hot for food

What are you going to be for Halloween? I don’t know that I’m going out, but if I WERE I would definitely go as my hero of 2010, Antoine Dobson. I have a feeling there will be a lot of Antoine’s out this year.

Anyway, I made chocolate pumpkin brownies for a pot luck dinner last week. And I just NOW realized they make the perfect Halloween treat! They are yummy yummy and not overly sweet since they  use pure pumpkin puree, raw cacao powder, and unrefined sugars. The recipe was passed along to me by a friend, but it’s from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.

Of course they don’t quite look like the ones from VCTOTW, because whenever I follow a recipe it’s never the same as the picture I’m  following. The only difference is I used raw cacao powder instead of dutch process cocoa, and cornstarch instead of tapioca flour. Don’t get me wrong, they were still deliciously chocolatey and pumpkiney!

Also this will be the first Halloween where I don’t eat commercial halloween candy, since going vegan in 2010. And I’m ok with it. I have lost my desire for candy, it’s weird.

I am late posting this. I had to “get over” not making it past round 3 of Project Food Blog 2010. So I ate a whole caramel apple tart (which was supposed to be my entry for Challenge #4: Picture Perfect). All better!

This is a delicious vegan caramel apple tart. It was perfect for thanksgiving weekend, but definitely a staple for the fall season. Make this after you go apple picking.

For the Crust you’ll need:
1/2 cup whole almonds
1/2 cup whole pecans
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
Pinch of sea salt
3 tbsp Earth Balance
3 tbsp maple syrup
1 tbsp vanilla extract

Blend the almonds and pecans into a course meal in a food processor. Then add the remaining ingredients. I still found I had to mush the mixture together with my hands before pressing into the fluted pie pan. Bake at 350 F for 15 minutes and allow to cool.

For the Filling:
3-4 Cortland apples
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp vegan brown sugar
1 tbsp unbleached all-purpose flour
Peel and thinly slice the apples and coat in lemon juice. Toss with the remaining ingredients and place the filling in the pre-baked tart crust.

For the Crumble:
1 cup oats
1/4 cup vegan brown sugar
1/4 cup un-bleached all-purpose flour
pinch each of nutmeg and cinnamon
6 tbsp Earth Balance
Put all the ingredients in a mixing bowl and blend together with your hands until it resembles “crumbs”. Pour over top of the filling in the tart crust and make sure the topping is even all over. Bake the tart at 375 F for 30-40 minutes.

For the Caramel:
1 cup vegan brown sugar
3 tbsp Earth Balance
1/4 cup milk alternative (rice, soy, almond)
1/4 tsp sea salt
Over med-high heat melt the sugar, Earth Balance, and sea salt until it starts to bubble. Stir constantly for 5-8 minutes. Remove the sauce pan from the burner and stir in the milk alternative. Let is rest a few minutes to thicken. Drizzle over the cooled tart and serve.

Ok, so I didn’t actually eat the ENTIRE tart to myself. But I could of. Imagine?

I shared it with friends, of course. And I do want to say THANK YOU to all my friends and hot for food blog followers for voting and supporting the blog/me during Project Food Blog 2010. It was totally fun and I liked having a new and different motivation for blogging. It definitely got me photographing more too, which is good. Good luck to the remaining bloggers in the contest. It’s pretty crazy that it started with over 1800 contestants and now there is less than 100!

Who doesn’t like PB Cookies? If you don’t, you’re insane! Or allergic to peanuts, I guess. That would be a shame. Luckily I have not developed a peanut allergy. I LOVE peanut butter. The REAL kind… just peanuts. If you eat that other crap you will probably die.

I was inspired to bake with brown rice flour and very few ingredients after discovering some delicious g-free vegan treats at Hibiscus in Kensington. If you have not been here you MUST go! It’s amazing. They serve homemade salads, soups, crepes, ice cream, baked squares and cookies… and it’s ALL gluten free and vegan. All of it! They don’t have a website, so here’s their yelp page (my review is also posted!).

Anyway, I made my first batch of g-free, vegan PB & Chocolate Chip Cookies with only six ingredients. They are delectable! You saw I used brown rice flour to make crepes recently, and now with these cookies turning out perfectly soft and tasty, brown rice flour is my new best friend.

G-free, Vegan Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:
2 cups natural peanut butter
1/2 cup maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup brown rice flour
1/4 tsp sea salt
1 cup non-dairy, g-free chocolate chips

In a mixing bowl combine peanut butter, maple syrup, and vanilla extract. Add flour and sea salt and mix until combined. Then fold in chocolate chips. Bake on ungreased cookie sheets at 350 F for approx. 11-13 mins depending on cookie size. Makes 1 dozen large cookies or 2 dozen small cookies.

Now, you definitely need a tall glass of “milk” to accompany these babies. I have my favorite soy or almond beverage on hand at all times, but I finally worked up the courage to try rice milk again. I’ve been skeptical of rice milk because the one’s I have tried have all been tasteless, watery, and gross. But YÜ basmati rice beverage is definitely where it’s at.

So if you’re sick of getting bogged down by too much refined flour or wheat, whip up a batch of these cookies next time or go check out the goods at Hibiscus. Your tummy will thank you for it!

Last Sunday I went to S.C.E.N.E in St.Catherines. Fun… yes! Food…no! Tell me St. Catherines, why would you hold a music festival throughout your downtown and keep all the businesses closed?! This is a tourism no, no… isn’t it? With only a Tim Horton’s and a Pita Pit in sight, what’s a vegan to do! I was not a happy scenester after eating a sandwich from said open vendor of lettuce and tomatoes, oh ya, and some yellow mustard… geez! Well here’s where the point of this blog entry comes in. I was elated to see The Niagara Vegan Baking Militia set up in the merch marketplace with a huge spread of yummy vegan treats!

That guy there is Dylan Powell of The Vegan Police. Thanks for saving the day! I love what these guys (and one gal) are doing and since I don’t live anywhere near the Niagara region I NEED to find something like this in Toronto… or perhaps I will have to start my own militia!!

Whoever made that vegan black & white cookie is a genius! And in case you’re wondering… I did not eat all those treats myself. They were shared with the peeps at the S4C tent.

This was one of those baking episodes I anticipated would be a wasteful disaster. With my luck, upside down cupcakes were gonna stick to the pan like mad! Luckily, I was wrong. They turned out beautifully. It all started with half a bag of cherries being left in the fridge for too long. They were a day away from being no good, so I saved them from a rotten death and turned them into pretty Upside Down Cherry Vanilla Almond Cakes.
You could make this even easier and use a box cake mix, but I followed my Vanilla Bean Cupcake recipe.

You also need:
2 cups of pitted and halved cherries
12 tsp raw sugar
1/4 cup toasted almond slices.

Prepare a muffin pan by buttering (I used, Earth Balance) each muffin cup. Place cherry pieces at the bottom of each so there is little space and sprinkle each with 1 tsp of raw sugar. Pour cake batter into the muffin cups and bake at  350 F for 20-25 minutes. You can toast the almond slices in a pan on low heat with some brown sugar or raw sugar until brown. Make sure you allow the cakes to cool for at least 10-15 minutes before turning them out onto a cooling rack. It was a bit tricky. In my case they didn’t all come out of the pan at once. It took a few turns to get all 12 cakes out of the pan. Lastly, sprinkle each cake with almond slices.

p.s. apologies to Greg P for tempting you with these cakes and making them appear forbidden to eat. Next time you can have all of ‘em buddy!

I was passed along a recipe for Vegan Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies. I occasionally get recipes from people so that I can test them, as the person giving me the recipe doesn’t want to  go to the trouble! Which is totally cool since I love to cook, especially bake. And I’ll try anything. A perfect combo and childhood fave of mine, chocolate and mint, can’t go wrong! This Vegan Mint Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe is supposedly from a real live bakery/baker, Krissys Cookies. Her gourmet vegan cookies look incredible, don’t get me wrong. But this cannot possibly be her recipe, as posted on Ready Made. The dough was totally dry and impossible to ball up into cookies, let alone flatten slightly on the cookie tray. Mine do not look like the picture on Krissys website, or even the picture posted on ReadyMade.com. What gives? Sometimes I truly HATE following recipes, as I find they often turn out wrong. Maybe this was scaled down from a larger batch recipe and therefore messed up somewhere.

Vegan Mint Chocolate Chip Cookie #1 (krissyscookies.com)

This was the first time I’ve ever seen Peppermint Oil used in a recipe as opposed to Peppermint Extract. I bought 100% pure organic peppermint oil, and boy is it strong. The recipe calls for 1 tsp, which FYI is WAY too much. You can barely even eat these cookies, even though they look rather edible in my pic. They’re like some kind of aromatherapy cookie. Seems a little like your eating medicine or something. It’s  so over powering that you can’t taste the cookie or chocolate. I also used white all-purpose flour and coconut oil instead of spelt flour and safflower oil, which this recipe calls for. Really, the only part that ruined these is the amount of peppermint essence.

I always get bummed when a recipe doesn’t work and so I immediately have to re-do it with variations to fix it.

Vegan Mint Chocolate Chip Cookie #2 (recipe below)

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups non-dairy chocolate chips
1 cup chopped walnuts
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
pinch nutmeg
2/3 cup maple syrup
2/3 cup canola oil
2 tbsp water
1/4 tsp peppermint oil

Combine wet ingredients in a bowl. Sift dry ingredients, except for walnuts and chocolate, into another bowl and combine. Add dry to wet and stir until combined, without over mixing. Line baking trays with parchment or spray with cooking spray. Roll 1 1/2 balls and place on cookie tray, then slightly flatten the dough with your hand. Bake at 350 F for 15 minutes. Makes 16 regular sized cookies or 8 large cookies.

Cookie #2 is the winner! It’s still minty fresh, but the batter tastes better, the chocolate comes through and it doesn’t feel like you just drank mouthwash!

I attempted to make my first 4 layer cake. It was for my dad’s birthday. He’s a fan of chocolate on chocolate cake so I thought I’d spice it up a bit for him and make lots of it! It is vegan, by the way, and while my mom originally stuck her nose up to the idea of serving a vegan birthday cake to the family, it was a huge hit! Everything worked out for the most part. Although I still don’t know why every cake I make sinks slightly in the middle. I also have a hard time getting anything bigger than a cupcake out of a baking pan without losing some of it on the bottom. Perhaps I need better pans?

Looking good from the outside, this Raspberry Chocolate Mocha Cake with Chocolate Ganache and layers of Raspberry Preserve was scrumptious! But just one more picky criticism I have is that you can’t see the 4 layers. I used organic raspberry preserve from a jar in between the layers of cake, but it spreads out so thin and just soaks into the cake that you can’t see each beautiful slab. Aah well!

Raspberry Chocolate Mocha Cake
(make 2 batches for 4 layers)

Ingredients:
1/2 cup soy milk
1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup raw cane sugar
1/3 cup canola oil
1/2 cup strong brewed coffee
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/3 cup raw cacao powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp sea salt

In a large bowl whisk apple cider vinegar and soy milk and set aside. In a separate bowl sift together the flour, cacao powder, baking soda, baking powder, sea salt. Add to the soy milk and vinegar mixture the coffee, sugar, vanilla extract, and oil. Add the dry ingredients to wet and mix together until smooth. Divide the mixture into 2 greased round cake pans and bake at 350 F for 20 minutes.

For Chocolate Ganache you need to bring soy milk to a boil, then remove from heat and stir in enough non-dairy chocolate chips so the consistency is thick-ish. So it won’t drip too much, but rather stay in its place when you ice the cake. I didn’t measure the ingredients when I did this but it was about 1 cup soy milk and 2 cups non-dairy chocolate chips.

Assemble the cake by adding a layer of raspberry preserve in between layers. And using an icing spatula cover the entire cake with chocolate ganache. You could also just use ganache throughout the layers and eliminate the raspberry preserve. Garnish with fresh raspberries. Refrigerate the cake, but allow it to come to room temperature before cutting and serving.

Over a month ago I blogged about my obsession with muffin tops and made scrumptious blackberry cobbler muffins… or should I say, muffin. Because to get that awesome top requires a lot of batter! I finally made a full dozen and figured out the recipe, although I didn’t make ridiculous muffin tops. But you could make 6 ridiculous muffins or 12 nicely plumped ones. These are SOOOO good. I had to freeze them to prevent myself from eating them all.

Blackberry Cobbler Muffins

Ingredients:
3 1/2 cup spelt flour (or whole wheat)
1/2 cup raw sugar
2 tbsp ground flax seed
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp all spice
1 tsp sea salt
1/4 cup agave nectar
1 cup almond milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups fresh blackberries

Topping:
2 1/2 tbsp Earth Balance (Cold)
1/3 cup large oats
2 tbsp brown sugar

Combine the first 8 ingredients (dry) together in a large bowl. In a separate bowl combine the agave, almond milk, and vanilla extract. Add wet ingredients to the dry and combine until just mixed. You can fold in blackberries. But my secret is placing blackberries strategically within the muffin batter as I spoon smaller amounts of it into the muffin pan. Then you don’t risk smashing the blackberries with a spoon or something while you mix them into the batter. Spray a muffin pan with non-stick spray or use liners, and spoon batter into the cups. Make the topping by crumbling the cold Earth Balance, oats and brown sugar with your hands and sprinkling on top of each muffin. Bake for approx. 30 min at 400F.

I love everything about these blackberry cobbler muffins… taste, smell, texture, color. Just check out the bursting insides. Oh man! I have no control, I have to eat one right now.

It’s not quite summer, despite what all those girls traipsing around the city in short shorts think. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice out, but keep your pasty legs at home for now. Anyway, I celebrated this ‘nice’ weather and Easter with some Orange Creamsicle Cupcakes. I don’t celebrate Easter, per se, except the commercialized part of it that requires eating sweets. Worst part… no more Mini Eggs on a vegan diet! F my life. Just kidding… these cupcakes got me through. I didn’t eat them all to myself, only 2. The rest were shared with family after Easter dinner.

It’s a perfectly moist vanilla bean cupcake with creamy orange frosting. The sprinkling of glistening sanding sugar on top is almost reminiscent of ice crystals on a real Orange Creamsicle, isn’t it! I’m a nerd.

Vanilla Bean Cupcake (Makes 12)

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup almond meal
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup soy milk
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup oil
1/2 vanilla bean (seeds only)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine apple cider vinegar and soy milk together and set aside for 5 minutes to curdle. In another bowl sift together flour, almond meal, baking powder, soda and salt. Whisk sugar, oil (I used canola this time, but vegetable or coconut would work too), vanilla bean and extract into the curdled soy milk mixture. Add wet to dry ingredients and mix until just combined (don’t over mix). Pour into cupcake liners and bake at 350 F for 20-25 minutes.

Orange Frosting

1/2 cup Tofutti vegan cream cheese
1/4 cup Earth Balance
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 orange (juice and zest)
4-5 cups powdered sugar

I actually used an orange I had left from The Orange Experiment that had been boiled 3 times. I think this might have made the orange flavor sweeter than if you just used a fresh orange. But don’t worry too much about that. Beat together Tofutti, Earth Balance, vanilla extract, orange juice and zest until fluffy. Continue adding sifted powdered sugar and beating with a mixer until the desired consistency is achieved for frosting your cupcakes.

These seriously taste like Orange Creamsicles… and thus got me in the summer spirit without donning short shorts!

I had so many oranges lying around (2 for 1 special on bags ‘o’ oranges) and I decided to use up what I could and make candied orange peel and a flourless orange cake with orange sauce/glaze. Things I learned: both are not worth the time it takes, you can’t make a flourless AND eggless cake, and I don’t like the taste of orange unless it’s in its natural state.

The candied peels worked out. My boyfriend and roommate who are candy hounds, ate them straight up and liked them. Except I know they’re supposed to be more orange instead of this rusty orange brown color. I don’t know what to do with them either? I might garnish cupcakes next week for Easter or include some chopped candied peel in some kind of spice cookie. If you look up candied orange peel online you’ll be faced with many different ways to candy peels. I’m not sure what works best and why, but I followed Candied Orange Peel on this page. I will never be doing this again, so feel free to experiment on your own time, if you so desire!

Then there’s the cake… and I’ll tell you right away this did not work out and I had to throw it out. I hate that, it’s the WORST thing ever! The reason I’m blogging about something that didn’t work out is because I think it’s good to let you know that you can’t win ‘em all and it’s ok. Even though I did waste a lot of money on friggin almond flour and have nothing to show from my deal on oranges! Anyway, I randomly found a beautifully photographed flourless orange cake on a blog called Citrus and Candy. It was a time consuming recipe, but I thought what the hey! After some internet researching I thought I could get away with replacing the eggs in this recipe to make it vegan. I ended up using a combination of one flax egg replacement and 1/2 cup soy yogurt to equal the other two eggs. Well, after 70 minutes of baking I thought this cake is getting too brown on the outside and the toothpick came out mostly clean, so it must be done. Plus it looked great right out of the oven!

Basically I didn’t discover it’s mushy insides until I made the orange sauce topping – which I also screwed up and cooked too long, resulting in the sugar drying like a hard candy top on the cake – and when I cut it it started to fall apart. I was determined to salvage this cake, so I removed the candy coated orange top and put it back in the oven… for a long time. Obviously, that still didn’t work.

After all this, the disturbing thing is I was obsessed with still getting a good end result photo. It’s like if I never told you about any of this disaster you would look at this photo and think… wow what an awesome flourless orange cake! But in conclusion, if you like orange, have at least 4 hours on your hands and aren’t opposed to using eggs, make that cake recipe on Citrus and Candy – I bet it’s good. I so wish this worked out, but I must move on! I didn’t eat this slice, either, in case you’re wondering.