A few simple baked doughnuts

I got bored the other night, and just needed to make some doughnuts.

Often I get into these sort of manic panics where I just bake. I bake and bake and bake, and that is just what happened. It all started when I was reading over "Babycakes Cover the Classics" cookbook, where there is an extensive section about doughnuts. I altered a version of the Spiced Marble Doughnuts, and made those delightful badboys.

Chocolate Marbled Spiced Doughnuts
Altered from the Babycakes Spiced Marble Doughnuts


Ingredients:
1 1/2 + 1/3 cup gluten free mix (I used bob's red mill)
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup canola oil
a few shakes of cinnamon
a few shakes of nutmeg
1 tsp maple extract (or vanilla)
3 tbsp cocoa
3 tbsp ground flax mixed with 3/4 cup warm water
Hot water

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 375. Spray a doughnut tin with non-stick spray, and set aside.
In a large bowl, mix together all of the dry ingredients and spices (except cocoa powder)
Divide the dry ingredients in half, and mix the cocoa into one half of the dry ingredients until it's well combined.
In another bowl, mix together the falx seeds, maple extract, and oil. Divide in half and add half to each side of the flour mixture.
Add hot water to each side, until it reaches a batter consistency.
Add the chocolate to the plain batter, and marble it.
Spoon into the doughnut tin, using well oiled fingers to spread it around.
Bake for 15 minutes, until well done!
Top with sugar and cinnamon mixed together if you like! Tastes best the first day!

Homemade Pizza Pockets

So recently I've become obsessed with making my own puffed pastry. I've been thinking about it, dreaming about it... I want to make Tempeh sausage rolls. I've been dreaming of them.

So I located this. The only change I made was to use Earth Balance sticks instead of butter, and it worked pretty well.

I unfortunately screwed up the combination of the butter and the dough, AND I think my dough needed a bit more water, it was sort of crumbly, so my next attempt will fix these things, and hopefully I can roll it into a sausage roll. Since I couldn't quite roll it the way i wanted, I made pizza pockets instead!

Oooh, this looks good!

What Could be Inside of this?

Oh My Damn!

Pizza Pockets

Ingredients:

Tartlette's GF puffed pastry made with Earth Balance, rolled into rectangles of the same size (Poptart sized)

Diced tomatoes

Daiya Vegan Cheddar

Toppings of your choice (I used sundried tomatoes and mushrooms! Cut them into small pieces)

Basil, Minced Garlic, salt and pepper. 

A little bit of soy milk

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400, and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Mix together the tomatoes with the basil, garlic, salt and pepper. Place it on the bottom of 1/2 of your rectangles. Leave about 1 cm of space on either side. 

Top with the toppings. Top the toppings with the cheese. 

brush a little soy milk around the edges. 

Place the untopped rectangles on top of the topped rectangles. They usually rip a bit, but if they don't, prick them with a fork in a few places to let steam escape!

Brush the top with some more soy milk. 

Bake for about 15 minutes until the tops are browned. 

Then Eat those things!

To DIE for!

Chocolate Rice Cookies

I got bored last night. So bored I needed to make some cookies!

It was a very slow night, and I really wanted to bake SOMETHING, but didn't have any flour besides glutinous rice flour, which you really can't make much besides mochi cakes with. So, I took my spice mill and ground up some brown rice and jasmine rice as finely as I could with it, which took FOREVER, because I could only do about 1 tbsp at a time.

Despite this, it all turned out for the best, I think! Also, I had put in some puffed rice, but I didn't like how it turned out, so I left that out of the ingredients.

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Rice Cookies
Ingredients:
1/2 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup white rice flour
1 cup sweet glutinous rice flour
1 tsp guar gum
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 tbsp cocoa powder
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup vegetable shortening or vegan margarine
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup vegan chocolate chips or chopped chocolate
1 cup warmish water
1 1/2  tbsp finely ground  flax seeds mixed with 3 tbsp room temperature water, and left to sit a few minutes.

Directions:
Preheat your oven to 350.
In a bowl, sift together the flours, salt, cocoa, guar, and baking powder until everything is smooth and there are no clumps of cocoa. (I find cocoa gets pretty clumpy.)
In a separate bowl, cream the shortening and sugar. Once that's all combined, add in the vanilla and flax mixture, beating until mixed.
Add the sugar mixture to the flour, stirring as much as possible. Start adding a bit of the water, a tbsp or so at a time, to help you mix it until it's the consistency of cookie batter (You might not need the full cup!)
Add in the chocolate chips, stirring to combine.
Drop onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicone mat, and bake for about 10 minutes. Cool on a rack!
I find these cookies taste best the day off, and they're VERY dippable!
Check out the action pics!

A glass of Almond Milk awaits!

The first dip

Not quite dipped enough!

The second dip!

There we go!

Nom Nom Nom!

Pineapple Upside down Caramel Swirl Cake- Or How I turned a box of muffin mix into something awesome

Before I begin this post about cake, I give you:

Matthew: The Cat Whisperer!

The cats actually sort of dislike me in an ambivalent "we'll ignore you until we're hungry" sort of way, but Love Matthew with a capital L. 

However, onto Cake!

I have never been a huge fan of muffins. I prefer the lighter more sugary Cupcake cousin, however Muffins are sort of just.... there, things asking me to eat them. I also happened to have a box of plain muffin mix that I wasn't really using for anything that my sister had given me (She always picks me up GFV baking mixes which I think is pretty nice of her!)

So I thought to myself  "This box of muffins doesn't need to be muffins! It could be CAKE!"

And not just any type of cake, but one of my FAVORITE types of cake! 

(As a warning, this won't be healthy at all...)

Pineapple Upside Down Cake!

Ingredients:

Cake:

1 box plain muffin mix, or white cake mix

1/2 cup vegan margarine

1/2 cup brown sugar 

1 cup unsweetened plain almond milk (or your favorite non-dairy milk)

2 tbsp ground flax seed mixed with 5 tbsp room temperature water, let to sit a few minutes

1 tsp vanilla

Sauce:

3 tbsp margarine

1 cup brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

3-4 tbsp almond milk

Other:

Pineapple

Marascino cherries

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350

First, cut up your pineapple, either in round slices (traditional) or chunks (like I did), and set aside. 

Next you need to make the sauce. In a small saucepan on medium heat, melt the margarine, and add in the sugar, stirring to combine. 

When it starts to get liquidy, add in the vanilla, and the almond milk. Stir while it heats, waiting until the sugar dissolves and bubbles up. Pour about 1/3-1/2 of this mixture into the bottom of a non-stick cake pan. Set the rest aside for now. 

Top this sauce with the pineapple and cherries.

Next, in a bowl beat the sugar and margarine until creamed. 

Add in the vanilla, flax mixture, and milk, continuing to beat. (Electric mixers are preferred!)

Add the muffin/cake mixture, and stir with a wooden spoon to combine well. 

(As an optional step, you can also chop up some pineapple into small chunks and mix them into the batter. I do, but it's not necessary for delicious!)

Pour into the cake pan. 

Take the remainder of the sauce, and pour it over the batter, using a chopstick or knife to swirl it around in the batter, marbelizing the sugar sauce in the batter. 

Bake for about 30-45 minutes, or until a fork/toothpick/knife inserted into the center of the bottom of the cake comes out without wet cake batter stuck to it.

Allow to cool a few minutes (but not too long! The bottom of the pan still needs to be hot!)

Run a knife around the edges of the cake. 

Place a plate over the cake pan, and carefully flip the cake over, gently letting the cake fall out onto the plate while lifting the pan off of it. 

Serve and enjoy! 

If you want to make more sugar syrup to glaze over the top and sides, though it might put you in a sugar coma, it's pretty delish!