Bark! The Herald Angels Sing!

I've been baking up a storm in anticipation for Christmas - I'm so thankful to Mattie for his vegan butter recipe (my white chocolate version is found here), as this stuff enabled me to make all my favourite Xmas goodies that call for margarine.  With the allergy crap around here, this white chocolate stuff is the only thing that makes a sub!  And given that everything is so sweet, it goes perfectly!  This year's baking assortment is totally Kyson safe with no allergy stuff.  I've made the usual gingerbread, orange carrot cookies, sugar cookies, ginger crinkles, etc. but I needed to have a few things to whip up quickly to satisfy a nearly-four-year-old's urge to constantly be busy baking something. 

Enter bark!  I used to make a chocolate one with Oreo's, but given the palm and soy content, those were a no-go.  So I whipped up some alternatives...first, a bark with just melted Enjoy Life chocolate chunks (about 1 cup) with about 1 cup of semi-crushed PC Blue Menu Alphabet Pretzels (no soy or other vegetable oil - hooray!) then spread on a cookie sheet with wax paper and chilled in the fridge (of course, once chilled, broken into pieces).  I honestly think this bark has the look and texture of a peanut bark - but is happily nut-free!  The saltiness of the pretzels makes this super yummy. 

I also used up some of my expensive Natural Candy Store order and made crunchy candy cane bark - this time, 2 cups of chocolate chunks (melted) with about 1 cup of crispy rice cereal and about 4 ounces of crushed candy canes.  

I can't decide which one I love more!

I'm getting ready to book Kyson's allergy follow up for May 2012 and am already getting my hopes up that he will grow out of SOMETHING.  If I had to pick, I'd love to have legumes back.  Fingers crossed!

Hope you and yours have a very merry Christmas and all the best for 2012!

Baked Vegan Doughnuts

OK, so I seem to be making some really unhealthy things. But really, they are just distractions for my major seitan post that keeps building and building!

For years now, I've been searching for doughnut baking pans. I checked at Walmart a number of times (I thought that surely they would have them given that they sell fast-foodish stuff and it seemed right up their alley) but to no avail. I had seem them on Amazon.ca, but I didn't feel like paying more for shipping than the price of the item itself. Finally, I made a very rare stop in at Michael's and to my surprise, I found them there! I was so giddy with excitement that I couldn't have cared less that I never bothered to cut out the 40% off-one-item coupon at home. As soon as I got home I washed them up and pulled out Vegan Yum Yum, remembering that a few years ago she was the queen of the vegan doughnut.

I whipped up a batch, subbing rice milk for the soy, canola oil for the marg and salba for the egg replacer. I was careful not to overfill my pan with the really thick batter. What happened? They were edible, but they barely rose. Here they are coated in melted Enjoy Life chocolate chips and vegan sprinklez.

I did not feel defeated, however.

Next, I used cornstarch for the egg replacer instead of the salba and doubled the batch (I had since clued in that I did not in fact have a mini doughnut pan but rather a regular sized one). The batter was alot more fluid and I filled to almost the top. I had a little batter leftover to satisfy Ash, the baking bowl licker. My results were much improved - this time I dipped them in an icing sugar/rice milk glaze. Better!

But I just found that the baked doughnut just didn't have the same yeasty flavour of a regular doughnut (I actually remember this taste, despite my last real doughnut was consumed in the '80s). So I opted to try the recipe again with a different topping - one similar to the stale doughnuts you buy in the grocery store - either with icing sugar or cinnamon sugar. I opted for the latter. Yum! And not stale!

I noticed Vegan Dad has a doughnut recipe that is fried. I'm petrified of frying anything in more than just a couple of tablespoons of oil, so I doubt I'll try this. But I am tempted to lube up the dough and slap it into my doughnut pan to bake. After all, I have to justify this long-awaited purchase! I think it will be a project to work on after Christmas, as I have my work cut out for me when it comes to Xmas baking this year.

Better Butter!

I've really been missing my vegan buttercream. Really bad. Whenever I've made cuppies or bday cakes, I've resorted to making an avocado chocolate mousse topping. But I really don't feel like giving Kyson chocolate or anything with caffeine given that his sleep stinks. And besides - dark chocolate icing doesn't lend to adding fun colours and such that Ash looks forward to. So I had to put my thinking cap on.

Earth Balance is out for several reasons, like sunflower, safflower and flax to name a few. Palm has been giving us issues, so that too is added to the list of no-no's. My usual coconut oil won't work either since Kyson is allergic to that too. Then I got a brilliant idea to use the nearly-expired bag of raw cocoa butter that I bought solely due to sheer excitement that I could make white chocolate. I never thought of actually using it for any other purpose! So I melted it to a softened state, and added icing sugar. It was quite stiff - in went a few tablespoons of rice milk and it seemed to curdle. I then broke my hand mixer. I couldn't resort to my Kitchenaid since there didn't seem to be enough quantity for the whisk attachment to do anything. So I pulled out my supertool - the Braun hand mixer. Beating it up, my hand was cramping and the mixer seemed to get warm. In the end, it actually mixed to something smooth! Now I should have iced some cuppies then and there while the frosting was soft, but given that I decided to make the frosting on a whim, I then had to whip up a batch of the Basic Vanilla Cupcakes from VCTOTW. By the time they baked and cooled, my frosting was pretty stiff. The end result isn't super pretty:

 

But man, they were darn good! They tasted like white chocolate! (Although that shouldn't be such a shocker, but it is when it looks like regular buttercream).

So I started thinking - how to make the cocoa butter more pliable? Enter Mattie's vegan butter solution. He lists a number of options - many using the preferred soymilk and coconut oil ingredients. He goes into a great explanation of the makeup of butter and how to scientifically produce a vegan version, which is interesting and like the vegan version of Good Eats. The best part - in there was a white chocolate version that uses cocoa butter! Hooray! I decided to sub extra xanthan gum to make up for using soy or sunflower lecithin and use the second choice of curdled hemp milk. I'm shocked at the results - I doubled the batch (risky since I had never made it before and was sacrificing about $13 of cocoa butter!) and I used a silicone muffin pan to create 1 tablespoon measures of the 'butter'. Had lots leftover and while still soft, spread it on bread.

 

I delighted at the taste of 'margarine' again! I quickly thought about all of the possibilities - melted on popcorn, vegan buttercream, xmas baking...I felt like a weight of sadness over all of the foods I have had to avoid was lifted. This must have been how former cheese lovers felt when Daiya came out!

Later that week, Ash was having her cousin over to bake. Since halloween was right around the corner, I thought perhaps some Roll-out Sugar Cookies from VCIYCJ would be appropriate. Scanning the recipe, I saw the requirements for vegan margarine and shortening and became fearful. Would my concoction hold up to satisfy two little girls in their baking endeavours? I melted it down and continued with the recipe...the dough came out PERFECT. Way better than when I had made it with the original ingredients. By the time I had all of the ingredients mixed, the 'butter' had hardened ever so slightly which made it a breeze to roll out immediately (no chilling!) and withstood several rolling iterations. It did take longer for the cookies to bake (almost 10 minutes more!), but they had a delicious flavour and were flaky too. Hooray again!  

 

 

Sweets We Can Eat!

So a few more allergies to now add to the list:

Safflower
Mustard
Flax Seed

This is beyond ridiculous.

Things have actually been going OK...we are thriving (thanks for thinking of us Becky!) and more into the swing of things with this restrictive diet. It's not easy and I'm getting tired of acting like a pioneer making everything, but it's going and Kyson is growing. So I guess that's all that matters.

I have to admit that I find resources for our specific allergies to be particularly challenging...most allergy cookbooks feature gluten-free items (can't avoid gluten now! It's my lifeline!) and they all seem to include every other allergen that we have to avoid. And raw cookbooks aren't much help since there are so many nut recipes. Most vegan cookbooks are just a tease - they are filled with soy in so many ways. Thankfully cookbooks like Vegan Lunch Box and Veganomicon/Appetite for Reduction feature a soy-free recipe index that helps eliminate some of the recipes we have to avoid. I think I have to write a soy free vegan cookbook! I think it might be the only vegan cookbook not currently out there!

Getting back to food, just because Kyson is severely allergic doesn't mean he can't enjoy his birthday! He celebrated one year with a tweaked agave cupcake from VCTOTW topped with an avocado/melted chocolate chips/agave mousse-like frosting. Here he is eyeing up the goods:



I think he enjoyed it:


I realize this is pathetic blogging about this now, but I only recently uploaded all the pics from my iPhone and camera onto the PC. I made mini-cuppies for Canada Day that I presented in a maple leaf flag:



The base was my strawberry cuppie from a recent post and the icing was a mix of avocado, icing sugar and strawberry jam. I have to work on the frosting since I'm not sure if it was the recipe or the heat, but it was a little too glossy. I topped each cuppie with a homemade white chocolate dipped strawberry - I basically melted some cocoa butter and added icing sugar and scraped vanilla bean bits. Of course each was also adorned with a little Canadian flag!



In the past I've been used to finding new recipes to try week after week as I prepare my meal plan. I've been adjusting to sticking to some tried-and-true things that picky toddlers and preschoolers eat (different noodles with homemade pasta sauce with every veggie under the sun tucked in/homemade pizza) and rotating between some other recipes. Having said that, week after week I have to make a few staple items:

Blue Ribbon Bread from Vegan Lunchbox - it makes three loaves which is great for freezing and pulling out all week, never mind changing up the shape to breadsticks, burger buns, loaves and mini-loaves. I use quinoa as the grain in the recipe.

Vegan Lunch Meat from Vegan Dad - this is pretty much my only source of protein. I've changed up the recipe quite a bit since I can't use beans but I'll blog about that shortly. You wouldn't believe how I can use this all week in different ways!

Spaghetti/Pasta Sauce - I throw in lots of veggies and fruits in both fresh and jarred baby food form, puree and presto! Instant yummy sauce that the kiddos gobble up on pasta or pizza.

I'll devote a future post about my seitan dishes, but for now this is Jerk Seitan using my veggie lunch meat as the chunks - I prefer this texture more that making seitan the traditional boiled way.

What's a Vegan to Do???

So I whined and complained when I tried going GF for the benefit of Kyson and his food issues. Well, the verdict is in via an allergy test. Kyson is allergic to:

Peanuts
Tree Nuts
Soy (!)
Shellfish
Coconut (so much for my cuppies! And linked palm oil is in everything)
Sunflower (this oil is in EVERYTHING)
Legumes (This includes beans too - yikes...)
Egg

Holy crap.

And since I'm nursing, I have to cut these out of my diet too until he weans. I would love to switch to formula now, but they also contain sunflower and coconut oil so that's not an option. Obviously he will have to drink homo milk and eat meat (I had to cook chicken for the first time yesterday...good God this is such a trial for me!). But for my diet, I guess I will have to rely on hemp and seitan. It seems like anything packaged is going to be tricky. And I can't really go raw since that diet seems to rely heavily on nuts. And of all of the things on the list, I can't even have them in the house due to cross contamination issues - it's that serious.

*Sigh*

I have to remind myself that things could be a lot worse. I mean, it's not like Kyson has been diagnosed with some grave disease or anything, so I really shouldn't complain. It's just hard to limit these foods - especially for me, when my diet is already quite restrictive.

Just looking for some kind of pep talk I guess. Or any suggestions! I've taken out some books from the library and once I have time to read them with all of his frequent wakings, I hope I will glean some nuggets of helpful info.

Off to go eat a homemade breakfast bar with very limited ingredients...

VegFest! My Cupcake Revealed!

This is probably my biggest post - both in terms of size and news!!!

First, I must go back to April 2...I held a cupcake tasting party with friends and family to help me narrow down my entry into the NCVA's inaugural Cupcake Challenge Contest. I think I mentioned this party way back but couldn't divulge any details for fear of giving hints about my entry into the contest!

I made about 250 mini cuppies. I have no idea how I had the time to bake them all, but lemme tell you there was a plan each night for a week before the party where I had a task or three to complete. And of course I had to freeze the little suckers. Somehow, on that fateful Saturday of the party, I managed to get Kyson to swim class, get myself all ready and stuff and ice these things - and everything went so smoothly!



In order, Senators Strawberry, Capital Coconut Cream Pie and M'eh'ple Cream. Everyone cast their vote and the Capital Coconut Cream Pie came out on top, narrowly edging out the Senators Strawberry!

Pics of each:







Perfecting this damn cupcake took alot of effort, mainly for the coconut topping. I'm totally sick of the icing sugar/Earth Balance marg/shortening frostings, as they are too sickly sweet. So I tried coconut cream with a little icing sugar. Remarkably, it's cool and light like whipped cream or Cool Whip, but without all the gross stuff. However, you can't just grab any can of coconut milk to try this out. I had a fave gold label Rooster brand from Loblaws but of course they had to discontinue it and the only kinds in the Barrhaven area just don't have enough fat to them. So Kyle trotted over to T&T for me, where they have the most ridiculous selection of coconut milks and canned creams! I find the best ones to use have more than 17g of fat per serving. My fave is the Savoy brand of canned coconut cream - stick it in the fridge overnight, then scoop out the fat at the top, add icing sugar and whip. Easy! You just can't get greedy with your scooping trying to get every last bit of fat out - once you hit liquid put your spoon down and give it up (use the leftover stuff in a smoothie - yum!). It's great on anything - hot chocolate, pie, in trifle...and it's just so easy.

Capital Coconut Cream Pie Cupcakes

Cake:
¾ cup organic sugar
1/3 cup canola oil
¾ cup coconut milk
2 tbsp unsweetened soymilk
Juice of ½ a lemon
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose unbleached flour
½ cup graham flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
¾ cup fine shredded coconut

Cream Filling:
¾ cup organic sugar
2 tbsp cornstarch
1 tbsp powdered egg replacer
1 cup coconut milk
½ cup unsweetened soymilk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Topping:
1 can coconut milk or cream (look for highest fat content possible – 17g or above per serving)
¾ cup icing sugar
2 tbsp medium shredded coconut, toasted

Instructions:

Cupcakes:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, canola oil, coconut milk, soymilk, lemon juice and vanilla extract.
3. Add flours, soda and salt, then whisk again until no large clumps remain in batter. Fold in coconut.
4. Fill muffins liners about ¾ full with batter. Place filled pan in middle of preheated oven and bake for 20 minutes. Let cool in pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
5. Use a steak knife (Finally - a use for these!) to carve out a hole in the middle about 1.5cm in diameter. Remove cone-shaped innards and discard or devour (I prefer the latter).

Filling:
1. Mix sugar, cornstarch and egg replacer powder in a small saucepan.
2. Slowly add coconut and soymilks and whisk to combine.
3. Let come to a boil over medium-high heat, whisking constantly.
4. Once bubbly and thickened, cook for about 30 seconds, still stirring constantly. Remove from heat and add vanilla extract.
6. Let cool for one hour at room temperature, stirring occasionally.
7. Transfer to a glass container, lay a piece of parchment on top to prevent skin from forming, and refrigerate for at least four hours.
8. Once chilled, mix with electric mixers to make filling completely smooth.
9. Pour into a plastic pastry bag for easy cupcake filling or simply scoop into holes using a small spoon.

Topping:

1. Chill canned coconut milk or cream in the fridge overnight. Do not shake can.
2. Carefully open lid and scoop cream solids into a large bowl. Stop scooping once you hit anything watery – even the littlest amount of water will not enable you to get a whipped cream consistency.
3. Whisk or use whisk attachments on electric mixer to fluff coconut cream, then add icing sugar. Whisk or mix to combine until soft peaks form.
4. Spoon on filled cupcakes or pipe with pastry bag. Sprinkle toasted coconut on top. Keep chilled.

Anyways, fast forward to today. I prepped over the last couple of days and everything was going well until a crisis! My custard wouldn't set. I have found that my recently purchased cornstarch has not been thickening anything up. I quickly made a second batch this morning and it still didn't set as nicely. Ah well. I quickly filled them and topped with cream (with a hungry Kyson nipping at my ankles). So not the best feeling going into the competition! They were still cute though:




VegFest was a blast! It was so busy - it was great! Most of the food vendors were sold out halfway through! I think the organizers should be proud of the turnout! As for the contest, I found out mine made it through into the top 10 and would be judged by the panel - it was a little nerve-wracking since there were some gorgeous creations and they were all picked apart by real foodies.



I was hopeful to win, but alas, it wasn't meant to be :) But for the last couple of months, it made this stay-at-home mom pretty excited to have something fun to look forward to. And I love to bake for others! So my other big news is that I will soon be opening up shop and offering vegan baked goods (cuppies, muffins, cookies) to the vegan masses of Ottawa, or for anyone that's interested. I won't be returning to work until the kids are in school, so this will hopefully provide a little income and keep me sane. I'll be sure to post more about my upcoming venture!

Countdown to VegFest is on! Plus Some Grub...

Who is super pumped for VegFest on May 1st? Me! Me! Me! It's been almost a month since my Cupcake Party and I can't WAIT for the day that I can enter my creation. When they indicated that a preliminary round would not be necessary, I was so happy...not just because I felt that there weren't hundreds of competitors, but also because 6:30pm (the slated time of the potluck where said round would take place) is the equivalent of hell in this house. It would have been disaster. Anyways, I was so smug until I got an e-mail from the organizers indicating that there would be a preliminary round after all the day of the contest! Yikes! Must remain positive...I just am trying to write a big long post about my trials and tribulations with the major mystery ingredient of my cuppie...although I fear that come May 2nd I'll forget everything...

Similar to this post - I haven't had a chance to get on the PC and when I do to write up a post, I look at the pics and for the life of me, cannot remember what stuff is. Like this - I stared and stared and FINALLY realized it's one of my new fave dishes! From 1000 Vegan Recipes by Robin Robertson Chinese Noodles with Black Bean Sauce. I think that's the title and am too far away from the cookbook right now. I toss in some edamame for added protein. So yummy! I added tri-colour chopped peppers since I have them for Ash to add like 'sprinkles' (likely due to my recent cupcake obsession).



This next treat was a mild disappointment...I came across one of Isa's blogposts from eons ago about a Raw Cheezecake. For forever, I have tried to mimic a childhood recipe from a kid's Better Home and Gardens cookbook - something like Be My Valentine Pie. It was made with gross Jello and soft ice cream in a cookie crumb shell. I liked it as a kid, and have tried re-creating it with vegan Jello and ice cream, but with no such luck. Reading the ingredients I was hopeful. But the darn thing just didn't set - I had read through the comments and it seemed like it either turned out great or not, and I so hoped I would be in the success group :( I even omitted adding water to combat my fear! But alas, it was a soggy mess. I had to keep it in the freezer. I will definitely try this again during strawberry picking season as the berries will be more plentiful then and I won't feel so badly for using up a ton of expensive raw cashews on top of it.



But this recipe of Isa's was a hit! Pasta De Los Angeles or something like that...with the black beans and cilantro and salsa-like sauce, it reminded me of the sweet potato and black bean enchiladas from Vegan Planet but just with pasta instead. Yum!



Always looking for snack stuff, I was drawn to a recipe on my PC Toasted O's cereal box for Honey Butter Crunch. Now the name alone is totally not suitable for vegans but it's pretty easy to make subs:

1/2 cup melted Earth Balance
1/2 cup agave nectar
1/2 tsp vanilla
4 cups toasted o's
1 bag plain microwave popcorn, popped
1 cup almonds

Mix wet ingredients. Add dry and stir. Place on parchment lined cookie sheet and bake at 250 degrees for 45 minutes.

Not sure if I should have reduced the agave a little or upped the oven temp or cook longer, but this stuff was soggy but good. I don't think I'll make it again since you have to wait way too long for your snack. I prefer popping corn, then pouring melted coconut oil and chocolate chips on top and enjoying right then and there. Maybe I'll just add some almonds for a healthy boost to make me feel better!