Angry Baking 101 (Chocolate-Peanut Butter Lava Cake)

This is a cautionary tale. Usually, Kimberly and I enter the kitchen with equal parts zen and badassness - it's our time to de-stress, to dance around in our matching aprons and giggle a lot. We take time to create something not only delicious but something that is satisfyingly whole.

This was not one of those times. From the moment she walked into our apartment, it was clear that Kimberly was pissed. Her hands shook when she spoke, which for some reason reminded me of her tiny Shih-Tzu Phronsie, caffeinated. We had planned earlier on making some sort of dessert, and though I still had a sizeable amount of homework waiting, I could tell Kimberly needed some chocolate.

Our first mishap occurred approximately 2 minutes into the baking process. 

"Kimberly, did we remember to buy cocoa?"

"..."

And that's how we ended up at QFC at 9:30 at night, sprinting through the aisles to find a can of cocoa.

Despite this setback, things after that seemed to be going pretty smoothly. The recipe, which Kimberly got from a vegan baking class, called for one large baking dish, so we figured that we could get away with putting some of the batter in our one small baking dish, and eating the rest raw. We conservatively filled the baking dish 3/4 of the way full, but when even we could not eat all of the remaining batter, we put another generous heap on top. What the hell.

Little did we know.

15 minutes in,  it was puffy. 25 minutes in, it had a bit of a muffin top. 40 minutes in, we were scrambling to open all the windows and frantically fanning the smoke leaking out of the stovetop. 

You may be wondering why we bothered to write a blog post about a failed cake, but honestly, from where I'm sitting now, I can't really count it as a failure. As I write this, I am sprawled in Kimberly's bed, a pan of gooey, moist, chocolate-y goodness between us, and only one fork (we haven't done dishes in a while). Life is looking pretty damn good. Yeah, we fucked up. But considering we didn't wake up the entire building by setting off the fire alarm at 11:30pm last night and somehow still managed to salvage a surprisingly (mostly) intact cake, I'm pretty satisfied. 

Chocolate-Peanut Butter Lava Cake

Cake Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups sugar

3 cups all purpose flour

3/4 cup cocoa

2 Tbsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups almond milk

1 stick vegan margarine

1/2 creamy peanut butter

4 tsp vanilla

Topping Ingredients:

1/2 sugar

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

3/4 cups cocoa

4 cups hot water

1. Stir all the dry ingredients together in a big bowl.

2. Melt the margarine and cool slightly. Combine the almond milk, margarine, and vanilla and then add to dry mixture.

3. Spread into a lightly oiled LARGE baking dish (at least two 8x8s or one 9x13 - preferably industrial sized)

4. Combine the sugars and the cocoa for the topping and sprinkle over the top of the cake.

5. Pour 4 cups of hot water over the top.

6. Bake at 325 degrees fahrenheit for 35-45 minutes (be careful lifting - it will be heavy)*

Recipe credit: Erica Fickeisen at the Tahoma Bakery (a wonderful person who bakes delicious things - her croissants go faster than a racehorse that has to pee)

Wild Rice Risotto with Roasted Butternut Squash

Kate and I have wanted to start a food blog for about as long as we have known we were both crazy about food.  It started as a pipe dream, but we couldn't quite imagine how it would work.  First of all, we couldn't imagine ever being in a place that had an actual kitchen instead of the closet that masqueraded as a kitchen in our small dorm hall (this is not exaggeration - we do think it was once a closet).  At the time, I was also vacillating between veganism and vegetarianism and wasn't quite sure where I stood on food ethically, and Kate, as an omnivore, was starting to question her own eating choices.  It still sounds odd to some people that an omnivore and a vegan are able to happily cook together, let alone write a blog about it, but to us it seems natural.  We both love food, we both eat food that makes us happy, and we're both perfectly content letting the other person do the same.  We're really excited to be starting this project, and thought it would be fitting to post one of the first dishes we cooked together as roommates in our real, grown-up, adult kitchen (complete with more than one pan - thank you, Christmas).  This dish definitely established some good food juju in our apartment (and believe me, food juju is nothing to laugh at), and was lucky enough to fall on a night where Kate's relatives had provided us with some real adult wine - aka, not cheap.
      

Wild Rice Risotto with Roasted Butternut Squash

1 large butternut squash

2 cups wild rice

2 tbsp olive oil, divided

1 large onion, diced

5 cloves garlic, minced

1 cup white wine

1 tsp thyme

about 8 cups vegetable broth or vegetable bouillon

1/2 cup almond milk

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.  Peel and cube the butternut squash and toss it with 1 tbsp olive oil.  Spread out on a cookie sheet or in a baking dish and roast for about 30 minutes, or until squash is tender and cooked all the way through.

2. In the meantime, heat the remaining olive oil in a large skillet.  Saute the rice, garlic, and onion for a couple of minutes, until the onion is translucent and the rice is toasted and fragrant.  

3.  Add the white wine and thyme, and simmer until most of the liquid is gone. 

4.  Add the vegetable broth 1 cup at a time, stirring constantly, and waiting until most of the liquid in the skillet is gone before adding another cup.  When the rice is cooked, add the almond milk and stir over medium heat until most of the liquid is gone and the risotto is creamy.