Lemon Poppy Seed Poundcake Recipe from Alicia Silverstone’s book - “The Kind diet” This recipe is perfect, the combination of lemon and a hint of sweetness is match from heaven! It’s not too sweet nor too sour, super light and the best part, vegan! So here are the following ingredients: 2 cups of all purpose flour (in the original recipe it was called for 1 cup of whole wheat flour + 1 cup of all purpose flour, tried it before but the wheat was quite overwhelming, perhaps it’s a matter of getting used to it) 1/3 maple sugar (it’s ok to use white sugar instead) 2 tsps egg replacer (I used Ener-G) 2 tsps baking powder 1 tsp baking soda 1/4 tsp refined sea salt 1/2 cup soy, rice or nut milk 1/4 fresh lemon juice 1/2 cup of safflower oil (ran out so used canola oil instead) 1/2 cup of maple syrup 1 tsp of lemon extract 1 tbsps of poppy seeds 1) Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Oil the pans ( You can use 3 mini loaf pans, a muffin tin, or 4 mini Bundt pans) 2) Combine the flour, sugar, egg replacer, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, combine the milk with lemon juice and set aside for a few minutes; it will look like curdled. Whisk in the oil, syrup, and lemon extract. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir just until combined. Fold in the poppy seeds. 3) Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake for 15-25 minutes (mini loafs and muffins take about 15-18 minutes, loaf and bundt pan take 20-25 min) or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool the cake completely in the pans on a baking rack. Serve warm if desired, loved crunchiness from the crust and the warm center. Make sure to wait at least 10 minutes, otherwise it’ll crumble apart! It’s good after a couple of days as well. Enjoy! :)

Lemon Poppy Seed Poundcake

Recipe from Alicia Silverstone’s book - “The Kind diet”

This recipe is perfect, the combination of lemon and a hint of sweetness is match from heaven! It’s not too sweet nor too sour, super light and the best part, vegan!

So here are the following ingredients:

  • 2 cups of all purpose flour (in the original recipe it was called for 1 cup of whole wheat flour + 1 cup of all purpose flour, tried it before but the wheat was quite overwhelming, perhaps it’s a matter of getting used to it)
  • 1/3 maple sugar (it’s ok to use white sugar instead)
  • 2 tsps egg replacer (I used Ener-G)
  • 2 tsps baking powder
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1/4 tsp refined sea salt
  • 1/2 cup soy, rice or nut milk
  • 1/4 fresh lemon juice
  • 1/2 cup of safflower oil (ran out so used canola oil instead)
  • 1/2 cup of maple syrup
  • 1 tsp of lemon extract
  • 1 tbsps of poppy seeds

1) Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Oil the pans ( You can use 3 mini loaf pans, a muffin tin, or 4 mini Bundt pans)

2) Combine the flour, sugar, egg replacer, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, combine the milk with lemon juice and set aside for a few minutes; it will look like curdled. Whisk in the oil, syrup, and lemon extract. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir just until combined. Fold in the poppy seeds.

3) Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake for 15-25 minutes (mini loafs and muffins take about 15-18 minutes, loaf and bundt pan take 20-25 min) or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool the cake completely in the pans on a baking rack.

Serve warm if desired, loved crunchiness from the crust and the warm center. Make sure to wait at least 10 minutes, otherwise it’ll crumble apart! It’s good after a couple of days as well.

Enjoy! :)

Blackout Chocolate Cake

Tried BlackOut Chocolate Cake at Future’s Cafe. It was so good so had to try to make it. Luckily, found this recipe here: Source and this is how it turned out.

Makes one 9-inch round cake, about 12 servings

For the cake:

  • 8 tbsp (1 stick) unsalted butter, plus more for the pans
  • 1 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for the pans
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • ½ tsp baking soda
  • ½ tsp salt
  • ¾ cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder, sifted
  • 1 cup brewed coffee (I used espresso)
  • 1 cup buttermilk
  • 1 cup packed light brown sugar
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract

For the pudding:

  • 1 ¼ cups granulated sugar
  • 6 oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped
  • 2 cups half-and-half
  • 1 cup whole milk
  • ¼ cup cornstarch, sifted
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Make the cake:

Center an oven rack and heat the oven to 325 f. Grease and flour two 9-inch cake pans. Line the bottoms with parchment paper circles. Set aside.

1) In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together.

2) Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the cocoa and cook until fragrant, about a minute. 

3) Off the heat, whisk in the coffee, buttermilk, and sugars until dissolved. 

4) Whisk in the eggs and vanilla, then slowly whisk in the flour mixture. 

5) Divide the batter evenly between the prepared cake pans and smooth with a spatula. ( I used one large rectangular pan and cut it in half at the end)

6) Bake until a toothpick inserted into the centers comes out clean, about 30-35 minutes, rotating the cake pans halfway through baking. 

7) Cool the cakes in the pans for 15 minutes, then invert onto a wire rack. Cool the cakes completely before frosting.


For the filling:

Cook the sugar, chocolate, half-and-half, milk, cornstarch, and salt in a large saucepan over medium heat, whisking constantly, until the chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth, shiny and thickened. 

Off the heat, stir in the vanilla. Transfer the pudding to a large bowl and refrigerate, with plastic wrap pressed flush against its surface, until cold and set, at least 4 hours or up to 24 hours.

Assemble the cake:

Using a large serrated knife, slice each cake into 2 even layers. (Since I cut 2 pieces of this rectangular, I cut half of it as well)

After refrigerating the pudding, it thickens and turns into this perfect creamy frosting! <3

You then crumble one cake layer into medium crumbs and set aside. Place one cake layer on a cake plate or cardboard round. Spread 1 cup of the pudding over the cake layer and top with another layer. (In total you should’ve had 2 crumbled cakes and 2 whole cake layers

)

Repeat with 1 cup more pudding and the last cake layer. Spread the remaining pudding evenly over the top and sides of the cake.The whole construction might look a bit jiggly at this point but after you press the crumbs all around it will get more stable, especially after some refrigeration time. Sprinkle the cake crumbs evenly over the top and sides of the cake, pressing lightly to adhere the crumbs.

The cake can be made a day ahead and kept under a cake dome in the refrigerator.

Hmm a decadent piece of blackout chocolate cake finally!

Decadent Chocolate cake

Tried another awesome recipe from FoodBuzz’s:The Tolerant Vegan, Nikki.

It’s another friend’s birthday today, a great opportunity to try a new recipe. I’ve made a couple of vegan and non-vegan chocolate cakes before but never incorporated coffee into it. Quite excited about this one, I could smell the aroma of the ingredients mixing~

So, here are the ingredients.

Cake

  •  3 cups all-purpose flour
  •  2 cups refined sugar
  • 3/4 cup of cocoa powder
  • 2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 tsp sea salt
  • 3/4 cup of vegetable oil
  • 1.5 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 teaspoon distilled white vinegar
  • 1 cup brewed coffee
  • 1 cup water

Chocolate Melty Frosting

  • 1/2 cup of margarine (or earth balance) room temperature
  • 2/3 cup of cocoa powder
  • 3 cups powder sugar
  • 1/3 cup vanilla soymilk (or almond)
  • 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 cup of chocolate chips (optional)

1) Preheat oven to 350ºC (Brew coffee while getting ingredients ready)

Mix flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda and sea salt together.

2) Mix all the dry ingredients thoroughly.

3) Next, combine the oil, vanilla extract, vinegar, water and coffee.

Look at the colors!

Mix it up!

4) Time to combine the flour mix with the wet ingredients.

5) Stir to smooth

Damn, so chocolatey!

Stir in previously greased and floured pan.

Baked for 20 minutes approximately. The recipe called from between 30-40 minutes but since I was using a large rectangular pan, cake was ready faster.

6) It’s frosting time! Combine the powder sugar, cocoa, vanilla and margarine.

7) Added chocolate chips at then end and mixed them up.

8) Time to dress this chocolate cake with chocolate frost. Start with the middle.

Had some manjar blanco (dulce de leche), a caramel sauce laying around so spread it on the other half. If you’re looking to make a pure vegan cake, don’t use this sauce, it;s made with milk. (Nevertheless, cake still tastes amazing without it!) 

Chocolate madness!

Red Velvet Cake

Original recipe adapted from: Food Buzz’s The Tolerant Vegan

I’ve developed this obsession for red velvet cake recently. It has such a seductive name and color overall. So I was determined to make one, just needed to find the perfect occasion for it (otherwise I can easily finish it all by myself!)

So I found the recipe, you know what is even MORE awesome? The fact it’s vegan! I’m still in the flirting stage of going completely vegan. Started last summer from one day to another…which was probably not the best decision I’ve ever made. It was too much for my body to handle and well, due to lack of organization and meal planning, I became ill and lacked quite a few nutrients but that was my fault for jumping in too fast :P.

Nevertheless, I like to try as much vegetarian/vegan recipes as possible. The cake is vegan while the frosting isn’t (I used philadelphia cream cheese instead of a vegan version).

So here are the ingredients:

Cake ingredients

- 2 1/2 cups of all purpose flour

- 2 cups vegan refined sugar

- 1 1/2 tbsp cocoa (added a bit more then required, I have a weakeness for cocoa!)

- 1 tsp refined sea salt

- 1 tsp baking soda

- 2/3 cups oil

- 2 cups nondiary milk (I used 1 cup of soymilk and 1 cup of vanilla almond)

- 1 tbsp distilled white vinegar

- 1 tsp vanilla

- 2 tbsp food coloring liquid

Frosting Ingredients

- 1 pack of Philadelphia reduced fat cream cheese (For vegan option: You can substitute with Toffuti cream cheese, you wouldn’t notice the difference!)

- 1 cup of margarine 

- 1 tsp vanilla

- 6 cups of confectioner’s sugar (could’ve used 5, it was very sweet)

Step 1: Preheat oven to 350ºC

For the cake: 

Combine the flour, refined sugar, cocoa, salt and baking soda (whisk together)

Next, whisk together the oil, milk, white vinegar and vanilla.

 Add food coloring after.

This is how it should look, I was a bit paranoid at first because it was far too bright but the recipe online said that’s how it’s supposed to be. Because once cake is baked, color turns into a much darker red. (And she was right!)

Now combine the wet ingredients with the dry one and whisk them together for approximately 2 minutes until you get a smooth texture.

Beautiful bright red color <3

Pour batter into pan (You could use two circular pans to join them at the end but I didn’t have two so I used a large rectangular one instead)

Bake cake for 30-40 minutes. Check it once it hits 30 minutes and stick a toothpick in to see if it’s fully done. If it comes out clean, then it’s good to go!

Put cake on top of a wire rack to let it cool.

Now for the frosting…the OH SO HEAVENLY SERIOUSLY ADDICTED FROSTING!

Have the cream cheese and butter should be at room temperature. Mix them all, pour in the confectioner sugar and beat until combined and smooth.

Results: DELICIOUS TOPPING FOR YOUR LOVELY CAKE!

Had a lot left, so just used it for cupcakes toppings and such.

Now back to the cake. After cake cools ( I waited for almost an hour, so it will be solid enough to work with without destroying it…although I had a little accident but still managed to put it together)

Start frosting the cake with buttercream cheese :)

Looked like a big ball of snow at the end haha.

Well, Voilá! Mt very first Red Velvet Cake.

And certainly won’t be my last :)

Key Lime Meringue Pie

KEY LIME MERINGUE PIE

Mixing cookie crumbs with melted butter to form crust.

Pressed crust, ready to bake (10 min to get it hard and crunchy)

Making the meringue (4 eggs whites)

From clear, to bubbly to foamy and snowlike :)

Pour meringue on top of key lime mix (Left side: Can of condensed milk + 2 eggs yolks + 1/3 cup of freshly squeezed key lime juice)

After spreading it evenly across the pie, bake meringue until brown (about 10 minutes).

Serving to friends the next day.

Used two eggs instead of four because there was one guest with allergies, as a result (which I just learned now) the lime filling didn’t double as it was suppose to.

At the end he still couldn’t eat it :(. Vegan recipe next time for sure!