Meeting Rip and “Adonis Cake”

If you don’t know who Rip Esselstyn is you should get to know him. He created the Engine 2 Diet, or simply known as the E2 Diet. Rip is a firefighter from Austin, TX which is where the Engine 2 name comes from. This diet is a more health centered vegan diet since it doesn’t contain oil, sugar, or processed food in any of the recipes. Rip calls it a plant-strong diet. To learn more about him and the E2 Diet click here to go to their website.

He recently released a new book, My Beef with Meat, that includes 140 new recipes. He happened to pass through Denver on his book tour so I had the pleasure of meeting him. Before he got to signing he spoke about how the E2 Diet started and he went over a few chapters of the new book. He is one funny down-to-earth kinda guy. This was the first book signing I have ever been to and I’m glad I had the opportunity to go. The young man next to Rip in the photo below is his nephew Adonis (he also signed my book). Adonis actually has a recipe in the book that Rip made sure to tell everyone about. After hearing so much praise about “Adonis Cake” I decided it was going to be the first recipe to try.

This was the first time I have ever baked a cake without using oil or sugar so I was interested in how it was going to turn out. There is also a frosting recipe that goes along with it. Both are super easy to make and I’ll save the suspense and tell you that it was delicious. It’s hard to mess up a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. The cake baked perfectly, it almost looked fake it was so pretty.

I will say that it is a dense cake, it’s almost brownie like. The frosting doesn’t look very appealing but I LOVE IT! (The reason it probably doesn’t look good is because I didn’t follow the directions. I mixed it by hand instead of using a blender/food processor.) The recipe says that it can be used as a pudding and I completely agree. It’s not sickening sweet like normal frosting is. The recipe also says if you want a double layer cake to double the frosting recipe. I honestly don’t think that is necessary only because I like a thin layer of frosting. I had some left over after applying it to the single layer. What I would love to add to this cake is a berry compote or just some fresh fruit on top.

There are plenty of other recipes in the book I can’t wait to try especially since they have that Texas flair I have missed so much. We’re off to a good start though. Bravo Adonis, I love your cake!