Vegan Chocolate Bundt Cake

This past weekend I attended my first Kirtan chanting event at Laughing Lotus yoga studio, and to get myself hyped up before I went to it, I flipped through the December 2009 issue of Yoga Journal. I bought it in November at the same time as a couple of other magazines, and I must not have had the time to look through it, or else my baking radar might have detected Rachel Meyer's article about a year of baking cakes, and the included vegan chocolate bundt cake recipe (adapted from Veganomicon). Or, maybe when I read it the first time, my senses just weren't as finely tuned to seek out bundt cake recipes as they have been ever since my boyfriend gave me my first bundt cake pan for Christmas. At any rate, I was inspired: the picture in the magazine just looked delicious, and I already had all of the ingredients handy, so I saw no reason not to give this cake a try.

I don't usually bake vegan things due to a few sub-par baking experiences I had in high school (when I was a vegetarian) and the general lack of personality I feel most of the vegan baked goods I've eaten since then have had, even from some of the most well-reputed bakeries. It also doesn't help that most vegan cookbooks (at least the ones I've owned) aren't published with pictures, and without a preview I'm not always inclined to trust that I'm going to be happy with whatever comes out of the oven. But the picture in this magazine depicted the most modest, no-frills, confident-looking cake, with only that light dusting of powdered sugar to wear; no sign of the overly dense, crumbly, dry consistency I've come to expect from my vegan baked goods. And I can say the same positive things about the the cake I ended up with, too: it was moist, chocolatey, and surprisingly as satisfying as any non-vegan cake.

I made this cake with intention to feed it to my friends on Sunday quesadilla night, but after dinner everyone was too full to eat much so I brought the rest to work the next day, where it was devoured! A lot of my coworkers liked it so much they even asked for the recipe, which I posted after the cut.

Chocolate-Covered Cherries

Every Christmas, I give my dad a box of cordial cherries. They're a favorite in his family, probably because his mother used to make them from scratch when he was a kid. I wasn't old enough to try my grandmother's cherries before she passed away, but I do remember my grandfather and my great-grandmother always keeping the boxes of Queen Anne's cherries around when we would visit them during the holidays; I'm not sure if we always ate the store-bought ones, or if that was a tradition that started after my grandmother died, but they're a tradition in our family nevertheless, a treat that literally drips with nostalgia for those Christmases past.

When I was a kid, taking my time, painstakingly sipping the sugary liquid out of a small bite in my cordial cherry, I would wonder what magical powers my grandmother must have had to be able to make these. How does one go about making something with a liquid center? Made confident by my previous candy-making endeavor, I decided to do some research and attempt making my own chocolate-covered cherries. Without my grandmother's recipe, I went to Allrecipes for instructions, and found they are really not all that difficult to make, though they do take some patience.

Chocolate-Dipped Mint Wafers

I'm going home today, so last night I decided to make some cookies to bring home (and procrastinate about packing!): Chocolate-Dipped Mint Wafers (or Girl Scout "Thin Mints").

Chocolate-Champagne Truffles

Working at a design studio, I've seen some beautiful holiday confections circulating the office for the past couple of weeks (supplied by both clients and crafty coworkers alike), and I've been waiting and hoping for things to calm down so that I would have my own chance to get in the kitchen and bake something pretty for my coworkers too (because when the rare opportunity to make small personal food gifts arises, one must take advantage of it!). This weekend I had my chance: my friends went out of town and I got up early to finish my holiday errands before the afternoon shopping rush, leaving one whole day to myself to cook up whatever confection I pleased. Not to mention we had a big beautiful snowfall on Saturday night to make staying in the next day feel even more romantic and cozy.

My first thought was to make some kind of rolled-and-cut-out cookie like I did in my previous entry, since I had so much success with the sugar cookies. However, two of my coworkers eat gluten-free and I wanted to make something we could all enjoy, so I decided to make chocolate truffles instead. Two kinds: champagne truffles rolled in powdered sugar, and Grand Marnier truffles dipped in dark chocolate and garnished with candied orange peel.