Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake (Updated)

My Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake...an easy, crisp-chewy cake with a toothsome crust, tender crumb, moist interior and complex, salty-sweet-smoky flavors owing to the olive oil, significant portions of brown sugar and kosher salt and the nuttiness of the white whole wheat flour.  

I made it again last night to nail down the recipe and the bake time.  The result was magnificent!

A crisp-chewy cake perfect for the cookie lover and cake needer alike.

This cake is so easy.  Everything goes into one big mixing bowl!

The Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake

1 Cup Organic Granulated Sugar

1/2 Cup Organic Brown Sugar (I use TJ's)

3/4 Cup Best Quality Extra Virgin Olive Oil*

*I know! It's fantastic, trust me! This would be great with Colavita Private Selection Fruttato EVOO or the Colavita Argentinian Fruity EVOO...therefore, it is my entry into the Colavita Contest hosted by The Urban Vegan!  

1/4 Cup Organic, Unsweetened Applesauce

2 tsp. EnerG Egg Replacer Powder (just the powder)

1 tsp. Vanilla

1 tsp. Kosher Salt

2 and 1/3 Cups White Whole Wheat Flour--a whole grain! :-)

(I love King Arthur's brand here)

1 tsp. Baking Powder

1 and 1/2 Cups Best Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips 

(I like WF 365, Ghirardelli, etc.)

Optional: 1/2 Cup Chopped Walnuts (if you are so inclined)

Method:

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

Combine Sugars through Kosher salt in a mixing bowl and blend with a hand mixer until thoroughly combined:

It will have a gel-like consistency.

Now, add your dry ingredients (I use a fine mesh sieve over the bowl to sift the dry stuff in and save a bowl!) and mix with a spoon or spatula until well combined.

It will look like this.  Like sticky pieces of sandy dough.

Now, add your chips!

It will look like this :-)

Now, press all the dough into a well-greased loaf pan.  This is a "large" NordicWare pan, it measures eight inches across the floor, and almost ten across the top.

Dough packed into the pan.  I pressed it in with a spatula.

Now, bake her at 375 for 20 minutes (the higher heat gives a nice crispy crust) then lower the heat to 350 (as not to dry it out) and bake another 25 minutes.  The edges will get a bit golden and a toothpick will come out clean.

This cake will not rise very much (hardly at all).  It is a dense, delicious olive-oil based cake (so tender! so rich!) so don't worry that it didn't puff up. 

Close up of the golden edges.  It's harder to tell how "golden" the edges are when using White Whole Wheat flour, but you can see it there.

Allow to cool, then cut and serve!  It's OK if it is still a little warm :-)

When you cut it, use a sharp paring knife as the outer crust will be crispy, but the inside is soft, moist and cookie-like.  

Pack it for lunches, too!

I wrap individual slices in foil then store them in a zipper freezer bag, too, for cookie cake anytime :-)

EVOO is sweet!

Enjoy, guys. This one is worth a splurge!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake.  My husband asked for me to invent this, so I happily obliged.  We had a hot charcoal grill at the ready after grilling our broccoli & seitan steaks, so I whipped up this cake to throw in there while the grill was still hot.  I made it once or twice last year, but didn't write down the recipe.

It's crunchy yet chewy, sweet and loaded with chocolate chips.

 You can see how crispy the bottom crust is.  The bottom caramelized from the hot temp of the grill and the sugar and the oil in the cake.  A delicious result.  I still have to nail the exact baking time, but in a charcoal grill that's almost impossible, the heat is just super dry and super hot (and declines rapidly if the temp outside is cold).  It's much easier (but less fun) to calibrate temperature and baking time with an oven (which I will approximate below).

Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake

1 cup organic sugar

½ cup brown sugar (organic, TJ’s)

3/4 to 1 cup olive oil 

3 tablespoons apple sauce (4 if you use 3/4 cup oil)

2 tsp EnerG replacer powder (just the powder)

2 1/3 cups flour (white whole wheat, which is a whole grain!!)

1 tsp Vanilla

1 tsp baking soda

½ to 1 tsp salt (1 tsp really brings out the flavor, but might be too salty for you)

2 cups chocolate chips

½ cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Mix the wet ingredients (sugar through the EnerG powder) in a large bowl with a hand mixer or whisk.  It will become kinda like a gel in consistency, and won't look liquidy at all.  You could add non-dairy milk if you wanted, tablespoon by tablespoon if you want the dough a little wetter (don't know how that would turn out yet as I haven't tried it myself).  So, take the dough and press it into your buttered loaf pan:

Bake the sucker.  I'd guess 30-40 minutes in a 375 oven, until a toothpick comes out clean and the edges have begun to brown and pull away form the pan, or however long you'd like to try in your grill.  I'm getting a lot better at grilling with charcoal, so may have more specific advice soon.

And, I'm craving this like mad:

Guesses?

Answer:

Home Made Pizza with: Roasted Eggplant, Fresh Tomatoes, Red Peppers, Cashew Ricotta and Home Made Vegan Pepperoni.  Amazing.  Made it a while ago, but could really go for it right now!

What are you guys making this weekend?

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups

I had never made homemade peanut butter cups before, but really wanted some on Valentine's Day, so, I made a batch.

These are really tasty and not too much mess to make, so if you are having a craving for a  rich, delicious peanut butter cup made with whole ingredients, give these a go.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups

Adapted from Alicia Silverstone's recipe in The Kind Diet

Ingredients

4-6 tablespoons of Earth Balance butter or other vegan baking butter, see my note below

3/4 cup peanut butter

3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs or cereal crumbs like Puffins

1/4 cup organic brown sugar

1 cup nondairy chocolate chips (or carob, but I hate carob and it's made with palm oil)

1/4 cup coconut milk (aseptic box or refrigerated kind, not canned) or other non-dairy milk

Method 

1. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners. (If You Care makes unbleached liners made from recycled paper.) Set aside.

2. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. I used Alicia's recipe's full 1/2 cup (1 stick) of EB and that was WAY too greasy and tasted too much like EB (which I only use in baked goods) so I had to keep adding cereal to it to make it a drier consistency.  I recommend using only 4-6 tablespoons (1/4 to 1/3 cup) of EB and keeping the rest of the ingredients the same. I don't really like EB, but the consistency works very well in baked goods and desserts, if you use the lesser amount (4-6 tablespoons) it should be fine and not taste like EB once you add all the other ingredients :-)  

3. Stir in the peanut butter, graham cracker or cereal crumbs, and sugar and mix well.  Note: I didn't have graham crackers (because we ate them all), so I just processed Original Puffins in the food processor until they were fine crumbs, and measured out 3/4 of a cup of the crumbs.  It was a fine substitution!

4. Remove the mixture from the heat. Evenly divide the mixture, approximately 2 tablespoons per cup, among the muffin cups. I used an Oxo medium scoop to do this task.

5. Combine the chocolate and milk in a 4 cup Pyrex measuring cup. Heat in microwave, covered, a minute at a time, whisking each minute, until the chocolate has melted and is combined well with the milk.

6. Carefully pour the chocolate evenly over each cup of the peanut butter mixture. 

7. Place in the refrigerator to set for at least 2 hours before serving.

I couldn't resist using my Silverstone muffin tin!  These were just poured and had not yet set in the fridge.

Enjoy!

This makes 12 large (!) cupcake sized peanut butter cups.  You can cut them into quarters and arrange prettily on a platter for smaller dessert "bites," or you can just go for it and eat a whole one per person.

Get Your Chips At Wegmans

Stock Your Pantry, Episode Two:

Get Your Chips At Wegmans!

I just discovered, with the help of a friend of a friend on Facebook, that store brand chocolate chips are often vegan.  I promptly rushed out to Wegmans, hoping that this would be true for their store brand chips (since their store brand products are great).  And, friends, it is!  Also, I checked another brand, an "artisan" chocolate called Scharffen Berger, which some of you may be familiar with.  Also vegan, meaning made with non-gmo soy lecithin instead of unnecessary milk based stabilizers.  The 6 oz semisweet and baking bars at Wegmans are $5 each, though this website lists a 3oz semisweet bar for $5, so rock on Wegmans with your five star self  I have taken the liberty to round up. 

If you haven't been to Wegmans, you must go.  Overall, their prices are excellent (but I never purchased meat/fish/dairy there, so I don't know about the prices on that stuff), it will not break the bank like, for example, Whole Foods. Wegmans has everything I want to eat.  They are a grocery store, a bakery, a restaurant, a great natural foods store, a mini kitchen wares store, a florist, a pharmacy...They stock everything from Tofutti Better Than Creme Cheese (um, they did run out like two weeks before Thanksgiving, though, good thing I already had mine) to black sesame seeds, crystallized ginger, you name it.  They have a HUGE organic section and you could do almost all your shopping there.  They carry Braggs Liquid Aminos near the soy in the organic section, which is also nice.  Their store brand stuff is GREAT, often better than the name brand competitors. 

It is always crowded, though, so expect to take a few extra seconds to park and do expect to be there a while.  You might have to wait behind someone with a "big order" or some rowdy toddlers in the check-out line, so don't have a fit, it's worth it!  If you go at like 2pm, right before school gets out, it's usually ok for like 30 minutes :-)  If you can go late, right before it closes, you will probably do well, or at 6am when it opens, probably also good. Let me know if you find a great time to go.  It is way worth the drive over the bridge from Philly, so common' over Philly people, and stock up.

Ok, enough of this commercial for Weggies.  Get out there and Stock Your Pantry.  Seriously, they have everything.  You need that vital wheat gluten to make Grandma Margies' Meatballs?  Or some aseptic tofu to make that Triple Orange Bread Pudding?  It's called Wegmans, people. 

And this concludes the Stock Your Pantry Series.  Just go to Wegmans.  Grandma Margie says so!

Just don't leave your list in the car.  Trust me.