help with vegan dessert recipe

For reasons this year, for the Thanksgiving luncheon I'm contributing actual food and not just money toward supplies, and I wanted to make something either vegetarian or vegan for dessert, since we have a lot of Indian contractors and employees in our unit. Years ago at Vividcon, someone brought pumpkin chocolate loaf that I was kind of willing to kill everyone at the con for, but after extensive googling, while there aren't that many recipes for it--though I heartily approve of the addition of chocolate chips to the mix--I wasn't sure if this was the right one. Or a right one, in any case. To clarify, I'm not even vegan or vegetarian by implication, so I don't know by looking if this one is a good one to use. My memories of the VVC one are pretty much magical.

Chocolate Pumpkin loaf. Recipe is pasted below cut as well. Is this one good?

1/4 cup applesauce
2 tablespoons coconut oil (or canola oil)
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/3 cup + 2 tablespoons boiling water, divided (see note)
1 cup pumpkin puree
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 F and lightly grease an 8 inch loaf pan. Also, boil some water in a tea kettle (no need to measure yet.)

Put applesauce, coconut oil and cocoa powder in a mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, spices, baking soda and salt.

Measure out 1/3 cup boiling water and pour into the bowl with the chocolate mixture, mixing quickly to make a smooth chocolate sauce. Add pumpkin, sugar and vanilla and mix well.

Dump about half of the flour mixture into the chocolate mixture and gently stir just to incorporate, then measure out 1 tablespoon of boiling water and stir again. Now add the rest of the flour mixture and another tablespoon of boiling water and stir just until smooth. Take care not to overmix. Fold in the chocolate chips.

Spoon the batter into the prepared loaf pan. It will be good and thick. You can smooth the top out with a spatula.

Bake for 55 minutes to an hour. Stick a steak knife into the center of the loaf to check for doneness. A little bit of wetness is okay since it could be from a chocolate chip, but the knife should come out mostly dry.

Let cool for 10 minutes, then invert pan and place loaf on a cooling rack to cool most of the way. It’s yummy a little bit warm, or thoroughly cooled. Slice and serve!

Comments

[alexseanchai]

It's definitely vegan, if that's what you're asking. Intriguing concept...

[ratcreature]

It sounds very tasty. And the applesauce as egg replacement is common in vegan cake recipes, so that part makes sense.

[dimestore_romeo]

I was about to comment and say "Have a look at Post Punk Kitchen!" Then I realised that was where the recipe was from. :D You can trust her, I've never made a recipe from there that I didn't like. I also have one of her cookbooks and it hasn't let me down yet.

[azurelunatic]

The only thing I can see that might possibly de-veganize the recipe is if the chocolate chips had any milk products in them.

[basingstoke]

One sticking point is the sugar. Refined sugar can be made with some kind of animal product--I think animal bones?--so you may want to be careful about the sourcing of the chocolate chips and sugar. I believe demerara sugar is unrefined, so that would be okay. It depends how strict the vegans are.

I would have eaten the hell out of that when I was vegan.

Another thing that would help is to print out the list of ingredients and stick it on a little flag in the pan. That will reassure people that it's really vegan and no hidden eggs or bacon or some damn thing. I asked a person once if there was any meat in the soup and the answer was "not in this ladleful."

[boxofdelights]

I made this last night (although after I put it in the oven I turned and saw the half-cup of chocolate chips sitting forlornly in a bowl), and my vegan daughter and vegetarian husband give it two thumbs up.