A Couple of Good Spreads

Recently I tried a very interesting cake recipe from my friends blog The Cooks Notebook.

Mel had a secret ingredient in her recipe that no one could pick! Mushrooms! WOW – I just had to try this straight away as I love mushrooms and hadn’t had a fix for a while. As described, this is a VERY decadent cake! Full of almonds and chocolate, it’s dense and moist and extremely tasty! The mushrooms almost melt away and I am tempted to make it again and add more to the mix – just to see what happens! And it so happened that I was looking for a vehicle to test drive my new vegan chocolate frosting that I had been experimenting with. In her recipe, Mel uses a simple ganache to top the cake but I thought that my frosting worked extremely well. And considering that it is based on sweet potato and avocado, I figured that a meal of this cake would be a vege packed balanced meal!!

The frosting is easily made in any food processor or “nutri-bullet” so it’s made in a minute, although it is best left to stand for about 30 minutes in the fridge to firm up. It is beautifully smooth and buttery, despite having no butter!

A word on coconut oil: Just recently, I have gone off coconut oil. I don’t know why.. Maybe its the brand I bought but I am finding the flavour a little too intense for me and not sitting too well in my gut. So I am listening to my body and avoiding it for a while. I have made up a substitute that gives me a similar texture for this purpose and that is an olive oil/cacao butter mix, mixed together in a 60:40 ratio. I have gently melted together 120g light olive oil and 80g cacao butter and poured it into a jar and I use it when a recipe calls for coconut oil. Of course, this is only for sweet cooking as the cacao butter imparts a gorgeously velvety chocolate flavour, which I think is better than coconut oil anyway! And olive oil has been proven to have just as good health benefits to coconut oil too.

Another recipe I have been sitting on is my tahini butter recipe that I love to spread on toasted banana bread or paleo toast.  Only a few ingredients whipped together can turn something from ordinary to sublime! If you use unhulled tahini the flavour will be stronger so experiment with the quantities to your own taste. You can always substitute the above cacao butter mix for butter if you are dairy free. The honey, though, is non-negotiable! It is so lovely in this combination that brown rice syrup (or coconut syrup) just won’t be the same.

SWEET POTATO CHOCOLATE FROSTING

200g cooked sweet potato flesh

80g coconut oil (or 80g of the above cacao butter mix)

80g maple syrup

4 tabs cocoa powder

2 tabs rapadura sugar

120g avocado

Make sure the sweet potato is well cooked so that it is soft and smooth. I find the best result is baking the potato in its skin and using it while it is still warm as it will help dissolve the sugar and the cacao butter.

Whip all of the ingredients together until smooth and set aside in the fridge to firm up. This will make enough frosting to fill and cover a family chocolate cake.

TAHINI BUTTER

100g butter (unsalted is best)

1 tab tahini

1 -2 tab honey

Whip together and set aside in the fridge to firm up. Serve on toast or crumpets or scones!