A Belated Christmas Goody

These days I’ve been so uninspired to blog. Not that I haven’t been cooking and baking. I have and have been taking photos too! I’ve just been feeling too lazy to type down the recipes. There are days that I just want to linger around, away from the computer.

I’ve also been feeling a bit sluggish these few days. So, I did some yoga today in the afternoon. It’s amazing how yoga revitalizes all my senses no matter how short the session! I always have to drag myself to start doing it and as soon as I start the session I feel so great and so relaxed. And afterward so energized! I say to myself, I'll do this everyday. But the next day, I just keep postponing to the next. There was a time when I used to be very regular with my yoga. And initially when starting to write this blog, I intended to talk about yoga too. But I think moving country has upset my rhythm. So now that I have blogged about it, I should keep up to it and that should motivate me!

I have been trying to catch up a little bit with reading all your posts! I can’t!!! I’ve got so many blogs in my reader now! Every time I read a post, I find a new interesting blog from the comments and I add it to my list. It’s like veg*n blogs are experiencing some kind of boom!
I think this is a good thing though! It means the world is changing, right?! Cool! :)

Well, anyway... I made the mocha cake I made for Christmas again. And this time I’ll post the recipe. I hadn’t written down the recipe back then; I wanted to make sure I had got it right and tried it once again before posting.

I used less oil (than the first one) but it was still very nice and quite spongy. You can increase the oil if you want a richer cake, then just reduce the other liquids.
One other thing I did differently is the icing. Last time I made a ganache by melting some chocolate over low heat together with a few tablespoons of soy milk and a tablespoon of instant coffee granules. Stirred and mixed well then poured it over the cake. This time, I made the icing with cocoa powder. Both are great icing although I personally prefer this second version because it’s lighter.

There are a few more recipes that I have been making and that I have yet to post. So, some more are coming up soon!


Simple Mocha Cake

Ingredients (8 – 10 servings)

Dry ingredients:
1½ cups all-purpose flour
¾ cup soft brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
2 tablespoons instant coffee granules (I used freeze dried coffee)
Pinch salt

Wet ingredients (all together should amount to 1½ cups or 300 ml):
¾ cup (150 ml) soy milk
2 tablespoons vinegar (I used malt)
⅔ cup (130 ml) coconut milk
2 tablespoons vegetable oil (you can add more oil and reduce the coconut milk)

Icing (all leveled tablespoons):
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
3 tablespoons vegan margarine
3 tablespoons soy milk
1 tablespoon instant coffee granules
5 tablespoons soft brown sugar

• Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

• Add the vinegar to the soy milk and let it thicken. Then add in the coconut milk and vegetable oil.
• Mix all dry ingredients together.
• Pour the wet ingredients onto the dry and mix well. Do not beat.
• Mix gently but thoroughly until no dry ingredients are left at the bottom.
• Pour mixture into a greased baking tin. (I used a rectangular one 23 cm x 15 cm or 9 x 6 inches but you can use a smaller baking dish as it is a relatively small cake)
• Bake for 35 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.
• Let cool completely before turning out.

Prepare icing:

• Place all ingredients for the icing in a saucepan over low-medium heat.
• Stir as the margarine melts to mix all ingredients together.
• When all is dissolved and mixture starts to thicken (or just before first boil), remove from heat.
• Pour over cake.
• Dust with some icing sugar (optional).