Vegan Chocolate Heresy
One of my early recipe posts was for Orange Chocolate Heresy cake. With my recent excursions into vegan cooking, I did some experimenting and came up with an suitable (albeit orange-free) revision of it. Not that there's any apparent reason why it couldn't work with orange zest, too. I just didn't have any at hand, and I didn't feel like it was worth holding back on posting the recipe to try making such a version of it.
I know the typical flax seed meal "eggs" are mixed 1:3 with water, but given that I use vegetable bases for my batter instead of traditional flour, I've found much more success with a flipped ratio. My guess is that the water in the plantains makes up for what's missing. Well, whatever the exact reasons may be, this worked, and I didn't even need to let the flax seed meal soak until it started to turn gelatinous. Win-win!
Ingredients:
3 ripe plantains (the blacker, the better), pureed
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup maple syrup
0.5 cup coconut oil, melted
6 Tbsp flax seed meal
2 Tbsp water
0.5 Tbsp baking powder
1.5 Tbsp cream of tartar (or 1 Tbsp baking powder)
0.5 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2.5 Tbsp coconut flour (use 3 Tbsp for more of a traditional dry cake texture or reduce to 2 Tbsp for more of a fudge/brownie texture)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 deg.
Combine plantains, flax seed meal, water, vanilla extract, maple syrup, and coconut oil in a large bowl. Mix well.
Add baking soda, cream of tartar (or baking powder), and cocoa powder. Mix well.
Add coconut flour. Mix well, and let it sit for 1-2 minutes.
Pour the mixture into a lightly oiled 8"x8" cake pan.
Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until a toothpick poked near the center comes out clean.
Let it cool before cutting.
(optional) Top with fruit soup!
