Last night I attended a Michaelmas celebration. This required some preparation.
Firstly, I had to rehearse a flute duet to play. In spite of playing the piece about 30 bazillion times during the working day perfectly, I still fluffed the start, twice, and wanted the floor to swallow me. Luckily, the small audience and my more experienced partner (thank you, Wendy!) were sympathetic, waited for me to recover from a nerves-induced giggle fit, and we muddled through. The point was to share something creative, and, at least, it came from the heart, flat notes and all.
Secondly, I developed a burning desire to take a raw, vegan ganache cake. Once again, my food processor nearly spat its guts making the base, but the result was gorgeous. This cake just can't fail.
The recipe I followed this time was 'almost' exactly the Laura Coxeter one (pdf on the link).
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| The original recipe states 'serves 6'. I don't think so.... I'd say 'serves 15 quite comfortably'. |
I say 'almost' because, having made it before, I know that the intensity of the original recipe rendered it almost inedible to people not used to bitter chocolate.
Therefore, I used half the raw cacao (100g instead of 200g) and increased the coconut oil by 50g. Then I kept adding maple syrup (instead of any other type of sugar) until it tasted good. That ended up being 95% of a $15 bottle of raw, organic maple syrup. It was a very expensive cake, but 110% worth it. If you are very dedicated to the idea of 'raw', please note that most maple syrup is not. You could use unheated honey, agave or coconut sugar instead, if you want to keep it really raw.
It was still quite bitter, so I sprinkled some chopped dried apricots on the top. As I came home with just one slice left on the platter, and a couple of requests for the recipe, I'd call it a success.
The size of the mix meant I had enough to also make a smaller version for 'at home' use. On that one I dumped some maple-soaked dates and called it good for breakfast this morning. Quite the buzzy way to welcome a Thursday.
Next post, I promise the overdue bacon, banana, maple, paleo pancakes recipe. Can someone come up with an abbreviated name for that?
:D
((Friday hugs))
