I must admit, this cake doesn't even exist anymore. It was made and eaten last weekend, but I'm just now getting to the post! Laziness, I know.
This sloppily frosted, slightly off kilter cake has a very bright surprise inside of it. You see, I made this for my boyfriend's birthday, and he requested a rainbow cake. And while there's rainbow sprinkles on top, the real rainbow feature is hidden until you cut the first slice. Take a look:
Yeah! Legit six-layer rainbow cake! Unfortunately, the weight of the layers ended up squishing down the bottom layers, and each day it sat on the cake stand, the purple, blue, and green layers would get a little flatter. Still delicious though! I flavored some of the layers with fruit zest to match their colors (such as lemon zest for the yellow, lime zest for the green, etc.) but some of the layers just had a vanilla flavor. And while I'm usually against using food dyes, I made an exception this time.
Just look at how happy he is!
And this cake is not just for a grown man's birthday cake! It would also be great for a kids' party or an LGBTQ event! Recipe below.
Ingredients:
For each layer of cake:
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup vegan butter (1/2 stick)
1/2 cup sugar
1 Tbsp plus 1 1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract (or any other extract)
1/2 cup almond milk
various zests and/or flavorings
various dyes
For the frosting:
3 sticks vegan butter
2 pounds confectioner's sugar
2 Tbsp almond milk
Directions:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Sift dry ingredients together in a small bowl.
In a medium sized bowl, mix sugar and butter until smooth. Add apple cider vinegar and vanilla. Stir until smooth.
Add flour mixture and almond milk, and stir until combined. Add any zests/flavorings/dyes. Pour into a well greased 8-inch cake pan and bake for about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.
Let cool in the cake pan for about 15 minutes. Then flip over and let the cake fall out of the pan onto a cooling rack. If this doesn't happen easily, smack the bottom of the pan while it's upside down with the heel of your hand a few times. If the cake still doesn't come out, return it to its upright position and let it cool a little longer. Chances are it just needs to solidify a little more before it will come out.
Repeat all of these steps until you get the right number of layers for your desired cake.
To make the frosting, beat together butter, almond milk and powdered sugar until it takes on a frosting-like consistency.
Once all the layers of cake have cooled, place the first one onto a cake stand or serving platter. Frost the top of this layer, then stack another cake layer on top. Continue frosting and stacking until all your layers are assembled. Then frost the sides of the cake, adorn with sprinkles, and then enjoy!
What you see above is my pan soaking in water to try and get the sticky, glued-on chocolate mess off of my pan from my first vegan brownie attempt.
Lately I've been in the mood for gooey, fudgey, super-rich brownies. I had always been under the impression that good vegan brownies would be hard to make, and alas, they are. Unless you like cake-like brownies, in which case, that's no problem. But dense, fudgey brownies are very hard to do without eggs.
I tried to adapt this recipe by replacing the eggs with an over-ripe banana and doubling the flour to get some extra gluten in there. What I ended up with was a delicious goop of buttery chocolate which, while it was quite edible, was not brownies.
Now that I've actually tried to make vegan brownies (instead of just telling people how hard it is to do), I think I will continue to try to make it happen. I can't see how the mess-ups couldn't be delicious!
As promised, I'm back with a vengeance. April has barely begun and hark, I already have a post for you! As a disclaimer, I apologize for my pictures on this one. The dough/cookies are actually bright green (!!!), but no matter how I photographed them, the color just simply wouldn't come through.
As I'm sure you know, there are many types of cooks out there. Just perusing through the plethora of food blogs out there on the Internet, I see everything from house wives wielding box mixes to food artists who have mastered presentation and photography of their baked goods (of which I will be forever envious), from over-the-top tacky combination of pies, cookies, AND cakes, to wonderfully simple yet decadent loveliness. What I'm trying to get at here is that every baker has their own style, and the cookbook I adapted this recipe from is no exception.
My sister gave me this cookbook as my graduation present a little over a year ago, and although its pictures are beautiful and its recipes are really good, I hate reading it. The woman who wrote it just seems so pretentious and like she takes herself (and these recipes) way too seriously. I mean, they're good, but geez, they're not unforgettable, such as the title of her book suggests. I guess that's just her "baking personality" though.
But sometimes, I just like to get myself all riled up over something silly, so I read her intro to this recipe. As she's explaining what green tea powder (matcha) is, she says, "you will probably have to mail-order it unless you have a well-stocked tea purveyor near you". Has this woman ever heard of an Asian supermarket? Guess not.
I got this at the local one (Chun Ching). It doesn't say Matcha Powder on it, but it's the same thing, and it's definitely cheaper here than at a health food store or a tea store! A tiny canister at the health food store here was about $25. This giant bag of it was only $7 at the Asian supermarket.
Anyway, hers turned out prettier than mine, but mine are vegan, so they're better :) Recipe, adapted from Dede Wilson's "Unforgettable Desserts" cookbook, is below!
Ingredients:
2 1/4 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 sticks vegan butter
2 Tbsp green tea powder
1/2 cup sugar
Directions:
Sift flour and salt together in a bowl.
In another bowl, mix butter, green tea powder, and sugar together until fluffy and a uniform green color. Mix in flour mixture until a crumbly dough forms. The dough should come together when you press it with your hands.
Form the dough into a ball with your hands. Sprinkle your counter top with flour and roll the dough out to about 1/4 inch thickness. Use a cookie cutter to make as many cookies as you can with the dough. Place on a cookie sheet with parchment paper, then refrigerate for at least one hour.
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Bake for about 15 to 17 minutes. Let cool, and then store on a plate or cookie jar. Devour!
This is a sincere apology for slacking. I've had it on my to-do list for about two weeks now to make a new blog post, and my boyfriend has even been dropping not-so-subtle hints to let me know that desserts are lacking in this house. Well, I've finally done it, and I made it extravagant so as not to disappoint!
This was my first full weekend off in months, so I took the time to do some fun stuff and a lot of laying around doing nothing. I barely squeezed this cake out in time for the sun to be out on Sunday evening (I try to take pictures during daylight hours to make the lighting better), and even the finished product picture was taken towards the end of dusk. I was just reveling in laziness, a luxury I haven't been able to afford for the last two months.
I unfortunately will not be attending the Haile Plantation farmers market anymore. To anyone who reads this and also goes there, I'm sorry :( For those of you who supported me, I truly appreciate it and hope you will continue to read and/or come see me downtown on Wednesdays. For those of you who are just readers, this is good news for you since my weekends will be free from now on and I can spend that time making posts!
This cake is really, really good when it's fresh, as the chocolate chips are still a bit melty. Recipe below!
Ingredients:
3 cups flour
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup vegan butter
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 cup almond milk
1 12-oz bag mini vegan chocolate chips
1/2 cup butter
1 lb. powdered sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 Tbsp almond milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Sift flour, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl.
In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar until fluffy. Add vanilla extract and apple cider vinegar and mix until combined. Add almond milk and flour mixture and beat until a uniform batter forms. Stir in chocolate chips.
Pour batter evenly between three 9-inch round greased cake tins. Bake for about 20 to 25 minutes (this was very variable for me as I used two different kinds of cake tins, and two only took about 20 minutes, whereas the other one took a little over 25, so keep an eye on them!) or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of each cake pan comes out cleanly.
Let cool on the counter for about 10 minutes. Then flip out of the pan onto a cooling rack and let cool completely.
Meanwhile, in another bowl, beat butter, powdered sugar, cocoa powder, almond milk, and vanilla extract until smooth.
Once the cakes are cooled completely, lay one on a flat serving surface, then cover with a thin layer of frosting with an icing spatula. Apply the second layer and repeat, then the top layer and repeat. Then cover the sides of the cake with frosting as well. Then cut and serve!
This week has been ridiculous. From getting sick in the middle of the week, making me unable to go to the downtown market, to only selling $20 worth of stuff on Saturday morning, which doesn't even cover half of my fixed costs per market, I felt as though I was having the worst week ever. I was exhausted, I was working overtime, I had to blow my nose every five minutes, and I must say, I was bitter. Sometimes doing the markets seems like a waste of time and unappreciated effort. I'm sure no one knows how much effort goes into producing such a modest table of products (except for my business partner and possibly my boyfriend, who sees how exhausted I am every day). If nothing else, I have gained a much greater appreciation for people who successfully hold down two jobs. 
Now, none of that was written to solicit pity or sympathy, nor was it to guilt anyone. This blog serves to be a personal journal of my journey through this phase of my culinary life, and the above was just me venting. Because as hard and tiring and stressful and sometimes disappointing as it all is, it's something that pushes me to do better, perfect an art I've just begun to explore, and grow as a person. Which is why instead of taking a nap and being lazy today after work, I made good use of a very ripe avocado in the fridge.
Avocado mousse is the best thing to happen to avocados since guacamole! It may sound strange, but when you think about it, it's really not. A plain avocado doesn't have an overwhelming taste, so it is more like a blank canvas with which you can paint with flavors. On top of that, the smooth, fatty, and rich texture is perfect for a decadent dessert. 
This is not a vegan recipe, but can easily be made vegan by just omitting the egg whites. It won't be as fluffy or light in color as my pictures, and will have more of the consistency of a pudding, but will still be outrageously rich and delicious. Honestly the only reason I used the egg whites was because I made custard-style ice cream the other night, which required five egg yolks, and I didn't want the whites to go to waste. Also, as an aside, custard-style ice cream is the shit, and I don't know how I lived my life for 24 years without ever having it!
Recipe below!Ingredients:
1 ripe avocado, de-pitted and peeled
6 oz chocolate
2 tsp brandy
5 egg whites
Directions:
In a medium bowl, mash avocado until smooth. If you're really weird about chunks, then you should use a food processor to get it really smooth. Melt chocolate over low heat on the stove, stirring constantly to prevent burning. Mix in with mashed avocado, then stir in brandy.In a large bowl, beat egg whites with electric mixer until soft peaks form. Then, using a spatula, fold in chocolate and avocado mixture just until incorporated. Try to keep your stirring to a minimum since you want to keep as much air in the egg whites as possible.Refrigerate for about an hour and then enjoy!
It has been a very busy week, and is only to get busier! With this in mind, I thought today (my only day off this week) would be an opportune time to make something for the blog since my time will be sparse over the coming weeks. Well, sorry to disappoint :(
I attempted to make vegan marshmallows. I've had a craving for some time and marshmallows were also on my list of things to make that are naturally gluten-free. So this morning when I woke up, I did some research on different recipes, and came to the conclusion that I needed to get vegetable gelatin instead of agar agar since that seemed to work better.
So I hopped on my bike and took a quick ride to Ward's (the local health food market here in town) to find some, but they only had agar agar (a whopping $8 for about a quarter cup!). This is about the time I started to feel an impending sense of failure for this venture. I cringed as even the lady at the register remarked at how expensive that stuff was, rode home, and got to work.
Everything seemed to be going as it should, and the end result was not a total flop, although definitely not worthy of posting a recipe. To quote from my boyfriend, "It tastes like a marshmallow, but feels like an eyeball". Mmmm...appetizing.
So there will hopefully be more to come on the marshmallow front when I finally figure something out, because I am determined to provide vegan marshmallows to the (local) masses!
I'll admit that I had time to come up with a recipe and make something delectable for you to read about today, but I chose not to. Two reasons: As I'm typing this, I'm finishing up the last of the blackberry frozen yogurt (bypassing some leftover banana ice cream in the freezer), and gave away about half of my Mayan chocolate almonds. What I'm trying to say is that I have too many desserts just laying around for me to make yet another one.The second reason is that I wanted to show off what I've done today, and what will be sold at the farmers' market tomorrow afternoon.
This is a vanilla cupcake with strawberry frosting. I used real strawberries (of course!) to make a syrup, then added that to my frosting to give it a cute pink color and a very faint strawberry taste.
This is my chocolate duo!
This one has the strawberry frosting on top.
For these, I had some fresh raspberries left over from a special order, so I dropped one into the center of each batter-filled cupcake liner and baked it in, then sifted powdered sugar on top. I almost tried to mess one up so I could eat one!
This is a strawberry orange cream tart. Very impromptu kitchen experiment, so I'm not sure how it will go over, but this crust is to die for!
And this is my best seller, the chocolate coconut tart. Only five ingredients in the whole thing, yet so, so, so good!
And these are my special order donuts! I have one or two loyal customers who special order these every week :) They're a pain in the butt to make, but are totally worth the effort.
All products are 100% vegan and natural! Wish me luck for tomorrow, and hope to see some of you out there!
