Vegan Spicy Chocolate Pudding & Iced Chai Tea Latte

This is my Secret Recipe Club post for April. For those of you who don't know the Secret Recipe Club is this great group of bloggers that each month get assigned another food blog from which they must try a recipe and blog about it on reveal day. Anyway it's a lot of fun and this month was no different.

I was assigned the lovely Cooking in Stilettos (Which I have to say is one of my favourite blog names of all time). Aly is super passionate about food and has many awesome looking recipes to try. In fact I couldn't decide this month so I made two recipes from her blog.

I choose two somewhat spicy but cooling recipes both of which turned out great. They were super easy to vegan-ize by just replacing the regular milk with non dairy. Thank Aly for the yummy-ness with your Mexican Chocolate Pudding and Iced Chai Latte.

Vegan Spicy Chocolate Pudding
Via Cooking in Stilettos

1/2 cup organic sugar
1 Tbsp molasses
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 1/2 Tbsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp salt
2 cups non dairy milk
2 Tbsp vegan margarine
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Pinch of cayenne pepper

Directions
Whisk together sugar, molasses, cocoa, cornstarch, cinnamon, salt and milk in a heavy medium saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, whisking often, then boil, whisking, 1 minute.

Remove from heat and whisk in butter, vanilla and cayenne pepper.

Pour into serving dishes and cover the surface of the pudding with cling film to prevent a skin from forming. Chill until cold, at least 1 1/2 hours. If you want garnish with some grated dark chocolate and orange peel. Enjoy!

Vegan Iced Chai Tea Latte
Via Cooking in Stilettos

1/4 cup of loose tea or 4 tea bags
2 1/2 cups of water
1 tsp. black peppercorns
3 green whole cardamom pods
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
5 whole star anise
1/4 tsp ground ginger
2 cups non dairy milk
2 tbsp. turbinado sugar

Directions:
In a mortar and pestle crush the peppercorns and cardamom pods.

Over medium heat, add water to a medium saucepan and add crushed cardamom pods, peppercorns, cinnamon, star anise, and ginger. Bring to a boil for one minute and then add the tea. Simmer for 5 minutes.

Stir in the milk and return to a simmer. Sweeten with sugar to taste and remove from heat.

Cool chai to room temperature. Once it is cool, pour the liquid through a fine mesh strainer into a pitcher. Discard the tea and spices and refrigerate chai.

To serve, fill glasses with ice and pour the chai over the ice.

Vegan Rice Pudding

Sorry for the long delay in blogging. It's been a busy month. But I am back with a  very yummy recipe.

 

This is my first month participating in the Secret Recipe Club and my assignement was to make something from Apron Strings Blog. There was a lot of yummy stuff and I was having trouble deciding what to make. But then I saw this rice pudding recipe and I was set. I didn't have pistachios to garnish so I used sesame seeds, acia berries and cashews. I found the recipe a bit on the sweet side so next time I would reduce the sugar.


CARDAMOM RICE PUDDING

2/3 cup basmati rice
3 cups water
2 cans (12 ounces each) coconut milk
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon cardamom
1/2 cup sugar (I would reduce the sugar)
1 teaspoon vanilla
Diced pistachios for garnish

In a heavy bottomed saucepan, bring to a boil the rice, water (or milk), coconut milk and salt. Reduce heat to simmer the mixture very slowly. Simmer for 30 to 40 minutes, stirring occasionally, until mixture is thickened to the consistency of oatmeal.

Remove from heat and stir in remaining ingredients. Serve chilled or at room temperature with garnish of your choice.