Top Secret Operation Step 2: Cake Carving and Crumb Coat

After the Vegan Cakes were made and frozen, I need to carve them to the right shape, and put on a crumb coat. In order to keep this Top Secret, I can't reveal yet which shape I carved it to, but let's say the people in this house can tell what it is without being told! I used a template printed from a google image search, and traced it with a knife onto the top layer, and then began slicing away pieces until my two layers resembled the shape I wanted.

Once that was done, it was time to make these cakes decidedly un-vegan with some Buttercream Frosting. I just made a simple buttercream, with butter, shortening, confectioners sugar, and a splash of milk. I put a generous bit between the two layers, and then began a thin "crumb coat" around the whole cake and sides. The point of the crumb coat is to catch all the crumbs from the cake so it won't ruin the look of the finished cake. Once the thin crumb coat is on I put the cake in the fridge for an hour or so, to really let it set.

The rest of the house has been enjoying the cake remains and extra frosting, pretty tasty!

Top Secret Operation Step 1: Vegan Chocolate Cakes

There's a top secret project going on over here, it was started yesterday. I baked some vegan cakes. They weren't intended to be vegan, although to be honest most of my baking is vegan these days. The first snag in baking my normal cake recipe was the lack of flour in my house. However, I found some cake flour I forgot I had. But then, there were no eggs. So I tried a new-to-me chocolate cake recipe. It was totally easy, and smelled delicious.

Cake Ingredients

1 1/4 cups flour (I used about 3 Tbsp extra because I was using cake flour)
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup warm water
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp distilled white or apple cider vinegar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl, add water, vanilla, oil and vinegar and stir to combine. Pour into greased pan(s) - the recipe said 8x8, I used two 8 inch rounds. Bake for 30 minutes, or until cake tested come out clean.

Admittedly, my two layers were a little thin at first, but they rose a bit and seemed ok when they came out of the oven.

For my top secret project, I let these cool, wrapped them in plastic and aluminum foil, and put them directly into the freezer.

Next step, cake carving....

Baked Tofu

Here's my new favorite thing. I've been keeping it a secret for a while, mostly because I've been too lazy to write about it. Baked Tofu! I guess that's what you call it. It's like fried tofu, but there's no frying, only baking. It's super simple, and pretty tasty, and easy to make any way you want and throw in to any dish you want.

Basically, you cut up the block of tofu. I've been using the firm tofu, and I haven't squeezed out much water. You could maybe press a little out. I've generally sliced it up in to squares about 1/2 an inch thick. Then you coat it in your breading mixture. This is where you can get crazy. I usually have used 1 part flour to 2 parts cornmeal and added in a variety of spices. One time it was paprika and some cajun spices. One time it was oregano and rosemary. One time I left it plain. But really, you can go as all out as you want.

I had some trouble perfecting the baking of it though. I've found that I line a pan with aluminum foil, and coat it with either cooking spray or olive oil (depending on which I have). I lay them all done and bake for like 10 minutes at 400 degrees. I flip them once and keep baking. The first time I think I took them out too early, they could have been crispier.

At this point you can do what you will with them. I've added some to salad, I've had them with couscous and veggies, I've put them with some beans and rice and made a burrito. The possibilities are endless....

Vegan Mocha Fudge Cake

My first vegan cake!

This cake was. . . delicious. The recipe came out of a cute little cake cookbook that my mother in-law gave me for Christmas called 500 Cakes. The original recipe is simply called Chocolate Fudge Cake, but I made it with the mocha fudge cake variation, one of five takes on the original. Both the cake and the frosting have instant coffee in it. And if you like chocolate and coffee as much as me then you should go make this right now. Jenni, are you drinking coffee yet? 'Cause ya should.

Chocolate Fudge Cake

(for the cake)

1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp. baking soda
4 tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup water
4 tbsp. vegetable oil (I used canola)
1 tbsp. white wine vinegar (apple cider vinegar would also be fine, or even lemon juice)

(for the frosting)

2 tbsp. vegetable oil
2 tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tbsp. boiling water
1 cup confectioner's sugar, sifted

Preheat oven to 350. Grease an 8-inch round cake pan and line the bottom with parchment paper.

Sift the flour, baking soda, and cocoa into a bowl, then stir in the sugar and make a well in the middle. Pour the oil, vinegar, and water in to the well and stir together quickly. Immediately pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 25 minutes until risen and a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. Turn out onto a wire rack and let cool completely.

To make the frosting, put the oil, cocoa, and boiling water in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Stir to combine, then gradually stir in the sugar and mix for about 2 minutes until thick and glossy. Add a drop more water if too thick. Pour the frosting over the cake and let it set for a few minutes before serving. [I just whisked it all together, didn't sift the confectioner's sugar or bother with the double boiler, and it was fine. . . ]

A few variations:

Chocolate & Orange Fudge Cake: Prepare the basic cake recipe, using orange juice instead of the water, and adding the finely grated zest of 1 orange with the oil and vinegar. [Note: If you make this you must invite me over to sample. Holy holy.]

Mocha Fudge Cake: Prepare the basic cake recipe, adding 1 tablespoon instant coffee dissolved in 1 tablespoon boiling water with the oil and vinegar. For the frosting, dissolve 1 tablespoon instant coffee in the boiling water before mixing with the sugar.

Chocolate Rum Cake: [I want this one too] Prepare the basic recipe, adding 1 tablespoon rum with the oil and vinegar. [Why stop at 1 tablespoon?]

tofu scramble omelette

It seems I've been keeping a secret, unintentionally, as it came up when I was talking to Mel on the phone last night. I...don't eat meat anymore. It's been a while, maybe since April. I don't really use the "V" word, mostly because I don't have a stance. I never really ate much meat. I was to the point where I never cooked it myself, and was really eating only chicken on occasion. I decided, I really didn't need it. So, out it went.

Enter tofu. I've never really cooked much with tofu. I guess you can say the same thing, I don't see the point. I'd rather more veggies and cheese to the tofu. But, I suppose there is some benefit, like say protein.

Now, most of you all should know by now, I'm not a fan of eggs. In fact, I hate them. Anything that tastes egg-y...yuck. But, recently a vegan friend of mine was telling me about this tofu-based omelette thing, and I was struck by the fact that, the tofu wasn't really there to TASTE like eggs. It was more a vehicle to get the other goodness into your mouth. And, a dream was born. One day, I will wake up on a Sunday, tired and hungry, and I will make an omelette. And it will be good.

That dream came true on Sunday, and it wasn't good. It was DELICIOUS.

I read various things, about omelettes and scrambles. And I decided the omelette route was mine. I diverged from the above recipes, mostly because of what I had on hand. First I began with my filling. I sautéed some white onion and garlic, then I added some asparagus. Once that was mostly cooked I added some fresh spinach. Is anyone else amazed at the significant size reduction of sautéed spinach. I put in so much, and it just shrunk down. And then, when the spinach was all cooked, I added a few tomatoes. Along the way I added some salt and pepper and our Cajun seasoning that tends to go in everything.

I left this on a low burner while I focused on the tofu. I pressed out some of the water, but I wasn't really careful to get it all. Then I sliced it, and put it through my little mini food chopper. It was somewhat paste-y at this point. I added some soy milk, although I didn't measure it - likely just shy of 1/4 cup. I mixed this up. It was still rather paste-y. Then I went to town with some seasoning. Cajun seasoning, salt, pepper, oregano (I think), and something else for sure.

Now, according to the omelette recipe, I was supposed to pour the "batter" onto a hot frying pan. My "batter" wasn't pourable, so I scooped it into the frying pan, and I tried to spread it around. I had some olive oil in the pan, and the tofu began to brown. Then, I put the filling on the tofu batter, and covered it with some freshly grated colby-jack cheese. I covered this, and let it sit for 4 minutes. At thing point, I was supposed to fold the omelette in half. This clearly wasn't happening, but I tried. It resulted in more of a "stirring" of the whole thing. So, this is when I switched from tofu omelette to tofu scramble. I just continued stirring and scrambling the whole mess. When it seemed done (brownish and warm), I scooped it on to a plate. I added more cheese on top, and ate it up.

It was so delicious, that I ran to give some to RO'D. He's pretty skeptical when it comes to these types of things. Veggie burgers, lentil tacos, tofu stir-fry, it takes some convincing. But, I tried. I said "Try this, it's delicious!" He asked "what is it?"

"Tofu scramble"
"oh, with egg replacements?"
"No, with tofu!"

So he ate a bite, and thought it was great. And said, "Wow, you can't even taste the eggs!"

"because, it's tofu!"

This is a winner!

My new favorite Cornbread recipe

I tend to bake late at night, I'm not sure why, I just do. So last night, around 11:30pm, I decided to whip up a new recipe I had found on allrecipes.com for Cornbread.

Who doesn't like cornbread? I've always made the super easy, somewhat healthy recipe on the package of cornmeal. It uses just a little oil, you can make it with one egg and one egg white, not too much sugar, it's great! But cornbread was on my mind recently, yes with Thanksgiving coming up, but I was also delightfully surprised when I went to dinner at a little cafe recently to be given a deliciously yummy and BUTTERY piece of cornbread while waiting for our meal. What a great idea! And way better than the typical bread basket. So I was craving a more buttery unhealthy cornbread recipe and came across this one below. It's not overly buttery either, but in my opinion, it's kind of perfect, and a recipe I'll be holding onto for a while. The best part? You can make it at 11:30pm and it will be done by 11:30pm. . . of course daylight savings time helps.

Grandmother's Buttermilk Cornbread

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter
• 2/3 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup buttermilk (duh, I didn't have buttermilk. . . let 1 cup of milk with 1 tablespoon vinegar or lemon juice sit for ten minutes and there you go -- a tip I learned from Jenni!)
  
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  
• 1 cup cornmeal
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease an 8 inch square pan.
2. Melt butter in large skillet.* Remove from heat and stir in sugar. Quickly add eggs and beat until well blended. Combine buttermilk with baking soda and stir into mixture in pan. Stir in cornmeal, flour, and salt until well blended and few lumps remain. Pour batter into the prepared pan.
3. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.**

* I used my 3 quart saucepan, which was big enough to later mix everything else into, and didn't have to dirty a bowl.
** It will only take 30 minutes unless you use part or all whole wheat flour instead of the all-purpose, but why would you do that? Need I remind you that there's already a stick of butter in there?

spinach & cheese = a match made in heaven

I'm trying out new recipes for Thanksgiving and holy holy have I got one for you to try.

It's very possible that I like anything with spinach and cheese, especially Gruyere cheese. I tried this recipe today though and thought it was extra wonderful so I wanted to share it. Even the picky husband liked it! So here we are, Spinach Gratin, brought to you by everyone's most favorite and fabulous chef, the Barefoot Contessa herself, Ina Garten:

Spinach Gratin

Ingredients

* 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
* 4 cups chopped yellow onions (2 large)
* 1/4 cup flour
* 1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
* 1 cup heavy cream (I used all whole milk, no heavy cream)
* 2 cups milk
* 3 pounds frozen chopped spinach, defrosted (5 (10-ounce) packages)
* 1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
* 1 tablespoon kosher salt
* 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
* 1/2 cup grated Gruyere cheese

Directions

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

Melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed saute pan over medium heat. Add the onions and saute until translucent, about 15 minutes.** Add the flour and nutmeg and cook, stirring, for 2 more minutes. Add the cream and milk and cook until thickened. Squeeze as much liquid as possible from the spinach and add the spinach to the sauce. Add 1/2 cup of the Parmesan cheese and mix well. Season, to taste, with salt and pepper.

Transfer the spinach to a baking dish and sprinkle the remaining 1/2 cup Parmesan and the Gruyere on top. Bake for 20 minutes until hot and bubbly. Serve hot.

**Next time, on Thanksgiving if not before then, I will saute the onions a little longer, until they're not just translucent but golden brown. The best part of the gratin was the golden bits of cheese around the top edge of the dish, so I think if you get the onions to brown a bit too it would have that delicious sweetness and crispness that this dish needs.