Sunday, July 4, 2010

4th July Baking on July 2nd

This year I spent the 2nd of July grocery shopping and baking. Our town held our 4th of July celebration on the 3rd because the 4th was on a Sunday. Other towns around us held theirs on the 4th but our town has always held early if it fell on Sunday. So Shopping and baking were the days events.

My list for the day was....

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie
Rhubarb Bread
Apple Bread
Chocolate cupcakes w/ strawberry icing and chocolate covered strawberries
Chocolate cupcakes w/ peanut butter icing, drizzled in chocolate w/ a blueberry
Chocolate Chip cookies
Mocha Cookies
Donuts
Hot dog Sauce
.. I think that was all...


Vegan Pie Crust<~~~ Click Started by making some quick pie crust to stick in the fridge and get cold. It only has 4 ingredients and turns out really nice and flaky. It came from the Vegfamily website. It would be great on sweet or savory pies. It calls for Margarine, salt, flour, and water. But for sweet pies you could add a small amount of sugar. But I thought it was perfect the way it was. I am going to make a veggie pot pie later this week and I am going to us this pie crust for a third time.

Vegan Cupcakes<~~~click, scroll down to find recipe Next we went with my favorite chocolate cake recipe from The Joy of Vegan baking. I went ahead and used it for cupcakes.It said it made like 8 cupcakes but I got 12 out of each batter. I could have probably made 18 cupcakes that just reached the top of the cupcake papers. Which I wish I would have thought of when I was putting it in the papers. The end product would have looked nicer. But all of the cupcakes turned out very pretty. I was pleased with them.

Peanut Butter Icing & Strawberry Icing

I had so many things to do that day I am sad to admit I used store bought icing. I took two containers of white vegan store bought icing and added natural peanut butter to it. I only needed one can but I add to much peanut butter to it and it was to thick to squeeze out through the icing tip. So I had to take it back out and add a whole can of icing to thin it out. It is very simple to make just dont add to much peanut butter. :) add and mix till it has a nice powder sugar peanut butter taste. You can use homemade icing too. I would have much preferred this. But like I said I had to much going on. After I icinged the cupcakes I drizzled melted chocolate on them and then plopped a nice pretty Blueberry right in the middle. Nice and pretty.

The strawberry icing was also a store bought vegan icing. They turned out pretty and the kids loved them. But the icing was definitely artificially flavored. I would have much rather made my own and added real strawberry. Next time I will not buy this stuff. I plopped chocolate covered strawberries right on top which made them look gorgeous.

Chocolate Chip <~~ recipe and Mocha Stripes <~~book page
The chocolate chip cookies and Mocha stripes were the two favorites of the day. One of my friends even said the chocolate chip cookies were better than her mothers non vegan cookies. She also loved the mocha stripes and said she wanted the recipe. She is in the list of people now who have asked for vegan cookie recipes after trying these awesome cookies. The Joy of Vegan baking is always my choice for chocolate chip cookies. They always turn out great and I have never had a problem with cooking them. I also really like Isa's recipe on post punk kitchen and I made it for a long time. But then they started not turning out right. I am not sure why. But they would just get totally runny. So I now use the Joy of vegan baking.

The mocha stripes everyone seems to love.... Except my mother... They are from The 100 best vegan baking recipes. They are so yummy! try them.

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie<~~~ click for recipe Strawberry Rhubarb Pie again. I just made one of these a couple weeks ago. But they are so yummy I thought why not... But what I didn't know was people either love rhubarb of hate it... I'm not sure why and I didn't know that till the 3rd when every one was staying away from all things rhubarb... that is so sad. So I guess next year I am skipping anything with rhubarb.

Rhubarb resistance!
I have noticed the more I cook for people and its normally baking... People do not like to try new things... They are like totally against it. I do have my mother who really doesn't like trying new foods but she will normally suck it up and try whatever it is I make. I think she is afraid of hurting my feelings... Or maybe its because I fallow her around like... Mom, mom, mom, try it,. Its good, mom , mom, mom, please... so.. who knows. but I am glad she almost always tries what I fix. I normally don't have her try things I know she wont like though. But people grow up and try something new. the next time I hear someone gripping at their child because they won't try something and I have offered them something that they wouldn't try...it is on.... ! :) No matter what recipe I use the pie as always turned out great.

Rhubarb Bread<~~~click for recipe The one new thing I have fixed this week was Rhubarb Bread. I had decided if we have so much rhubarb that I need to find something more than pie to make with it. I had been looking fir a recipe so in comes the rhubarb bread recipe I saw in the new Animal Times magazine. I was having an issue that I didn't have any silken tofu though. So I went online to find a recipe and printed out Aunt Yvonne's Rhubarb Bread on vegcooking.com. Also needing tofu... So I just used a firm silken tofu and it seemed to work just fine. But what I didn't realize was it was the same exact recipe... So find either or they both work out great. I didn't use pecans though. I used what I had and that was walnuts and they worked out great. My mother, my neighbor, my husband and I are the only people who really tried it. John was the only one who knows it had tofu in it. I choice to leave that part out. But our neighbors daughters who I grew up with didn't like it. Their mother said I should have just given it to them and not told them what it was and they would have liked it. lol. They said they don't like rhubarb... I noticed none of our guests tried it either.... scardy cats!!!! It reminds me of a zucchini bread recipe. Just with rhubarb and nuts. It was sweet and moist. The rhubarb gave it a slight tang and then the nutty flavor of the walnuts added to the altogether yummy experience. I am glad I didn't skip the nuts like I normally do. Thought I took a picture. But I guess I didn't so here is a picture of it back in the back upper left corner.

Donuts
These were the bane of my existence. I tried two recipes and not one turned out tasting like a donut. But I did like the one recipe as a sweet bread... so I guess it wasn't all a failure.

Ifood.tv vegan donuts that you fry. They reminded me a little of funnel cake because of the sweetness. But they were really oil soaked and I just didn't like them.

Next was Veganverve's Baked donuts the revised edition. This recipe worked great as a sweet dinner role. But I didn't like it as a donut. My dad really like these and said they would work as donuts and really wanted me to try everything possible to get them to work. but at the end I decided to mix some Cinnamon and smart balance light and use them as roles. I will use this recipe again as a role. I might even try them with melted chocolate to see if they can pull through to a donut... But I doubt it.

Next time I will be trying Vegan yum yums Mini baked donut which I didn't get to that night.

Hot dog sauce or Sloppy Joes <~~~ recipe to come soon I make hot dog sauce one time a year normally. I don't know why. I just don't normally make it. I didn't even start eating hot dog sauce till after I became a vegetarian many years ago. I almost always use the same recipe from one of my mothers cookbooks. It always turns out great even with substitutions. I even use it as a sloppy joe recipe and it is so yummy. Reminds me kinda of Manwhich. I made this really quick on the 3rd of July morning right before going to my moms. It quick to through together and than it just cooks till your ready for it.

And I never got around to making the Apple bread. I lost the recipe and ran out of time... oops. must not have been meant to be...

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