Why go with just plain chocolate cake when you can add a hint of mint?

This summer in Sweden I was unhappy to find out that the small local egg farm up the road had closed down. I wasn’t sure why, and it all seemed odd as there was one rooster left, who was crying out loud, and sadly. Then one day, I spotted a mother sow in a field close to our house. She was proudly walking around in the mud with her new born piglets all around her. The farm also had free-range chickens, ducks and lambs. I was happy again.
The second or maybe third time I came there, the lady of the house said she had run out of eggs. I asked if I could order some for later that week.

“It’s impossible,” she said.

At a farm like theirs you can’t predict how many eggs the hens will provide. Some of the hens had also started to sit on their eggs. I felt both happy and sad at the same time. Sad that I had to walk home empty-handed and happy that someone listens to a hen’s nature instead of my craving for eggs.

“Oh well,”  I said and was about to leave when she said:

“I have duck eggs. They are great if you are making sponge cake.”

I went home and made the best Sticky Chocolate Cake I have ever made.

Sticky Chocolate Cake with a Bite of Mint

2 eggs (or one large duck egg)
1 cup sucanat*
4-6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Valrhona)
one teaspoon salt (less if using salted butter)
one cup milled almonds
4 oz butter
about 5 drops of peppermint extract**

some mint leaves (for decoration)

Whisk eggs and sucanat together in a bowl. Stir in the milled almonds, cocoa powder and salt. Drip a few drops of the mint extract (or essence, see below). Stir around and adjust with more mint to your taste. Add the butter and stir until smooth. Pour the mixture into a greased 9” spring form.

Bake the cake in the oven at 350 F (150°C) for about 15 minutes. The cake should just be set on top and sticky inside. Let the cake cool down. Decorate with some fresh mint leaves and serve as is or with some whipped heavy cream.

If you don’t like mint in your chocolate you can easily switch it to something else. Anna Brones here on Ecosalon spices her Sticky Cake with cardamom and serves it with a cranberry orange salsa. If you are craving for more chocolate this Chocolate by Brand over at David Lebovitzlist will keep you busy.

* Sucanat is a brown sugar type extracted from sugar cane. Its perfect to bake with and gives cakes and cookies a richer taste. In the US you can often find Sucanat in organic shops. If you can’t find sucanat you may use muscovado sugar or even regular brown sugar instead. When I’m in Sweden I use farin sugar which works really well too.
** I couldn’t find mint extract so I made an essence by soaking mint caramels with a shot of vodka over night.

Illustrations by Johanna Kindvall

The post Sticky Chocolate Cake with a Bite of Mint appeared first on EcoSalon.

At last, an endangered species that deserves to be – the battery hen.

Free range eggs may be significantly more expensive, but that’s not stopping shoppers plucking them from the shelves while turning their noses up at caged hen eggs.

This is yet another example of how ethical consumerism rules the roost in today’s marketplace (okay, enough with the chicken puns). Thanks to the hard work of people like British TV chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and the patrons of the Battery Hen Welfare Trust, the appalling living conditions of caged hens is now common knowledge. The more the word gets out, the more unacceptable battery farming becomes. About time, too.

The Guardian reported May 15th that according to a leading market research firm, the number of free range eggs sold annually is likely to top 2 billion by the end of the year. This is largely thanks to the admirable stances adopted by major UK retailers including Waitrose, Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury’s, all of which have been have been officially labeled Good Eggs. They refuse to sell intensively produced eggs on principle, even bringing their phasing-out schedule forward to meet changing demand.

But all this raises an important question – can we really trust the free range label?

In the U.S., there’s no legal definition of a “free range egg” with obvious consequences. In the UK the legal ground is a lot firmer with the DEFRA Laying Hens Code (pdf), but this doesn’t always translate to what we might personally define as “free”. By both European and UK law, a free range chicken is one that has open-air access for at least half its life. And the rest of the time? There’s the worry. If you want a clearer conscience and a tastier omelet, keep an eye out for pastured eggs.

Free range eggs are the CFLs of the chicken world – a step in the right direction. For now, it’s good to know that chickens can finally see daylight, but it’s up to us as consumers to demand continued progress from our agricultural and political leaders if we’re to see truly sustainable, ethical living conditions for the animals we choose to raise for food.

Image: woodleywonderworks (and here’s why chicken eggs are different colors).

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