Cacao Pudding

This is more of a pudding than a cake but I absolutely love this recipe, its very rich and like nothing I've ever tasted before. It's main ingredient is cacao, which is very simply ground up cocoa beans and nothing else.

This simple recipe was given to me by a friend, the taste of the cacao is quite intense and very different from chocolate because of it being in it's simplest form. You can get cacao from most health food shops, it tends to come in two forms, ground up or in nibs. For this recipe use the ground up stuff, and if you like quite bitter tastes the nibs are good to munch on! But it can be rather an acquired taste.



There are two tree ingredients in this one, Cacao and Coconut. The picture above shows the cocoa pod growing directly from the trunk (Photo taken by Fev August 2003). The Agave Syrup used in this recipe is a natural sweetener that is mainly used in raw food cooking or as a substitute for honey. It comes from the Agave plant which is commercially produced in Mexico.

Ingredients

250g ground cacao
1 tin of coconut milk
half a bar of coconut cream
4-5 tbsp agave syrup
some chopped nuts and dried fruit (optional)

Directions

• Put the coconut milk in a pan and heat gently, add about half a bar of coconut cream to this and stir until its melted.

• Add the ground cacao and stir until its all mixed in.

• Take it off the heat and add the agave syrup, this can be done to taste if you prefer it sweeter add more!
  

• Add your favorite chopped nuts and fruit, goji berries go really well in it, but you can just use anything you find in your cupboard really.
  

• Pour into small tubs and place in the fridge, it is also nice to thinly slice up some banana and us it as a topping.
  

• After a couple of hours the mixture will set, and its ready to eat, enjoy.
  

Kate's Tip: The agave syrup is quite expensive and a bit of a luxury item and can be replaced with just sugar or any type of alternative sweetener desired.

Vegan Coconut Cupcakes and Climate Change

These coconut cupcakes were made by one of our TREE AID colleagues, the recipe was inspired by the cookbook "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World?" by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero which you can buy from our bookshop. It makes me happy to put up a vegan recipe as most people think once you cut down on diary and animal products you are restricted to only eating lentils and salad. However, there are loads of ways of making amazing cakes suitable for the vegan diet!

Veganism or simply reducing the amount of diary is a great way of cutting down your carbon footprint. In fact, a vegetarian who eats lots of diary can have a bigger carbon footprint than a meat-eater. We shouldn't be too harsh on restricting our lifestyles, but being aware of how our lifestyles contribute to climate change is really important. This is even more poignant when we realise that the people who are most affected by climate change are those which have contributed the least.

So try this vegan cupcake recipe and see if cakes can taste just as good dairy free! The recipe below is slightly modified from the cookbook to how our colleague, Lynne, at TREE AID made them. There are 4 tree ingredients, coconut, papaya, cocoa, and almond.






Ingredients

230g all purpose flour
75g cocoa powder
1 ½ tspn baking powder
¼ tspn salt
4tbsp coconut oil/ vegetable oil works just as well
240ml coconut milk
175g granulated sugar
1 tspn vanilla extract
2 tspn coconut extract/almond extract
115g unsweetened shredded coconut

Recipe

• preheat oven to gas mark 4 or 180 degree
  
  
• in a medium bowl, sift together flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt.
  
  
• Melt the coconut oil in a small saucepan over a very low heat. Once melted, turn the heat off but leave it in the pan on the stove so that it stays warm and does not solidify.
  
  
• In a separate medium bowl mix together coconut milk, sugar, vanilla, and coconut extract. Stir in the melted coconut oil. Add the flour mixture in batches, beating well after each addition. Mix until smooth, then fold in the shredded coconut.
  
  
• Fill cupcake liners two-thirds full. Bake for 24-26 mins. Transfer to a wire rack and cool completely.
  
  
  For Topping:
  
  Lynne simply melted vegan chocolate over the top mixed with a small amount of water and topped them with chunks of dried papaya. Delicious!
  
  Lynne's Tip: Use extra coconut milk for a more intense flavour.