Daring Bakers

Flourless Chocolate Cake w. Chocolate-Coconut Ice Cream

So I forgot to tell the lovely people at the Daring Bakers that I moved my site. So I have to post this here to get credit. I'll also be posting it at my new site good good things as well just to have it there.

Anyway. I've been thinking about Flourless Chocolate Cake for a bit now so I was really excited that it was this month's challenge. Then I got nervous. There are only 3 ingredients in this sorta cake recipe: chocolate, butter, eggs. The eggs are in there for a reason. Chocolate and butter are easy to "veganize". Eggs...not so much.



Out of the mini loaf pans

I decided to start small my first go at it. So I halved the recipe, which was strange since I didn't really have a recipe yet, and made them in mini loaf pans. As I'm making the batter I just kept thinking to myself that there is no way this is going to work. I continued anyway. I thought the same way after I put them in the oven. Then again as I checked on them. After 35 minutes I took them out of the oven and actually had hope for the first time during the process that maybe it was going to and did work. After they cooled down and I tasted a piece I was pleased as punch. Delicious. Did they taste like a traditional Flourless Chocolate Cake? Beats me. It's been ages since I had one. All I cared about was that it tasted good and it didn't have flour in it and it was cake-ish. Total success.




The round version

The real test was when I brought them to the Wednesday Night Potluck at my sisters. Everyone was really pleased with the dessert. So I knew that I was going to stick with my original "1/2" recipe and make it a full recipe to bake in a springform pan. My mixture of melted chocolate, butter, silken tofu, ener-g egg replacer and vanilla fluffed up a lot this time so the cake was much thicker and took almost an hour to bake and probably could have baked longer but I was in a rush. It still tasted great but wasn't as cake-like as my original go at it.

This will definitely be a recipe I will be tinkering with over the next few month until I get it right. Most recipes I found online for Vegan Flourless Chocolate Cake actually contained flour in it. Cheaters.

In regards to my ice cream. This is a recipe I created a few years ago and for some reason it just wouldn't freeze in my ice cream machine. So I had to end up 1/2 freezing it in the machine and finishing it in the freezer. The taste was still amazing but the texture wasn't what I was use to from the recipe. I either did something wrong or followed an older version of the recipe without really realizing it. It definitely wasn't the machine. Another recipe to tinker with. Oi.


The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef.
We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.

NEW SITE NEW SITE!!!

good-good-things

Its finally here! Needs a little tinkering, links need to be added, but its up and running!

good-good-things.com

I will love you forever if you continue following me over on the new site so update all your google readers, bloglines, links, whatever ya got!

good-good-things.com


Oh and Ed! Please don't follow me.

Ed

Is anyone else's blog being bombarded with comments by Ed? He has hit me over 60 times already. He took a break this afternoon and is now back and in 10 minutes got me over 30 times. This is so obnoxious and annoying.

Is there anyway to block him? It doesn't seem so from my searching around. I know I'm switching and moving my site elsewhere but I'm still keeping this one up and around.


By the way...the new site is almost done!!!!!!! I'm so excited. I'm going to launch it in 1 or 2 days before it's even completely finished that's how excited I am about it. Its got birds and bunnies and pink stripes!

Daring Bakers: Tuiles

Raspberry Blackout Cake w. Chocolate Dipped Lemon Tuiles

This month's challenge is brought to us by Karen of Bake My Day and Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte aka Kochtopf. They have chosen Tuiles from The Chocolate Book by Angélique Schmeink and Nougatine and Chocolate Tuiles from Michel Roux.

I was very excited to see that Tuiles were this months challenge. I've had many chances in the past to play around with them for work and school. In school I was in charge of making a cookie bowl to fill with delicious ice creams for our final Friday Night Dinner. For another dinner I was "lucky" to be chosen to make pumpkin puree tuiles shaped like cylinders that if I remember correctly were going to be holding a candle. The pumpkin tuiles were obnoxious to make but a great learning lesson.

For this challenge I made the Lemon Tuiles from the Millennium Cookbook. Originally I wanted to shape them into cannoli's and fill them with a light coconut and chocolate chip cream. Then I got asked to make a cake to celebrate our friends birthday. I though it would be great to make the filled "cannoli" tuiles smaller to put them as decoration on the cake. As you can see above that didn't happen. The batter for the Lemon Tuiles was too thick to shape how I wanted. After many tries and variations I gave up and made flat ones and semi rounded ones which I dipped in chocolate and stuck on the cake as decoration.

I was very very pleased with the overall effect that the chocolate dipped cookies gave to the cake. It is probably my favorite looking cake that I've ever made.

Dumplins'

Veggie and Tofu Dumplings

I LOVE to make my own dumplings. Problem is they are time consuming and when I'm home alone with Reno during dinner time I don't have time for time consuming meals. Peter went out the other night. Reno went to bed. I was watching House thinking about just eating some Rocky Road ice cream for dinner. I really wanted Chinese food. I remembered that I always keep bags of frozen dumplings in my freezer for such an occasion. The dumplings turned into a delicious appetizer for my ice cream main course.

Really though. Frozen dumplings are a perfect item to keep stocked in your freezer. They are great for: a quick lunch
an appetizer to an asian inspired meal or an ice cream main
course
a pot luck you are late for and haven't prepared anything for yet

Go buy yourselves a few bags. Or make your own and freeze em.

In other news.

The new site is still coming. My husband will be helping with a custom design for it. In the mean time I'll still be posting here as usual.

Happy New Year

Cookie Box Gifts

Happy New Year everyone! I hope everyone is happy and healthy. I've been MIA for a few weeks and have been missing my blog. The last few months were a bit rough for us. In a happy way thankfully. We had 3 weddings to go to. 2 of them were out of state and
required a few nights in a hotel plus travel and food expenses. Then 1 was the Saturday before Christmas, that was local thank goodness. Needless to say our bank account took a BIG HIT because of all of these wonderful and happy occasions. I informed our families earlier this fall that christmas will be presentless for everyone.

Instead of buying gifts I baked gifts. Luckily I pretty much have everything I would possible need at all times for baking up a few batches of different cookies. With a little excursion to The Christmas Tree Store (or is it Shoppe) to get pretty $2 foil boxes and VEGAN BUTTERSCOTCH CHIPS!!!!!!! I never cared for that store but now I love it. You have to love anyplace that you can find those chips.




Peanut Butter Bombs

My favorite cookie and I think everyone else's favorite as well. These were a lot of fun to make. I love rolling dough and flattening it with my hands. I also love getting chocolate all over them too. I'd be perfect for a job that makes handmade truffles.




Chocolate and Butterscotch Chip Cookies

Just your basic Chocolate Chip Cookie with Vegan Butterscotch Chips added. They came out nice and flat just how I like them. They would have been perfect if there were a little crispier as well. I'm not a fan of the "soft batched" variety. I want some crunch but my oven is whack so I feared leaving them in any longer.



Shortbread

If I had to make these again I would roll the dough in a mixture of sugar and colored sugar sprinkles just to make them extra pretty. I've always been a huge fan of Shortbread cookies so I don't know why it took so long for me to make them vegan. It's so simple. I also wanted to dip some of these in melted chocolate but ran out of time




Gifts

The gift boxes lined up and filled ready for a square of parchment on top and some tissue paper filling. The one delicious looking bar that I didn't write about yet is called a Caramelita. It isn't vegan. It's the only cookie that I'll make for others that isn't. Everything in it is except for the caramel sauce that it used. It is something that I've been trying to veganize for years now and just haven't found the right caramel yet. It's something I'm working on and can't wait to make fully vegan. It's a wonderful cookie that my family has been making since I was a really little girl. You should see the original magazine that we still have somewhere with the recipe. It's hysterically old.

Now for some resolutions: the first 2 won't matter really much to you but I plan on getting organized this year. You can imagine how hard that is having a toddler but I'm determined. When your 16 month old is having a bad night because of teething and you never put the tylenol back in the same spot and it's easier to just run to the 24 hour store at 2 a.m. you've got problems. The second one is nimbleness. It was said as kinda a joke but I think I'll follow through with it. I've become quite the klutz and I'd like to be more agile.

The 3rd one does matter to you...I want to close this blog and start another. I want to blog about more then just food. Things like the knitted items I make, everyday things that I like, etc..etc.. I realize that I can still do all of that on this blog but I feel it's time to move on I don't live in B36 anymore and don't have a connection to the name anymore. Unfortunately it is very hard for me to come up with a new name. It took me literally weeks to name both my cats. Thank goodness for Reno we had a few months to name her before she got here with other options if needed. All the names I've come up with so far are already taken. I will still be blogging here until the naming mess is sorted out and it's designed then it will all be moved over and I will probably still mostly blog about food cuz I'm obsessed with the stuff.

Thanks for listening to all of this.

Crispy Cat Candy Bars

Crispy Cat Candy Bars

I received a wonderful package in the mail a few weeks ago from Sofia at Christie Communications. It was a trio of Crispy Cat Chocolate Bars!! I couldn't wait to dive right in and eat them all but I took my time eating them and made sure that Peter was around to share them with me.

First up...Mint Coconut: this one is probably our favorite of the 3. It's had a nice light texture compared to the other 2. The mint is very overpowering against the coconut flavor which is my only complaint.

Second up...Toasted Almond: much denser then the Mint Coconut but almondy good. Really delicious. I liked the thicker consistency of this bar more then Peter did. The flavor was great considering I'm usually not a fan of almonds in baked goods/chocolates.

Third and final...Roasted Peanut: Unlike my usual dislike of almonds in sweets I LOVE peanuts in my sweets. Especially with chocolate. I can't get enough of the combo. I like it so much that I sometimes might break off a piece of a chocolate bar and dip it into the peanut butter jar. So I was super excited to try this bar as well. It is just like the Toasted Almond bar in denseness which is perfectly fine by me. I like a chocolate candy bar with some heft it turns out. The peanut flavor wasn't overpowering which was a nice change compared to most peanut chocolates. Just a nice treat.

Lucky for me I just started to notice that one of the Whole Foods by me has started carrying them so it looks like I will be buying these again for a special treat every once in awhile.

Well I'm off to get ready for a wedding so a big CONGRATS TO MY FRIENDS STEVE AND BECKY ON THEIR WEDDING DAY!!!!!