We enjoyed this cake with a store-bought vegan whipped topping, but I am sure that vanilla ice cream would be just as good. I tend to choose full-fat whipped toppings on the rare occasion when I buy commercial ones – they’re not quite as artificial-tasting as the lighter versions. My favorite right now is GoGreen Vispi, an oat-based product that is available at least in Finland and Sweden.

The Wet:

• 2 dl plain soy yoghurt
• 1 large lime, juiced and zested (1/2 dl juice, 1 tablespoon zest)
• 1/2 dl canola oil

The Dry:

• 2 dl almonds, ground into 3 dl almond meal
• 1 dl white whole wheat flour
• 1/2 dl gram (chick pea flour)
• 2 dl sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
• pinch of salt

The Topping:

• 1 dl slivered almonds
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon soy milk
• pinch of salt

To Serve:

• vegan whipped topping (we had GoGreen Vispi)
• 1/2 vanilla bean

The batter was as straightforwards as can be – I mixed the wet and the dry separately and then combined, stirring with a fork. I also stirred the topping ingredients gently together (I didn’t want to mash the slivers), then poured the batter in the baking pan and sprinkled with the topping. For an even coating, you might want to double the amount of topping.

Then I baked the cake for 25 minutes in 200 degrees Celsius, until the edges were nicely browned and a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake came out with just a few crumbs. I let the cake cool to room temperature, and served with vanilla whipped cream. For the cream, I just scraped the seeds from half a vanilla bean with the tip of a sharp knife, and added that to the commercial vegan whipping cream as I was whipping it.

The cherries are completely underrepresented in the picture – there were actually just as many berries as there were macadamias. The batter is only slightly adapted from the baking genius Celine’s butterscotch bars, and I can see how any combination of add-ins would work very nicely in this recipe. These squares are very sweet, but the sour cherries balance that up quite nicely. As usual, I prefer to enjoy these warm, whereas Heikki likes his straight out of the fridge.

The Ingredients (adapted from this recipe):

• 2 and 1/2 dl whole cane sugar (rapadura)
• 1 dl liquid margarine
• 3/4 dl soy yoghurt
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 dl whole spelt flour
• 1 dl plus 1 tablespoon wheat flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 dl macadamia nuts, coarsely chopped
• 1 dl dried cherries

First I preheated the oven to 175 degrees Celsius and sprayed a 23 X 12 cm baking dish with olive oil (because I’m lazy, brushing with margarine would be even better).

I placed the sugar and the margarine in a small cooking pan and heated them up on low heat for about 5 minutes, stirring every now and then, until the sugar had almost melted.

I let the mixture cool down and meanwhile, chopped the macadamias, and mixed the dry ingredients (spelt flour through salt) together. Then I added the soy yoghurt and the vanilla extract to the sugar mixture, stirred until combined, and poured into the dry ingredients. I added the nuts and the cherries in the batter, spread it in the baking dish, and baked for about 25 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center tested clean.

It’s best to let the squares cool in the pan completely before cutting, or they will most likely fall apart. I know.

Breading with soy yoghurt was very easy and quite fool proof, and resulted in a lovely crispy topping with a hint of yoghurty sourness. The baked version was definitely lighter, and baking also resulted in a more developed, round flavor.

The Marinade:

• 1 dl red wine
• 1/2 dl soy sauce
• 5 cloves garlic, pressed
• 2 teaspoons agave syrup
• 1 teaspoon pink peppercorns, ground
• 1 teaspoon green peppercorns, ground
• 1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns, ground

I first pressed my 500 gram block of tofu for one hour – sliced it 1 cm thick, wrapped in cheesecloth, arranged as a uniformly thick layer, and placed a cutting board and a pile of plates on top. Then I just mixed all the marinade ingredients and placed in an airtight container along with the tofu. I flipped the tofu slices and shook the container every once in a while to ensure even absorption of the marinade.

As we found out, the marinating time can be anything between 2 hours and two days.

The Breading for Fried Tofu:

• 1 dl dry bread crumbs
• salt and black pepper to taste
• 3/4 dl plain soy yoghurt
• a pinch of salt and a pinch of sugar

I mixed the bread crumbs and the salt and pepper on one plate and the soy yoghurt and the salt and sugar on another. Then I patted the marinated tofu slices dry with some kitchen towels and dipped them first in the yoghurt dish, then rolled them carefully in the bread crumbs.

Then Heikki shallow fried the tofu slices in canola oil until nicely browned on both sides.

We enjoyed our breaded tofu with lemon wedges and a side of stir-fried morning glory – so good!

Most tandoori sauces seem to have red food coloring, and that’s not something I wanted to include in this recipe. I added a chopped beet to get a little bit of that red tandoori color, but my endeavor wasn’t a complete success: the result was unevenly colored, partly bright fuchsia, partly yellowish. Now that I think of it, I could have added the beets in when I was pre-cooking the rice, and the color would’ve most likely come out prettier! Another option would’ve been to add some beet juice in the sauce, so that the tofu would’ve had a pink color as well.

This recipe makes a lot of food, enough for about 4 hungry or 6 not quite as hungry eaters. I like to make a larger batch of food once I heat up the oven, so there’s leftovers for the days to come.

The Tandoori Sauce (adapted from this recipe):

• 5 garlic cloves
• 5 cm peeled ginger
• 3 shallots (or 1 regular onion)
• 1 small red chili with seeds
• 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 2 tablespoons muscovado sugar
• 1 and 1/2 dl plain soy yogurt
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons ground coriander
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoons paprika powder
• 1 teaspoon each: ground cumin and turmeric
• 1/2 teaspoon each: cinnamon and freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon each: freshly grated nutmeg, ground cardamom, and ground clove

Also Used:

• 500 g firm tofu, pressed and cubed
• 2 potatoes, scrubbed and cubed
• 1 beet, peeled and finely cubed
• 4 dl brown basmati rice
• 1 bay leaf
• water to cook rice in
• 4 dl vegetable stock

Three and a half hours before we planned to have dinner we started the preparations. I blended all the tandoori sauce ingredients with our immersion blender until smooth. Heikki pressed and cubed the tofu, and I mixed it with the sauce and put it in the fridge to marinate for two hours (overnight would be even better). I rinsed the rice at this point and let it soak in fresh water for two hours as well.

An hour and a half before dinner time I set the oven to 175 degrees Celsius. Then I rinsed the rice, cooked it in ample water with the bay leaf for about 20 minutes, and drained it.  While the rice was cooking, I cubed the potatoes and the beet. When everything was prepped, I just mixed it all together in a large baking dish – tofu with the tandoori sauce, pre-cooked rice, potatoes, beets, and the veggie stock. Now, I covered the dish with a lid, and baked it for one hour.

This spread thickens a bit in the fridge, and is wonderful with the Finnish hapankorppu - very thin and very sour rye bread that has been dried. For extra smooth results, the almonds could be soaked overnight, or even cooked in a little bit of water.

• 100 g almonds, lightly toasted
• 1 medium carrot, sliced
• 1 big clove garlic, sliced
• 3-4 tablespoons plain soy yoghurt
• 4 large sage leaves
• 1/2 teaspoon salt, or more to taste

I started by toasting the almonds until they were just a little brown, and set them aside to cool. Then I placed the carrot slices and the garlic in a small cooking pot, added just enough water to cover them, and cooked until the carrots were very soft. Then I placed the carrots and the garlic in a fine sieve and rinsed them with cold water to cool them down a little bit.

Now, I placed the carrots and the garlic, almonds, sage leaves, salt, and 3 tablespoons of soy yoghurt in our mini food processor, and processed them for about 5 minutes. I checked the spread and decided it needed a bit more soy yoghurt, so I added one tablespoon more of it, and continued processing until the spread was very very smooth and light orange in color. It might need even more soy yoghurt if the texture is still grainy at this point.

This is how my almonds looked after toasting.