chocolate poundcake, version II

I came up with a chocolate poundcake last year, but now that strawberries are in season again I wanted to see if I could improve on it. This is less crumbly and is, I believe, an improvement.



In a bowl, stir together
1 2/3 cup white whole wheat flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
and mix until thoroughly combined.

In a small pot over low heat, mix together
1 1/4 cup sugar
1 cup okara
3 oz. semi-sweet chocolate
3/4 cup soy milk
and stir until chocolate is completely melted and ingredients are well incorporated. Remove from heat and whisk in
1/2 cup canola oil
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 Tablespoon white rice vinegar

Pour the chocolate mixture into the dry ingredients and stir until incorporated. Immediately pour batter into an oiled 9"x5" bread pan and bake at 325 degrees Fahrenheit for 45 minutes. Remove from oven and allow cake to cool for about 20 minutes.

NB: As you probably know, vinegar has a chemical reaction with baking soda to produce gas, which gets trapped in the batter as air bubbles. This is why it's essential to get the cake in the oven right away, before the batter goes flat.



Run knife around edges of cake and invert onto a cutting board.



Cut off a slice and garnish as desired. Fresh fruit, chocolate syrup, (nondairy) ice cream, whatever strikes your fancy!



Verdict: I liked this a lot, although it could stand to be more chocolately. Next time I might try decreasing the sugar and increasing the semi-sweet chocolate. I might also try apple cider vinegar instead of white rice vinegar. But all in all, it held together quite nicely and was an excellent accompaniment to the delicious strawberries that are currently in season.

okara poundcake

Update: I have since come up with a different poundcake recipe, should you be interested in trying that one as well.

I am way behind in posting entries -- I have at least two more recipes to post, but limited Internet access combined with a busy schedule is holding me back! It's OK, before I know it I'll have a goodly chunk of free time. Until then, I present to you:



Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a bowl, combine
2 cups whole-wheat pastry flour
3 Tablespoons corn starch
3 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
and stir until thoroughly mixed.

In a small pot over low heat, melt
3.5 oz. dark or semi-sweet chocolate
1 cup sugar
in
3/4 cup soy milk
Stir until chocolate is melted and well combined. Turn off heat and whisk in
1/2 cup canola oil
until it is emulsified. Stir in
5 oz. vanilla soy yogurt
1/2 cup okara
2 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

NB: The chocolate I used was Green & Black's Organic Dark Chocolate, which according to the label was "infused with spices and a twist of orange." My pound cake did not come out super-chocolately, but it did have a really delightful spiciness to it!

Pour the chocolate mixture into the dry ingredients and stir until incorporated. Pour batter into an oiled 9"x5" bread pan and bake at 325 degrees Fahrenheit for 65 minutes.


Why can't I have pretty things?

Verdict: As you can see, my cake collapsed a bit, but that seems to be my lot in life. After cutting away the overflowed edges, I was able to successfully turn it out and slice off some pieces. It was super crumbly at first, but after it had cooled off completely it held together pretty well. Maybe not quite as dense as I'd want a pound cake to be, but it tasted great. Not super-chocolately as previously mentioned, but it sure was fantastic with some strawberries and vanilla soy ice cream.

chocolate-cherry okara cake

I love chocolate and fruit combinations, and chocolate-cherry is underutilized if you ask me. Here we have a low-fat and moist tube cake with hints of cherry that you could probably amplify by garnishing with fresh cherries. This recipe is adapted from the chocolate cupcake recipe in Bryanna Clark Grogan's The (Almost) No Fat Cookbook -- which means that you could probably adapt this back to cupcake format for chocolate okara cupcakes, if you're one of those people. Cooking time would probably have to be reduced to 20-25 minutes for cupcakes, but I haven't tested that out personally.



In a bowl, combine
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
and stir until ingredients are incorporated.

In another bowl, mix
8 oz. okara
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup cherry juice
1 Tablespoon rice vinegar
1 Tablespoon vanilla
and stir until there are no lumps.



Place the flour mixture into the wet ingredients and stir until just combined.

Scrape all of the batter into a lightly oiled 8-inch tube pan and spread evenly.



Bake at 325 degrees Fahrenheit for 45 minutes. Cool on a rack.

Warning: When I cook this, the batter usually overflows the pan a bit during baking. Put something underneath the pan that will protect your oven, but try not to impede air flow especially if using a convection setting.


Above: A very ugly cake! Don't worry, it looks nicer when it's removed from the pan.

Remove cake from pan, turning it onto a flat surface (like the bottom of a cake holder). I had to cut away parts of the cake that had flowed over the edge of the pan, and then I carefully ran a knife around the edges. After doing that, it fell from the pan pretty easily.



At this point, let the cake cool while you make a ganache frosting.

Over low heat, melt
1 cup chocolate chips
1/4 cup cherry juice
and stir until lumps have disappeared and the mixture is smooth and shiny. Pour over the cake very carefully, allowing it to drip down the sides. You'll probably have more than enough frosting -- use the leftovers to dip fruit in! Yum.

Allow the frosting to cool (in the fridge if desired), then cut into pieces and enjoy.

spiced coffee cake

My mom once told me that if you change just one aspect of a recipe, you can claim it as your own, even if you clearly ripped it off from the copyright holder. I know I shouldn't take legal advice from a 20-year-old memory of my mother, who is not qualified to dispense legal advice in any case, but I feel compelled to point this out. Why? Because even though I changed many aspects of this recipe, I still feel like I clearly ripped it off. The recipe in question is the Sour Cream Streusel Coffee Cake from Vegan Vittles.

Vegan Vittles was my first vegan cookbook, and for a long time it was my only cookbook, because I got it back in the mid-'90s, before veganism got taken over by the foodies and their flush of ornate cookbooks. Not that I mind this flush of cookbooks, but although my copy of Vegan Vittles has almost completely fallen apart by now, it remains one of my favorites. I based the below coffee cake recipe on a formula from this book, swapping out okara for the sour cream and amping up the spices, along with a few other minor changes.



Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Lightly spray an 8x8-inch pan with oil.

In a bowl, combine
1/2 cup turbinado sugar
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. allspice
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
and set aside. This is your streusel topping.

In a bowl, combine
2 cups whole-wheat pastry flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
and mix thoroughly. Set aside.

In yet another bowl, whisk together
1/2 cup okara
1 tsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. apple cider vinegar
1 cup apple sauce
1/3 cup maple syrup
2 Tablespoons canola oil
1 tsp. vanilla
until all ingredients are thoroughly incorporated.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, and mix thoroughly. Put one half of the batter into the square baking pan, and sprinkle half of the streusel topping evenly over the surface.



Scrape the rest of the batter into the pan and gently spread it out over the streusel, being careful not to disturb the streusel too much.



Sprinkle the rest of the streusel evenly onto the surface of the cake.



Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 40 minutes.

Verdict: This was almost too easy. The only modification I'd want to make for next time is to amp those spices up even more, perhaps by putting them in the batter as well as in the streusel itself.