...while making Mexican food

Every time I hear a four-syllable word or phrase with the emphasis on the first and third syllables, I get an irresistible urge to sing it to the tune of the Hallelujah chorus.

"Gua---camole. Gua----camole, GuacaMOLee, GuacaMOLee, gua--AH-CAAH-moLEE."

Vegan Zebra Cake (Jaffa)

I saw a link to this amazing-looking cake on blog.craftzine.com:

(image from bakingbites.com)

...so I thought I'd give it a go. Looks impressive, but the technique for achieving the stripes is miraculously easy. However, I thought I'd have a shot at veganising it rather than using the recipe provided, so that my egg-and-dairy-eschewing Beloved could enjoy my handiwork.

The original recipe uses chocolate and vanilla stripes, but I thought I'd use up an orange and make it into a jaffa cake. I adapted the recipe from another chocolate cake I use all the time - it's the easiest cake on earth, made from ingredients I always have on hand, plus it's juicy and fluffy.

Vegan Zebra Jaffa Cake recipe:

Batter 1:

1 cup S.R. flour

2 tbsp cocoa

2/3 cup sugar

2/3 cup water

1 tsp vanilla

3 tsp white vinegar

4 tbsp oil

Pinch salt

Batter 2:

1 1/4 cup S.R. flour

2/3 cup sugar

Juice of 1 orange, plus water to make 2/3 cup

Grated rind of 1 orange

1 tsp white vinegar

4 tbsp oil

Pinch salt

Preheat oven to 180C / 350F.

Make up the two batters - just put everything in and stir.

Now for the fun part. Into a greased circular pan, spoon a couple of tablespoons of batter 1. Into the middle of this puddle, spoon a couple of tablespoons of batter 2. Continue this process until all the batter is gone. By some miraculous process, the two colours won't combine, but will push each other up vertically into stripes.

For a photo tutorial, try here.

Bake, checking after 40 minutes with a skewer, and removing when solid.

Here is how mine turned out:

I iced mine with a ganache based on one in the awesome book Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.

1/8 cup soy milk

50 grams good-quality vegan chocolate (I like Lindt 70%)

Dessert spoon of syrup - maple or rice syrup work well

Heat up soy milk in microwave. Break up chocolate into little bits. Add chocolate to hot milk and stir stir stir until it melts and becomes smooth and glossy. Stir in syrup. Use.

The Gap

I can't remember if there was ever a time when my thighs didn't brush past each other when I walked. I'm assuming so, because I remember a couple of summers ago when I realised that wearing bike shorts under skirts made them a lot more comfortable, so presumably before that it wasn't an issue.

I've become fascinated with The Gap. I covertly watch people walking down the street in front of me, to see if their legs touch or swing freely. Until that recent summer, it never really occurred to me that some people have freely swishing legs and some don't. Now I look for it all the time. 

Australian music in the 90s

Last night, my Beloved's iPod shuffle function dredged up a song I used to love about ten years ago, but had since wiped from my mind entirely - Greater Expectations by Sandpit. Such a great song, wistful yet upbeat. I immediately went into a nostalgic reverie, jumping up and down and squealing.

It made me remember just how awesome and exciting Australian music was in the 1990s, and how much of my time I used to spend in the cosy, cave-live interior of the Au Go Go shop - Snout, Sandpit, You Am I, Jebediah, Tomorrow People, Tumbleweed, Bodyjar, Regurgitator, Drop City, Dreamkillers, Spiderbait, Powderfinger, Pollyanna, Screamfeeder, Augie March, Something For Kate, Non Intentional Lifeform, Effigy, Even, Grinspoon, The Mavises, Ammonia,  Not From There, Front End Loader, The Fauves, Voodoo Lovecats, Magic Dirt.... it was such a time.

So very sad

This Sweet Juniper post is so sad, I could just about cry. I can just imagine the organiser afterwards, tears welling up as they pack up the paper plates. *Sniff*

More smugly healthful cookies

In my ongoing quest for cakie-things I can eat with reckless, guiltless abandon, here are some fruity goodies I just whipped up. They taste good straight out of the oven - surprisingly so, given that they are essentially baked porridge - and go nicely with chai.

(Recipe from here)

4 very ripe bananas

2 cups instant oats

1 cup raisins or chopped dates

1 large or 2 small peeled, diced apples

1/3 cup canola oil

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

1 heaped teaspoon cinnamon

1 tsp baking powder (my addition - not sure if it made a difference)

Preheat oven to 180C/350F.

Mash bananas to a pulpy mess. Add everything else. Stir and leave to sit for 15 minutes. Spoon teaspoons-full onto a silicon baking mat or tray with baking paper. Make them nice and shapely. Bake for 20 minutes. 

Makes about 36. 

Cookies for noble healthy people

I like eating chocolate. Sometimes, however, I ponder the amount of chocolate I eat, and then I start trying not to eat chocolate per se, but chocolate-flavoured-things-that-are-less-good-but-healthier.

My latest recipe has been chocolate cookies, with no added fats/oils, no added animal products (i.e. vegan) and minimal sugar. Not to mention being high-fibre. And high-protein. They sound pretty boring, and in comparison to chocolate, they are. However, for nibbling something with a hot beverage - say, a hot chocolate - they work well.

I got the recipe from http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2007/02/valentines-treat-chocolate-cookies-two.html.

She, in turn, modified them from somewhere else.

I added pecans for texture. (Actually, I added walnuts, but I wish I'd added pecans. The walnuts I used had bits of shell in the packet, which added some trepidation to the cookie-chewing experience.) I also replaced 1/4 of the flour with high-protein soy powder, simply because I have some in my pantry and wanted to see what would happen. Likewise, I replaced the sugar with agave syrup - I once bought some because it's in lots of recipes from American vegan cook books. It worked okay. It's made out of the same cactus plant as tequila.

I should add that straight out of the oven, they aren't at their best. You know how fat is a flavour carrier, in a way that plain-flour-and water-dough isn't? They start out quite doughy and chewy. When they are cool, pop them into an airtight container, and over the next day or two, the doughiness gives way to a cakier, chewier texture and the flavour comes out. 

INGREDIENTS

1 cup flour (I replaced some with protein powder)

3/4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

Pinch salt

1/2 cup cocoa

2/3 cup brown sugar (or other sweetener)

1/2 cup prunes, pureed in a bit of hot water

1/3 cup soy yoghurt (I used vanilla flavour, it being the only flavour stocked at my supermarket. It works out to be about half an individual container)

1 tsp vanilla

2/3 cup pecans

Magic ingredient - 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

Heat oven to 180C/350F. Mix together wet stuff, add dry. Make teaspoon-sized splodges on a greased tray or silicon baking mat. Flatten with wet hands. Bake 10 - 15 minutes.