Holiday Helpers! Mandarin Orange Bundt Cake

Mandarin Orange Bundt Cake
This moist cake is not overly sweet, and therefore, I find it perfectly appropriate to eat for breakfast!

Peanut Butter Rocky Road Pound Cakes

I made these last weekend for the Worldwide Vegan Bakesale...the recipe made 8 mini loaves.

3 cups (375 g) all purpose flour
1 cup (80 g) unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tablespoon (12 g) baking powder
1 tablespoon (12 g) baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups (470 ml) nondairy milk
1 1/2 (300 g) cups sugar
1 (6 ounce) container nondairy yogurt
1/2 cup (120 g) nondairy sour cream
1/2 cup (128 g) creamy no-stir peanut butter
1/4 cup (60 ml) canola oil
2 tablespoons (30 ml) pure vanilla extract

1 (10 ounces, 280 g) vegan marshmallows, such as Dandies
1 cup (120 g) pecan or walnut pieces

Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C, or gas mark 4).
Spray 8 mini loaf pans with nonstick spray.
In a large mixing bowl, mix together dry ingredients.
In a separate medium bowl, mix together wet ingredients.
Add wet to dry and mix.
Fold in marshmallows and walnuts.
Fill loaf pans 3/4 full.
Place the loaf pans on a baking sheet while baking to help prevent a mess if the marshmallows boil over.
Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Yield: 8 mini loaves

Note: Make it pretty!
Reserve 3 or 4 marshmallows and a small handful of nuts to place on top of each loaf before baking, for extra gooey roasted marshmallow tops.

Cake for Baby!

My bestest friend ever, Jennifer, is having a baby girl! I volunteered to make the cake and cupcakes for her shower yesterday!



The cake and half of the cupcakes are lemon with raspberry cream cheese frosting. The other half of the cupcakes are VCTOTW basic chocolate, with raspberry cream cheese frosting and toasted coconut with marzipan eggs.

Each tier was 3 layers of lemon cake (this recipe without the poppyseeds) with raspberry preserves and raspberry cream cheese frosting between the layers. The whole thing was coated with a crumb coat of the raspberry cream cheese frosting (Equal parts Tofutti cream cheese and Earth Balance, with a bit of vanilla extract and Flavorganics Raspberry Syrup, mixed with enough powdered sugar to get the right texture) then decorated with tinted vanilla fondant.

I was going to make my fondant from scratch, and did make a small batch, but it was a lot of work, and I needed a lot of fondant, so I bought Satin Ice brand fondant, which, as far as I could tell from the label and my internet research, is vegan.

My first time working with fondant. I am no Duff, but I think I did pretty good for my first go 'round. One thing I learned is that it is key to have ample flat working space to effectively pull this off. I was working on a folding card table, that wasn't level, so I had a bit of trouble rolling it out evenly. I know I could have done a much better job, if I just had a proper kitchen counter.

Lemon Poppyseed Cake (Part 2)

Okay, I made a few improvements to the recipe...omitted the ener-g, 'cause I know how you guys hate it when I put that in recipes, and I think this cake is so dang tasty! The recipe makes a lot...since I'm making these in bulk. It makes 6 mini loaves.

Wet Ingredients:
12 oz (2 containers) of lemon soy yogurt (plain or vanilla will work too)
1 cup soymilk (plain or vanilla)
1 cup canola oil
2 cups sugar
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 tsp lemon extract
zest of one lemon
juice of one lemon
1/2 cup vegan sour cream
2 tbsp poppy seeds


Dry Ingredients:
5 cups all purpose flour
3 tbsp cornstarch
1 tbsp Baking powder
1 tbsp baking soda
1 tsp salt


Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, mix together the wet ingredients. In a seperate bowl, sift together the dry. Add the dry to the wet and mix together. The mix is thick, not runny. Fill your loaf pans about 2/3 full. Bake about 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Lemon Poppyseed Cake

I have been trying to come up with a way to cross promote my vegan baking and cooking with my "other life" as a real estate agent. I have committed to go and visit at least 5 of my clients each week in person. So, I decided that this was a perfect opportunity to bring them some delicious baked goods. I started off with Lemon Poppyseed Cake. I made up a batch, and didn't write everything down. I plan on making another batch tonight so I will post the recipe tomorrow, along with pictures of the actual cakes before I wrap them up. I made 2 "pound" cakes and a dozen muffins.



Next week I plan to make Espresso Chocoloate Cakes with chocolate chips. When the other agents at my office saw these beauties, they asked if they could pay me to make them for their clients as well. OF COURSE I CAN!

Kittee Kake for Kristmas!

Kittee makes the cakes that make people smile. Her cakes embody all that is important about cake. That it be fun, tasty and home made with love! Inspired by her birthday cake, I set out to make a holiday cake that would make the people happy. I am pretty sure it worked. See for yourself:



Did you smile?

Here's an inside shot:


The top two layers are Kittee's "Non-Chocolate Cake" and the bottom two layers are Kittee's "Chocolate Wacko Cake." Both recipes are available in her awesome 'zine, Papa Tofu. It is frosted with my own Creem Cheeze Frosting (Which is simply equal parts Tofutti Better than Cream Cheese, Earth Balance a teaspoon or 2 of vanilla extract, depending on how much I am making, and enough powdered sugar to get the right consistency.) which I added green food coloring to. I decorated it with Christmas themed candies (which were all vegan, as far as I could tell.) and it became the star of the buffet.

I hope I have made Kittee proud.

(There was more food...I'll post about it later, off to work.)