Babycakes success!

Look at these lil guys! They are sweet 'n' delicious and incredibly easy to make! I made the Strawberry Shortcakes from the Babycakes cookbook on Thursday and was super happy when they turned out so well.

They are one of the spelt recipes in the book and they also use evaporated cane juice rather than agave. The dough came together really well in the Kitchenaid, it was really easy to knead out and wasn't sticky.

Once they were done I cut them open, spread on some of the sugar free icing and added some sliced strawberries. Yum-oh! Seriously, they are sweet and creamy and remind me of scones with jam and cream. So if you have this book, make these now! :)

And while I'm here I'll share a lunch with you that I had last weekend. We went for lunch with our parents at a great restaurant at the Spit, Shores. We've been going there since we were younger but they will be closing in a month so we took this chance to go one last time. It was also the first time I've been since going vegan, but we know the chef and he prepared a really lovely meal for me.

I had a salad for an entree, it was made up of mixed greens, red endive, cucumber, sun dried tomatoes and avocado, now that's a salad!

My main was a very colourful vegetable stack. It started with a base of potato and was topped with broccolini, bok choy, red capsicum, mushrooms and crispy shredded carrot. The sauce that came with it was also delicious.

I also went to dinner that night for a friend's 26th. He chose Rider, a new mexican above the Hopetoun Hotel in Surry Hills and he let me know they are flexible regarding their menu. I looked them up and was very excited to see that they even have "Vegan or gluten-intolerant? All diets catered for" on their menu, win! I emailed them just to be sure and they said most of the menu can be done for vegans and gluten free as well.

I didn't bother uploading the photos I took as the lighting was terrible, they were either dark or fluorestant with the flash, so just imagine yellow and blue corn chips with salsa and guacamole to start as well as baby corn cobs. Then while everyone had quesadillas, I got my own plate with a yummy burrito filled with rice n beans. Then everyone else got tacos and I again got my own plate with two soft tacos filled with roasted capsicum. The taocs were a little flavourless but the burrito and corn cob were yum-oh. Everyone finished with churros so I ate the fresh strawberries, dusted with cinnamon sugar, that were on the churros plate ;)

I would definitely eat there again and I really appreciate the fact that they cater to vegans willingly and that they used the word vegan on their menu!

Rider
416 Bourke St
Surry Hills NSW

Babycakes and a Care Package

I'm at home sick with a sore head thanks to my sinuses, I've been taking garlic, horseradish and vitamin C tablets, eating green veggies and drinking tea that I made by grating fresh ginger and lemon zest into hot water. Hopefully this doesn't last much longer but I thought I'd take the time to blog while I sit on the couch with both cats on my lap :)

A few months ago I pre-ordered a copy of Babycakes, the new cookbook from the bakery of the same name, based in New York. It arrived last week and I was so very, very excited to get my paws on it.

It's a gorgeous hardcover book with lots of colour photos. There's a long introduction about how the bakery came about and the different ingredients used in the recipes.

The book is titled Babycakes - Vegan, Gluten-Free and (mostly) Sugar-Free recipes but not all of the recipes are gluten free, quite a few of them use spelt flour which isn't gluten free and some of the gluten free ones use Bob's Red Mill All Purpose Gluten Free mix, which is not available here but can be ordered online.

Despite that I decided to try the vanilla cupcakes first. The base of these is besan (chickpea/garbanzo) flour as well as rice flour, arrowroot and in total the cupcakes use 3.5 cups of flour for 24 regular cupcakes. The recipe also uses about half a jar of coconut oil and half a bottle of agave as the sweetener plus xanthum gum as a binder. The mix was very fluffy and I ended up making 12 regular cupcakes and 24 mini cupcakes with mix leftover.

I followed the recipe exactly and baked them for the required time. They develop a crust on them and inside they were quite dense and they smelt a bit beany. They were definitely edible but I don't think I would have given them to people to eat. Chris tried them later on and wasn't impressed but the cats liked them, I let them share a mini one.

I made the icing later that day, I added most of the ingredients to the food processor and then added the coconut oil and lemon juice but after blending for a while I could see the ingredients weren't coming together, instead it looked a bit like liquidy cottage cheese. I put the icing in the frige to chill anyway but a few hours later it was still lumpy. We had a bright idea to stick the mix into a saucepan and after heating the mix liquified and I then put it back in the fridge. The morning after it was a thick, airy spread and I was able to top a cupcake or two with it.

I wondered if the icing would liquify at room temperature so I left a cupcake out all day but the icing stayed on, which is great. The icing itself is sweet, almost buttery and is quite nice and I love that it's sugar free. My only issue is that the recipes uses soy milk and soy milk powder but the book does mention that they can be replaced with rice milk and rice milk powder. As far as I know there is now rice milk powder avail. in Australia so I will be ordering some from the USA so I can make these soy free as well.

I am going to try the vanilla cupcakes again another day but for now I will try a few of the other recipes as I have heard of good results with the choc chip cookies and the brownie bites. Chris wants me to make the strawberry shortcake (one of the spelt recipes) so I bought some spelt and will make those when I feel better.

And in more awesome news, my March PPK Care Package arrived yest'day! My partner, jcd, lives in Canada and I got some awesome treats, all gluten free too! I got gluten free pasta in cute shapes, sweet chilli rice crisps (yum!), Swedish berries (delicious raspberry jelly lollies), a jar of No Nuts Peabutter, some red quinoa, vitamin powder, a cinnamon roll Larabar, fruit strips and chews, a block of chocolate, a reusable shopping bag, a recipe for cheezy pasta and the Teany book! Such a great assortment of goods :)



As well as reciving my package I also got my copy of the Swell Vegan zine, woo! There are some very tasty looking recipes in this cute lil book and I look forward to trying them all.

And now I'm going to continue watching Scrubs and drinking ginger lemon tea :)

Vote to Ban Jumps Racing, NOW

Jumps Racing, held in Victoria, has been in the media for a while now. There have been many horses die, 3 just this week and so it has been suspended with a decision to be made next week. Two newspapers in Victoria are running online polls, please go and vote YES to banning Jumps Racing:

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25442562-661,00.html

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2009/05/07/1241289288759.html

People involved in Jumps Racing are speaking out about how much they care for their horses but one trainer went so far as to say he will shoot his 6 horses and present their heads to the Racing Minister if Jumps Racing is banned. That's not classified as caring, it's crual and he shouldn't be allowed near animals, ever again.

Rachel and Pip have both blogged about this as well. Send the links to your family and friends and ask them to send the letter as well.

Please send this letter to the Racing Minister and the Manager of Jumps Racing VIC and let them know the suspension is a good start but that they need to ban Jumps Racing, NOW.

A Very Vegan Week: pancakes, pies, cupcakes, biscuits and the Vegan Expo!

It started with a German ppk'er wanting to meet up with some Aussie vegans while travelling here. I offered to meet Christina and suggested breakfast at Pure Wholefoods. It was a grey, overcast, chilly day, which was lovely but not very good for tourists, but the buckwheat pancakes made up for the weather! I had mine with the stewed fruit as well as a decaf rice milk latte.

Christina had hers with fresh fruit as well as a soy latte.

On Friday we went to Funky Pies with a few vegans from our facebook group. I tried the Spicy Thai Pie on Maya's suggestion and I think it's my new favourite! Maya got the No Wurry Curry and Christina chose the Funky Chunky. We were also very lucky to receive 4 scoops of vegan gelato in super cute espresso cups, free! We took turns trying the flavours, strawberry, passiofruit, lemon and mango and then picked our favourite to finish, yum! After we'd eaten I bought some pies and rolls to take to a vegetarian friend's place on Saturday night.

I spent Saturday in the kitch, I baked 2 batches of biscuits and 3 dozen cupcakes, funsies! I started with Dreena Burton's Chocolate Mint Melties but I left out the cocoa, mint and minty chocolate and made them plain choc chips. I also subbed in brown rice flour, tapioca and potato flours to make 'em gluten free. I think I forgot to add the sugar, but atleast they have maple syrup in them, so they are still quite nice and not too sweet.

Then I felt like something with peanut butter because I never use it in baking, I will have to try peanut butter and chocolate baked goods but I will save that for another day! I used the Fat Free Vegan Peanut Butter Banana biscuit recipe and these are my now my new fave biccies, so chewy, peanutty and banana-y, yum-oh!

Onto the cupcakes, I have been wanting to make VeganYumYum's Mojito cupcakes ever since I first saw them. I even bought a bottle of rum and some spearmint tea ages ago but I never got around to making them, until now! I used the gluten free vanilla cupcake recipe from VCTOTW and subbed in the lime juice, rum and infused my rice milk with spearmint. I forgot to add the lime zest to the mix so instead I added it to the icing along with more lime juice and rum. I topped them with a slice of fresh lime.

They were delicious, I took them to along on Saturday night and my friends thought they were awesome! I think the lime really cuts through the sugary icing and the flavour of the cake was perfect.

I also made a batch of half gluten free chocolate and half gluten free vanilla cupcakes that I topped with Oreo icing. I then used some Odense marzipan to make mini Nintendo Mushrooms to top the cupcakes with.

Chris and my mates all enjoy gaming so it's an idea I've had for awhile and I had plenty of time to finally make these cute lil guys on Saturday.

They all got gobbled up while we played Peggle, poor lil mushies, didn't see it coming!

I also baked a batch of gluten free vanilla cupcakes that I topped with vanilla icing but I forgot to take a photo. I took them along to the Vegan Expo today so they could be sold at the Tea & Empathy stall.

The Vegan Expo was held at Petersham Town Hall. It's a gorgeous art deco building and it was a beautiful sunny autumn day. It was busy from the beginning and there was a consistent crowd all day. I met a few friends there and we took our time browsing at the stalls, some familiar and some new. I arranged to pick up a small order from the Cruelty Free Shop including a bottle of Hullabaloo's Pink All Natural food colouring as well as another pack of Angel Food's Marshmallow Kit. I also bought an Orangutan toy to support Borneo Orangutan Survival, Australia, a new foundation from Inika, a sticker sheet from Animals Australia and a raw fudgey bar as well as a gluten free date biscuit.

For lunch we bought Funky Pies, I again went with the Spicy Thai Pie and we sat outside on the front steps to eat and chat. I got a great shot of the mushroomy insides.

It was such a good day, just hanging out with friends, meeting new vegans and trying new products. Sarah, the organiser, as well as the Vegan Society, did a fantastic job!

I got home and put away my goodies and then later on as I was reaching into the pantry I knocked over the bottle of pink food colouring as well as a new bottle of agave syrup. They both smashed onto the kitchen floor creating a pink, syrupy, glassy mess that I had to clean up while I cursed myself for not putting glass bottles further in the pantry and not on the edge of the shelf, oopsa :( But even that couldn't burst my happy, vegan bubble!