5 posts tagged “baking”

Simple, quick fun... delicious. I could have eaten the entire thing of batter. Almost brownie-like but in my case that might be because I had to use a little cake flour because I ran out of regular flour. For the middle I used this marmalade that I have called "mosquito marmalade" it is so yummy with orange and raspberries but it wasnt the best choice for the cookies because it just didnt spread out like regular jam. Next time I will use raspberry jam... if I dont eat all the batter first.

Ive made a few good things from this book so Id recommend it.

They were super easy, and didnt require any special ingredients unless you count apple cider vinegar... The frosting is a little more specialty with non-hydrogenated vegan margarine (pretty easy to procure) and non-hydrogenated vegan shortening, which was a little trickier to find but if you have a Whole Foods around, or a local health food store, youre probably set. Other recipes require different ingredients, some a little more specialty, some not. There are so many choices! If you dont have this book, and you like cupcakes, even if youre not vegan, you should get it. Keep an eye on the blog for more creations as time goes by...

So my friend Kelly recently shared a vegan oatmeal raisin cookie with me that she paid a whopping $3.29 for at Whole Foods.  It was so nice of her! I was excited that the cookies from a local Chicago vegetarian restaurant were being sold at Whole Foods. I guess they are trying to get a little more local when they can...

The cookie was good but Im sensitive to sugar and thought the cookies were overly sweet, and Im not really that big of a fan of raisins. And obviously I am a jerk who cant just keep quiet and say thank you for her sharing the cookie with me. I knew I could do better, and for way cheaper. I found this recipe at Vegan Family Favorites and decided to adapt it to my liking.

I used ground flax seeds instead of eggs/egg replacer, as I read about here on the Post Punk Kitchen website. I almost halved the amount of sugar, using 1/2c of each. Instead of raisins, I had a melange of different dried fruits which had been hanging out in my pantry just waiting for an opportunity to do something good in the world, like become part of a super delicious healthy cookie! Dates, apircots, pineapple, papaya, a little bit of coconut, a teensy smattering of cashews and a small handful of sunflower seeds... random dried fruit pantry items gone! I plopped them into the melted margarine so they could plump up a bit from the moisture while I was mixing the other parts.

I think they are fantastic. Not very modest of me, but I cant help it this time. They could even have a little less sugar and it would not sacrifice the taste at all. All of those dried fruits are sweet enough. Its fun for me to find out how many grams of sugar a recipe has and I use this calculator to do so. Not counting fruit sugars, just the brown and cane sugars, these cookies have about 19g... they would have had 33g. (Next I want to calculate the protein.) Ideally I wanted them to be something you could eat for breakfast even. And they are. *dusts cookie crumbs from shirt*

Everybody and their brother seems to be talking about Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World these days...sort of like they are taking over the world or something! Ive been curious. Ive made a couple of vegan things before by the same authors. So I tried to make Vegan Smores Cupcakes. And it didnt work out. I overmixed or underbaked or something. And the final product didnt remind me a thing of Smores but wow that frosting was GOOD!!!!!!!!! I ate it for days on graham crackers and strawberries and licked the knife and froze some for later... My boyfriend liked the cupcakes, hes still eating them like they are breakfast muffins. *shrug* I was disappointed in myself for overmixing or underbaking, but I guess I cant be perfect all the time. Oh well! =]
scg@hecho la basura told me that a couple of recipes she tried from the book ended up more muffiny than cupcakey but that most of the things shes made have been amazing and entire batches of cupcakes have been wolfed down in one night. Not just by her super stealth doggies, either.

These rose shaped cupcakes came in the mail all the way from Oregon and by the time they met me, they were stale but I liked the lovely glaze off of them and admired their beauty. They are also from the book. I think they are Rosewater Cardamom cupcakes. Arent they pretty?

When I lived in California, I was introduced to one of the most delicious treats, ever: Green Tea Cake. I spent years after leaving the west coast daydreaming of these cakes and looking for a reputable recipe. Alas, my friend Shell@fancy domesticated things gave me the recipe that, in my opinion, surpassed the reality of the cakes I left behind.

Green Tea Cake:

4 eggs
1 3/4 c flour
1 1/2 c sugar
3/4 c butter
2 T green tea powder
1 T chocolate chips (optional)

Put butter in a bowl and stir until soft. Add sugar, mix well. Add eggs. Sift flour and green tea powder together, add to mix, add chips if you want. Place baking wax paper into medium loaf pan (I grease 3-4 mini loaf pans and make individual cakes instead). Bake at 360 degrees (182 celsius) for 35 minutes.

The secret is geting a good macha powder (not sencha). Its pricey but its the only expensive thing in this cake and its dearness is worth it.