White Cake Search: First Contestant

I want a white vegan cake for my birthday in the fall so I've decided to try out some of the recipes online. The first white cake was made as a late Mother's Day cake for me. I filled it with raspberry jam and covered it with half of the chocolate frosting recipe. I found it better the next day but only gave it 3/5, though my son gave it a 4.

Flour Tortillas

I usually only buy one type of bread because my son takes a snack with him to school everyday and this bread is good for sandwiches. I've found though that it upsets my stomach and I've been trying to find something for me but I've been throwing out more bread than I've been eating. When I saw these flour tortillas on the Your Vegan Mom blog and saw how simple they were to make, I thought that I might try to make just a few and see how my stomach liked them.

Two Small Flour Tortillas

1 dl flour (I'm planning on trying other flours)
1 tsp liquid margarine or oil
¼ dl warm water
dash of salt

Mix ingredients with fork, adding more water if too dry or more flour if too sticky. Knead for two minutes. Cover and let rest for 2 hours. Heat frying pan. Divide dough in half and roll out thinly on a floured board. (I forgot to add the salt, so before rolling them out I sprinkled a few grains of salt on top and then rolled them. I suppose I didn't need to add any salt as my topping was salty anyway.) Fry on each side for 30- 45 seconds.

Raw Brownie Balls

I've been wanting to try these for a while but I didn't feel like washing the food processor just to make these. I'm trying something for supper that needed the food processor so I made these first.

Raw Brownie Balls

½ dl almonds
3/4 dl pecans or walnuts
1-1/4 dl chopped dates
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1½ tsp water
coconut

Process nuts, dates, cocoa powder and water until nuts are finely processed. Form into balls and then roll in coconut. Refridgerate for a few hours before eating.

Jelly Donut Cupcakes

For the First of May (May Day?) I was looking forward to making the jelly donut cupcakes. Sugar donuts are a tradition here for May Day but I don't really like them. Well I made them, and though they were quite good, I don't think they tasted like donuts. But I've never tasted American donuts, so what do I know? When I was searching for the recipe I noticed that in some of cupcakes bloggers made, the jam had risen to the top. I had the opposite problem. The jam sank to the bottom and we had to use a spoon to eat it. I think I'll make the cupcakes again but I'll leave the jam out of most of them and try putting a bit of jam on top of a few before baking, to see if it sinks to the bottom.

Butternut Squash

As far as I can remember I've never tasted butternut squash and all the time I've been living here I haven't seen them in the store. Last week a department store was having a theme week and one of the products was butternut squashes, so I bought the smallest one. Then I had to find a recipe. I was thinking of a soup but I thought that the other ingredients would blend in with the squash and we wouldn't know what it tasted like. I found a recipe on cooks.com for Butternut Squash au Gratin and used it as is (minus the onions, of course), which is quite strange for me as I usually tweak it to our tastes. If I ever come across one again, I'll buy it though I'll try another recipe.

Nutty Hummus

We're new to hummus so I haven't spiced it too strongly. I think I only made it once last year. TS didn't like it but I decided to try it again. We were having broccoli soup for supper and I thought that this would be nice to have on crackers to go with the soup. TS didn't want to try it! I gave him one cracker with some on it and he said that there was some taste that he didn't like. I took out the cumin bag and had him smell it and he said that he thought it was that. Next time I'll divide it in half before adding the cumin and make some without. It would be nice to have something different for sandwiches.

Nutty Hummus

4 dl (400g tin) cooked chickpeas, rinsed and drained
½ dl pumpkin seeds
½ dl cashews (salted)
1 tbsp tahini
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp lemon juice
3 tbsp water, or more if needed
¼ tsp cumin
¼ tsp paprika powder
¼ tsp dried parsley
dash chili powder
dash pepper
salt to taste

Purée pumpkin seeds and cashews in food processor until fine. Add rest of ingredients and purée until smooth.

Caesarish Salad Dressing

Now that I'm able to post pictures instead of just looking at them on the camera, I can get back to blogging. I found a vegan caesar salad dressing recipe some time ago but I didn't write down where I took it from and now I can't find it on the internet. I've changed it anyway.

Caesarish Salad Dressing
1 part ground almonds (I've been using cashews because that's what I have)
1 part nutritional yeast
1 part lemon juice
½ part soy sauce
½ part olive oil
pepper to taste
water to thin to your taste

Process nuts and nutritional yeast in food processor. Add rest of ingredients and process until smooth. Add water, if you want.

The dressing in the picture also 1 part pumpkin seeds and no water. I don't think that I'll use that much pumpkin seeds again. Maybe I'll try ¼ part.