Birthday Cake Trial Run

Well, I guess that shows how cool I am! This was the trial run for the cake and icing. It's the same recipe as for my birthday cake, from 'Easy Vegan Cooking'. I made a few minor changes to the final cake, but this was really good. On the top are 'Whizzers', which are a vegan chocolate filled sugar bean sweet.

My Birthday Cake!

Here it is! It's an adapted version of Leah Leneman's chocolate cake. I turned it into a marble sandwich cake. It's got almond buttercream in the middle, with chocolate fudge frosting and maraschino cherries on the top. I haven't made anything so sugary in ages! But hopefully it will be amazing.

PS. I don't only eat cake, even if the last few posts might suggest it. Though it should be a big component of everyone's diet.

Fancy-Pants Pickle

Today I made a meal of Kidney Bean Burgers (from 'Easy Vegan Cooking' by Leah Leneman), with french fries from VwaV - these were so good, and too easy to be true. And to go with this I made pickle, because we have run out of ketchup and I wanted something fancy. I served it up all nouveau cuisine, which impressed my housemates very much.

Pickle
1 large onion, finely chopped
5 cherry tomatoes, quartered
1 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp salt
3/4 cup sugar

- boil the vinegar and completely dissolve the sugar and salt. this won't take long
- add the onions and tomatoes
- boil for about an hour, stirring frequently. be careful not to spill any, as this mixture is extremely hot
- let it cool for a while before eating

I also made lemon gem cupcakes from vwav, in petits-fours cases. They were extremely cute, but I forgot to take photos. Derr...

Peanut Biccies and Baked Tofu

With great joy I can report two and a half successes today!
The first is Peanut Butter Oaties from Easy Vegan Cooking by Leah Leneman.
I love biscuits but I find them annoying to make and rarely have the patience. These are cooked in a tray and then sliced up afterwards, so the recipe is super simple.

Recipe
55g margarine
55g Peanut butter
pinch of salt
1/3 cup sugar - I used dark brown sugar
1/2 cup plain flour
1/2 cup oats
1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tbs water

Method:
- beat margerine and peanut butter in a big bowl
- add salt and cream in sugar. At this point I added cinnamon because it goes with anything and everything
- add flour and oats and bicarb and water. Mix it really well with a fork.
- turn it out onto a greased baking pan and press it down firmly.
- Cook for 15-20 minutes at 190 degrees.
- slice, cool and serve.

These were very tasty. I left them on a plate in the kitchen, and between my housemates they went in about four hours. Definitely a repeater!

My Second success was Baked Tofu from the Students Go Vegan Cookbook by Carole Raymond. I like this book alot because the recipes are simple, and they use cheap and easy-to-find ingredients.
Recipe
1 pack firm tofu. I had a pack lying around and wanted to use it up - this was the inspiration for making this!
1/3 cup soy sauce
1 tbs sesame oil (I used the oil from a very oily jar of tahini!)
2 tbs lemon juice
2 tbs water
2 cloves minced garlic
2 tbs minced ginger (I didn't have any ginger in, so I used paprika instead)
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes (again, not used.)

Method: this sounds complicated but actually isn't.
- Press the tofu between two plates with a heavy weight on top. I completely messed this up! I don't quite know how, but I scared the tofu into disintegrating a bit. The result was a sort of scrambled mess, so I had to do things a little differently.
- Press for 20 minutes and drain liquid
- Cut tofu into 1cm slices
- mix the marinade ingredients (everything else) in a large glass baking dish.
- put the tofu slices in a single layer. Cover and refrigerate for three hours, turning the tofu after 1 hour.
- Put the tofu on a lightly oiled baking sheet and bake at 175 degrees centigrade for 30-45 minutes. Turn after 30 minutes. The longer it's cooked the chewier it gets.

I probably cooked mine for an hour, so the tofu pieces came out very small. They were really delicious though, and I ate a big portion in a pitta bread, with grated carrot, grated parsnip and hummus. It was really delicious!

I get very stuck for sandwich ideas, so I'm definitely going to do this again.

And for my final half success: the sprouted chick peas are growing! I feel like a proud parent.