Summer is all about the grill. But don’t think grilling potential ends with meats and veggies. In fact, it only begins there! This grilled vegan pound cake recipe is testament to how fun and exciting grilling can be for those among us with a sweet tooth.

When the pound cake is grilled, its sugars caramelize and take on a warm, summery feel. The peaches and coconut cream compliment the woody grilled aroma with their cool, smooth textures and light tastes. The resulting dish is something to write home about and not just because it’s so delicious – it’s vegan too!

Grilled Vegan Pound Cake with Peaches and Cream

Serves 8-10

Ingredients:

For the pound cake:

• 1/2 cup + 3 tablespoons Earth Balance butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups raw sugar
• 1 cup BPA-free canned coconut milk
• 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 2 teaspoons baking powder

For the cream:

• 1 can BPA-free coconut milk, chilled overnight
• 1 tablespoon raw sugar
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

For presentation:

• 2 fresh peaches, peeled, cored and sliced

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Lightly grease a 5 x 9″ loaf pan. Use an electric mixer to blend the butter and sugar for 1-2 minutes, or until creamy and fluffy. Beat in the coconut milk until well combined. Add 1 cup of flour and then the water, vanilla extract and almond extract. End by adding the remaining cup of flour and baking powder. Beat for another 2-3 minutes, or until the mixture is well combined and smooth. Pour mixture into the loaf pan and pop into the oven for about 50-55 minutes. Once finished, remove the pound cake from the fridge and let cool to room temperature.

Meanwhile, prep the cream. Scoop out only the hardened, thick part of the coconut milk from the can (you can add the liquid to a smoothie or juice). Whisk in the sugar and vanilla until smooth. Place in the fridge to chill while the pound cake continues to cool down.

Once cool. Slice the pound cake into 8-10 pieces. Take the remaining 3 tablespoons of butter, melt it and then brush it on each side of each piece of cake. Grill both sides of each slice until grill marks appear. Remove from the grill and serve each slice individually with a dollop of the coconut cream and slices of fresh peaches. Enjoy!

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Pound Cake image via Shutterstock

The post Easy Grilled Vegan Pound Cake Recipe with Peaches and Coconut Cream appeared first on EcoSalon.

Happiness, it turns out, is a slice of grilled pound cake. Put pound cake on a grill and it comes off looking like a dainty steak and smelling just like a toasted marshmallow. Top it with ice cream made from organic local strawberries and you have a nice neat pile of eco-friendly foodie bliss. In fact, such bliss comes in all shapes and sizes at Knife & Fork, an out-of-the-way upscale farm-to-table eatery in tiny Spruce Pine, North Carolina. Chef Nathan Allen, who studied at Johnson & Wales and received his cooking comeuppance in L.A., opened the restaurant last July with his wife, Wendy Gardner. While residents of nearby Asheville, N.C., have a dozen or so fine farm-to-table restaurants to choose from, this one is well worth the hour’s drive across the mountains.

A friend and I were heading north from Asheville through the Blue Ridge Mountains, winding our way up to Boone, a college town named for Daniel Boone. Even when you live in the mountains like I do, Boone feels lofty. At 3,300 feet, it’s simply higher than all the towns around it. In fact, it’s higher than any town east of the Mississippi. From many points on the campus of Appalachian State University, you can survey the Blue Ridge high country and its layer upon layer of smoky blue slopes.

If you’re lucky enough to land in this scenic corner of North Carolina, take U.S. Route 221 through the Pisgah National Forest and stop off at roadside farm stands. In spring and summer, they sell local veggies and flowers, plus quirky southern items like boiled peanuts, sourwood honey and wild, onion-like ramps. A smattering of ramps stole the show in my Knife & Fork entrée, a flatbread dish with bacon and two sunny-side-up eggs, laid that morning by the chef’s own chickens.

In rural Appalachia, gourmet eateries are few and far between. (And environmentally-minded restaurateurs are even farther between.) But digging into my plate at a diamond-in-the-rough green restaurant like Knife & Fork, I found the food to be as good or better than any I’d had at white-tablecloth restaurants in big coastal cities. And the scenery on the drive to get there, was hard to beat.

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