.
I use the following combination of herbs & spices: Rosemary, Thyme, Coriander, Cayenne Pepper, le the veggies absorb the flavours and then added the can of diced tomatoes, and let the whole lot brew for a few minutes. I then added 1 cup of instant gravy mix (1 cup produced through the instructions on the packet. not one cup of gravy powder. gross) and 2 teaspoons of apple cidervinegar. And then. Between one and two tables spoons of dark cocoa powder. It looks amazing going in, and smells completely awesome.
All the while we had the potaotes boiled and then mashed with some rice milk, agave syrup and nutritional yeast, s&p, whatever.. I am actually really really shit at making the kind of amazing potato mash that this pie deserves, but i'm working on it.
Slopped the filling into a pie dish (whether or not us use a pastry crust is up to you, i don't because i am lazy, gluten free etc etc but i'm sure puff pastry would work), sprinkled some cinnamon ontop of the 'meat' and dollopped the mash ontop.
Into the oven preheated at 200c for about 20 minutes and oh-boy.

2. Cashew Cheese stuffed Capsicum (with Shredded Broccoli and Gluten Free Risoni!).

Alex's dish is something that he and I endeavour to convert the world to. We first came across the recipe for "Cottage Cheese" in the Easy Vegan Cooking book by Leah Leneman that my father bought for me before I was a vegan (that's some good intuition, dad!). We were intrigued immediately dismissed the scoffing of raw-food type recipes due to the fact that both Alex and I have a great nostalgia for the treat. And I have to make the following disclaimer: THE CASHEW CHEESE RECIPE TASTES ABSOLUTELY NOTHING LIKE COTTAGE CHEESE and if you don't do much to alter the flavour, smells like feet and tastes a little bit like haloumi. But, we actualyl fucking love this stuff. because you can transform it into a really nice stuffing for veggies or put it in salads and stuff. Just don't call it cottage cheese, because no Hungarian would talk to you if you fed this to them with that name.

The basics are: grab a handful (or however much you're game for) and let it soak in room-temperature water for about three or four days. It's ready for processing when you get the courage to eat one of the cashews and it tastes like haloumi. Smash the shit out of it using your food processor and add garlic, rosemary, lemon, mustard, nutritional yeast, whatever 'cheesey' or at least complimentary flavours you want. we mixed this in with shredded broccoli and some gluten free risoni (hoorah for Orgran!) and stuffed them into halves of the skinned char-grilled (stove top) capsicums that Alex so very much enjoys to make and show off. Into the oven after the pie for about 10 minutes and drizzled a bit of Balsamic Vinegar like the proto-gourmets we are.

And for drinks, Pip brought along an assortment of Phoenix's Juices. we split each small bottle four-ways throughout the meal, it was really cute, like we were taste testing each juice. Next time anybody does this, I reccomend the juices be served in shot glasses. Whee!
And I provided hot cocoa made with ginger and coffee bean essence, compound chocoalte and coconut cream.

I announced on the delivery of the cocoa that I would very much like to one day make a cocoa so fucking delicious that the Coco-Loco would cry his egyptian tears and immediately reduce his prices to something more happy. I stand by this argument, and challenge that I put to myself. Fuck working Vegans into a panicky sweat over prices. Fuck $8. Chocolate Alchemist. Whatever*.

*I should note that his cocoas are totally delicious and like, if you're a bit cashed up and in the area with a lovely eye-fancier, this place is totally cool to go on a date to but for someone who gets hot choclate cravings A LOT, I really really really can't justify $8 a pop on something i could have surpassed at home.

Let's Cocoa

Melissa Stringer is an old darling friend of mine who draws for dreams.(click image for adorable comic!)

For a couple of years, I have been obsessed with, though had never done anything about the idea of using chocolate and cocoa in savory dishes. The closest thing I've ever been served is a kind of mole-sauce. Chili and beans and cocoa, y'know, for dipping or as a sauce or side with other Mexican cuisine. Sort of a stock thing to do.

I had read about the luxury designer chefs that would pour chocolate over steak and chicken. Amazing. They probably use red wine in those sauces too. If nothing else I will adore anyones food if it has done well in sneaking booze into it. That's some sexy stuff.

Today I took the day off from my 11 hour school days I have on Thursdays and lay around imagining lunch. I wrote a couple of shopping lists and then I thought about astral-travelling to the store to make purchases.

I have never made a Shepherd's pie so why the fuck wouldn't i totally fuck up my own perception of what that meant.

I soaked some TVP with stock and sesame oil and mushroom sauce and chopped some red capsicum, leek and mushrooms and an onion. oh and lots of garlic. cooked it all and then. whole peeled tomatoes? done. tomato sauce? okay! gluten free gravy? sweet! sage, rosemary, thyme, coriander, a splash of cider vinegar and.

A TABLESPOON OF COCOA! fuck yes.

mashed what left i had of my butternut pumpkin and lopped it into a casserole dish into a preheated 180c oven for 20 minute and let the air-humping begin.

what was revealed was a big sloppy kiss of really earthy steak-like deliciousness. purple-brown and pumpkin yellow. my favourite colours in food. oh and there was cayenne pepper, i just remembered. fuck yes. will make this a recipe and force Riva to photograph it's worth and feed it to my love.