Banana Cream Pie

So this pie might not be seasonably appropriate. But this fall has also not been seasonably appropriate. The weather has been all over the place. I never know whether I am going to be searching for a jacket or wishing I had worn shorts by the time I leave the house in the mornings. I feel like this fall has slipped past me quicker than most. Greg and I just went apple picking last weekend. Only to find that the majority of the apples were totally gone. I salvaged a few Granny Smith's from the ground to make into applesauce, but there was little plucking from the tree action. I haven't even watched any Halloween movies yet, which is totally unacceptable. Last year we had cable, so all I had to to do was turn on ABC family at any point I was home and I could watch the Addams Family and Hocus Pocus and Corpse Bride at a whim. This year we have cut it off, and I can't find them anywhere. I have spent a fair amount of time browsing local shops that sell older movies, but I think I am going to have to cave & buy them online so that this tragedy doesn't happen again next Halloween. I have made hundreds of little chocolate bats & black cats and ghost cookies. There's 500 spiderweb cupcakes just waiting to be eaten at the bakery. A few weeks ago I bought a ton of candy and hid it away so my sugar cravings wouldn't annihilate it. Last night I finally picked up a little bowl to put it all in. And resisted to buy a miniature cauldron, because I am running out of space for such things. I'm ready to see all the tiny witches and goblins and super heroes tomorrow, but I'm not ready to let Halloween go yet.


Banana Cream Pie

one 9" pie shell (I used a shortbread cookie crust)
3 bananas (2 sliced & 1 pureed)
3 cups almond milk
1/4 cup sugar
3 tbl Bird's Custard Powder
1 tbl cornstarch
1 tsp vanilla extract
vegan whipped cream of choice (I love the cartons of Soyatoo!)

Place the banana slices along the bottom of your pie shell. I prefer to have a ton of sliced bananas, but if you don't then you might be able to get away with only one sliced banana. In a small bowl combine 1/2 cup of the milk with the custard powder and cornstarch. In a medium sauce pan bring to a boil the remaining almond milk and sugar. Once boiling stir in the contents of the small bowl and cook until thickened. Remove from heat and fold in one pureed banana and the vanilla extract. Immediately pour into pie shell. Allow to cool at room temperature for fifteen minutes before refrigerating for at least two hours. The pie will develop the banana flavor further overnight. Top with whipped cream and slice.


Maybe I made this pie because I'm not ready to let summer go yet either. It feels like time just keeps going faster and faster and no matter how little I sleep or how much coffee I drink, I can't quite keep up with it all. I'm ready to dig my heels into the ground and pull things to a halt. Just for a little while. I need some time to clean my bathroom and organize the kitchen without missing out on all the terrific things happening around me. I feel like I have always been pretty good at time management, but now I'm trying to figure out ways to use my time even better. Listening to podcasts and books on tape while I commute. Paying bills and writing blog posts while I am watching tv. Making larger dinners so that I have leftovers to save a little cooking time. Hopefully it adds up and I feel a little less cramped for time soon.


Do you have any magical tips for enjoying the present but still staying incredibly productive?! Are you doing anything terrific for Halloween? I didn't come up with a costume this year, because it didn't even cross my mind until it was too late. I saw a terrific Scully & Mulder. I think it's my favorite costume so far.
Today it feels like fall finally. It's cool but not freezing. It rained this morning, and there's leaves blowing around the streets. I am going to bake another pie (pumpkin this time, I get it it's fall!) and make a giant batch of soup with some broccoli that I picked at Larriland Farms earlier in the week. I've got a kettle warming up on the stove to make another pot of tea. I feel a little too stressed for it to be a day off, but it's ok. Everything will get done eventually.

East Coast Ice Cream Roundup

The best ice cream that I have ever had is the pumpkin sundae from Franklin Fountain. I mentioned it last year, and will definitely be heading back to eat it once more now that it's October again. When we went a few weeks ago, it wasn't quite pumpkin time so I got a cone of their only non-dairy non-vanilla ice cream available, local blueberry. It was pretty good, but definitely no pumpkin sundae. Aside from ice cream cones & sundaes, Franklin Fountain also offers a variety of sodas all made from hand crafted syrups. We tried the lavender and the raspberry, and they were both awesome.
If it's not pumpkin season, I would also suggest heading to Little Baby's! They have ice cream sandwiches that are always stellar. All of their cookies are vegan, and they always have several interesting flavors available. I have gotten molasses peanut chew ice cream with sugar cookies & speculoos ice cream with snickerdoodle cookies. There's always the most interesting flavor selection, like thai peanut and coconut chai. Both store fronts are also super cute, so it's worth the venture to one of their shops.


FoMu also took me by surprise in Boston. I heard how good it was, but never really believe all the hype until I can try something for myself. I went to both the Allston and the Jamaica Plain shops. Both are overwhelmingly adorable. Maybe it's just because I have a thing for store fronts because I have a bunch of ideas in my head?! The flavor list was also overwhelming. While Little Baby's has lots of interesting flavors, there are only a handful of vegan ones. It's so terrific to walk into a shop and be able to select any ice cream flavor you want from a board. I tried both the rocky road and then I got a banoffee/ peanut butter mud pie double scoop. Coming the banoffee and peanut butter was a totally brilliant move on my part, and I highly recommend it if you are a fan of this flavor combination!
Probably my favorite thing about the shops was the giant case full of pints of ice cream, just waiting for you to take them home. I have never really seen such a thing. It was pure magic. You can also get donuts from Sabertooth Bakery at FoMu! Donut sundae anyone?!


Everyone and their mother knows about Lula's Sweet Apothecary. While the business was closed for a bit and is now open under a new name that I haven't heard yet, it's still in the same spot with the same recipes and definitely just as good as always. The shop wasn't open when I was in town, but I was able to get a scoop of my favorite flavor, Dream Cone, at Sustainable NYC down the street!
There's obviously all sorts of other places to get vegan ice cream on the East Coast. I didn't even consider all the places with soft serve like Vegan Treats and B2 in Philly. There's really too many to list. But these are a few of my favorites. Are you an ice cream fanatic too?

Everything But The Kitchen Sink

When I veganized the Momofuku compost cookies for MoFo last month, Greg went a little crazy over them. He really wanted another batch so it was the first thing I baked in October. I kept them fairly similar to the first round, but I added a generous splash of sprinkles because we both are obsessed. As I was making the cookie dough, Greg actually took a swig of sprinkles right out of the jar?!


I don't often take a whole lot of pictures during the recipe creation process because our kitchen is a little bit dark and doesn't lend well to my use of natural light. I am a wee bit terrified of using lamps and light boxes and what not. I haven't seem to have quite grasped the hang of it, even by the most generous of standards. However as I was making the almond ricotta for the cannoli I created, the kitchen sink where I was peeling almonds and pondering my future was so beautifully lit. A rare and lovely moment indeed. This is also where I wash dishes and look out into my neighbor's yard to see their Bernese puppy, Alice, running around. Remind me to bake them Christmas cookies so I have another chance to pet her for a few minutes?!


I will always be a donut fan. DunWell is still top notch in my book, but Sticky Fingers recently started making donuts on Tuesday & Thursdays. Luckily a few of my days off lined up with their production schedule last month. The ones on the photo were some of my favorites: tiramisu, boston cream, & peanut butter chocolate. I keep hoping that they will start making them daily, because it's so hard to get there on weekday mornings. It's still nice to know we finally have the option available in DC. Now we just really need an all vegan ice cream shop.


In the summer, Greg and I made a quick trip to Boston. I had never been, and really loved the city. Aside from FoMu, which I will devote more time to discussing on this little blog soon, my favorite spot was Veggie Galaxy! The stuffed french toast was my JAM. I will always be a breakfast person, first and foremost. It is the best meal of the day. But I am also a sucker for sweets, and Veggie Galaxy's dessert case was five star. The lemon meringue stole the show for me. It was tart and bright, the meringue sweet and marshmallowy. I heard a rumor that it was made from pea protein, and my interest is certainly peaked. I will have to look more into that soon. Speaking of lemon meringue, Hannah of Bittersweet just released her third cookbookEasy As Vegan Pie! As the biggest pie fan, I couldn't be more excited. Her lemon meringue looks as perfect as Veggie Galaxy's, and it will be the first recipe I attempt. The cannoli pie will be a close second (maybe simultaneously). What can I say, I like what I like?!


These were cherry pistachio muffins my housemate Carrie made. They were so good. She couldn't find shelled pistachios at the nearby store, so shelled them all by hand to make the batch of muffins. That's dedication. These were delicious. They had a perfect crumb and the right hint of sweet and salt and tartness. I can't stop thinking about them. Eating a baked good someone else made is really bliss. I could get to use to it. Also, I don't know why I have never made spumoni flavored things before?!


This last snip-it is a wee bit embarrassing. I really hope that other people's desktops looked like this by the end of MoFo. I am normally so organized and keep all the clutter to a minimum, but with all the constant baking and photographing and writing, all of these pictures just ended up all over the place! I really have to fix it soon.
What is going on with everyone else? I have a busy week coming up, but am looking forward to apple & pumpkin pickin' this weekend and watching Halloween movies with a few friends. I can't believe how quickly this month is already going.

Kerfluffles Marshmallows

Over the summer I mentioned how excited I was that Kerfluffles was creating vegan marshmallows. I was happy to test their some of their initial batches (you can read about that here), and I couldn't have been more pleased when some new flavors arrived in the mail a few weeks ago. I was going to blog about it then, but I was knee deep in Vegan MoFo and didn't want to tease you will all the delicious flavors before they were actually available for sale!


The pictures you see here are only of the chai tea and cookies n' cream marshmallows, not necessarily because that was all I had (I got to try all the flavors), but because these were the flavors that had enough left to photograph after Greg and I finished our initial taste testing. We might have some problems with our sugar consumption? Greg's favorite was mint chip, but mine was a tie between banana bread & cinnamon roll (what can I say, I like cinnamon?!). They were all great. I don't even like chai tea, and I still ate a handful of the chai marshmallows happily because they were done so well. The french vanilla is the perfect marshmallow for s'mores & rice crispy treats. And I can attest to their meltability & perfect gooeyness in both of those! The cookies n' cream is the only vegan marshmallow that contains gluten, but if you aren't sensitive to wheat than you have to give it a chance.
You should head over to Kerfluffles and try the vegan flavor sampler! You should also read about how their little business got started. It's a super inspiring story, and they are sort of a Kickstarter legend. They stand by their principles in avoiding artificial dyes, chemical extracts, and strive to source organic ingredients. I know that they do it all from scratch, because I may have gotten a Snapchat or two of piles of lemon zest and marshmallow fluff being whipped to perfection.


Also I was not paid to endorse Kerfluffles in any way. I did get some free marshmallows for my input on their process, but I am saying all these great things because I genuinely love their sweets. And Jenna.

Cannoli

I went on this date in college. It was with someone several years older, which was really what I was looking for at the time. He was an NPR reporter and seemed to have his life together in a totally attractive way. Somehow on the night that we met I mentioned that since becoming vegan I had really missed eating cannoli, and he suggested that we figure out how to make them. Next thing I knew he bought this set of cannoli forms online. When they showed up I went over to his house for the evening to make cannoli. If you've never made cannoli before, this is a really long process, which was probably (definitely) a terrible idea for a first date. If you have only spoken to someone in a crowd for fifteen minutes, you might not want the next step to be being alone in a tiny apartment kitchen for 6-7 hours. It was all just a little awkward. I remember there were dinosaurs all over his room and then top top it off, he showed me his chainmail collection. He was really sweet and I was really nice the whole time, but I just knew about ten minutes into this several hour process that we were only going to be friends. We made the cannoli from this bizarre recipe I found online using silken tofu to fill them, and they were downright awful. But I pretended it was great and avoided a goodbye kiss, and I ended up walking away with a set of cannoli forms he didn't want to keep.
Flash forward a few years, and I have made vegan cannoli two more times. The first time I got the shell right. But the filling still wasn't quite what I wanted. I knew that I didn't want it to be too sweet or frosting-like, which is how I feel about Vegan Treats cannoli filling. So I decided to try and get as close to possible as a ricotta by making one from almonds. It worked out quite well. I think it would work with cashews too, but I think the almond flavor is a little more subtle.


Almond Ricotta

1 1/2 cup almonds
3/4 cup canned coconut milk
1/4-3/4 cup water

Pour almonds in a bowl and completely cover with several inches of water. Soak overnight. The next day drain the almonds while boiling a few cups of water. Pour boiling water over almonds and allow to sit for 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. This is called blanching. Now peel all the almonds, by squeezing them between your thumb and forefinger. This is a tedious task, but a great time for self reflection. Plop all your peeled almonds in your best blender/food processor with the coconut milk. Start trying to process it. Stopping to add more water as need to keep the blades moving and making sure to scrape down the sides frequently. It took me about fifteen minutes to get the ricotta as smooth as I wanted it. The ricotta can be made in advance and chilled for about 4 days before it will start to sour. If you have additional ricotta left over, you can add savory seasonings and use it in pasta dishes!

Cannoli Filling

12 oz almond ricotta, recipe above
12 oz vegan cream cheese
2 tbl shortening
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

Combine ricotta, vegan cream cheese, & shortening and beat for several minutes until combined. Add powdered sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon and beat for several minutes until fluffy. This should have a very thick, frosting like consistency with a hint of cinnamon and a very subtle sweetness. If you're filling isn't think, it is probably because you needed to add additional liquid when making your ricotta, you can add a little more shortening to thicken it up. Fold in chocolate chips and allow to chill until ready to use. The filling can be made up to 4 days in advance, too much longer and it will start to sour.

Cannoli Shells
makes 15-20 cannoli shells depending on thickness rolled out too

2 3/4 cup flour
2 tbl sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup shortening
2/3 cup marsala wine
2 Ener-G eggs, prepared separately
enough oil for frying, I used around 4 cups.
3 oz of chocolate, optional
powdered sugar for dusting

Prepare one Ener-G egg and let sit to thicken. Combine flour, sugar, and cinnamon. Mix until evenly distributed. Add shortening in small chunks, and begin to mix on a low speed. Add Ener-G egg and slowly drizzle in wine until a thick dough forms. Wrap in parchment and allow to chill for one hour.
Prepare second Ener-G egg and allow to sit. Add oil to a pan that is at least two inches deep. Turn to a medium-high temperature and allow to heat up while you start rolling out the dough. I broke the dough into 6 small portions to make it more manageable. I rolled each portion out between sheets of parchment paper and didn't need to use any flour to keep the dough from sticking. I cut sections of the dough with a 3.5" cookie cutter & then rolled those out in one direction to make very thin,wide ovals. Place your cannoli form at one end and roll it towards the other side. Brush the inside edge with a little Ener-G before placing it on top of the other side of the dough. Fry one at a time until totally golden. Allow to cool for several minutes before trying to pull out the cannoli mold or you will burn your fingertips! I had 4 forms, so normally by the time I got to the last one, I could pull the first mold out of the shell. Repeat until all dough is used. Once cooled dip ends in melted chocolate if desired.
Place the filling in either a piping bag with a large tip or use a ziplock bag or a spoon if that's all you have. Fill it until it can't hold any more filling. You can dip the edges of the filling in chopped pistachios & a cherry if you want to get super Italian. You could dip them in more chocolate chips. I left them the way they were so I could see the beautiful filling I was so proud of. They are fine for 2 days, but are really best eaten immediately.


I had seen a recipe for a baked cannoli bite on Cooking Classy that I knew I also had to try since I was already making cannoli. My shell recipe really didn't taste great baked. I found it to be a little too crunchy and I think the flavor of the oil is pretty essential in giving the dessert their signature taste. However the bites were still super cute. Since making these last week I have been thinking about it quite a bit, and came up with an alternate way to make mini cannoli cups. You could freeze the dough in the mini cupcake pans and then fry them individually! I am 99% sure this will work, and it is definitely on my to try list. That way you don't have to even worry about buying your own molds, unless you too have a date who might buy some for you?!
This wraps up my Vegan MoFo sweets! I wanted to save the best for last, and I really think I did. It's a close call with baklava cheesecake, but I think this is definitely the winner in my book. I hope everyone else had a great month. What was your favorite thing that you made? Did you meet lots of amazing new bloggers too? It's always refreshing to find new people with similar views.


Also if you don't already have a KitchenAid mixer and live in the US or Canada, you have 24 more hours to enter to win this mixer I am helping give away! It's my favorite piece of kitchen equipment, and I can't remember how I made do without it. So enter!

Pain au Chocolat

Let's make something totally clear. I am a huge fan of buying rolls of puff pastry. It's not that the stuff is hard to make. It's just that it's really labor intensive, and I generally can think of several other things that I would rather spend my time doing. However, if you have never tried to make puff pastry from scratch I think it's worth the attempt just to have an understanding of how great an invention frozen pastry is. Vegan Dad has a really great recipe and explains the process perfectly.
I wanted pain au chocolat. So I took my prepared puff pastry and rolled it out to a 9x13" rectangle. I pressed mini chocolate chips into around two inches of dough and then cut that into 6 pieces along the 13" side using a pizza cutter so that you have 6 strips, each 2x9" with two inches of that coated in chocolate. Now roll it up starting with the chocolate. Place it onto a parchment lined sheet tray with the seam down. Brush the tops with coconut milk and sprinkle lightly with sugar. I baked them at 400 for about 15 minutes, until they were totally golden and flaky. Let them cool a few minutes before you bite in, or you will burn your tongue on molten chocolate. The temperatures and times will vary on your pastry and oven, but start with whatever the recipe you are following says and then just check your oven frequently to make sure they are browning evenly.
Whatever you do, make sure that your pastries are on parchment paper and not wax paper. I feel like recently I have heard several stores of people spending their whole days making puff pastry from scratch and then putting their croissants into the oven only to have a smoky mess a few minutes later, because they accidentally used wax paper. Don't let this tragic tale become yours.


I was curious about gluten free pain au chocolat and found a recipe in BabyCakes Covers the Classics. Obviously it isn't a laminated dough so it couldn't be the same, but these were more like cookies to me. I will have to dig a little deeper and find a gluten free puff pastry recipe to give a whirl.


Also today is the most magical day of the year. It's DC VegFest! So I will be spending my whole day in this beautiful 70 degree weather, eating snacks and talking to all my favorite local businesses and non-profits. If you are in the area, I highly suggest coming out. It's from 11-6pm at Yards Park! I will be at the Conscious Corner table (booth 6) for most of the afternoon if you want to come say hello in person or buy a cupcake!

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.