Blogging again, gingerly...

Haha. Planned to post more often this year... eleven months later as I look back, yeahnotsomuch. But moving along: here’s what I got up to, baking-wise, for Christmas. Inspired by ZuckerBaby’s spectacular gingerbread TARDIS, I decided to make a gingerbread house again (following my inaugural effort last year). I followed the same recipe guideline as ZB, over at this excellent e-book, and based my design on the Mountain Retreat pattern PDF there. But like last year, this was to be an Australian (Strayan!) house with no snow to be seen — strictly cocoa-coloured icing to cement the thing together, a textured 'tin' roof, and a bit of a front yard. The grass is quite a bright shade of green (they must have put down some fresh turf, eh?) and I took ZB’s lead and used eucalyptus drops to melt into the windows.

Here’s a view with a torch shining into the windows, and so you can see the less than perfect finish on the roof; I’m claiming that’s where the possums get in.

Also, I made the ‘Christmas cake’ for the family this year, which actually meant one dozen rum raisin cupcakes; I topped them with some little fondant gumleaves (ha, I sound really parochial!:

Oh, and one of the presents I gave to family was a selection of these fabulous fruity, chewy lollies (think soft taffy) from Stillwater Sweets. They’re in Kuranda in northern Queensland, but have an online shop — I can vouch for the deliciousness of their pineapple, mango, lime and strawberry flavours (the four included in the mixed bags) and banana, but they have many more that I look forward to trying one day. They’re even labelled as vegan. Highly recommended!

That’s all for now, but I can see a 2012 photo dump in my near future... P.S. I know the photos are less than ideal — I’m still getting used to my newish camera.

A fruit tart or two

For no apparent reason whatsoever, I got it into my head that I wanted to make a fruit tart (and, from here on, pies more generally — ordering Vegan Pie in the Sky is definitely in order). The first attempt last Sunday was very mediocre looks-wise, but still quite tasty; the second attempt on the Thursday public holiday went much better, and not only because I was at my parents' and ably assisted by my fruit-cutting sidekick, Mum (Thanks again).

So here's a photo of each one. The crust is from this recipe recommended by Matt — I'm buying a good-quality rolling pin any day now with some Christmas money from my grandmother, but in the meantime it was great not to have to roll out any pastry. The filling is a rice milk-based custard (I used a little Foster Clark's custard powder, but also a bit of corn starch and icing sugar and lemon zest so the custard flavour wouldn't be too strong). The fruit topping is fruit (no really)... The glaze even the second time just wasn't the right consistency, hence the uneven finish — I suspect practice makes perfect there. I'm also wondering what to do about the sheer amount of liquid (water/juice) that leeches out of the fruit. I guess letting the cut fruit sit in the fridge for a while could only help...

The first of fifty-two

One week into 2012 (well, a little over one week) and I've had a very lovely start to the new year. I had a quiet NYE at home on my own, with my brand new planner — I love writing things into it and feeling the excitement of what's ahead. I also opened a bottle of white wine (a fairly-drinkable chardonnay — nothing amazing) from a mixed dozen that my parents and I ordered together from Goodwill Wine for Animals Australia. They're one of several of the listed charities that have only vegan wines listed for their fundraising.



I kicked off the year with a hot brekkie and (believe it or not) the first scrambled tofu I've made myself; it was clearly not the best you could make, but tasty enough. So I get to keep my vegan licence, right? ...Right?! Even the mushroom, where I had to use powdered garlic when I realised I'd forgotten to buy fresh or crushed garlic, was extremely edible.



On Wednesday I had lunch at Organic Produce with Mandee and Lisa who was travelling through town. In spite of my best intentions I hadn't been to this place before, and the hot weather killed my appetite to the extent that I just picked at a small (tasty) salad and enjoyed my soy latte. But it was really all about the chance to meet up, after all, and it was a lovely couple of hours.

Mandee and I swapped a few things from our pantries, so I came away with some Biscoff speculoos spread to enjoy. Having finally tried the stuff several months ago, I thought I'd do more than just eat a teaspoonful with my coffee or for dessert; on the weekend I made some plain vanilla cupcakes with a Biscoff icing (plumped up with some extra cinnamon, because there was still no way I was going to dedicate more of my Biscoff to this than was absolutely necessary). These were also the first cupcakes — or the first vanilla, at least — that I made with rice milk rather than soy, and I did think it gave them a subtly different flavour. But who knows — maybe it was my imagination, or more or less vanilla extract than usual.



Other than that, nothing new here. No resolutions other than to continue to strive for awesomeness and see where that takes me throughout the year (I expect most people feel that way at this time of year, even if they phrase it less ridiculously or keep it to themselves). I suppose I do want to post a bit more often after things got so quiet last year; I've finally put up a photo header for the blog, so that's a start. Maybe I also want to get out a bit more; I've been doing very nicely already, but for one thing there are so many vegan-friendly places around Sydney I have yet to try. I wonder if I should use that planner...