Let Them Eat Cake

And/but/so baking to cater for a love of sweet things does NOT have to be hindered by avoiding animal products. In most cases, simply substituting milk with soy and butter with Nuttelex or oil and eggs with egg replacer or some mashed vegetable or fruit works like a charm. But you already know this. What you need most of all for successful vegan cooking is imagination and persistence.

For my best friend's birthday I decided to play to her love of novelty cupcakes, and cook cupcake ice creams. Since store-bought ice-cream cones are in fact vegan, i decided to use a vegan cake recipe and icing so I could enjoy them too!

It took a few goes playing around with different icing (and in the picture you can see a combination of marzipan and butter cream decorated cakes) to get the best effect (comparing look, taste, and time/effort required, of course), but in the end they turned out beautifully!

Ice-cream Cupcakes
Ingredients
- 3/4 C plain flour
- 2/3 C hot water
- 3/4 C sugar
- 1/2 t baking soda
- 1/4 t baking powder
- 1/4 t salt
- 2 T butter (Nuttelex)
- 2 T oil
- 1 egg (No Egg prepared as per packet instructions)
- 2 t vanilla essence
- flat-bottomed ice-cream cones
Method
- in a bowl combine all dry ingredients
- prepare egg replacer, then combine all wet ingredients with dry ingredients
- now for the part where imagination and persistence come in. After various attempts I found that filling ice-cream cones around 2/3 full and microwaving for 35 seconds worked perfectly, but i cannot guarantee the same for any other microwaves or mixtures. have a play with one at a time before you go crazy and cook the whole batch. 
- after the cupcakes cool, go crazy decorating with your icing of choice. I use butter cream, which is creamed butter, icing sugar, vanilla and milk, and can be piped or spread on, but use whatever you like best. 
Enjoy!

I Choo Choo Choose You!

It's Funny because it's a train!

So, who says that birthday vegans CAN'T have birthday cakes like everyone else? Not me!
Last year, for my (23rd) birthday, I made myself a birthday cake. It has always been a "thing" in our family, to make fun cakes for everyone on their birthday, I guess mum just likes going to work with colourful-food-dyed fingers on Mondays, because we have been doing it since I was born (and that's a LOT of Mondays with rainbow hands!), but we are getting to the point where, despite owning several party cake books, we are running out of cake ideas! So, since I was sharing my birthday with my Dad (who happens to be a bit of a train buff), we made a train cake.
It was constructed out of lamingtons (an altered plain cake recipe, which cocoa powder icing and coconut toppings) and various lollies, and was completely vegan (with the exception of course being the driver..).

And the best part? It looked so good that everyone tried some and (wait for it..) enjoyed it! And birthday traditions live on!

A Rainbow A Day Keeps The Doctor Away

It is well known (at least amongst those of us that are well versed in the rules of eating healthy) that every colour on your plate represents a different combination of vitamins and minerals, so the more colourful your plate is, the healthier your meal.
At our local farmer's market recently, we stumbled across purple carrots! These are an old line, not GM, and teamed with roast capsicum, carrot, and pumpkin, and steamed beans and asparagus, the perfect roast winter rainbow is so easy! And did i mention beautiful?