.
I've been so moody this last few days I almost think I'll get my period soon. That would explain a lot. But I think the real, major cause is a boss with too much to do and too little time to listen.
Anyway I did a cheesecake today for the work party tomorrow. Somehow, spending an hour in the kitchen just helped me leave most of the stress behind. It was the same recipe that I used for my vegan birthday two weeks ago (yes I've been a vegan for over seven years now! hooray!). Here comes the cakes I made then. I had planned to take photos of them 'cause the all looked really nice, but as usual I was running late and my guests had started to arrive so I skipped that.
I'm lacking some baking words in English so if you want to, enlighten me :D
Cheesecake with rum and cherries
(from veganvrak.blogspot.com)
bottom
12 digestives
60g milk-free margarine
a little (a teaspoon or so) vegetable oil, optional
a teaspoon of lemon juice
main layer
400 g Tofuline original soft cheese, or some equivalent
0.5dl white rum or 0.5dl over-diluted cherry squash and 10 drops of rum essence
1dl oat cream
2dl jelling sugar multi
top layer
2dl cherry squash
2dl jelling sugar multi
This is one of Sara's (the creator of the veganvrak blog) latest cheesecakes and it's really nice. I made another one for the Christmas Party in Sussex and it seemed to be appreciated. Sara's cheesecakes takes about an hour to prepare and as with most cakes they're better if made the day before they are to be eaten, and left in the fridge overnight.
The top layer for this cheesecake is obviously a bit more boring than using raspberries or smth, but then again it has to be a more subtle flavour to go well with the rum taste. I decorated this cake with kiwi fruit, but it would probably work fine to make the top layer from passion fruits and water instead of cherry squash to make it more aesthetically attractive.
I guess that the jelling sugar is called different things in different countries, but when I scroogled 'jelling sugar' I found a sugar forum (!! :D) mentioning 'jelling sugar multi' which is a direct translation of Swedish name, so that should be it. You know, the kind of sugar you use for panna cotta. Anyways here we go!
bottom
preheat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius. melt the margarine. you can use 75g of margarine or 50g of margarine and some sunflower oil (doesn't need melting, obviously).
crush the digestives by hand. add melted margarine and some lemon juice, and add sunflower oil if needed to create a digestive paste.
spread the paste in a sponge pan, preferably one where you can remove the sides (springform?).
bake in the middle of the oven for 7 minutes. allow to cool.
middle layer
mix the soft cheese with a spoon to make it smooth. this mixing is especially important if the cheese is fridge cold, you want it to be room tempered and nice. add rum or rum essence and some overly diluted cherry squash (some cherry taste is good but this layer should mainly taste of rum). mix the cheese and the liquid.
i couldn't find tofuline cream cheese in UK, so there I used 4/5 tofutti cream cheese and 1/5 silken tofu, and then added a bit of sour supreme. I'm sure there are better and easier combinations, only tofutti might work fine but that cheese is a bit more firm than tofuline so maybe it's good to add some extra liquid (cherry squash or oat cream) to this layer then. it's not as complicated as it may sound! :D
pour the jelling sugar and the cream in a pan and bring to a boil. allow to boil for 30 second, then remove from the heat. mix with the soft cheese mixture, and spread this in the sponge pan. place in the fridge to cool down.
top layer
mix the cherry squash and jelling sugar in a pan. I used cherry squash that was twice as concentrated as the recommended, but that might be a bit too much.
bring to a boil and boil for 30 seconds. cool down a little and carefully spread this on top of the main layer. if you pour it too quickly onto the middle layer, the layers will mix which is not the point. try using a spoon. you'll notice that if you're too quick it becomes uneven and if you're too slow the mix solidifies in the pan before you're done, so I think it's useful to decorate the cake with sliced kiwi fruit or strawberries or so.
Chocolate cake with a hint of orange
I haven't found a good English word for 'kladdkaka' - it's a chocolate cake made with less flour than a normal sponge cake and no baking powder, so it ends up being a bit muddy in the middle. If you bake it for too long, it bets chewy and then hardens, which is good too but not really the point.
My sister recommended me to do this cake and then melt orange-flavoured chocolate and spread on top. My local supermarket didn't carry such chocolate that was vegan, or maybe I just didn't find it, but anyway I used 70% chocolate and orange peel which was fine too.
Muddy chocolate cake
(dagensvegan.blogspot.com)
1.25 dl soy cream (not oat cream)
3dl sugar
1 teaspoon orange peel (or vanilla sugar)
4 tablespoons cacao powder
a tiny bit of salt
1.5 dl flour
1dl melted milk-free margarine
Top layer
(vegania.net)
100g chocolate
1 teaspoon orange peel (if you didn't find orange-flavoured chocolate)
50g melted milk-free margarine
1.5dl icing sugar
Cake
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
Mix all the ingredients. Use soy cream, not oat cream, I don't know why but it just doesn't work.
Spread some oil (another word I'm lacking! how do you call that?) in a sponge pan and add finely crushed bread, cereal germ or whatever you normally use to get a non-sticky surface on the pan.
Pour the mix into the pan and bake in the over for about 30 min. If the pan is wide and the cake is thin, it's obviously done quicker.
The cake is great like this, with ice cream or vanilla sauce or so. or you can make it with orange peel and then make an orange-flavoured top layer.
Top layer
melt the chocolate, add the margarine, mix until everything is melted and well mixed, then add the orange peel.
slowly add the icing sugar and mix well.
spread on top of the cake
Sauce
I made a raspberry sauce to this, by simply boiling raspberries and orange peel for a few minutes.
Muffins
(vegan.nu)
I'm just way too lazy to make cupcakes, so I make muffins. It's exactly the same recipe as for sponge cake, but 15 min in the oven (225 degr Celsius) instead of 45 min (175 degr C)
It's also a wonderful basic recipe, and then it's easy to add whatever flavour you want.
4dl flour
1.5dl sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
100g milk-free margarine or 1dl sunflower oil
2dl soy milk
flavour of your choice, e.g.
- 1 teaspoon vanilla powder, 200g crushed pineapple without the juice, 0.5dl dried coconut flakes
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 0.5 teaspoon cardamom, 1 finely sliced apple, 0.25dl dried coconut flakes
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon, 1 teaspoon ginger, 1.5dl lingonberry jam (tehn use only 1dl soy milk)
Preheat the oven to 225 degr Celsius (muffins). Mix all the ingredients and bake in the oven for 15 min. Sooo simple!
Whatever-berry Pie
Aough I didn't use a recipe and I'm getting really tired so I won't give you a recipe for this one. But it's simple. Might add one later.
I made a raspberry pie late Friday night after my sister had gone home, but then the next morning when I had breakfast I couldn't find my lingonberry jam in the fridge... but I found an unopened raspberry jam in the cupboard. I never tried the pie, I hope it was okay :D
I've been so moody this last few days I almost think I'll get my period soon. That would explain a lot. But I think the real, major cause is a boss with too much to do and too little time to listen.
Anyway I did a cheesecake today for the work party tomorrow. Somehow, spending an hour in the kitchen just helped me leave most of the stress behind. It was the same recipe that I used for my vegan birthday two weeks ago (yes I've been a vegan for over seven years now! hooray!). Here comes the cakes I made then. I had planned to take photos of them 'cause the all looked really nice, but as usual I was running late and my guests had started to arrive so I skipped that.
I'm lacking some baking words in English so if you want to, enlighten me :D
Cheesecake with rum and cherries
(from veganvrak.blogspot.com)
bottom
12 digestives
60g milk-free margarine
a little (a teaspoon or so) vegetable oil, optional
a teaspoon of lemon juice
main layer
400 g Tofuline original soft cheese, or some equivalent
0.5dl white rum or 0.5dl over-diluted cherry squash and 10 drops of rum essence
1dl oat cream
2dl jelling sugar multi
top layer
2dl cherry squash
2dl jelling sugar multi
This is one of Sara's (the creator of the veganvrak blog) latest cheesecakes and it's really nice. I made another one for the Christmas Party in Sussex and it seemed to be appreciated. Sara's cheesecakes takes about an hour to prepare and as with most cakes they're better if made the day before they are to be eaten, and left in the fridge overnight.
The top layer for this cheesecake is obviously a bit more boring than using raspberries or smth, but then again it has to be a more subtle flavour to go well with the rum taste. I decorated this cake with kiwi fruit, but it would probably work fine to make the top layer from passion fruits and water instead of cherry squash to make it more aesthetically attractive.
I guess that the jelling sugar is called different things in different countries, but when I scroogled 'jelling sugar' I found a sugar forum (!! :D) mentioning 'jelling sugar multi' which is a direct translation of Swedish name, so that should be it. You know, the kind of sugar you use for panna cotta. Anyways here we go!
bottom
preheat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius. melt the margarine. you can use 75g of margarine or 50g of margarine and some sunflower oil (doesn't need melting, obviously).
crush the digestives by hand. add melted margarine and some lemon juice, and add sunflower oil if needed to create a digestive paste.
spread the paste in a sponge pan, preferably one where you can remove the sides (springform?).
bake in the middle of the oven for 7 minutes. allow to cool.
middle layer
mix the soft cheese with a spoon to make it smooth. this mixing is especially important if the cheese is fridge cold, you want it to be room tempered and nice. add rum or rum essence and some overly diluted cherry squash (some cherry taste is good but this layer should mainly taste of rum). mix the cheese and the liquid.
i couldn't find tofuline cream cheese in UK, so there I used 4/5 tofutti cream cheese and 1/5 silken tofu, and then added a bit of sour supreme. I'm sure there are better and easier combinations, only tofutti might work fine but that cheese is a bit more firm than tofuline so maybe it's good to add some extra liquid (cherry squash or oat cream) to this layer then. it's not as complicated as it may sound! :D
pour the jelling sugar and the cream in a pan and bring to a boil. allow to boil for 30 second, then remove from the heat. mix with the soft cheese mixture, and spread this in the sponge pan. place in the fridge to cool down.
top layer
mix the cherry squash and jelling sugar in a pan. I used cherry squash that was twice as concentrated as the recommended, but that might be a bit too much.
bring to a boil and boil for 30 seconds. cool down a little and carefully spread this on top of the main layer. if you pour it too quickly onto the middle layer, the layers will mix which is not the point. try using a spoon. you'll notice that if you're too quick it becomes uneven and if you're too slow the mix solidifies in the pan before you're done, so I think it's useful to decorate the cake with sliced kiwi fruit or strawberries or so.
Chocolate cake with a hint of orange
I haven't found a good English word for 'kladdkaka' - it's a chocolate cake made with less flour than a normal sponge cake and no baking powder, so it ends up being a bit muddy in the middle. If you bake it for too long, it bets chewy and then hardens, which is good too but not really the point.
My sister recommended me to do this cake and then melt orange-flavoured chocolate and spread on top. My local supermarket didn't carry such chocolate that was vegan, or maybe I just didn't find it, but anyway I used 70% chocolate and orange peel which was fine too.
Muddy chocolate cake
(dagensvegan.blogspot.com)
1.25 dl soy cream (not oat cream)
3dl sugar
1 teaspoon orange peel (or vanilla sugar)
4 tablespoons cacao powder
a tiny bit of salt
1.5 dl flour
1dl melted milk-free margarine
Top layer
(vegania.net)
100g chocolate
1 teaspoon orange peel (if you didn't find orange-flavoured chocolate)
50g melted milk-free margarine
1.5dl icing sugar
Cake
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
Mix all the ingredients. Use soy cream, not oat cream, I don't know why but it just doesn't work.
Spread some oil (another word I'm lacking! how do you call that?) in a sponge pan and add finely crushed bread, cereal germ or whatever you normally use to get a non-sticky surface on the pan.
Pour the mix into the pan and bake in the over for about 30 min. If the pan is wide and the cake is thin, it's obviously done quicker.
The cake is great like this, with ice cream or vanilla sauce or so. or you can make it with orange peel and then make an orange-flavoured top layer.
Top layer
melt the chocolate, add the margarine, mix until everything is melted and well mixed, then add the orange peel.
slowly add the icing sugar and mix well.
spread on top of the cake
Sauce
I made a raspberry sauce to this, by simply boiling raspberries and orange peel for a few minutes.
Muffins
(vegan.nu)
I'm just way too lazy to make cupcakes, so I make muffins. It's exactly the same recipe as for sponge cake, but 15 min in the oven (225 degr Celsius) instead of 45 min (175 degr C)
It's also a wonderful basic recipe, and then it's easy to add whatever flavour you want.
4dl flour
1.5dl sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
100g milk-free margarine or 1dl sunflower oil
2dl soy milk
flavour of your choice, e.g.
- 1 teaspoon vanilla powder, 200g crushed pineapple without the juice, 0.5dl dried coconut flakes
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 0.5 teaspoon cardamom, 1 finely sliced apple, 0.25dl dried coconut flakes
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon, 1 teaspoon ginger, 1.5dl lingonberry jam (tehn use only 1dl soy milk)
Preheat the oven to 225 degr Celsius (muffins). Mix all the ingredients and bake in the oven for 15 min. Sooo simple!
Whatever-berry Pie
Aough I didn't use a recipe and I'm getting really tired so I won't give you a recipe for this one. But it's simple. Might add one later.
I made a raspberry pie late Friday night after my sister had gone home, but then the next morning when I had breakfast I couldn't find my lingonberry jam in the fridge... but I found an unopened raspberry jam in the cupboard. I never tried the pie, I hope it was okay :D
28 april 2010 kl. 09:31
I am sure they all tasted great! Although I got tired just imagining the work involved :)
11 maj 2010 kl. 15:43
hehe yes they did taste great and yes it was a lot of work to prepare it all... but you know i love cooking, no ä-m-p here, and not in your kitchen anymore either ;) and it was my birthday! the birthday i prefer to celebrate.