Soured Milk Chocolate Cake

Most of the milk I consume is raw milk. This means that it has not been pasteurized. I buy it from small farms who keep their cows on grass. I like raw milk for a number of reasons – I like that the vitamins have not been destroyed from the heat of pasteurization (vitamins are added back into pasteurized milk, but why not get the real vitamins inherent in the milk?). Raw milk also contains beneficial enzymes and probiotic bacteria. Plus, I just like the taste better. So there are lots of reasons to drink raw milk.

Fresh raw milk is wonderfully sweet and delicious. At some point, it starts to sour. It differs from batch to batch (since it is a real food, not a food that has been packed full of stabilizers and preservatives, or cooked before refrigeration). But when raw milk starts to sour, it isn’t bad. Sour cream is, well, soured cream. I’ve made cream cheese from soured milk before. When pasteurized milk goes sour, don’t drink it!

Since I don’t want to drink a glass of soured milk or pour it over cereal, the question becomes, what do I do with it? I recently had a full half gallon sour on me since I didn’t drink any for about a week. I couldn’t bear to throw it down the drain, so I had to figure something to do with it. A half gallon is a lot, so I needed several ideas. This was one use for it – a chocolate cake made with soured milk! If you don’t have sour milk, or if you don’t have any raw milk, you can sour regular milk by adding a tablespoon of plain white vinegar or lemon juice to one cup of milk. I imagine that kefir, yogurt, or buttermilk would also work in place of sour milk.

The resulting cake is incredibly moist, light, and fluffy. It is chocolatey and sweet, but not overly so. Make, and enjoy! Read the rest of this entry »

Raspberries and Cream

Here in the Northeast, we had an absolutely gorgeous day. It was unseasonably warm, and while some people weren’t ready for weather in the mid 80s, I welcomed it with open arms! I woke up early and took off for the Union Square Greenmarket.

NYC has greenmarkets and farmer’s markets all over the city, but the largest one is probably the one at Union Square. They have everything. Maple syrup, honey, jam, baked goods, vegetables, dairy, meat, even yarn. Visiting is wonderful for food lovers like myself. Except for the crowds. It is so crowded! But still worth going.

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A Nourished Start Sharing Carnival

This post is part of the Nourished Start Carnival at the Nourished Gourmet.  Breakfast can be a rough meal.  For me, my biggest hurdles are not wanting to eat something too heavy too early and being able to prepare something quickly that can be consumed in front of the computer while I check email or in front of the TV while I check the weather.  My time is limited, so I want to multitask in the morning instead of spending time at the stove or in the kitchen.

I used to be big on skim milk and breakfast cereal.  Every single morning.  But despite always going for the “natural” and organic cereals, most are still highly processed.  Many are extruded, which means heated at an extremely high temperature and then forced through something to make it into a fun shape (such as a flake, or twig).  This is not a natural process, nor is it something that was ever done traditionally.  Well, then there are the granolas.  I love a good granola.  But most are made with canola oil or other vegetable oils I prefer not to eat.  Vegetable oils have only been in our diet for 100 years (or less!), and I do not believe they are good for us.  I eat mainly animal fats, coconut oil, and olive oil.  And then there is the milk – I don’t drink skim milk anymore.  Only whole, pure, unadulterated milk, fresh from a cow.

So, what is for breakfast?  Here are a few standbys I enjoy these days:

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