Gingerdead House for Xmas 2014

I’m baaaa-aaaack! It’s not like I haven’t been creating things, I just haven’t really felt like sharing them. But I’ve decided that that is just too great a loss for the Internet, so here we are with a zombie-themed gingerbread house/people!

This was my first-ever attempt at making a gingerbread house, by the way. I’m pretty damn satisfied with the results! And the recipe for the gingerbread itself came from The Vegan Cookie Connoisseur, one of my FAVE cook books!

Collage of all four sides:

And then the gingerdead people/zombies themselves!

Tah dah! Questions? Comments?

Raw Food Roundup; Snacks and Desserts

I’ve been experimenting a lot with raw foodism of late, though I’ve been rather slack in regards to taking photographs. Blame the consistently poor lighting in my kitchen/flat! So here’s a brief overview of some of my experiments.

1. Raw Cacao Crunch Cookies

These were an original recipe; I basically mixed puffed buckwheat (soak raw buckwheat then dehydrate until crispy), hazelnut and almond meals, cacao powder, and agave nectar. Then shaped into balls and dehydrated for about 12-24 hours, depending on how dry you want your cookies.

2. Dehydrator load ready to go

Back two mats; raw cacao crunch cookies. Middle row; cacao crunch cookies on left, and lemon/almond/coconut cookies (just mix almond meal, shredded coconut, and fresh squeezed lemon juice and zest) on the right. Front row; kale chips (basically capsicum, cashews, nutritional/savoury yeast).

3. Cashew ice-cream bars

The easy and delicious way to make ice cream! These bars are cashew/date/banana on the left, and cashew/date/banana on the bottom with chocolate banana on top. Chop dates and soak overnight. Put cashews in the blender and reduce to a meal; add a very ripe banana (chopped), the drained dates, vanilla essence/bean, a little agave nectar, and blend. Use the date soaking water as needed to make a thick cream. Pour into moulds or a freezer-safe container and freeze. For chocolate, just add cacao powder; mint chocolate and orange chocolate are also excellent flavours.

Food pr0n: The Vegan Baking Extravaganza (Part 11)

Welcome to part 11 of the ongoing series of posts on the various foodstuffs I like to create in my spare time. Once again, this post is a mixture of actual “baking” and other methods of food production – notably, my love for banana icecream.

Block uncheese (from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook);

For taste, I’d rate it 10/10, but the texture is nowhere near solid. It’s more like a delicious cashew-based patè. More experimentation from this cookbook is needed.

Pasta bolognaise with TVP ‘meatballs’ (this was the first time I’d used the larger-sized TVP chunks, and I think I needed to soak them a little longer than the finer TVP ‘mince’), topped with nutritional yeast;

Strawberry-banana-choc-chip icecream; it’s a variation on my banana “ice cream” recipe, using vanilla soymilk, strawberry essence (I’d use fresh strawberries, but was out at the time) and agave nectar.

Some random sprinkle-mad sugar cookies; dinosaurs, butterflies and cupcakes, oh my!

Stay tuned for the next sugar-loaded installment of the Vegan Baking Extravaganza!

Food pr0n: the Vegan Baking Extravaganza (Part 10)

Apologies for the slight delay in posting, this week just got away from me.

Welcome to part 10 of the deliciously decadent Vegan Baking Extravaganza! This week features a slightly wider variety of foodstuffs, as I’ve been somewhat more adventurous in my vegan concoctions of late.

Caramel popcorn (from the recipe in Lickin’ the Beaters 2). Apologies for the rather dark photograph.

Chocolate crackles made with Reeses Pieces cereal, which is way too sweet to be eaten as cereal. Combine melted copha (vegetable shortening) with cocoa, mix in cereal, and pour into patty cases/silicon moulds.

Smores Bars pre-oven (recipe is from one of my cookbooks, can’t remember which one right now – basically it’s just a biscuit base, covered with marshmallow and chopped dark chocolate).

Smores Bars post-oven.

And our final items aren’t baked, but they are made by me, so hey, close enough! I’ve been getting into banana “ice cream” (frozen banana pieces chucked in the blender with soymilk, agave nectar, vanilla essence (optional), cocoa (optional)) lately, making both “plain” and chocolate flavoured, both with chocolate chips. I also used one of the new VitaSoy breakfast drinks – delicious and enriched with calcium, B12, fibre, etc. I highly recommend it.

“Plain” banana choc chip ice cream.

Chocolate choc chip ice cream.

And thus conclused the 10th installment of this series, which will be going for more than 10 installments, apparently! Tune in next time for my attempts to make “cheese”, chocolate mousse cups, and more!

Food pr0n: the Vegan Baking Extravaganza (Part 9)

Welcome to part 9 of the ongoing “baking is mostly what I do in my spare time” series! As a side note, the multiple shots of things isn’t cheating – I have plenty of material, I just like to indulge the “food pr0n” aspect of these posts. Assuming I get to photograph the goodies before they’re all eaten. 😛

Homemade gluten-free wholemeal bread (Orgran brand, I think). It was delicious, and not as dense as gluten free baked goods tend to be. On the downside, it was a bit crumbly (maybe baking longer would help? Or adding xantham gum or the like?) so it wouldn’t be ideal for sandwiches. But covered in Nuttlex and vegan “honey” (rice malt – deliiiiiiiicious) it makes a great simple and not too sweet dessert.

Chocolate brownies (from the recipe in Vegan Planet, with added white chocolate chips) with chocolate ‘buttercream’ icing. For the icing, just beat together vegan butter, icing sugar, cocoa powder and vanilla essence to taste/until smooth. Add soy milk to get desired consistency.

At back: my classic choc chip cookie recipe. At front; thumbprint cookies (plain and chocolate cookie dough, basically) using white chocolate peanut butter on the chocolate ones, and dark chocolate peanut butter on the plain ones. Not so pretty, but very delicious.

And that’s it for this installment. Join me next time for goodies like homemade nougat, chocolate crackles and baked S’mores bars!

Food pr0n: the Vegan Baking Extravaganza (Part 8)

Welcome back to yet another installment of the Vegan Baking Extravaganza! In this edition, we see the product of my investing in a $20 mini-donut maker, which totally justifies my spending money on something that isn’t technically a necessity. Though once you have one, you understand that it really is something that you need. 😛

Here’s the “sprinkling station”, which only partially reveals my obsessive love of sprinkles (they didn’t all fit on the stove top…).

The completed, delicious, colourful product.

And, just for something different (and to demonstrate my undying devotion to all things chocolate), quadruple chocolate cookies:

They’re my standard triple chocolate cookie recipe, and then I coated the bottoms with melted dark chocolate using a silicon pastry brush. So easy, and adds an extra dimension of both deliciousness and structural integrity to your cookies!

Baked marzipan – basically, you just roll chunks of marzipan into balls, flatten them on a greased tray/silicon mat, and bake at 180 celsius for 10-15 minutes. Watch them fairly closely – when they brown and bubble around the edges, they’re ready. Simple, yet addictive.

Banana-banana (i.e. plain, unadulterated banana) cookies from ‘The Vegan Cookie Connoisseur’. Soft, chewy and delicious, it’s a great recipe that really emphasises the more subtle flavours of these cookies.

Food pr0n: the Vegan Baking Extravaganza (Part 7)

Welcome back to part 7 in the ongoing series of pictures of delicious foodstuffs. In any case, I do plenty of baking to provide subject matter for this series; it’s my anti-boredom device. My delicious, delicious anti-boredom device. 😀

Here’s a creation of my own invention, of which I am very proud:

I baked a layer of marzipan (in my rectangular silicon moulds, which I love), then melted a layer of vegan marshmallows (I picked up a couple of bags of Dandies a while back, and can’t recommend them highly enough). I then topped it off with a layer of melted dark chocolate. Very rich, and very good.

My original recipe for classic chocolate chip cookies – FINALLY ONLINE HERE.

Various soft-centred dark chocolates (strawberry, cherry, pineapple, peppermint, raspberry, orange). Check out the adorable dinosaurs!

Food pr0n: the Vegan Baking Extravaganza (Part 6)

With this installment, we return to our regular schedule of delicious vegan baked goods. Of course, these aren’t everything I’ve made – strangely enough, some goodies don’t last long enough to be photographed! Here are the ones that I snapped pictures of before they were snapped up.

Chocolate brownies with white chocolate chips (based on the recipe in Vegan Planet), with chocolate “fudge icing”. Basically, just beat together vegan butter, vanilla extract, Dutch-processed cocoa and a tonne of icing sugar until you get the consistency you want.

Above brownies, en masse.

White chocolate skeletons (moulds from the ever-fantastic eBay), which I was planning on inserting into the brownies, buuuuut… we ended up just eating them as is. 😛

Chocolate coated Oreos! The ones at the front are chocolate-cream Oreos coated in Sweet Williams “milk” chocolate. The ones at the back are special edition “ice-cream” Oreos, coated in Sweet Williams white chocolate (which is a little lumpy because it got a little burned… whoops!).

So remember, dear readers… never overestimate how long it takes white chocolate to melt!

Food pr0n: the Vegan Baking Extravaganza (Part 5 – Sweets Special)

Welcome to part 5 of the Vegan Baking Extravaganza, otherwise known as “I bake obsessively for recreation and relaxation”. 😀 In this special installment, I’ll be sharing pictures of the various SWEETS AND CHOCOLATES of which I’ve made vegan versions lately. The following is proof that being vegan doesn’t mean you have to miss out on any of your old favourite foods – minus the cruelty!

The Australian classic, chocolate freckles. They’re super easy to make – I just poured melted chocolate into the bottoms of my silicon muffin moulds, added vegan sprinkles, and left them to set. Tah dah!

Cookies and cream chocolate bars. Melt vegan white chocolate (I use Sweet Williams brand) carefully – it burns very easily! Mix in crushed Oreos (it’s even more delicious if you just crush the whole biscuit, “cream” and all), pour into moulds, and put in fridge to set.

I’ve gotten pretty good at making my own soft-centre chocolates. I’m particularly partial to strawberry and pineapple. Like Cadbury Snack bars, but without all the nasty additives and unnecessary animal products!

And finally, possibly my proudest chocolatiering creation, white chocolates with white chocolate peanut butter centres… in the shape and colour of Lego blocks:

Bought the moulds on eBay, in a pack with Lego men moulds – stay tuned to see the chocolate Lego men in the near future!

Food pr0n: the Vegan Baking Extravaganza (Part 4)

It’s been a while since I updated, but I assure you, life hasn’t stopped in any way. If anything, it’s all been a bit too “real”, hence the delay in posting. I’ve been baking a storm fairly regularly over the past few months, and now I’ve finally gotten around to editing the photo’s of the fruits of my labour. So, without further ado, I give you:

Clockwise from left: Triple chocolate cookies, peanut butter swirl cookies, and classic choc-chip cookies (an original recipe, which somehow I STILL haven’t posted here – soon, I swear!).

Banana choc-chip muffins, one of my favourite recipes from the fantastic Vegan Baking Classics. I found these fantastic silicon bug moulds at K-Mart for $5!

Caramel cookie cup – I’m quite proud of this fairly original recipe. Basically, you line muffin cups (preferably silicon) with cookie dough, and bake as normal. Once they’ve cooled, use a brush to line the insides with melted chocolate. Then use vegan condensed milk and golden syrup to make caramel – once it’s cooled, pour into cups, and put in fridge to set for 3-4 hours. Amazing.