Currently viewing the tag: "chocolate"
It’s time to bake a cake for mom day! Here is my beautiful Mom holding a pint-sized me next to my sis.
And here I am photobombing a very proper picture of my brothers and sister in their Easter best. This became a bit of a common occurrence as I would grow older. I used to steal my mom’s camera mid-roll and take pictures of myself sticking out my tongue. (And I used to press ‘play’ and ‘record’ to interrupt my dad’s mix tapes with weird noises.)
Forecasts call for a light dusting of cocoa and soymilk powder.
Vanilla layer cake with chocolate frosting, as requested by Mom.
I love Isa’s thick, fudgey chocolate frosting from VCTOTW. It reminds me of the cakes my mom used to make. Jiffy cake and frosting mix… in the little blue box.
A delicious bite. I highly recommend subbing Earth Balance regular for the coconut spread. It gives a subtle coconut flavor and a yummy shine. Happy Mom Day, Mom!
Hadn’t been to Rockville Centre’s Three Brothers in awhile. It was time for a visit.
Their mozzarella sticks are the star of the show. I am happy they are a bit narrower in girth than the earlier recipe. I think most know how I feel about too much Daiya. A well-seasoned firm breading juxtaposed with oozy cheese: yum.
Cross-section. These would go on my Vegan Top 100.
Seitan cutlet hero. The seitan–housemade. The cheese–Teese.
My friend’s choice was a seitan bacon cheeseburger.
We got free cinnamon sugar knobs.
In other news, the winter clothes went away and the bathing suits came out! I don’t care if we’re barely over 50 degrees. I can’t take it anymore!
Orange chocolate Twinkies. Why orange? I ran out of vanilla.
Day 3 and another itinerary of food! It all starts at The Cup, which offers a daily vegan cupcake selection. The cafe is amidst a cluster of shops within a city of brand new high rises. Had I not checked their updated cupcake schedule on their blog and had my tummy tempted with Thursday’s delight: Vegan red velvet cupcakes.
This gorgeous little thing was not so much a red velvet; I will call it peach velvet, being here in the ATL. I don’t know that I know what a red velvet cake tastes like, to be honest, having gone vegan well before I knew a thing about baking or desserts beyond Drake’s and Hostess. But this seemed subtle, free of cocoa taste but in a good way. It highlighted the perfect sweetness of the frosting.
Some Yelpers mentioned The Cup’s cakes being a bit dry, but that was not the case at all. The exterior of the cake was a little overcooked and had crunchy-ish skin. But once inside that skin, the cake was moist and springy.
And because I feel like Instagram is made for pictures of cupcakes, here is my favorite shot.
It was time for lunch at Home grown, home of an award-winning vegan Sloppy Joe. This cute breakfast hot spot was bustling with down home folk with a welcoming Southern hospitality. The warm staff treated guests like family. Is that that Southern Hospitality I’ve heard about?
The Sloppy Joe was most certainly sloppy! I ate it with a fork and knife, diving into my steamed collards now and again to cleanse my palate… And then I start again like it was the first bite. The barbecue sauce was sweet, sweet, sweet! I wished I had some saltiness on the plate to balance it out. I wasn’t 100% sure the cornbread was vegan but it would have helped counter the sauce.
In the back of the cafe was the garden, the source of many of their veggies. I took a quick walk through it to bask in the warm, southern sun.
Ok, I waited as long as I could to head to Cafe Sunflower, a high-end yuppie vegetarian eatery with a stellar reputation. I was steering towards down home meals most of my visit but it seemed foolish to pass this place up. My final dinner in Atlanta. Unfortunately the lighting inside the restaurant took away from the pictures below…
Fried green tomatoes! Delectable. This tower of fried goodness sat in a drizzled grid of chive oil and a balsamic reduction, held together by layers of hummus. The chive oil and balsamic was divine, but the hummus took away from the crispiness of the breading. And breading is tough to keep crisp when it surrounds such a moist vegetable fruit.
The entree: Grilled Coconut Polenta Napoleon– artichoke hearts, portabella mushrooms, tofu, mock ham, julienne vegetables with ginger peach coulis. The coulis was so good. I could have had a whole glass of it. It was perfect with the polenta layers. I ate the tall Napoleon in sections as it was tough to cut through. This made it seem like I had two amazing, different dishes.
This veggie-heavy entree was so yummy. I don’t think it need the mock ham at all. In fact, I pushed it aside.
I had to get a slice of their Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake to go. Here I was thinking I’d have it for a morning slice.. but no. I dove in as soon as I got back to the hotel. It was probably the best slice of vegan chocolate cake since I had Santosha‘s chocolate cake back in the 1990′s. That says quite a lot!
Thanks, Atlanta, for another delicious day. Tomorrow I head back to New York!
After sleeping in, I was ready for breakfast at Ria’s Bluebird, a bustling all-day breakfast spot in downtown Atlanta’s Grant Park. I meant to get there sooner but my pitch-black hotel room fooled me into sleeping in past 7 a.m… Gasp! [me = early birdy] The place was packed with hip Atlanta folk basking in the Band of Horses.
I was excited to eat their country-fried tempeh, which interweb sources announced was a vegan option, though it sat on a buttermilk biscuit. It was easy enough to say “hold the biscuit.” Luckily the counter man knew better than interweb sources. The dish was smothered in their non-vegan gravy. This, coupled with the biscuit situation and the plea for “No substitutions!”, was when I began to let go my dreams of eating country-fried tempeh.
So I got their Bionic Breakfast, described as a mountain of skillet potatoes with sauteed mushrooms, spinach, red & poblano peppers, topped with spicy tofu sauce. Delicious, yes, but I was hoping for dirty, fried goodness. After a few bites, my body responded to the freshness and flavor. Spinach! I needed the iron. And I needed the heat. Does Ria’s Bluebird know what’s best for me? Apparently yes.
While I’m kind of on the topic, vegan travel reporting is a huge passion of mine. I try to create posts that I would find helpful if I was looking into a try somewhere and wondered about options. I try to take pretty pictures because that’s what I’d like to see. (Sometimes the pictures are not pretty.) But mostly I try to clear up vegan mysteries. I hope I have helped someone in my gluttonous quest. Just sayin’.
Ok, onward and upward. Well, actually I headed west to Dulce Vegan Bakery, a long-standing bookmark in my elaborate state-divided vegan option file system. Dulce stood alone for a very long time, so a visit was very long in the making. Now, on this beautiful spring day, I needed breakfast dessert before a mini-roadtrip to some area roadside attractions. {Am I the only sweet treater who rationalizes dessert for breakfast, lunch, and dinner?}
I got two cupcakes… because really, I have to. As a vegan reporter I need to taste a chocolate and a vanilla! It’s a tough job but someone’s got to do it. I sprung for the coconut topped with chocolate (because I love, love, love that combination and hardly ever see it!) and the chocolate with raspberry frosting. Pretty: check!
Delicious: check! The cakes had a real great texture–spring and moist–and a subtle flavor. The frostings were creamy and not overly sweet. This is a sign of an awesome cupcake. Gratuitous sugar is not masking imperfections. They were fresh and lively. I kind of loved them, actually.
Ok, now: rest assured that many, many hours past before I arrived at the kind-of-whole-reason why I came to Atlanta to begin with: Dough Bakery / Gutenfleischers Vegan Meats. They’re all-vegan. They’re a bakery and they’re a vegan meats sandwich shop. I know, right? And they do brunch on the weekend, which I will sadly miss.
Here’s the deal to avoid being a fumbly overwhelmed fool like I was: The bakery is just that, an all-vegan bakery with some pretty fantastic offerings. More later on that. Gutenfleischers Vegan Meats offers their huge selection of house-made vegan meats deli-sliced into a range of sammy options, from Standard (2 slices of bread, meat and toppings) to the Dagwood–named after (the other) Blondie’s husband, Dagwood Bumstead–which has four bread slices, a ton of vegan meat, tempeh bacon and toppings. I had the Double Decker. I chose Black Forest Ham and Pepper Turkey, two of their meats, and said no to the vegan cheese (Tofutti). Oh yeah, you get to pick your meats from the deli case. (And they have a house-made mayo…)
They had a couple of great bakery items, but I unfortunately missed the moon pies. But check out their little pineapple upside down cakes.
I got the sticky bun for the road… because only having a leftover glazed donut in the hotel fridge is a bit unnerving. Oh, Dough you were certainly worth it!
As I digest a little, I leave you with this picture, a small detail of Dough’s physical space but a telling one.
I love long Sundays in the kitchen. The afternoon sun streaming in… making a mess… licking the spoon… It’s the best part of the week.
Today’s epic recipe, a version of this: Vegan Vanilla Ding Dongs
Real ‘black tar’ vanilla bean
Very vanilla sheet cake. I could have put this batter in a flute and sipped it all night.
Stay golden, Ponyboy
Cake-punching
Delicate texture
Piping freshly-beat coconut milk creme
All piped.
Cacao and cocoa butter
Time for a chocolate coat
Chocolate. Everywhere.
Vanilla Ding Dongs done, after 3 hours. Let’s look
Rainbow Boba’s
January VeganCuts box. (I’ve since picked up another bag of Beanfields.)
Eli’s treasure bar. I’ve had one of these before… but this one was so very fresh and delicious. A world of difference!
I had to experiment with the freekeh right away.
I made panelle for this week’s lunch. I wanted to bust into some of my fancy flours that were stashed in my old apartment. Plus, I’m Sicilian.
That’s all I got in me. I made chocolate cupcakes for my lunch dessert but… after eating a couple… I can barely mooove…
Three bean and three pepper chili improves a dreary winter day.
Sneaking in salba (and its extraordinary nutritiousness) as an egg replacer, this scallion cornbread’s subtle sweetness balances the heat of the chili.
A winter load of chili. Not much beats a hot bowl of chili when toes are cold. One of my favorite tastes is the coriander. Chili powder, coriander, cumin, cayenne pepper…
Assorted chopped bulbs crunch up the texture.
And for dessert for my lunch: a half batch of golden vanilla cupcakes with dark chocolate frosting. Perfect! Am I kooky for requiring lunch desserts during the week? Didn’t think so.
I’ve discovered another vegan sprinkle! Wilton’s jumbo nonpareils, which aren’t really nonpareils, are little colorful and crunchy candy toppers free of carmine and confectioners glaze, or other aliases of these ingredients.
Here is one all dressed up.
Hello, pretty. Happy Monday!
There’s a lot I won’t miss about Brooklyn. Hipsters. Transplants. Or worse, hipster transplants. But I will miss the food. After a long morning of hauling 8 years of stuff out my apartment, CP and I needed a satisfying lunch. We needed carbohydrates, and plenty of them. We needed Bliss Grand, the over-achieving sister to Bliss on Bedford ave, a Williamsburg vegetarian staple. 
Bliss Grand‘s menu is full of savory selections, surpassing their other location’s reliable earthy plates with more variety and foodie lure. On our table: foreground–my Polenta Florentine, poached Silken Tofu, cashew Hollandaise & homefries, background–BBQ Pulled Jackfruit on a Bun. Yeah. The real deal. Heavenly.
No more words. Let’s just look…
Chocolate cake… Happy Out of Brooklyn! I’ll have to visit again for those Grilled Seitan Taquitos…
Sprig & Vine is a delightful cafe nestled cozy and snug on the New Jersey-Pennsylvania border in New Hope, Pennsylvania. On the Delaware river, New Hope offers an idyllic setting for an urban escape… and a proper all-vegan ‘last of 2012′ brunch with Ms. CandyP.
We started with some hearty biscuits and cashew-herb gravy. Savory, substantial and delicious.
Will travel for a Tofu Benny! Ever since I glimpsed their menu months back I have been daydreaming of this dish… carefully however, accepting the possibility that the success of this vegan brunch classic lives and dies by the quality of the Hollandaise. We were happy to see these tall Ben’s were covered in an aerated Hollandaise, air-bubbled and indicative of a light, frothy texture. Oh yum.
You know I had to zoom in on this bad boy.
The choppy Delaware river on a windy winter day.
After brunch, a proper lunch. On Sundays Kaya’s Kitchen does an all-you-can-eat buffet. All I can eat all-vegan? Hold me back! Plenty of tasty options, Caribbean inspired.
This was a flavor-packed buffet. Most notable, soft and delicate potato-filled pierogi. I had to get up for seconds.
Last but certainly not least, all-vegan bakery in Matawan, New Jersey, Papa Ganache.
This bakery is stock with beautiful and delicious vegan treats, including these babies.
All dressed up for the New Year!
They also have plenty of gluten-free goodies… a whole showcase full (above).
Ok, 2013. I’m ready!
Since moving I’ve been peeking at my cookbooks ore often. My Sweet Vegan is literally brimming with little Post-its marking the recipes that enticed me. Post-its on the tops of pages, on the sides, on the corners. It’s been years since I flipped through its pages and I no longer remember the rhyme or reason for this placement. One thing is for sure. I needed to make the Marshmallow Mud Cake before another year passes. And with non-traditional Thanksgiving festivities with the family on the calendar, I was on it!
Getting started, deep dark cocoa is a must.
The batter was a bit thick, even with a splash more of milk. It came out of the oven looking like an enormous Dutch Fudge cookie with a soft, spring bounce. I will have to make this cake again when I don’t plan on piling a bunch of super-sweet white glop on its top.
Making the marshmallow topping was quite the adventure. I blew out the motor on the handmixer. It seriously was smoking. The Electrician hooked the mixer attachment into his drill and it still did not whip up to peaks. I wound up smearing the marshmallow mixer on top of the cake.
Last but not least the chocolate drizzle. I felt like Jackson Pollack flipping drizzles of dark chocolate on a stark white canvas. Gorgeous.
So pretty.
Once sliced, the marshmallow topping oozed and morphed, freeform style.
As I go on the 5th day without power, I’ll bring you a sweet picture spread of a recent VeganEssentials‘ order: a box of vegan chocolates from Sjaak’s, a worldly chocolatier specializing in vegan organic fine chocolates. It arrived early Tuesday, quite suprisingly, as I hunted down an open grocery store after the storm. I was able to munch on these fine chocolates in the dark days that followed.
The assortment had ‘box-of-chocolates’ favorites like raspberry truffle, peanut caramel, coffee caramel, vanilla soft caramel, and almond butter.
Blogging makes everything seem back to normal. My numb toes disagree.
Sjaak’s caramel was good. Stuck to my teeth a bit. It most certainly would have a better texture had it been at room temperature, which is kind of hard to find.
This one was my favorite. It tasted a bit like a 3 Muskateers. I wish the box of chocolates had a key.
I also tried Sjaak’s Eli’s Earth Bar Dream Big Bar, their big candy bar treats: caramel, peanuts, peanut butter.
The non-dairy milk chocolate gave the bar a waxy, cheap processed chocolate bar-look. But I think that is the point?
It tasted like a Snickers, I thought. More so than Go Max Go‘s Jokerz.
More of my VeganEssentials order is to come.. stay tuned. If you have power!
I love vanilla cake. I love vanilla ice cream. I was a vanilla extract huffer when I was a little girl. In fact, vanilla, though slang for basic and boring these days, is, to me, far more exciting than chocolate. Chocolate is too easy. Vanilla’s subtle, nuanced flavor is a bit more complicated… like the best things in life.
So my birthday cake was going to be vanilla, yes. But I’ll need a chocolate frosting. Retro-Duncan Hines style. Little did I know that the last page of Hope/Moskowitz’s Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World has the perfect recipe for my needs. I feel foolish for not discovering it sooner. It is exactly the kind of frosting I love. And it gave me the opportunity to finally try Earth Balance’s coconut spread.
Soy milk powder and cocoa are the foundation of this frosting, producing a thick, fudgy, milk-chocolately texture and taste. Try not to eat spoonfuls.
All blended up and ready for its close-up.
Jump to a fully frosted cake. It was gorgeous! And save for some milky specks of soy milk powder, a rich smooth shade of retro ripple icing waves. What exactly does that mean? Not sure but this comes to mind.
Hello, gorgeous!
At my folks’ house, the cake was a hit. It fit in nicely with my mom’s Halloween spread.
Inside layers, golden and buttery… very rich.
What finger is this? Not sure.
Cheers!
Vegan Reporting By Location
