Bake #3
Clean-ish Chocolate Cake
Let’s talk clean.
In the context of this shared space on baking, I am obviously referring to clean food.
As millennials and Gen Z, clean food is now a part of our everyday vocabulary - sometimes even our grocery shopping list (wish list, for some). Courtesy, the internet boom and infiltration of social media in our lives! Byte sized audio-visual content educating us on the benefits of such food for a healthy body and mind, now available on the click of a button in our hand-held device!
My instagram never fails to recommend reels for clean brands and sometimes even recipes for my favourite dishes. Shark Tank, our most watched OTT reality show as a family, is full of entrepreneurs now who pitch a variety of clean food goodies. Food made with natural ingredients. Minimally processed. Wholesome, nutrient dense. Free of chemicals, synthetics, artificial flavours - no nasties! And yeah, organically produced.
I am no different.
I love clean food. That, you already know from my earlier posts on Sponge Cake and Banana Bread, where I have deliberately included cleaner ingredients to whip up a cake.
But, what if I told you there was another way to look at clean food? I alluded to it briefly in my last post. A perspective that goes beyond what we are putting in our body or how food is grown, produced and processed. How about a perspective that includes who all grow our food and what their life is like - the human lens.
From my human rights work, I can share that the agro-food sector is full of issues of exploitation of children, families and farmers. For example, the agriculture sector is the largest employer of children or child labour, globally. Let me make this real for you. This means approximately 112 million children. Children who are missing school, facing insane working conditions, for zilch or negligible amounts of money, and working in farms and fields to grow our food. I’ll talk more about which foods or ingredients and specifics of the different human rights issues as we go along, in future posts.
But for now, I leave you with this - is our food really clean if it is tainted with these human struggles of exploitation ?
As you reflect on this, I’m sharing below the recipe of my next bake - Eggless Chocolate Cake.
As with my earlier recipes, I experimented again - this time, creating a healthier version of my go-to chocolate cake recipe.
I decided to use wheat flour given that it's better than refined flour in terms of nutritional value. I used Khapli wheat flour (Emmer long wheat) from Two Brothers, that's what we use in my household.
For sweetness, jaggery went in to replace sugar as it’s a ‘cleaner’ alternative from a health perspective.
Finally, I used chocolate instead of cocoa powder. Why? I didn’t want to use cocoa powder from a multinational brand - and I still have to figure out a locally produced option that feels right. So I went with Indian-origin dark chocolate, sourced locally from Chocolatiers, a boutique chocolate store.
Full marks to this bake from Roshini, family and this time, from a few guests too. Me, satisfied as well!
But here’s a disclaimer - this bake is by no means 100% clean if we account for the human exploitation behind some ingredients.
Recipe: Purva’s Eggless Choco Cake
Ingredients
120 grams blended flour mix - ½ flour and ½ whole wheat flour.
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
A pinch of salt
100 grams jaggery - grated or chopped
90 ml hot water
120 ml home-made curd
45 ml olive oil
90 grams dark chocolate (at least 60% cocoa), chopped or in chips. The chocolate I used has 55% cocoa, which can make the cake slightly sweeter. So, if you end up also using chocolate with less than 60% cocoa, you might want to reduce the jaggery by 10–15 grams. You don’t need to adjust it on the first bake, but if you prefer a less sweet result, keep this tip in mind for next time.
Method: Step-by-step instructions
Make sure all your ingredients (other than chocolate) are at room temperature and they are measured.
Preheat the oven for 15 minutes at 180 degrees.
Melt jaggery in hot water until smooth to get a syrup. Cool slightly. I used a hard jaggery block from last winter’s stock and chopped it into smaller pieces. Warning - chopping was a 5 minutes micro work-out for me, but I got there finally. Don’t say, I didn't tell you!
Melt the chopped dark chocolate - I microwaved it for 1.5 minutes. Let it cool till warm, not hot.
In a mixing bowl, add all the wet ingredients - curd, oil, jaggery syrup, and melted chocolate and whisk until smooth.
Now, add all the dry ingredients and fold gently until everything is just combined.
Grease your tin and pour the batter in it. I used olive oil for greasing.
Put the tin in the oven and bake for 35-40 minutes.
Let it cool and serve.
Flavour Boost Tip
Use coffee for a deeper chocolate flavour. I dissolved 1 teaspoon of instant coffee in 2 teaspoons of hot water and stirred it into the wet ingredients.
"For example, the agriculture sector is the largest employer of children or child labour, globally. Let me make this real for you. This means approximately 112 million children." - This really hits hard — the scale of it is staggering. Framing it as “making it real” does exactly that; it turns a statistic into a human reality. 112 million children is not just a number — it's futures interrupted, childhoods lost.
I absolutely enjoy reading these, Purva! Your writing is so very wholesome, meaningful and feels like a warm hug. It's such a lovely way to weave insights we all need to come to terms with, with baking! I would never have thought this could be done, until I started reading these delightful articles!