CHOCOLATE CAKE
🍫🤔 Did you know that the best place to store chocolate is in an airtight container inside a cool, dry, dark place like a pantry or cupboard away from the light? If stored properly, the shelf life of most milk chocolate is one year and for most dark chocolate, it’s two years. Anyway, it only takes a couple of days for chocolate to disappear in Grandma Sita’s kitchen, probably the same thing happens to you.
🌱👩🍳 Unless of course, it’s a popular Holiday, especially Easter or Christmas, inevitably an excessive amount of chocolate. No problem, the solution is Grandma Sita’s delicious vegan choco cake, an everyday all-time classic. It’s quick and easy to make from the basic ingredients you always have in your kitchen. Just check your shelves and ready, set, and bake!
- INGREDIENTS
DRY
1 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup unrefined cane sugar (optional)
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
4 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
A pinch of salt
2 tsp sugar-free vanilla baobab powder by Social Vanilla
1/2 cup fair-trade chocolate chips (any leftover chocolate)
WET
1 cup oat drink (any non-dairy milk)
1/4 cup berry jam
3 tablespoons veggie oil (any neutral-flavored)
Tip: Grandma Sita follows the cup’s method for measurement units, we discovered that the volume of the cup is always the key, you don´t have to weigh the ingredients. A cup has the same volume of ingredients (liquid or dry) as a glass or a mug.
- METHOD
1. Preheat the oven to 180 º C. Oil and line the base and sides of a bread pan or square cake tin with baking parchment.
Tip: standard dimensions for bread and loaf pans start at 8 ½ by 4 ½ inches. It´s the perfect size for that amount of ingredients. If you multiply the amount by the number of times that you want, you will get a bigger cake. You have tons of different sizes of baking pans depending on the final amount.
2. Combine dry ingredients in a bowl: sifted flour, unrefined cane sugar, vanilla powder, unsweetened cocoa powder, fair trade chocolate chips, baking powder, and salt until well mixed. Mix it well with a wooden spoon.
Our note: we always sift the flour for muffins and cakes. Sifting helps to combine the flour with any dry ingredients.
3. Combine wet ingredients in a bowl: oat drink, berry jam, and veggie oil until well mixed.
5. Pour the wet mix into the dry bowl. Mix everything slowly with a wooden spoon.
6. Pour the mix into the baking pan. Sprinkle unrefined cane sugar and sesame seeds (optional) on the top.
7. Bake for around 40 minutes, until browned.
👉 Don´t open the oven, you can always leave the cake in the oven for a few more minutes.
8. Remove the bread pan from the oven. Leave it to cool for a while. Carefully, peel off the paper and cool a bit on a wire rack.
9. Serve as is or with a scoop of vegan ice cream, vanilla flavor vegan source cream, or vegan custard.
🧓🏻💚 Grandma Sita’s tips:
*Chocolate should be kept away from strong odors, as chocolate can absorb them, and away from light, which can cause it to discolor. You should not refrigerate chocolate or things covered in chocolate, but you can freeze it.
*Sometimes, you may be in a hot place where it’s difficult to keep your chocolate from melting. In this case, it’s okay to refrigerate it in an airtight container refrigerators are very humid.
*Chocolate does not spoil in the same way that perishable foods do, but its taste, texture, and appearance may change over time. These changes might affect the overall quality and enjoyment of the product.
*Keep your eyes out for ethical labels of chocolate on the packaging that guarantee a sustainable supply chain.
🌿Chocolate is a food product made from roasted and ground cacao pods, that is available as a liquid, solid, or paste, on its own, or as a flavoring agent in other foods. The seeds of the cacao tree have an intense bitter taste and must be fermented to develop the flavor. Much of the chocolate consumed today is in the form of sweet chocolate, a combination of cocoa solids, cocoa butter added vegetable oils, and sugar.
📗Chocolate has been prepared as a drink for nearly all of its history. Cacao has been consumed in some form since at least the Olmec civilization (19th-11th century BCE), and the majority of Mesoamerican people including the Maya and Aztecs made chocolate beverages.
🌎There are many actions you can take to reduce food waste before, during, and after any festivity season, and every single one counts. All of us can act at home to reduce our waste and transition our diets to one that is planet-forward. It’s a piece of cake!