Back in February Rich and I went to Montreal to hang out with some old friends and be a bit touristy. While there, we ate at Crudessence twice, and I picked up their cookbook. Originally I’d planned to make one of their granola recipes, but well, it’s hard to make granola in a dehydrator when you don’t own a dehydrator (imagine that!). So I took their Cranberry Ginger granola recipe as inspiration and ran with the flavour idea. Then I realized Jae Steele has a similar granola in her book, Get it Ripe. Those two recipes, plus one from David Lebovitz, were the inspiration behind the final product I ended up with.

Cranberry Ginger Granola

Get gluten-free oats and oat bran if you want to make this 100% gluten-free. As written, it is already vegan.

3 cups rolled oats
1 cup oat bran
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1/2 cup chopped almonds
1/4 cup chopped pumpkin seeds
1/4 cup coconut oil (melted slightly if it is hard)
2/3 cup brown rice syrup
1/3 cup fined chopped candied ginger
3/4 cup dried cranberries

Preheat oven to 300C. Lightly oil two cookie sheets.

Combine all ingredients except the ginger and cranberries. Mix well to make sure the oil and brown rice syrup are well distributed throughout the granola.

Spread the mixture onto your cookie sheets; you want a pretty thin layer so it will cook evenly and crisp up nicely.

Bake in your preheated oven for 35-45 minutes, stirring once or twice during the baking process. Stirring makes sure everything browns evenly, however, you don’t want to stir it too much or you won’t get the lovely clumps of granola that Rich loves.

Once your oats are a lovely golden brown, remove from the oven and let cool for 10 minutes, then stir in your ginger and cranberries.

Allow to cool completely, then store in an airtight container. Properly stored, this should keep about a month. That is, if you don’t eat it all before then.

To get started blogging again, I thought I’d do something very low-key and post my responses to this survey on gluten-free vegan eating. Note that xgfx is their shorthand for gluten-free vegan.

1. What’s your favorite gluten-free flour?
Tough one! It changes depending on what I’m making. Lately I’ve been loving coconut flour, but of course you can only use it in things that you want to have that coconut flavour. Of course, my go-to flour for 99% of what I make is sorghum, so maybe I should say that.

2. What have you always wanted to deglutenize, but haven’t yet?
Seitan! Apparently, it IS possible….

3. What’s one of your favorite xgfx meals to make?
Pad Thai

4. Your biggest gluten-free success that makes ya most proud?
Well, there isn’t one specific recipe, but I’ve found that I’m able to convert almost any cake, cookie, quick bread or muffin to a gluten-free, vegan version. Admittedly it sometimes takes a few tries, but I usually do succeed eventually! As I described to someone once, it’s really just about chemistry.

5. Most “epic xgfx fail”?
Oh dear. Not long after I went gluten-free, I bought potato flour instead of potato starch for a bread recipe. Lets just say the bread turned into a rock, and I’m not even sure the squirrels I tried to feed it to were going to eat it.

6. What product do you wish was xgfx that isn’t?
Veggie dogs! I’m totally serious. Here in Canada no one makes a tofu dog, only a tofu-and-seitan dog. I can very easily make a gluten-free, vegan bun! I just need a veggie dog to put in it.

7. If you could pass along one gluten-free tip to a gluten-free newbie, what would it be?
Learn to appreciate the foods that are naturally gluten-free, like rice and quinoa. If you’re always trying to replicate foods that have gluten in them, you’re going to be disappointed sometimes.

8. What’s your favorite xgfx product?
I’ll say two:

In Toronto: bread from Bunner’s Bake Shop.

Available all over the place: Sol Cuisine Veggie Breakfast Patties

9. Is there anything you miss being gluten-free?
Regular bread. Not being able to eat bread means finding a quick vegan meal can be difficult.

10. Any xgfx techniques you’ve learned that have been most helpful?
My main advice to anyone baking gluten-free is to blend flours. Never try to make something with just a single flour – you won’t get the results you’re hoping for.

11. Have you found a favorite gluten-free pizza dough recipe that makes your heart sing?

Yes! Sometimes I play with the flours I use and it STILL comes out tasty every time. Rich likes it so much that he doesn’t like going out for pizza, he prefers that I make one instead.

12. Xanthan gum. Do you or don’t you? Love it or leave it?
I’m meh about it. I’ll use it when I need to, but try to leave it out if I don’t.

13. Favorite gluten free prepackaged bread?
Well other than the great stuff from Bunner’s, I do really like the buckwheat bread from Organic Works and the quinoa bread from Little Stream. Oh, and Organic Works also makes a yummy cinnamon raisin loaf, if you want something a bit more sweet.

14. What’s your favorite way to nosh on quinoa?
Quinoa salad. Easy to make, easy to modify to your own tastes.

15. Name five of your most coveted pantry staples.
Chickpeas, short-grain brown rice, gluten-free tamari, rice pasta, good quality olive oil.

16. If you could only buy three gluten free flours to last you for three months, what would they be?
Sorghum, corn starch, chickpea.

17. Any xgfx ingredients you are intimidated about trying?
Nothing I can think of at the moment! I’m pretty, err, daring in the kitchen.

18. Favorite place to buy foods?
I have a few: Karma Co-op for their bulk gluten-free flours, nut butters, and spices, Fiesta Farms for their ‘international’ groceries section, and Sweet Potato because they are in my ‘hood and a good place to get organic veggies and fruits.

19. Favorite meal when dining out?
I like foods that are naturally gluten-free and vegan, like a lot of Indian or Thai curries. Easy to order and very yummy.

20. Name one xgfx product you’ve tried that you didn’t like.
A LOT of the breads out there are not very good. I’ve been disappointed many times. The only brands I buy are the three mentioned above, plus sometimes if I can find them I get Aidan’s gluten-free breads or bagels.

I had three organic, fair-trade bananas languishing on my counter, so decided to combine those with some mini chocolate chips and make muffins.

This was the result.

My experiment paid off! These are great – not too sweet, a bit of chocolate and a great banana flavour. Not to mention some fiber from the oat bran, and not too crazy on the fat content with only 1/3 cup of oil in there.

But hey, my goal ultimately was a good tasting muffin and I think I hit the target on that one. If you make these, let me know how they turn out and if you like them!

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
Vegan and Gluten-free!

1 cup sorghum flour
1/2 cup millet flour
1/2 cup corn starch
1 cup oat bran (if you’re super gluten sensitive, make sure you buy certified gluten-free oat bran)
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
3 medium, ripe bananas, mashed
1/3 cup sunflower oil
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 cup unsweetened apple sauce
1/2 cup vegan mini chocolate chips (I use Enjoy Life brand)

Preheat oven to 375^oC. Grease a 12-cup muffin tin or line with paper liners.

Mix the mashed bananas, oil, brown sugar and apple sauce in a large bowl until well combined.

In a second bowl, whisk together the flours, starch, oat bran, salt and baking powder. Once mixed, dump the contents into the bowl with the wet ingredients and stir to combine.

Add in the chocolate chips and stir until chips are well distributed through the batter.

Fill muffin cups full – with my tins I had exactly enough batter to fill the tins and none left over.

Bake in your preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, until the tops are lightly browned and a toothpick inserted into the centre of one muffin comes out clean. If your oven doesn’t heat very evenly (like mine!) you’ll want to turn the tin around 180^o after 15 minutes, to make sure the muffins cook evenly.

Eat fresh out of the oven. If you have leftovers, store in an airtight container; they’ll keep for a few days.

A quick poll of my twitter friends yielded a few ideas, but in the end I decided to pull out my copy of Vegan Cookies Invade your Cookie Jar and make the Vegan Lemon Bar recipe. Actually, it’s the exact same recipe as in Veganomicon, so if you own that, you’ve got a copy. I’ve also reproduced it here. The only change I made was to make the recipe gluten-free by using a gluten-free flour mixture where the all-purpose flour was. Oh, and I also just mixed everything by hand instead of with a food processor as the original recipe states to do. If you’d rather use a food processor, just pulse together all the crust ingredients until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs, then continue on with the recipe from there.

By the way, if you’re not familiar with agar agar, you can find it at most natural food stores. I found mine at Qi (Bloor/Christie location), for those of you who are in Toronto.

Vegan Lemon Bars

Crust:
1 cup almond flour
1/2 cup white rice flour
1/4 cup quinoa flour
1/3 cup cornstarch
2/3 cup powdered sugar
1 cup non-hydrogenated margarine (I used Earth Balance)

Filling:
1 1/3 cups water
3 tablespoons agar agar flakes
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/8 teaspoon turmeric
2/3 cup fresh lemon juice (I needed five lemons for this)
3 tablespoons arrowroot powder
1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest (from two large lemons)
1/4 cup soymilk

Extra powdered or confectioners’ sugar to decorate finished bars

Lightly grease a 9×13 inch pan. You might also want to put some parchment paper in the bottom of the pan, as that helps get the bars out when they’re done, but it’s not strictly necessary. Also, don’t start your oven just yet – the cookie crust layer needs to chill for a bit before you bake it.

In a medium-sized bowl, mix together your flours, cornstarch and powdered sugar. Then, using a fork or a pastry cutter (aka pastry blender), incorporate in the margarine, a few tablespoons at a time, until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Then dump the mixture into your prepared pan and press down firmly to form an even layer, with slightly raised sides to hold in the tasty filling you’re about to make. Put that in the fridge and set a timer for 30 minutes. Once your timer goes off, preheat your oven to 350F and when heated, bake the crust for 30-35 minutes or until lightly browned. Set this aside to cool, then start on your filling.

In a medium sauce pan, soak the agar agar in the water for 15 minutes. Leave that to soak while you zest your lemons and squeeze as much juice as you can out of them, or until you have 2/3 cup of juice. Mix the arrowroot powder in with the lemon juice until it is fully dissolved.

When the agar has been soaking 15 minutes, put the pot on the stove and bring it to a boil over high heat. Let it boil for 10 minutes, or until the agar is fully dissolved. Then add in the sugar and turmeric and boil 2-3 minutes until dissolved. Then, lower the heat to medium and add the arrowroot/lemon mixture, then the lemon zest and soy milk. Whisk constantly now until the mixture thickens; it should take about 5 minutes or so. What I found was that I had to make sure the mixture stayed at a good simmer (not boiling!) in order for it to thicken enough, so if you find your mixture is cooling too much, turn up the heat just a bit.

Pour the filling mixture into the crust. Let this cool for 20-30 minutes on your counter, then place the pan in the fridge for at least 3 hours. You want the filling to be set – only slightly jiggly, much like Jello.

To serve, cut into squares and sprinkle each square with powdered sugar. Try not to eat the entire pan in one night (it’s hard, I know!).

Making flourless chocolate cake gluten-free is pretty easy, since naturally it’s already gluten-free. But veganizing it takes a bit more work. The usual recipe takes chocolate, eggs, sugar and butter and turns it into a dense, moist, very chocolatey cake. And the eggs in the recipe are what gives it its structure, so you can’t just go and replace them with the usual flax seed, mashed bananas, or ‘vegan egg replacer mix’ that most vegans use in place of eggs.

So, how does this work, then?

Pumpkin! And also, umm, a little flour. But it’s buckwheat flour, and as the person who wrote this recipe mentions, buckwheat isn’t really flour, it’s a groat! So it doesn’t count, right?

The recipe is extremely easy to make: just put everything in a blender and blend blend blend! Then pour into a greased Springform pan and bake for about an hour at 350C.

This recipe is from Gluten-Free Goddess, and I didn’t modify it at all, so I’ll simply link to her blog. I will mention that you don’t need a Vitamix for this recipe, any blender will do, as long as it is decently high powered and has about a 2L capacity (or more).

I served mine with a simple caramel sauce: Take 2 tablespoons of soy milk and combine them with 1 tablespoon arrowroot flour and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract. Set aside. Then take 1/4 cup of vegan butter (like Earth Balance) and melt in a small pot. Stir in 1 cup brown sugar and 1/3 cup soy milk and let come to a boil. Let it boil for 3 minutes, stirring frequently. Then, take the pan off the heat and stir in the arrowroot mixture – it should thicken pretty quickly. Serve over your cake or over ice cream or anything else that could use a little caramel.

This is my final post on the February Vegan Challenge. I have to say, it wasn’t bad at all having zero animal products for the month of February. It was a bit tricky at times, as eating out when you’re vegan can be a challenge, but cooking at home was completely fine. I even finally got to try soy-based ‘sour cream’ and I liked it! Like most vegan ‘replacement foods’ (butter, sour cream, etc) it has to be a sometimes food because of the high amounts of palm oil, but it was a tasty addition to some vegan tacos we had a few weeks ago.

If you’ve ever thought of going vegan for a while, I encourage you to do so!

The 2010 February Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Michele of Veggie Num Nums. Michele chose to challenge everyone to make mezze based on various recipes from Claudia Roden, Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Dugid.

So mezze. I love small plates and I love mezze, even if the trend is getting a bit old at restaurants here in Toronto. But at home, I think it’s a great idea for a party. Unfortunately, we had no event to have a party for, so instead I just made this month’s challenge just because I could.

We were required to make pita bread from scratch, and hummus from the recipe Michele found. Other than that, we could make whatever else we wanted for our mezze table. I opted to go the slightly easy route: a gluten-free pita, hummus, and falafel (also gluten-free). Everything was already vegan, so I didn’t have to worry about that end of things.

The pita was the real challenge for me. The original recipe was of course filled with gluten, so I had to get creative and figure out how to make a good flatbread that would go well with hummus. I searched around for a recipe that caught my eye and found this one, which was apparently adapted from the book The Gluten-Free Gourmet Bakes Bread by Bette Hagman. After playing with the ingredients a bit to make sure they were vegan and used what I could find the day I wanted to make my pita, I set out pouring my flours, mixing my dough, and, well, hoping! My pita turned out decent but not as good as they could have. It didn’t rise much, which isn’t a huge surprise, but I think next time I might add a bit more yeast to give it more rise. They also didn’t have pockets, which is also no surprise. Fresh out of the oven, it was a bit too chewy and dense, although it did have good flavour. The next day, it was actually better, which does not surprise me much, as I’ve found most gluten-free, vegan baked goods need to cool completely so their texture will ‘develop’. I think next time I might try some flax+water to replace some of the egg whites and maybe add some agar instead of just adding in extra xanthan to replace the gelatin.

Gluten-Free Pita – Adapted from Gluten-free Gastronaut
This recipe makes 9, 6-inch pitas.

Dry ingredients:
1/2 cup quinoa flour
1/4 cup sorghum flour
3/4 cup rice flour
1 1/4 cups tapioca starch
3 tablespoons almond meal
3/4 teaspoon salt
4 1/4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons xanthan gum
1 tablespoon egg replacer

Wet ingredients:
4 teaspoons dry yeast
3/4 cup warm water
1 teaspoon agave
3 tablespoons earth balance (vegan margarine)
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons hot water
egg replacer for 3 egg whites (depends on the brand, check your box)

Take 2 large cookie sheets and grease them well, or cover them with silicone baking mats. Set aside.

Mix your dry ingredients in a mixer with the paddle attachment. If you don’t have a mixer, you can do this by hand – just take a whisk and mix everything together really well.

Dissolve the yeast in warm water with the sugar. While your yeast is getting frothy, put the hot water in a small bowl and drop in the Earth Balance, stirring to make sure it melts.

Pour both the yeast mixture and the Earth Balance mixture into the bowl with your dry ingredients, and then turn your mixer to medium-high. Beat for 3 minutes. If you’re doing this by hand, just take a wooden spoon and mix well until everything seems blended. This will probably take a good 5 minutes – you need to give the xanthan gum time to do its thing.

Grease your hand with a little Earth Balance or plain tasting oil (such as canola or sunflower). Make balls of dough slightly larger than an egg and then pat them down onto your prepared pans. You want to end up with dough rounds that are about 6-inches in diameter and about a 1/4 inch thick. Keep going until all your dough is used up; you should get about 9 pitas. Leave the pans in a warm place to rise for an hour or so, until about 50% higher.

Preheat your oven to 500C. Once fully heated, bake your pitas for 5 minutes or so, watching carefully to make sure they do not burn.

For best taste, let them cool completely before eating, but they’re fine eaten right away if you like.

The hummus recipe was good, but I have to admit I prefer my own recipe. This one is very lemon-y.

Hummus – Recipe adapted from The New Book of Middle Eastern Food by Claudia Roden
Prep Time: Hummus can be made in about 15 minutes once the beans are cooked. If you’re using dried beans you need to soak them overnight and then cook them the next day which takes about 90 minutes.

1.5 cups dried chickpeas, soaked in cold water overnight (or substitute well drained canned chickpeas and omit the cooking) (10 ounces/301 grams)
2-2.5 lemons, juiced (3 ounces/89ml)
2-3 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
a big pinch of salt
4 tablespoons tahini (sesame paste) OR use peanut butter or any other nut butter—feel free to experiment) (1.5 ounces/45 grams)
additional flavorings (optional) I would use about 1/3 cup or a few ounces to start, and add more to taste

Directions:
1. Drain and boil the soaked chickpeas in fresh water for about 1 ½ hours, or until tender. Drain, but reserve the cooking liquid.
2. Puree the beans in a food processor (or you can use a potato masher) adding the cooking water as needed until you have a smooth paste.
3. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well. Adjust the seasonings to taste.

And last, the falafel. It was easy to make these gluten-free by simply using chickpea flour instead of all-purpose. They turned out really great, although I do recommend having a large food processor to make it. Mine couldn’t keep up with all the dry ingredients it needed to chop. Also, I think next time I’ll half the amount of onion – this was too strong for me. But they were delicious otherwise, and not too difficult to make – try it some time!

Falafels - Recipe from Joan Nathan and Epicurious.com
Prep Time: Overnight for dry beans and 1 hour to make Falafels

1 cup dried chickpeas, soaked in cold water overnight OR use well canned drained chickpeas (7 ounces/100 grams)
1/2 large onion (roughly chopped, about 1 cup)
2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped OR use a couple pinches of dried parsley (.2 ounces/5 grams)
2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped OR use a couple pinches of dried cilantro (.2 ounces/5 grams)
1 teaspoon table salt (.1 ounce/5 grams)
1 teaspoon dried hot red peppers (cayenne) (.1 ounce/2 grams)
4 whole garlic cloves, peeled
1 teaspoon cumin (.1 ounce/2 grams)
1 teaspoon baking powder (.13 ounces/4 grams)
4 tablespoons all-purpose flour (1 ounce/24 grams) (you may need a bit extra) *** I used chickpea flour instead to make this gluten-free!
tasteless oil for frying (vegetable, canola, peanut, soybean, etc.), you will need enough so that the oil is three inches deep in whatever pan you are using for frying

Directions:
1. Put the chickpeas in a large bowl and add enough cold water to cover them by at least 2 inches. Let soak overnight, and then drain. Or use canned chickpeas, drained.
2. Place the drained, uncooked chickpeas and the onions in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Add the parsley, cilantro, salt, hot pepper, garlic, and cumin. Process until blended but not pureed. If you don’t have a food processor, then feel free to mash this up as smooth as possible by hand.
3. Sprinkle in the baking powder and 4 tablespoons of the flour, and pulse. You want to add enough bulgur or flour so that the dough forms a small ball and no longer sticks to your hands. Turn into a bowl and refrigerate, covered, for several hours.
4. Form the chickpea mixture into balls about the size of walnuts.
5. Heat 3 inches of oil to 375 degrees (190C) in a deep pot or wok and fry 1 ball to test. If it falls apart, add a little flour. Then fry about 6 balls at once for a few minutes on each side, or until golden brown.
6. Drain on paper towels.

I’ve had some interesting experiments with baking bread, that’s for sure. My first loaf was made with far too much batter, so about half way through the rising process I had to dump it into a much larger container. Then, when it was finished baking, it was too wide, so I ended up with very wide, not very tall slices of bread. It also stuck to the pan like crazy, so you can imagine how useful those actual slices of bread were!

My second loaf was, err, completely made of fail. I bought potato flour instead of potato starch, thinking that I had used potato flour the first time, so it must be the correct product. But the problem lies in the labeling – Club House labels their product as potato flour when it is actually potato starch, and that’s what I bought the first time. Bob’s Red Mill, however, has correct labeling, so long-story-short, I used potato flour in my bread a few days ago. When mixing, the batter was a sticky, thick mess, and I needed to add at least a cup of water to make it usable. It barely rose at all and you can well imagine how dense the resulting loaves of bread were! I ended up taking those to the park for the birds, squirrels and raccoons to munch on.

Today’s bread turned out a lot better. I had my potato starch. I had my other flours. My liquid-to-dry ratio seemed about right, although in retrospect I probably could have used a bit more flour in the recipe, so keep that in mind if you decide to try making this on your own. Maybe add another 3 or 4 tablespoons of starch? You’ll also notice my bread fell in the middle. This is something I’m working on, but it’s a common problem for gluten-free bakers. I’ve linked to two great posts with lots of gluten-free bread baking tips at the end of this post; if you follow those tips, you might prevent your loaf from falling.

And the taste? Quite good! Similar to a basic white bread, good for sandwiches or just with some butter (or in my case, Earth Balance ‘buttery spread’).

Your basic Gluten-free loaf

Inspiration from this recipe by Gluten-free vegan, but I’ve tweaked the recipe a bit.

Dry ingredients:
1 cup potato starch
2/3 cup brown rice flour
2/3 cup chick pea flour (also called besan)
1/3 cup + 2 Tablespoons corn starch
1/2 teaspoon salt

Wet ingredients:
1 1/3 cups warm water (‘wrist temperature’ – just warm enough to get the yeast going)
1 Tablespoon blackstrap molasses
2 Tablespoons sunflower oil
1 teaspoon yeast

Additions: Nuts or seeds for the top. Good choices include sunflower seeds and sesame seeds, like I’ve used, but you can use whatever you like.

In a small bowl, mix together the water and molasses. Add the yeast and let stand for 10 minutes. While the yeast is doing its thing, get out a large bowl and whisk together all the dry ingredients.

Once the yeast looks frothy, add the sunflower oil to the wet ingredients and then stir that into the dry ingredients. Your dough should actually be a thick, cake-batter-like consistency. If you need to add a little more flour or starch, add it a tablespoon at a time and mix in completely, until you’ve got the consistency you need. It should look close to this – maybe even a little thicker:

Pour the batter into a lightly-greased bread loaf pan. If you like, sprinkle the top of your loaf with some nuts or seeds. Then cover lightly and place in a warm spot to rise for 1-1.5 hours, until doubled in size.

When ready to bake, preheat your oven to 350F. Cover the pan with some aluminum foil, then bake in the centre of the oven for 1 hour. After 1 hour, remove the foil and continue to bake for 10 minutes or so, just until the top has browned.

Let the bread cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then remove onto a cooling rack. It’s best to let it cool completely before eating, but I know it’s hard to resist freshly baked bread.

Makes one loaf.

Good tips for gluten-free bread makers from some of my favourite blogs:

Gluten-free Girl and the Chef
Gluten-free Goddess

Rich’s birthday was a week away and I still wasn’t allowed to eat any gluten whatsoever.

Now, this may not seem like a huge deal, except every year that we’ve been together I’ve baked him some sort of birthday treat. Last year it was the caramel cake for the Daring Bakers Challenge. Previous years involved cupcakes or cookies. How can it be a proper birthday without some sort of sweet indulgence? I suppose for this year I COULD have just made him something and not had a chance to sample it myself. Totally possible, not unreasonable. And yet, I didn’t like the sound of that. I’ve been very good on this diet; I’ve eaten very few sweet treats over the last few months. So I should be able to share some treats with my husband on his birthday, right?

Then I remembered Babycakes, the NYC bakery that is well known for its wheat-free (often gluten-free) vegan treats. And that a friend of mine had forwarded me one of Goop’s newsletters, that contained a few of the Babycakes recipes in it. I’d saved the recipes for a special occasion, and well, I think a birthday counts! Given I’m going to always be at some level of gluten or wheat-free, I figured I might as well just invest in buying the book, and went to the bookstore yesterday to grab a copy. I also spent some time skimming reviews of the book online.

The reviews I skimmed told me two things: first, that the recipes weren’t really foolproof, and second, that the frosting recipe isn’t popular – many had trouble getting the consistency correct, and also weren’t fans of the taste. Armed with this knowledge, I set out first thing this morning to whip up a batch of the vanilla cupcakes.

And the result?

I was so pleased to find these are a fantastic replacement for my usual gluten-y vanilla cupcake recipe. I made a few small substitutions to the recipe, in spite of the many warnings that the recipes would only really work if you follow them to the letter. I replaced the garfava flour with half garbanzo, half rice flour, as I couldn’t find garfava flour yesterday, but also because I’m not a fan of the strong bean taste of things made with only bean flour. As well, I didn’t have any lemon zest, so I left it out, instead opting to put in a tablespoon of lemon juice. And finally, I decreased the amount of agave syrup a little bit, replacing some of it with just plain water (to make sure the liquid amounts would still add up).

I noticed as these were baking they looked, well, like cupcakes! I’ve become so used to gluten-free baking over the last few months that I was genuinely surprised by this, as most things I’ve made have had different textures to their gluten-y counterparts. Different doesn’t usually mean bad, per se, just not what I’m used to. But with these cupcakes it was somewhat comforting to know they’d look like they were supposed to.

I found the baking time written in the recipe was a bit off for my oven. When I pulled them out after 22 minutes, they were a bit over-baked. I know, I should have watched them a little more closely, but hey, mea culpa. So if you make these yourself, do keep an eye on them after the 15 minute mark.

Texture and flavour wise, they’re awesome. Lightly vanilla flavoured, good crumb, not weirdly chewy like some gluten-free baking. Two enthusiastic thumbs up!

As for the frosting, well…. I decided to go with an old standby, the chocolate recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. I figured that hey, I’m not trying to avoid all refined sugar for this, since it is for a birthday, after all.

The cupcake recipe is available over at Epicurious. Note that as written it makes 24, but it halves easily.

Chocolate Buttercream from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World

1/4 cup non-hydrogenated shortening, at room temperature
1/4 cup non-hydrogenated, butter-flavoured margarine (I used Earth Balance)
1/2 cup good quality cocoa powder
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
3 tablespoons soy milk (or other vegan milk)
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Using a hand mixer, combine the shortening and margarine. When well combined, sift in the cocoa powder and mix well. Then add in the powdered sugar, a little at a time, adding in splashes of the soy milk between additions. One everything is combined, add in the vanilla and beat well for about 3 minutes, until light and fluffy.

Makes enough to generously frost a dozen cupcakes, or lightly frost 2 dozen.

Cathy from Aficionado submitted this lovely nasturtium petal syrup. Nasturtiums are a pretty flowering plant that is also often a weed… and Cathy wanted to be economically and environmentally friendly and use it to make something delicious! I love it.

Michelle of Big Black Dog made these lovely Biscuit de Savoie. It’s a jelly roll with her own home canned nectarine raspberry jam, and also includes Drambuie and Cointreau. Yum!

Sarah of What Smells So Good? submitted “Not A-Nutter” Carrot Cake, with carrots from her own backyard, strawberries from a farm local to her, maple syrup from a sugar bush 15 minutes from her house and Canadian canola oil. Now that’s local!

Anna from Baked By Anna submitted this delicious looking Lemon Chiffon Cake with Lemon Curd Cream. She says she’s in Oxnard, Southern California, where lemons are a staple crop and available year-round. She even has her own lemon tree! She thought a Iight, airy chiffon was a great way to end a meal in these dog days of summer, and I’d have to agree.

Eliza from Notes from my Food Diary baked up this Black-Bottom Peach-Almond tart. She just had to make a peach tart for the summer, and the peaches are, of course, local! I love the peach and almond combo.
 
 
 

Dilek from à la Dilek submitted two tasty baked treats: Caramel Panna Cotta Törtchen and White Chocolate & Raspberry Cheesecake. The picture here is of the Cheesecake, but do visit her blog for more photos! The raspberries are local to her – yellow ones, no less!

Kitty from Fahrenheit 350° submits this Pretty Pear Tarte. She says her mother-in-law has a gorgeous pear tree growing in her garden, so she used those pears for her tarte. Yum!

And of course, I made Vegan Strawberry Ice Cream with local strawberries I picked up from the farmer’s market a 5 minute walk from my house.
 
 
Thanks so much to everyone who participated! All your baking has made me really hungry for something sweet. And a special thanks to Jennifer, the Domestic Goddess, who created the whole Sugar High Friday concept back in 2004.

Next month’s host is Rivka of Not Derby Pie, who has chosen the theme, “Toasted”. Good choice for the colder months ahead! I can imagine lots of toasted nuts are going to get used this month.

Have a fantastic weekend, everyone!

For those who are not familiar with the idea of Sugar High Friday, it is a monthly blogging event where we create a delicious, sugary treat based on a theme of some sort. For example, last month’s theme was Vegetable Surprise, creating treats involving vegetables of some sort.  July’s theme was All Time Favourite Dessert, where you had the perfect excuse to bake your favourite sugary treat and blog about it.

This month, I want folks to create wonderful, sugary creations highlighting one (or more!) locally produced products. Maybe you’ve got a fantastic farmer’s market where you get awesome blueberries you’d like to use in a tart. Maybe you have an apple tree in your back yard and want to make a great apple cake. And of course this theme is not limited to local produce; eggs, milk, butter, cheese, flour, chocolate… as long as it’s locally produced and is one of the main ingredients in your creation, you’re all set!

Want to participate? I hope you do! Here’s what you need to do:

1. Grab your local product(s) and bake a tasty treat.
2. Take a picture and blog about it! Somewhere in the body of your post, please put a link to this announcement post, so if someone else wants to participate, they can.
3. Email me at nyxie [at] nyxie [dot] org, with “SHF-Locavore” as your subject. Please also include:
   • your name (or nickname, if you prefer)
   • the name of your blog
   • a link to the post you are submitting
   • the name of the treat you have created
   • a sentence or two about why you chose the local product you did (which can be as simple as ‘it tastes good’!)
   • a thumbnail image of your creation. It should be no wider than 100 pixels, in jpg format, and should be named the same as your blog. For example, my image would be named mmmtasty.jpg.
4. Submissions must be in by midnight (EDT) on Monday, September 21st

If you do not have a blog: please just reply to this post with your recipe, a link to a photo (from photobucket, flickr, or where ever you want to store photos) and any info you want to share, and I’ll include you in the roundup.

I’ll post the roundup on Friday of that week, so please do check back here to see everyone’s delicious creations!

As always, thanks to Jennifer, the Domestic Goddess, who created the whole Sugar High Friday concept back in 2004.

Looking forward to seeing everyone’s submissions! Now I just have to figure out what kind of treat I’m going to make…