Carrot Cupcakes!

I have been student teaching the past three weeks, and have not had any time for baking, except Friday night.  I had purchased some beautiful carrots from the farmer's market, and after using some for soup, decided to use the rest of carrot cake!  I hadn't made a cupcake in so long, I missed it!

Carrot cake actually uses the muffin method of baking, so I mixed up all the dry ingredients first (Flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, and sugar) in a bowl and set it aside.

Next I mixed up 4 eggs, 3/4 cup of canola oil and 3 cups of grated carrot.

Add the dry to the wet.

And mix.

I baked them in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.

Now I moved onto the frosting.  Cream cheese is the traditional, so why not keep up the tradition?  I beat together 1/2 stick of butter with one 8 oz package of cream cheese.

Added a splash of vanilla.

And then about a cup of powdered sugar.

The carrot cupcakes came out looking lovely.

After about 20 minutes, they were cool enough to ice.

Super tasty!  I promise to try and keep up with this blog.  I recently bought a cook book by some local cooks/authors with delightful rustic illustrations, and tasty recipes that I'll be reviewing and sharing with you.  I've also discovered a few do it yourself baking fixes I'd like to share!

Enjoy!

Dining Adventures with a Vegan

So, my sister is a vegan.  She makes delicious food where you don't even notice the lack of animal based fats or animal proteins.  She and I love going out to eat, and having food adventures together.  Unfortunately, it isn't always easy going out to eat when you're a vegan, so whenever a good restaurant with some vegan fare appears, my sister will make an effort to go and eat there.  I was visiting her in Florida last week, and on my first full day we decided to get some lunch.  We found a Thai and Sushi place and decided to give it a try.

Well, walking in, it looked like we were transported to some Buddhist temple in the far off east.  The food was inexpensive, and there were some interesting Asian delicacies.

Like Baby Octopus.

I've had this before, but always in sushi so what you see are the tentacles, never the entire body.

This distressed my lovely sister.

They were very tasty though, albeit a little chewy.

I also got a peanut chicken lunch special.

All in all an exciting dining experience!  Nyssa had some delightful options that were easily made vegan, like Pad Thai, and veggie sushi.  I hope you enjoyed this dining adventure, and see you next time!

Enjoy

Dark Vegan Noire

So, it's been a while since i've done any vegan baking.  I recently was watching Felica Day's "Flog" and in this past week's episode she makes Seitan from a vegan site called The Post Punk Kitchen.  I did exploring on their site and came to the realization that the authors of this website are also the authors of my beloved vegan baking books!  So I explored and found some awesome savory food I'd like to make (vegan food can be very tasty) and I also found these.

Raspberry truffle brownies.  Chewy, gooey, berry-ie...  I had to give them a try.

I melted 4 oz of unsweetened chocolate in my small sauce pan and set it aside.

Next I combined 1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup seedless raspberry preserves in a bowl.

Next I added 2 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

as well as the melted chocolate.

Mix.

Add 1 1/2 cup of flour

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/4 tsp of salt, 1/2 tsp of baking soda and 1/4 tsp of baking powder..

Mix!

Then, instead of adding frozen raspberries, I added some fresh ones that took an unfortunate beating on the way home from the farmer's market.

Looks good already!

I wrapped my baking dish in aluminum foil and sprayed it with some non-stick spray.

Then it was time to turn out the brownie mix.

I had to use my hands.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 16-18 minutes.

I wish you could smell how this made my house smell!  And the taste?

Well, this is probably one of the tastiest things I've made.  Brownies aren't too bad to make vegan apparently, and when they taste this good, who cares if they're vegan or not!

Enjoy!

Key Lime Tartlets

A couple of weeks ago I wanted to make key lime pie, but miniaturized.  I looked online for several Key Lime Tartlets, and found a recipe I liked so I tweaked it.  The original is from Paula Deen and can be found here.

Combine one 8 oz pack of room temperature cream cheese

with 1 egg

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp key lime zest

and 2 Tbsp key lime juice.

Now we bake, and for the crust I decided that instead of key lime coolers, I would use chocolate sandwich cookies.

 Place one cookie in every cup cake liner and put 1/4 cup of the key lime mix on top.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes (until it no longer has jiggle).

Once they're cool, top with whipped cream and serve!

I hope you all enjoy this recipe, these were ludicrously good, and definitely worth the effort.

Enjoy!