Birthday Cakes

I celebrated a birthday almost a month ago. Does it come as a surprise that I make my own birthday cake every year? It shouldn't. That's just how it is. This year was no different. Except that this year's cake wasn't just chocolate (yes, I always make chocolate cake). I thought I'd try a new recipe from  Sweet Utopia by Sharon Valencik. It was the Ultimate Peanut Butter Cup Cake.

(S got me some awesome beer for my birthday...you can see them behind the cake)

I used a little whole wheat flour and mostly spelt, because that's all I had. As it turns out...the cake was quite crumbly and a little dry. A bit of a disappointment. I froze most of it in pieces and it actually tasted much better reheated with some ice cream on top (Nada Moo Java)! Very good, actually.

And here are the beautiful flowers my friend, Yuki, gave me:

I do love sunflowers :)

My favorite cake so far, though, would have to be Hannah Kaminsky's Decadent Almond Cake from her book, My Sweet Vegan. I've made this one a few times, and not just for MY birthday:

That one is absolutely amazing! I kind of wished I'd made that one this year.

Then there's my old chocolate cake with raspberry jam in the middle, and my own coffee frosting:

It's a good standby. Still love it. The recipe is here. You can easily veganize it by using Egg Replacer.

And there was the Simplest Rich Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Frosting from Sweet Utopia. You can see my post on it here.

I guess that's it for birthday cakes since blogging. No pictures before that. 

What's YOUR favorite birthday cake? Do you have to make it yourself?

Eat smart,

T.

Post Birthday Post

So yesterday was my birthday!  Ok, it wasn't really all that exciting...got in some good walking and a good workout session.  Made myself a cake and we went out to Houston's for lunch.  I got the veggie burger sans bun and sans cheese.  It's REALLY good!  And I got a side of wilted spinach sans oil and cheese....topped my burger with it.  Good stuff! Unfortunately, they don't offer soymilk for coffee or any vegan dessert, so I had to wait until I made my cake :)

It's the Simplest Rich Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Frosting from Sweet Utopia.  You can see my review of the book here. The cake was really good. I used whole wheat flour instead of all-purpose, and I cut down the oil to 1/3 cup instead of 1/2 cup.  I also used almond milk instead of soymilk.  It was a tad dry, but still very chocolatey and tasty!  I added some coffee to the frosting for a mocha flavor, since I always have some sort of coffee frosting on my birthday cake.  Didn't have raspberry jam to put in the middle this time, so I just used the frosting, which was barely enough!

After dinner, I opened up the fridge and found a birthday card under my cake, along with some birthday beer from S.  Thank you :)

Saturday's market: brown rice, shiitake mushrooms, zucchini, cucumbers, turnips, mustard greens, tomatoes, sprouts, arugula/mizuna mix, peaches, eggplants, jalapenos, okra, and sweet potatoes.

I thought I'd get in an order from Pangea as well, before work starts (in a week!), so I'd be here when UPS arrived.  Here are the goods:

(Primal Strips, Liz Lovely Cookies, Sweet and Sara mini marshmallows, Dr Cow cheese (incl. the new KALE flavor!), Teese (gotta make some calzones), MimicCreme, and the new Dr McDougall's Asian entrees.)

We'll be in Atlanta soon.....and I'm hoping to stop into Cosmo's Vegan Shoppe just north of Atlanta!  If you guys have suggestions for vegan/raw places to eat......let me know and post them on that post please.

And if you have NYC suggestions, please post them there too......I'm surprised nobody's posted anything yet! I know a lot of you have been to NYC and have places you love to eat. But please don't post them here. I want them all in one place, so I know where to find it.

Other stuff I've been eating:

Sweet Potato Lentil Chili:

Raw zucchini noodles with "peanut" sauce:

French Fries (cut up potatoes, put on parchment paper-no oil, sprinkle with Creole Seasoning or other favorite seasoning, put in oven for 25 minutes, turn over, bake for another 15 minutes-on 400 degrees):

More recipes coming soon: Black Bean Polenta Bake and Black Bean Dip (yes, I cooked a ton of black beans).

Upcoming post: special vegan care package swap post!!

Eat smart,
T.

Today's Stash and cake in a cup!

First let's start with today's farmer's market.  Got a lot of good stuff, especially greens...yay greens!   But I was sad they had no meyer lemons this week, boooohooo.  I use a ton of lemons for dressing, or just squeezed onto rice.  Here's the loot: lacinato kale, curly kale, mustard greens, collard greens, baby spinach (is there such a thing as eating too many greens??), grapefruit, oranges, white button mushrooms, hydroponic tomatoes, purple top turnips, green onions, cilantro, brown rice, mizuna, and baby carrots.


And we stopped in at the local grocery store, Breaux Mart (you better not be making fun of the name...), while we were in NOLA this afternoon and look at what I got:

Exciting, no?  Why can't I find this stuff in my really local grocery store? Anyway, I got pretty excited at the store.  Oh, I forgot to include a picture of the frozen vegan burrito I found.  It was pretty low calorie and lowfat too (there were several other vegetarian burritos, but only one that was vegan).  I don't usually buy the prepared foods much anymore, but I thought this would be a nice treat in a hurry.

Last night I got a chocolate craving, and I found a recipe for Chocolate Cake in 5 Minutes.  Yup, you got it.  Chocolate cake right out of your cup!  I did adjust the recipe however, to make it vegan.  It didn't rise a ton, and I did it in a bowl, because I wasn't sure what would happen, hehehe.  I thought it might explode in the microwave.  But nope.  It was really good and not too sweet.  Here's my version:

Chocolate Cake in a Cup:
(adapted from Chocolate Cake in 5 Minutes)

4 tbsp whole wheat flour
3 tbsp agave nectar
2 tbsp unsw. cocoa powder
1 "EnerG" egg (the equivalent of one egg)
3 tbsp unsweetened almond milk
3 tbsp water 


Mix the first 3 ingredients in a mug or bowl (microwaveable).  Add the "EnerG" egg and mix well.  Then add the almond milk and water.  Mix it up really well so it's not lumpy.  Microwave on High for 3 minutes.  You might want to keep an eye on it your first time, just to make sure it doesn't overflow or anything like that.  Wait until it stops rising (mine didn't rise much) and let it cool for a few minutes.  It's not too sweet, so you might want to up the agave, or sugar, or put some frosting on it, if you like really sweet cake.


I will actually be watching the Superbowl tomorrow, due to the fact that I live in New Orleans.  It's a first for the Saints, so I feel I should be loyal :)  Although in general, I'm not a sports fan.  I think I'm going to make some vegan chili for the event, since we do have someone coming over to watch (this of course will be on my small 20" computer screen, since we don't own a TV).

Eat smart and Geaux Saints!
T.

Dave's Birthday

Today is our friend, Dave's birthday.....Happy Birthday Dave!! (oh, and Happy Birthday, Beethoven too!)

I'd been drooling over one of the recipes in Hannah Kaminsky's My Sweet Vegan cookbook for a while now.  So this was a great opportunity to try it and everyone loved it! It was the Decadent Almond Cake. I'll definitely make this again...I only made a few changes to the recipe. I used almond milk instead of soy and I used whole wheat flour in place of the all purpose and soy flours.  I also replaced half of the oil with unsweetened applesauce (I probably could've replaced it all!).  I only used 12 oz of chocolate for the ganache, and as it turned out, there was way more ganache than I needed!  I wonder if it'll freeze well.....otherwise I'll have to eat it....hehehe......ohhh, maybe I can dip the Louisiana strawberries in it for a dessert!!

And it was definitely a great ganache recipe....I'll use it whenever I make a cake again....any cake! Wonder what would happen if I added a little coffee to the recipe...hmmmm.....

So thanks Dave, for giving me the opportunity to make this cake, and thanks Hannah Kaminsky, for this amazing recipe :) (check out her blog: BitterSweet)

Eat smart,
T.

Happy Birthday to me!

Ok, the title sounded kind of pompous, no?  Sorry. Well you see, every time my birthday rolls around, I always end up making myself a birthday cake.  So here's this year's version.....kind of an experimental version that turned out pretty well, even with whole wheat flour!

Tanya's 2009 Chocolate Raspberry Coffee Birthday Cake:
(inspired by Rich Chocolate Cake in Vegetarian Cooking & Vegetable Classics by Denny & Ingram)

Almost 1 cup of whole wheat flour, plus a couple of Tbsp of high gluten white flour (to fill the cup)
3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
~7 tbsp canola oil
1/2 cup agave nectar
3 eggs, beaten
1 tsp baking powder
~1/2 small jar of raspberry jam/preserves

Mix all ingredients in a bowl.  You can add a little more agave if you want it sweeter.  For me, the jam and frosting made it sweet enough.  Pour into an 8 or 9 inch round cake pan and bake about 40-45 minutes at 300 degrees.  Let cool on rack.  When cool, slice in half to make 2 layers.  Spread the jam on the bottom layer.  Put the other half on top, and frost.


Frosting:
~3 cups organic powdered sugar
~3 tbsp instant coffee granules, plus a little water

Mix the coffee and water together to dissolve.  Put sugar in a bowl, add the coffee mixture.  If too thick, add a little more water.  If too thin, add more sugar.  You want it firm, but mixable (if that's a word).

Not too many ingredients.....very simple.  The outcome?  Well, it's not fluffy like a regular white flour, eggy, buttery cake.  A little more dry and with the agave nectar it wasn't very sweet.  That's ok, because the jam and the frosting are quite sweet and make up for it.  Again, you can adjust the ingredients to your liking too!  That's what I did.  Maybe next time I try this recipe, I'll replace something else.  Who knows??

And my husband bought me Sunflowers (my favorite)!!  He gave them to me at the stroke of midnight last night! :)

Anyway, sorry no blog post yesterday.  Too busy.  And I went back to work today (on my birthday nonetheless) so only the cake today.  Tomorrow is busy too....I'll see what I can do!  Stay tuned.

Happy cake eating!
Eat smart,
T.