Cream Puffs

When I think of the dessert that I probably miss the most since going vegan, it is definitely cream puffs. I have never had an acceptable version without all the eggs & cream. I remember eating cream puffs larger than my oversized mug of coffee my freshman year of college. I have missed them since. But not any longer!
After the little bump that was my eclair failure, these cream puffs were smooth sailing. I found the recipe last month while reading Quick & Easy Vegan Bake Sale. The steps in the choux recipe are fairly similar to that in the eclairs, but using a chia egg instead of flax. They puffed up quite nicely and I filled them with the same cream from Miyoko's eclair recipe. I dipped them in a gianduia ganache that I thinned out a wee bit too much. I will definitely be making these cream puffs again!

Cashew Cream & Cherry Baby Strudel

I really intended to make a regular sized strudel. But then when I unrolled my thawed phyllo, I realized that most of it was broken in half. So I just decided to work with it and make little baby, single serving strudel. Keep your chin up, and MoFo on.
Cherries and cream are really the best combination I can think of. Tart cherries and cream is the only superior combination. I know that people have trouble finding them sometimes. Recently I have seen them in jars at Whole Foods and in cans at Giant. So you could check in those sorts of places. If you can't find tart cherries, than fresh cherries (quite the splurge this late in the season) or frozen cherries should work. If you don't use jarred/canned cherries that are already in some sort of sugary syrup you might want to toss your cherries in simple syrup so they ooze a little in baking. I'm just saying. We want the cherry juices flowing. If you happen to have cherry pie filling lying around (I am also this sort of person), than you could obviously use that here as well!
Cashew Cream
makes approximately 1 1/2 cup cream

1 cup cashews, soaked overnight
1/4 cup canned coconut milk
3 tbl agave
1 tsp vanilla extract
water as needed
Cashew cream is one of the those things that you don't need a recipe before. You really just blend and taste until it fits what you want. This is where I started. I added a bit more water to really get it moving easily in my blender, since I don't have a VitaMix and I am scared of killing my Ninja. Having it a little thinner helps to get the cream really smooth, plus since I am baking it that process thickens the cashew cream anyways.

Cashew Cream & Tart Cherry Baby Strudel
five tiny strudel

10 sheets phyllo dough
2-3 tablespoons Earth Balance, melted
1 1/2 cup tart cherries
one batch cashew cream above
Preheat oven to 375. Take your phyllo sheets and cut them in half, so you now have 20 pieces. Place two sheets on a clean work area and lightly brush with melted Earth Balance. Add another sheet and brush either Earth Balance. Top with a final 4th sheet. Add a few tablespoons of cashew cream and spread it over the lower fourth of your phyllo. Add a thick row of cherries, approximately a half cup. Starting from the end with the filling roll the phyllo up tightly. Set on a parchment lined baking sheet with seam on the bottom. Brush top with Earth Balance and sprinkle with a bit of sugar if you desire. Repeat 4 more times. Bake 20-25 minutes until the phyllo is golden and crisp. Serve with whipped cream.


This is probably one of the easiest things I have made this month, but also easily one of the most satisfying. It's got all the right flavors and textures. And it's a dessert that you can eat a large portion of without feeling sick, because there isn't too much sugar. Maybe it's just my love affair with cherries. I am considering also making this with an almond cream, because that sounds like it would be super dreamy as well!

Eclairs (or not)

Miyoko's eclair recipe from this month's VegNews!
I was waiting in a line at the grocery store that I work for when I first saw the cover of this month's VegNews. There's a beautiful crepe cake. I thought about how badly I wanted to be eating a slice of that instead of the salad I was buying. But then it caught my eye, "classic French food veganized" & "custard filled eclairs". I sat down with that magazine and don't have a faint idea of what the salad was like. I read all of the recipes multiple times daydreaming about those eclairs.
I put them on the schedule for the month with my heart full of hope. But it didn't quite work out as planned. While Miyoko's recipe sounds perfect, I think my trouble came with the flax egg whites. After boiling them for the minimum amount of time they were practically un-strainable and impossible to accurately measure since it was almost a solid instead of a gel. I proceeded ahead anyways hoping for the best, but knowing that it probably wouldn't work. My eclairs tasted great. But they never rose and stayed quite doughy and instead of staying the shape I piped them sort of spread out into fat ovals. I tried to bake them for longer just to see if I could save it, so they turned into cookies. Which I still sandwiched together with pastry cream & dipped in chocolate, because why not?! It was almost like I intentionally made milano cookies.
I will definitely be giving this recipe another chance. And I did enjoy her pastry cream recipe, so you should at the very least try making that. I haven't made the crepe cake that initially reeled me in to the cover, but I am sure it is only a matter of time!

Baklava Cheesecake

Heather at Sprinkles Bakes makes the most unbelievable desserts all the time. Some of my favorites have been her hibiscus poppyseed shortbread cookies, Edgar Allen Poe inspired red velvet cake, and all of the recipes she shares on the Etsy blog. Everything she makes is beautiful and flawless. Her cookbook SprinkleBakes: Dessert Recipes to Inspire Your Inner Artist is one of my favorites. Her perfect execution of recipes inspires me to keep practicing, and hoping that I develop an artistic eye half as decent as her's. She made a baklava cheesecake at the end of May, that I have been stuck on since. Once I successfully made vegan baklava, I knew the cheesecake was the next step. It also fell perfectly into position. It wraps up cakes & ties in with my last theme for the month, pastry! I am definitely someone saves the best for last.



Vegan Baklava Cheesecake
one 8" cheesecake, veganized from this recipe on Sprinkles Bakes

Cinnamon "Honey" Syrup
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown rice syrup
1/2 cup agave
1 1/3 cup water
1 tsp cinnamon

Bring sugar, syrups, & water to a boil. Simmer for 25 minutes. Stir in cinnamon & allow to cool.

Cheesecake
7 oz walnuts, chopped into tiny pieces
1 tsp cinnamon
pinch sea salt
1/3 cup warm water
3 tbl Ener-G
24 oz vegan cream cheese
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup Earth Balance, melted
15 sheets phyllo dough

In a small bowl, combine 5 oz of chopped walnuts, 1/2 cup of the "honey" syrup, the cinnamon, and salt & set aside. Whisk together water and Ener-G and let sit until it thickens. In a mixer, combine cream cheese with thickened egg replacer, sugar, & vanilla. Beat until smooth.
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Place a piece of parchment paper on the base of your springform and then reattach the top of the pan (as Heather shows in her more detailed directions). Take each sheet of phyllo and lightly brush with Earth Balance. Fold in half. Lay in pan so that it is in the middle, and then hanging over the edge. Repeat many times so that each piece of phyllo is overlapping the last. Pour in half of cream cheese filling. Add a few blobs of cinnamon walnut mix, then top with rest of cream cheese. Add remaining nuts, and swirl.
Fold the overhanging phyllo on top of the cheesecake. I added another sheet of phyllo to the top of the cheesecake to fully cover all the filling to keep any of the syrup from burning. Bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes. Once your cheesecake has finished baking, turn oven off, open a few inches and allow to cool for an hour. Place cheesecake in fridge and allow it chill for 4 hours or overnight.
Bake a few of the remaining phyllo sheets at 350 for 10-20 minutes until golden. Sprinkle on top of cheesecake. Add remaining chopped walnuts and drizzle with some of the "honey" syrup.


I am going to warn you. This cheesecake is messy. Next time I would consider putting a piece of parchment inside of the springform pan ring after I lock it as well. The syrup does ooze as the cheesecake is baking. While most of the syrup stayed on the bottom piece of parchment, I found that a bit did also spill onto the sheet tray I placed under the springform. Next time I might just line the oven rack with aluminum foil, because the sheet tray kept the bottom bits of phyllo from browning the way I wanted them too.
The mess is totally worth it though. This cheesecake is amazing. It's rich and just sweet enough to add a more syrup to the top without it being too much. It also looks beautiful with minimal effort. Really once you pile the extra phyllo & walnuts on top, it just looks amazing. The way the phyllo wraps around the edge of the cake and then has extra height in the middle reminds me of a wrapped package. One that I can't wait to open until it is totally cooled.

Hummingbird Cake & Pineapple Flowers

While my original intention was to only bake things I have never made before, I snuck in hummingbird cake (my personal favorite) by topping it with dried pineapple flowers. I have seen these beautiful little cupcake toppers floating all over the blogosphere, but never really thought I would actually do it. As I was wondering around the grocery store after work, I decided it was time to put it to the test. I found this quick set of guidelines on The Tasty Bite Blog when I got home & set to it.
I probably should have thought it through a little bit better and maybe read some directions before I bought the pineapple. Because I recently learned how to pick a ripe pineapple (you just grab one of the leaves on top in the middle and if it pulls out easily, then it's ripe!), I put my new knowledge to use & bought a ripe pineapple. Because it was so ripe, it was actually a terrible choice for making dried pineapple flowers! It was so juicy and that makes it even more difficult to cut. I also haven't sharpened my kitchen knife in far too long, which made it even trickier. I didn't get any paper thin slices because I was a bit too pre-occupied with not slicing my fingers open. These ended up baking for almost 2 hours, and many of them were still not actually very dry but I couldn't wait any longer. Now I know?! Enough of them were cute that it was still worth it, plus I ate all the pineapple that was too thick to attempt to bake for breakfast.


The hummingbird cake recipe is from Nikki at the Tolerant Vegan. It's terrific in every way. Don't even think twice about roasting the bananas. It's a total must to get the caramel-y flavor which adds another great note to the cake. Some people like to throw some shredded coconut in their hummingbird cake, but it's just not my thing. Don't get me wrong I love coconut, but the texture of shredded coconut isn't something I want in my cake. Not that you can see the frosting since the point of these cupcakes were to decorate them with flowers, but they are topped with cream cheese frosting.
Red velvet and coconut might be the most recognizable Southern cakes, but hummingbird was the most popular recipe request from Southern Living Magazine until the last few years. In 1978 by a lady from North Carolina submitted the first recipe to Southern Living, and it became infamous. She never shared the name's origin story, but I have heard several theories over the years. That the cake is sweet enough to attract hummingbirds, the people flock around the cake like hummingbirds around a flower, that the flavors originate from Jamaica where the national bird is hummingbird… I'm liking folks flocking around the cake like birds around a flower, because of the way I decorated these little babies, but who really knows?!

Red Velvet Cake

This is what a cake looks like when I start to decorate it at 10:30pm. This is what a cake looks like when I should already have gone to bed for the evening, but I can't because I am so angry and frustrated that there is no way I will be able to sleep. This is what happens when I start to frost it, but then stop 4 minutes in because I am over it. And then of course the next morning the icing is set and hardened and you can't really make it look any better than those initial few minutes of effort. I have been sort of blown away by how terrible people have been recently. Working with people, you expect to come across plenty of jerks. But sometimes the level of asshole I come across is mind boggling. Last week a woman special ordered a 6" chocolate gluten free cake with raspberry filling & raspberry frosting. She got to the bakery and refused to pay & take it home because it was "too small". I was sort of dumbfounded. Has she ever looked a ruler?!


Then on Friday a woman called the bakery asking about special ordering a cake for that day. She wanted it in two hours, which I told her was impossible but that I could do it in four. I told her about the pricing and she was shocked. I gave her price comparisons to other vegan bakeries, and she refused to believe me. I told her that most places would also not do a cake with less than 24-48 hours notice without a rush fee. She called another shop, and immediately called back. She berated me about the price a little more, and told me to "try to make it look nice". When she arrived at the store, she was rude to me in person as well. I gave her the cake. She told me it was "awful big" for an 8" cake?! But luckily she paid for it and left. I was so happy it was over with.
That night I got an email that she wanted to return the cake for a full refund. The next day she brought back the other half of the cake that was "too big" claiming that it was stale. It's literally impossible for you to have a stale cake that has only been out of the oven & frosted for less than an afternoon. And to top it off, we didn't get paid for rearranging the baking for the day or me dealing repeatedly with this terrible human.


So this is my cake. It's neither too big nor too small. It's just a normal cake. I used the red velvet recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World and the cream cheese frosting I shared when I made the pumpkin cupcakes. I don't even like red velvet cake, but it doesn't matter. I needed to prove to myself that I could make a cake I didn't even like and know it tasted great. And I think it worked.

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cinnamon Sugar Pumpkin Seeds

The cool mornings are finally here. I have broken out the cardigans and the thicker socks. I have been drinking hot coffee & craving oatmeal in the mornings instead of smoothies or fruit. I think year round is pumpkin time, but most people would argue with me. Now I think it's an acceptable time to break out the pumpkin cupcakes. I know MoFo was moved a month earlier to help avoid some of the pumpkin flavored things, but you just can't deter someone as committed to pumpkin as me. For the cake I used Claryn of Hell Yeah It's Vegan's slight twist on the pumpkin cupcakes in Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. The cream cheese frosting is my own twist, with slightly more cream cheese than most of the popular recipes call for. I personally love the taste of Tofutti. If you aren't a fan of the "nuanced" flavor of vegan cream cheese, than you might want to head towards a recipe with a little more margarine & shortening to balance it out.



Cream Cheese Frosting
more than enough for generously piping one dozen cupcakes

3 tbl Earth Balance
3 tbl shortening
3 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup Tofutti cream cheese
1 tsp vanilla extract

Cream Earth Balance and shortening for several minutes until fluffy. Add powdered sugar in halves, beating until fully incorporated both times. Add cream cheese and vanilla extract and beat for several minutes until smooth.

Cinnamon Sugar Toasted Pumpkin Seeds

3 tbl Earth Balance, melted
3 cups pumpkin seeds
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp sea salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Melt Earth Balance and toss pumpkin seeds in melted margarine until completely covered. In a small bowl combine 1/3 cup sugar with cinnamon & sea salt. Pour half of the cinnamon sugar on the pumpkin seeds and toss until coated. Pour on a parchment lined sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes, stirring frequently. Allow seeds to cool. Toss in remaining cinnamon sugar. Add additional sugar if desired!


Pumpkin seeds are one of my favorite snacks. I think they go perfectly in granolas & trail mixes, but I also love eating them by the handful. Plenty of people make Old Bay or nice nooch-y savory versions, but this sweet version is what I am all about. It also makes a nice sparkly topping for cupcakes if you can restrain yourself from eating it all.