Pawsitively Vegan Bake Sale: Choc-o-rama for the animals!

Anybody who says BLAH! to vegan food has never tried a well-executed vegan dessert.

Last week I received an e-mail from Paul Voykin, my kind and extraordinarily patient food editor at The Vancouver Observer, asking for permission to repost my recipe for Va-va-voom Vegan Chocolate Peppermint Truffles, to include in an article about an upcoming event, the SPCA's Pawsitively Vegan Bake Sale at Radha Yoga & Eatery. Of course I was thrilled and flattered, and then it occurred to me that participating might be a fun idea. Helping to raise funds for puppies, kittens, bunnies, and more at one of my favourite restaurants? Why not!

I like Radha very much and hosted my birthday dinner there last year, after checking with friends and family if they'd be all right with trying a vegan dinner. The building's green-retrofitted, mixed-use yoga/food class/restaurant space is welcoming and comfortable, without the type of judgmental air that makes non-vegans uncomfortable and guilty enough to stay away, and their former head chef, Andrea Potter, is a lovely person, as is their current head chef, Robert Wilson-Smith. I felt happy to join in on the bake sale, after tweaking my truffle recipe to satisfy even level-5 vegans.

Some people have stereotypical ideas of who vegans are and how they may act towards others who don't follow the same lifestyle, which I don't need to describe here, and while there are people who do fit that bill, many others follow V-ism for reasons other than politics and animal preservation, including health or dietary restrictions, how energized they feel after making the change, and simply, it's less expensive not to eat a lot of meat, and very likely that they will live healthier and longer lives than people who eat ribs for dinner every night.

For reasons of chance and impending happiness, I happen to know a lot of people who are lactose intolerant, vegetarian, pescetarian, vegan, celiac, or have a slew of other allergies. Fortunately for them, where some cooks and chefs may scoff or mock their habits in disdain, I myself am a non-vegan professional cook who loves vegan and vegetarian food, cooking, and baking, and sees an opportunity. One of my favourite ways to nerd up my day with food science is to experiment with transforming a recipe into a vegetarian or vegan format, because I want all of my friends to be able to eat good food, instead of feeling sentenced to a life of carrot sticks. It's also fun to dispel the misconception that food without meat or animal products has to be bland and boring.

I altered my original truffle recipe for a few reasons, to change the original possible allergens (coconut, peanuts) to peanuts/nuts and soy (my almond milk contained soy lecithin), because it seemed likely that more people would be allergic to coconut than soy, and the truffles were sweetened with agave syrup instead of white sugar, to make them lower on the glycemic index, and because some white sugar is filtered through bone char, which is not V-friendly. Cocoa powder was added into the ganache to make up for the extra liquid and to add flavour. This paragraph has to be riveting to somebody out there, probably another vegan baker.

It's up to you to decide between chunky or smooth peanut butter, or another nut butter entirely, but keep flavour in mind, and know that natural nut butters (nuts only, without other ingredients) work very well. For this recipe I used chocolate almond milk by Almond breeze, but chocolate So Good, Silk Soy, or Ryza could also be used as substitutes. The original recipe used coconut milk, and all things considered, these truffles aren't as high in fat, but are still amazingly delicious.

My little polka-dotted army of animal helpers...

Level-5 Veganlicious Chocolate Truffles
Prep time: 30 minutes
Cook time: 10 minutes

300g chopped dark chocolate (about 2 cups)
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup chocolate-flavoured almond, soy, or rice milk
2 tbsp agave syrup
2 tsp cocoa powder

extra cocoa powder for rolling truffles in

It's like a face-sized peanut butter cup...with chocolate milk...

Combine the dark chocolate, peanut butter, milk, syrup, and 2 tsp cocoa in a double-boiler or a metal bowl sitting on a half-full pot of lightly simmering water. Wait patiently for 8 to 10 minutes.

Stir the mixture until it is uniform. Allow to cool to room temperature, then move to the fridge for half an hour, and then the freezer for another half an hour. I found that because of the lower fat content (absence of coconut milk), it was helpful to chill the ganache in the freezer for a bit, to be able to handle it more easily.

Stir the mixture until it is uniform and taste to adjust, if you want it to be sweeter. Allow to cool to room temperature, then move to the fridge and chill until firm but slightly pliable.

Use a tablespoon, melon baller, or tiny ice cream scooper to pick up small amounts of ganache, and roll them quickly between your palms to make them round if they aren't already. Drop them into a bowl of sifted cocoa and shake the bowl around to coat them.

Tip: Excess cocoa powder can stick to the truffles and make them taste chalky or dry. I recommend putting the finished truffles in the freezer for a few minutes so that they're hard and won't dent, then carefully dropping them one by one into a soup bowl, so that the extra powder taps off and the chocolates don't roll away.

Serve at room temperature in bowls, on plates, in tiny muffin cups, or wrap in boxes, gift bags, or cute mason jars as gifts. My scheme was to put them into cute little dixie cups for sale, so that people would feel more excited to buy them, and also so that they might feel inclined to donate more for them, as there was a whole cup of truffles instead of one or two. I did it for the animals.

Everyone was so calm and serene in the line-up, while I was thinking "Hurry up, I want some G-D CHOCOLATE NOW! GRAAAAAH!!!"

Now, onto the bake sale: It turns out that vegan baking is a huge draw in Vancouver, as was witnessed by the enormous, constant lineup for goodies, for many reasons. The bake sale was an amazing way to gather a lot of variety and talent in one room, there were many people who wanted to come out and support the SPCA, vegan desserts tend to be more health-conscious than their dairy counterparts, and also, a lot of people were looking for allergy-aware treats, which is something that is sure to be found when you sneak around in the kitchens of many people who are stringent about reading food labels and packaging.

I spoke briefly with a few of the organizers, who were incredibly gracious and sweet, and didn't call the Vegan Police on me, even though I was wearing leather boots. This latest bake sale has been their fourth event in two years, and could definitely be called a success, especially because they said that almost nobody turned up to their first Pawsitively Vegan fundraiser.

The sheer selection of goods available was astonishing. Home bakers and professionals alike made jaws drop everywhere in the crowd. Whoopie pies, cupcakes, cookies, cookie sandwiches, squares, bars, cakes, pies, tarts, "cheesecakes", doughnuts, and more. All of these sweet donations and the following financial donations were products of wanting to do something nice for animals and the people who love them, and it would be lying to say it didn't make my heart swell up like The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.

People were chatting happily with random strangers, there were big smiles on the faces of the ones enjoying a sugar rush, and there was a nice, calming air about the room.  It was positively sweet, without exaggeration. A lot of us brought reusable containers to bring the desserts home in, too. Gush.

I saved a bite of each for my man and my brother. That's not greedy, right?

I took home some fantastic items, including a slice of raspberry-lime "cheesecake", a vanilla and chocolate "cheesecake" square, a chocolate ganache-covered cake ball, a coffee and chocolate-covered doughnut with chocolate filling inside, and a slice of chocolate-mint silk pie. They were all excellent, but the silk pie stood out as my favourite. The texture of its mousse was dreamy and fluffy. So much, that, when someone was holding up the line, I jumped ahead to grab a slice before it could run out by the time I got to it. Don't hate.

Having arrived at the beginning of the night, I stuck around for 40 minutes, having left before Arctic, the evening's musical guest performed, but the lineup never diminished. Clearly, there's a demand for yummy treats without animal products, and proof that they can be made deliciously.

I'm already excitedly planning what to make for their next bake sale. Until next time!

Eat well!

Kari