I have been a strict vegetarian for a little of a year and a half now. I don’t eat eggs, but I do eat cheese and milk products on occasion. This time of year is my favorite becuase I have an excuse to bake. Not that I need one but the recipes are fun and the atmosphere seems to scream for time in the kitchen. My dilemna now is taking my tried and true recipes and attempting to make a tasty edible vegan version. To say the very least, this has not been easy.

My current mission is to try and make my pumpkin bread without eggs.  I thought I had a good chance but tasting the bread right now: it just does not have the right texture. I am replacing eggs with tofu and that seems to allow for a great rise but the flavor is bland and the texture is mushy. GROSS. I am not sure what to do to fix it. Other recipes that I have have found and tried make too dry of a bread and little rise.  I sure miss eggs in baking! They add so much flavor and texture; it is a shame that I do not own a crew of egg-laying hens! At least then I would know they are treated well and the males not killed. I digress

I will try and replace the water in my recipe with soy milk to see if that helps. Any ideas out there in cyberspace?

Here is my first gum paste figurine, a high heel shoe cake topper:

 I suppose it turned out okay for my first time but I am not happy with it ::sigh::
I know I just need more practice and I have definitely learned a lot. I sound like I am 12 - LOL! I made the gum paste from scratch and I can see where it got too dry and cracked. I found great instructions and a template at www.cakecentral.com . I made this shoe for my mom’s birthday cake and it turns out the topper is too big for the cake-
I should have made a 9″ round instead of an 8″. Oh well, better luck next time!

psssst….It’s vegan 

Here is a pic of a cake I made for my niece’s birthday party this past weekend. It was very easy as most of it was a plastic kit (for the turrets). It was a vanilla cake with an almond butter cream frosting.

I also have been experimenting and I have finally been able to make a vegan version of fondant! Woohoo! This is a huge success because for so long now I have felt that I could not use fondant because it is made with gelatin and I want to avoid any animal ingredients. By using agar powder instead of gelatin I am able to get the same effect.  I tweaked the recipe a bit and I made a batch of vegan fondant from this excellent recipe from Epicurious.com. I made my niece a smaller cake using the vegan fondant. I don’t like how amateur my cake looks but considering it is the second time I have worked with fondant and I don’t really know what I am doing I guess it is okay. I am going to take a fondant/gum paste course next month and I cannot wait to learn!

Yesterday was birthday and I made, for the first time, a vegan carrot cake! It turned out delish! It seems to be more of a quick bread texture but I think with a few more tweaks it could be perfect. I used vegan cream cheese in the frosting and toasted pecans and coconut for the sides and top- YUMMO!

Yesterday I baked my first loaf of yeast-rising bread. I always thought it was this huge deal; somehow more chemistry-like than it really is. It was incredibly easy and made even more simple with my mixer. It is just a plain ol’ loaf of white bread but it was very satsisfying to make. I am going to experiment more and try and make whole wheat bread, etc. To not have to buy bread would be flippin’ sweet! And to know that it is healthy and made with natural ingredients instead of added preservatives to make it shelf stable is a major bonus. There is too much junk in processed foods! I wanted to post pics but my bread was not exactly good looking enough to post pics of. I think it would be like D-rated food porn. Eeeewww. I might want to get a better digital camera so I can take nicer pics as well. I could reinstall Gimp on my pc to edit pics. Or learn Photoshop. As soon as I bake bread again I plan to post pics and directions.

Happy Birthday Lola!! We love you!!

My garden is depressing right now. I had taken pics a month ago but I lost them when my laptop had to be reconfigured. Between last month and the present my garden has gone to hell. It is like I live in the desert or something :). I am pulling out my zucchini plants and starting from seed. I should hopefully get a good harvest from them in the fall. I am pulling out the chinese cabbage as well and possibly the lettuce as it is struggling. The cilantro is biting it hard. I just assumed cilantro would grow well here. Apparently I assume wrong :). I am going to buy more sunflowers and see if that will help too. The basil is doing very well as are the green beans and various herbs.

I just started reading The 4-hour Work Week. So far it is an excellent read and I look forward to reviewing it here soon.

So I wrote awhile back about making vegan oatmeal cookies and thought it is long overdue to finally post the recipe with pictures. I am an improviser, not a visionary, and this is always apparent when I bake and cook. Thus, this is an original recipe from one of my favorite cookbooks, Better Homes and Gardens, and the recipe has been adapted to be vegan. The original recipe is very good and makes a crispy cookie on the outside and chewy on the inside. This adapted and vegan version produces a cake-like cookie and very moist. I would recommend these cookies as a snack, dessert, and even for breakfast as they are quite healthy. The next time I make these I would like to fashion them into breakfast bars. Maybe take the batter and spread it onto a jelly roll pan and cut when they are cool.

Vegan Ranger Cookies

350 degrees- Makes at least 2 dozen cookies

1/2 cup vegan margarine (**Note: most margarines are vegan; however, it is best to look for one that is heart healthy with no hydrogenated oils)

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. baking soda

1-1/2 tsp. EnerG Egg Replacer + 2 T warm water, mixed well

1 tsp. vanilla

3/4 cup whole wheat flour (If you do not have WW flour, use the same amount of AP flour.)

1/2 cup AP flour

2 cups rolled oats

1 cup flaked coconut

1 cup raisins

1/4 - 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce (mix in to make batter moist, if needed)

Beat butter 30 seconds. Add sugars, baking powder and soda. Beat in egg replacer mixture and vanilla. Mix in flour. Mix in additional applesauce at this point, if needed, to make mixture moist and not crumbly. (I find 1/4 cup applesauce is plenty). Mix in oats, coconut, and raisins. Using teaspoon size amounts of dough, roll into balls and place on to ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 350 degrees for 9 minutes. Cool on sheets 1 minute before removing and cool completely on wire rack. Store in a covered container. Freezes well.

I thought I would post a link to this great website: Passions Gourmandes. It is written completely in French but one can get the gist of it without reading or understanding French. The pictures of the desserts are amazing, beautiful, and encourages my desire to one day visit France. I would love to own a Patisserie on the level with ones shown on this site.

Here is a pic of the annual Red Velvet Cake. Not the prettiest of cakes but for what it lacks in looks it sure makes up for in taste! The cake is a deep red (should’ve taken pics! Dang it!) and is enhanced with cocoa. The frosting is milk and flour based with walnuts and coconut. The flavors of the cake and the frosting balance and accentuate each other so well. Absolutely Divine!

I used cranberries dipped in egg whites and rolled in sugar to decorate.

Whenever I make this cake I think of Steel Magnolias hahahaha. My mom used to make this cake every Christmas Eve but now I carry on the tradition.

Here is a photo of the cake I made for Peanut’s birthday party. It is the character Super Why from the show on PBS. The cake is chocolate with a cookies and cream filling. Normally, you can copy the shape of what you would like on the cake with tracing paper and piping gel; then transfer the pattern to the cake. I printed the character outline from the PBS kids website. It did not work out this time at all. I think the top of the cake was too cold (?). I had to draw the character on the cake as the transfer outline did not work well at all. I then outlined the character in black icing and piped in stars for the character’s body, cape, shoes, etc. I also used a Tip #5 for the hair. As usual, the most time consuming process is mixing all the colors for the cake.

Update:

Jen commented on this post and was so kind to send a fabulous link to a great website called CakeCental. To make her awesome Super Why cake, she used a really cool technique called frozen buttercream transfer and you can view the directions here. Her cake turned out awesome! Thanx Jen for the great website and your great ideas for Super Why party decorations!