Chocolate Pumpkin Cake

After only a few years pause, here's my first post returning to the blogging world. Haha, yaaaay!:)

This vegan cake recipe was one of those - educated guess experiments - that turned out really good. I wanted to make a really moist serious chocolate cake, but I was missing a couple of go to ingredients, so I substituted with whatever I had at hand. The pumpkin puree is the secret moisture ingredient in this cake, and the best part is - you can't taste it - it just makes the chocolate flavor taste more deeply velvety in your mouth. 

As my dear Kunti said, it is quite healthy as far as cakes go, although it tastes decadently chocolatey...it is really more-ish, but not very sweet, so if you like your cakes on the sweeter side you will need to up the sugar content, or drizzle in chocolate fudge sauce and ice cream (which would be yummy), or whatever tickles your fancy! 

Ingredients:

Mix:

2 cups Arrowhead Mills sprouted pancake and waffle mix

1 cup buckwheat flour

1 cup almond meal

1/4 cup ground flax seeds

1 TBSP baking powder

3/4 TBSP baking soda

1.5 TBSP allspice

2 TBSP cinnamon powder

Whisk together:

1.5 cup Costa Rican cocoa powder (THE BEST EVER)

1/2 cup oil

1 cup pumpkin puree

1.5 cup maple syrup

2 TSP Mexican Vanilla extract (OMG, awesome flavor, wish I'd brought more back!)

3 cups hot water

Combine both mixtures adding approx 2 more cups of room temperature water - enough to get a fairly thick batter.

Pour into a lightly oiled and floured baking dish - I used a rectangular glass baking flan.

Sprinkle generously with semi sweet choc chips (I pushed them in a little so they stick when its done), a sachet of crystallized ginger, a little cinnamon and brown sugar. 

Bake at 365 degrees Fahrenheit for approx 45 minutes.

Remove from heat and cool. Delicious served as is, or with vanilla ice cream, or as you like. Have fun! :)

Apple Lemon Zest Crumble

I created this apple crumble with a zing for our lunch dessert today. :-) I love how the freshness of the lemony zest lifts this traditional dessert into a whole new realm of very more-ish tastiness!  Served chilled it's a perfect for the spell of warm spring weather we've been blessed with in D.C. this week. Serves 6+ generous portions. Hope you enjoy it!

Crumble Topping:
1 cup porridge oats
1/2 cup almond meal
1/2 cup sprouted wheat flour
2 TBSP slivered almonds
3/4 cup cane sugar or to taste
1 TBSP vanilla essence
Approx 1/2 cup melted butter or as needed to make flour saturated and crumbly
pinch of sea salt

Mix all dry ingredients together. Stir vanilla into melted butter and pour into dry ingredients. Mix well, should look abit like bread crumbs. Set aside.

Filling:
5 granny smith apples, peeled, sliced into 1/2 moons
1 handful of dried cranberries
1 heaped TBSP fresh lemon zest
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 1/2 TBSP cane sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
1/4 tsp nutmeg powder
1/2 cup water

Heat the water. Cook the apples, cinnamon, nutmeg and maple syrup until the apples are soft but retain their 1/2 moon shape. Remove from heat and mix in the lemon zest and cranberries. Pour into a glass baking dish. Very lightly pat the crumble topping on top of the apples. Bake til golden brown on top, in a preheated oven at 385 degrees Fahrenheit.

Delicious served warm or cold, as is, or with freshly whipped chilled double cream. :-)

I've also created a variation of this dessert by replacing the apples with strawberries - leave out the cinnamon and nutmeg, and add more cranberries and a little more sugar. :-)