One image to replace my words today

I was thinking about writing a post about being vegan and health but I just finished this:

Chocolate cake with 

raspberry jam and 

chocolate ganache fiilling

I won't eat it. Baked for some friends who are staying with us a couple of days, but still, it sounded controversial to my chosen topic.

Picture post

Today all I have are pics:

Dinner yesterday: yellow rice (supposed to be a risotto) and salad

Mocha with chocolate vegan cupcakes

A new great dairy free chocolate bar that we bought today (one of the best vegan chocolate ever)

A vegan mayonnaise from the brand Grano Vita that we also bought today (and we like it!)

Açai with straweberries and strawberry syrup: I'll miss it this summer

In love with vegan chocolate cake

The first time I wrote here about cakes was after my first chocolate cake I tried to cook in Europe and it wasn't a good experience. After that, I gave up on the cake mixes and decided to cook the real cakes. And it's going very well. In Italy I cooked some carrot and chocolate cakes and everybody loved them. Vegan cakes are the kind of food that everybody asks how it can be vegan but when tasting one says that it's as good as all other cakes.

After moving we stayed some months without cakes because we had a lot of house stuff to buy and not enough money and some kitchen stuff had to wait. But now we have everything and I can cook all the cakes I want.

Our (me and Matteo) favourite one is the chocolate cake. And I always use a great and easy recipe that my friend Raquel sent to me: chocolate with nuts. I wish I could eat this cake every day, but I would become a ball have no time to do it!

Here the recipe:

1 ½ cup white flour
¾ cup sugar
½ cup crushed nuts
2 tablespoon cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 ¼ cup water or soy milk
½ cup oil

Place all dry ingredients in a bowl and mix. Add the oil and then the water or soy milk. Mix until you have a consistent and smooth mass. Put in the oven for 30 minutes (180ºC).

I usually make a chocolate topping cream too with soy cream and cocoa powder. Just put them together in a pan and cook for 5 minutes after boiling. It will still look liquid. Wait until it gets cold and you'll have a delicious cream. Another option is make this topping cream with soy milk and a bar of dark chocolate.



And to my Brazilian friends, the recipe in Portuguese:

1 ½ xícara de farinha de trigo
¾ xícara de açúcar
½ xícara de nozes moídas
1 colher de sopa de cacau em pó
1 colher de chá fermento
1 ¼ xícara de água ou leite de soja
½ xícara de óleo

Peneire todos os ingredientes secos em uma vasilha. Misture e junte o óleo e depois o leite (ou a água). Misture até obter uma massa consistente e lisa. Leve ao forno por 30 minutos (180ºC).

Cobertura: leve ao forno um pouco de creme de leite de soja e cacau em pó (eu coloco as quantidades bem de olho aqui, quanto mais, melhor!) e deixe ferver por alguns minutos. Ela vai parecer ainda líquida, espere esfriar até que se torne cremosa. Uma outra opção é fazer a cobertura com leite de soja e barra de chocolate amargo ou meio amargo (se quiser bastante cobertura, use uma barra inteira!)

I just want chocolate!

Today I started singing this Brazilian song, from Marisa Monte, which says “Chocolate, chocolate, eu só quero chocolate...” (Chocolate, chocolate, I just want chocolate..). Maybe because I really just want chocolate. I read a lot of times that a piece of chocolate brings happiness. If it is scientifically proved, I don't know, but I feel happy eating some pieces of chocolate. Some studies say that the pheniletilamina, that we can find in pieces of milk or dark chocolate, stimulates the production of serotonin, known as the "molecule of happiness". So it may be possible that the happiness we feel is not just psychological.

Since always I'm in love with chocolate. Before becoming vegan, I probably had tried all the existing chocolate kinds I could buy. And I'm pretty sure that I have never found a piece of chocolate that I didn't like. There are some I like less, like the white chocolate, but it's impossible not to like it. Well, to be sincere, it is possible. I know some people around the world that don't like chocolate at all, but I think they have a kind of (taste) problem!! Well, back to the point, for the last eleven years, I had my experience limited to dark chocolate. It was hard to find vegan chocolate in Brazil and I don't know how to cook “bombons” (small balls of chocolate, usually with some cream – of fruits or peanuts or hazelnuts or walnuts – inside).

But this year has been awesome and I have not just one but two friends that cook delicious “bombons” and I couldn't feel better! I ate lots of them before leaving Brazil. Now I miss them (the food and both friends!), but I found some different and new chocolates to prove here. In Italy it's pretty easy, if you see the word “fondente”, the chocolate is vegan. And there is one brand mark called Ritter that has the best one: fondente chocolate with peanuts. And the best part: you can find them at almost all supermarkets around! Well, in Switzerland you can find all kinds of chocolate you want everywhere. And in Dublin, well, I talked about Dublin in my last post... I just found the best chocolate bar ever! Ah, I found a white chocolate one in Dublin too. One of my friends, the one that makes the awesome bombons (including the paçoca ones which I will have to write about some day because paçoca, as açaí, is something you can just eat in Brazil) bought a lot of white chocolate pieces when she lived in Berlin and gave some to us. I was more curious than excited, but I liked it. So we decided to buy more in Dublin. But it's not the same good sensation... And I read these days that the white chocolate, because it doesn't contain cocoa mass, doesn't promote the positive effects as the milk and dark ones. One more reason to keep up with them ;-P

Another good thing about the dark chocolate: recent studies say that it is great for of the heart and blood pressure. But, of course, in small doses.

And if you think you are a chocolate addicted, you're not alone (neither am I). In an interview for the magazine "Health", the American nutritionist Kristen Bruinsma revealed that 15% of men and 40% of women have this behavior. And, yes, women usually are more addicted to sweet stuff too.

So, try to control yourselves, my good friends!