Why? It's vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free and tastes out of this world. I make it only very occasionally these days, or I'd be a lot wider than I am now, but when the kids want a special treat, this is the one to make. I'll post a photo when I make the next batch (probably tomorrow!).
Vegan Chocolate Fudge
- Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup plain rice milk or soy milk (check it is gluten-free if this is a requirement for you)
- 1¼ cup organic white sugar or other sweetener
- 4 tablespoons margarine (check it is dairy-free if this is a requirement for you)
- ½ cup vegan chocolate chips
- 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
- Method:
1. Put the milk and sugar in a sauce pan over a medium high heat, stirring constantly to prevent milk from curdling. Bring to a boil for 5-9 minutes.
2. Remove from heat after the 7 minutes. Add the margarine, chocolate chips, and vanilla essence.
3. Continue to stir until the margarine and chocolate melt together and the mixture is smooth and creamy.
4. Pour into an greased and lined swiss roll pan. Refridgerate for a few hours until the mixture is solid, cut into squares, and serve.
OPTIONS: Different alternatives for this recipe include using orange-flavoured dark chocolate instead, with a little orange liqueur for an adult version (yum!), or adding nuts and dried fruit for a more festive option.
I don't know where I picked this recipe up originally, but I've had it a few years now, and it's a favourite. Having a child on a gluten-free, dairy-free vegetarian diet can be tricky - he needs all the treats he can get, and this fits the bill nicely. It's also something everyone can enjoy.
Even if you don't have anyone in the family with special dietary needs, this is a good recipe to file away - just in case!
Cooking for the wider community
It's also very considerate to use recipes like this for school fetes, cake sales and suchlike, giving kids with special needs more than one option (usually their mother's!) to choose from!
Be sure to label the dish appropriately, so those with special dietary needs can appreciate your thoughtfulness and consideration.
9 comments:
Chocolate? Did I miss something? I thought you were avoiding it.
Hi Chile - Yes, I am avoiding it - 6 months and going strong.
But my kids aren't!
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that looks great! I'll have to share it with some of my friends on the gf/cf diet.
Could you post what brands you use? I tried this recipe yesterday and it totally flopped. I used Trader Joe's rice milk, Sucanat organic dried sugar cane juice, Earth Balance soy-free margarine, EnjoyLife chocolate chips, and Nielssen-Massey vanilla extract.
I think my first mistake was using Sucanat. I use it because the nutrients haven't been refined out of it the way they have for refined white sugar. But in this recipe using Sucanat tasted like I had added a ton of molasses, which wasn't very pleasing in a fudge recipe.
My second mistake is that I think I didn't get the chocolate chips completely melted, so I ended up with small lumps of chocolate in the finished fudge. Though honestly that tastes yummy, so maybe this was not so bad a mistake.
My third mistake was using a salted margarine in this. I think something unsalted, such as coconut oil, would have tasted much better. In the finished fudge, I didn't care for the salty taste of the margarine that I'd used.
But none of that explains why it didn't set. I left it in our fridge overnight, in a very cold spot. The top formed a thick skin. But underneath it is still liquid. When I tried to slice the fudge, a ton of syrupy liquid squirted out.
So, this recipe completely failed for me. I'd be curious to know what brands you've used in this recipe when it has worked for you -- I would like to try it again.
Thanks for any advice!
Hi Evalerie - The most likely possibility of what went wrong is that it was just overcooked. I did overcook it once when I first started out, and it went like you describe. Still tasted good, though! You really have to stick to the 7 minutes!
I make this recipe up here in New Zealand, where it is hard to get dairy-free chocolate drops, and I just grind down dairy-free chocolate (I use Whitaker's dark Ghana, but any brand will do, honestly!) in the food processor before adding it.
If you used bigger pieces of chocolate, I'm guessing you might possibly have left it cooking too long (to melt the choc), resulting in the problem you describe.
Another possibility is that the rice milk had settled. It sometimes does that in the carton - especially if you use a UHT variety - and it needs a good shake prior to using.
Give it a good shake in the bottle or carton before using, and see if this helps.
I'm not familiar with any of the brands you describe, but I don't think they would be the problem, unless any of them were off date, and I doubt that. So I'm guessing it was probably simply overcooked.
Give it another go, and if you have the same problem, I'll do my best to analyse the issue for you, ingredient by ingredient.
The recipe is well worth it - I've a friend who is vegan, gluten-free and she suffered a fudge-free existence before my Aussie friend and I gave her this recipe!
I hope this has been helpful.
Oh, Evalerie - The brands I use are:
- Sanitarium SoGood soy milk (organic)
- Pam's white sugar (a home brand)
- Olivani olive oil based table margarine
- Whitaker's Dark Ghana vegan chocolate (I grind it up in the food processor before using, to simulate choc chips. I used to use Cadbury's choc chips, but they changed the recipe and started adding dairy to their chips, making them unsuitable for my kids)
- Pam's vanilla essence (home brand)
I make this recipe for my children, who are on a gluten-free, dairy-free, vegetarian diet. Its a good treat for them - they love it.
It's also good for mixed company when people have allergies to dairy and gluten.
If you have no problem with dairy, you can replace the margarine with butter, which I sometimes do. But I think the fudge is definitely best made with a dark chocolate.
I have also made this fudge with Whitaker's orange dark chocolate and chocolate with coconut in it - both worked well.
If you prefer an adult taste, adding a teaspoon (or two) of cointreau is good!
Thanks for the quick reply! I don't think I overcooked it, but certainly something went wrong. I hadn't quite realized that you're in Australia and have totally different ingredients available from what's available to me here in the U.S.
(My kids can't have gluten or dairy, and one is corn-free, and we have lots of other allergies in the house too, so I can relate to your family's food allergy issues.)
Hi Evalerie - Yes, allergies and special diets can make life difficult.
The brands are all different, but the ingredients will probably be pretty much the same, I would think, having lived in the US for a year (although it's a while back now).
I'm actually in New Zealand now, but we share most of our brands in common with Australia. A similar set-up to Canada and the US.
The other thing I can suggest is to try soy milk instead of rice milk. I've done it with rice milk, and it worked fine, but maybe the rice milk you're using is too watery, and that might be causing the issue. Soy milks tend to be creamier, which might help.
Good luck. It's hard enough finding recipes for allergic kids, and it sucks when they don't work! This one has always worked for me, so I hope that it is something simple that went wrong that we can work out for you.
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