I stopped eating meat mainly because I was 14 and it seemed like a cool thing to do, but then found I didn’t miss it and haven’t really missed it  in the [redacted] years since. While I believe that it makes sense to reduce the number of animal products we use, I have never had much of a rationale for vegetarianism, and never felt much inclined towards being vegan. I’m way too lazy to monitor my diet that closely – living with three committed omnivores, I am okay with picking the sausage out of my favorite lentil soup. I’ll cook meat for everyone else, although they have to make their peace with the fact that I won’t taste it to check how it is. What about your family? Do you have a pescatarian in your midst? Or lurking lactose intolerance? How do you handle multiple dietary needs around the table?

So back to the subject of this post. Despite being happily ovo-lacto myself, my most beloved cake recipe is, by chance, vegan. It’s a Bundt cake and pretty much my stock answer to “what should your birthday cake be?” Although it’s extremely easy to make, it falls into the category of a special occasion cake so it’s not a one I make or eat too often, and that’s not right. When I started seeing cookies baked from cake mix around the internet, a little light  went off over my head. Could this be a way to get a dose of chocolate spice deliciousness whether it’s a birthday or not?

Indeed. Baked for ten minutes, these cookies are delightful puffy, pillowy little cakelets, gooey with chocolate chips and perked up with cinnamon and cloves. But try underbaking them by a minute or two, and you will get what I consider the ideal consistency, which is amazing, almost pudding-y. And  what with them being vegan and all, no worries about raw eggs – go ahead and eat a spoonful or two of the dough, you have my permission.

The canonical version of the cake does not include raisins, although they are in the recipe as written on an index card in my mother’s file. These are to be soaked in brandy or other liquid, and while I scornfully cast out the raisins, I do include that liquid; coffee (what else?) in our household. Feel free to booze it up if you have some handy.

Chocolate spice cookies

Since the original cake is by nature a bit heavy, I used some whole wheat flour in the cookies to give them some heft. You could use all all-purpose, but add the coffee/liquid gradually to see that the mixture doesn’t get too thin. It will thicken some if you refrigerate it for a few hours or overnight.

Ingredients

Makes about 3 dozen smallish cookies

• 1 cup whole-wheat flour
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
• 3 Tablespoons cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• ½ cup brown sugar
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• ¾ cup applesauce
• ⅓ cup canola oil
• ¼ cup brewed coffee, cooled (or brandy, or other liquid of your choice)
• 1 cup chocolate chips

Method

• Preheat the oven to 350° F and line a baking pan with parchment paper.
• In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, spices, baking soda, salt and cornstarch. Add the sugars. Stir in the applesauce and oil, then add the coffee and mix until fully combined. The dough will be soft.
• Scoop the dough out in rounded teaspoons on the baking sheet.
• Bake for about 8-10 minutes or until just puffed – leave them to set for 5 minutes on the baking sheet before moving them to a plate to be gobbled immediately cool.

This isn’t my first waltz with gluten-free baking, but almost. I made some gluten-free cupcakes for a birthday party this summer, and let’s just say that even before I burned them they weren’t exactly winners. It’s a pretty different ball game, this gluten-free stuff. (What, how long do you expect me to sustain a single metaphor?)

We have friends who can’t have gluten, which has given me a bit of a push towards trying some of the rapidly-multiplying gluten-free recipes out there. And really, we have dinners that don’t include gluten fairly often without even trying. But baking, not so much. There are so many interesting flours available right now, though, that it’s fun to incorporate them even where health concerns aren’t an issue. They have interesting flavors and textures of their own that may not be exactly like the usual wheat flour-based ones, but are delicious in their own right.

I realize that if you are a Central European reader, you may not have access to as many of these ingredients, at least not easily. But even before we moved, I was amazed to see that bigger “bio” stores were stocking a much wider range of grains, flours and other staples than I’d seen before, not to mention the number of packaged gluten-free products. So take a look around, you may strike it rich – it’s a good time to be gluten free!

This particular recipe is adapted from an applesauce cake on the Healthy Seasonal Recipes blog. My ears pricked up at the words “snack cake”, because, as I’ve mentioned before, I’m a huge fan of all kinds of muffins, quick breads and their ilk. This one didn’t disappoint – it’s not too sweet, moist, and has an almost puddingy texture. What with autumn arriving, I thought the apple original might lend itself to a pumpkin version, so I set about tweaking the recipe for an October weekend, swapping pumpkin for apple, using maple syrup rather than honey, adding some cornmeal, and to reassure the kids that it really is cake, some mini chocolate chips. The result: excellent. Just what’s called for on an afternoon where the wind is picking up, the clouds are moving in, and you’re ready for a cozy and easy baking project. To return to my original metaphor, you’ll want to add it to your dance card.

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Gluten-free pumpkin chocolate chip cake
Adapted from Healthy Seasonal Recipes

The chocolate chips here are optional, but awfully nice. Mini ones work best, since the cake has a fine crumb that might not hold together so well with larger chunks of chocolate. Make sure you use a more fine-ground cornmeal, polenta for example is too gritty in this context.

Ingredients

Makes about 8-10 generous slices of cake

• 2 cups cooked pumpkin, canned or fresh
• 2 eggs
• ¼ cup vegetable oil
• ½ cup maple syrup
• ½ cup brown sugar
• 1½ cups brown rice flour
• ½ cup fine-ground cornmeal
• 1½ tsp baking soda
• ¾ tsp pumpkin pie spice
• ¾ tsp salt
• generous ½ cup mini chocolate chips

Method

• Preheat the oven to 350 F/180 C and grease a Bundt pan.
• In a blender or tall measuring cup, combine pumpkin, eggs, oil, maple syrup, and brown sugar. Use an immersion blender or, you know, a blender to thoroughly combine.
• In a large bowl, whisk together rice flour, cornmeal, baking soda, pumpkin pie spice and salt.
• Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix until combined; stir in chocolate chips.
• Scrape into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake for 50 minutes or until top springs back when lightly touched.
• Cool in the pan for five minutes before turning cake out onto a rack to cool. Allow it to cool completely (or as long as you can wait) before slicing.

 

Have we mentioned that Valerian is a coffee freak geek? That we have about five different coffee-making apparatuses in our kitchen, not to mention a microwave-size roaster in the garage? If you follow EC on Facebook, you’ve surely figured it out from Valerian’s profile pictures; coffee looms large around here.

Aside from, you know, drinking it, we work coffee into a lot of our cooking (check the sloppy joe recipe, for example). A trick I learned on the internet to give chocolate cakes a more intense flavor is to “bloom” cocoa powder in warm liquid before adding it to the other ingredients, and coffee is an ideal medium. It gives the chocolate an extra boost and complements it with its own rich notes. If you’re not a fan of the taste of coffee—and I know you people exist, I’m even friends with some of you—you can dilute the coffee with warm water and still get the same effect without any noticeable coffee flavor.

This dessert borrows from two delicious traditions. There’s the Hungarian Somlói galuska, something like a trifle that kind of knocks you out with its combination of cake, rum, chocolate sauce, custard sauce and whipped cream. The simpler Italian affogato is usually just ice cream with hot espresso poured over. This spring was so chilly and grim, ice cream season seemed distant for far too long; the combination of hot coffee, cold ice cream and crumbled cake just works. Whether it’s cold or hot outside, you can cozy up to this baby any time.

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Chocolate-Coffee Cupcake Parfait

Here’s a recipe for a scaled-down chocolate cake, six cupcakes’ worth to crumble over ice cream and douse with espresso. The coffee flavor is pretty assertive in this one, which is as much a quickbread recipe as it is cupcake. I like the cake a little dense, the better to hold its own against the melting ice cream and coffee. If for some obscure reason you have cake left over from something else, just use that – it will be fabulous, I promise.

Ingredients

Serves 6

• 1 cup flour
• ½ tsp baking soda
• ½ salt
• ½ cup sugar
• ¼ cup freshly-brewed coffee
• ¼ cup cocoa powder
• 2 Tbs vegetable oil
• ½ cup buttermilk
• 1 egg
• 1 pint good-quality vanilla (or your preferred flavor) ice cream
• 3 cups freshly-brewed coffee or 6 shots espresso

Method

• To make the cupcakes, preheat the over to 350° F/190 C. Grease 6 cupcake cups.
• In cup, whisk together the ¼-cup coffee and cocoa powder. Set aside to cool.
• Meanwhile, stir together the flour, baking soda, salt and sugar in a medium bowl. In a small bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, oil, and the egg.
• Pour the buttermilk mixture into the dry ingredients, and add the cocoa/coffee mixture. Blend with a few swift strokes until combined; do not overmix.
• Fill muffin cups about ¾ of the way full; bake for 22-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes in the pan, then remove cupcakes to a rack to cool completely.
• To serve, tear each cupcake into chunks. Layer the cake with scoops of ice cream in individual bowls, and give each lucky diner half a cup of coffee or an espresso shot to pour over the top of parfait once served.

 

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Valeria’s Potatoe Torte

This is the cake part of the recipe. We used Russet potatoes, which worked great.  The recipe calls for three eggs, but our eggs were small so we used 4. You can experiment with the filling. We tried to mix cocoa and chocolate into the potatoes and we layered that with chunky cherry preserves. The results were ok but not great. I think the original filling is more suitable. You can also try any ordinary buttercream frosting but then forget about the cake being good for people watching their weight! You can also eat it without filling like a coffee cake. In that case add some vanilla and more walnuts.

Ingredients for the cake

• ½ pound floury potatoes
• 3 large eggs
• ½ cup sugar
• ½ cup walnut halves




Ingredients for the filling

• ½ pound potatoes
• Up to ½ cup sugar
• ½ cup walnuts halves
• rum
• 1 Tbsp butter

Method

1. Cook the potatoes until soft, then mash them or put them through a ricer.

2. Let them cool a bit, but while they are still warm add the egg yolks, sugar, and ground walnuts. Mix well.

3. Beat the egg whites to form soft peaks, and gently fold into the previous mixture.

4. Pour it into 2 nine- inch round pans and bake it at 350F for 20-25 minutes. You wll see that the top is getting a bit golden.

5. Cool on a rack for 10 minutes, then turn out from the pan and frost as desired.

The recipe for filling:

Cook the potatoes until soft, mash them in a medium bowl, beat in the other ingredients. Enjoy!

I was intrigued by this recipe in a recent issue of our favorite Czech cooking magazine, Apetit, which is for a Babovka, Bundt cake, made with potatoes. I set out to follow the recipe, but as usual, I changed a little here, a little there (I omitted a packet of pudding mix, for example) and now I’m not sure how much it resembles the original. The potato gives it a wonderfully moist texture, it’s more delicate than I expected, and not too sweet. Perfect with afternoon tea, perhaps. We don’t have a potato ricer and while I used a hand mixer to beat the potato mixture there were still quite a few small lumps in the batter. No matter – they aren’t apparent at all in the finished cake.

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Bramborová bábovka/Potato Bundt Cake (adapted from Apetit Magazine)

Because Valerian gets an upset stomach from too much baking powder, I used half baking powder and half baking soda for this recipe, and so I needed to use something sour like buttermilk or kefir for the 3 Tbs liquid. The original recipe calls for 2 tsp baking powder and using milk.

Ingredients

• 250g/2 2/3 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 250g/8.5 oz cooked potatoes, mashed well or put through a ricer
• 150g/3/4 cup sugar
• 100g/4 oz butter, softened
• 3 eggs
• 3 Tbs buttermilk or kefir
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• zest of one lemon
• 100g/4 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped

Method

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F/180 C. Grease and flour an 8-cup Bundt pan.
• In a large bowl whisk together flour, baking powder and baking soda, and salt. In a medium bowl, beat together the butter, sugar, potatoes, kefir or buttermilk, eggs, lemon zest and vanilla extract. Gently stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Fold in the chopped chocolate.
• Scrape into the Bundt pan and bake for 45-55 minutes or until top is golden.