The Best Chocolate Cake Ever!

So yesterday I gave you my excited news #1, and today I promised some more exciting news.


I made the best cake ever! Yep!!

Check it out!!

A friend asked me if I would be able to make a vegan birthday cake for a vegan colleague of his - and if possible make it raw as he has been tinkering with the idea of going raw. And so, knowing chocolate is a sure-fire winner in any crowd I hunted for a recipe to that would knock the socks off anyone and everyone and boy did I find a winner!

First up was making nut milk, and lots of it! I needed 9 cups of nut milk pulp for the choccie base.

This was mixed through with ingredients such as cacao powder, coconut oil, agave, and other things I can't recall at this minute... Alongside a walnut, agave, coconut caramel fudgy mix. That was amazing!

 

To assemble the cake it was a layer of chocolate cake, a layer of walnut fudgy stuff, chocolate cake, fudgy stuff... And was left in the fridge over night. What I loved about this cake was regrdless of the time involved, it was totally fool-proof and came out looking a million bux (which is the same reason I love making Heather's Moonie Pies)

I took it into work the following morning as my mate was picking it up off me there, alongside a rich chocolate sauce I made and flavour-filled strawberries I grabbed on my way in.

Then the best bit... pouring chocolate into the centre and carefully lending a helping hand with the back of a spoon to ensure it reached the edges, and slowly dripped off, over and down...

Strawberries in place for aesthetics as well as to both contrast and compliment the delicious rich chocolate sauce that would melt in your mouth and send you off into Willy Wonka Land...

Oh my...

Gosh!!

And then it was picked up and taken away for vegan birthday festivities!! My friend sent me this picture of his morning tea slice, much to the delight of his choco-holic taste buds!!


It looked, smelt, and (so I was told) tasted AMAZING!!


Definitely making this recipe again! I was a piece damn it!!


Buonappetito!

Birthday Party High Tea

Last weekend I had a belated birthday celebration with a bunch of my girlfriends that was so much fun! I asked everyone to bring a small plate to share – but it had to be vegan. Cooked or raw I wasn’t so bothered (but happy most was raw), I just wanted to see them get creative in their kitchens!

So...

I hurried back from yoga to get the house ready and set everything up for afternoon tea. I was so excited – it was something I had wanted to do for so long. So I set up all the tea cups we have (thanks my little sisters collection), got all my herbal teas out so everyone could choose what they wanted, then started eye-balling all the yummy things I had made before the girls showed up before I could continue to eye-ball all the yummy things they brought along!

These are my Co's Super Super Balls that I instead made into bite sized squares coz they're super choclatey rich; and topped with a juicy cranberry.

Moonie Pies! I've made these before (thanks to Heather) and they are AMAZING! Pretty much fool-proof so they always turn out looking a million bux!

My dream to have a tiered cake stand!

This is a Walnut Spiced Tea Cake I made that I have made before. It's so so simple and tastes so so good. You can find the recipe in my Recipe Section here
 

Cucumber sandwiches are a MUST at a high tea aren't they? These babies are made with sprouted rye bread.

My power balls! This recipe is my sisters favourite. Chewy carob tahini flavour mmm

Here's our delicious colourful spread! That scrumptious looking corn salad was done by my friend Kate and was the perfect dish between so many sweet treats...

along with juicy crimson grapes, celery and carrot sticks, an amazing pumpkin dip Zara made, hommous from Jorja, rice paper wraps from Maya, and of course tea!

And then Tamsyn rocked up WITH THIS! OMG! Chocolate-covered-almond-stuffed-dates, rich choccie-buckwheat-heart-crunchies, marzipan balls, and an amazing cake all for me! Her rendition of a Xmas cake with (what my taste buds believed to be) dried figs, dates, sultanas, carob, spices and more all enveloped in a thick marzipan casing, dusted with carob powder. YUM!

I had such a ball laughing, chatting silly girly talk, sipping tea, eating too many sweets, and sharing the afternoon with my closest friends. Thankyou all for coming to share my celebrations xxx

Ommmm Smoothie

Here I am again on a Sunday evening quickly writing a blog post before I rush off to prepare for another week! But before I let you know what's been going on I wanted to send a out a BIG heartfelt THANK YOU to you all. The comments I got from you guys after my last post, be it online or in person, all touched me so much. Especially from those of you I've never met! I believe that it's such a positive thing to share with others what we may be struggling with in our own lives as once we do, we usually find that a huge weight has been lifted off of our shoulders, and in the process we are likely to help and inspire many others. So thankyou again.

I'm still on the cooked foods and doing ok but bit by bit getting more raw foods in as I'm feeling that my body is wanting them real bad now! So when I do eat them, ooh-la-la boy-oh-boy does it FEEL GOOD!




I've just returned home from a meditation retreat actually. I left home Friday afternoon, got the traffic of course, and ventured out to the Blue Mountains. I'm always excited to go on retreat, but when it was time to go I found myself resisting a little - a sure sign to go. And I'm very glad I did. It was typical chilly mountain weather but we were blessed with a sunny Saturday (overcast Sunday) and I managed to venture out for a bush walk after lunch to clear my thoughts a bit.

I met beautiful people. Had a lovely roomie. Picked up a few pearls of wisom, new insights, awarnesses, great discussions, fun group work and a deeper more peaceful meditation practice.

And on returning home delighted my tastebuds - after a walk - with this tall dark and handsome fellow -

Frozen persimmons, frozen bluberries, a few brazil nuts, a good dollop of coconut yoghurt, vanilla protein powder, acai powder, goji berries, lecithin and water.

So so yummy! I put my feet up and had a bit of down time before unpacking my bag, and re-packing another. Tomorrow morning I am off to the Gold Coast to drive a Ferrari for 2 days! OMG! I am so excited - it's my dream car ever since my first Barbie Doll had one.

My birthday is on Thursday and so far, I think my Birthday Week is quickly becoming the best ever! Stay tuned for Queensland fruit and Ferraris!!

There's never enough crumble

Ok guys so guess what? It's Vegan MoFo! VEGAN MONTH OF FOOD and over the years it has gotten bigger and BIGGER that countries all over the globe participate and blog about vegan food non-stop, day and night, for the whole month of November (like we don't do that all year round anyways). And I'm UBER excited! I commit to sharing as many simple tasty quick delicioussly VEGAN recipes with you as possible (raw of course - although I'm not totally 100% raw at the moment as I'm experimenting with my digestion and such... another story).

And to start the ball rolling I thought I'd share what I made for Brock's birthday last week (during "Brocktober" as he likes to call it). Now admittedly, it was a simple meal due to a hundred other things I had going on (along with a migrane that day), but a birthday is special, so it had to be special! I think it's cool to also show you guys that raw doesn't always have to be tricky to taste damn good.

Close friends of ours, Mitch and Sheree came over to dine with us, so Sheree and I were whipping up what we could find in the kitchen, while the boys watched gruelling workout videos on YouTube. Go figure.

The Menu:

Crisp carrot sticks drizzled with agave syrup and sprinkled with raisins, coconut and sesame seeds.


Garden fresh crunchy asparagus spears in a flaxseed oil and fresh garlic dressing. OMG.


A melange of greens including fresh kale, assorted lettuces, celery, cucumbers, and avocado, finished with fresh herbs and spices. Along side broccoli florets covered in warm coconut oil and nutritional yeast flakes (can you see these babies hiding in the background?)


...Melange salad topped with pepitas, sunflower seeds, flax oil and a whole squeezed lemon


And then of course DESSERT. I had so many ideas but not wanting to be in the kitchen for hours (with my migrane) and with limited supplies I remembered a box of apples we had in our spare fridge (yes Brock and I need a spare fridge for the amount of fruit and veg we eat).


So my little mind immediatley thought APPLE CRUMBLE! "I've got some nuts, the apples, spices... I'll just go buy raw ice cream this time... get some dates... Easy!" (yep, that's how my little mind ticks)


So I layered some crumble, some apple filling and then some more crumble into individual glasses, then topped them off with big dollops of vanilla ice cream.

We also had some chocolate crackles I had left over from the batch I made for college. Think of them like our "after dinner mints" (only lacking in mint). Our evening was really nice. Sheree and I initially thought to go on a picnic but as the weather turned last week, our little picnic ended up being on our living room floor. But the perfect place to be with a belly full of good food in on your floor at home is it not?

So going on memory here guys, my wham-bam-thankyou-mame-APPLE CRUMBLE recipe is something as follows...

Chop up 2 apples and throw them in the blender (or food processor) with a few medjool dates, a pinch of cinnamon, a pinch of nutmeg, a pinch of salt (trust me it makes the sauce) and a drizzle of water, and blend it all til smooth.

Slice, dice, cube, grate (however you want) 3 or 4 apples. Pour your sauce over these and mix them through well.

For your crumble, pulse equal parts nuts and medjool dates until crumbly.

Then layer as you wish. And ENJOY!

I did crumble first, then apples, then more crumble - coz let's admit, there's never enough crumble!! Bung it in your dehydrator or low heat oven to warm it up a bit, or just never stick it in the fridge once you've made it.

Ice cream to serve (of course) and let your taste buds go nuts!

My Birthday Week of LOVE

a-ga-pé: [ ah-gah-pey, ah-guy-pey, ag-uh ] from Ancient Greek agapé means

a. God's unconditional love for us
b. a pure selfless love of one person for another
c. a love feast shared as a sign of love and fellowship

And that's what my last week has been all about.

It was my 25th Birthday on Wednesday and I've been SPOILT ROTTEN everyday since!

I was surprised with a BEAUTIFUL bunch of flowers from my boss (who is currently on her honeymoon mind you) at work on Wednesday, and they were GORGEOUS! Orange gerberas and purple cabbages...




After an early start and a long busy day at work, then seeing a client, I was happy to get home on Wednesday night for an Indian-inspired-Feast.



Beautifully created by my mother, and my two sisters (one of which came down from Cairns especially). Lisa set the table with special plates, gold cutlery and crystal glasses. There were candles lit, music playing, lights dimmed and incense wafting...

Mum, Lisa, Nikki, Annabel, Chris and my grandmother were all delighting in different curries, rices and breads, samosas, chutneys and side dishes, while Brock and I were indulging on the following mouth watering dishes that were made especially for us both...





Sweet curry with sultanas, apple, spices, banana...


Cauliflower and parsnip rice - this one is a sweet sulatana and almond one, we also had a beautiful ginger cauli rice


Warmed marinated broccoli which was so good


Carrot salad with cumin, zucchini, red onions...


And my dinner plate (first of two serves)

Finished with a parfait glass with scoops of raw vanilla choc-chip ice cream Mum had bought - but Brock had my homemade coconut ice cream and said he liked it better!!

I was showered with gifts - including a basket of fruit and veg that I jumped up and down with excitement over! Best pressie ever. Way to a raw girls heart :)

Friday afternoon I spoilt myself to a colonic and infra red sauna! :) BLISSED OUT! I feel so unbelievably good after both I walk out BEAMING!
And then Brock came to pick me up and take me out for a SURPRISE DINNER!
We first wandered the streets of Newtown and into my favourite Health Food Shop for a browse. I get a BUZZ out of all things nutrition - working in a health food store myself, I was like a kid in a lolly shop, and Brock and I walked out with a few coconut date rolls as a pre-dinner snack :) Yum!

Then onto dinner...
AGAPE - a Greek word translated into LOVE, and the name of a stunning restaurant out in Botany using only ORGANIC produce where Brock had been waiting to take this special girl :)
We were so warmly welcomed and greeted with "Happy Birthday" at the door. Surrounded by candles, wooden furniture, pink roses and antique velvet couches, this place really does say LOVE. Absolutley beautiful.

Brock is friends with the very talented chef named Simon So sneakily set up something special. But never expected what we got. A 5 course raw menu for 2. The attention to detail was impeccable and the presentation divine. From start to finish...

Tomato and basil salad, crisp kale and apple balsamic

Beetroot carpaccio, olive, basil, almond, apple, blood orange vinaigrette

Marinated broccoli, carrot, sesame, silverbeet, lemon, garlic and chilli

Mushroom, salsa verde, rocket, honey and mustard

Golden delicious apple, raw honey, almond, sultana

As each plate came out the flavours got better and better - dessert being the winner for both of us.







An early morning sunshine run together on Saturday before I had a hair appointment in the city to pamper myself, and later met up with Lara for a very belated catch up, before doing my nails and getting ready for our night out.
And Saturday night dinner with the girls!
My sister had made raw bruschetta bread for Maya, Tamsyn and I but the restaurant COOKED IT! We ate the fresh tomato on top tho, had BIG salads and DELICIOUS cinnamon scrolls Maya so kindly made. Good food, great company and lots of laughs finished by dancing at the local til after midninght... an AMAZING end to an AMAZING week!

THANK YOU to EVERYONE that made my week MORE than special. I felt like a royal queen all week and LOVE each and everyone of you.

xxx