Rainy Days Are Busy Days. Vegan Baking.

The sun's out in Perth this afternoon but it wasn't the case earlier on. There were clouds, grey skies and heavy lashings of rain as far as the eye could see. From my vantage point at the dining table, it made good sense to plan a day of indoor activities.

 

The local Koko Black wasn't a bad place in which to seek shelter from the elements. They also make the best mochas I've had in Perth.

 

A kitchen with views of the high street.

Whilst waiting for my takeaway coffee (which was delivered Claremont style on a silver tray), I had a chance to peer into the kitchen for some baking inspiration. Marble cooking surfaces, a basket of lemons and a gleaming white KitchenAid...... Along with my coffee, they helped fuel my power grocery and baking ingredient shop at Coles.

 

My baking project today was sort of healthy and thankfully involved flour (see previous post on my epic fail peanut butter cookies for the reason why flour is my friend). Inspired by the Girl Who Cooks and having found a few super ripe avocados in the house, I decided to use this recipe for a vegan Avocado Chocolate Cake. The recipe calls for one cup of mashed avocado, which works out to be one avocado. I simply mashed mine with a fork rather than use a food processor. I did however use a stand mixer instead of beating by hand as the recipe suggested.

It took just under 45 minutes for my cake to bake in an 180C fan forced oven. I was a bit worried at how black my cake looked out of the oven, I've never previousy been able to get such a richly brown chocolate cake using cocoa powder alone. Perhaps the six tablespoons of baking cocoa had something to do with it.

 

 

 

Fortunately, my cake was baked not burnt. It's very moist and dense in texture. It's not sweet at all and you could never tell that avocado is a key ingredient. I didn't make the chocolate ganache that goes with the cake, mainly to delude myself that I was being responsible and doing chocolate the healthiest way possible.

If you were planning on being slack with your avocado prep, this is what you'll see in your cake. The occasional sliver of green but otherwise an evenly crumbed cake that's very moreish.

 

 

 

Mum's retro slow cooker came to the party today by delivering another batch of chicken and vegetable soup for lunch. I think that soup singlehandedly banished the rain cloud from the sky to give us a hint of sun this afternoon.

 

And I think I'm done cooking for today. I've got a good read on my Kindle and some Offspring to catch up on.

 

Stay warm and toasty!

 

Posted with Blogsy