Vegan Espresso Coffee Cake with Chocolate Chunk Crumble (My Own "Tara" and Why Gone with the Wind. . . Finally!)

Lordy, how long's it been since I last baked a cake for crying out loud?! My cake cravings kicked into high gear late yesterday afternoon. (So getting dinner finished sort of took a back seat. Sorry, honey.) Chocolate AND espresso are mandatory items to have on hand if you are to truly enjoy the finer points of what makes this coffee cake--well, a coffee cake.  

Mejadra (from Jerusalem: A Cookbook)

I guess my love of onions--fried, thank you, is what brought me to this dish. The basic components of the meal are lentils and rice. Don't underestimate what you can do with these two mandatory vegan kitchen ingredients. Paired with coriander seed, cumin seed, cinnamon, allspice and turmeric--and what you have is an incredibly flavorful dinner. 

I had no idea how much I missed fried onions. I was scooping up handfuls of the things as they came out of the pot faster than I could make them, then cursing myself for doing so because this just meant my cooking time kept getting extended.