Birthday worthy desserts. Maybe I will blog more-ish this summer?

The best (worst) kind of blog post: dessert pics and a reminder about how I never post anymore! Blah, blah, blah grad school. Blah, blah, blah summer break from grad school now occupied by full-ish time work. I am the *most* fun of all the overworked depressing documentary watching people *ever*!




Anyway, these were coconut mini cupcakes topped with the dulce de leche recipe from Viva Vegan. I had them at my birthday. In January. Also consumed were these double chocolate chip mini cupcakes with my own invented (and since refined) pomegranate frosting. Tomas also made empanadas (seitan-potato-tomato, and butternut squash-black bean), tostones and sweet plantains. Apparently I did not photograph these things! My underfed social work grad students buddies loved it all! Then again, they love everything--they are professionally trained Nice People.

















Last week was Tomas' birthday. I made him a vegan-approved ice cream cake that was experimental, but happily successful. I made a chocolate chip brownie crust (doubled the Joy of Vegan Baking recipe, added chocolate chips) in a spring-form pan, then smooshed in a layer of chocolate cookie ice cream, crushed newman-o's, strawberry ice cream, whipped topping (recipe in Joy of Vegan Baking) *and* chocolate covered strawberries. Tomas also made the courico tacos with pineapple salsa from Vegan Brunch again. His friends were again astounded that he managed to keep the fact that he can cook from them for so many years. His favorite gifts included a box of assorted sunglasses, an adopted chicken from Woodstock Animal Sanctuary (what's up Pearl, how's the feed up there?!) and some fine haberdashery.








Party!

Voting Yes on Proposition "Raw Cake"

Like an outdated lolcat meme, I was skeptical, yet curious. Ultimately, I found this Ani Phyo recipe to be a success!










It's really fast: you blend dates, walnuts, and cocoa to form the cakes, layer them with fresh berries and a frosting made with cocoa, dates, agave and avocado. It works! Of course it does, it's sweet and full of yummy healthy fats! Especially with coconut vegan ice cream.

Blueberry-chocolate cake, sweet potato bread

Hi everybody. Grad school is kicking my butt, but I still do eat food, so here are some pics:



Blueberry-chocolate cake, recipe from the Fat Free Vegan Kitchen blog. I used a chocolate-hazelnut spread my friend brought me back from Paris to adhere the fruit to the cake in lieu of agave. This was delicious, quick and looks pretty fancy to boot. I used these farmers market blueberries that made you say; "oh yeah, that's what these things are supposed to taste like!"





Braided sweet potato yeast bread loaf, recipe from IVU (International Vegetarian Union). Delicious, but somewhat dense. The recipe doesn't instruct you to warm liquid ingredients to room temperature, and I only thought of that halfway through the process, but it still rose quite a bit, so I think next time using warm soymilk and yams it will be even better. I made two spreads for this, both based off of Bryanna Clark-Grogan's vegan "boursin" recipe. One was made with cranberries, walnuts and orange zest and the other had dill, garlic and scallions. Both were delicious (google that recipe, I make it all the time!) but neither were super photogenic unfortunately.

Rockie Road Cookies

These are from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar. They have roasted almonds, chocolate chips and vegan white chocolate chips, which can be tricky to find (I usually order them online). They were a fun change from regular chocolate chip cookies and well received by the other vegans in my office. (There are 3 besides me now!)

On it like chocolate on strawberries!

All dressed up and everywhere to go! Chocolate-strawberry vegan cheesecake and cupcakes make you the most popular guy or girl at the party. Cupcake recipe is just the faithful old chocolate Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World one, topped with chocolate ganach. The cheesecake recipe is here at Bakingsheet. I just reduced the lemon juice, added some vanilla and baked a double batch in a homemade chocolate cookie crust.

Chocolate chocolate chip pistachio cayenne cookies!

Recipe is a modified JOVB recipe; remove the peppermint from the chocolate cookies, add pistachios and cayenne. Yum.

Chocolate-strawberry cupcakes!

Baked especially for For my little cousin's sweet sixteen: chocolate cupcakes from vctotw with vanilla buttercream frosting from jovb, filled with strawberry jam and topped with sliced strawberries and mint leaf garnishes. Jealous much?

Baking with Agave Nectar

Um, hey guys, I don't know if you've er, noticed or anything, but I kinda eat a fair amount of sugar. What with all the cupcakes and the blogging and saving the animals the children and the world and such and such it all adds up... You know what I mean, right? Anyway, I have been trying to cut down on my sugar consumption but found that this pretty difficult for a hard-core dessert addict such as myself. "If only I could have my cake and eat it too," I thought. Then I realized, of course I could as long as its baked with agave nectar!

Yes, agave nectar, everyone's favorite unrefined low-glycemic vegan liquid sweetener! Agave nectar, or syrup, is harvested from the same cactus that tequila is made from and is imported from Mexico. It comes in both light and dark (raw) grades and kind of tastes like a mellowed out version of maple syrup. Many vegans know it well as a replacement for honey. Besides not being regurgitated by enslaved little bees (who are having a hard time these days after all!) agave is also safe for diabetics as it won't mess with your blood sugar and it actually has a bit of nutritional value as opposed to refined table sugar. Normally I just use a squirt in my tea or drizzle a bit on toast with almond butter and cinnamon (breakfast of cruelty-free champions), but this month I dove deeper.


Baking with Agave Nectar was my initial inspiration. This cookbook is not 100% vegan, but is still totally worth investing in. There are lots of vegan and easily veganizable recipes in here. Also, all recipes use unrefined flours and many recipes are gluten free. Indeed, several and fairly low fat! If you're looking to health-ify your dessert options this is a great place to start. I anticipate making many more recipes from this book, hopefully gettting around to treats like chocolate peanut butter mousse-filled cupcakes, dairy-free blueberry cheesecake, chocolate silk almond pie, tropical rice pudding, and gingerbread cake with lemon creme topping. NOM.






My first attempt at the recipe for blueberry pie with almond crumb topping from BwAN led to more of a berry crumble type dish, but it was the perfect end to a sweltering city night with friends. It was also a nice start to next day too as breakfast cold from the fridge ;)








Attempt number two at pie, with the same recipe as above, this time with fresh cherries and mangoes, was more successful. I added a bit extra starch and that seemed to do the trick. I think I will make an all-mango pie sometime soon as they worked out so well in this!






Speaking of mangoes, here is a mango raspberry smoothie next to a green tea and chocolate smoothie, both made with fruit sweetened Soy Delicious ice cream which I like a lot because they're not overly sugary but still have a nice texture and awesome range of flavors. Oh, and you can polish off a pint for under 500 calories. Yeah. In the mango raspberry: mango raspberry ice cream, frozen raspberries, mango nectar, agave nectar). In the green tea and chocolate: green tea ice cream, fair trade cocoa powder, soymilk, agave nectar, matcha green tea powder.




Vanilla agave cupcakes fwith not-too-sweet blueberry mousse rom the recipes in my beloved Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. Indeed the mousse was not too sweet, so I added a bit more agave than was called for. With tofu-based frosting these were the healthiest cupcakes I've ever made. Jackie and Roommate agreed that the bright blue topping (which tasted a bit like yogurt actually) with a little shredded coconut on top made the cakes look very cartoonish-- sort of like Dr. Seuss food. Better than Green Eggs and Ham anyway, blech!






Vanilla snap cookie from a BwAN recipe. I added chopped dried mango and lime zest and served them with dried kiwis (an exciting new find from the magical land of Bulk Food Bins at Sahadi's), mangoes and cranberries.






Banana date bread (I also added cashews) from BwAN toasted and topped with a scoop of almond-pecan fruit-sweetened Soy Delicious and homemade caramel sauce is comfort food in multiple snuggly layers. Boy (who went vegan on our second date!) agreeded that we probably can't ever break up now that I've made this for him. I guess banana bread sundaes are just that heartwarming :)

More cookies for indecisive vegans...

*Open up your copy of Joy of Vegan Baking by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, which you obviously own, being a reader of this blog and all, to the recipe for chocolate chip cookies
*Prepare batter as usual
*Add 1 cup vegan chocolate chips, 2/3 cup dried cranberries, 1/3 cup flaked coconut and the zest of a small/medium orange.
*Roll 1 1/2 - 2 tbs of dough into balls, smooshed slightly
*Bake about 8 minutes
*Enjoy!

Oh, and try to use unsweetened cranberries and coconut if you can get your hands on them (your heath food store will have 'em) and if you can't, reduce your sugar a bit. Also, I used 1/2 AP flour, and 1/2 "white whole wheat" flour from King Arthur Flour which is magical stuff. It bakes like white flour, but is all whole grain goodness. If you wanted to increase the health factor further, sub 1/3 of the vegan margarine for applesauce. I've done it before with nice results, but alas, I was out of it today.

Have it all cookies <3

Ok, I'm still working on the recipe, but I promise to post it eventually:

*coconut lime shortbread raspberry jam thumbprint cookies with dark chocolate drizzle*

(whew!)

They're pretty awesome right now, but since I've never posted an original baking recipe before, I want everything to be juuuust right.

Stuff a squash not a turkey!

Mom and Jill take Thanksgiving very, very seriously:




Pomegranate champagne punch with rum and mint.












Artichoke stuffed with breadcrumbs, olive oil and garlic.












Roasted butternut squash, onion and apple soup with pecan cilantro pesto.












Roasted sweet and blue potatoes with fried shallots.











Stuffed sweet dumpling squash with wild and basmati rice, apricot, cranberry, pecan and cardamom from Compassionate Cooks.









Stuffed mushrooms from Veganomicon were a big hit.













Veggie platter with glazed baby carrots, roasted brussels sprouts and cippolinis, steamed broccoli and green beans almondine.












A very full plate with all the aforementioned plus vegan mashed potatoes (no omnivore was the wiser...), some freehanded cornbread and soy sausage stuffing and a rosemary drop biscuit from The Joy of Vegan Baking (easy, delicious). Oh and no, I couldn't finish it all, though I tried my best.












Chocolate pumpkin pie from Dreena Burton's Eat Drink and Be Vegan, and apple strudel from The Joy of Vegan Baking. Both were excellent and will be made again soon.

More cookies!

So I went to a vegan baby shower this weekend. It was awesome; I met so many vegans and had a great time. There was a ton of dessert, so I don't know how many people ate these at the party ate cookies when there was a midblowingly cute tower of vegan cupcakes, the gold standard of vegan baked goods: the peanut butter bomb cake from Vegan Treats as well as some sort of yummy homemade chocolate pie with a cookie crust. A plethora of vegan desserts is always a-ok by me though. Anyway, here are almond apricot tea cookies from How it all Vegan, some chocolate chip cookies revamped from a Compassionate Cooks recipe and some raspberry jam thumbprints from a veg web recipe I think I'm going to work on a bit. Oh, and the food was catered by Red Bamboo in Brooklyn (including mango "chicken" salad, yum) and there was much Yeungling for all. Burp.

Congrats vegan parents; that's one very lucky baby, thanks so much for inviting me!

And yet more cupcakes...

Sorry I've been lazy about posting lately, I've been busy you know, working. I know, I know, weird huh?

Aaanyway, I have TWO vegan co-workers at my new job. Yay! When I found out one of them had a birthday coming up I offered up my baking services pretty much automatically. One night o'baking and a very careful subway commute later I had forty some odd vegan cupcakes at the office. Some were skeptical at first, but these were certainly a hit. After all, who wouldn't be won over? There were green tea with almond flowers, chocolate cupcakes filled with raspberry jam and covered in ganache, peanut butter covered in ganache, and coconut lime with an agave lime glaze and shredded coconut.