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Vegan MOFO 2019: Birthday Boy!

August 16, 2019

Thursday

Yesterday I had to go into work so I made a wrap using the old okra peanut stew/casserole, tofu, and some vegan cheese. It was actually surprisingly good. I didn’t take a photo because I was hungry, and it wasn’t the most stellar looking food. I also ate some ground cherries and blackberries as a snack. As for Wolfie? He tried out the new beet berry jam. I can’t fully tell if it was a hit or not seeing how much made it to his face lol

When I got home I was a little rushed to put together a dinner, but I was able to whip up the Tomatillo and Chickpea Curry I have posted on the site. I did have to make some subs, like I didn’t have green beans or coconut milk. But I added some tahini to make up for the missing fats, and I really liked that addition. I was also super lucky to have those small potatoes from earlier, so it sped up the cooking process by not having to chop anything else other than the tomatillos.

Friday

Today is Jon’s birthday so I let him choose what to have for dinner. We went for pizza, and I normally like to make my own dough but I bought the Wegman’s brand instead. I sautéed the onions from the farm, trying to caramalize them along with a green bell pepper, and a red italia pepper. I also put slices of the big cherry tomatoes on top. We have been craving a pizza for awhile, so it was a nice treat.

And even though it didn’t use anything from the farm, we did make a cookie and cream birthday cake. We used a recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, doubled the batter, but used only one frosting recipe. Pretty much you use oreos in the batter and icing. It is always a family favorite. Wolfie helped mix up the batter, and was asking for cake ALL DAY. Oof. It was always pretty tasty, but I might of overbaked it a little. I also was not impressed by Wegman’s new vegan butter, the icing was runnier than normal, making it hard to frost, and had to chilling the fridge for a little before applying more.

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My Vegan Restaurant: Vegan Treats

October 10, 2018

Vegan Treats

1444 Linden St, Bethlehem, PA 18018
website | facebook | flickr | instagram | twitter

I mentioned briefly before that I kind-of went MIA from the blog because I started to work for Aldi’s…. then I stopped working there. It wasn’t enough pay and we were getting sick for long periods of time too often. But any employee from Aldi’s needs to go to a welcome day for their region, and the meant a 2 1/2 hour drive for me. This was REALLY annoying, but kind-of nice because it meant I got compensated $80 for drive, but I was also told the wrong time, and had to wait an hour before the welcome day. *sigh*

But I figured if I was going to make long drive up, I would go out of my way to visit Vegan Treats, only a 15 minute drive from the Aldi’s headquarters, but apparently added like an extra 45 minutes to my drive home (how?! and why?!) You might of heard or seem Vegan Treats before, they are one of the first successful vegan bakeries. They provide vegan treats for a lot of different coffee shops and restaurants, even delivering foods to places in Philadelphia! Heck we even considered having them bake our wedding cake. If you haven’t been to Philly, but go to a lot of vegan fests, you might of seen a long line for their shop to get some baked goods. Or perhaps you have seen their very popular spooky chocolate sets.

What are the chances you will be making a trip to Bethlehem? Maybe slim. It is the seventh largest city in Pennsylvania, and it placed 88th on a list of “100 Places to Live” by Money. I vaguely remember the area when visiting Lehigh University for my older sister. It is a cute older town, that I bet looks beautiful during the fall. Luckily, Vegan Treats is not in an old part of town, where parking can be a pain. I was able to find a spot, no problem. They are located on a corner, so you may see the sign on one street, but the entrance will be around the corner.

Their set up isn’t about setting up a hip calming dining experience as say Papa Ganache, but they remind me more of the older styled bakeries (er… at least in the states) where you grab your desserts and go. There are some punk rockabilly decor, and an open kitchen so you can see the hustle and bustle of the kitchen. If you can’t make it, you might be able to find them (as stated before) at various shops in the Eastern Pennsylvania area. They USE to (I think) list all the locations that they provide baked goods for on their site, but they stopped.

So enough TALK! What the heck did we eat?! Well, I DIDN’T eat those beautiful unicorns. I wanted to get a confetti cake, but they only sold them in vanilla flavor and my husband wouldn’t of been down with that. Nor I for the most part. But I did get their salted caramel soft serve. I ate it mostly in the store because driving with ice cream is a pretty bad idea. lol. Fun fact, I was actually listening the history of ice cream by Stuff You Missed in History Class on the way up, so I was REALLY craving that stuff! If you are visiting this place, PLEASE GET THE ICE CREAM! It is glorious!

On the way home I got stuck in rush hour traffic, and there was a lot of hitting the brakes harder than normal going on. Sooo my cheese cake got a little damage making it not so photo-worthy. Plus the cannoli got it’s photo taken pretty late at night, so whoops on my blogging responsibilities. lol. Sadly, since this I I went, several months ago, like a quarter of a year ago, I can’t FULLY remember the flavor. It was cheesecake, it was blueberry, and it was AWESOME! I vaguely remember there being a little white chocolate decor on top, which was yummy as well. My cheesecake loving husband deemed it yummy and would eat it again.

As for the cannoli… hmmm. I got it knowing that it probably wouldn’t meet my expectations. It is hard enough to find a good non-vegan cannoli, what are the chances I find a good one veganized? It tasted pretty good, the shell was crunchy and clearly filled that day. The filling tasted like any other filling that I find so-so. It was still a nice treat, since I haven’t had any in years. But I wish there was a little bit more of that complex cheesy-nutty flavor that you would find in mascarpone cheese.

Aside from the mild cannoli flop, I love this place. I love their cookies and cream cake, which I would eat at The Last Drop (not sure if they still use Vegan Treats as a supplier) and I oogled all the treats at Govindas (again not sure if they still use Vegan Treats) They also travel pretty far for Vegfests. Heck they traveled all the way to DC! But it is still worth making a trip out to their brick and mortar store, you skip the lines, get tons of options, you can buy store merch, and even get some soft serve ice cream.

Posted by in Food Review, Reviews, Tour Pennsylvania, Traveling, Vegan Pitstop Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

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VGNMOFO 2018: American Cakes: Coca Cola Cake

September 6, 2018

Soda and cake is a match made in heaven. Perhaps you were on a diet, and used it in a recipe with diet soda to cut down on calories from sugar? Maybe you were in college and only had soda instead of eggs on hand? Or we vegans know from PETA– you can use a can of soda in your cake instead of eggs. Now, YouTube is filled with “vegan cake mix hacks” videos but this drink is fairly old.

Nope- before cola and cake meant a drunk college girl is trying to make a cake with her new vegan phase it was known for two words. Church and the South. Yes, any respectable Southern woman would make a coke cake for their cake walks and Sunday socials (or whatever people make cakes for church functions.) Perhaps it is because Coca Cola is called Southern Champagne, or that the company is a heavy part of Atlanta’s identity.

Now you don’t have to use Coca Cola. You can use Pepsi, or perhaps any other cola out there. There are many “boutique” brands that make colas, at least in the United States. I strong recommend two things before buying. 1) Buy what you know you will drink. If you aren’t much of a soda fan, look around for a place you can buy one bottle. Doesn’t do you any good if you don’t want to drink the remaining 5 bottles that come in a six pack. 2) Avoid sugar-free versions. I made mine with diet store brand cola, and you could taste a hint of aspertaine in the cake. I am sure you would be able to taste the stevia in Zevia brand cola. But hey, go ahead and try it out. Why not?!

What are some fancy pants brands out there? Well, I always find that store-brands work just fine. But some organic and vegan options are Blue Sky, Jones, Maine Root, Boylan and Fentimens. And remember go nuts! Play around with sodas you find. Wanna try it with Birch Beer? Sounds good to me. Maybe Spruce? Or Sarsaparilla?! Maybe with that Chai Cola!? I don’t know, I don’t have time to make and EAT all this cake. But they all sound yummy to me.

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American Cakes: Election Cake

November 6, 2017

I did a lot of debating if I should save this recipe till next Vegan MOFO or not. I do want to continue my Vegan MOFO theme of American Cake Off for 2018, but this one I wanted to post this year. Why? THERE ARE STILL ELECTIONS GOING ON IN THE UNITED STATES!

Some of these elections are big deals. In New Jersey we are voting for a new governor (thank god), state legislator, and freeholder. And in my case, I have the questions to vote on, and people who are running locally for the board of education. This election is a pretty big deal as it can get more democrats into the senate, possibly getting the majority.

Part of the reason why there isn’t much coverage about the election is because it really depends on where you live. I am voting for some stuff that no one else is voting on outside of my town. There are lots of important mayor elections, and not every state even has an election going on.

So let’s talk about this election cake! I first read about it in American Cakes, but there isn’t a recipe. Perhaps it is because most people steer away from fruit cakes, or because the author didn’t find it unique enough compared to other recipes? Not sure. But I was very excited about the idea.

Back before women could vote- ladies would slave away in the kitchen baking cakes. They would use this as a way to encourage men to go out and vote. And boy did the original recipes feed many men. An original recipe called for thirty quarts flour, ten pounds butter, fourteen pounds sugar, twelve pounds raisins, and my favorites one pint wine and one quart brandy. This might make your jaw drop but this was intended to feed MANY people. 

For the 2016 presidential election OWL Bakery decided to start a campaign calls #MakeAmericaCakeAgain. The bakery posted a recipe on Google Docs for anyone to make, but sold the cake in their stores. Proceeds went to League of Women Voters, with many other bakeries across the USA contributing. There is already a vegan version of the cake out there by Yum Universe. But I don’t know about it, it is gluten free but uses bourbon to soak the fruit. Then she has the audacity to recommend tequila or gin to soak the fruit to make it 100% gluten free?! 1) not all gin are gluten free, and 2) what about wine based spirits?

The other problem with the OWL and Yum Universe recipes is that the cake needs the starter to go overnight. That is a lot of time. But I found a recipe from Food52 that only has your starter go for 3 hours. That is a lot more manageable, and the recipe looks a lot less scary in comparison. 

This recipe isn’t perfect. I wish I tried using only oil in the recipe, but I had a lot of little bits of shortening and an almost empty butter container in the fridge, so I used a mix of the three. I also didn’t have sherry wine or brandy, so I used amaretto and marsala. You can use whatever you want, but I recommend something sweet. So if you aren’t using booze, maybe a juice, kombucha, sweetened tea, whatever. Think about what flavors will go with figs, raisins, and the spices.

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Vegan MOFO 2017: The Cowboy Cake

October 19, 2017

Rations, rations, rations. That is what motivates people to cut out eggs and dairy from their cakes. So I have yet another cake to share that was already vegan. Naturally I made some modifications, but let’s start with the history.

Many kids in America has played The Oregon Trail. I have not. But if you haven’t played it, the premise was pretty easy. It was a computer game where you traveled across the United States on the Oregon Trail to get to the west. On the REAL Oregon trail, you probably would of made this cake. Or if you were traveling anywhere really, whether you were a cowboy or relocating. Most everything in this recipe is shelf stable, making it great for most pioneers.

The recipe may look familiar with other cakes- boiled raisin cake, war cake, depression cake, or my favorite milkless eggless butterless cake (thanks wikipedia) What makes this version pretty awesome is that you don’t dirty up too many dishes. Unlike the Wacky Cake, which tries to only use one pan, this one really isn’t mess when mixing the batter. Sure you will have to dirty up another small pot, and something to drain the raisins, but overall it is a pretty easy clean up

Now I could of just made the recipe line by line, but I thought this could use some jazzing up. First I stuck with raisins, but you can easily swap out any other dried fruit. The recipe even suggests it. Just chop up any large fruit, and just follow the recipe. 

But I thought I would use a little booze in the recipe. I thought and thought about what kind- and finally settled on a gose beer (pronounced go-suh). A Gose is a sour beer originating in Germany. It is spiced with coriander, and is known to be salty. It gets it’s name since it originally was brewed in the town Goslar. The style almost disappeared in obscurity, but it has recently become really popular since the rise of sour beers.

Can’t find a gose beer? Any sour beer will work just fine. If you don’t know a lot about beer, just ask someone who is working at the liquor store or look for any bottle with sour, lambic, or wild ale. If you choose just a sour beer (or any type of sour juice) remember to add a pinch of salt, gose beers are naturally salty.

I used Sixpoint Jammer. It is a gose that is vegan and American, so I like that. I was lucky enough to buy the can individually from Total Wines and More, but you can also see if you can order it online. But remember, this isn’t the ONLY vegan gose out there. There are tons, and it might even be from the country you live in.

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Posted by in Beer, Recipe, Vegan Mofo, Vegan Mofo 2017 Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

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Vegan MOFO 2017: The Wacky Cake

October 1, 2017

Welcome to Vegan MOFO 2017! Yey! This year I’ve got this! lol nope, I don’t. I am crazy to think I can balance a baby and a blog post each day. But I love Vegan MOFO, so whatever. I’m going to try and make it work.

This year I decided to try and do a theme. Way back in March I wanted to try and bake cakes from my cookbook American Cakes. I thought I would do a cake a month or so… and I got only one done. In my defense I tried several different cakes, but haven’t found the perfect veganized version. Since it has taken me so long, I decided to make it be my theme for Vegan MOFO- Historical Vegnaized American Cakes! If you want to read more about my mission, check out the original post.

KIND-OF working with the weekly themes, this week is Changing Vegan Perceptions. So I thought I would pick recipes that are vegan to begin with or near vegan. Yes, vegan baking is historical. Who knew? There are actually quite a few recipes that needed little to no modifications in the book- enter the Wacky Cake.

There are lots of stories surrounding this cake. Some people say it came about from the depression since butter and eggs were so readily available. But it seems more likely it would of been made during World War II because of rations. But author Anne Byrn focuses on the popularity of this cake as an “emergency dessert.” 

This concept cracks me up, but is a very real social requirement of the 50s. You must be prepared to feed a guest at any moment! My boss talks about how guests would show up, and there was routine that the dinner portion would shave down just a little for everyone to make up for the extra table setting. Then his Mom would cook up some potatoes to make up for plate space. Since this recipe didn’t have any perishable items, it made it easy to whip up. Heck I made the whole cake and topping in one nap time (aka less than an hour)

The original recipe is suppose to be made in just the cake pan. You sift the flour, create little holes in the flour, and fill them with the liquids. Mix all together and bake. I found this to be a pain in the butt, and it didn’t mix all the way. So I just mixed it all together in my kitchen-aid mixer and got much better results.

At first I felt a little odd making this cake without making any modifications, but after a quick search- I found that this cake is ALL OVER THE PLACE. Heck, even when reading the recipe I thought “this looks like the recipe my Mother in Law made..” Yup- it was. She used the recipe from Mayim Bialik’s cookbook, she even makes it on Rachael Ray. So I felt a lot less weird about posting this recipe. I did try and keep the caramel topping in the book. I personally love it. I even tried to make it a little more “shelf stable” by using coconut oil instead of margarine. But you can use whatever frosting you want- or just some powder sugar.

And if you are wondering why it took me so long to post a recipe that I didn’t really alter? Well, it is because I kept not getting very good photos. First time making it, I didn’t bother with photos, for whatever the reason. Then the second time I made it for a party and someone cut tiny little squares and they just weren’t very photogenic. Then I made it again, which annoyed my husband (this isn’t his favorite cake) and I kind-of over cooked the caramel. *sigh* but I HAD to get the photos this time. So there you have it. Three cakes in total. Yikes.

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Baking through American Cakes

March 26, 2017

I love cake! It was always my favorite dessert as a kid- next to ice cream (for obvious reasons?). I never quite could relate to friends who thought cake was lame. I always had homemade cakes for my birthday. My favorite part was the actual cake part, not the frosting. Having a good frosting is especially important, and something I always remember is my friends having really gross cakes and frosting (probably because they would get cheap sheet cakes with Crisco frosting. Yuck.). 

I also remember admiring The Cake Bible. Baking seemed fun and exciting. But as I got older, it seemed that the American baked goods scene was boring. It is dominated with desserts that are made to taste like other things (like french toast covered in crushed sugary cereals, PB&J flavored everything, birthday cake flavored cookies, etc) or cakes that look like other objects. Nothing compared to the creativity with edible ingredients found in The Cake Bible (hello meringue swans on a blueberry jam pond)

Then Jon and I started to watch The Great British Bake Off. I fell back in love. I loved learning about all the different cakes, pastries, and desserts. Even the savory dishes were fun, mostly when they didn’t involve meat. It got me wondering, what about America? Do we have distinctive desserts?

I heard about American Cake from the podcast Stuff You Missed in History Class. I knew I needed that book. It combined so many things I loved, history and cakes. I also knew these cakes wouldn’t be vegan, so I would have to alter the recipes.

I originally was going to make this into a project for Vegan MOFO, but decided to post as I go along in the book. I won’t be making every single cake in the book. Some I am honestly not sure how to make vegan, or rather not sure how similar it would end up being to the original. For example there is an early colonial cheesecake that uses ricotta cheese. Do I bother trying to recreate that? Also there are three or four different pound cakes. Should I even bother? And don’t even get me started with angel food cake.

So follow me in my journey. I will either post about my adventures trying to make the cakes, and if possible, I will share my recipe. I naturally started with the first cake recipe, and one of my favorite types of cake- Gingerbread Cake. Hopefully, I will post it soon.

Recipes:

Applesauce Cake
Blackstrap Spiced Cake
Chocolate Sauerkraut Cake
Cowboy Cake
Election Cake
The Wacky Cake

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We are Alexa and Jennifer, two girls who like cute things, comics, food, and animals. This blog is their journey in clothing, food, and animal rights. read more over here


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