chocolate explosion!

As a vegetarian, I often get worried looks about the lack of protein and taste in my life. I usually look back at these people worrying about the amount of second-hand nutrition in their lives. Truth be told…I love food and I love cooking. I am very healthy and have absolutely no problems with iron, protein or any other nutritional deficiencies. Neither do any of my vegetarian friends. The irony (haha) is that many of my non vegetarian pals do have iron deficiencies. Its kind of because without the vegetables, herbs and spices in your food, the meat is a little useless. It kind of makes you hmm.  

There are many reasons and benefits to be vegetarian for many people but rather than getting into that I will start a section on cooking. I will aim in general to stick to healthy, balanced recipes and will only put the ones that make me go wow. I will even put little stars next to the ones that are low fat and low carb like this: ** ok?

I had planned to put my first recipe for "mock chicken" as a response to a friend who was worried about what kind of things go into mock meat to make it taste like meat. It usually doesn't taste anything like meat, but rather it has a meaty texture and is usually very light and fat free..and it has no weird additives! But as luck would have it, it has to wait–  I experimented with the most tastiest chocolate explosion of a cake today. I'm not vegan (I eat eggs and milk products) but this recipe is completely egg and milk free…and its delicious!!! I can't begin to tell you how impressed I am at this moist heavenly pudding. Those of you who are my friends, come over now! This is seriously YUM!

Note: This is not healthy but its healthier than the more conventional egg, butter and milk.

The recipe is from www.theppk.com (The Post Punk Kitchen by quirky vegan queen Isa Chandra Moskowitz) but I have edited it into the more universal metric version:

CHOCOLATE BOMB PUDDING CAKE by Isa.  Equipment:  20cm springform pan 2 mixing bowls blender Ingredients For the cake: 1 cup plain flour 1/3 cups unsweetened cocoa powder 3/4 teaspoon salt 3/4 teaspoon baking powder 1 cup sugar 170g extra firm silken tofu (Woolworths, in 300g packs) 6 tablespoons canola oil 1/2 cup plain soymilk 2 teaspoons vanilla For the pudding layer: 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder 100g good quality bittersweet chocolate (I used Nestle Dark cooking Chocolate)  3/4 cups sugar 1 1/3 cups boiling water Directions Preheat oven to 175C. Start boiling the water for the brownie layer. Chop the bittersweet chocolate. Sift together flour, salt, baking powder and 1/3 cup cocoa powder. In a blender combine the tofu, soymilk, canola oil, 1 cup sugar and vanilla. Blend until smooth. Pour the tofu mixture into the flour mixture and combine. Spread the batter into an ungreased 20cm springform pan. In a bowl, whisk together 1/3 cup cocoa powder, 3/4 cup sugar, bittersweet chocolate and boiling water. When chocolate has dissolved, pour over the top of the batter. Bake 45 – 50 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool just until the pan is at a temperature you can handle (cake should still be hot). Move cake to a serving plate, release springform pan. Chocolate will ooze all over the cake. It's now ready to serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.