A Chocolate Cake That Won't Make You Fat - Ligia's Kitchen

Hi! Today I'll make a recipe from my book, "Retete Vegane Fara Foc".
The recipe is called Raw Mint Chocolate Cake, and you can find it on page 49.
Here are the ingredients:
3-4 tablespoons of cocoa or carob
3-6 drops of food-grade peppermint essence, depending on how minty you like your cake to be
I used this essence. It's specially made for food preparation.
Not all essential oils you can find in health food shops are food-grade, so be very careful.
about a cup of cashews, which I left in water for 1/2 hour prior to filming, to soften them
a pinch of salt
and 3-4 tablespoons of honey.
We'll also need water, about 1/2 cup
and palm oil, or an avocado, if you don't have palm oil. It's about 1/3 of a cup, or two tablespoons.
I'll show you in just a second what kind of palm oil I use,
but first, let me show you what I mean by "a cup". It's like this one, not too big, not too small.
Let me show you the palm oil. It's this one, called Olina. You can find it in any supermarket [in Romania].
It does have saturated oils, but keep in mind we're not using it every day...
We're using 2 tablespoons for this recipe, so it's not a large quantity.
I slice the bottle and transfer the contents to glass jars. That way it keeps better, up to 1 year.
It won't go bad as long as you keep it in a cool place.
Now let's begin making the recipe. We'll add each ingredient into the blender.
I'll start with the cashews.
Now the cocoa (or the carob).
If 3-4 tablespoons of cocoa is too much for you, use less.
I think I'll use a little bit less as well.
The drops of mint (or peppermint) essence.
The salt.
The 1/2 cup of water.
The honey. You can add less (or more) depending on your taste.
That's all I added.
Let's also add the palm oil. You can substitute coconut oil if you have it.
Let's make sure the blender's cup is locked in place, and now I'll make some noise...
The blended mix may seem too liquid, but don't worry about it.
It's normal for it to be like this.
Still, if it seems too liquid for you, you can add more cashews or nuts to make it more solid.
We'll put this in the freezer anyway, so it'll harden.
Let's transfer the mix into a culinary ring mold, like this one.
I prefer a locking ring mold because it's much easier to remove it afterward.
Look, see how easy it is? The cake remains behind on the bottom plate. Now let's put it back together... there.
See how nice it looks?
You can of course use a smaller or shorter ring mold.
Now let's make sure the mix is level inside the ring mold.
Now we'll put the mold and mix into the freezer for an hour or so. It'll need to become solid, but not frozen.
It's been about an hour. I took this out of the freezer, and it's ready to be decorated now.
Let's remove the ring mold carefully.
Now let's decorate the cake!
I'm using four slices of kiwi
and two strawberries.
These are red currants -- use them if you have them, if not, use what you have.
Now we'll decorate the edges with some coconut flakes.
Our cake is done!
This cake came out a little thin, but you can use a smaller ring mold to make it taller.
or you can double the ingredient quantities [we used ingredients for two servings].
Enjoy!