Vegan Chocolate Loaf Cake (Zoo Year's Eve)

This was the last thing we ate in 2011. I couldn't have been happier.

Hubby and I spent the last day of the year at the zoo. When we got home, we were ravenous, so he put together his man-chili (mostly beans and NO tomatoes) and I sat around thumbing through all my cookbooks looking for just the perfect food for ending this horrendous year. Uh. Chocolate was mandatory. I went all baking-bonkers and spent the next four hours in the kitchen creating a chocolate New Year's Eve for us to enjoy. This chocolate loaf cake exceeded all of my chocolate-loving expectations. I found it in my search in Nigella Lawson's cookbook, Feast: Food to Celebrate Life. A cookbook I've had on my shelf now for the past few years. That's why it's good to collect cookbooks. You just never know where your next inspiration will come from.  

There's a new baby elephant at our zoo, and I just had to see her. (Him?) It was such a beautiful, sunny and unusually warmish afternoon yesterday--and at the spur of the moment I announced that I'd love to take a trip to the zoo. DH looked at me and asked, Seriously? Sure! Then he said, I thought the zoo "bothered" you. (It does.) But nothing will put a smile on your face quicker than baby animals. Apparently the rest of St. Louis felt the same way. We were amongst a HUGE crowd who also found this unusual weather an enticement for baby elephant viewing and various other outdoor pursuits on New Year's Eve. Well. . . I wasn't leaving Forest Park without trying to get in some ice skating. Fifteen minutes of circling the skating rink parking lot (and half that time waiting to navigate around other ice skating enthusiasts who must have JUST gotten their driver's licences YESTERDAY) and we called it a day and headed home. *BUT I did demand a re-do on the ice skating and DH promised he'd come and "watch".  

This cake is so simple to make. No frosting necessary. Trust me. Nigella tells you to just put all the stuff for the cake in your mixing bowl and "blitz", then add the boiling water. The batter looks like a hot mess when you mix it up and it sort of had my KitchenAid doing a dance after this mass of dough collected on one side of the bowl. But once you add the boiling water--uh, NOT while the blade is turning--it all smooths out. (Just thought I'd mention that little tidbit or you'll have cake batter everywhere!) So. . . after carefully mixing in the boiling water, you can take a deep breath and know that everything will be alright. Trust Nigella. This cake will definitely go on the repeater rotation list. Definitely.  

Here's the loaf cake straight from the oven and after I poured the syrup over it. You make your own chocolate syrup to pour over the cake. Pure heaven. Then, let the cake cool for about an hour. It's just amazing! As for vegan changes. You'll sub vegan sour cream for the regular she calls for, and use 3 teaspoons of Ener-G Egg Replacer mixed with 4 tablespoons of water, finally sub unsalted vegetable margerine for the the "butter" called for in her recipe.

So here are some shots of the new baby at the zoo. As is typical of animal watching--you arrive and hope the baby comes out. And she did. With about fifty other folks standing around oooh-ing and ahhh-ing, you can't help but have faith in humanity.

Just precious. Weighing in at like 240 lbs. at birth!

This is another not-quite-adult elephant at our zoo. I have no details to share. We didn't read the fine print. We just walked and looked.

Not Mr. Popper's.

I have cat allergies so we stayed back a bit from this one.

Okay. If I had a zoo, I'd totally want to add prairie dogs to the mix. Most. Adorable. Things. Ever!

So we were trying like crazy to get a shot of the two of us with baby elephant in the background. We were getting Dr. Thyme's goatee and then we'd get my glasses, and maybe a piece of the elephant in the background, then a fuzzy close up of an eyeball. We looked like total morons doing this in front of a small gathering of on-lookers trying to peer around us to see the dang baby! Until finally this VERY kind lady approached us and asked if we'd like her to take our photo! YES, PLEASE! Thank. God.

I love shadows. And for a brief moment we were the only two walking down this path at the zoo. I looked down and said, Look! It's perfect! Our shadows. And Dr. Thyme indulged me this moment. A lasting imprint of us both. To remember the last day of 2011.