Potlucks x 2

Yesterday Mr T and I went to not one but two potlucks. The second one was an optional potluck -you could bring stuff if you wanted to. We kind of cheated and took along the same dishes to both events. I made the creamy cheese brownies, Mr T made the beanballs from veganomicon and together we made coconut lime cupcakes.

Here are some pictures from the first one, I'll upload the second ones later.

Some of the food:

Christie's chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter icing

chocolate mint cupcakes


Caroline and Tim's chocolate peanut butter shells

Bread with dukkah, white bean dip and I think olive oil and balsamic vinegar



Pancake with all three sauces


Emily's amazing mini quiches


Christie's spinach and 'ricotta' cannelloni

Lidia's spanokopita


Lidia's coconut cream pie
Punch


Also not photographed were the sushi rolls, a yummy looking salad, roti wraps, 'chicken nuggets', jerky and the dishes we took. I tried almost everything except for the sushi rolls and the salad because by the time those dishes arrived I was too full to eat anymore but I really can't complain because all of the food was great and I ate so much!

Thanks Christie for hosting it!

Lemon Bars are not the same as Lemon Slice

I learned that the hard way, after I made the lemon bars from the Joy of Vegan Baking. I thought that bars were just the American version of our slice and so they would be the same thing. Unfortunately American Lemon bars don't appear to contain condensed milk and so aren't creamy.

One day, i'll learn how to make a vegan equivalent of Lemon slice. It's the only thing I haven't figured out how to veganize, but I'm sure with a vegan version of condensed milk it will work. I just wish someone would do the hard work of trial and error for me. If you know of a recipe please point me in the right direction.

Gooey 'Cream Cheese' Brownies

While I was typing that last post, I had these Gooey Cream Brownies in the oven. I saw the recipe over at Pamela Cooks here which is a variation of the vegweb recipe that has gotten plenty of good reviews.

I again made a mistake. This time I put the mixture it in a pan which was too big and so it was flatter towards the end than it should have been in my silly attempt to stretch it to fit the pan. So one tiny part is a little overcooked and crunchy but I cut that part away and the rest is amazing. I was worried that the cream cheese would be over-powering, but it was perfect. I am so making these again and again and again. They are rich and not cakey which I dislike about some brownie recipes.

Straight out of the oven

A closer look inside

and again

I've discovered that She and Him makes perfect baking music, thanks to Claire. What do you like to bake to?

Two perfectly good cookie recipes ruined by me

First up peanut butter & jam thumbprint cookies from the upcoming vegan cookie cookbook, the recipe can be found here. I ruined them by adding only half the amount of sugar they asked for by accident so they weren't sweet enough. It was a lot of fun to make them though.


After that I decided to give it another try with the remaining jam and make the chewy chocolate raspberry cookies from Veganomicon, the recipe can be found here. I made one tiny mistake. I didn't wash the sifter in between the two different batches of cookies, not realising that the first recipe called for baking powder and the second didn't and that baking powder has the potential to make something very bitter. It was such a pity because they were perfectly chewy and I could see the potential but they just had a horrible bitter taste.


Needless to say, Mr T and I ate all of them anyway, but we didn't love them the way we should have. Hopefully now that my baking disasters are over, I will be able to bake properly for the next vegan brunch potluck on sat.

Beetroot meets Copha

It was my little sisters birthday recently and she asked me to make her Oreo cupcakes so I did using the Cookies and Cream recipe from VCTOTW that I have made for my family a few times. It's my family's fav type of cupcake, whenever I make other cupcakes they tend to be disappointed but I am getting kind of bored of them.

So to try to mix it up a little I decided to try to make the icing pink since my sister is obsessed with the colour pink. I didn't want to use red food colour (or Cochineal) because it is made from insect blood, gross! So I sought out my new source of all food knowledge- post punk kitchen forum and was pointed in the direction of this recipe which explains that you can use raw beetroot juice. I followed the original recipe for cookies and cream icing and just added the juice and it worked without affecting the flavour. I also followed Solusta's suggestion of using copha in addition to margarine. He suggested that I "melt some copha and marg down, then cool it down again. Once it starts to solidify, mix it so that the copha doesn't solidify separately." Here is the end product, it was a great colour and texture. The flash makes it look paler than what it was.


But....

because I then added crushed up oreos it altered the colour, which I should have known since it turns my lovely white icing grey normally. I also put it in the fridge for several hours and it hardened up more than I thought it would and it wasn't easy to spread on to the cupcakes, but then butter is quite hard so maybe it was the right texture, or maybe I didn't mix it enough. I will certainly try both techniques again. Since I don't have a special cupcakes carrier YET (hint, hint), I generally take the cupcakes to the destination and then put icing on them otherwise they end up in a mess by the time I arrive. Before I left though I made some quick test ones which I know don't look pretty but you give you an idea of what they looked like.

My little sis and her friends loved them!

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By the way Mr T has finally started his blogging again at Ask Me Tomorrow.