A new book, cupcakes and cup-a-cakes

A couple of days ago I found a giant package on the table in the kitchen. It was wrapped in bubble wrap, and looked pretty worse for wear. Intrigued, I looked closer. It was for me!

Luckily it survived the shipping, because the box was pretty dented. It's pretty cool: The Professional Pastry Chef by Bo Friberg. It's massively huge and heavy.

Coppe is such a good boyfriend.

Then today I found another package on the table in the kitchen. Yet again, for me! I opened it and found a set of cup-a-cakes! I couldn't help but giggle. They are so useless and yet so wonderful.

So obviously I had to use them, because they're so cute. I made a coffee spice cake from the book, the one cake recipe that happened to be vegan. I replaced most of the cup of oil with apple puree, and the raisins with chocolate chips. They're sort of healthy...


I think they turned out pretty well. Not sure I cooked them long enough... I was guessing because the recipe was for a full cake. But the one I tried tasted nice. I made a mocha ganache for the top - a bit too sweet for my liking, I added too much icing sugar. So I sprinkled some cinnamon over some, to offset the sweetness. It's only a little bit anyway, and the cakes themselves don't have much sugar.

5 Facts

Amid all the Easter baking (I have something new in the oven again right now), we got tagged for a meme by Vegan Dad (mostly, I suspect, because he was afraid of tagging Isa!). Still, woo! Our first meme.

Anyway, the idea is to share 5 new things about yourself. Here I go.

1. I am a linguistics geek. Syntax is hot. I study it and I'm involved in proper linguistic research (I was asked for this last year, which is very cool, because I don't even have a Bachelor's degree yet). So yes, I do 'speriments. WITH KIDS.

2. I love politics and I am an active member of the Young Greens. I'm the chairman of the Utrecht group. We do a lot of fun stuff. We're planning something involving penguin suits and green paint at the moment.

3. I draw flowers and penguins during classes. Here's a drawing of a penguin chasing a butterfly:


4. I have a British accent. I went to a bilingual high school, where half my classes were in English, and I've gone on to study English. Because of this and because of talking to Adele frequently, all traces of Dutchness have been completely eroded away. It's kinda weird.

5. I wear apple stickers on my hands. I don't know why, I've done it for years. I think it's pretty.

I'm going to tag (in alphabetical order): Bonnie, Chelsea and Josh, Mihl, Cristy and Paul (and Lily) and Romina.

Easter III: A White Easter

I was making pear pancakes yesterday when it started snowing outside. It's been cold and semi-snowing for a couple of days now, but, this time, they were big flecks of snow that would stay on the ground. I took a couple of very dark arty photos of the snow falling and I went out this morning to take some in the light. This is one of the dark shots. I think it's pretty.


This is a shot of my street. I love the way the cosy, mismatched, old Dutch houses of my town fit so snugly into a snowy cityscape.


And a picture of the garden.


Last but not least, the pancakes!

Caramel Vanilla Cheesecake

It was my birthday a few days ago, so I made my traditional cheesecake. I'm supposed to be writing an essay, so I'll be brief. It was delicious.


I used the chocolate cheesecake recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking, or at least tried to. I didn't buy enough cream cheese, so I sort of made it up myself. Just threw together a packet of organic silken tofu, two tubs of vegan cream cheese (I used one Tofutti and one Soy King), sugar, almond extract and vanilla bean paste.

The crust was a chocolate shortcrust. I then covered it with this absolutely sinfully delicious caramel sauce from A Vegan Ice Cream Paradise.

The vanilla taste could have come through more, I think. The flecks of vanilla bean looked nice, but they weren't all that strong. Just a nice subtle note. The caramel sauce went with it really well.

I just ate the last piece and I wish I had more. :(

Easter II: Truffles

I've been meaning to make truffles ever since I found this recipe and since they somewhat resemble chocolate eggs, I did.

Also, these baked goods were for taking over to my parents' to celebrate Easter and my little brother is incredibly fond of chocolate.


It's a very simple recipe. Melt some chocolate (1 lb. or 450 g for 50 truffles) and blend 3/4 cup of cashews with 3/4 cup of cold water to make a cashew cream. Fold the cashew cream into the melted chocolate and refrigerate for 2 hours.


Make little balls out of the mixture and roll them in powdered sugar, cocoa powder, coconut or chopped hazelnuts. Store in the fridge. I halved the recipe and this is how they turned out:


Here's a close-up. They're very rich and chocolatey. My favourites were the coconut ones, because they soften the richness of it a little bit.

Easter I: Mini Apple Pies

It's Easter! This weekend we remember that, 2000 years ago, Jesus turned eggs into chocolate to feed the people at Cana, but then hid them in all in the backyard (sneaky bastard). So yeah, I made mini apple pies!


I adapted a recipe off a Dutch apple pie blog for the dough, adding cinnamon and chopped hazelnuts. For the filling, I mixed apple, pear and raisins with cinnamon, nutmeg and cardamom. The dough especially turned out really well. It is the best apple pie dough I've ever had.


Mini Apple Pies (makes 3):

Dough
150 g whole wheat flour
100 g non-dairy butter
80 g dark brown sugar
1 tsp baking powder
a dash of salt
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup chopped hazelnuts

Filling
1 apple
1 pear
1 tsp lemon juice
2 tbsp dark brown sugar
2 tbsp raisins
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cardamom

Pre-heat the oven to 175 C and grease your mini pie tins. For the dough, sift together flour, spices, baking powder and sugar. Cut in butter. Knead it into a crumbly dough with your fingers. Refrigerate.

For the filling, core, quarter and slice the apple and pear. Make the slices fairly thin. Mix with lemon juice. Add sugar, raisins and spices. Stir.

Reserve 2/5ths of the dough. Use the rest to line the tins. Spoon in the filling. Use the remainder of the dough to make swanky lattices for the tops (I didn't do this, because I made my crusts pretty thick, but it's pretty easy).

Bake for 20 minutes.

I'll leave you with a close-up of one of the apple pies. I'm really proud of them. They look so cute and they're soooo tasty!


This will be the first in a short series of posts on Easter food. One will be a review of a new product I found in the supermarket today and the other more tasty stuff. Happy Easter!

Ginger Walnut Coconut Carrot Birthday Cake

I had my birthday last week and, with a friend of mine, I made a cake that I think was quite awesome. It's the carrot cake from Vegan with a Vengeance.

The recipe is online here.


I used walnuts instead of macademias and made an icing out of coconut milk, coconut and icing sugar. We spread the icing on the top and bottom layer and then sprinkled some coconut over the cake.

It was really tasty and I would definitely recommend it as a birthday cake. It's easy to cut and work with. Also, ginger! It tastes like laundry detergent on its own, but like condensed goodness in this cake.

I got some good presents, including this awesome Green & Black's chocolate egg.



In the end, I only really had one slice of my own cake (friends and family devoured the rest pretty quickly), but it was gooood.

The Story of the Vegan Streaker

This is a snippet of crazy Dutch news that I thought would be interesting. A couple of weeks ago, a vegan activist in a thong streaked through a popular TV show. The presenter, a gay comedian who often makes a show of flirting with younger men for comic effect, told him to stay put and then proceeded to take him on his lap and try to tear off his thong. It was quite funny, I have to admit.



Here's the clip. He basically runs in shouting "Meat is Murder! Stop Animal Suffering!" Paul de Leeuw, the comedian, tells him to stay put while he finishes his phone call and then the thong-tearing occurs (somewhere around 2:00, in the last 30 seconds).

The streaker actually filed a complaint about harassment as a result, basically leading him to be completely torn up by the media. It's a sad story, in a way, because he means well and he's just giving mainstream society a convenient angle from which to dismiss his beliefs.

So yeah, for those of you tempted by the idea of a black thong and some hastily scribbled slogans, resist the urge. For the animals.

Muesli Bars

Long time no post. I haven't made anything worth posting for ages. Cooking just seems like too much effort at the moment. I did, however, make these muesli bars last week. (It's only taken me a week to post them!)

They're tasty, but not entirely healthy. I'd try to find a way replace some of the sugar next time. I prefer my muesli without a layer of sticky sweetness.

To Americans, these would be granola bars, I think.

I can't remember where I got the recipe from, so if I've inadvertently stolen your recipe, please say so and I'll credit you.


Recipe:
2 cups oats
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 cup pepitas
1 cup almonds (I used flakes, because I had them)
1/2 ground flax
1/4 cup brown sugar (or less)
1/2 cup golden syrup and/or treacle
1 tsp butter
1 tsp vanilla
180g dried fruit, chopped (I used cranberries, sultanas and dates)

Line a 22cm baking tin. Preheat oven to 180C. Toast seeds, almonds and oats for 15mins in oven.

Combine syrup, sugar, butter and vanilla in a saucepan and cook until sugar is dissolved.

Mix oats and seeds into sugar, add dried fruit and flax.

Lower oven to 180C. Press mixture into tin and bake for 25mins. Allow to cool completely, then cut into bars.

Roasted Pumpkin & Bulgur Croquettes

I watch McDonald's Kitchen semi-frequently, a Dutch vegetarian cooking show. The chef, who has the cutest English accent, was doing a Lebanese themed episode the other day and this was one of the recipes on it.

I have no idea what the dish is called, but "croquettes" sounds fancy enough to me. They are essentially croquettes of roasted pumpkin, bulgur and onion. If you want to go for something a bit more authentic, I suggest Lebanese Pumpkin Things. My personal preference, however, has to be Rockin' Pumpkiny Things.

On the show, these were just deep fried briefly, but I didn't want to do that so I baked them and they came out fine. The roasted pumpkin is sweet and savoury, while the bulgur adds a nice nutty flavour.


Roasted Pumpkin & Bulgur Croquettes (makes about 8):

250 g pumpkin, peeled and cubed
salt and pepper
dash of oil
2 onions, chopped
1/2 cup bulgur, cooked
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Pre-heat oven to 180. Combine the pumpkin with the oil and salt and pepper in a baking dish and roast the pumpkin for about 25 minutes.

In the meantime, sauté some onions in a pan.

Allow the pumpkin to cool a bit, then blend until smooth. Stir in ginger and cinnamon. Mix in the onions and bulgur.

Shape into croquettes with your fingers. Put them on a baking tray and bake for 15 minutes.

I suggest serving it with a nice hummus and some pita bread.