Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Vegan Hazelnut Chocolate Cake and oh so many updates!


I made this deliciously hazelnutty chocolate dessert for my dad's birthday. Thought it would be a great come back recipe to share here after a long hiatus from blogging.

Vegan Hazelnut Chocolate Cake

Before the recipe though, I thought I'd give you a few updates about what's happening with me.

It's been nearly a month since my last blog post and longer than that since my last recipe post. I feel bad to have ignored my blog all these weeks, however, the reason for this is that there are so many interesting things happening in my *real* life that I haven't had much time to be online. :)

VGF

The last I wrote here, I was talking about the VGF event that hubby and I were in the process of organising (with help from my parents and sis) for 24th February 2013. The vegan fair was overwhelmingly successful! :) The response was just wonderfully heartening! People, vegans and non vegans alike, turned up in droves even before we were ready to begin the event.

I had made double dark chocolate chunk walnut orange cookies, cinnamon rolls, pizzas with a chunky herbed tomato sauce and foxtail millet puliyogare to sell at my table. VGF started at 12 noon and by 2:15 pm, my stall had been cleaned out. Haha

It worked out perfectly too because I was scheduled to do a demo on extracting mylk out of peanuts and turning it into curds at 2 pm, so as soon as I ran out of food to sell, I was able to rush to the demo area without having to worry about my stall.

By 4 pm, most tables had sold out their goodies. Even though we'd scheduled the event to be from noon to 7 pm, by 5:30, we'd all started to pack up. :)

It was nice to see have so much support and interest from everyone. Many people even hung around for a few hours just eating and chatting, without being in any rush to leave.

Our friend Sharath captured some beautiful photographs at the event.

VGF - photo by Sharath Ramanna

VGF - photo by Sharath Ramanna

VGF - photo by Sharath Ramanna

VGF - photo by Sharath Ramanna

You can view the whole VGF album on his Facebook page Sharath Ramanna Photography.

The whole VGF experience was so encouraging that we've decided to make it a regular vegan event. Something to have 3-4 times a year. We're also full of ideas to make the next event even *more* interesting and fun for everyone.

Vegan cooking demo

A couple of weeks ago, I was contacted by a person about doing a vegan cooking demo at a local restaurant. I've been in talks with the people involved and planning out the menu and recipes. We're going to have a tasting session later this week and then I'll announce all the details of the event here. :)

More on the Vegan front

Apart from VGF and this demo, I have been busy with one more project that is going to take veganism in Bangalore to a whole new level. Something awesome is going to happen within the next few weeks. I'm not going to give anything away since things are still at the planning stage right now, but I will say that I'm *really* excited about this! You'll just have to wait and see what the big deal is all about. :D

Stuffing my face

Other than being busy hatching plots to turn the world vegan, I've also been getting plump eating at the very first all vegan restaurant that has opened up here in Bangalore. WOOHOO!

Carrots launched a little over a month ago. Even before they were officially open for business, Krishna (whose baby Carrots is), invited us over for a series of food tasting sessions. The chef, Anantha, isn't vegan but he does cook some really delicious plant based fare. It was nice to be involved with the menu creation process, give inputs and share vegan recipes and tips with him.

Now every time I want to eat out with friends, the first place that comes to mind is Carrots. Ah the joys of being spoilt for choice!

I'll do a full feature on the restaurant here on my blog at some point in the near future, but until then, I wanted to mention the place here so I could tell those of you who live in and around Bangalore to definitely visit and enjoy a meal at Carrots. And those who aren't close by, Carrots is a great reason to plan your next holiday at Bangalore. :)

Here are a few pics I clicked of the dishes at Carrots to entice you.

Carrots Vegan Restaurant

Carrots Vegan Restaurant

Carrots Vegan Restaurant

My virtual life

Even though I haven't been updating my blog as regularly as I used to, I have been sharing food related posts via two of my favourite phone apps - Instagram and HowDo.

If you're on Instagram, you can find me @veganosaurus. If you're not, or you're getting over your Instagram app addition, you can still view all my photos on your computer's browser at my online Instagram profile page - Veganosaurus without any need to login.

I'm really enjoying clicking photos on my phone and applying the filters on the app to them. I also regularly share my Instagram pics with my related Facebook pages. The food photos go onto Veganosaurus and the jewellery photos go on to Art by Susmitha.

I have been addicted to HowDo for a while now but ever since they enabled the feature to embed HowDo clips onto websites and blogs, my obsession with the app has reached a whole new level! It's not easy clicking step by step pictures during the process of cooking/baking. For one thing the phone can get quite messy, what with being handled with ingredient covered hands. Regardless, these days, I often have the phone next to me on the kitchen counter so that I can grab pics as I prepare food.

Once the food is ready and I have the final pic, I sit down and record the voice clips (often with additional sounds like the blender running or microwave beeping) and put the HowDo together. I then upload my HowDo tutorial and watch it at least two times with deep satisfaction. I really seem to like the sound of my own voice. Narcissistic much? :P

I recently created a dedicated HowDo section on my blog where you can see all my tutorials in one place. I'm hoping I will update it with more discipline than I do my blog's recipe index. :D

Vegan Hazelnut Chocolate Cake

Now that I've made you read all my updates, I'll finally get to today's recipe. I've created a HowDo tutorial for it. It's a lot more fun to click pics and record instructions by talking rather than typing it all out. I'm sure you'll have more fun watching the clip than reading the recipe.

I'll list out the ingredients for your benefit though.

For the cake:
150 gms hazelnuts
3/4 C cocoa powder
1 C whole wheat flour
3/4 C brown sugar
2 T flax seed powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 T apple cider vinegar
1 C water

For the cream:
100 gms hazelnuts
1 T cocoa powder
2-3 T sugar
pinch of salt
1/4 C water

Procedure:





Enjoy! :)

2 comments:

  1. Everything looks so delicious, lucky you!
    And thank you for sharing the recipe for the vegan hazelnut chocolate cake. I'm a big fan of the chocolate and hazelnut combination! :)

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  2. You've been missed, but it sounds like you've been up to SOOOO much fun! That hazelnut chocolate cake is to die for!!! xx

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