Gingerbread Cupcakes with Lemon Buttercream Frosting

I recently purchased my own copy of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, so when the staff holiday party came around with its potluck element, I decided to pull out the mini-muffin pans and make something from my new cookbook for the occasion.

With my sister's help I decided on the Gingerbread Cupcakes with Lemon Buttercream Frosting. The challenge ended up being the great ingredient hunt.

By a strange twist of fate (shopping at a Farmer's Market and looking up what I'd bought in my friend's copy of The Flavor Bible for compatible spices) I ended up purchasing ground ginger from our kitchen specialty store a few months ago. It has sat, unused, in my pantry since. That was the easiest of the new ingredients to find. Light molasses I found quickly in the baking aisle of my local supermarket. Two down.

With some assistance gained at the customer service counter of my local Publix, I finally located crystallized ginger, in the "ethnic food" aisle, with the Asian cuisine. The same gentleman also helped me discover that while the mart did carry soy yogurt, it only had strawberry flavored. Also, the store was out of mini-muffin pan liners - I'd have to rely on what I had left at home.

On my way to the checkout I called home and ask them to call the Fresh Market which is literally across the street from the Publix, to see if they carried soy yogurt. No, they did not.

I went home and called different Publix locations around town - from past experience I know that they sometimes stock different items - indeed, one location carried the same brand of soy yogurt as my local store, not only in strawberry, but also in... peach. I don't want to even try to imagine what either of those would do for the flavor of gingerbread cupcakes.

My final call was to Mother Earth market, and I was thrilled that my quest was coming to an end. They carried both plain and vanilla soy yogurt - in many different brands.

Finally home with all the ingredients, my sister helped measure things out as I chopped up the crystallized ginger, and zested and juiced the lemons. I ended up with 25 small muffin pan liners for my 24 muffin pan spaces, but too much batter - so the extra went into 5 large cupcakes.

We baked the miniatures first - they required only about 10 minutes, while the full sized ones took 20 minutes.

Mini-cupcakes cooling

I made the buttercream frosting while they baked. One oddity - the recipe calls for lemon zest, but the instructions don't mention when to add it, so I added it with a few stirs at the end.

My Lemon Buttercream Frosting was very lemony, but didn't preform so well on the "cream" side. The answer is obvious - I dreaded cleaning the beaters from my electric mixer so much that I beat the frosting by hand. This obviously affected the amount of "fluff" my frosting achieved.

Lemon buttercream frosting - not fluffy, but still delicious.

After the cupcakes cooled sufficiently, I iced them, and found my frosting didn't spread as well as I would like - lesson learned about skimping on steps.

I took one of the mini-cupcakes for my taste test. What I learned is that I don't like ginger, or molasses, or perhaps the combination of the two. At the end of the day, this is  not the recipe for me.

Regardless, I made a second batch the next day for my immediate co-workers (with 200+ people at the large staff party, none of them had a chance to try my cupcakes.) It wasn't until I had the oven pre-heated, and most of the ingredients mixed that I realized I was short 1/4 a cup of the required 1/2 cup of maple syrup. I checked my pantry and did a quick substitution, mixing half pancake syrup and half agave nectar to make up the missing volume.  Admittedly, I did not sample this second batch, as they were all full-sized cupcakes, but my co-workers gave the confection a thumbs-up.

Larger cupcakes with frosting.

Overall, I learned a lot making these cupcakes, and I'm glad I tried them, but I really don't see making them again.

New tools/ ingredients:  light molasses, crystallized ginger, ground ginger, soy yogurt
Recipes used: Gingerbread Cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World pg 53 ; Lemon Buttercream Frosting from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World pg 96
Co-baker: sister
Date: Dec. 6-7, 2010

Holiday Fruit Bars - Dec. 2010

Growing up my mom made her holiday fruit bars every year - batches for our teachers, for the exterminator, for parties, and of course a stash to have around the house. For me, I knew Christmas was coming when the fruit bars were being made. A few years ago we hosted Christmas at my house, and I made the fruit bars - my husband's mother and grandfather both clamored for a copy of the recipe before they left.

Since then I have not gone back to the recipe, but this year I decided that with all my experiments in vegan baking I was learning a lot, but not really experimenting. So I pulled out the recipe, and looked at what substitutions I would have to make to veganize it - my first attempt at veganizing a recipe on my own. Exciting new territory.

Looking at the recipe for the first time in a few years, I was pleased to see that I would only have to make two substitutions from the original. Vegan margarine in place of the butter, and then something to replace the two eggs. Thinking back to what I've baked over the year, what I had on hand, and what I thought would fit the original recipe, I decided to try two variations, one with Ener-G Egg Replacer, and the other with flax-seeds to replace the egg.

For the trial I used two identical, recyclable 8" square aluminum pans, using Pam cooking spray to grease them. I chopped all the cherries and dates for both batches (luckily I had bought pre-chopped walnuts), then made my two egg replacers, mixing each with warm water. I then measured out the other ingredients into two bowls, and added the egg replacers, and mixed the batter, adding the yummy chopped bits from earlier last, per the recipe.

2 sets of ingredients, ready for mixing

Flax-seed batter on the left, Ener-G egg replacer on the right

I poured the batter immediately into the two pans, and put the pans side by side in the preheated oven, each pan on a cookie sheet to provide extra support. The recipe said to let the fruit bars cook for 45 minutes at 350. I set the timer for 35 minutes and cleaned up. Neither batch looked "done" at 35 minutes, so I came back at 40. The flax-seed batter had firmed up, but the batch that had the egg-replacer was still bubbly, so I left it in for the other 5 minutes.

Finished Flax-Seed batter

Finished Ener-G Egg Replacer batter

I let both batches cool, and then cut them into smaller piece than was ever allowed in my house, rolling each in sugar. A few cherries and nuts were lost in the process, but both sets of bars seemed to hold together pretty well. All that was left was the taste test.

Sugar added- Flax seed left; Ener-G right

Luckily I have eager friends and co-workers. Members from my writing group preferred the flax-seed to egg-replacer 2-1. One girl who liked the flax-seed one better said she liked them because they were more moist, and complained that the one made with egg-replacer tasted like "flour and brown sugar".

At work, 2 could discern no difference, and 2 loved the flax seed option. One last opinion from family weighed in on the side of the egg-replacer version, though she admitted to wanting the flax-seed one to be better (she was the only one who went into the tasting "blind", not knowing which sample was which), and was surprised when she picked the egg-replacer one.

I also liked the flax-seed variation better, also because it was more moist – but I know that part of this could be the extra 5 minutes that the egg-replacer batter stayed in the oven.

Yummy - Flax seed mix

Also yummy, but fewer votes, Ener-G

Overall, the votes went 5-2-2 – Flax, Egg-replacer, no-difference.

I made the recipe again, a few days later, to give to another set of co-workers. I had exhausted my supply of recyclable pans, so I used my regular square pan, a 9" glass one. I use margerine to grease the dish. That night I saw firsthand the difference that different pan materials can cause.

These flax-seed variety fruit bars had a lot less sticking power. When they were cool and sliced, I began to remove the first bar to roll in sugar, it almost fell apart in my hand, and overall this batch lost a lot more of the confetti of goodies that make these treats what the are. I took to pressing each bar together before gently rolling them in sugar (well, more gently than the previous two batches). The held together okay, but rather than being moist, the bars seemed to skirt the edge of gooey.

This was definitely a learning experience, and I look forward to trying these again in a few days, make a veganized batch of these holiday classics for my mom, to see what she thinks.


Vegan Holiday Fruit Bars
2 TBSP ground flax seeds
6 TBSP warm water
1 cup sugar
2/3 cups all purpose white flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup nonhydrogenated margarine
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 cup candied cherries, halved
1 cup chopped, pitted dates
1 cup chopped nuts
granulated sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF.

2. Grease 9" square metal pan.

3. In a small bowl mix flax seeds and water until well blended. Set aside.

4. In a large mixing bowl, combine sugar, flour, baking powder and salt.

5. Fold in margarine, vanilla and the flax-seed mixture. Blend well.

6. Add nuts, cherries and dates, mix until covered by batter.

7. Pour into a well-greased 9" square pan and bake at 350 degrees for 42-45 minutes.

8. Remove from oven, and place on a wire rack and let cool completely.

9.Once cool, cut into 16 squares. Roll each square in granulated sugar.

New tools/ ingredients:  Candied Cherries, Dates,
Recipe used: My own variation of my mom's Holiday Fruit Bar recipe
Co-baker: solo-mission
Date: Dec. 6-15, 2010

Solo Mission: Chocolate Cake and Butter Cream Frosting Aug. 24, 2010

Tuesday night was a homework night. As soon as I got home, I settled in to reading from my Marketing textbook, taking a brief break to eat and put laundry in the machine.

As I finished my second hour with the book, I had the vision of myself in the kitchen, baking. So when I reached a natural stopping point in the reading, I headed there and pulled out The Joy of Vegan Baking.

I flipped through breads, first, but none caught my interest. Cakes/cupcakes was next, and the first recipe there was for chocolate cake. I skipped the ingredients, determined I had all of them on hand, then found the buttercream frosting recipe - ingredients I also had. Bingo.

Now, I wasn’t particular about what i was baking - another cake, or another kind of treat would have been fine - it just had to be something I didn’t have to go to the store for. The draw for me wasn’t the end product, it was the actual baking process.

The recipe promised to be one of the easiest cake recipe. Literally. “This chocolate cake might be the easiest cake in the world to prepare,” (pg 72).

It reminded me of the Mile High Chocolate Cake recipe we had tried earlier- though I used a mixing bowl instead of mixing directly in the cake pan.

I mixed in the dry ingredients with a fork, an when I was measuring the liquid ingredients into a well pressed into the dry mix, I added the vinegar last, and mixed the ingredients. The vinegar reacted with the baking soda, lightening the mix. Not having a 9" cake pan the recipe called for, I poured the batter into an 8” round dark metal cake pan. Like adding the vinegar in last, another trick I’ve picked up along the way is to force the bubbles out of the batter by dropping the cake pan on the counter a few times from about 1/2 an inch up. That done, I put the cake in the middle of the middle rack of my oven, and set the timer for 25 minutes.

While the cake baked, I measured out 1/2 cup non-dairy butter into a metal mixing bowl and put it on the back of the stove - near where some of the heat from the oven vents - to soften the butter.

The most time-consuming part of this confection was sifting 2 cups of confectioner’s sugar for the frosting. I was also a hesitant to pull out a hand mixer, but realized there was no way I’d get fluffy frosting by mixing by hand.

I love how the frosting swirls

I checked the cake at 25 minutes, I don’t know if it was because it was a dark metal, or an 8 inch pan, but toothpicks came out clean even though it was five minutes shy of the time in the cookbook. I am also glad I added the cake pan wrapper on as the edges first still a little low compared to center.

I left the cake cool, covered the icing, and put it in the fridge. I pulled it out again after about 10-15 minutes.

Cake cooling

One of the easiest frosting jobs ever

When I went to ice the cake I was pleasantly surprised with how the frosting spread. It seemed  a little less thick than commercial frostings I’d bought in the past (harder to get a cohesive blob on my spatula) but it spread nicely. Also, it did not pick up chocolate flecks from the cake and mix it in with the white icing, as happened with my last cake (made from commercial mix with store-bought frosting.) Now I am sure this was due to a a combination of things -- not one magic secret -- I was icing the top of the cake for instance, not the bottom; I used oil in the pan (not shortening); the frosting was slightly chilled, not room temperature; and the consistency of the frosting was different.



As for taste, the cake was moist and decadent. The frosting, my sister said, smelled astringent but tasted wonderful. She suggested perhaps rosewater as an addition to the frosting (something I’ll have to experiment with) or or food coloring. And I need practice getting a smooth spread of frosting on the cake, but there are classes for that. 

Moist cake and yummy frosting

I took the cake in to work the next day, and it was a welcome treat. My co-workers said that the frosting tasted just like they expected buttercream frosting to taste like, so I score what started out as a diversion from homework a success.

New tools/ ingredients:  none
Recipes used: Chocolate Cake from The Joy of Vegan Baking pg 72 ; Buttercream Frosting from The Joy of Vegan Baking pg 231
Co-baker: solo-mission
Date: Aug. 24, 2010

Solo Mission: Chocolate Snickerdoodle Cookies - July 27, 2010

Well, I have not baked in a while. I am enrolled in a business certificate program at a local college, and my focus lately has been on classwork. The other day I discovered I had some free time and I was itching to flex my baking muscles once again. Cookies would be easiest, I thought, so I grabbed Vegan Cookies Invade your Cookie Jar and started flipping through, skimming to find one calling for ingredients I had on hand.

When I got to the Mexican Hot Chocolate Snickerdoodles, I saw I was lacking only the chocolate extract and the cayenne pepper. Now, I am not a fan of spicy things, and would normally avoid anything “Mexican chocolate.” But I was making the treat and figured I would simply adapt the recipe to taste (and ingredients on hand) and make Chocolate Snickerdoodles minus the “Mexican.” After all, I do like chocolate.

I pulled out all the ingredients, and preheated the oven. I mixed sugar and cinnamon for the topping, and set it aside, next to my parchment paper covered cookie sheets.

Measuring the wet ingredients I was dismayed to find that I had less maple syrup than the recipe called for, and wondered what I should do to make up the missing volume, if anything. Since I am still relatively new to baking I wasn’t sure what could be an appropriate substitute, and I looked through my pantry for ideas. Shuffling aside the peanut butter, I was thrilled to find a small, personal serving size jar (1.7 oz) of Pure Maple Syrup that I had squirreled away from a pancake breakfast ordered on vacation at a resort months ago. It’s probably not a great thing that my hoarding tenancies were justified, but I was grateful for the find.

I went back to measuring. In lieu of the chocolate extract I used extra vanilla extract, as noted in the recipe. I do have to admit, though, when I first read the ingredient list, I thought “Chocolate extract? Such a thing exists?” I look forward to finding this, and adding it to my pantry.

Since I was leaving out the cayenne pepper, I toyed with the idea of finding a different spice to add to the batter, but my culinary skills (and stocked kitchen) are still nascent I did not feel comfortable making a decision of an alternate spice. I briefly pondered cloves or nutmeg - all my other spices are more savory in nature, which, in my mind, eliminated them from contention. Now that I think on it, I would have been replacing a pepper, so perhaps I should rethink that hard-line mental distinction. Rather than chance ruining the cookies, I ended up using a generously heaping teaspoon of cinnamon instead of a carefully measured one.

the dough was easy to work with

I mixed the ingredients, and was pleased with how easy the dough was to work with. As the recipe promised, the flattened cookies stuck nicely to my fingers after pressing them into the sugary topping, making for easy transition to the cookie sheet. I did discover that this trick only works after you press the cookies - if you stop after, to take a picture, for example, the cookies lose that damp stickiness and you need to find another way to move them (let’s just say my butter knife served me well).

With regards to the cinnamon and sugar topping, I found that what the recipe called for was more than enough. I ended up saving the unused portion - almost half of the mix.

cinnamon and sugar topping

onto the cookie sheet

I put the first sheet of cookies in the oven and began to clean up. I started the timer with 8 minutes (the recipe calls for 10-12, but I wanted a chance to check the progress and decide whether to give it the full time). With 3 minutes left on the timer, my cat noticed a bird that had gotten trapped on our back patio. I went out on a quick rescue operation, and when I came in, the timer was beeping - I wasn’t sure if it had just started, or had been going a while. I went ahead and added another 2 minutes to the timer.

unbaked cookies

The second batch of cookies went in for a more precisely measured (that is uninterrupted) 10 minutes. Even warm, the cookies were a bit crisp on the outside, but softer in the middle.

I shared the cookies with some of my spice-loving friends and though they liked them, the vote is they would be better with the cayenne. I have had cookies for breakfast the past couple of days and noticed two things 1) like with most of the recipes we’ve tried, they taste better a day after baking and  2) they are a little bit oily - I carried them to work this morning wrapped in a paper towel, which soaked up oil during the 20 minute drive.

I have a few ideas for the next time I make these cookies. I may bake a batch for 8 minutes, and see if I can get a softer cookie. I may try to find a substitute for some of the oil, or reduce the amount the recipe calls for by a bit. Finally, I may get brave, have a glass of milk on hand to help defray the heat of the spice, and actually add the cayenne pepper.

All in all though, I think this was a good cookie.  

Delicious

New tools / ingredients: (chocolate extract / Cayenne powder)
Recipe used: Mexican Hot Chocolate Snickerdoodle - Vegan Cookies Invade your Cookie Jar
Co-baker: Solo-Mission
Date: July 27, 2010

Chocolate Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies - April 2010

What better way to de-stress and chill out on tax day than with chocolate-y, minty goodness in the form of cookies?

Lila, who is an old pro at making cookies and intuitively understands the basic "made from scratch" cookie recipe (as opposed to my more commercialized "slice and bake" experience), set to measuring and mixing the dry ingredients in a bowl while I measured out (Earth-Balance non-dairy) butter to melt, set the oven to preheat, and fished out the cookie sheets and parchment paper.

Next, Lila took over measuring the butter and sugar together while I made an "egg" using Ener-G Egg Replacer. Since I was only making one, I used a bowl and fork. It ended up a bit frothy, but a good consistency. I added those and the vanilla and mint extract to the dough. I was surprised to find that the Peppermint extract was clear. Luckily I measured it over an empty bowl, because I set the measuring spoon overflowing, and having that happen over the dough may have resulted in mint-overload.

Lila stirred all the ingredients together, adding the chocolate chips in last. Since we had bad experience in the past with cookies that had too much spread we gave these cookies extra space.

The recipe called for 10-12 minutes in the oven. We checked the cookies at 8 minutes, again at 10 minutes and then took them out of the oven at 11 minutes. It was a little tricky to tell when the cookies were done due to the cocoa powder in the mix. The cookies were dark, and because of that we had no real visual cue of the edges browning. Lila was looking for the cookies to spread as a cue, but they didn't do that either.

We starting taking them off the cookie sheet and onto the wire racks, and discovered that warm, the cookies were very soft. Once we got to the second cookie sheet, I realized I could simply lift the parchment paper, with the cookies still resting on it, and place the whole thing on the wire racks. This ended up working quite well for us.

Thinking ahead to the bakery, we realized we would either need to prepare bundles of cookies, or make larger cookies. We were unsure if making larger cookies would require different baking time, we took the remaining dough, and made 4 large cookies.

We baked these for 10 minutes, then added a minute. When we took them out of the oven, they were still a bit poofy, but they spread nicely as we let them sit. We did leave these on the warm cookie sheet longer than the smaller cookies, and we are keeping in mind that may have affected how the cookies came out (which was utterly delicious and soft, by the way).

The large cookies were a lot softer than the smaller cookies, but first day trial, the larger cookies were still warm. A taste test the following day proved that still held true.

Lila observed the cookies had a good dough to chip ratio, which I agree (important because the dough also had the cocoa power in it), though we may try to cut down the sugar to a scant 1/2 cup granulated sugar, as the cookies became too sweet if you tried to eat more than a single small cookie.

All in all, this was a baking success, and all our friends loved the cookies. I look forward to baking them again.


New tools / ingredients: Peppermint Extract
Recipe used: The Joy of Vegan Baking
Co-baker: Lila
Date: April 15, 2010

Classes

We fell away from our weekly baking as we got busy with various other projects, school, etc, but with the new year, I felt a renewed passion for this project. In addition to resuming baking, the purchase of The Joy of Vegan Baking, and checking out various other vegan cookbooks from the local public library, I decided it was time to look into the business aspect of opening a cafe.

I know there are people who follow their passion and figure out the business side of things once they're both feet in the water, but personally I am more of a planner, a learner, and besides, I still need more time to work out the baking side, as well.

Some research turned up three different paths available to me via local learning channels. The University where I work offers a slew of MBA programs, ranging from the traditional classroom, 2-year program, to online programs and even a "weekend MBA." Currently the university also has among it's benefits to full-time employees, an Employee Education Program (EEP), which will pay for up to 6 credits a semester, and many of these programs fall under the program qualifications, which would leave me to pay some fees and books.

Our city's Chamber of Commerce offers online self-paced classes through SmallBizU(which look like large slide-show presentations) for about $25 a class, less if you are a member.

The last option was at the local community college, which offers a few different business certificate programs (instead of degree programs), including one in "Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management." In the end this seemed like the best option for me as the this program is also covered by the EEP, most of the classes are offered online, but with a teacher leading the courses, and other students to interact with, and all in all it was less confusing and overwhelming a choice over trying to figure out which MBA program was the best fit.

I applied and was accepted to the program and start the first of six classes May 10th. The certificate includes: Introduction to Business, Principles of Finance, Small Business Management, Principles of Accounting 1, Principles of Marketing and Human Resource Management.

I finish the courses April 2011 (I'm stretching it out over three semesters, instead of the traditional two (hey, I still have a full-time day-job to keep up with, and baking in the evenings). Hopefully, when I'm done, I'll have a better understanding of the scope of this project, and be able to make a better decision about moving forward with it.

And while I'd love for my girlfriends to join me in the endeavor, I realize that it might not be the right move for all of us. Right no, though, I am interested in pursuing it a little more seriously, and see what we (or I) can make of it.

April 8, 2010 - Solo Mission: Rice Pudding

Last week I tried out the Rice Pudding recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking. In addition to the recipe, the book provides a sidebar with variations and suggestions. One of the variations was to use jasmine rice, which is the only "normal" rice I had in my pantry (the others being boil-in-a-bag rice, sushi rice, and Spanish rice).

I was a little unsure about the flavors (spices, etc.) that would go with jasmine, so I searched online for Jasmine Rice Pudding recipes. Some were savory, and the two I could find seemed similar to the recipe/variation from the book also mentioned vanilla and cinnamon, so I kept to the recipe with the jasmine rice being the only substitution.

The hardest part of the recipe was determining when to take the rice off the stove, the cue being when the rice is tender. I had no baseline concept for what "tender" was, and the 25 minutes the recipe suggested ended up being too long.

Part of the problem was the initial ratio of milk (I used soy) to rice, 2 ½ cups to 1/3 cup, surprised and overwhelmed me. The grains of rice got lost in all that liquid.

I stirred the rice, milk and salt for 20 minutes and decided the rice was finally tender, at which point I added the sugar, cinnamon and vanilla. The recipe said to return the pan to the stove and mix until thickened. I looked at the much-condensed blob in my pot and decided I had probably made it past "tender" and to "thickened" before pulling it off the heat to add the rest of the ingredients. Afraid it would be too dry, I added a splash more soy milk (about two tablespoons, maybe?) And finished the recipe.

I did not sprinkle extra cinnamon on the pudding, guessed about how much raisins to add, since I had already put my measuring cups away, and transferred the rice pudding into one large bowl instead of six serving dishes (I'd have had to use the cups my tea set if I wanted to do this)

It went in the fridge to cool.

My sister proclaimed the dessert tasted like an oatmeal cookie, and I couldn't argue with that. I think I lost the additional flavor the jasmine rice would have added by sticking to the vanilla and amount of cinnamon listed in the recipe.

I'm eager to mix it up and try some of the variations – different milk, spice and flavoring options – to see what kind of tasty treats I can come up with, though the constant stirring I did while the rice was simmering did leave my arm tired, so I'll probably space the out these trials to give my arm break.

March 28th - Pie Crust & March 30 - Apple Pie

March 28th: Pie Crust – Solo Mission

In anticipation of making an apple pie on Tuesday with Lila, I set out to pre-make the pie crust, based the recipe from the Joy of Vegan Baking.

Not only are there 2 pages of directions for good pie crust making, but I was pleased to find the chapter intro was a list of tips for making crusts.

I measured out all the ingredients into separate bowls and set them all in the freezer half an hour before I began (well, 45 minutes because I had to eat dinner, but that only meant the water had a little more ice)

The recipe called for mixing the non-dairy butter and vegetable shortening into the flour/dry ingredients in the food processor. I quickly determined that (Through persistent trial of following the letter of the instruction) that my Oster must be a smaller capacity than the food processor the author was working with, and I had to split the dry goods, cold butter, and shortening into roughly half to combine in two batches.

Next time I'll either measure out by a half at the get go, or find another way to mix these ingredients.

Once the ingredients were all mixed, I took my two batches of crests and made discs and wrapped them in plastic wrap to sit in my fridge (in a Ziploc bag) until Tuesday, when were make him the pie. The pieces weren’t the most cohesive, but I figured that would lend to the flay crust I was after.


March 30th: Apple Pie

Lila came over and I pulled out the two pie crusts from the plastic bag in the fridge. Putting down overlapping pieces of wax paper on the counter, with flower sprinkled on them and the rolling pin. I rolled out the larger of the two refrigerated balls of dough – Lila keeping the flour on the pin. I had a bowl of ice water at the ready to repair any tears, and had to take my best guess as to how much a 13" diameter was. Because of the crumbly nature of the crust, it was a little tricky to transfer to the dis. We eventually turned the pie pan upside down over the crust, and flipped both over, the extra flour from wax paper fell onto the counter.

We pressed the crust into place, then Lila rolled out the top crust, which held together less well than the larger one. We folded it in the wax paper and set it back in the fridge.

Using an apple corer, a vegetable peeler and a knife we prepared 5 apples: 2 tart granny smith and 2 juicier red delicious, for the pie.

The slicing and peeling took a lot longer than we thought. Lila juiced half a lemon to get the 1 TBSP fresh lemon juice the recipe called for. We used granulated brown sugar, and 2 /12 TBSP flour (the recipe called for between 2 and 3 TBSP) We ended up adding all the lemon juice Lila had made (almost double what the recipe called for – she is quite skilled with the juicer.)

The apple mix had to sit for a little – I may have to rearrange the order of the steps – prepare the filling, then roll out the pre-made crusts while it sits (stews).

Transferring the upper crust onto the pie was tricky, we tried flipping it from the wax paper, but a chunk fell off and we got it off center. We managed to move it into place and pinched the overflow of the bottom crust to fill the gaps.

We will definitely need practice making pie crusts and transferring them, but I think we managed okay for our first pie (perhaps , if we use overlapping wax paper, we can hold it above the pie, and pull the paper out from either side, once we have the crust down…)

We baked the pie in the middle rack, with a rack below it with an empty cookie sheet (to catch any filling spills – luckily there were none.) We baked it for 30 minutes, checked for doneness, then , because the apples inside weren’t soft enough yet, but the edges of the pie were already browning, Lila put pieces of foil over the edges, and we baked it for another 10 minutes.


Tasting the pie had to wait until the next day: it was 10 pm as we wrapped up, and the recipe called for 3 hours to cool.

We would do better, we think, if we pr-mix the cinnamon and sugar that get sprinkled on top of the pie, we'd have fewer spots of concentration of just one or the other. I found the pie to be a little bitter (though I was alone in this opinion). I think this was due to the extra lemon juice we added.


Given the trouble with the large crusts, we may also consider small, individual pies or tarts, or apple turnovers where we don have the transfer to the pie dish issue. All in all, I think we found a keeper, now we just need to find a nice vegan ice cream and serve it up a la mode.



New tools / ingredients: 9" round glass pie pan
Recipe used: The Joy of Vegan Baking
Co-baker: Lila
Date: March 28th and 30th

Solo Mission -Birthday Cake: Chocolate with Raspberry Chocolate Ganache revisited: 4/3/10

For Alison's birthday she requested I make the Chocolate Cake with Raspberry Chocolate Ganache that we made last year. As we go, I've been making copies of the recipe we're using for my notebook, and jotting down notes on the page as we go, ideas for improvements, details of what oven and pans we used, etc. I pulled out the recipe / notes we had made, and discovered that for the ganache, I only had a list of the ingredients, sans instructions. I found copy of the Chocolate Ganache recipe and printed it up on its own page, ready to add to my ever-growing notebook.

Once again I doubled the recipes, as I wanted to create a two-layer cake, and not a single cake. I mixed the dry ingredients in a bowl, and the wet ingredients (sans vinegar) in another. Keeping in mind the trouble we had our first attempt with the multicolored spots, I made sure to thoroughly mix the ingredients when I added the liquids, and even more when I added the vinegar. The batter did turn out 2-tone and bubbly as the vinegar reacted with the baking soda. I mixed thoroughly, almost longer than I was comfortable with.

I split the batter between two cake pans, my "classic" 9" round x 1 1/2" and my brand new round (no handle) no-stick 9" round x 2". I put both in the middle rack. the 1 1/2" pan was done with 23 minutes, but an additional 8 minutes were needed for the larger pan.

I made the ganache as the cakes were in the oven, heating about 1/3-1/2 cup of raspberry preserves on the stove a little, and mixing it in the ganache. Once I had mixed everything, I took the pan off the heat, covered, and let it set at room temperature while the cakes finished and cooled. The gancache ended up being a little chunky, and I'll need to heat the preserves a little more, to make it mix better.

When the cakes were done, I placed them on a wire rack to cool and walked away for several hours. They turned out well, and both came easily out of the pans, once they were cool. The ganache also went on easily, driving home the lesson of patience, letting the cakes cool completely.


Since Alison wanted a first book/movie Harry Potter cake, a la Hagrid (aka, lopsided), I tried putting the two tops of the cake together (thinking the round sides together would create the desired effect) but the the difference was too big. I flipped the top cake over (made in the 2" pan) and set to slicing a wedge off the bottom. Flipping the cake did result in less ganache between the layers, though.

Once the piece was settled, I realized the top cake was had a slightly larger diameter than the bottom cake (a good indication I need two identical pans) and worked to trim the edge off the top cake. This left the side a bit crumbly, and harder to ice, but with my new offset spatula, the room-temperature ganache, a lot of persistence, and a little creativity (using the ganache in layers to fill in the lopsided bits) I think the finish product turned out okay. Happily, Alison agreed.

New tools/ Ingredients: 9" round x 2"; off-set spatula
Recipe from: Mountain-High Chocolate Cake: Student's Vegetarian Cookbook, Revised
    Rich Chocolate Ganache Topping: Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World
Co-bakers: None
Date: April 3, 2010

Solo Mission: Raspberry Oatmeal Bars - Jan. 2010

After reading through the fun and educational bits of my newest cookbook, "The Joy of Vegan Baking," I was itching to try a recipe. I flipped through to the cookies, thinking I'd find a simple recipe, and discovered the recipe for Raspberry Oatmeal Bars. Not only did they look delicious, but I also had all of the ingredients called for on hand.

Taking a handy hint from the cookbook, I measured out all the ingredients into separate small bowls first, then as I followed the recipe, added and blended the ingredients as called for. Though, I know, intellectually, it takes the same amount of time to measure ingredients anywhere in the process, I was amazed at how much more efficient this made me feel as opposed to measuring out ingredients as I went.

The recipe was really easy to work with, and I cleaned as the bars baked. The only thing I did differently from the recipe was to cut the bars in half again once I cut them into 8. The larger pieces were perfect for granola bar sized treats, but I wanted to share my creation with more than 7 people, and I felt that the smaller square treats were just sweet enough, while eating a whole serving from the original recipe might be overwhelming.

My co-workers were my test audience for my baking, and the result was that I had to bring three copies of the recipe to share. The recipe calls for raspberry preserves as its filling, though mentions any fruit spread/ preserves/ butter will work. I look forward to trying this recipe again to see what other delicious combination I can come up with. All in all it was a simple, but delicious recipe, and one where we could change the fruit filling to fit the seasonally. Of course, I'd serve up the more generous sized serving if and when we start our cafe.


*Since my learning isn't limited to the times when I bake with my friends, I decided to also report the times when I bake alone. I won't go into as much detail on these entries and will identify them as "Solo Missions."

Stocking my Kitchen: Supplies

As time has goes on, I find that more and more I want things for my kitchen. Maybe this really means I am a baker at heart.

This past holiday season has been good to me, as I got many fun goodies for my kitchen for Christmas and my (January) birthday. The big shiny from Christmas was the new blender from my parents. This was actually a gift for me and my husband - our old blender, while still functional, had developed a crack in the plastic blender jar. It was used primary for making milkshakes, and you always lost some of the shake through the crack as the blades whirred away. The trick was to pour the milkshake into glasses as soon as you could, but that only minimized the mess. Our new blender is pretty, (and see how the jar is glass - it won't crack unless we drop that sucker):



My mother-in-law got me a "Perfect Brownie Baking Pan" (www.perfectbrownie.com), you know, the ones that have the divider that sits in the batter, giving you 18 identical all-edges brownies (or I suppose cake slices). My sister-in-law christened hers making brownies for Christmas dinner, and I was thrilled to see the other feature, where you place the pan on it's stand, and then the side of the pan slides sown and away, leaving you with just a tray of a dozen, divided treats. I can't help but wonder if the brownie recipe we tried last year would benefit from this pan. I'll have to try out that recipe, (or another brownie recipe) soon, it looks like a truly fun culinary toy.

In early January I treated myself to a belated-Christmas / early-birthday present (using book-store gift cards and coupons from the rewards program). I am now the proud owner of my own copy The Joy of Vegan Baking. And I am a very proud owner. I read all the non-recipe tid-bits in the book in the car when we took a day-trip. I was gushing over the information with my travel companions. I was chiming in and making copies of pages on different sweeteners in response to a conversation with my co-workers. I have nothing but good things to say about this book.

Then, for my birthday my sister got me a sifter and a pastry blender. Like me, she remembers the sifter my mom had, and how our hands were always sore from squeezing the handle to get it to sift. And to my delight she found a sifter that has a turning handle. I was able to use it right away in making my birthday cookie-cake, though the pastry blender had to wait to a different recipe to be used.


And while it's not new, I recently re-discovered a food processor in my pantry that my mom gave me a few years ago. And man, that thing is a big ball of fun and scary and useful all rolled into one.

I bought parchment paper the first time to make the cookie-cake as well, and while I've been baking this year, I find that as I go my wish-list gets longer. Luckily I shared some of my desires with my mother on a recent visit and discovered she had extras on had. From her generosity I scored from her a second set of measuring cups (a fantastic retro-green), and a 3-canister set that will be ideal for flour, sugar and, well, I'm still working on what will go in the third container. These are a pretty blue with a cool design on the side.

There are still other things that I want for my kitchen. I know I can get by without them, I have so far, so I won't say "need," but in the case of some of them (like the replacement cake-pans, my old ones are on the verge of rusting) I'd just feel better about having them.

My Wish List (so far)

• better cake pans - currently have two 9"-round pans, one is usable, the other, I think I'd only use to heat frozen things in
• cake saver - A dinner plate and my large mixing bowl are my temporary solution
• candy thermometer - just want one, no particular reason
  
• double boiler -see above
• More measuring cups / spoons - Half achieved, Thanks Mom. Now on the hunt for more measuring spoons.
• kitchen scale - to prevent things like the possible probable too-many-carrots problem with the carrot cake
• immersion (hand-held) blender?? - Not sure I need this, but it would make mixing the Ener-G egg replacer and the flax seed in easier without losing stuff to the sides of the blender jar. I'd love to take Lila's for a test-drive before investing in one of my own.

I'm sure as I go I'll find even bigger, and more exciting toys for my kitchen, but right now I'm excited for what I have, and saving up for the rest. Wish me luck!

February 9, 2010 - Carrot Cake and Cream Cheese Frosting

This week we reinstated the long-stalled baking night. We've switched to Tuesday, as Thursday didn't work with our current schedules, but I'm sticking with the blog name, regardless. Lila and I met at my place, with my new prize of a book "The Joy of Vegan Baking." I had selected the Carrot Cake and accompanying Cream Cheese Frosting recipes, and had purchased the missing ingredients. I am kinda happy that my spice collection is growing with this effort - Ground Cloves and Ground Allspice are now part of my spice bragging rights.

I was worried about how to get "finely grated" carrots, thinking at first a zester would be in order. Lila pointed out that was probably *too* fine, and that zesting a carrot would take forever. When I was setting out ingredients, I had the fortune to look over the little blurb at the top of the recipe, where it recommended that the shredding blade on a food processor was a good way to grate carrots. And I have recently re-discovered that I actually OWN a food processor, have for years, just haven't used it yet. Boy-howdy, it is fast. The carrots were shredded in less time than it took us to figure out how to assemble the parts to make the blade work. The one problem with the processor (and this may entirely be that we somehow assembled it incorrectly, but magically in a way that still functioned) is that the grated carrots didn't seem to want to come out of the processor. Rather they preferred to hang out between the blade and the other piece we had in there. Once I realized this, I was able to fish out the carrots that stuck.

It was like carrot confetti in my kitchen for a while. And, even though I had already made two of the recipes, I finally christened my newest cookbook. A faintly orange spot now graces the carrot cake page. Using a half-cup measure to get to 1 and 1/2 cups, I realized I didn't know if carrots counted as a dry or a liquid. I also realized that grating them by hand would have made for less densely packed shredded carrots, and a kitchen scale has joined the ranks of things I desire for my kitchen (the recipe was kind enough to tell me 150 grams of carrots, if I'd had any way to measure that). As it stands, our cake may have ended up extra-carroty.

While I played with carrots in the Oskar, Lila chopped walnuts. With those two ingredients prepared, we measured out most everything else into separate bowls, with the exception of the spices. The amounts of those were small enough that having a separate dish for each would have been excessive. I used my new blender to mix the ground flax-seed and water until it was getting goopy in an egg-like consistency, and then blended in the oil from there. While I worked with the wet items, Lila prepared the dry items into a bowl. Once we had the wet and dry mixes ready, had the cake pan greased (new cake-pans are another thing on my growing wish list), and the oven preheated, we mixed the entirety of the ingredients, then pressed them into my old, on-the-verge-of-rusting 9" cake pan (my glass 9" square pan was in the dishwasher). I was careful to place the cake in the center of the lower rack, and then we cleaned up the ingredients, and measured out the sugar for the frosting.

I was quite excited when I received a sifter for my birthday, and the immediate use I got from it. Lila sifted the confectioner's sugar while I changed out the attachments on the food processor, replacing the grating blade for the cup and spinning blade. I added the cream cheese to the cup, measured in the vanilla, and then Lila added the sifted sugar. We learned (the messy way) that we should have added the sugar first. We lost a fair bit in the transfer, and had to make a best guess at how much to add once the mix was done. Again, my hand-me-down food processor is fast. We blended the ingredients for maybe 20 seconds. Maybe. And what we got was practically liquid. No spreadable frosting like we were expecting. It was more like an icing. Something to drizzle on, not spread. This would turn out to be a fortunate thing, though at the time we were disappointed. But lesson learned: if you want frosting, woman-up and mix it by hand. Food-processorize icings only.



We added some sugar to try to stiffen the frosting, and in vain I stuck the entire bowl in the fridge while the cake finished baking, and cooled. We checked the cake 5 minutes before time, and again at the given time, and again 2 minutes later. It was still kinda soft in the middle, but the edges were getting very dark and pulling away from the pan, so we removed the cake from the oven and placed the pan on a wire rack. After a while we decided to turn the cake over onto the wire rack to cool outside of the pan. That's when things got...interesting.




Our cake was very, very moist. It fell out of the pan. Well, two-thirds of it did, folding in on itself, and third stayed firmly stuck in the pan. We looked at what had become of our so-recently beautiful cake, and couldn't help but laugh. And take pictures. We scooped what we could onto a plate, and as pieces of the very moist middle fell out, we plopped them back in place, trying to create the illusion of a single cake. I pulled the liquefied frosting from the fridge, and we drizzled it over the cake-crumble. When we were done it looked sorta like a plate of cinnamon rolls. Sorta.





We tried the cake, and found it to be delicious, giving it a 8 of 10 points for taste. 2 of 10 for appearance. Lila said our trial was 50% cake, and 50% failure. I called it beautiful, in a tragic way. Between bouts of glancing at the cake and laughing, we tried to puzzle out what happened, and how we might avoid the same occurrence in the future.

Possible culprits and solutions: too many carrots; too little of the flax-seed mix getting in the actual mix (we had a fair bit stick to the edge of the blender, and not make it in the batter); put the oven rack in the center, or the upper rack, not the lower; use those cake-pan wraps that help keep the edges from heating faster than the center; add more flour; use a square pan, not round; try using the egg replacer instead of the flax-seed. Or Lila suggested we could try the recipe with a muffin pan, sans paper liners. As for the frosting/icing issue, I'm not to worried - we have made a successful cream cheese frosting for an earlier project, so I know we are capable.

Despite the tragic appearance of the end product, I had a lot of fun getting back into baking again. I have not laughed this much in a long time.