Black Forest Cheezecake + a Birthday Picnic

Recently Planet Vegmel turned three! To celebrate there was a picnic at the Edinburgh Gardens, as well as our favourite new tradition of making a zine. This year's zine features secrets of not the inner North, and you should all download it!

I made the super awesome vausage rolls because I really wanted Wendy to try them (having spent the last six months in Beijing talking them up to her), but this meant bringing a gluteny savoury that K couldn't eat! To compensate, I went to extra special effort with my sweets contribution: vegan, gluten-free black forest cheezecake.


This recipe was inspired by a piece of cake I had at the Heavenly Plate on a recent trip to Perth which was amazing and I was so excited to try making some sort of black forest cheezecake myself. This version isn't quite right, there are several changes I have in mind for the next iteration, but for a first attempt (and my first cheezecake in over a year) it was not bad at all.

I used the triple threat chocolate cheesecake in My Sweet Vegan as inspiration/guidance for proportions.

black forest cheezecake

ingredients

1 packet of chocolate biscuits (I used the leda tim tam substitutes)
third of a cup of sugar (I used a mix of white and coconut sugars)
two tablespoons margarine


3 tubs of vegan cream cheese (approx 700g)
300g silken tofu
300g dark chocolate
three quarters of a cup of white sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
shake of salt

a can of berries, preferably cherries but mixed will do
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon cornstarch
quarter cup sugar
extra chocolate for drizzling

method

Crush the biscuits, mix with the third of a cup of sugar and the margarine. Add some extra chocolate in the form of cocoa if you like. Press into a lined 22 cm cheesecake or springform pan for a thin crust, or a smaller pan for a slightly thicker crust.

Mix together the cream cheese, tofu, vanilla extract, salt and the three quarter cup of sugar until smooth. Melt the chocolate and combine through until looking delightfully brown. Pour carefully into pan on top of crust, and drop the pan a time or two to smooth it out if necessary. Bake at 175C for about 50 minutes.

After it has cooled (I usually do this overnight), over heat bring together the can of berries (mostly drained, but with a little of the syrup), the cornstarch and the lemon juice with the remaining sugar. Stir over heat until it's come together like a jam, and let cool a bit. Then pour it over the cake. When this has cooled a little more, melt the remaining chocolate and drizzle it over. Serve and eat it, it's so good.

Changes I would like to make in the future: an extra berry layer on top of the base; a thicker base (maybe half again); something "white creamish" like a real black forest cake (maybe a white chocolate tofu layer); fresh cherries on top.

roasted nomliciousness at the perth squid house

When I was in Perth, my Mum was not the only person to cook for me! Towards the end of my sojourn in Perth, and a mere four hours after my good friend Dr G had returned from European Adventures, I meandered across the city to have dinner with Dr G, Gilli, Paul, Kandace and Rick, and sleep over the night. Sleepovers are the best!



We sat around and chatted for ages, before we sent Rick off to the kitchen to prepare a roasted feast, for which I had (in advance) declared my desire. Rick is an excellent roaster of noms, and on this occasion he was no less excellent than usual.



Our roasted feast featured potatoes, pumpkin, field mushrooms, and carrots, with some last minute peas for some extra colour. We also went old school, with some white bread and thick lashings of, well, in my case, nuttelex, but I believe in their cases some sort of dairy containing margarine.

I love a good roast, and the potatoes and pumpkin were perfect oh yeah. Coincidentally (or not, actually, it's just a good place for a story), it was Dr G who first introduced me to the joys of roasted field mushrooms just over a year ago. Since that initial introduction, I have not looked back, roasting field mushrooms with every roasting opportunity, though Dr G continues to make fun of me for always taking the stem off first (I find it tastier, as the stem can roll about in the pumpkin juices this way).



After a brief pause, we moved on to dessert. Kandace had modified a lemon and poppyseed recipe for her first attempt at vegan cupcakes, and I am pleased to report that these were a success. We ate these with mango sorbet and chocolate soya (the soya was from the Junction Icecreamery, which remains my favourite icecreamery ever). We conducted some tests to determine the exact proportions of icecream to cupcake necessary to get a hint of icecream flavour without overwhelming the cupcake, a task at which I think all of us succeeded. It was a pretty delicious taste combination.



Sleepovers! I highly recommend them. Also roasted noms.

the potluck i did not attend plus parsley + cashew pasta and halava

I went to class instead! And turned up late and sampled some things (PIE), and got bitten by mosquitoes and, later, looked at photos of things I didn't get to eat.

The theme of this potluck, hosted by Craig and Bec at their new house, was 'not to kill James.' James requires a salicylate-free diet, and salicylates are in everything, as they're a naturally occurring plant hormone that is in a lot of fruits, vegetables, herbs, and spices. The list of things that couldn't be used was huge, and I spent a few days, on and off, brainstorming ideas. No fruits (other than bananas or pears with no skin), no leafy vegetables, no tomatoes, no chilli...

Pip posted about the potluck already, which helped me name all the dishes I never saw because I got there too late.

Because I got there too late, I don't have any commentary on the foods! But you can see photos of everything at the flickr set.

As I was at work all day, and went straight from work to class, D was in charge of cooking for the potluck. So I take no responsibility for any mistakes in these recipes!



parsley and cashew pasta

ingredients
a big handful of cashews
1/3 block of tofu
1/3 bunch of fresh parsley
nutritional yeast
3/4 cup of soymilk
1 onion (diced)
1 garlic clove (minced)
some extra cashews

cooked pasta

method
Blend cashews, tofu, parsley, nutritional yeast, and soymilk. In the meantime, brown onion, garlic, and the extra cashew nuts. Add contents from blender. Simmer. Add cooked pasta, stir through.

Serve hot or cold



halava (modified from the hare krishna book of vegetarian cooking)

ingredients
not quite three cups of water
one and a half cups of sugar
10 saffron strands
half a cup of walnuts + pecans, chopped
200g butter
and and a half cups of semolina

method
Simmer water, sugar, and saffron over heat. In the meantime melt butter in a saucepan, add semolina, and stir-fry for about fifteen minutes, until the butter begins to separate. Lower the heat, and slowly pour in the liquids, whilst constantly stirring. Stir to remove lumps, then add the nuts. Cover and simmer for three minutes, to soak in all the liquid. Eat hot.

nudel bar, melbourne

I met up with A for lunch today, and as she is gluten-free and I have no idea where to eat in the middle of Melbourne, I brought along the Melbourne Veg Guide for its first outing. On the tram I set my heart upon Nudel Bar, so we wandered up Bourke St. We were both happy with our meals. I didn't bring my camera so I wasn't going to bother blogging it, until we got to dessert and our (very delightful) waiter informed me that the nyonya pandan pancake was vegan.

I have to tell you, without delay or hesitation, internets, I love pandan. When I smell pandan, I cannot help but think of Penang. When I taste pandan, I think of Penang. And to be able to eat this amazing pandan nyonya treat, with slivers of coconut through the centre! It was amazing. I was so freaking excited.

Given lunch had been a very excellent char kueh teow, just the right amount of wok hei and not too many vegetables, well. It wasn't enough to make up for not being in Penang (as my mother has been this week), but it certainly helped.

This photo was provided by A's camera phone.



Nudel Bar
76 Bourke St
Melbourne

orgram chocolate mousse

We had a friend over for dinner last week, and we didn't want to have yet another meal with no dessert, so we rummaged around in the pantry and found a packet of Orgram Chocolate Mousse. We cut it with triple sec, and chopped up some chocolate-orange pieces which we added to the bottom and sprinkled on the top. It was pretty awesome! I love the Orgram stuff.

east brunswick club, dessert edition

These posts are all terribly out of order!



Had a great meal at the EBC last time we were in Melbourne, but sadly was too full to partake of the all-vegan desserts. With the RBP winding up just after five, and the drive all the way back from Belgrave, we were hungry by the time we hit Brunswick, and we all met up at the EBC for some very slow service. It took forever for some meals to arrive, and my dessert took about 45 minutes, but it was very delicious, and it did give me time to make room in my tummy for the tasty mint and choc chip brownies. They were a little bit warm, and covered in a sweet sauce, and they were totally worth the wait.

D had a slice of cookies and cream cheesecake, and was super super happy with it, though it was a bit too sweet for me.