Yellow Cake w/ Chocolate Tofu Frosting!!

Cakes often equal celebrations: birthdays, weddings, graduations, baby showers, and the list goes on. For those who try to avoid animal products, cakes can prove a bit of a challenge. There are some bakeries now that make vegan cakes, but these can prove to be quite pricey. So what are you to do when a cake-worthy occasion looms and you don’t want to break your pocketbook?  Make one! My sister Karina, the “professional” baker of the family, has made many scrumptious, beautiful, AND VEGAN cakes, including a wedding cake! While I have much less experience in making vegan cakes than she does, I do occasionally try my hand at it. So, here is my most recent creation. It is a delicious yellow cake with chocolate frosting. You should definitely give this one a try!

Vegan Yellow Cake

1 ½ cups raw or turbinado sugar (alternative: brown sugar)
¾ cup extra virgin coconut oil (alternative: vegan margarine or natural cooking oil)
4 cups flour (white flour can be used or optional blends such as 2 cups barley flour and 2 cups unbleached white flour, or 2 cups white flour and 2 cups whole wheat pastry flour)
1 ½ Tablespoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
3 cups soymilk, rice milk, or other non-dairy milk
1 Tablespoon of vanilla

Preheat oven to 350°F. Coat a 9 x 13-inch pan with some oil, or a non-stick cooking spray. Soften coconut oil in a small pan over low heat if it is not warm enough for the oil to be liquid at room temperature. Place oil in a bowl and cream with sugar and vanilla. In a separate bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and salt until well combined. Add flour mixture and non-dairy milk alternately to the oil/sugar mixture and mix until all is evenly incorporated. Pour mixture into prepared pan and bake for 30-35 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Let cake cool completely before frosting.

Tip: Make frosting first so it can begin to set in the refrigerator while cake is baking.

Chocolate Tofu Frosting

½ pound (8 oz.) firm silken tofu
½ cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 ½ cups vegan chocolate chips

Melt chocolate chips in a double boiler or microwave. Place tofu in food processor and whip until smooth, scraping down sides several times. Add sugar and vanilla and process. Pour melted chocolate chips into tofu mixture and blend completely.

Variation: If you don´t own a food processor, I just used my handheld electric beater to first beat tofu until fairly smooth, and then added the sugar and vanilla (mix powdered sugar into tofu a bit before turning on the beater so sugar doesn´t fly everywhere), and finally add the melted chocolate chips. It worked well for me.

Refrigerate frosting for at least 4 hours or overnight to allow it to set before spreading on cooled cake.

As a side note, I try to make treats for my family that are not only tasty, but also at least somewhat nutritious. So although this cake does have sugar and a sweet chocolate frosting, I incorporated another whole grain (barley) besides wheat, as well as coconut oil, which has some very healthful properties. If you are concerned about the powdered white sugar not being vegan, (some vegans don’t use white sugar since it is sometimes processed with bone char for whitening) I believe that organic white sugar, including organic powdered sugar, is fine. From what I understand, standards of purity for organic foods do not permit processing with bone char, so organic white sugar is bone char free. 

 

21 Years and Changing

My friend celebrated her 21^st birthday a couple of weeks ago. Twenty-one.

She still has the long, flowing hair that I have admired since first meeting her eight or so years ago.  She is unchanged in other ways too, such as in her distinct air of propriety and elegance that has always led me to suspect that she must have royalty in her blood. Her stubbornness and underlying mischievousness still spring forth and make her who she is. But, of course, she is also different from the girl I first knew, whether she recognizes it or not. Life and experiences, frustration and laughter, words and images, have changed us all.  

I step back for a moment and look around. Another friend departs. I make a fresh acquaintance. An idea crumbles. I hear a strange echo. I lack words in a new situation.  It´s uncomfortable trying to identify how to react, how to prepare for what you don´t know, how to stand alone when before you had company, how to call a new number when you have the old one memorized.

Change. Life brings it. God sometimes requires it. The thought of it thrills us. The reality of it shakes our core.

And so, my wish for my young friend is this…that the change life brings may gracefully mold her into increasing richness of character, and that those changes will simultaneously reveal to her the dimensions and strength of the unmovable foundation whereon she stands.

ON FIRES AND LIFE

I bound down the stairs a couple of steps at a time. Gravity faithfully helps me accumulate speed on the descent. As I land at the bottom, I see my mom tidying up the living room.

“It´s much colder down here compared to my room,” I say with a slight shiver. 

“It is,” mom assents softly as she stacks some freshly folded laundry.

The wood stove sits cold and black a few feet away.

I glance at the floor and pause before finally announcing, “Maybe I should offer to start the fire.”

Mom smiles a bit as she turns to go upstairs carrying some clothes. “That would be nice,” she replies with a hint of surprise and irony in her tone.

Newspaper and kindling. Tiny splinters in my hand from the fir bark. But I can´t get my previous statement out of my head. Something about the phrase calls me down a trail of thought. “Maybe I should offer to start the fire.”

If you think the statement betrays selfishness, reluctance, lack of enthusiasm, and laziness on my part, you couldn´t be more right. I want someone else to do it. My own words are an attempt to convince myself that I´m it. Audibly persuading myself to be a “hero” and keep the house warm for my mom.  However, the same words condemn me and confront me with dark revelation.

That deeper revelation is that I avoid starting fires at all costs. It matters little what kind of fire—controversial fires that instigate change, revolutionary fires that inspire, compassionate fires that bring hope. I am instinctively drawn to these fires and admire their power. But when it comes to starting one, I wait. I almost ALWAYS wait. I save my energy. I shiver a bit inside. I stare out the window for a while and dream of warming my hands. I pray for God to send an expert fire-builder. I promise to help tend the fire once the flames are strong, as long as someone else starts the fire.  

Striking the match becomes a very deliberate act.  The blossom of flame grows and begins to blaze. Warmth emanates.  I forget so often that the fire benefits me just as much as those around me. A desire fills me. Perhaps one day. Yes, perhaps in the near future, I will rush towards opportunity. I will start fires without thinking twice about waiting for someone else to do it. I will pick up some wood and strike a match without pausing first to consider whether "maybe I should offer to start the fire."