Hard Kaur Chocolate Cake: an egg free recipe!

For those who do not or cannot eat eggs, this is perfect. The cake itself is vegan too. But for everybody else: trust me, you don't want to pass this up. It is so chocolate-y it verges on the obscene!

Hard Kaur Chocolate Cake

(with thanks to Reena and Manmeet)

A very intense, dark chocolate cake enhanced by molasses and plenty of vanilla.

This is a vegan recipe that will yield 2 LARGE chocolate cakes in deep 10 inch tins that can be halved, filled and iced. Hard Kaur icing recipe is also below, but you can use any icing you like. Enough for you and 30-40 friends. Makes great cupcakes too.

Equipment:
10” springform pans x 2, 2 large bowls, a whisk, measuring jug, scales, spoons, saucepan

Ingredients
2 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
3 cup all purp unbleached flour
6 teaspoons baking powder
3 teaspoon baking soda
2 1/4 cup good cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cup plain (unsweetened) soymilk (UHT is fine)
1 1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups treacle
3 cups golden syrup
3 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
6 teaspoons vanilla


Directions
Preheat oven to 180c/ 375F. Spray a the springform pans with non stick cooking spray.

Sift together flours and baking powder and baking soda. When you sift the wholewheat flour you will be left with some bran that will not go through the sieve. You can grind this quickly in a food mixer if you have one, or discard and add a little extra plain flour. I recommend getting as much of the bran in as possible as it is great for the digestive system.

In a saucepan, heat the soymilk on low-medium heat. When it is slightly bubbling, add the cocoa powder and wisk well until it is dissolved. This will give you a thick pudding-like consistency. Remove from heat.

Combine the other liquid ingredients in a bowl and whisk well. You should use an electric whisk for this as mixing up the golden syrup etc is a bit heavy going. Add the cocoa mixture and combine. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix well with an electric mixer.

Pour batter into prepared pan, bake at 180 C/ 350 F for about 40 minutes until a toothpick or butter knife comes out clean. Remove from the over, let cool for some time and then carefully turn out onto a rack and allow to cool completely. Then ice!

You can either ice each of the cakes as one layer cakes or cut them in half horizontally (carefully) with a bread knife and make each into a 2 layer cake. If you are feeling particularly ambitious you could make one huge double or quadruple layer cake too.

This cake keeps well and develops its flavour, so you can make it a couple of days in advance and as long as you don’t cut into it, it will stay moist. You can then ice when ready. I wouldn’t make it more than 4 days in advance though. If you are keeping the cakes in advance then refridgerate for freshness.


Icing/filling

The Chocolate icing is egg-less but not Vegan. It is EXTREMELY rich.

Equipment: 1 large bowl, 2 small bowls, electric mixer, spatula.

Ingredients:
¾ stick butter (just under 200g), softened
375g icing sugar
4 tbsp cocoa
1 bar (100g) very dark chocolate (70% cocoa and above)
½ tsp vanilla essence
300ml sour cream

Method:
Place the softened butter in a large bowl.

At the same time break the chocolate into a small bowl and put in a microwave for 30 seconds. After 30 seconds if there are still pieces unmelted, mix with a fork or spoon and put back in the microwave for another 30 seconds and so forth. If you do not have a microwave, melt the chocolate in a water bath on the stove (put the chocolate in a bowl inside a saucepan and fill the saucepan about halfway with water. As the water heats you can stir the chocolate in the bowl as it melts. However you have done it, put the melted chocolate to one side to cool.

Sift together the sugar and the cocoa over the top of the butter. Blend the butter and sugar together a little with a fork, then mix/whisk until creamed and fluffy. This will take about 3 mins with an electric mixer and 10 mins by hand with a fork.

Add the melted dark chcolate and vanilla essence to the butter and sugar mixture and mix well with the electric mixer. Now add 3 tbsps of the sour cream and blend until the mixture is cohesive, rich and soft.

Ice the cake immediately if possible. If you are making the icing more than an hour in advance you should now put it in the fridge. When you are ready to ice remove the icing about 30 mins before you start to soften up.

Take about one quarter of the icing and place in a smaller bowl. Add 3 more tbsp of sour cream to this mixture. This will be the filling between the two cake layers.

Ice and fill the cake. When complete, sprinkle the cake with icing sugar or cocoa powder and refrigerate until you are ready to serve.

Indian Corn Salad

This isn't made with Indian corn. We're talking Indian Indian here rather than AmerIndian. I'm afraid I know nothing about AmerIndian cooking :(.

This salad was born out of my love affair with 2 fabulous New England summer staples: fresh corn and heirloom tomatoes. Mix that together with a burgeoning interest in Ayurvedic medicine that sees me buying my first jar of ghee (and never looking back) and you get Indian Corn Salad. It's a fresh, crunchy, slightly spicy, slightly sweet homage to summer. Great with toast or a bowl of rice, alongside tsatziki, lentil rice and hummous for a summer lunch or just on its own.

You will need:

Two ears local corn
A selection of Heirloom tomatoes.
heaped tablespoon Ghee
1 to 2 cloves garlic.
up to 1 tsp depending on your preference Cayenne pepper, ground
1/2 tsp Cardamom, ground
fat pinch Jeera/Cumin, ground or whole
1/2 tsp Coriander seed, ground.
Fresh Cilantro/Coriander
Fresh Mint
Fat pinch salt.


For the heirlooms, I don't want to tell you which ones to get or how many because they are completely different sizes and you might be like me and capable of eating 2 pounds of them... Some varieties I like are Black Prince, Cherokee Purple, Pineapple, and Zebra. I'm particularly fond of Cherokee Purples.

Why Ghee? Ghee is a neutral food in Ayurveda, so anyone of any Dosha or Body Disposition can eat it and it has a soothing effect. You can use butter in a pinch but Ghee is better because it doesn't have the milk solids in it, and so it won't burn at high temperatures. If you are in Europe or the States, just seek out any grocery in your local Indian community and they WILL have this...it is a staple.

Method:

Having shucked and washed the corn cobs, use a sharp knife to cut the kernals off the core in slices. Do this over a bowl so that any corn milk that comes out can go into the salad as well.
Cut your tomatoes into small, colorful chunks and try your best not to eat them all while you are cooking!
Smash and chop the garlic.

Heat the ghee in the bottom of a medium sized saucepan. The next part of this recipe is what in Indian cuisine is called "tempering" spices. There'll be more about tempering in other recipes.

you may want to spread the pool of ghee around the bottom of the saucepan a bit. If it doesn't cover, add more.

drop in the spices and allow them to froth and toast for half a minute or so.

Add your corn and mix the ghee through the corn thoroughly. The heat from the ghee and the pot should be sufficient to partially cook the corn, keeping it's fresh crunchiness and slightly astringent taste. Do allow the corn to heat however. If you like your corn well done, you can put in 1/8 cup of water to allow it to steam in the pot.

Once the corn has become a brighter yellow, turn off the heat. Add the raw tomato chunks and salt to taste.

Tear up the fresh herbs and add.

Serving suggestion:

For a snack: Serve in small bowls with toasted pita bread and yoghurt.