But these were good! Such a moist, almost juicy pineapple cake, and gooey rich icing. There are some stashed in my freezer for a couple of nearest and dearest — you know who you are.
Sunday, 29 May 2011
Pineapple Cupcakes with White Choc Icing
It had occurred to me that this might be a tasty combination of flavours, so I chopped up some canned pineapple chunks and added them and a bit of the juice to the basic vanilla recipe from VCTOTW. For the icing, I worried (needlessly, I'm sure) that it would be annoying to work with melted white chocolate as it cooled and solidified all through the fluffy buttercream; I just grated (finely!) a block of Sweet William White Delight into the usual Nuttelex and icing sugar combo, with just a touch of vanilla extract. It definitely resulted in a chocolate taste to the icing. Next time I'm sure I'll melt it, or possibly I'll really go to town and buy some cocoa butter to use. Or hell, maybe even refer to a recipe, eh?
But these were good! Such a moist, almost juicy pineapple cake, and gooey rich icing. There are some stashed in my freezer for a couple of nearest and dearest — you know who you are.
But these were good! Such a moist, almost juicy pineapple cake, and gooey rich icing. There are some stashed in my freezer for a couple of nearest and dearest — you know who you are.
Sunday, 15 May 2011
Veggie cakes
Well, this needs to be quick because I'm watching the delayed broadcast of the Eurovision final. There's not much to say anyway: last Saturday I whipped up a batch of chocolate cupcakes thinking I'd decorate a couple for my mum for Mother's Day on the Sunday. First, I decorated one to take to a friend's birthday drinks. I've seen a few versions of this idea and had been wanting to try it myself for quite a while. Have you ever searched on Flickr for "vegetable cupcakes" or looked at all the gorgeous "carrot marzipan cupcakes" with their dusting of chocolate-crumb "dirt"?
Yes, the scale is off (though as someone kindly suggested, it makes some sense if you imagine we're dealing with a baby carrot and a cherry tomato). I did this a little more quickly than would have been ideal; the light is poor because it was getting quite late in the day, and I headed out not long after taking the photo. The next day I put aside a bit more time and came up with this eggplant-and-carrots duo.
It was only later in the week that I started to wonder why the carrots would already have their green tops off but still be lying in the dirt, seemingly freshly picked. And I don't know why an eggplant would end up down there on the soil — or a tomato, for that matter. I should have gone with carrots and... lettuce, for instance. Still, they look fun and are fun (and pretty easy) to do, and Mum was impressed — job done!
Yes, the scale is off (though as someone kindly suggested, it makes some sense if you imagine we're dealing with a baby carrot and a cherry tomato). I did this a little more quickly than would have been ideal; the light is poor because it was getting quite late in the day, and I headed out not long after taking the photo. The next day I put aside a bit more time and came up with this eggplant-and-carrots duo.
It was only later in the week that I started to wonder why the carrots would already have their green tops off but still be lying in the dirt, seemingly freshly picked. And I don't know why an eggplant would end up down there on the soil — or a tomato, for that matter. I should have gone with carrots and... lettuce, for instance. Still, they look fun and are fun (and pretty easy) to do, and Mum was impressed — job done!
Friday, 6 May 2011
Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale 2011
Happy 3rd birthday, Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale! For the Sydney chapter last Saturday, 30th April, we raised money for the gorgeous Brightside Farm Sanctuary in Tasmania. It had been a rainy week, and again it was pouring when we got up early to set up in Newtown. But we stuck it out, the skies cleared, we sold out by midday, and had $833.60 to donate to our friends in Tassie.
I made a cherry ripe slice from this recipe I'd used before, and used Sweet William white chocolate for the topping for a change of pace — tasted great (to me, at least)! Apart from the mini cupcakes I always bake, I also made a double batch of the PB blondies from VCIYCJ and topped some of them with white chocolate; and I brought along a dozen each of lemon and chocolate cupcakes.
There were gingerbread (vegan) men, banana split cupcakes, mini lemon passionfruit bundts, Black Forest cupcakes, mini doughnuts, focaccia, vegan sausage rolls, tiramisu cupcakes, coconut lime cookies, orange poppyseed muffins, chocolate peanut butter cups and quite a bit more. Our Flickr group with the latest photos is here. See you at our next sale in a couple of months!
I made a cherry ripe slice from this recipe I'd used before, and used Sweet William white chocolate for the topping for a change of pace — tasted great (to me, at least)! Apart from the mini cupcakes I always bake, I also made a double batch of the PB blondies from VCIYCJ and topped some of them with white chocolate; and I brought along a dozen each of lemon and chocolate cupcakes.
There were gingerbread (vegan) men, banana split cupcakes, mini lemon passionfruit bundts, Black Forest cupcakes, mini doughnuts, focaccia, vegan sausage rolls, tiramisu cupcakes, coconut lime cookies, orange poppyseed muffins, chocolate peanut butter cups and quite a bit more. Our Flickr group with the latest photos is here. See you at our next sale in a couple of months!
Saturday, 16 April 2011
Breadwinning
I've been trying for some months now to cut back on processed foods and packaging — mostly to reduce kitchen waste, but of course it can only be good for my health, and also doesn't hurt where my bank account is concerned. Also: it's fun. I'd seen a few recommendations for easy no-knead bread recipes, and last weekend I finally jumped right in with this one published in the New York Times several years back.
Given that I hadn't made bread before (just watched my parents' bread machine do its thing sometimes when I was younger), I was kind of stunned at how well it turned out. I followed the recipe to the letter, and let the dough rest for a full 18 hours. The taste was bordering on sourdough, and the texture was fantastic: chewy but light. I love that the finished loaf even reminded me of a superhero emblem.
Oh, and it's square-ish because I baked it in a CorningWare dish. And yes, I used too much flour on the surfaces and as you can spot in the photo, even managed to get some into the middle of the dough as I prodded it into shape. And the bottom was a bit lumpy (insert joke here). But still: a major success! Today I baked a two-thirds wholemeal version, and managed to keep the flour under control.
I'm hooked. Apart from trying out olives and various herbs, I like the idea of mixing in some roasted garlic or caramelised onion. Pumpkin seeds on top? What else? Hmmm...
Given that I hadn't made bread before (just watched my parents' bread machine do its thing sometimes when I was younger), I was kind of stunned at how well it turned out. I followed the recipe to the letter, and let the dough rest for a full 18 hours. The taste was bordering on sourdough, and the texture was fantastic: chewy but light. I love that the finished loaf even reminded me of a superhero emblem.
Oh, and it's square-ish because I baked it in a CorningWare dish. And yes, I used too much flour on the surfaces and as you can spot in the photo, even managed to get some into the middle of the dough as I prodded it into shape. And the bottom was a bit lumpy (insert joke here). But still: a major success! Today I baked a two-thirds wholemeal version, and managed to keep the flour under control.
I'm hooked. Apart from trying out olives and various herbs, I like the idea of mixing in some roasted garlic or caramelised onion. Pumpkin seeds on top? What else? Hmmm...
Sunday, 27 March 2011
Raisin hussy
I'm interrupting my nearly three-month blogging silence simply to share my new-found appreciation for the raisin, specifically when soaked in rum and baked into these babies: the Rum Raisin Cupcakes from VCTOTW.
That's all for now.
P.S. I have to call them rum 'n' raisin — thanks mostly to it being one of my father's preferred ice cream flavours.
P.P.S. I used some old (possibly alarmingly so) dark rum from the cupboard, plus some Bundy for that classy Australian touch
P.P.P.S. Here's one I scoffed earlier
That's all for now.
P.S. I have to call them rum 'n' raisin — thanks mostly to it being one of my father's preferred ice cream flavours.
P.P.S. I used some old (possibly alarmingly so) dark rum from the cupboard, plus some Bundy for that classy Australian touch
P.P.P.S. Here's one I scoffed earlier
Sunday, 2 January 2011
Lime-coconut heaven for 2011
Yes. Not content with titles featuring silly puns, I'm turning my hand to ridiculous rhymes.
Planning a quiet night in for New Year's Eve, and feeling the effects of a Sydney summer finally hitting its awful, sticky, sweaty stride (whoa, alliteration overload!), I liked the positively tropical sound of the Coconut Lime Cupcakes from VCTOTW. I just wish I hadn't waited two years to try this recipe — they are so good! Tangy and succulent and decadent without being overly rich. I'm changing my resolution for 2011 to "Make these as often as possible."
Oh, and since I had two packs of creamed coconut nearing their expiration date in the fridge, I used some of that in place of the 1/3 cup of coconut oil. I'm not sure whether or not that made much difference to the result; at any rate, it sure doesn't seem to have hurt! Family stopped by on the 1st and agreed that this recipe's a winner.
Happy New Year, everyone. Here's to a delicious 2011!
Planning a quiet night in for New Year's Eve, and feeling the effects of a Sydney summer finally hitting its awful, sticky, sweaty stride (whoa, alliteration overload!), I liked the positively tropical sound of the Coconut Lime Cupcakes from VCTOTW. I just wish I hadn't waited two years to try this recipe — they are so good! Tangy and succulent and decadent without being overly rich. I'm changing my resolution for 2011 to "Make these as often as possible."
Oh, and since I had two packs of creamed coconut nearing their expiration date in the fridge, I used some of that in place of the 1/3 cup of coconut oil. I'm not sure whether or not that made much difference to the result; at any rate, it sure doesn't seem to have hurt! Family stopped by on the 1st and agreed that this recipe's a winner.
Happy New Year, everyone. Here's to a delicious 2011!
Monday, 6 December 2010
More cookies... sort of
I'm continuing to try out the recipes from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar... but lately, I've also been feeling awkward to realise the word "biscuit" has been steadily declining in my vocabulary. I'm not a language purist (well okay — I am a bit), but I've been trying to ease up on the "cookies" in favour of "biscuits" and — to keep it really authentic — the occasional reference to "bikkies". And so I present these lemon biscuits or bikkies (originally the roll-and-cut sugar cookies from VCIYCJ, with some lemon zest thrown in) that I made this afternoon.
Saturday, 13 November 2010
November Week of Veganness (A round-up, much too late)
Gah! Missed out on all of October. Curses.
Anyhoo, November brings with it the annual Melbourne Cup, and a focus on the alleged "entertainment" that is horseracing. Media coverage is near-total, a huge amount of money is spent on outfits and gambling, some animals are raced along a track for our "enjoyment" — hell, in Victoria, it's a public holiday. Somewhere amongst it all are those of us who hate seeing animals used in this way, or indeed find the whole thing quite ridiculous (summed up nicely in this excellent piece by Marieke Hardy — has any Australian vegan not read this by now?).
This year, some lovely souls at the University of Sydney Animal Welfare Society hosted the first Not-the-Melbourne-Cup, and a group of us gathered in a beautiful courtyard under a just-blossoming jacaranda tree, ate vegan food, mingled, toasted the horses (all horses) and just generally had the pleasure of avoiding any footage of the race itself, Fashions on the Field, office sweeps, or associated goings-on. Congratulations to the AWS, and may there be more of these in future years.
A few days later on Saturday 6th, our final Sydney Vegan Bake Sale of the year was for Charlie's Angels Horse Rescue in Queensland. Sadly, we were rained out. We made a handful of sales, but by 9:00am, with water pooling at our feet and on the table, and soaking our clothes, we made the tough call. Happily, to add to those few sales, a few customers at Naked Espresso also stepped in to buy some things, and we at least had $361 to pass on; some people made a point of donating directly to Charlie's online, too. Thanks all.
With the weather so bad, we didn't really get photos of our table (it was mostly just the tops of unopened plastic carriers, anyway) but I took some of my own offerings once I was home. I had lemon cupcakes, peanut butter chocolate pillows and peanut butter blondies from my recently-acquired copy of Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar, and chocolate cupcakes, plus lemon and chocolate minis.
Since I was seeing some family members at an event that night, I took a lot of pleasure in putting together two care packages of yummy baked goods for them to scoff. Both of these had a layer of the PB blondies underneath. Look how pretty — anyone want to put something like this together for me one day?
Finally, the rain cleared in time for the Cruelty Free Festival in Belmore Park on Sunday. I'd gone along in 2008 and the atmosphere was as lovely as I remembered; the weather gradually improved to gloriously blue-skyed, and my friends and I mostly wandered around picking up a few supplies (Twilight bars, some Angel Food marshmallow mix, and two cans of non-Nestle condensed soy milk for me), signing up and watching and reading and generally informing ourselves, and stuffing ourselves silly with great vegan food... including but not limited to vegan gözleme with a choice of five different fillings! I had the potato-tomato-shallots (scallions/spring onions) variety, and it was delicious.
People were raving about the "cheesecakes"/cheezecakes from a still-newish business based in the Blue Mountains and supplying to cafes there. They're called Rubyfruit and I'm sure we all hope to see their vegan baked wares gracing the counters of some places in Sydney before long. They don't have a website yet, but you can follow them on Facebook. I didn't get around to trying anything myself (full of gözleme, I guess) but the photo speaks for itself, I think...
All in all, a lovely week full of great food, great people, and a reminder of what a vegan-friendly place Sydney can be.
Anyhoo, November brings with it the annual Melbourne Cup, and a focus on the alleged "entertainment" that is horseracing. Media coverage is near-total, a huge amount of money is spent on outfits and gambling, some animals are raced along a track for our "enjoyment" — hell, in Victoria, it's a public holiday. Somewhere amongst it all are those of us who hate seeing animals used in this way, or indeed find the whole thing quite ridiculous (summed up nicely in this excellent piece by Marieke Hardy — has any Australian vegan not read this by now?).
This year, some lovely souls at the University of Sydney Animal Welfare Society hosted the first Not-the-Melbourne-Cup, and a group of us gathered in a beautiful courtyard under a just-blossoming jacaranda tree, ate vegan food, mingled, toasted the horses (all horses) and just generally had the pleasure of avoiding any footage of the race itself, Fashions on the Field, office sweeps, or associated goings-on. Congratulations to the AWS, and may there be more of these in future years.
A few days later on Saturday 6th, our final Sydney Vegan Bake Sale of the year was for Charlie's Angels Horse Rescue in Queensland. Sadly, we were rained out. We made a handful of sales, but by 9:00am, with water pooling at our feet and on the table, and soaking our clothes, we made the tough call. Happily, to add to those few sales, a few customers at Naked Espresso also stepped in to buy some things, and we at least had $361 to pass on; some people made a point of donating directly to Charlie's online, too. Thanks all.
With the weather so bad, we didn't really get photos of our table (it was mostly just the tops of unopened plastic carriers, anyway) but I took some of my own offerings once I was home. I had lemon cupcakes, peanut butter chocolate pillows and peanut butter blondies from my recently-acquired copy of Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar, and chocolate cupcakes, plus lemon and chocolate minis.
Since I was seeing some family members at an event that night, I took a lot of pleasure in putting together two care packages of yummy baked goods for them to scoff. Both of these had a layer of the PB blondies underneath. Look how pretty — anyone want to put something like this together for me one day?
Finally, the rain cleared in time for the Cruelty Free Festival in Belmore Park on Sunday. I'd gone along in 2008 and the atmosphere was as lovely as I remembered; the weather gradually improved to gloriously blue-skyed, and my friends and I mostly wandered around picking up a few supplies (Twilight bars, some Angel Food marshmallow mix, and two cans of non-Nestle condensed soy milk for me), signing up and watching and reading and generally informing ourselves, and stuffing ourselves silly with great vegan food... including but not limited to vegan gözleme with a choice of five different fillings! I had the potato-tomato-shallots (scallions/spring onions) variety, and it was delicious.
People were raving about the "cheesecakes"/cheezecakes from a still-newish business based in the Blue Mountains and supplying to cafes there. They're called Rubyfruit and I'm sure we all hope to see their vegan baked wares gracing the counters of some places in Sydney before long. They don't have a website yet, but you can follow them on Facebook. I didn't get around to trying anything myself (full of gözleme, I guess) but the photo speaks for itself, I think...
All in all, a lovely week full of great food, great people, and a reminder of what a vegan-friendly place Sydney can be.
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