Hello again! And hello new people who wandered over from Broadsheet Melbourne, which I gather wrote lovely things about me yesterday. I am ridiculously flattered and delighted by this! (So lovely not just to get a review, but a review that basically says that I am succeeding in doing exactly the things I am trying to do).
You may recall that I promised an exciting vegetarian / vegan friendly recipe about a week ago, and completely failed to deliver. Why? Because, I regret to say, my nettle pie with olive oil pastry turned out to be less than delectable when I tasted it. To be blunt, it was awful. I think perhaps nettles are a bit on the bitter side for my taste, though this may be just a case of the bad cook blaming her ingredients. So no nettle pie recipe for you, sorry. (And this, I regret to say, was also a major reason for the week-long hiatus from this blog – I was sulking for days because clearly this pie was proof that I Can’t Cook At All. Hey, I never claimed to be logical…) I do intend to buy nettles again sometime and try them in a different recipe, so we’ll see what happens.
Instead, my dear readers, you will have to cope with a recipe I am developing for a wedding cupcake tower next weekend. This one is gluten, nut, soy and fructose free, and also vegan, which you would think wouldn’t leave you with much to work with, but there is always chocolate! And chilli! The spice level has been scientifically tested (I sent an email around to my scientists this morning looking for volunteer tasters), and deemed to be acceptable to all – which is to say, the true chilli heads claim it needs more chilli, but everyone else liked it. Feel free to adjust the chilli level to suit your taste (but be aware that these cakes taste much spicier fresh from the oven, just in case you were planning to serve them as puddings with a chocolatey sauce).
These cakes taste warm rather than hot, even when they are at room temperature, and the chilli does stay with you a bit afterward, but is not burny, even if you are a complete wuss about chilli, as I am. I have not yet developed the perfect icing for them (translation: something went horribly wrong with my usually fail-proof rice-milk ganache last night), but something with the personality of a chocolate cream-cheese icing would be about right. I’ll add a link to that once I’ve figured it out.
Enjoy!
Your Shopping List
1 1/3 cups rice milk (or other non-dairy milk of your choice, depending what you are trying to avoid and what you have in the cupboard, but probably not coconut milk)
1 1/2 tsp white wine vinegar
1/2 cup sunflower oil
2/3 cup caster sugar
1 cup brown rice flour (supermarket or health-food shop)
1/4 cup potato starch (definitely health-food shop, but cornflour would work in a pinch)
1/8 cup tapioca flour (also in supermarket, may be disguised as arrowroot)
1/8 cup cornflour (supermarket friendly – yay!)
1 tsp xanthum gum (health-food shop, no two ways about it)
1/2 cup cocoa powder – dutch process if possible, and fair trade if you can find it
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp bicarb of soda
1/2 tsp ground chilli
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
pinch of salt
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