Stupid Cake.

I don't even know why I'm blogging about this cake. Its two layers of Chocolate cake, with sweetened rice crispies (I used agave for some sort of adhiesive in case your wondering) smothered with a peanutbutter icing i whipped up and a dark chocolate ganache. I think it was about 1am when I put this cake together. There was no occasion for it except for that Alex likes chocolate and works late hours. I have been able to finish maybe half a slice of this thing. the icing is delicious, the cake is delicious. apparently this is the most "cakey" cake I've ever made (opposed to the eurotrash cakes I normally pump out) so that's a good thing I guess. But it's really just stupid and I wish I had some visitors to offload it to. I think the theory behind this cake is "I'll make a cake thats like those peanut butter balls I made. yeah. chocolate, peanut butter, rice crispies, where's the glitch?".

Sigh.

Unhulled Marzipan

lurking behing the marzipan ball is a peanut butter cannonball made using Lindyloo's Copyright Violation.

Unhulled sounds kinda dirty. And if you're used to the white fluffy stuff, you'd probably think my marzipan was maybe, kinda dirty. But. I made it. With my fists. and Straight-up unbleached unhulled Almondmeal. And you can too.

Using 'Chef Jeenas' guildlines I give you dirty roo-poo looking marzipan to use as cake filling, cake topping, or to straight up cover in chocolate and enjoy.

2cups almondmeal
1/3 cup castor sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tablespoon cold water
1 teaspoon almond essence (which you can omit if you like)

Mix almondmeal and sugar, and add the liquid ingredients into the dry using the much-sought-after well method.
Mix thoroughly, if you've not used almond essence maybe put in a bit of extra lemon juice to keep the ratio right. Be careful not to get it too wet. Kneed until its all combined to your taste and it should feel kidn of like a shortcrust pastry dough. Wrap in plastic and set in the fridge for at least an hour until you feel sufficiently pleased with yourself and almost put your smug face on.

Not quite as fluffy as marzipan made with eggwhites, or as white as the overprocessed kind, but delicious and cheaper than running up to the store every time you want a hit of this almond crack.




EDIT: focussed shot of the peanutbutter cannonball, which has now been renamed a Miracle Pill, a la Miracle Max from the Princess Bride. The chocolate helps it go down easier, y'know.

have fun storming the castle, boys!

TWENTY ONE

At about 4pm on the 2nd of May I realised something had to be done.
I finally had an Ice-Cream cake in the fridge (that I have been covetting for for about a year, with thanks for the Kosher grocery stores in Bondi and my generous Partner for gifting it to me).
My birthday was to be on the following Wednesday, but I was moving to the Blue Mountains the next day and was going to be in Brisbane on the-day of my birth. CAKE PARTY was announced. 9pm, at Mgtvle (my now-former residence) because we had to do a trip up an down the mountain and wouldnt be back until then.
Alex and I hadn't had dinner yet so we ordered from Mad Pizza and by the time we'd finished eating and taken out the cakes, more friends (who had already had dinner) finally showed up in a timely manner, to taste the Vegan Baileys (as close as you can get without getting your eyes wet)

Kosher Parve Ice Cream cake made out of TOFU MILK. yay.

Pandan coconut cake made by Katrina of Rise up & Bake (who makes the gluten free cakes at Funky Pies).

My sweet-heart friend Kathy made a beautiful Tofu Salad and her aunty made some Sticky Rice Leaves with banana and red bean.

unfortunately I've been really bad at getting batteries for my camera so these photos are from my ex housemate Stella and so there isn't any of the wonderful food I ate in my trip to Brisbane which included: Hell Pizza, 2 kinds of Birthday cake my mum made, Kuan Yin, Magic Wok, Many different kinds of Mochi (INCLUDING A VEGAN CHOCOLATE COVERED PEANUTBUTTER FILLED ONE), and The Forest.

Banana Bread

(or, "YOU'VE NEVER EATEN WHAT???")

Before a chance taste of it in my bedroom a few months ago, my friend Damian had never eaten banana bread before. Before she came to Australia at the end of last year, she also had never eaten dumplings, risotto, ice cream sodas, mi goreng, or even a pumpkin before.
There is probably a few other things we fed her that she said "what the fuck is this" to that I can't think of. She was also quite fascinated in learning about all the different things I can't eat because of being a coeliac.

For all fairness, before I met Damian I had never had partaken of, nor heard of a sandwich cake before (if you ever befriend a Swede and they offer to make this for you, PARTAKE OF IT!!! Damian's friends Stina and Karin came and made some vegan versions for our house and one especially for me with gluten free bread a month ago, I get cravings for it once a week now).
Damian was so amazingly stoked on any cake she had a piece of that I had made whilst she stayed at our place, especially of banana bread, that I couldn't resist but make a loaf for her especially for her bon-voyage. Damian left this afternoon to return to Gothenburg.

I have a few recipes that I use/mix up between when making banana bread, but decided to go with a variation that Alex and I have agreed on based on this one from theppk.com.
This recipe is very easy but we found the original to be a bit too sweet and "cakey" for our taste and have settled on this adaptation for less-fuss bananabread. It has had a history in our trials of being able to withstand many different combinations of gluten free flours, which is probably the ultimate test of my trust in a baking recipe. I also like this one ebcause it can get quite "bready" sometimes and is delicious toasted, and has an incredibley good crust.

I myself didn't get to partake of this batch as I had to work when everyone was being Damian's company for her last hours in Sydney, but I heard incredibley encouraging reports of its worthiness for the blogosphere (also it photographed well).

• 1 cup raw sugar
• 1/3 cup margarine
• 4 overripe ladys finger bananas, mashed
• 1 cup plain flour (gluten free generic mix)
  
• 1/4 cup self raising flour (this is a gluten free thing that I do, the original recipe shouldnt need the extra boost that gf flours often do)
• 3/4 cup chickpea flour
• 1/2 t bicarb soda
• 1/4 cup rice milk mixed with 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon allspice
• 1/2 teaspoon salt.

Cream the sugar and margarine, fold in the bananas and milk/vinegar mix and then the vanilla essense. Sift in the flours baking soda, salt and spices. Pour batter into a greased loaf tin and sprinkle extra sugar and cinnamon on top (this helps the crust to get all sweat and caramelised and rustic. it helps if you do this step before you put it into the oven but I forgot this time until the bread only had 15 minutes left) hour, and let cool and rest for at least half an hour before eating the fuck out of it.

Look at the crust! So crusty! So crusty it has an I ♥ D-BEAT tattoo!**








**sorry for the personal joke, another friend of ours who has an I HEART DBEAT tattoo left for Sweden today as well, on the same flight as Damian, and there was much discussion of his tattoo last night.

Apple of my Thigh!

Here is my adaptation of the German Apple Cake recipe from the Joy of Vegan Baking (thanks little Ruth for getting this for my 20th last year, you're a superstar!) which has pages falling out of it all over the place from over-bending (I don't know if I actually use this book a lot but it is REALLY GOOD and I read it so much when I first got it, like bedtime reading for a couple of months kinda crazily) and this recipe actually fell into my mixing bowl when I opened the book! What a sign!!! I adapted it for the sake of flours and such, and what I had available and how I felt about the flavour of the batter and stuff.

It turned out marvelously and as it ended up being the only cake at Katrina's Housewarming Pot Luck, it shined for everyone.

German Apple Cake (adapted from The Joy of Vegan Baking by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau) my adaptations are asterixed

PREHEAT YR OVEN TO 180c.
GREASE A CIRCULAR TIN
SPRINKLE IT WITH BROWN SUGAR AND CINNAMON (TO TASTE)*

3 apples, peeled and cut into thin slices.
1/2 c. non dairy margarine.
1/2 c. raw sugar
3 T. rice milk*
1/2 c. applesauce (I used a bit more than this because I had a little bit left in the jar and didn't wanna waste)
1 t. natural vanilla essence*
1.5 t. maple syrup *
1/2 t. cinnamon*
1/3 c. buckwheat flour*
1/3 c. chickpea flour*
1/3 c. white maize flour*
1/2 c. generic gluten free "plain" flour mix* (THATS ONE AND A HALF CUPS OF FLOUR)
2.5 t. baking powder

topping: 1/4 c. brown sugar, 1/2 t. cinnamon, 1/4 t. cardamom* mixed.

depending on how you slice your apples you should have enough for both the top and the bottom of the cake. line the bottom of the cake (after you've sugared it) tin with some apples, try to get them in a nice arrangement because this will be the top of the cake. put the remaining apples to the side to do something similar after you've poured the batter in.

Cream the margarine and sugar either by hand or with an electric hand mixer. Add the apple sauce, milk, vanilla essence. Add the flours and baking powder and stir until just combined. Pour onto the apples, and tap the tin a bit to make sure all the apples are covered and there are no gaps or air bubbles.

Arrange the remaining apples to the top of the cake, hopefully you'll be able to cover the whole thing. sprinkle with the sugar spice mix heavily and bake for about 35 minutes.

The cake is done when an inserted toothpick comes out clean and the top is crisp and brown. let it cool for at least 15 minutes before putting a plate on top of it and turning it upside down. the bottom (now top) apples should be soft and sweet smelling.

I think this is sort of what I imagine a 'tea cake' is like. It had a really lovely crumb, a moist top and crisp bottom, almost like a pie-cake. Will make again. yay. Hopefully next time I'll get to have some whilst it's still warm, with vanilla ice cream (we did serve it with ice cream, which was a star of an accompaniment brought by the extra lovely Lizzie!) for more homely-ness.

nb: i just realised how yellow toned my pictures are! my computer must have a red bias in its screen! aaaah. sorry for the acid trip, guyz.

Answer your cravings, They'll love you for it.

Lamingtons were made after Mandee wrote about her lamington cupcakes. I did the same thin as her except for I doubled the recipe and baked into a square tin. I'd been craving this treat for about 5 months and I was oh-so satisfied. Also feeding this uh, "national" cake to the two people I live with who come from Europe was pretty nice too, such a simple treat to be so impressive!

Taro Taro Taro

I'm not going to make excuses for not blogging.

Alex and Damian celebrated their birthdays at Coogee beach and I made a couple of offerings, one being a baked tofu cheesecake, and the other a HIGHLY experimental Taro Banana Coconut cake with Raw frosting (the cake was sugar fest. an absolute sugar fest).
Other food-gifts were vegan Honeycomb made by Kathy, a tofu and asparagus Toss by Louise and Alex made a soba noodle salad. Delcious.

Louise once said she was going to have an "extreme pot luck" where guests would be invited to cometo dinner and bring a dish that used either unconventional ingredients or methods or otherwise seemed kind of pointless. (Her example was a savory 'jellybean pie').
This cake may not be unconventional (it is based off of a Hawaiian recipe list I found whilst trying to figure out what to do with the taro) it was unexpected.
Flour free, lots of waiting for our frozen taro to get to mashing state, not sure whether or not we were cooking it right, also mentioning the idea of the cake to a few people tweaked some "huh?? wtf?" reactions to the concept.

Conceptual cake. Woah. Think about it. Cake concepts. Cake, as a concept. Fuck. Heavy.

Taro-Banana Coconut Cake

• 2 cups. hot peeled and cooked mashed taro
  (we used two pieces of frozen fresh taro that alex got from a asian supermarket. these took a while to cook until mashing state - its ready when kind of purpley)
• 2 bananas, mashed
• 1/4 cup melted nondairy margarine
• 1/4 tsp. each ground nutmeg and cinnamon
• 1 cup dessicated/shredded coconut
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 cup nondairy milk
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Grease a shallow cake pan (we used a loaf tin, but this would make a lovely round cake. it may help to put this off until you've completed making the batter so you know what sort of volume you're dealing with. this cake doesnt rise, so if it's shallow it'll cook more thoroughly. i feel that the loaf tine depth was why we had a very moist cake, which we enjoyed a lot).
Preheat the oven to 180c (350f i think!).
Combine the hot taro with the melted margarine, mashing again as you work the two into each other.
Add the coconut, bananas and sugar, mix in well.
Then the cinnamon, nutmeg, milk and vanilla, beat all together for about a minute. We may have done a better job if we used an electric mixer but we don't have one Also it was 1am.
Pour into cake pan and bake for 45 minutes to an hour (or until firm).

I made a Raw "whipped cream" icing (my first time using a piping bag. didn't win) using the cream section of this recipe.
I have a lot of opinions about the whole 'raw-food' thing, so I got scoffed at by Louise and Al when making this recipe because I've had a history of scoffing at raw food (well. not the food, but diet. I am scared of cults) but as I used maple syrup not honey (for true-to-vegan purity) it became a cooked food because maple syrup is not raw!! Yay, I win, etc.
Fucking delicious, by the way. Made for good ice cream when kept in the freezer, or like a yoghurt with cereal the next day. Whee.

The post-digestion swim in Coogee was amazing and we did some great explorations into the rockpools, hanging out with hermit crabs, bigger crabs, molluscs and tiny fish.

POST SCRIPT: Pip keeps getting me to mention if the recipe is any good, because apparently the inclusion into my blag doesn't actually promise that it is a good recipe and you should try it.
THIS IS. Also, you'll note that my blagging is very sporadic and this is generally because I can't be bothered writing a recipe out for something I only kind-of enjoyed eating.
I enjoyed this cake, Alex enjoyed this cake, everyone at the potfuck enjoyed this cake (albiet, not as intensely was the enjoyment as my tofu cheesecake, but still, people did surprise faces and happy faces for this cake).
ALSO: I have no plan on sticking the "air-humping" tag onto just any ol' recipe, willy-nilly.
NILLY.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxox

White Goji Antidote CUPCAKED

It's been a really long time since I've invented a cupcake recipe on my own. Or since I've even wanted to. I don't make cupcakes that often anyway. The last time I created a cupcake recipe, I invented two at the same time and they travelled to New South Wales with me to feed lovers and stoners. The recipes were for a chocolate-licorice type (that was inspired by my partner as well as being stuck on reading Emma Goldman's autobiography, Living my Life) and a coconut-lime-ginger "butter"cupcake.

As I've been sick too often these days, I've actually been really slack with my eating habits or even being organised and motivated enough to cook something and eat it. The most I've been eating has often been different combination of spreads and salad on a corn thin. Seriously. It's been pretty fucked up and I get frustrated when people tell me to eat and I just-can't-do-it. The antidote to this sort of a rut is to bake something.

Even though I make sweets often and eat them often, I actually kind of feel really spiteful towards them. I can't even explain how that works, but baking or making sweet things when I'm unwell seems to get me in a mode of "I can do this cooking stuff, and then I have to eat it or it goes to waste" which is better than "I can't even think about chewing on food". It gets me to this good better-eating habit place because I THEORETICALLY dislike sweets, therefore I must be making sweets for someone else. right? like, that totally makes sense.
Except for in the house I live in now its just Riva and I and though she does love delicious things, she is a small lady, and its still just two of us.

ANYWAY
WHATEVERI made a white chocolate chip cupcake using Quinoa flour and hid Goji berries in 'em and a white chocolate ganache icing. You can do it too!

Preheat your oven to 180c. Learn the metric system if you don't know it.

Dry hump: 1.5 c quinoa flour
1 t bicarb soda
1 t baking powder
0.5 t sea salt
1 c brown sugar
5 T soy milk powder

Wet love: 1.25 c non dairy milk
(this is a rough estimate. see how much you feel is necessary after one cup)
1 T apple cider vinegar
2 t vanilla extract

And then: 0.75 c mini non dairy white chocolate chips
(i got mine from rishon's)
0.5 c dried goji berries.
-this is completely to taste. i think i probably scrimped a bit on the gogoji as their taste is pretty subtle.

These were done after about 20/25 minutes. I think if I do it again I'll look into using a different combo of flours, they tasted delicious but like, earthy. With a nice whisper of SECRET QUINOA LURKING WITHIN.

For the ganache (which there is too much of now sitting in a tub in the freezer) I did this:
double-boil 1c white chocolate chips with 3 T margarine. mixed with 0.25 c water, 3 c icing sugar, 1 t vanilla extract and the juice of half a lemon. oh and a pinch of sea salt. whip-it. freeze it. whip it. freeze it. whip it onto cupped cakes.

INFORMATION ABOUT GO-GOJI!

BackTrack : Pip's Birthday Cake.

The wonderpuss, miss Phlippila celebrated her birthday in (gluttonous!) style through food in September. She hosted a potfuck which you can read about on her blog. I am going to now talk about the cake I made for Pips.

I have to say at the outset that because of the use of Stout (coopers. my favourite) in the cake batter, it isn't really 100% gluten free, but I made it okay for myself by just putting lots of booze in it and in my belly anyway so I was due to suffer from -something- that night, in any case. Wheee!

I've finally gotten around to looking at the photos my housemate, Riva let me take using her camera, so I can blog with pictures about food. like it's actually a food blog, for reals.

I used this recipe from Susie's Parsnip Parsimony. Which is a blog I love and adore and wish she would get bloggin' again because I feel like I'm for-real really learning when I read her blog. And she does cute things and is a big science nerd. A few things went wrong in the making of this cake so it only ended up as two-tiere and I didnt want to waste the icing if I fucked up with my piping bag (I don't know how to use it, ok. i use a spatula. that'll do) but it was all my fault, and not Susie's. Susie can do no wrong. Science can do no wrong. Well. That last sentence, maybe.

Things that went wrong (from my memory, this feels like ages ago!):

• I bought a really delicious looking raspberry jam to use, that came in a big jar so I could still have some for myself to do private-things with (like, put it on rice and gross stuff like that which I do when noone's looking), hehe, and would make a good storage jar after I was done with the jam. My sister called me whilst I was on the tram to the bus that I take to get home (I travel an hour each way between my house and work, three times a week, lots of room for conversation) and as I walked from the tram to the bus, the jam jar kamikaze'd itself infront of the bus. I cut up my hand a fair bit cleaning up the mess, and missed the bus. Damn distracting family exploits! bah! So I had to buy cheaper smaller jars of raspberry jam the following day, for a less friendly price.
• I am absolutely USELESS with our oven in this flat. It is electric, and I think it tells me lies. and the oven thermometer confuses me. and I just can't bake like I used to. so the first layer was slightly burnt. and then collapsed a little. so I couldn't split the damn thing and make the ultimate decadance of cake-piss-ups for the Pips.
• WTF would I get liquid lecithin drops for? I settled for lecithin granules, and they seemed to do the job? I don't know why I needed them, but they didn't ruin anything so Its okay.

I replaced the flour with a standard general-mix of Gluten Free Flour, from a supermarket. For the icing I used Bacardi and I found a vegan vanilla pudding mix at Rishon's in Balaclava. Ummmm.... I also melted down some lindt chocolate and mixed in coffee essence, because the Pip loves coffee.

When the cake collapsed, it left this chunk crumb. I put the filling, some chocolate and some icing and a raspberry on it to serve to Riva as she had international guests staying with her and couldn't attend the potfuck. The mini-cake was much more photogenic and adorable than the mama-cake, but man did the mama-cake work a treat with booze.

x x

classic chocolate cake, y'all.

this cake is pretty easy and makes use of stuff i generally have around the kitchen (apple cider vinegar is a pretty vegan-baker-specific thing to have lying around the house, you can use white distilled vinegar if you like).
it can be changed in so many ways to be more exciting than your stock chocolate cake, and it's really hard to go wrong. i have gone as far as not even measuring anything i put in properly and using milk instead of water and it is always f-ck off wonderful.

- 1.5 cups flour, sifted.
- three quarters cup raw sugar
- one half teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- one third cup dark cocoa powder.

- 1.5 teaspoon vanilla essence
- one third cup melted margarine
- 1 table spoon apple cider vinegar
- 1 cup water

preheat your oven to 180c.

as with most cakes. combine the dry ingredients to eachother. sift the flour and baking soda. create a well in the mixing bowl to best combine the wet ingredients. mix till -just- combined. if you over work the batter, you'll get a really tough cake.

bake for 30 minutes in a lined/greased pan.

I posted this recipe, which is has come from an incest of various vegan cookbooks and recipe blogs i've read in my time, on the yellowghost records forum last night. one day soon i promise to get my shit together and photo-blog the hell out of my cakes.
I generally use the orgran gluten free flours, and split the measurement in half between plain and self-raising flours because baking gluten-free means a denser, less tall cake.. and I like to disguise my ailments.

ATTENTION VEGAN DIABETICS-IN-WAITING

The Great Vegan Bake-Off is coming to Melbourne.

I have absolutely no intention of competing. But seriously. Damn.