So my new goal in life is to bake every Sunday, and with the exception of this one time last weekend when I was very busy playing Zelda every time I happened to remember that I was supposed to be baking, I’ve been successful in this endeavor. And I like to pretend that this Zelda-induced postponement was warranted because it meant that I baked today instead, just in time for us to take oatmeal cookies camping with us tomorrow. So far I’ve made:
1. Betty Crocker cinnamon-raisin-walnut bread (American recipe, vegan)
2. Peanut butter and white chocolate blondies from Bake (British recipe; at the request of Stephan, who hates chocolate, for our Super Bowl party)
3. Vegan carrot cake (British recipe; would have been excellent with traditional cream cheese frosting, but was instead just delicious, especially after it was a day or two old. I also added walnuts because carrot cake without nuts is clearly insane and/or a crime against humanity. Little tip: just because you don’t eat cheese at home anymore doesn’t mean you should neglect to have a grater onhand, unless your idea of super fun time is skewering several carrots to a cutting board with a fork so you can grate them with a citrus zester FUN.)
4. Oatmeal raisin cookies from Bake (British recipe, would have been vegan if I hadn’t had an egg that needed to be used up)
I should have known better than to make American cookies from a foreign recipe, a mistake that could have been prevented by reading the recipe beforehand (like anyone ever does this). It all comes down to this one line that instructs me to “roll the dough into walnut-sized balls” before baking.
I’m sorry: “walnut-sized”? What self-respecting American would ever waste time eating a walnut-sized cookie? (Though their primary offense is being not all that tasty; next time I will ask Betty.)
The goal is for 75% of the recipes to be vegan—because let’s face it, some things just need to be made with real butter and lots of it. What I’m really looking for is a decent vegan cheesecake recipe, but I’m thinking that that’s one we may have to save for a non-vegan special occasion.
6 Comments
Hi Katie,
Are you able to get vegan cream cheese & vegan sour cream over there? If so, I’ll pass along a great recipe for cheesecake to you!
Thanks for the fun blogs!
h
Yes, please! I have much higher hopes for an already-approved recipe. :) Somehow vegan recipes that don’t turn out really don’t turn out.
Katie,
In regards to your carrot cake and the no grater bit… you could place the chunks of carrots with the liquids you are going to be putting in the cake in your blender and get some pretty small pieces of carrots… or go all the way to puree (oh, what a thought!) It does change the texture of your cake somewhat, and will also give you a more orange cake…
Or, you can wait until I come to make your next carrot cake, and let me do it for you…(the carrots that is, not the whole cake)
Love,
Mom
We meant to buy a grater when we went to get the ingredients, but by the time we got to the store (that didn’t have them in stock), it was 3:45 on a Sunday, so we didn’t have enough time to go anywhere else before the country shut down.
Why don’t you just use jars of baby food. They work great in recipes.
Carrots, pumpkin or applesauce…
Aunt B.
Baby food! Why didn’t I think of that? I’ve been looking for applesauce since we got here, but what they call “apple sauce” is more like a gelatinous condiment. I bet they feed American-style apple sauce to babies though.