Vegan Chocolate Cake With Chocolate, Coffee and Coconut Ganache

While this cake recipe doesn't follow my usual whole food plant-based recipe posts, it certainly was a delicious cake!  I made this recently for my father's birthday, and everyone loved it. It's fun to be a little indulgent every once in a while. :)

Ingredients:

Chocolate Cake

• 3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 3/4 cups natural unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 4 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 tablespoons white vinegar
• 2 cups coffee (or water)
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil

Chocolate, Coffee, and Coconut Ganache

• 8 oz semi sweet or bitter sweet (depending on desired degree of sweetness) chocolate chips (dairy free)
• 2/3 cup almond milk (or other non-dairy milk)
• 3 tablespoons raw blue agave syrup (or maple syrup)
• 1/4 cup powdered sugar
• 7 tablespoons coffee
• About 8 oz unsweetened shredded coconut

Directions:

Cake

• Heat oven to 375° Fahrenheit.
• Grease and flour two 9" cake rounds (you can also line them with wax paper if you prefer).
• Combine all dry cake ingredients in a large mixing bowl. 
• In a smaller mixing bowl, combine all wet ingredients. 
• Slowly add wet ingredients to dry ingredients until well blended together with minimal lumps. 
• Add mixture to cake rounds and cook for about 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out dry.
• Let cool for about 10 minutes before carefully removing cake from pans (it will be harder to remove cake if you wait much longer than 10 minutes so try to keep cool time to 10 minutes or under)
• Let cake cool completely.

Ganache

• In a small saucepan, heat milk on medium heat until it comes to a gentle boil.
• Add chocolate chips and agave syrup and stir until chocolate melts. 
• Remove pan from heat and add powdered sugar and coffee. 
• Let cool for about 25 minutes. 

Cake Assembly

• After letting ganache cool for about 25 minutes, spoon some of the ganache mixture onto the top of the bottom layer of your cake. Cover the top completely with the ganache (ganache should still be pretty runny at this point; that's ok).
• Place the other cake round on top of the freshly frosted bottom layer. 
• Place the ganache in the fridge for a few hours before completing the rest of the cake so that it is easier to apply to cake. 
• After letting the ganache cool in the fridge for a few hours, or overnight, begin by frosting the very top of the cake leaving the sides unfrosted. 
• After the top is thoroughly frosted, start adding the shredded coconut to the remaining ganache in the pan and stir. Continue adding coconut until it becomes your desired consistency. I didn't add quite the whole bag of shredded coconut.
• After achieving desired coconut to chocolate ganache ratio, begin to coat the sides of the cake until the cake is completely covered. 
• Let set in the fridge for an hour or two (optional) and enjoy! 

Brown Rice Pasta With Veggies in a White Wine Sauce

Another vegan pasta recipe!

Ingredients:

• one package brown rice pasta 
• 2-3 tablespoons olive oil
• About 5 cremini mushrooms, sliced
• 3-4 roma tomatoes, chopped
• 1 small yellow onion, diced
• 4 garlic gloves, minced
• 5-7 ounces baby spinach (depending on how much you like)
• 1 cup vegetable broth
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper (optional)
• 1/4 of lemon for juice
• handful of fresh parsley

Directions:

• Cook brown rice pasta according to package directions.
• Meanwhile, add about a tablespoon of olive oil to medium high heat in a large pan. Add onion and sauté until translucent, then add garlic and cook for another 30 seconds to 1 minute. Remove onion and garlic and set aside. 
• Add about 1/2 to 1 tablespoon of olive oil to pan again, and add mushrooms. Sauté for a few minutes.
• Add spinach and cook until spinach begins to wilt, adding more olive oil if needed. 
• Add the onions and garlic back into the pan with the spinach and mushrooms as well as the tomatoes. 
• Cook on medium heat for about 1 minute, then add wine. Let the wine reduce. 
• Add vegetable broth and cook for another few minutes, stirring when needed. 
• Add salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper flakes to your liking in the sauce.
• Using tongs, slowly add pasta to sauce making sure sauce coats the pasta as you add more (I didn't end up using the entire package of pasta). Depending on how you like your sauce to pasta ratio, add more or less pasta. 
• Squeeze lemon over pasta. 
• Add pasta to serving dish and add fresh parsley to garnish. 
• Serve and enjoy!

Veestro Delivery!

For the most part I try to prepare meals using fresh, whole ingredients but there are times when I simply just don't have time to cook (or feel like cooking)! In times like those, Veestro is the perfect option to have stocked in your freezer. Veestro is an online organization that creates delicious vegan, plant-based, preservative free meals at an affordable price and then ships them straight to your house. If  you buy a meal plan, then shipping is free! So we usually buy a meal plan and then also buy individual items on top of that and get free shipping for the whole order. Then, when it's delivered, you just put everything in your freezer, and when you're ready, the products can be thawed, boiled, or microwaved for a simple and speedy preparation!

 They use dry ice to keep everything frozen in the package.

(Full Order)

So if you ever feel too busy or tired to cook but also don't want to compromise eating a natural, plant-based diet, I highly recommend checking out Veestro! 

Homemade Vegan Pasta Recipe

 

Today I have for you a very simple yet delicious vegan pasta recipe. I have to say I wanted to make this recipe because I wanted to use my pasta maker with my Kitchen Aid mixer that we've never used since we bought it years ago. However, after making the pasta dough I realized there was a part missing! So needless to say I had to do some improvising and make the pasta the good old fashioned way with a rolling pin and knife. The pasta still ended up being a great success and was quite delicious. I will order the missing part and do yet another pasta recipe, only next time I'm thinking whole wheat ravioli.

Ingredients:

• 5 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (I used 365 organic unbleached all-purpose flour)
• About 1 1/2 cups water 
• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon tumeric

Note: This makes a lot of pasta, and you can always reduce the measurements. Also, you can add more flour or water as needed to make sure the consistency of the dough is right; you don't want it to be sticky or tacky but you also don't want it to be too dry.

Directions:

• In a large bowl, mix together the flour, tumeric, and salt. 
• Make a well in the flour and pour in olive oil and water.  Gradually combine ingredients, adding more water as needed. 
• Knead the dough on a floured surface for about 5-10 minutes or until texture is smooth. 
• Cover dough and let sit for 20 minutes. 
• Cut dough into several different sections (about 7)
• Roll out each section of dough using rolling pin on a floured surface (or using a machine) using flour as needed so your dough doesn't become sticky. 
• Starting with the end closest to you, fold the rolled out pasta sheet a few inches (going away from you), and then continue doing this until you have a flat jelly roll shape.
• Using a sharp knife, cut the jelly roll pasta dough forming your desired width. I made a pappardelle shaped pasta, about 3/4 inches thick. 
• Lay pasta strands on a floured towel and dust them with flour. 
• Let the noodles sit for about 10 minutes before cooking them, and then cook them in salted water for about 5 minutes. Cooking times vary widely so keep an eye on your pasta to tell when it's ready. 

Enjoy!