Hi and a warm welcome. I’m thrilled to finally share what I’ve been working on for quite a while now – this is My Berry Forest, a forest full of berries, of course, but also other good-for-you plant-based food. I want to spread the joy of plant based cooking and the joy of eating healthy vegan food. So let’s start with cake: festive chocolate cake.
Chocolate cake with vegetables?
I baked this chocolate cake for my birthday a while ago, and honestly I could eat this every single day. It is rich and chocolatey, has a creamy colorful filling and fluffy topping. At the same time it’s free from refined white sugar, wheat, dairy and eggs.
One magical ingredient this cake isn’t free from is plants! I love experimenting with all kinds of vegetables and fruits, and for this cake I used a yummy popular recipe of mine: eggplant brownies.
Plants give a wonderful texture to baked goods, and eggplant is no exception. Fudgy is a word which comes to mind when taking a bite of this chocolate goodness.
If you want to bake something even crazier, here’s my veggie brownie recipe. Click the link to see all the crazy veggies I hid inside 🙂Â
Festive natural coloring
How to make pink natural coloring?
As for the colorful filling – I wanted festive Christmas colors and I got pretty close, right? I’ve used beetroot powder a lot lately, in nice creams and chia puddings, and must admit it is my favorite coloring agent ever invented.
The color it provides to foods is very intense, but without a super beetrooty flavor. It’s more like a subtle earthy tone, which can be covered up pretty easily. Berries and beetroot powder seem to work together marvelously.
How to make green natural coloring?
The green filling is another favorite of mine, a superfood I like to use in my green smoothies: spirulina powder. Spirulina has a strong green flavor, which I am not fond of. So I came up with a lovely spice mix to cover it up: ground cardamom, cinnamon and vanilla powder.
I could call my creation an eggplant-beetroot-spirulina chocolate cake, but it didn’t sound so good. So I kept the name shorter and I called it my Festive Chocolate Cake. Much better, right? 😉
I’m really looking forward to spreading the joy of plant based cooking! And I’m so happy you’ve found your way here.
Now let’s have cake!
Love from the forest,
Tiina
- The recipe for the cake is based on my Eggplant Brownie recipe. I baked the cake in three small springform cake tins (about 6 inch / 15 cm)
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- [b]Cake[/b]
- [b]Wet ingredients[/b]
- Two 10,5 oz / 300 g organic eggplants (about 2 cups cooked eggplant)
- ~7 oz / 200 g vegan dark chocolate (I used 80% chocolate for a rich chocolate taste)
- 4 tbsp coconut oil (room temperature)
- 16 pitted dates (soak in water if needed). Note: I used small to medium dates. If you have large ones (e.g. large medjool), 14 should be enough.
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- [b]Dry ingredients[/b]
- 2/3 cup rice flour
- 1/2 cup oat flour
- 3 tbsp cocoa powder
- 1,5 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp good quality salt (e.g.Himalayan)
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- [b]Cashew cream for the layers[/b]
- 2 cups soaked cashews
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 tsp agave nectar (or sweetener of choice)
- 1/4 tsp organic vanilla powder
- 1/8 tsp good quality salt (e.g.Himalayan)
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- [b]Pink layer[/b]
- Cashew cream
- 1,5 tsp beetroot powder
- 1 tsp lingonberry powder (or any red berry powder)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp ceylon cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ground cardamom
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- [b]Green layer[/b]
- Cashew cream
- 1 tsp spirulina powder
- 1 tsp ceylon cinnamon
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp ground cardamom
- [br]
- + 1 tbsp almond milk (or other plant based milk for moistening the cake)
- [br]
- [b]Whipped coconut cream
- [/b]
- 1 can of coconut milk (just the creamy part used)
- 1 tsp agave nectar
- 1/4 tsp ground cardamom
- 1/4 tsp organic vanilla powder
- + Berries for the topping
- [b]Preparations:[/b] put the coconut milk can in the fridge overnight.
- [b]Soaking cashews:[/b] soak cashews for the cashew cream at least 2 hours, preferably 4 hours in a bowl or glass jar covered in warm water.
- [b]Cooking the eggplant[/b]: Preheat oven 200C/390F.
- Prick the eggplants with a fork all around and cook them in the oven for ~50 min (turn every 10-15 minutes) until eggplants feel soft. Let the eggplants cool.
- Lower the heat to 180C/360F after cooking the eggplants.
- [b]Eggplant brownies[/b]: Melt chocolate in a double boiler. Add coconut oil and mix well.
- When the eggplants have cooled for ~15 min cut them in half and scrape the insides – you should have about 2 cups of cooked soft eggplant. Squeeze out the water.
- Purée eggplant well in a blender/food processor together with melted chocolate, coconut oil and dates until a chocolate mousse like (not as smooth but close) consistency reached.
- Mix all dry ingredients together.
- Combine dry ingredients to wet ingredients little by little mixing gently.
- Line three small springform tins with a parchment paper. Divide the cake batter into three equal parts and pour into the tins.
- Bake cake layers for 20 minutes. Test with a toothpick: toothpick should come out fairly clean and not wet. Bake more (~5 minutes) if the cake still feels too raw.
- After baking keep the cake layers in the springform tin for another 15 minutes before removing them.
- Let cool completely before assembling the cake.
- [b]Cashew cream: [/b] blend the cashew cream in a high speed blender until smooth consistency reach. Add more water if needed (1 tbsp at a time).
- Divide the cashew cream into two bowls: one for the pink and one for the green layers. Mix the pink layer and green layer ingredients well with a spoon. Smooth out all clumps.
- [b]Whipped coconut cream:[/b] scoop out the stiff creamy part from the can, add other ingredients and whip it with a beater until fluffy.
- [b]Assembling the cake: [/b] moisten the cake layers with almond milk (~1/2 tbsp per layer) and spread the green and pink cashew cream on top of the moistened layers. Assemble the cake and top the cake with whipped coconut cream and berries.
- Store cake in the fridge.
- Enjoy the cake in good company!
This is amazing Tiina!!!! Eggplant was the last ingredient I would think of looking at that beautiful cake!!!! You are so creative!!!♥♥♥
Thank you Elena for stopping by:) I really appreciate it and of course your lovely comment too <3 Blogging (in public:) is such a new thing to me, but loving it so far. Can't wait to share more recipes. Have a great day dear!
Ahhhhhhh! Tinna you have no idea how happy I am to be on your site leaving a comment! This cake is incredible–festive and fun and stacked so tall! But your whole site is incredible, you have been putting in some serious work; all these recipes already here and I loved your about page and cooking style page! Your writing style is fantastic, I’m so happy to be able to read and see even more from you. If you can’t tell, I’m just so excited <3 <3 <3
Thank you Natalie!! So incredibly happy to be here! And to visit your blog soon too:) I’ve been working on this for some months..I wanted it to look like ME, if you know what I mean:) Yayyy so happy to be able to connect here as well<3<3<3
Big congratulations on the blog Tiina! I’m so thrilled to start studying it as it looks just perfect from the first sight ??✨ I am so happy for you and you have all reasons to be so proud of this little baby of yours ???
Thank you for visiting the Forest:) So happy you like it! And thank you also for the constant support and encouragement, it really means a lot to me<3 Wishing you a lovely Christmas time!
Beautiful page Tiina!
Thank you thank you<3 Can't wait to go comment on your gorgeous blog:) Wishing you a Merry Christmas!
Tiina… I’m carrying my excitement over here. Congratulations. So happy for you. Such a gorgeous blog and what a great way to showcase your creations. And this cake is absolutely gorgeous! <3
Dear Audrey, truly delighted that you stopped by<3 I love your blog (and your incredible BOOK<3) so I'm really happy to connect with you outside IG in the blogosphere too;) Happy Holidays!
What a fabulous website. I found you through Audrey from Unconventional Baker – just wanted to say big YES!
Hi Trinity! Thank you so much for your lovely comment! Can’t wait to look at your blog, took a quick first glance and it looked amazing:) Happy Holidays!
Oh wow, what a spectacular looking festive cake… Wonderful blog, so happy to be able to visit and check out your creations (much easier to read on here) 🙂 I love finding new ways to hide vegies from the husband.
Congratulations on going public, a great addition to the blog community!
Happy Festive Season to you and your family x
Thank you so much Leesh!! I’ve been following you on IG for a long time and it’s so lovely to see all your veggie food:) I hope you’ve had a wonderful Christmas time! Have a great week<3
This looks amazing!!!! What blender did you use when you made this?
i once tried your eggplant brownies but i think i did something wrong, maybe overcooked :(((, as they were a bit dry.
However i will definitely try making this 😉
Good luck with you blog and merry christmas.
Anya xx
Thank you Anya:) I used a really small (and basic) blender but it did the work well. Since I first published the recipe on IG I have reduced the amount of flour, because I wanted the brownies to be more moist. My eggplants always seem to be extremely juicy when I cook them (I usually have to squeeze a lot of water out before blending them), but I know that eggplants can also be dry. So maybe if the eggplant turns out really dry after cooking, the amount of flour could be reduced even more. Thank you so much for your support and hopefully you had a lovely Christmas time<3
My birthday is next week and now I have the perfect cake to bake! This really looks amazing Tiina!!!
Thank You so much Krystal:) I love your blog!! Can’t stop thinking about the hot chocolate…yum. Have a great day and HAPPY BIRTHDAY in advance<3
Wonderful Tiina ! Congrats with your beautiful site! Looking forward to all the gorgeous recipes you will be sharing,
sending love xoxo Tina @tinas_alkaline _diet
Hi! Can I sub the brown rice flour with something else? Maybe like all purpose flour or coconut flour? 🙂
Hi Georgina! Yes you can 🙂 I wouldn’t use coconut flour as it would make this cake very stiff, but all purpose flour could work 🙂 Have a happy day!