Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Merry Christmas!!!



Here's my cookie tray for this year:

Vegan Turtles - Turtles, turtles...rah rah rah! I will post this recipe shortly...yummy!

Gingerbread Bears - Same recipe Tracy uses, except my icing didn't turn out as crunchy.
Chocolate Coconut Clusters - Did I blog about these before? Good! I made them vegan (obviously) and only boiled the mixture for a couple of minutes.

Cranberry Crumble Bars - Not too sweet!

Incredibly Non-Butter Shortbread Cookies - Delish! I added a little lemon juice to my icing and it tasted really good! Recipe is below!


1 cup Earth Balance, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup icing sugar
2 tsp Kingsmill egg replacer
2 tbsp water
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

1. With electric mixer, beat Earth Balance until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in granulated and icing sugars and then beat in egg replacer, water and vanilla.
2. Combine flour, baking powder and salt; gradually stir into buttery mixture. Transfer dough to work surface; kneed lightly until it forms a ball.
3. Divide dough in half; shape each into disc. Wrap in plastic wrap; refrigerate for at least 1 hour or for up to 2 days. Once disc at a time, roll out dough on lightly floured surface to 1/4 inch thickness. Using cookie cutters, cut out shapes and place them on parchment paper lined baking sheets.
4. Bake in centre of preheated 375 F oven for 10 - 12 minutes or until light golden on bottom and edges. Let cool for 3 minutes on baking sheets; transfer to wire racks to cool. Makes 3 dozen cookies. Ice as desired.

Merry Christmas from Ashley! Happy New Year Everyone!






Thursday, December 04, 2008

Sarah: 1, Soggy Carrot Cake: 0

I never thought that this day would come. I, Sarah the Vegan, have conquered my inability to make a serveable carrot cake.


I have owned VwaV for a couple years, and passed by the Ginger-Macadamia-Coconut-Carrot Cake recipe several times. But visions of carrot cake past kept haunting me. I even wrote back then that PPKers reassured me to try this recipe. But fear held me back.


Finally, I got the gumption to give it a go. And wow. Amazing. So good that I'm making it again this weekend for the stepdad's b-day. This time, I'm so bold to try and make it a layer cake! And this recipe must be foolproof since I used walnuts instead of the maca nuts and omitted the crystallized ginger. I will likely make it blindfolded since I'm now a carrot cake expert ;)




Even though I've tackled the fear of soggy carrot cakes, there's no way I'm going to face my fear of spiders.