to eating primarily vegetarian and organic or raw foods.
This has included removing all chemicals, food dyes, refined & processed foods, and foods with any ingredient that a 3rd grader cannot easily pronounce.
It's been rather painful ... especially for the younger children in our blended family ... and loud.
Really, really loud.
Because every single child has had to "suffer" as a result of not being allowed to eat those yummy, packaged candies, cookies, and snack cakes found along the check-out aisles at the grocery store. They have been lured into believing that these brightly colored confections wrapped in shiny packaging ... only 3 for $1.00, Mom ... HAVE TO BE GOOD FOR YOU!!!
So ... after countless hours of research ... and buckets of tears shed by the children over not being allowed to eat those pre-packaged lovelies ... I discovered an alternative to HFCS, Red 40, Blue Lake 5, refined sugar, and bleached flour.
Organic Chocolate Cake
Yep, that's right ... cake.
You see ... our bodies actually NEED sugar in order to create the saturated fats that our cell walls need to survive. And if you remove the sugars, our bodies may suffer as a result. Same thing goes for other ingredients like eggs and flour.
And while there's just as many vegetarian cookbooks out there as there are vegetarians, I discovered that, with a little research and the switching of a few ingredients, I could turn ANY recipe into a vegetarian or organic one.
Now, THAT'S cool =)
And because I cannot share the yumminess of the actual cake with you ... I have decided to share with you the recipe conversion =)
RICH CHOCOLATE CAKE
prep: 45 minutes + cooling time baking time: 40-45 min
2 c. organic oat or rice flour
1 c. raw, organic cocoa
2 tsp. organic baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. Mediterranean sea salt
1 c. melted coconut oil
2 c. organic, turbinado sugar
4 large free range, organic eggs
2 tsp. organic vanilla
1 1/3 c. organic whole milk [whole milk is not homogenized and therefore, healthier for you]
organic powdered sugar
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Farenheit. Grease & flour 13"x9" baking pan [or three 8" round cake pans, or 36 lined 2 1/2" cupcake tins].
2. In a small bowl, place jar of coconut oil in boiling water until the coconut oil has melted. Measure 1 c. of the melted oil and pour into a large mixing bowl. Add sugar and blend with a mixer at low speed for approximately 1 minute, switch to high speed and beat for 5 more minutes, until smooth.
3. Add baking powder, soda, and vanilla to sugar mixture and blend. Add cocoa and mix on medium speed until well blended [no signs of dry cocoa]. Mixture will appear grainy.
4. Add eggs and mix on medium-low speed until smooth. Add flour and milk, mix on high speed, scraping sides of bowl with spatula until batter is smooth.
5. Pour into prepared pan. Bake in preheated oven until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 40 to 45 minutes for 13"x9" cake [30 minutes for 8" layers, or 25 minutes for pans of cupcakes].
6. Remove from oven and allow to cool on a wire rack. Once cooled, you may frost as desired or simply sprinkle organic powdered sugar on the top. I opted for powdered sugar since I didn't think the kids needed the added sugar bump from chocolate frosting.
Makes 20 servings.
The old recipe with the refined sugar, butter, all-purpose flour, and regular cocoa contained 285 calories, 4g protein, 43g carbohydrate, 12g total fat [7g saturated], 70mg cholesterol, & 291mg sodium.
With the substitution of healthy ingredients, I'm not exactly sure what the breakdown would be ... I do know that every last ingredient in this recipe is actually GOOD for you ... and with that being the case, the numbers really don't matter. I do know that substituting oat or rice flour for the all-purpose flour results in a cake that is gluten-free. And using raw, organic ingredients means that chemicals are being kept OUT of our bodies ... which is even better.
And what it all boils down to is that eating healthy shouldn't be cause for sacrifice ...
you can have your cake AND eat it too!!!
Enjoy!
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