Basic Vegan Sponge Cake

My sister bought me this wonderful cookbook called, Another Dinner is Possible. I haven't had a chance to make anything from this book until last night. I made the Basic Vegan Sponge Cake. I had a difficult time

Basic Vegan Sponge Cake:

400g self rising flour

200g sugar

200 ml vegetable oil

300 ml soy milk

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp lemon juice

Mix the flour and sugar. Then mix the oil. Separately mix the remaining liquid ingredients.

Bake 180 C for 30 minutes.

The cake was not so much spongy, but more wacky cake in texture. It was good, but I think it would be better in round cake form instead of a loaf style.

Check out the book though because it's great!

Fakin Fest

Last weekend was Bacon Fest in Portland. To counter act that a group of vegans assembled in the park for Fakin Fest.

I rolled fake bacon around dates, baked for awhile then dipped in a maple ganache and sprinkled with vanilla salt.

Suprisingly I won Most Creative Dish!

Happy Birthday Nana

My Nana would have turned 82 last Saturdau. I was planning to visit her, but she's no longer around to visit.
In celebration of her life I made this cake:


Three layers of chocolate cake, two layers each. Chocolate raspberry filling between each layer. A raspberry buttercream and thick chocolately ganache all over the top. I love how it looks like it's melting.

And this cake:



















This was a chocolate, chocolate, chocolate cake.

Original Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies

There are so many chocolate chip cookie recipes out there and I've found there are two kinds: dense and not so dense. I think most vegan chocolate chip cookies I came across a dense cookie. I love this kind of cookie, like my chocolate, chocolate cookie recipe that is almost like a brownie. But sometimes I prefer a lighter cookie.

While going through Nana's recipes I came across the, "Original Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie" recipe. There was a newspaper clipping about the history of the cookie at the Toll House Inn on the east coast in the 1930's. The baker was making chocolate cookies and mistakenly used the wrong chocolate which did not melt into the cookie as it should have - it just stayed their in chunks in the vanilla batter - thus one of the most famous cookies was born.

Original Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies:
2 1/4 Cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup soft butter (margarine)
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs (I used powdered Energy egg replacer)
2 cups chocolate chips
1 cup nuts (I left these out)

Combine flour, soda, and salt.
Beat butter, both sugars, and vanilla in a large bowl. Add the egg substitute and beat once more. Slowly add the flour mixture until well combined. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts.
Drop rounded tablespoons of batter onto baking sheets.
Bake in a preheated 375-degree oven for 9-11 minutes, or until golden brown.


This is a fail-prove recipe.

Peanut Butter Swirls:
Since I cannot follow a recipe to save my life I did alter this recipe beyond veganizing it - I added peanut butter. I spread peanut butter across a piece of parchment paper and put it in the freezer for a few hours until it was hard. I took it out and quickly broken it up into little pieces. Since peanut butter defreezes quickly you need to work quickly to stir the little chunks into the batter before scooping the batter on the cookie sheet.
Cook as normal and enjoy the little bites of peanut butter goodness.

Death by Chocolate

My Nana died this morning, unexpectantly. While I rarely share much of my personal life on this blog, this is important. Some of my first memories of food were when I was with Nana.
Nana loved food and loved to bake. Her love of food was forefront in her warm hugs. She had this soft, cuddly body - when you hugged her it was like hugging a big, pink marshmellow. You just sank into her and knew you were safe in her arms.
One of my first memories with food was with Nana. We use to eat kiwi together. She's bounce me on her knee and we'd talk and eat that funny green fruit with black dots.
She always had perfect bananas. We'd call them, "Nana's Bananas." No banana eaten at her house was ever too green or too brown. They were always perfect.
We'd bake. Cookies. Cakes. Brownies. Pies. Anything sweet. I've always had a sweet tooth and being the great grandmother she was, she'd always encourage it.
Nana would send me articles from her local central Texas newspaper on vegetarinism, or recipes that were vegan, or easily could be. She'd send me recipes for yeast free breads, cook from vegan cook books. She was so excited when she found her mom's "wacky cake" recipe to send to me. I think her's was called, "no egg or milk cake."

She understood my vegetarianism. When I went vegan she sat me down to talk about it. I was afraid it was going to be a scolding, but it wasn't. She said when she was in nursing school she learn how milk isn't that great for the body and how one doesn't really need meat. She didn't understand not eating eggs. I explained how veganism is about animals and equality and she just hugged me and said she was so proud of me for being compassionate.

But the point of this post is about Nana's love for chocolate. I didn't really come to love chocolate until I became vegan. I'd find vegan chocolates for her we could share. This September I was planning on visiting her for her birthday and making some handmade chocolates, but it was too late to even tell her about my plans. I never should have waited to tell her or ask all the questions I still have about her life. It happened without warning.
In my grieving today I decided to make a triple chocolate truffle in honor of my Nana who loved me no matter what and who I loved so dearly. Though she didn't die by chocolate, the name is catchy.

This is for you Nana. I love you and you will be missed.ingredients: cashews, chocolate syrup, maple syrup, chocolate chips, vanilla, a chocolate bar I found in the refrigerator, and probably a few tears.

Chocolate Crackle Cookies

My good friend Jess gave me a great book for my birthday: Martha Stewart's Cookies. This book is great because it has almost 200 cookie recipes! My favorite thing about this book is the table of contents, instead of listing all the cookies it shows a full color picture of every cookie with the name and page number under the image. This is the perfect way to search for a cookie!

I've had this goal of making one cookie a week, but since we haven't had earth balance in the house and I've been beyond busy, I haven't made much.

I did make these wonderful crackle cookies.
These are basic chocolate cookies, rolled in powered sugar, then baked as normal.
I enjoyed these cookies and I would make them again when I am trying to impress because they are just so pretty. Everyone in the office enjoyed these and I was told to tell anyone who wanted to make these not to wear black while trying to sneak eating these. The powered sugar will leave little specs on your shirt.
I should note that this recipe was not vegan, I veganized it with a powered egg replacer.
*Because I fear Martha Stewart I will not post the recipe. Sorry. Borrow the book from your local library, or just take your favorite chocolate cookie recipe and roll it in powder sugar before baking.

Cakes

Strawberries. I love them. I saw them at the market last weekend and bought them - but they are such a tease. Early berries are never that great, let alone those sour California berries! I can't wait until Oregon's sweet berry season starts.

With that said, I was inspired by the berries and make this cake:

Vanilla cake with strawberry jam filling and strawberry frosting.
I made the strawberry frosting by mixing strawberry jam and powdered sugar with some earth balance.

I had so much fun decorating this cake I decided to make another, one of my favorite combinations - chocolate and mint!
The filling was simple - cashew cream and chocolate chips. I soaked the cashews over night, blended them with some soy milk, then blended in some melted chocolate chips. So simple and tastey!

This mint chocolate cake is by far the best cake I've made i at least a year. The pudding in the middle really made this cake rich. I can't wait to make this for my birthday.

Mr. Bolsh told me he'd eat this whole cake in a week so I didn't need to take it to work like I did with the strawberry one. Well, wednesday came and he hadn't even eaten half the cake. He complained that living with me is like living in Willy Wonka's Chocolate factory! He lives a tough life, it's true. So I took this cake to work and had rave reviews from my co-workers. I even recieved an email about it,
"Just wanted to share a testimonial of your cake. I have had a headache almost all day it seems, and I swear since I ate you cake, it’s gone. Apparently it’s not only delicious, it has healing properties!

Thanks for sharing it with us!"

Aother co-worker, after hearing of its medicinal properties said I should open shop next to St. Cupcake and start "Revival Cakes!"

Coconut Rice Pudding

Thanks to Julie I had a great breakfast pudding a nice dessert by dressing it up a bit.

Dessert Coconut Rice Pudding:
I used her Rice Pudding recipe and subbed coconut milk for the soy milk - it was so great! I used a wonderful brand of vanilla paste that has flecks of vanilla bean it in to make it more beautiful.

Dessert Coconut Rice Pudding:
This one was easily dressed up for dessert when a friend stopped by. I added some chocolate sauce on top. If I had some toasted coconut I would have thrown that on top. Or maybe a strawberry if they were in season.

Fudge

I've been told the type of fudge I make isn't really fudge, it's something else. Real fudge is heated to a specific tempture. I'm not very good at candy making, the soft ball and hard ball stages are things I always second guess myself on. So the following semi-recipe is what I use when I want to make something super sugary.

Fudge:
1 bag chocolate chips
1 cup earth balance
4 cups powdered sugar
vanilla or other extracts.

Melt the earth balance and chocolate chips - remove from heat, add the powdered sugar.
If it's too thick add a splash of soy milk or other liquid. If it's too wet, add more powdered sugar.

This is an easy recipe to throw in dried fruits or nuts, which I did for my other batch.
Another great thing to do is to use coconut oil in place of the earth balance and use some coconut flavoring. Then sprinkle with coconut.

The batch shown below is normal fudge, with a bit more vanilla and a separate layer of vanilla with vanilla paste to get the black flecks.
My camera is on the way out so taking photos has been frustrating. Luckily, if there can be when you're a blogger and your camera goes, the damage was done during my bike accident so the insurance will help me with a new one.
Speaking of biking, of lack there of - I am saving money on food by not biking. I don't need to eat as much since I am no longer biking 1o plus miles a day. The down side is that I have to pay for and take the bus along with no longer getting my exercise. My arm better heal quickly. Thanks for all the well wishes!

Almond Cookies

These cookies mark my first atempt at making gluten-free cookies and the result was wonderful!

Almond Cookies:
1 1/4 cup whole almonds
1/2 cup sugar
3 Tablespoons coconut oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 flax eggies
two pinches of cinnamon
1 pinch of salt

Grind the almonds into a meal, but not too much or else you'll make almond butter
Mix the almond grounds, sugar, cinnamon and salt.
Melt the coconut oil, add the flax eggs, and vanilla.
Mix together. Roll into balls, flatten, mark with an almond and bake for 13 minutes at 350F.

Alterations: Add chocolate chips (I did to half these but wasn't sure about the gluten content since I bought it in bulk, so I kept them instead of giving them away as a gift) Add chopped cherries or your favorite fruit.


It was my mother-in-law's birthday a few weeks ago so I made her some chocolate cupcakes. I like the way they came out with such little effort.

Cupcakes

Nothing new, but I had a fun time making them.

Chai Cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World:
Chai Cupcakes with Chocolate from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World:
Chocolate Mint Cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World:These are my absolute favorite!

Cheesiness and Sweets

Cheesiness and sweets, but not together, that would just be gross.

Cheesy Sauce and Neatballs:
As you know I've been working on the perfect cheesy sauce for Mr. Bolsh. This one had more lemon juice in it and that seems to be the way he wants to go with the recipe.
We poured it over cauliflower and Trader Joe's Meatballs.
New Farm Mac and Cheese:
Wow, this sure is a fat filled dish. 1 full cup of earth balance. Good thing it's going to an IPRC fund raiser tonight! All the fat sure does make it taste great though! I added some chili powder to give it a bit more of a kick.
Coconut Pie Pudding:
We've been enjoying dinner outside on our new covered deck.
I've been working on my coconut cream pie recipes for awhile now. Sunday morning I had a disaster where the crust ended up inside the filling. I don't know what happened, but I decided to just go with it. I lightly mixed the crust into the filling and called it a pudding. It has gone over well. Unfortunately, it's not the right consistency yet for a pie filling. But I am getting closer!
Behind the pudding is cherry limeaid - perfect for hot summer days!New Farm Brownies:
Brownies from the New Farm cookbook. It's a great chewy brownie. Emilie, from Conscious Kitchen, recently posted a brownie recently that contained yam. This seems like a great recipe to do that with. In this recipe you make a paste with hot water and flour. It's not very flavorful so I would want to replace it next time with a blended fruit.

Frozen Blueberry Treat

Inspired by Jess's sister - blueberries, chocolate and coconut


Chocolate Coconut Blueberries
This was very simple!

1. Freeze about 1 cup of blueberries in a single layer on a cookie sheet.

2. Melt about 1/3 cup chocolate chips on low until all melted. Make sure not to burn the chocolate.

3. Dip the frozen blueberries in the melted chocolate. You might only be able to coat one side and that will be enough for flavor.

4. Roll in shredded coconut.

5. Place back on the cookie sheet and refreeze.

6. Serve about 1 hour later.

Another photo can be seen here.

The Best Brownies Ever

Now, I know what you're thinking when some vegan claims to have made great brownies, "yeah right!" I totally understand. I worked for 6 years to find great vegan brownies. Most of them are too cakey to be real brownies. It was rather frusterating. I got to the point when I thought real brownies couldn't be made. Until I came across this recipe in livejournal.
Here is the original recipe.

Coconut Brownies
~ 1/4 tub of Earth Balance Buttery Spread, softened
~ 1 cup brown sugar
~ 1/2 cup Florida sugar
~ 4 tsp Ener-G egg replacer + 6 Tbsp water
~ 1 tsp coconut extract
~ 1 tsp baking powder
~ 1/2 tsp salt
~ 1/2 cup cocoa powder
~ 1 and 1/4 cups flour
~ 1 1/2 cup shredded coconut

~1/3 cup chocolate chips
~3 Tbl. soy milk.

Cream together the Earth Balance and sugars.
Add the egg replacer and extract and beat until well combined.
Add the baking powder, salt, cocoa powder and flour and beat until just combined.
Stir in the coconut.
Spread into a 9" square pan.
Bake at 350 degrees for about 35 minutes.
Let cool.
Bring the soy milk to a quick boil, add the chocolate chips and remove from heat.
Pour over and let cool for about 15 minutes before cutting and serving.