Holiday Roundup- We Stop in NYC for something special...

So on the way to visit my grandmother, we made a stop off in the Big Apple!

And by stopoff I mean we drove around vaguely lost for a few hours gawking at things. New York City is pretty cool! Expensive, but cool!

However, while we were there, I did pick up something for myself! The next day when I woke up in Jersey, I had these to tide me over:

That's right! I went to Babycakes!

Here's my review: The shop is cute, but tiny, however the people working there are super nice! I asked for 6 random gluten free cupcakes, and it came to 28$. This is pretty expensive, but frankly, about what you'd pay for a regular cupcake in a fancy cupcake store. 

I have no idea exactly what flavors I got, but I'll estimate. There was a minty chocolate one that was frankly, delicious in taste. The carrot one was also really good, as was the lemon one. The other ones didn't really stick out for me, but all of the cupcakes tasted pretty good!

The icing was the real winner for me. It was divine! DIVINE! I actually pulled the icing right off the top of the cupcake and ate the cake, and then the icing separately. This was really simple to do as you have to keep them refrigerated. (Since the icing is made with coconut oil, if it's left out in the warm it'll melt!)

The cake itself was a bit dense for my tastes, but still tasted pretty good. It was a bit crumbly, but not as much as I've seen, so probably mid-high in density quality. It tasted really good though!

So the cupcakes were delicious, even my skeptical mother thought so!

So, if you're ever in NYC, I recommend a quick stopoff at Babycakes to pick up one of their cupcakes. I thought they were really good!

Super Yummy Buckwheat Carrot Cake

I sometimes come down with these weird cravings which seem to appear out of nowhere.

Two days ago, I was making sushi for dinner, and suddenly I sat back and said "Man, I would love some carrot cake!"

Fast forwards two days, after researching different recipes for carrot cake, and I have come up with one. I compared probably about 12 different recipes, none of which were vegan or gluten free and came up with this recipe which is both delicious and exceedingly unhealthy.

Enjoy!

Natalia's Buckwheat Carrot Cake

Ingredients:

4 tbsp finely ground flax seeds mixed with 9 tbsp room temperature water

2/3 cups canola oil

1/3+1/4 cup vegan margarine

1 cup white sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 tbsp Vanilla

1 1/2 cups buckwheat flour

1/2 cup cornstarch

1 tsp Xanthan Gum 

2 tsp Baking Soda

2 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Salt

2 tsp Cinnamon

3 cups Grated Carrots

1 cup chopped pecans

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375.

In a small bowl, mix together all of the wet ingredients (the first set of ingredients), and set aside. 

In a second bowl, mix together the dry ingredients, being sure to blend them all well. (you don't want a huge chunk of cinnamon in the middle of your cake!!)

Combine the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, adding a bit of almond milk or water if it's too thick. 

Mix in the grated carrots and chopped pecans, mixing well. 

Oil and flour a large rectangular baking dish, and spread the batter with a rubber spatula evenly across the pan. 

Drop in the oven and bake for about 45 minutes or so (Insert a fork in the center of the cake to see if it comes out clean. When it does, the cake is cooked)

Your house is going to smell delicious! The cinnamon really adds a pleasant "homemakery" scent to the air. 

If you want to, you can ice it. What I did was cut the cake in half, and layer it using this icing:

Vegan Cream Cheese Icing:

Ingredients:

1/2 8oz container of soy cream cheese

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/2 tbsp vegan margarine

1/2 1kg bag of Icing sugar

Directions

In a bowl using electric beaters, whip the cream cheese, vanilla, and margarine. Slowly begin to add the icing sugar until it reaches the desired thickness!

Then ice!

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!