chocolate/carob

Whether you are a vegan, or just trying to avoid chocolate, this icing recipe is wonderful for making leaves, swirls and other cake decorations.

Coconut fat, or coconut butter, is often found at health food stores, or some high-end grocery stores. It is a solid fat, similar to a softened butter. Because it has about 100 calories per tablespoon, it is not much healthier than butter, but the flavor compliments the carob.

Cintia loves to give us healthy cakes and desserts that can also be made vegan. This traditional pudding variation calls for either milk or soy milk, and carob. How does this recipe work for you? We've not tried it yet, but there's such a demand for carob dishes to try, we want to bring you some options besides the usual carob cake.

This dessert is very simple to make and we're told it was very popular with the friends of our friend who suggested it. Since it can be difficult to correctly substitute carob for chocolate, we love receiving recipes for carob desserts to share with you.

Please let us know how it works for you. If we get a lot of good responses, we can move this out of our test kitchen and into our recipe section for even more people to enjoy!

Please email food@krishna.com if you have a recipe you would like to suggest.

It's not simple to just convert a recipe for chocolate cupcakes to carob cupcakes because there isn't a direct chocolate-to-carob substitution. And baking cupcakes is different than making icing when it comes to adding carob powder. These are basic carob cupcakes that are lovely served with a simple icing, or can be topped with a rich butter icing and fruit if you want to dress them up a little.

This week’s recipe is for Carob Fudge Cake, an absolutely delicious cake worthy of any birthday or other special occasion. While carob is thought by some to be a chocolate substitute I like to think of it as something different as the taste is not really that similar, especially if you are a chocolate lover. However, carob is lovely in its own right and many people actually prefer it to chocolate.
This two-tiered carob cake is light in texture without the use of eggs. The cakes light texture is due to the sour milk. Filled and iced with Carob Vienna Icing, it is an irresistible dessert.

I was at a potluck dinner a few years ago, and my friend Chandra brought some brownies. Growing up as a Hare Krishna on an eggless diet, all the brownies I ever had were more like cake than the chewy chocolaty goodness that was described to me by my mother when she recalled her childhood encounters with brownies. I have to admit I was skeptical as to Chandra’s brownie’s authenticity, as I had long ago given up on ever finding an eggless chewy brownie recipe.

The original recipe called for a chocolate cookie crust, but I thought that nuts and chocolate go so nicely together that a walnut crust would be divine. I also added some raspberries as decoration on top of the cheesecake for a tart contrast to the sweet cheesecake. The resulting product was just as divine as I imagined, and received rave reviews from all family members.

I must warn you that this cheesecake is quite formidable, and only the smallest slice is manageable if one wishes to be fully functioning after consuming it.