Not burgers- vegan again?

Just a super quick post to ask if anyone knows if not burgers are vegan again?

Here is the ingredients list:

Water, vegetable protein (17%) (wheat gluten, soy protein), wheat flour, vegetable oil (sunola), tapioca flour, flavours (contains soy), rice flour, wheat breadcrumbs, sesame seeds, starch (potato, maize, wheat), yeast, sugar, salt, vegetable gum (guar), minerals (zinc gluconate, ferrous gluconate), yeast extract, preservatives (280, 260), emulsifiers (472e, 480), herbs, spices, flavour enhancer (disodium ribonucleotide), vitamin B12, colour (100).

Contains wheat, soy and sesame.
May contain traces of peanut, egg and milk.

They used to be vegan and I used to love them, but then they added milk or egg to them but it used to be obvious, it looks like the ingredients have changed but I know that one of the additives might be animal derived.

I will email them but if I find out sooner I can munch on them straight away. So please tell me they are vegan :-)

Edited to add: BrisVegan answered my question, they are!

Goodbye Vegan Mofo- sausage dhal

This is an oldie but a goodie, one of the earliest vegan dishes I learnt how to make and one of the few savoury dishes that ALL of my omni family enjoy, my mother still makes this dish regularly even though I no longer live there.

It is actually a recipe from the sanitarium website but this time I used frys sausages, here it is served with basmati rice.

It tastes different to regular dhal thanks to the rogan josh curry paste, and it's super quick, cheap, full of flavour and make a great weaknight meal.

Soy Sausage Dhal

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

1 clove garlic, crushed

2 tablespoons rogan josh curry paste

300g vegie traditional soy sausage original, cut into 1cm rounds

3 cups vegetable stock

1 cup red lentils

1. Heat the oil in a saucepan, cook the onion and garlic until softened.
2. Add the curry paste and cook, stiring for 1 minute or until fragrant.
3. Add the soy sausages, stock and red lentils. Simmer for 20 minutes or until the lentils are soft.
   

Goodbye aus/nz veganmofo- be sure to check out the other aus/nz mofo-ers if you haven't already. Lisa has the full list over on her blog

Monsieur truffle, I have expensive taste

Monsieur Truffle is just around the corner from my work which is very dangerous because if I feel that I really need chocolate it is just a little bit too close and at $10 a bar it is the most expensive chocolate I have ever purchased.

Unfortunately I am slowly becoming addicted to there chocolate. I have been slowly trying their different flavoured chocolate bars, caramelised almond, hazelnut etc. The caramel specks is probably my favourite, with crisp caramel bits, maybe it is because I haven't seen another dark chocolate caramel bar that is vegan:


I tried to get an inside shot but struggled because apparently button likes the chocolate too
My only problem is I still eat it like it is regular chocolate, consuming a bar in 1-2 days. Yes I need an intervention!

They also sell dark chocolate almond clusters, a whole range of exotic dark chocolate bars and rich dark chocolate flakes to make an incredible rich hot chocolate. Most of their dark chocolate options appear to be vegan!

Monsieur Truffle Chocolate
90 Smith St
Collingwood
9416 3101
Open: Mon-Fri 8am-5pm;
Sat 9am-5pm; Sun 10am-5pm

It's almost the end of Aus/NZ Vegan Mofo (Month of food) and I'm pretty proud of my increase in number of posts but it will probably mean that I will need to decrease my posts in October and spend a little more time on my neglected thesis. I've really enjoyed the experience though, I think it helped me to get out of my food slump.

Lord of the Fries- Northland

We where over an hour late for the potluck because the stumpy cake was so time consuming and we slept in, so we missed out on most of the savoury options but overloaded ourselves in sugar and thought that lots of salt and deep fried savoury would fix the problem. We started chatting with Cindy and Michael about the new lord of the fries store at Northland or 'Norflands' as the locals say and decided to give it a go.

I was relieved to see that it was actually a small cafe with seats unlike the city store, and the interior was actually quite nice, with a mix of tall tables and low tables and a bright red wall. In addition to the usual range they also had a 'chicken ' burger and 'hotdogs' on the menu although the 'chicken' burgers were sold out on the day. I was tempted to get a 'hotdog' but was worried that it might be the sanitarium ones, in hidnsight I should I have just asked.

The place was sadly empty but it was around 3.30pm. Mr T and I decided to share the chips with gravy and 'cheese', 'chicken' nuggets, and a mega burger which I think is a version of the big mark burger. It was all tasty, hot and the serving of cheezly was very generous on the fries. It's a pity I no longer work around the corner.

I really hope the place does well, it would be great to have another veg option in Preston.

Lord of the Fries-Northland
2-50 Murray Rd
East Preston
near the cinema entry

Stumpy dog cake and adventures in caramel icing

It was Lidia's potluck birthday party today so Mr T and I decided to bake her a cake that looked like her dog stumpy. I got a pic of Stumpy from one of Lidia's old blog posts:
I then cropped the pic just around his head and enlarged it so that it fit on A4 paper. Mr T then traced the outline onto baking paper and I then placed the baking paper over the top layer of the cake and used a toothpick to make lots of holes around the outline.

We made kittee's chocolate cake but figured that Stumpy's colouring is properly closer to the colour of caramel than it is to chocolate, and I remembered that Lidia loves caramel. So last night we make caramel icing based on this recipe on recipezaar, it was perfect and soft but then once we put in the fridge overnight and it hardened up so much that I couldn't use it. We did still use it in between the two layers of cake which was probably a mistake but it just seemed so wasteful to throw it all away.

Then this morning we decided to have another go and I learnt that caramel goes very quickly from nice caramel to burnt caramel. So we decided to go on the side of caution and made caramel where you could still actually feel some of the sugar. It was way too gooey though and I couldn't put it in my icing gun and it was the biggest pain to do a picture with. Luckily I had Mr T to help me.

I used vanilla frosting from vctotw for the white parts though and that worked well, I then also made a blue outline using the vanilla frosting and blue food dye. And I used black writing icing for the nose and inside of the ears.

Probably the biggest problem apart from the caramel was the eyes, when I put the second layer of cake on top of the first layer cracked right down the middle where the eyes needed to go. So I piped some vanilla icing into the hap and then put the black eyes on but it just looked creepy so we played around with them so much that they still look kind of weird.

Still I'm kind of proud since it is my first decorated cake that I made with regular soft icing as opposed to marzipan even if it does look a little like a horse or some sort of other animal instead of a dog.

I really think I need to get some sort of cake decorating book or the women's day cookbook though to help out with the next one.

Taste wise, the chocolate cake was ok but I think I prefer her vanilla cake (without vinegar) and the caramel icing was kind of sickly sweet but that's just caramel, right?

If this was your box, what would you make?

We get a box of organic fruit and veg box through a local food co-op for $25, it's pretty good value for money and varies each week. Here is our box for the week.


It has 2 bunches of asparagus, pumpkin, carrots, celery, zucchini, snow peas, oranges, tangelos, bananas, and kiwi fruit.

I'm feeling uninspired food wise this week, apart from the need to make more sausages. If this was your box, what would you make?

More ice cream love

As Lisa has already announced Radical Grocery now has ice cream!!!! As soon as I saw the facebook status I rushed out and got some choc mint tofutti cuties and they are perfection: soft chocolate biscuits with soft choc mint ice cream that has choc chips in it. I then proceeded to eat 3 and Mr T ate 2. Ohhhps!

Radical Grocery is selling both boxes and individual ones which are great if you want to try before you buy.

I might try to keep the last few until the weekend at least :-)

It's almost the end of Aus/NZ mofo and I'm pretty pleased that I lasted so long with pretty regular posts although at times it was tricky.

My beans are better than your beans

I read and read and read all these American food blogs and cookbook with recipes with black beans but for some bizarre reason they don't sell canned black beans in Australia, unless you want to pay a crazy price for organic canned black beans. I have however seen dried ones in health food stores and got inspired by Kitten's Gone Lentil dried black bean cook up and then read about cooking them in a slow cooker.

So I set about soaking them and then started reading all of these things about red kidney bean poisoning from cooking dried beans in slow cooker and got freaked out, so to be on the safe side I boiled them for 10 minutes and then transferred them to my slow cooker to cook for the day while I focused on my thesis.

Mr T then made a massive batch of chili with the black beans using our standard chili recipe, but it tasted MUCH better with black beans and we had lots of black beans leftover to put in the freezer. I swear dried beans that are freshly cooked taste better than canned!

I think we will aim to make a batch of some sort of dried beans about every fortnight.

Pasta with toasted garlic breadcrumbs

This dish was adapted from a recipe on recipezaar, it was super easy and meant not having going to the shops to make dinner. Have you noticed a lazy theme with our dinners lately? I'm trying to do work like crazy on my thesis and Mr T is injured again.

• 500 grams pasta
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 3 garlic cloves,
  
• 3 pieces of stale bread chopped coarsely into crumbs
• salt and pepper
  

1. Cook pasta.
2. Meanwhile, in a large pan, heat the oil over medium heat.
3. Add the garlic and saute just until turning color.
4. Add the breadcrumbs, salt and pepper to taste, and toast to light golden.
5. Drain the pasta and place in a hot bowl.
6. Pour all but 1 cup of the crumbs on the pasta along with the water and toss.
7. Divide between 4 hot plates and sprinkle reserved crumbs over each serving.

We also added some white beans, zucchini and nooch.

Mr T said that he read somewhere that breadcrumbs were originally used as a poor man's cheese in Italy. I can kind of see why.

Cranberry sage sausages!!!!!

After I didn't get the chorizo texture right, I was determined to try again. This time I decided to try the cherry sage sausages, I used white beans and almost followed the recipe correctly. I only used half the amount of liquid smoke because 1 teaspoon seemed to be a little high, and only half the amount of garlic and sage. Isa specifically asks that you NOT use sage powder, but I used it anyway since I couldn't find dried rubbing sage in the supermarket. I also used cranberries instead of dried cherries. Texture wise these were awesome, but taste wise the chorizo were definitely tastier. Here they are precooked:


And after we fried them in a tiny bit more liquid smoke:



I will be experimenting with this a bit more.

Tart N Round

I took Mr T to Tart N Round last night. It's now open Friday and Sat nights and has grown quite a bit since I first blogged about it.

I had a delicious, thick strawberry milkshake, which was really filling


and a burrito, with bean/rice chili which just had the right amount of kick to it, lettuce and creamy guacamole.


Mr T had the lasagna which I blogged about last time.



But I think where this place really stands out is it's amazing variety of vegan and gluten free desserts. I was super full but shared a scoop of double chocolate ice cream. It rocked my world, seriously! Soft unlike most soy ice cream almost like soft serve, creamy with lovely dark chocolate flakes in it. If I could marry an ice cream it would be this:


We didn't have room left in our bellies but I couldn't resist getting a piece of black forest cake for take away. It was beautiful to look out (before it went in a take away container) and had really nice cherry and chocolate and "cream" layers. I know where I am getting my birthday cake next year!

The guys who run this cafe are really nice and friendly and also gave us a tiny bit of their choc mint mudcake to try, it was super rich and gave me a really nice sugar buzz.

I don't think there is another place in Melbourne that can compete with this place in terms of vegan desserts. and everything is gluten free too so people like Lena can enjoy everything. They have so many other desserts too including vegan fudge, choc peppermint crisp and lots more.

I was a little sad that this new vegan cafe was virtually empty, the cafe has a nice feel but I guess not many people know about it yet. So go and show it some vegan gluten free love and enjoy the amazing desserts!

Tart N Round
839 High St
Thornbury
Tue- Thu 9-5
Fri- Sat: 9- late
Sun 9-5
www

Hit me with your vegan travel tips

So Mr T and I will have a smallish holiday in Nov-Dec in Hong Kong, London, ATP (Minehead), Brighton (for only a day or two) and Berlin.

We still haven't decided if we will go to Manchester.

If you have any must eats or other tips like cool second hand shops/markets/handmade stuff please share.

Hong Kong is the only place that we are actually familar with.

Also, if you know of any bloggers based in those areas please send me links, I haven't actually come across many London food blogs but I'm sure they exist. I'm hoping to meet up with a couple of veg*n bloggers from those areas too.

So hit me with you tips..............

Vegan yum yum alfredo

Vegan yum yum blogger lolo is a genius and this super quick, rich, cheesy dish is proof of that.

Hurry Up Alfredo
Makes 2-3 Servings

1 Cup Soymilk
1/3 Cup Raw, Unsalted Cashews
1/4 Cup Nutritional Yeast
3 Tbs Low-Sodium Tamari or Soy Sauce
2 Tbs Earth Balance Margarine
1 Tbs Tahini
1 Tbs Fresh Lemon Juice
2 tsp Dijon Mustard
1/2 tsp Paprika (smoked is awesome)
1 Pinch Nutmeg
2-4 Cloves of Garlic, optional
Black pepper, to taste

Add all the ingredients to a blender and blend until smooth. This may work best in a high-speed blender (like a Vita-Mix), but you can definitely make it in a regular blender. Just blend extra-long, or perhaps strain if if you want it perfectly smooth. Tiny bits of cashews won’t hurt anyone though!

If you’re making this sauce for pasta, drain the pasta and return it to the hot empty pan. Pour the sauce over, place on medium heat, and stir until heated through. Serve with lots of fresh cracked black pepper.

We added some zucchini to it.

I really want to get her cookbook, but am super duper poor right now, so might have to wait and put it on my xmas wishlist.

Want to read all of the Melb veg blogs in one place?

Steph and D have put together a Planet vgml with a collection of melb veg blogs in one place. It is already starting to take shape and look great.

Go check it out here.

To have your blog added just contact D or Steph on the site link above.

Elizabeth's red wine lentils with pasta and chorizo

We made this after the potluck, with a couple of leftover chorizo sausages, which we fried and crumbled. They were friends, but I look forward to trying these with the italian inspired sausages in vegan brunch. This recipe was originally suggested by Elizabeth and the converted into a recipe by Cindy. Vicki also made it and raved about it. I made a few more alterations though. I didn't use any fresh herbs and added marjoram because it rocks and I hate rosemary. I decided to skip the polenta all together and added the sauce to to pasta. The sauce was yummy and was a great change t the regular tomato based lentil pasta sauces that I normally make.

Red wine lentils sauce

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion
4 cloves garlic
1 carrot
2-3 sticks of celery
2 x 400g cans lentils, rinsed and drained
3/4 cup red wine
1 1/2 cups 'chicken' stock
1 teaspoon dried sage powder
1 teaspoon thyme leaves
1 teaspoon dried parsley
1 teaspoon marjoram
2 large chorizo sausages (from vegan brunch)
Nooch (optional)

Bring the oil to medium heat in a frypan, then saute the onion and garlic in it for 2 minutes. Add the carrot and celery and saute for a further 5 minutes. Stir through the lentils, wine, stock and herbs and simmer the lot until the lentils are tender and the sauce has reduced a little.

Pop the sausages under the grill, turning them once or twice, until they're crisp on the outside but still tender in the middle. Slice them into generous chunks and add them to the simmering lentils.

Add to pasta and add some nooch if you feel inclined.

I've added a new label: weeknight dinner, for dishes that I want to make again on a regular basis and aren't super time consuming and this recipe certainly fits into.

colourful choc chip cookies

I've having a bit of a blah day thanks to one very high energy bill $500+ which I think must be due to a faulty appliance and being stuck on my thesis, and realising that I might not actually have it finished by our trip at the end of the year. So I decided that I needed chocolate or cookies. I didn't want to go to the shops though because that would take my procrastination into an even longer break from the thesis. I didn't have any soy milk though which most vegan choc chip cookies seem to ask for, and a slightly bigger problem I didn't have any choc chips. But I noticed on Pip's blog header the picture of her colourful choc chip cookies and realised that I had colourful choc chips that I think she used in her picture:

Pic taken from blackwoodlane website.

They are smaller than regular choc chips, but I knew that they would assist with the craving. So a quick google search found these super easy chocolate chip cookies at vegweb that didn't require any sort of milk or any sort of egg replacer. They are quite possibly the easiest vegan choc chip cookie and use two techniques that I have heard Lisa talk about using in her amazing choc chip cookies: a tiny bit of cinnamon and flipping cookies half way through the cooking time. I think these would be perfect when staying at someone else's place and wanting to bake them something without having to purchase many extra ingredients.

Happy Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients

2 cups unbleached flour
2 tsps baking powder
1/2 tsp.salt
cinnamon to taste (optional)
vegan chocolate or carob chips - put in as many as you like
1 cup raw sugar
1/2 cup canola or vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup water
Directions:

VERY IMPORTANT-make sure all ingredients are at room temperature. It will work if they're not at room temp but it works MUCH better if they are. Also while your oven is pre-heating put the cookie sheets you are going to use on top of the oven so they get preheated as well. Preheat oven to 350.

In a large bowl mix flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon (if you choose). Add chips. Make a well in the center and set aside.

In a medium size bowl mix vegan sugar and oil. Mix it well. Add the vanilla and then add the water. Mix it well. Add the wet to the well in the dry. Mix it well but be careful not to overwork it. Add more chips if you need to. Spoon onto ungreased cookie sheets. Put them in the oven. Bake for 5 minutes and then flip and rotate the sheets.(top to bottom,and 180 degree rotation) Bake another 4 minutes and check them.

The cookies are done when they seem a little bit softer then you want them to be. They will harden up some as they cool. I usually go in two minute increments from here untill they get to where I like them.

Take them out when they are done and move them to wire cooling racks. If they split or come apart when you try to remove them let them sit on the pan for 2 minutes before transferring them to the racks.


Serves: almost two dozen

Preparation time: 15 mins-10 to 12 cooking time

Mine aren't as pretty as Pip's, but this recipe doesn't really brown up in the way that regular cookies do, also they feel like they are undercooked until you leave them for about 15 minutes to harden up.

Pre potluck ride

So a group of decided on sat the day before a potluck to do a group ride to st kilda, but it was super windy so instead just rode to the vic market and back. We wanted to go to somewhere for lunch and Mr T remembered seeing in market lane a place selling vegan and gluten free crepes called Le Triskel Creperie. We decided to give it a go.

They did have vegan crepes, which is great but they were pretty disappointing. Cindy had a non vegan crepe and said that the actual crepe itself was a lot drier than their her non vegan one, I suspect that they use buckwheat flour instead of regular flour. For savoury options, they only had one that could be made vegan which was tomato, mushroom and spinach, not so great though for tomato hating Craig. It was just dry and not overly tasty. They offered a fair few sweet ones that could be adapted though so I had a banana, almond and maple syrup one. Despite the maple syrup it was also a bit dry and disappointing but did look quite cute :


I appreciate the effort they made in making vegan ones, but not sure if the cafe realised that vegan doesn't have to mean dry and boring crepes.

We then went to casa del gelato which I adore, I seriously can't say enough good things about that place. I can see myself spending lots of time there this summer. They have awesome creamy soy flavours like hazelnut, pistachio, coffee, chocolate, natural (which is vanilla-ish) and bachi. Also all of the fruit flavours (except for banana) are vegan, it's so great to have non fruit flavours to choose from. I had bachi, hazelnut and passionfruit in a cone, and Mr T had pear, natural and pistachio:

For the potluck today, I decided to leave it to one of the many other bloggers who attended to post about and take pics. I made the chorizo sausages from vegan brunch but made a few changes, I decided to use refried beans instead of mashed pinto beans, added a tiny bit of liquid smoke because I run out of smoked paprika and used sage powder even though the recipe asked for dry rubbed sage because I couldn't find dry rubbed sage. I think that refried beans substitution may have contributed to the softness, but they were pretty tasty. I look forward to trying the other ones.

Mr T made kiwi sorbet which was yummy but we reallied half way through that we are a missing a piece of our ice cream maker so it wasn't as smooth as it should be.

Casa del Gelato
163 Lygon St Carlton
Daily 12:00pm-12am
Tel: (03) 9347-0220

Best scrambled tofu!

I've blogged about bomb cafe before, it's this tiny cute cafe that sells two vegan breakfast options. This time we both had scrambled tofu because it rocks. It has caramelised onion in it and is slightly sweet, peppery and cheap too at either $7.50 or $9.50. Mr T had mushrooms and fried potatoes on the side of his. The sour dough bread is chewy, hard to cut and delicious.

Mr T and I both agree that is the best scrambled tofu we have ever had. Don't get me wrong, I love the scrambled tofu at soul food too, but this is slightly tastier and cheaper too.

I don't know how this place doesn't get blogged about more.

Bomb Cafe
229 Johnston St
Abbotsford
9486 0699


Oh and I haven't been putting the aussie mofo symbol in all my posts so here is it again :-)

Ezard

For Mr T's birthday I took him to Ezard for dinner, we had the pre theatre tasting menu. It was AMAZING and well worth it's super high prize. My fav dining experience ever, although apart from press club, I haven't had many fine dining experiences.

We went with my brother and his girlfriend who are omni's and had separate menus but also really enjoyed it.

It was a little hard to take pictures, because we didn't want to use the flash and didn't want to be obvious about it, so some are quite bad. Also my descriptions are not the greatest because I didn't bring a notepad and the descriptions were all quite lengthy with descriptions like: "oyster mushrooms with mirin/soy/plum wine sauce infused with x y and z and topped with x y and z". But hopefully you get the point.

We had bread with olive oil, ground szechuan peppers, a mixture of sugar/lime and chilli, and a non vegan seaweed/fish one. It made me decide that I have to get my hands on some szechuan peppers.


We then had rhubarb, beetroot, grapefruit with salsa verde. I normally hate grapefruit but this was not sour at all.


We then had silken tofu in a red miso broth with some sort of melt in your mouth seaweed and sesame seeds. I've had lots of miso before, but this was hands down the best miso ever.


Then we had a warm artichoke salad with fennel. Why is it that I only like fresh fennel in fancy restaurants?


Then followed by oyster mushrooms in a plum wine/mirin/soy sauce that was sweet and savoury and so addictive which I mopped up like a crazy person with my bread.



Dessert was the only thing I was slightly disappointed with because I thought sorbet was just too easy, but it was delicious. We had mandarin/orange sorbet and raspberry sorbet with fancy dried fruit on top.



About half way through I started to worry that I might actually be hungry afterwards, but the meals got progressively bigger and by the end I was full, Mr T on the other hand wanted a stop at casa del gelato on the way home, but he's got a massive appetite. I really can't name a favourite dish, but Mr T said the oyster mushrooms in plum wine sauce was his favourite.

I really could get used to this type of fine dining, it's a pity my budget won't allow it.

Slow cooker

My family gave Mr T a slow cooker for his birthday and mother drove to Frankston from the west to get what appears to be the only copy of the simple little vegan slow cooker book in Melbourne.

We didn't waste anytime putting it to work and made the tofu in pumpkin seed sauce from the book. Which we put in mountain bread with nacho cheezly, sour cream, with avocado and lettuce. The sauce itself was a bit bland, although i'm not sure if it that is because I used regular pumpkin instead of pumpkin puree, does pumpin puree in the US have something added to it? I also didn't put a small can of chillis in it, I put a capscium and chilli powder in it instead.





The slow cooker itself though was so nice to use, I loved not having to stir or check on it and the warmer function which kept it warm while we waited for friends to arrive for dinner.

Does anyone have the cookbook or know of any awesome slow cooker recipes?

We recently rode to ceres for breakfast. Ceres is positioned right next to the gorgeous merri creek bike track.
Ceres stands for center for education and research on environmental strategies. It is pronounced "series". There is a cafe there, small nursery, market on sat, community garden and much more. It really does feel a lot like a hippy place, but I love it.

Anyway this is for Aussie/NZ vegan mofo (month of food) so I better get to the food. We shared an almond muffin:


Pumpkin, tofu and miso rolland vegan breakfast which contained toast, mushrooms, spinach, smoked tofu, baked beans, and beetroot and chili relish. The smoked tofu was definitely my fav part, but I really enjoyed the beetroot relish too.


It was all delicious, and I especially enjoyed the vegan breakfast but at $17 it's pretty expensive for breakfast and really not that big for it's price.

Ceres cafe
Corner roberts and stewarts st
East brunswick
9387 2609
www

Mr T's bike cake, or my most depressing baking day

I think maybe the universe is trying to tell me that I should stick to cupcakes, because I had issues with the scrabble cake, but the attempts for Mr T's birthday cake were almost heart breaking.

Mr T's had drinks to celebrate his birthday on sat night. A groups of our awesome friends had all financially contributed so that two friends could build him his very own bike. So I decided to bake him a bike cake to match his bike.

There doesn't appear to be many instructions online for bike cakes, so I just made it up. I decided to make the bike out of white icing and it was an absolute bitch to make. I had to redo the writing, wheels and several parts and when I tried to move it it kept falling apart even when it had hardened. But I eventually got it done, even if it looked a bit like a 10 year old did it.

1st cake attempt: I made an oreo cake using the vctotw recipe x 3. I baked two square cakes, put icing in the middle and all over the sides and had it looking pretty good and then tried to move the cake into a container and it all broke and fell to a thousand pieces, I wanted to cry because I had spent two evening and one whole day to get to this point and was running out of time. Around this time, all of my family members came over one by one, each seeing what had happened and tried the crumbly mess and told me how delicious it was. Which was great but at this stage I had started to make a different cake.

Failed cake #1 looked something like this:


For the second attempt I made a vanilla cake because it didn't require going to shops to get more oreos. I used kittee's vanilla cake recipe because I know she is a cake goddess. When it was in the oven, I thought something might be wrong because there was quite a strange smell. I had already made the icing though and thought maybe it was just me. So I iced it by cutting it half and put jam in the middle and then chocolate icing all over. The chocolate icing was awesome and surprisingly doesn't need any soy/rice milk. Anyway I then noticed that there was a tiny bit of cake that I could try, so I had it and realised that it tasted sour, I then realised that I must have put apple cider vinegar in it in place of the oil. So I had spent all day and then all evening making two failed cakes. I just wanted to crawl up in a ball and cry but had to go home to Mr T. I considered staying up to midnight to bake a third but just realised it was crazy. So I decided to take the iced cake to show him and everyone and explain that it wasn't really edible.


But somehow, with 24 hours and a hell of a lot of icing and jam it was edible. It still smelt weird but all the sweetness of the jam and icing seemed to compensate for the weird cake.

Here is the cake:




and here is the bike:

I think I need a rest from cake baking for a while :-)