Fooood? Hardly. Just kidding Sara, vegan food can be FUN. Did you know that apples are vegan? I do now! I certainly don't eat apples anymore because of it, but here's some pictures of some vegan food that Sara and I made anyway.
Here's some gnocchi with sundried tomato pesto. Gnocchi (as I'm sure everyone knows) is a perplexing combination of pasta AND potato! Those Irishtalians.
I made some lentil soup with coconut milk and some non-spicy spices (although I then threw in about 8 chilies because for some reason the recipe didn't call for any). The recipe is very good and from a lovely (real!) photofoodblog called Orangette.
These are vegan chai tea cupcakes. Normally I don't like cinnamon or cocoa powder on anything (like when truffles are rolled in cocoa powder, blech!) but since icing is fat+sugar+fat'n'sugar it basically turns in to chocolate in your mouth. Hooray for what is basically the worst photo composition ever.
These are vegan pumkpkin oatmeal cookies that I made all by my lonesome on a different day. They ended up being vegan because I had no eggs (that when cracked open didn't smell like the sawdust flavoured apples rotting in my fridge). They were a bit too soft for my liking; next time I will flatten them more and use more oats and less flour. Oatmeal cookies should hardly have any flour, so I'm not sure why I wasn't bright enough to adjust the recipe beforehand.
This almond candy was a garnish for a dessert in my Restaurant Cooking class. I gave it to Jenny to use as a garnish for some future cupcakes. They really stick to your teeth, which I later learned means they were not cooked properly. They should be more brittle. I took this picture in the lovely photography box that my father gave to me. I should have used more light.
This is some very un-vegan dulce de leche. As wikipedia will tell you, that means "milk candy" or something. In a language. It has two ingredients: sugar and whole milk (I added a bit of vanilla which apparently makes it more like confiture du lait). You cook it quite slowly and it turns into a deliciously indulgent spread for your morning bagels.
9 comments:
I make my dulce de leche from sweetened condensed milk, is that cheating? Yours is a nicer colour.
Mm chai cupcakes! Good job! Did you like them?
I think I will try making gnocchi. Looks very tasty.
Thank you for updating!!
Also, I used the almond candy to decorate the gluten-free almond sponge on my Flickr page (but you can't see it in the photo). It actually turned cloudy and a bit soft. :( Still tasted good, though!
I don't think condensed milk is cheating, although I would like to taste the difference. The whole milk + sugar method seemed easier, so that's why I did it.
The chai cupcakes were good although they didn't taste much like tea. They had a more muffiny texture and I told Sara that next time we should use cake flour, but she wisely replied that all purpose flour was okay as long as you used a shiny shiny muffin tin. I knew that the colour/age of your tin made a difference but I had no idea it made such a big one.
I would like to taste the difference too - I'll have to find an excuse to make some dulce de leche. I'll pour the leftovers into an envelope for you. Ha ha ha!
I need to be educated in this shiny muffin tin phenomenon you speak of, obviously! All my cupcakes and muffins are done in an ancient, not-shiny muffin tin, but I always use paper liners... but if there's any way I can make my cupcakes better, I MUST KNOW IT!
Jenny,
Paper liners or not, as long as you're baking your cupcakes in any pan that isn't of the light, shiny, uncoated aluminum variety, they will always be a little more muffiny than they should be. Which is certainly not a noticable downside when you're eating really delicious cupcakes, but with a shiny aluminum pan you'll definitely notice a difference, i.e. the cupcakes will be so soft and moist and cakey in a way that they could never quite have been coming from a dark pan. Not that I'm by any means a cupcake expert, but this is knowledge that I've acquired from people who are, and it seems to hold pretty true.
That's it, I'm going shopping for a new muffin tin! I bake enough cupcakes that it's worth the experimentation to me.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jennypbj/sets/72157602180312116/
Thank you for the information, I appreciate it!
Sorry, that link didn't work. :(
Eric has linked me to your cupcake photos before, and they are basically the embodiment of the lofty cupcake heights to which I hope to someday aspire. He mostly just shrugs nonchalantly when I gape and flail and say, "How can she DO that with FROSTING?"
Anyways, good luck with the new pan, and glad I could be of assistance :-)
Oh my, flattery will get you everywhere! If I posted photos of my fail-cupcakes as well as my success-cupcakes, you would only gape and flail in amusement, not awe!
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