Vegan chocolate cake

Someone very special to us turned 2 yesterday. Unfortunately, we were not with him to celebrate. He does not know about us yet, but (hopefully) soon, our lives will be completely and intricately connected. It was a difficult day for me - celebrating the birthday of a son we don't yet know, but love and want. Yes, we are adopting a little boy - he lives with his foster family in India and we are waiting ..
To celebrate his birthday, I baked a chocolate cake and V and I ate the cake last evening. As I was searching for recipes for a cake, I came across this collection of Moosewood recipes. About 8-10 years ago, when I started getting into cooking more, V's aunt, cousin and I discovered this treasure trove of books from Moosewood and I used to use the recipe books regularly. I may have said this before - but, it's the one book that I don't substitute much. I follow the recipes pretty closely. Then, the blogs opened up new worlds and I have not used the recipe books as much.

The vegan chocolate cake recipe looked easy enough and not too much of a hassle. I made it in the pan as described in the recipe and cut down the sugar to half a cup (I just felt that one cup may be too much). I added a few chocolate chips in the batter - for a surprise chocolate taste!

For the glaze (which I liked more than the cake), I added a tsp of orange flavoring to add a little orange twist to the cake. To make it more fun (and because V likes it), I added cherries to the top of the glaze before cooling it!

Verdict - The cake was a little crumbly and not too sweet. It tasted great with the glaze and I loved the addition of the orange flavor. I was not a huge fan of the cake without the glaze, but I never complain about chocolate!!

Carvel-ish Cake

Now my husband really, really, really loves Carvel cakes. We have been known to pick one up for many a random special occasion. Now that he is avoiding dairy products, I got a bit worried as his birthday approached. I tried to get a little creative and my final product is seen here:

There were some problems. I tried to spread the ice "cream" into a springform pan with the ridiculous idea that it would slip easily out of this pan and I could simpy flip it over revealing a perfectly circular cake from which would then just need a few decorative elements. Um...no dice. Ice cream stuck pitifully to the pan so I just added some chocolate suace to the top and crushed up some peanuts. Everyone was (relatively) happy.

Here is how you too can make a Carvel-ish cake/pie/whatever for your vegan loved one:

Tofutti Carvel-ish Cake

Ingredients

• 2 tubs vanilla Tofutti ice cream
• 2 tubs chocolate Tofutti ice cream
• 1-1 1/2 cup crushed vegan chocolate cookies (I use Mi-Del Chocolate Snaps)
• decorative elements-frosting, chocolate sauce, nuts, etc. (This is all you, I can only take you so far)

You will need a deep pie plate, round cake pan, square cake pan, or do what I did and use a springform although it is unnecessary. Let tofutti warm just a bit (it is typically pretty soft). Scoop chocolate onto the bottom of you pan spreading across as much as possible. Place wax paper over the top and press down to make it as flat as possible. Cover with crushed cookies. You may want to freeze slightly now before adding next layer. Repeat process with vanilla Tofutti. I topped it with "Chocolate Glaze" (http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=6489.0) which was challenging since it is a warm glaze and, therefore, melted some of my ice cream. Oh well, you live you learn, you stuff your face with the mistakes. I also added some crushed peanuts around the edges sort of like Fudgey the Whale. This cake needs to be frozen at least over night if you want it to slice well but if you cannot wait, grab a spoon and enjoy!