Hand Pies

I was out of town for five days, stuck in a hotel room, and away from an oven for too long. Yesterday I remedied that by baking a batch of hand pies. I got the nifty pie mold on a clearance rack at Target a few weeks ago and have been meaning to use it since.
My father has always had a penchant for eating deep fried hand pies, commonly found wrapped in paper at gas stations all around the south. His favorite was always lemon. I had wanted to send him a batch for his birthday this week but knew they wouldn't ship well, so I gave them to friends instead.


I used two fillings, once was simply a store bought can of cherry filling and the other was my favorite lemon curd. While they are commonly cooked by frying, I can't bring myself to fry anything that isn't a donut, so these are baked and brushed with a sugar glaze.



I looked at several crust recipes, but most were very similar. I would recommend using this post as a reference, as she detailed the procedure well. I only needed 3 tablespoons of ice water and very little flour to roll out the dough. Before pressing the mold together, I brushed a small amount of ice water around the edges to help seal the pie. There was enough dough for 12 pies, if rolled as thinly as I did. I also suggest baking them on a silpat or parchment to keep the bottoms from browning too much.

Cake for Breakfast

I am firm proponent of breakfast, brunch, and breakfast for dinner. I love sleepy weekend mornings, when I can bake waffles and tempeh bacon. But let’s face it, most mornings aren’t that simple. So when I need a fast breakfast, I normally stick to oatmeal. It’s not only fairly nutritious, but more importantly, it keeps me from getting hungry again before lunch. I love this cookie dough oatmeal cake recipe by Chocolate Covered Katie. I normally bake them two at a time in 6” tart pans the night before.
The cake you see here has mini chocolate chips, a hint of cinnamon, and is topped with Soyatoo whip cream. If you have extra time, I highly suggest making your own whip cream from chilled coconut milk!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes

I made these last month for a 'wrap it up' themed potluck. I promised to make the best desert, and I think I made it happen. I made chocolate chip cookie dough wrapped in a cupcake! I borrowed the idea from a non-vegan blog, and made it work. Best of all though, is that with vegan cookie dough there isn't any fear or getting sick from raw cookie dough.
I made just under 3 dozen cupcakes. I used two batches of vanilla cupcake from the infamous Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, but replaced the granulated sugar for brown sugar. I intentionally underfilled the cups knowing that the cookie dough would take up quite a bit of room.
For the cookie dough, I used soy-free Earth Balance and Ener-G egg replacer in the recipe on the Ghiradelli bag. I only needed one batch of cookie dough, to fill all the cupcakes with small balls and make a dozen mini cookies as toppers. I used the frosting from Annie's Eats original recipe with 1 cup of earth balance and 1/2 cup of shortening.



Even though I froze the cookie dough balls for 2 hours prior to baking them in the cupcakes, they still seemed to cook a little. It's possible that a longer freeze might help, but you could also just fill the cookies after baking to not worry about it.
I highly recommend these! One of my even friends described them as life altering.

Hello!

Hi! I'm Shannon. I'm a vegan baker who wanted to document my attempts at learning new things in the kitchen. I've been vegan for three years now and baking for less than that. I had never piped frosting until the beginning of this year! Cupcakes may be beautiful, but I also love making cookies, pies, pastries, and breads. I'm always up for a suggestion about what I should bake next or attempt to veganize.

I also want to share with people my favorite recipes, cookbooks, places to eat, and vegan food products. I am a firm believer that anything can be made vegan with some basic knowledge, supplies, and several attempts. 

Here a few glimpses at things I have made in the past!