daifuku mochi

I'm obsessed with mochi. No really. Not overly sweet it comes in an amazing array of flavours and is gluten free, vegan perfection. I've had a bag of glutinous rice flour sitting in my cupboard for a YEAR and finally got around to it on the weekend. James and Matt finally pushed me over the edge a few months ago with their extensive post, I'm also clearing out all the ingredients I've been hoarding (I'm a serious hoarder) it was time, mochi time.

I'll be straight up and say I don't have a microwave which has always put me off but thanks to Chocolate and Zucchinis post with instructions for a steamer AND a rice cooker I was able to give it a go (there is talk elsewhere on the interwebs that mixing the dough with boiling water might be sufficient).

Ok so what I would do differently next time. Firstly I "scraped down the sides" of the rice cooker a little bit too much, I wouldn't touch it at all next time, it made the dough go a bit lumpy as you can see. Secondly I would take James and Matts advice and have a shaped, hard filling to wrap the mochi around. I had wet red bean paste and it was really difficult keeping it in. Other than that this was ridiculously easy. I doubled the recipe because I wanted a mountain of mochi.

ingredients from Chocolate and Zucchini - watch the video embedded in the post too

filling for your mochi, I used red bean paste - this you will have to experiment with (recipe says 240gms)
200 gms glutinous rice flour
1/2 cup of sugar
1 1/3 cup of water
potato starch or corn starch for dusting (A LOT)

method (for a rice cooker)
1. Put the flour, sugar and water in your rice cooker and stir to combine. Cook for about 10 minutes, mixture should be thick and slightly translucent.

2. On a baking sheet lay down a thick dusting of starch. When the dough is cooked pour it onto the starch , sprinkle with a load of starch and (with floured hands) pat out the dough to about 2cm thick (shit is STICKY and HOT so be careful).

3. Slice up as best you can into a grid making 6-9 squares (I dipped a chefs knife in potato starch each slice). Work quickly because the dough is easiest when hot, dust off the starch on the filling side, put your filling in the middle and bring up the sides squeezing them together. You can then roll them around in your palm a bit to get a more uniform look.

4. Once all the mochi is made leave to cool down for about an hour. Put all the potato starch into a container for your next batch and then store the mochis at room temp in an airtight container. NOM.

raw vanilla chocolate torte

The dessert from my raw dinner party. This torte had many sauces and many steps and by the end I couldn't be bothered! So I just whipped some coconut cream and left it at delicious that.

ingredients
yield 1 9 inch pie

the crust
1 1/2 cup pecans
3/4 cup raisins, roughly chopped
2 tbsp coconut oil/butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon
Pinch salt

chocolate filling
2 cups raw cashews
1 cup water
2 cup cacao powder (I used cocoa powder)
1 1/2 cup cacao butter, grated
2 tbsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup agave nectar (I used diluted maple syrup)
1⁄2 tbsp lemon juice

coconut cream
1 400gm can of coconut cream (no name brands tend to have the most "cream")
dash of vanilla

method
1. Refrigerate the can of coconut cream for as long as you can (at least a few hours). Open up and scrape the coconut fat from the lid and scoop as much fat from the top of the can as possible. Whip the fat and get it as smooth as possible, adding the vanilla and a couple of tablespoons of the coconut milky water to thin it out. Whip it for a few minutes until light and fluffy and chill while you are making the pie.

2. Make the crust by pulsing all the ingredients until it resembles a crumb. Press into the base of your pan.

3. Make the filling (I melted/softened the cocoa butter in the sun - you could soften over some warm water) by blending the cashews, water, vanilla, agave nectar and lemon juice until smooth.

4. Add the cacao butter and cacao powder and blend to combine.

5. Smooth the chocolate mixture into the pie base and refrigerate to set for at least 2 hours. Serve with a dollop of coconut cream.

lamingtons

Lamingtons! The Aussie favourite, chocolatey, spongey, coconutty goodness. The recipe is pretty standard wherever you look around. Sponge cake with a chocolate icing and some coconut.

recipe
adapted from benno and lara's aussie lamingtons

ingredients
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 1/2 cups plain soymilk
2 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon bicarb
pinch salt
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp rosewater/coconut or almond essence

icing mixture recipe
2 cup icing sugar
2 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tsp Nuttelex
2 tbsp soy milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
hot water
desiccated coconut


method
1. Preheat over to 180 degrees.

2. Create the buttermilk by combining the soy milk and vinegar in a cup and leaving to curdle.

3. Combine all the dry ingredients in a large bowl (flour, sugar, bicarb, salt).

4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix well (vanilla, rosewater essence, buttermilk mixture and oil).

5. Bake lamingtons in small cupcake pans or friand pans, filling them 3/4 full. Bake for 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

6. Freeze lamington cakes overnight.

7. Make icing mixture, combining the icing sugar, soy milk, vanilla and nuttelex in a large bowl (I used a lunch box). Add a tsp of hot water at a time until icing reaches desired consistency. The icing should be quite thin.

8. Fill another bowl with coconut for coating. Using 2 forks in each bowl dip the sponges in the icing, let it drip off then coat with the coconut. Settle in the fridge for half an hour.

notes: I wanted extra chocolatey lamingtons so I soaked them in the chocolate icing for quite some time. I think these would be great with some booze like kahlua or frangelico.

cherry pie

Cherry pie to make Dale Cooper blush. On my recent trip down a portion of the Great Ocean Road we stopped at a servo hawking $10 boxes of mangoes, cherries and other deliciousness and picked up some goodies. No prizes for guessing what I got. These cherries were unreal, so fresh, plump and firm, they didn't really need *anything* to make it into this pie. I kept it plain with a tiny bit of sugar and it was out of this world. That's damn fine cherry pie.

ingredients
1 kg of pitted, halved cherries
1/8 cup of sweetner (liquid or dry is fine)
2 x frozen pastry sheets, defrosted (short crust is best)

method
1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

2. Line a 9 inch pie pan with a sheet of pastry. Mine doesn't make it all the way around so either use a smaller pie pan, roll out the pastry a little thinner or do what I do which is pinch a few strips from the other sheet and make up the difference. Prick the base of the pie about 10 times with a fork. At this point you can "blind bake" your crust, I didn't (I didn't have any baking paper) and it turned out ok for me.

3. Toss the pitted cherries in the sweetner and spread over the pie base. Make the lattice top, sprinkle with some sugar and bake for about 30 minutes or until golden brown. Serve with a traditional scoop of vanilla ice cream.

black sticky rice

First things first, I bought my first BRAND NEW kitchen items this week, 6 wine glasses and a rice cooker. I've always had hand-me-downs and second hand items from ebay (I cant stand buying new things when you can recycle - best purchase EVER was my food processor for $50). I still feel guilty, especially the amount of packaging the rice cooker came in but anyway expect a lot of rice recipes from now on! Woo hoo!

Ingredients
250g black sticky rice, soaked in water for 3 hours
pinch of salt
1/3 cup brown sugar sugar
250g dark palm sugar, chopped
1/4 cup of water
1 cup coconut cream

method
1. Soak the sticky rice in water for at least 3 hours but up to 8.

2. Rinse and cook just like brown rice with 1:1.5 rice to water for about 50 minutes. Give it a stir around the halfway mark to see how its going. A wee bit of moisture at the end is fine.

3. Once the rice is cooked throw in the brown sugar and salt. Melt the palm sugar in a small pan over low heat then add the water and the coconut cream and cook a bit to thicken it up. I mixed about half the coconut cream/sugar syrup into the rice then served and drizzled a bit more over the top.

Best.dessert.ever.

tiramisu

I've been obsessed with making tiramisu for some time. Look, I cheated with this and used a gluten free cake mix for the sponge base but you forgive me right? It was 9.30pm on Friday night and I just couldn't wait a moment longer. In looking around the web at other recipes (and this is the reason why I write this blog) all the other vegan recipes has so many ingredients in them, I like to keep things simple. This almost made me cry. An old favourite from my childhood, with love to you.

ingredients
1 x lot/packet/recipe of plain cake
1 x cup (250mls) of espresso (I pulled about 3 short blacks)
1 x tub of kingland cream cheese at room temperature
3/4 cup of white sugar
1 x can of coconut cream (refrigerated)
some booze of your choice, I used whiskey as it was all I had but marsala is traditional
dark chocolate shavings for serving

method
1. Spread the cake mix into a large baking/roasting pan and bake until *just* cooked (not browning on top but a knife comes out clean from the centre), leave to cool. The large roasting pan will get the cake just the right height for layering.

2. In the meantime, beat the coconut cream with an electric mixer for 5 minutes, it should thicken up but not like dairy cream. Put it in the fridge to set for at least an hour (preferably two) to thicken up. Combine the sugar into the cream cheese and pull the espressos (flavour the espresso with the booze you want to the level you want).

3. Once the coffee and cake is cooled put a layer of cake onto the bottom of a 6" spring form pan or whatever vessel you want to house your tiramisu and gently pour some of the coffee over the sponge. I always pussy out on the coffee and REGRET IT so if you like it strong you really need to get that sponge WET to the point of soggy/falling apart.

4. Spread ALL the "marscapone" cream cheese on top and repeat another layer of cake and coffee then top with coconut cream and chocolate shavings (of course if you want to make yours sky high in smaller vessels save some of the marscapone for extra layers).

5. Refrigerate for AT LEAST two hours, but the longer you leave this the more amazing it gets. I strongly suggest leaving it over night.

notes: Its an assload of sugar but really, an assload is what it takes to get that slight taste of soy ass out of the cream cheese. Of course if you're going to put it into a 6 inch spring form pan you might as well bake the cake in that and then cut the cake horizontally in two and layer like a layer cake. Again really easy and simple, this totally blew my mind!

banoffee pie

Calm down calm down. Yes this is the most delicious dessert I have ever made (sorry New York Baked Cheesecake and Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake) and its ridoinkculously easy.

ingredients
1 x packet of digestives
3 tbsp of marg
1 x 330 soy caramel condensed milk
3 medium ripe bananas
1x can of coconut cream (I think its 400mls)

method
1. Put the coconut cream in the fridge until cold.

2. Scoop out as much of the cream clumps and put into a bowl (the fat should congeal at the top of the can). Thin out the coconut fat with some of the cream until it's a thick cream consistency then beat with an electric beater or whisk until it thickens up and put in the fridge (I also added quite a few pinches of sugar).

3. Make the base by grinding the biscuits into a fine crumble in a food processor. Melt the marg and combine with crumbs. Press the crumb mix into the base of a 9 inch spring form pan and put into the fridge whilst you're making the rest of the pie.

4. Construct the tart by laying the bananas top of the biscuit base. Pour the caramel condensed milk on top and smooth (I had to loosen it up with a bit of soy milk). Then pour the thickened coconut cream (it may have set too thick whip a bit of extra coconut cream into it to thin it out) and refrigerate for at least 2 hours for it all to set. This pie does better as each day goes by. Grate some dark chocolate on top. Voila!

notes: In regards to the coconut cream, the generic coles/safeway brands tend to have waaaay more 'clotted cream' at the top of the cans. Try and drain off any coconut water before you start whipping. It will go into the fridge still quite liquidy but does firm up when you chill and apparently sets (which I was surprised at) when kept longer in the fridge in the pie. My theory about putting coconut cream in a whipped cream canister will more than likely work!

chocolate peanut butter cake

I am still in diabetic shock from making this behemoth of a cake. Filed away in my mind are crazy jobs that I reserve for very special occasions and my blog-aversary was the perfect excuse. This cake is retardedly rich. I just ate a sliver and I've felt sick for hours. Definitely a show piece and my neighbours are going to love me when I take this baby out doing the rounds tonight. Incidentally the chocolate cake recipe is the most moist, delicious, finger licking chocolate cake I've ever eaten.

You're welcome.

Veganised by me from Deb at Smitten Kitchen who then took the recipe from Sky High: Irresistable Triple-Layer Cakes .

Makes an 8-inch triple-layer cake

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cup cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup neutral vegetable oil
1 cup mashed Japanese soft tofu
1 tsp of mirin
1tsp of sushi seasoning
1 1/2 cups water
2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 egg replacers

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Prepare 3x 8inch round baking pans.

2. Prepare the tofu sour cream by mashing the soft tofu until it resembles runny scrambled eggs then mix in the mirin and sushi seasoning. Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt into a large bowl, mixing well. Add the oil and tofu sour cream and whisk to blend. Gradually beat in the water. Blend in the vinegar and vanilla. Whisk in the egg replacers and beat until well blended. Divide among the 3 prepared cake pans.

3. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a butter knife inserted into the centre, comes out clean. Let cool in the pans for about 20 minutes. Carefully invert onto wire racks and let cool completely. Once cool, wrap tightly in plastic and put into freezer for about an hour.

4. To frost the cake, place one layer, flat side up, on a cake stand or large serving plate. Spread 2/3 cup cup of the Peanut Butter Frosting evenly over the top. Repeat with the next layer. Place the last layer on top and thinly coat the outer cake with frosting. Refrigerate cake for about an hour whilst leaving the frosting out of the fridge. This sets the cake and crumbs and enables a perfect finish. Once the cake is set finish frosting.

5. To decorate with the Chocolate–Peanut Butter Glaze, put the cake plate on a large baking sheet to catch any drips. Simply pour the glaze over the top of the cake and spread it evenly over the top just to the edges so that it runs down the sides of the cake in long drips. Refrigerate, uncovered, for at least 30 minutes to allow the glaze and frosting to set completely. Remove about 1 hour before serving.

Peanut Butter Frosting

1 tub of soy cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 cup of margarine, at room temperature
5 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1 cup smooth peanut butter

1. In a large bowl with an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese and margarine until light and fluffy. Gradually add the confectioners’ sugar 1 cup at a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl often. Continue to beat on medium speed until light and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes.

2. Add the peanut butter and beat until thoroughly blended.

Chocolate-Peanut Butter Glaze

225 gm dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
3 tablespoons smooth peanut butter
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1/2 cup milk

1. In a bowl set over simmering water, combine the chocolate, peanut butter, and corn syrup. Cook, whisking often, until the chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth.

2. Remove from the heat and whisk in the milk, beating until smooth. Use while still warm.

Notes: So many notes! First, I haven't invested in a cake stand OR a triple pan set yet (though after this I think its well worth it). I baked in a 9 inch pan and cut it in half. Not great, the cake is super soft and was incredibly hard to handle, un-frozen. Freezing cakes is totally cool! It’s a great way to frost difficult cakes or save time by baking ahead and its like a little cake freshness time machine they defrost and eat like nothing ever happened. I found the recipe for the chocolate peanut butter glaze too much, I would definitely dial it back if I ever attempt this cake again or even take it out completely. I used Orgran egg replacer and Kingland soy cream cheese. On the different kinds of tofu and preparation hit my tofu article, for dairy substitutes clicky clicky.

For other attempts at Deb goodness check out:

New York Baked Cheesecake
Dark Chocolate Tart with Ginger Snap Crust

One Year Ago: Monday Melbourne Roundup #6

new york baked cheesecake

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen. This was fraught with a fair bit of nail biting, so please read the recipe before you decide to tackle it but if you do, it will be the most amazing post vegan dessert you've ever eaten. You're welcome.

crumb crust
1 packet of biscuits, ground
8 tablespoons of margarine*, melted
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt

cheesecake filling:
4 packages of Kingland cream cheese, softened
1 3/4 cups sugar
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
zest one lemon
6 egg replacers
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

berry topping
1 punnet of berries or a cup of frozen
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/2 cup water*

first things first, make the biscuit crust:
1. Whizz biscuits in a food processor until the crumbs are fine. Gently mix margarine, sugar and biscuits together until you get a dough. Press the crust into the bottom and up the sides of a deep dish 9inch spring form pan stopping one inch shy of the top. Voila! Your cheesecake crust is now ready for your filling.

2. Next pre heat oven to the highest it will go (original recipe says 290 Celsius but I had success at 250). Beat together cream cheese, sugar, flour, vanilla, egg replacer and zest until smooth. That’s it! Pour into prepared pie crust, peeling off any crust that the filling does not reach. Bake in pan or place a pan underneath (seriously do this step! There can be some major leakage from this cheesecake) in the middle of the oven for 12 minutes or until it starts to puff. Reduce the temperature to 200 degrees and continue baking until cake is mostly firm about one hour more (mine was done at 50 minutes). Your cake will still be wobbly in the middle to the outer edges but browning on top.

3. Run a knife around the top edge of the cake to loosen it and cool the cake completely in spring form on a rack, then chill it, loosely covered. Mine was set within an hour though the longer you can wait the better.

4. Make berry topping (optional): Bring all ingredients to a boil. Once mixture is boiling, cook for an additional one to two minutes then remove from heat (I had to 'reduce' a lot longer for it to be syrupy for me, so maybe dial back the amount of water, especially if you use frozen berries). Cool completely.

5. Once cheesecake has set in the fridge, top with berries and wow your peeps.

notes: I used Orgran egg replacer, Kingland soy cream cheese, both of these are widely available in large Safeways and Coles (see my vegan substitutes post on best places to find these http://northsideladies.blogspot.com/search/label/Vegan%20Substitutes). I recommend using half the amount of margarine for the biscuit base, then adding if it is too dry. Peeling off the crust that the filling doesn’t reach means there is not gross burned as fuck crust on your pan to peel off later. At the 50 minute mark mine was browning on top but still very wobbly when shaken, I opted to take it out then anyway and it worked out, a vegan cake isn't going to bake that firm.

whiskey and date cake

My entry for the vegan bake off.

ingredients
300 gms of fresh dates, pitted and roughly chopped
1/2 cup of water
30 ml of whiskey
125gm of margarine
1 cup of sugar
2 egg replacer
1 tsp bicarb soda
1/2 cup of milk
200 gm of self raising flour
pinch of salt
2 tbsp of demerara sugar

method
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Grease and line a 20cm spring form tin with baking paper.

2. Cook dates in the water until soft and liquid is absorbed. Stir whiskey through.

3. Beat marg and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg replacer. Add dates and combine. Add bicarb of soda to milk and stir through batter to combine.

4. Fold through flour and salt and pout into tin. Sprinkle with demerara sugar and bake for 30 mins or until a skewer comes out clean.

5. Remove from tin and cool on wire rack.

notes: I wouldn't recommend icing this like I did, I think it took away from the simplicity of this cake.

carrot, zucchini, apple and walnut loaf with cream cheese frosting

I made this with gluten free flour and it was my best GF success to date. I didnt squeeze the juice out of the veggies as I figured gluten free needs all the moisture it can get. I also didnt measure the veg, I just grated 1 medium zucchini and carrot and a four small apples. Recipe from the Sydney Markets website.

ingredients
2 cups of self raising flour
1 tsp of bicarb soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp of cinnamon
1 cup of sugar
3/4 cup of roughly chopped walnuts
3 eggs lightly beaten (I used egg replacer, you could use a small mashed banana or half a cup of mashed tofu)
1/2 cup of oil (your choice)
1 cup of grated carrot
1 cup of grated zucchini (squeezed to the remove the juice)
1/2 cup of grated apple (squeezed to remove the juice)

method
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Grease and line a deep loaf pan.

2. Sift flour and bicarb soda, salt and cinnamon into a large bowl. Stir in sugar and walnuts.

3. Combine egg replacement and oil in a jug. Mix egg mixture, carrot, apple and zucchini into flour mixture until well combined. Spoon mixture into prepared loaf pan. Smooth top. Bake for 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 minutes then turn onto a wire rack to cool. Ice!

cream cheese icing
I read quite a few recipes on the web, which calls for a tub of toffutti cream cheese (I use the Kingland stuff where possible I think its much nicer) and 1 cup of icing sugar. I just added icing sugar until it was a consistency I liked (I think about 3 cups). It was a BUTTLOAD of icing and iced 3 cakes so beware!

coconut cream pie with chocolate ganache

and just so we're clear on what kind of tofu you need (its not in the fridge! its in the asian food aisle at the supermarket, you use this for desserts/dressings etc)



Adapted from Real Food Daily by Anne Gentry

ingredients
2 boxes of japanese tofu (soft) and rinsed
1 cup of sweetner
3/4 of coconut milk
1/3 cup of canola oil
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp almond extract (I found this too strong so maybe half?)
1/4 tsp sea salt
3/4 shredded coconut

method
1x pie crust (I use a 9 inch pan and I had a wee bit too much filling so use a big crust so you can build up the sides)

Lets talk about the pie crust, I made a wholemeal crust, but I didn’t like it. I am yet to find a vegan, sweet pie crust that I really like. Bueller? So I'll leave the whole issue of a pie crust up to you.

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

2. Blend all the ingredients together with 1/2 cup of the shredded coconut. Spread into your pie case.

3. Bake for 25 minutes then sprinkle the remaining coconut on the top and continue cooking for another 15 mins or longer, until the coconut is toasted. Let sit for at least 20-30 minutes before cutting up and serving (longer is better but as if you can wait for that!). Serve with a big drizzle of ganache!

chocolate ganache
1 block of 70% dark chocolate
Some milk substitute

method
1. Melt the chocolate over a double boiler (or heat it in the microwave) add a bit of milk every now and then until you get a good drizzle consistency. Voi la!

Ps yeah yeah the photos are shit. I'll get it sorted out.

chocolate raspberry layer cake

I am a sucker for this packet mix, Clare and I call it 'not cake' as it doesn't seem to logically subsist of anything that makes a 'cake' haha. Deeply obsessed with making a layer cake, Clare and I concocted this plan.

Assembly:
We baked 2 sets of cake mix and left to cool.

raspberry jam
1/2 cup of frozen raspberries (or fresh obviously)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup of water

1. Combine sugar and water, heat until the liquid becomes clear.

2. Add raspberries and reduce on medium heat until it resembles jam (maybe 20 minutes to half an hour).

chocolate cream frosting
1x packet of japanese tofu rinsed(firm or soft I cant tell the difference)
1/2 cup of cocoa
1 x block of lindt 70% dark chocolate (melted)
1x tsp vanilla
1/2 cup of sugar

1. Blend all the ingredients with a whizz stick or food processor (you can even get away with doing it by hand with a whisk), until well combined then pop in the fridge for half an hour while the cakes are cooling. My trick with rinsing the tofu is to cut the sides off then cut the top off and pinch out the sides a bit and just dribble water into one side for a few minutes to flush it out.

2. Assemble! The trick to assembling a heavily frosted cake without ruining the plate, frost on a piece of baking paper cut down the middle, when you're ready to transfer to a plate you can easily pull out both halves from underneath the cake. This cake mixture doesn't cut very well, but it was SOOOOOOO TASTY! The cake also becomes so moist its like mousse after a few days.

dark chocolate tart with gingersnap crust

Photo by Deb at Smitten Kitchen

I'm a HUGE fan of Deb from Smitten Kitchen. I had a dinner party last night for meat eaters so I thought I would make the most 'recognisable' menu for them so I picked italian. I made an amazing minestrone out of the 'voluptuous vegan' cookbook, I also planned on making 4 mushroom and asparagus risotto but we got too pissed. Anyway, I wanted to make a bitter chocolate tart and couldn't really find any vegan recipes, I'm kind of lax to veganise dessert recipes but anyway I veganised Debs chocolate tart and it came out AMAZING.

ingredients
1 x packet of gingersnaps (the homebrand kind are vegan)
1/4 cup of marg - melted
1 or 2 packets of dark chocolate (I like lindt 70%)
1 packet of japanese tofu
90mls of soyatoo or coconut cream
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon all purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Pinch of salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

method
1. Preheat oven to 165 degrees.

2. Finely grind gingersnap cookies in processor. Add melted butter and process until moistened. Press crumb mixture firmly onto bottom and up sides of 9 inch pie pan.

3. Melt the chocolate in the microwave or over a double boiler. Throw all the ingredients into a food processor and whiz until combined. Pour chocolate filling into crust.

4. Bake chocolate tart for about 30 minutes. Let sit for at least 15 minutes for it to firm up.

notes: When using tofu (any tofu!) put into a container and run fresh water over it slowly until the water runs completely clear (usually a few minutes) then drain depending on what kind of tofu it is, with silken/soft I sit in a strainer over a bowl until I'm ready to use it.

I used homebrand gingersnap biscuits (they're vegan!) most homebrand products are vegan

I bought 'soyatoo' soy pouring cream at the Radical Grocery store on Sydney rd Brunswick, support your local vegan/ethical businesses!

I'll do a post on tofu soon, it took me years to figure it out! Until then check this out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tofu