Page 79: Agave-Sweetened Brownie Gems

Today was another rainy day in paradise and I found myself with some extra time at home and an urge to bake.  My first inclination was to make the BabyCakes chocolate chip cookies, but as I continue my quest to bake every recipe in the BabyCakes book I thought I should try something new.  So I decided to try the second brownie recipe: Agave-Sweetened Brownie Gems.

Gems.  Sounds super cute and yummy right?  Wrong.  Bottom line: I think this is my least favorite BabyCakes recipe yet.  Pretty much everything I've made so far is not only better, but waaaaay better.  Let's disect...

From all accounts, these are apparently purposefully less sweet than the Brownie Bites I've successfully made before.  But the chocolate sauce is supposed to make up for this lack of sweetness.  It does not.  Maybe I did something wrong with the sauce, because as you'll see in the comparison below, mine looks very different from that shown in the picture.  Mine was not as dark and rich looking (or tasting), despite adding extra agave in attempt to get the "deep, rich chocolate" version of the sauce as described in the book.

The chocolate frosting "sauce" was pretty good - although I think the vanilla version is still better.  But even it could not bring these bites back to the level of yumminess I've come to expect from BabyCakes.  I'm taking them to work tomorrow where I plan to anonymously place them in the break room and remotely monitor how fast they disappear (this is what I do with baked goods not bad enough to throw out but not good enough to claim).

Oh well.  The upside: I'm one recipe closer to moving on to book two (and DONUTS!).  And... I have a bowl of leftover chocolate frosting in my refrigerator!  Surely I can think of a good way to put that to use.

Easter Brunch

Oh how I love brunch! It is my favorite meal - and what's not to love? It generally takes place on a weekend, holiday, or some other type of day off.  It's essentially breakfast fare but occurs later so as not to interfere with sleeping in on said day off.  And the menu is a perfect combination of savory and sweet that doesn't make it's way into our everyday breakfasts, lunches, and dinners.

On Sunday we hosted Easter Brunch for a dozen of our closest island-dwelling friends. Since adopting a plant based diet, going out to brunch has lost some of it's appeal for me because in most cases it means making exceptions to my normally egg and dairy free diet. Thus, I was beyond excited to host brunch where I could make the delicious favorites I enjoyed in my pre-veg days, but do so using plant-healthy ingredients! I also seized upon the opportunity to try out not one, but two new BabyCakes recipes. Read on for details on my menu.

BabyCakes Blueberry Crumb Cake (Page 113)

Although slightly overdone (I really need to approach baking times with more skepticism), this was still pretty good. It contains three ingredients - blueberries, cinnamon, and lemon extract - that I never would have thought to combine in one recipe, but it was a genius combination that really worked.  The crumb topping is derived from the BabyCakes Vanilla Cupcakes, so I started the process by making a small batch of those.  I also had vanilla frosting, which had really turned out as a sauce, left over from the Gingerbread and it worked out perfectly for the icing.

Whole Foods Portobello and Asparagus Strata

While I enjoyed the vegan version below, I'm told this was delicious! Hubby helped me out with this one - apparently he is more experienced than I at adequately whisking eggs.

Vegan Portobello and Asparagus Strata

After finding the strata recipe at Whole Foods, I was left with the question of what savory dish to serve that I would eat, as well as something that would accommodate one of my guests who cannot eat dairy or gluten.  The solution: a genius named Sarah Farsh who converted the Whole Foods recipe above to be entirely plant based, and was kind enough to leave a link to her creation in the Whole Foods comments section.  I simply subbed the bread for a gluten free almond flour bread (with egg replacer), which was so easy to make and worked out great in the recipe.

Oven Roasted Herb Potatoes

One of my favorite side dishes - for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.  This is a large recipe because I was feeding a dozen, but you can adapt accordingly.

5 pounds fingerling potatoes, cut in half lengthwise

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon coarsely chopped fresh rosemary

1 tablespoon nutritional yeast

1 teaspoon fresh or dried thyme

1 teaspoon sea salt

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon pepper

Toss all ingredients together in a bowl until potatoes are well coated. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.  Spread potatoes on baking sheet in single layer and roast at 350° for 60 to 90 minutes, or until potatoes are tender and begin to brown.

BabyCakes Spelt Biscuits (Page 37) with Vegan Clotted Cream and Jam

I was so excited to make these biscuits and have literally been looking forward to this part of the brunch for weeks.  I love biscuits, especially with clotted cream and jam - a taste I fell in love with while visiting London a few years ago.  After giving up dairy, I thought my days of enjoying clotted cream were over. But then I bought a recipe book called Vegan Yum Yum and discovered it was incredibly easy to make a vegan clotted cream that was just as delicious! And the author has posted it online. Enjoy!

Unfortunately we missed a picture of the final product, so I only have the pre-baked version from my iPhone.  I initially failed to add enough water to the dough so the first few were very tough to get rolled out (notice the very "cracked" looking egg above).  But I kept going back and adding water to the dough so by the end they were looking more like proper biscuits.

I have room to improve on this recipe, specifically add a lot more water next time.  I also have leftover clotted cream and jam in my fridge as we speak so I just might have to try a remake sooner than later.

There you have it!  My friends were kind enough to add fresh fruit and a few other pastries to the table - it was an absolutely delicious spread and was in every way as magical as the brunch menus I so loved in my pre-veg days.

Happy Easter!

Page 62: Gingerbread

That's right friends, three ginger BabyCakes recipes in a row. Hey, I bought ginger. Why not?

As I said before, I was actually kind of excited to make the gingerbread because it involved a layer of BabyCakes frosting. But... it's BabyCakes frosting... and therefore it's temperamental. From what I recall, the last frosting attempt was in January with the Sweet Paradise cake when it turned out beautifully thick and set up perfectly. It did not do so this weekend for the gingerbread.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The gingerbread making itself was pretty uneventful. It's another teacakes recipe that has "extra batter" which I chose to use on cupcakes. Not very exciting - I definitely preferred the final product in teacake form and think I actually (gasp!) trashed six of the eight cupcakes by Sunday night. Mostly due to the frosting drama I'll discuss further below.

The final loaf, which I do not have a picture of because the camera battery died and we were already digging in, was very moist and definitely tasted of ginger and spice (and everything nice). The recipe also has one fourth cup of molasses. This seemed like a lot to me since I usually measure that stuff out by the teaspoon, but it added to the spice quality of the final product. And it gave me an iron boost for the weekend. Yay.

In short: it was good. Similar to a spice cake but not as sweet as the ginger snaps... but not so good that I would be inclined to eat it plain. Thus enters the frosting. And the drama. I'll spare you the details (they've been written here before) but I ended up with vanilla sauce. Still so delicious - as always - but not beautifully spreadable. So to enjoy a slice we spooned the frosting "sauce" on top of the slices like so:



As I said, it was still delicious and really brought the gingerbread to life, but it was not the thick layer of frosting pictured piled atop the gingerbread in the book (and that I was really looking forward to). Sigh.

Enough with the ginger... partly because I've now made all three of the ginger centric recipes in the book. Next up: biscuits for my veggie-ful Easter brunch (unless I find something wonderful to make before then!).