Our poor dear blog has been ignored for too long, but here’s a little recipe to make things right. It’s all about a dried sourdough starter I bought at an organic grocery in Tallin by a German company called Lecker’s. I thought it sounded like a lovely product and wanted to give it a try, [...]
I really love it when cooking inspiration hits me when I’m reading someone else’s recipes, and often it’s even more inspirational when they’re not vegan – there’s more of a challenge in making the non-vegan things my own. The making of this cake was inspired by a post on the New York Times blog Bitten [...]
These can well be my new favorite sweet treat – the batter itself bakes into a fudgy center and caramelized edges, and the occasional bite into super-dark chocolate balances out the sugary experience.
I use white whole wheat flour all the time now that it’s finally available here, and it works very nicely in heavier baked [...]
We’ve been having a little bit of an unintentional summer vacation from blogging – busy times but in a totally good way: we’ve been spending a lot of time in summer cottages and not that much time in the kitchen, and that’s about to continue for a while. Anyhow, this is a simple recipe that [...]
We really loved these spicy treats: they are simple to make and packed with flavor. Somehow the addition of chili in sweet things makes them more satisfying, and a smaller bite is needed to satisfy my sweet tooth – the advantage being that one batch lasts longer. And these treats actually even improved in the [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged almonds, cayenne, chocolate, coconut, dessert, hazelnuts, pecans, recipe, snack, vegan, vegetarian, walnuts
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Finnish rye bread is dense and dark and sour, and as biased as I am, I must say it’s easily my favorite bread in the whole world. I always used to think that it’s hard to make, but as it turns out the process isn’t complicated at all – you just need to know what you’re aiming at. [...]
It’s been way too long since I’ve blogged about anything. I’ve been quite busy, but things are a lot less hectic now, and I can focus on important things, like making pickles and baking bread. I had always thought caraway as a spice to use with rye sourdough bread, but this bread demonstrated me how [...]
By Heikki
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged bread, caraway, easy, muscovado, spelt, spelt flour, wheat bran, wheat flour, whole wheat, whole wheat flour, yeast
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The most typically Finnish pastry is pulla, a yeasted sweet bread that comes in various shapes: small round buns, swirly cinnamon rolls, and braided loaves and knots. The dough has plenty of cardamom in it and the rolls are often topped with slivered almonds or pearl sugar for some sweet crunch. The smell of cardamom [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged almond rolls, almonds, cinnamon rolls, dessert, recipe, sweet rolls, traditional, vegan, vegetarian, walnuts, yeast
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I baked these cookies for dessert over the last weekend when my dad and step mom came over for dinner. The whole idea of freshly baked cookies served with ice cream for dessert makes so much sense now that I can’t believe I haven’t though of this before. I made the dough the previous evening [...]
When our dinner involves heating up the oven I often bake an impromptu batch of cookies for dessert. These crumbly chocolatey cookies are a result of one such occasion, whipped up in no more than 15 minutes, thus being very good value for the time spent. Balsamic vinegar and muscovado sugar enhance the cocoa flavor [...]
There’s an Indian grocery around the corner where we solely shop for the best home-made samosas in Helsinki. Those little pies are so good that we sometimes buy a whole bunch of them to serve at family parties and such, usually exhausting their stock with a single purchase. And after having just a few bites [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged baked, curry, curry pies, lunch, pies, quinoa, recipe, red lentils, snack, vegan, vegetarian
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February 11, 2009 – 20:22
I purchased organic dried cherries and macadamias on a whim from the bulk bin of the local organic store, and only at the cashier did I realize how costly they were. I had tried to skimp as much as I could and only take enough for one baking project, and even as I resorted to [...]
Last week I got this idea of combining chocolate and red wine in baking, and doing so in the cookie form seemed like a good challenge. Since there’s not much liquid in a cookie dough, I decided to cook the wine into a syrup, and it worked wonderfully – the cookies went to the oven [...]
Happy new year everyone! We are back from the holidays, and it feels great to be baking and cooking and blogging from our little kitchen again.
Focaccia is one of my favorite homemade breads, mainly because I lack the patience of a true bread maker and it’s so simple! I used to always make it with [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged balsamic vinegar, bread, focaccia, gluten flour, olive, olive oil, onion, recipe, spelt flour, vegan, vegetarian
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December 16, 2008 – 21:13
I enjoy experimenting with different sweeteners, and lately I’ve used a lot of whole cane sugar in baking. It has the most flavor of the options I have tried so far, but I am still waiting for the perfect moment to crack open that jar of black treacle! There is a definite liquorice undertone in [...]
I found a recipe for non-vegan cheesecake brownies through tastespotting, and it didn’t take me long to veganize it. I used my trusted brownie recipe and added a topping made with silken tofu, oat cream, and agave syrup, and the end result was really just deliciously decadent. The topping is more like a creamy custard [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged agave syrup, brownies, chocolate, custard, dessert, oat cream, recipe, silken tofu, soy yogurt, vanilla custard, vegan, vegetarian
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November 25, 2008 – 21:59
Walnuts, vanilla and raw brown sugar melted into nice caramel flavor in these cookies. These nutty treats are rather soft and a little crisp on the bottom right after baking, perfect with a cup of tea and snow falling silently outside our window. Helsinki has tons of snow right now, but the weather forecasts say [...]
November 13, 2008 – 15:22
I can’t believe how quickly the first half of November went this year! I caught a cough, we were both busy with work, and suddenly I noticed it wasn’t October anymore… But I also love how time decides to jump ahead sometimes, as confusing as it is – it’s a good reminder of how little [...]
November 10, 2008 – 21:47
We’ve had a bit of an unintentional blogging break, but here’s a sweet treat to make things right again! Chocolate and apricot are such a classic combination, and the addition of cardamom in the mousse topping added that little extra something in these birthday cupcakes.
I baked these for the birthday party of a niece, and [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged apricot, cardamom, chocolate, chocolate mousse, cupcakes, dessert, easy, mousse, recipe, silken tofu, vegan, vegetarian
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Pocket pies are fun to make and eat, and a great way to use up a bunch of apples beyond their prime! To be honest, I’ve had my fair share of apples recently, but these pockets were quite irresistible nevertheless. The dough was lovely, and I’m already thinking about all the sweet and savory fillings [...]
I named these cookies after a band, but there’s also a whole history of trial and error behind the recipe. I have been making rosewater cookies for many weeks, using different flours: almond meal, spelt flour, whole wheat flour, and oat flour, among others. This last batch was definitely best of all I’ve baked so [...]
We spent a very relaxing weekend at the cottage with my little wonder of a godson and his parents. It was full of raking leaves and picking mushrooms, knitting on the porch in the autumn sun and watching the little guy play with the toys me and my brothers used to have as kids. Indescribably [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged apple, cardamom, chocolate, chocolate cake, dessert, easy, orange, recipe, snack, vegan, vegetarian
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September 22, 2008 – 21:15
The cracker madness doesn’t seem to come to an end, so I may as well post another recipe. These are the crunchiest, crispiest crackers I’ve managed to produce so far, and their secret ingredient is quite surprising: finely ground rolled oats! I added a few dried herbs for a new flavor, but the texture is [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged cayenne, crackers, easy, garlic, ground oats, herb crackers, nutritional yeast, recipe, rosemary, snack, thyme, vegan, vegetarian
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September 12, 2008 – 17:36
I’ve been seeing salty cracker recipes here and there and they have accumulatively fed my cracker cravings. This week I finally started to bake my own, and how yummy they are! Now I am completely hooked – the triangular shape is just perfect for scooping up baba ghannouj, tsatsiki, or hummus, and these are nice [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged Add new tag, cayenne, crackers, easy, garlic, lemon juice, mustard, nutritional yeast, recipe, snack, vegan, vegetarian
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September 2, 2008 – 21:07
This bread was extremely yummy and oh so easy to make! All my thanks go to Celine from have cake will travel, since I adapted this recipe from her Whole Wheat Germ Bread. We don’t have white whole wheat flour in Finland, so I just combined a little regular white flour with a larger amount [...]
We got a free bag of apples from the organic grocery nearby, and since the fall seems to be here for good, I decided to bake something cinnamony. This apple cake was so easy to make, came out perfectly moist, and had such a delightful fragrance, that the forthcoming winter doesn’t suddenly feel like such [...]
This is a moist and decadent chocolate cake that owes its wonderful texture to silken tofu and a large amount of chocolate. Not very cakey at all, Heikki described this cake as a blend of cake batter and chocolate frosting baked into one wonderful concoction. Only for those who love fudgy cakes and moist centers!
I [...]
We got to pick a few containers of fresh raspberries last Sunday, and I wanted to bake something pretty with them. I decided to use up our stock of hazelnuts for the crust, and whipped up a light mousse filling with soy yogurt and agar agar powder. Delicious and relatively easy to make, these were [...]
The fruit combo in this cake is very nice and summery – lemon zest adds a refined kick to the usual pairing of rhubarb and strawberries, and the cake layer is sweet with a hint of cinnamon. When I first baked this, my mom said that it tastes like it had eggs in it. And [...]
These thin caramelized oat biscuits are often the first baking project Finnish kids learn – they’re so easy to make and the results are delicious. The two tricks are to leave enough room around the dollops of batter before baking, since they spread out a lot, and not overbaking them, since they burn very quickly.
These [...]
This pie was very easy to make, and quite delicious as well. I found the original filling recipe through Eric at VeganGrub, and my only additions were a little bit of Grand Marnier, some salt to make the chocolate flavor shine, and a little bit more agave syrup than Eric used. Heikki thought that the [...]
We usually don’t eat sweet things in the morning, but we did have these muffins for breakfast with a little vegan margarine and they were wonderful. They’re not too sweet, and there’s a nice gentle ginger flavor hiding in the background. Our cherries came from a jar, since fresh ones aren’t yet available around here, [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged breakfast, cherry, cherry muffins, ginger, muffin, recipe, snack, spelt, spelt flour, vegan, vegetarian
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I wanted tosca cake and Heikki wanted cupcakes, and thus the tosca cupcakes were created. I seasoned the cake part with cardamom, and it came out quite light and moist in texture, contrasting nicely with the crunchy almond topping. The humble appearances of these cakes are deceiving, since they do taste divine!
I made this recipe [...]
This carrot cake is based on a trusted recipe from a friend’s cousin, a recipe that was veganized 10 years ago, and has been served to many party guests over these years. To make it more suitable for a weekday tv-night with friends, I cut the oil by more than a half, substituting a part [...]
I usually use at least some white flour in my bread doughs, and haven’t baked bread with just whole wheat before, so I was very pleasantly surprised at how wonderfully these carrot buns turned out. I didn’t add any regular wheat flour, but decided to mix in a little bit of gluten flour to add [...]
I had never tasted a brownie in my life before baking these, so I’m not completely qualified to assess how brownie-like they were. Well, I did adapt the recipe from an American blog Don’t Eat Off the Sidewalk and I’m sure that Katie knows what a brownie is. These were like moist and delicate pieces [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged brownie, cardamom, chilli, chocolate, cinnamon, marianne, mint, mint chocolate brownies, recipe, soy yogurt, spicy brownies, vegan, vegan brownies, vegetarian
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I wanted to make this dough into spritz cookies, but unfortunately my cookie press broke in the process and wouldn’t press cookies any more. So I made pinwheels instead!
These cookies are imbued with a sweet and mellow hazelnut flavor – I added a little bit of cocoa powder just for the color effect. The [...]
February 24, 2008 – 16:42
This recipe is a variation on my recipe for Olive Tomato Bread, I just made a few alterations to the ingredients. I love this bread – it’s very satisfying and packed with flavor. Spelt flour and walnuts gave the bread a very nice texture, and I developed a topping that really makes sunflower seeds stick [...]
February 19, 2008 – 13:13
This cake was soft and moist and full of sweet coconut flavor, beautifully counterbalanced by the tart raspberry sauce made with only two ingredients: frozen berries and agave syrup.
This cake was especially good right after baking, steeped in the raspberry sauce, but went well on its own with a cup of tea on the [...]
February 14, 2008 – 16:10
When I created the recipe for this mint chocolate cake, I thought it wouldn’t rise very much during baking, and I’d end up with a small amount of cake. Well, it did rise, I had to cut it in two layers, and we ended up with five mini-cakes instead of the two I’d planned to [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged cake, cashew, chocolate, dessert, mint, mint chocolate cake, mint chocolate frosting, recipe, soy yogurt, tofu, vegan, vegan mint chocolate cake, vegan mint chocolate frosting, vegetarian
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Today is the day of the Finnish national poet, Johan Ludvig Runeberg, and a great number of these little cakes are enjoyed all over the country. They were baked by Johan Ludvig’s wife Fredrika in the 19th century, and there’s a story that the poet enjoyed them with his morning Punsch. He probably wasn’t the [...]
We baked this pie Sunday evening, when neither of us felt like having real dinner. I often make savory pies that are based on a puréed tofu filling, but haven’t thought about walnuts in this context before. Their deep flavor paired perfectly with the sweetness of the fried onions and the tangy lemon juice.
The ingredients [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged garlic, lemon, onion, pie, quiche, recipe, savoury, sesame oil, tofu, tofu quiche, uncheese, vegan, vegetarian, walnut, walnut quiche
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I occasionally get serious apple cravings, but because of my allergies, I can’t have raw apples. That’s when I have to start baking, and these muffins definitely satisfied my apple tooth: they are both filled and topped with yummy apple cubes. Walnuts, cinnamon, and a hint of ginger added a wintery spiciness to these soft [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged apple, apple pie muffins, cinnamon, dessert, ginger, muffin, recipe, soy yogurt, spelt, spelt apple muffins, spelt flour, vegan, vegan apple muffins, vegetarian, walnut
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These muffins are filled with jam made of raspberries and blueberries, a combination known as the Queen’s jam in Finland, although we don’t have a queen. We do have a female president, but as conservative as it may seem, I don’t think that President’s muffins sound nearly as appetizing as Queen’s muffins do. These are [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged blueberry, dessert, filled, ground oats, muffin, raspberry, recipe, spelt, spelt flour, vegan, vegetarian, walnut
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This cake was our dessert on Christmas eve, along with a refreshing citrus fuit salad. The fragrance that came from the oven during baking was intoxicating, and the cake itself didn’t let us down; it was sweet and moist and delicious, with just enough spice and a decadent accent of cognac from the [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged cake, cardamom, christmas, cinnamon, date, dessert, plum, recipe, soy yogurt, vegan, vegetarian
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December 28, 2007 – 16:04
This was a Christmas gift recipe we developed to give out as presents. We wanted to make a cookie mix of our own, but also wanted to make sure that the receiver of the gift would have no need to add any non-vegan items in the recipe. We also wanted to be able to pack [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged cashew, chocolate, christmas, coconut milk, cookie, gift, recipe, spelt, spelt flour, vegan, vegetarian, walnut
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The fragrance of this moist cake comes mainly from Grand Marniér liqueur, and there are three citrus fruits involved in the recipe; lemons, oranges, and limes. We had a few slices of this cake with black Assam tea on a gloomy November afternoon, and it seems to be a pretty good antidepressant. This is an [...]
We made these pastries for a Christmas party we went to on Saturday, and everyone liked them. Filo (also fillo or phyllo) pastry is crispy and delicate, and the spinach-tofu filling was nice and spicy. An easier way out is to bake one big spanakopita in a baking dish, but triangles are better for parties.
Spanakopita [...]
By Heikki
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged chili, filo, leek, onion, recipe, savoury, smoked paprika, spinach, tofu, uncheese, vegan, vegetarian
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November 26, 2007 – 16:49
I baked these for breakfast on Saturday, after a night out, when Heikki was still sleeping. I messed up a few things, used wrong measuring cups and such, but the end result was great anyway. While the muffins were baking, I stared in the oven, thinking about how lucky I am to have someone to [...]
November 22, 2007 – 10:40
Cashews in the batter, creamy cashew frosting, topped with caramelized cashews: these cupcakes are a celebration of our favorite nut. We made these for Heikki’s dad on the Father’s day. These are cupcakes for fathers, not sons, and are probably more devoured by adults than kids. We’ve learnt that both Heikki’s nephew and my [...]
November 20, 2007 – 20:02
I created this bread recipe to test how high a dough can rise if the baker can control her impatience and let it sit for a while. I found out that with regular all-purpose wheat flour, the bread dough will triple its size in just over half an hour, and double in only 15 minutes. [...]
November 10, 2007 – 10:57
I haven’t baked bread for a long while, and I’ve never baked a two-colored bread. After baking, the colors weren’t as bright as I had hoped they would be, but the bread was tasty. Grated beets would maybe result in a brighter purple color, and spinach is probably greener than arugula.
This amount of dough makes [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged arugula, basil, bread, carrot, pesto, recipe, sesame seeds, spelt, spelt flour, vegan, vegetarian, yeast
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This is a nice warming cake I baked on Saturday, when it started snowing for the first time this winter.
The batter is sort of bread-like, I have never baked anything with both yeast and baking powder before. The inspiration came from the Pflaumenkuchen recipe at Vegalicious. My plums weren’t completely ripe, so I decided to [...]
This pie practically melts in the mouth, I haven’t baked anything near this good for a long while.
We use a lot of plain soy yogurt in cooking, but there is only one really good brand sold in Finland, called Alpro. Their organic plain yogurt is not sweetened and it is pretty thick and tangy, like [...]
This is a cake we made with Heikki for our friend Taina’s birthday party this weekend. It was a bit time consuming, and we actually made the raspberry mousse and baked the cake a day before, and just frosted and assembled the cake on Friday. Now that I think of it, an easier way out [...]
This is a light and fragrant, moist and flavorful coffee cake. Crispy sweet cashew topping and sour raspberries give character without making the cake too sweet or heavy. I might even call this a comfort cake.
Here’s what I used:
Dry:
5 dl wheat flour
0,6 dl granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
[...]
This not very sweet muffin recipe was inspired by Mocha Chip Muffins from Post Punk Kitchen. I decreased the amount of oil to one third and replaced a few things, and this is what I ended up using:
Dry things:
2,5 dl wheat flour
1,2 dl spelt flour
1 dl raw cane sugar
1/2 dl dark cocoa [...]
This is an adaptation of the Peach Upside-Down Cake from FatFree Vegan Kitchen. I didn’t use peaches, and didn’t bake it upside-down, but the batter recipe ended up pretty similar to Susan’s batter. I baked this in a pie dish, so it looks more like a pie than a cake, I think.
Here’s what I [...]
Here are a few pictures of cupcakes I’ve made recently. Recipes are from Vegan Cupcakes Take over the World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz, with minor modifications.
The first two I made last week for a friend, who celebrated her birthday and other nice things that have happened in her life lately. Here are the raspberry rum [...]
