#easy vegan dessert

Base:

Cheating - buy a box of gluten free chocolate brownie mix

Or -

• 1 cup of gluten free flour (you can use wheat flour if you want)
• 2 tablespoons of ground linseed/flaxeseed
• 3 tablespoons of oil
• ¼ cup of almond or soy milk (others are fine too)
• ¼ cup cocoa powder (you can also leave this out and have a vanilla flavoured base)
• ¼ cup soft brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• A pinch of salt

Optional

• Cinnamon
• Dessicated coconut
• Ground almonds, walnuts etc

Mousse

• x2 Silken tofu (this stuff: https://www.morinu.com/)
• 1 block of whittakers plain dark chocolate (50% or higher is fine). You can use baking chocolate but it isn’t as good. If you can’t get whittakers, aim for a good quality block of 50% or higher chocolate that’s around 400 grams (or 14 ounces)
• ¼ cup almond or soy milk (others might work too depending on your tastes)
• A pinch of salt
• ¼ cup of soft brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence (natural is better but not essential)

Optional

• Cinnamon and nutmeg
• Strawberries or other fruit
• Maple syrup
• 1 ripe avocado
• Coconut oil
• Agar Agar
• Guar Gum
• Cocoa powder
• Chilli
• Coconut flakes
• Nuts

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C (350F)
2. Get a round spring form pan, it makes everything so much easier. Grease it if needed
3. Mix up all your base ingredients in one go, you’re looking for a fairly thick mixture. Add almond milk and oil by the tablespoon if it’s too dry. Press the mix into the pan and make it as even as you can.
4. Put it in the oven for 10-15 minutes. Either use the guide on the baking mix box, or if you’re not cheating, look for the surface of the base to gently spring back when you press on it a little. Worst comes to worst it’s not gonna matter if it isn’t super well cooked. Under cooked is better than overcooked.
5. Leave the base to cool. If you’re in a hurry, put it in the freezer. I usually leave it in the freezer for an hour at least.
6. Now you have to “press” the tofu. Get a bowl, put a seive over the top, and line the seive with a clean tea towel or cheese cloth. Put the tofu in the cheese cloth, and squeeze it, I find twisting the corners around helps. Water will come out, after a while, leave it in the seive to keep draining.
7. Half fill a pot with water, now find a metal bowl that will fit in the pot. Break up the chocolate and put it in the metal bowl, and then float the bowl in the pot. It helps if they’re close in size, so just the bottom of the bowl is in the water. Bring the water to the boil and slowly melt the chocolate.
8. Put the tofu in a blender, add the melted chocolate, and blend until smooth. Add the sugar, salt and vanilla and blend again. Over time it will get thicker. Taste test, add sugar if needed, or if it’s too intense, add a tablespoon of almond milk. Blend and test until it’s how you want it. Bear in mind that the flavours will smooth out in the fridge. I usually add cinnamon, maple syrup, and other stuff during this stage.
9. If you want to use avocado, you’ll likely need extra cocoa powder. If it’s too runny, add some melted coconut oil, or a little agar or guar gum. Remember it will get a bit firmer after being in the fridge.
10. Pull the base out of the freezer. If you want strawberries round the edges, now is the time to put them there. Then use a spatula to scrape the mousse into the pan. Spread it out as evenly as you can and add strawberries/other fruit, nuts, coconut etc on top.
11. Chill in the fridge for at least a few hours. you should notice a change in how firm it is. When you want to take off the sides, run a knife around the edge first to loosen it.

I remember when I was a kid, we would have those powdered ‘instant’ puddings in a packet. They were never instant, of course. You mixed the powder with water and put it in the fridge for half an hour or so and THEN you had a sort of cross between mousse and jelly.

I have no idea if those were vegan friendly or not, but they weren’t exactly a culinary delight, they had sugar, so as kids, we liked them. I haven’t had one of those puddings in a long time. We’re talking maybe more than two decades (damn… now I feel old).

Anyway, this is a base that I usually use to make chocolate pudding, but it could be flavoured in a bunch of other ways too. The texture depends a lot on what you use out of the options. A blender is very helpful for this recipe but it isn’t critical. 

Automatically dairy, gelatine, and egg free. Can be nut free, soy free, sugar free, low fodmap, or just about anything else depending on your choices. The recipe is raw too, for those interested in that.

It stores fine overnight in the fridge. It’s never made it past that point without being devoured so I don’t know about storing it any longer than that.

This much should be two decent sized bowlfuls. If you serve it with fruit or nuts, or whatever it would make desssert for four easily.

Ingredients

• 2 bananas or 2 ripe avocadoes - You can do without these if you want, but you’ll need to use a lot more of something else to thicken it and the texture will be a lot less smooth and silky.
• Chia seeds, Ground linseed (flaxseed) - I find chia seeds work really well (and fast) for this, but they create quite a lumpy texture. They’re also expensive. I typically add four tablespoons of chia seeds and four of ground linseed. Alternatively, you could use agar (a quarter teaspoon). Other thickeners might work too but I haven’t tried them uncooked, so you’d need to experiment.
• Non dairy milk - I usually use almond milk, but any non dairy milk will do, you could even use water, just add a little more of whatever flavourings you choose. I usually use about half a cup of almond milk and add another half cup of water.
• Sugar - Not essential. I usually add two tablespoons.
• Flavourings - What you add here really depends on your tastes. My usual preference is two tablespoons of cocoa, and a splash of vanilla essence. You could skip the cocoa and have vanilla, or skip the vanilla and have a strong banana flavour, or have mint chocolate, or blueberry. Whatever you want.
  

Method

Put everything except half the liquid in the blender (or bowl if you’re mixing and mashing by hand). Blend it all up.

Leave it for a few minutes to thicken (if you’re using agar it’ll take a bit longer), add more liquid to get to your desired consistency.

Eat.