Sunday, July 20, 2008

Adventures in Baking




Well not really a "shrinking" topic is it???

I think I've been posessed by my grandmother! I'm baking up a storm.
It all started when I wanted to make cupcakes for my son's birthday in June. I wanted all his little friends to have a treat including the vegans.

I found this AWESOME recipe

Fluffy White Cupcakes
makes 22 cupcakes
1 TB white vinegar
1 ½ scant cups plain soymilk
2 1/8 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
1 1/8 cups sugar
½ cup oil
1 ¼ tsp. vanilla extract
½ tsp. coconut extract (optional)

Preheat the oven to 180ยบ.

Spray 22 muffin cups with nonstick spray or line with paper cupcake liners (I like to spray the inside of the muffin papers with nonstick spray to help the cupcakes release). Set aside.Place the vinegar in the bottom of a liquid measuring cup and fill the cup with soymilk to equal 1 ½ cups. Stir well and set aside (the mixture will curdle).

In a large mixing bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In another mixing bowl whisk together the soymilk mixture, canola oil, and extract.

Add the wet to the dry ingredients and beat until smooth using a hand-held mixer, stopping once to scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Fill each muffin cup with ¼ cup of batter. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until a cake tester inserted in the middle of a cupcake comes out clean. Let cool in the pans for 5 minutes, then remove cupcakes from the pan and place on a wire rack.

Let the cupcakes cool completely before frosting.

I made several batches to "practice" and then for his and his friends birthdays.


My Fav. batch was for his wee girl friend's birthday. I piped melted chocolate on overhead projecter sheets with templates of Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore and Piglet's faces on paper undernieth. Once the chocolate had set I pushed it into the iced cupcakes
They looked WONDERFUL



Other wonderfull kitchen experiments have resulted in what I like to call

CUP PIES.

http://homecooking.about.com/od/dessertrecipes/r/blcookie83.htm

I changed the recepie and replaced the peanut butter chips with just chocolate.
mmmmmmm

OMG
Macaroons!!!!

Little man LOVES them...

real easy. (off the top of my head)

Two egg whites
half a cup of sugar
a teaspoon of vanilla essance
2 1/2 cups of coconut

stir it all up in a bowl

Bung spoonfulls on a tray and chuck it in the oven at 170 for about 10 minutes.

AWESOME

I like to drizzle melted chocolate over them.
YAY

2 comments:

mimbles said...

Damn. Now I'm hungry :)

Good on you for making the effort to cater for your vegan visitors. I have a few vegan friends, I find it's really not that hard to make sure they're catered for and they really do appreciate the gesture.

Penny said...

yum... macaroons :)