Time to Bake Again

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I stopped baking when we moved to Portland. I hated my kitchen, and super hated the oven - to the extent that we brought in a toaster oven to do any bits oven-heating we needed. Our new kitchen in Seaside is small, but so much better in layout and function. Yesterday, to celebrate Valentine's Day, with good food for my sweetheart, Rick, I ended my baking hiatus.

First I made pumpkin biscuits, using my own recipe for Sweet Potato Biscuits. I added a little extra sugar and some pumpkin pie spice, so they'd be sort of a muffin-scone-biscuit, worthy of a holiday breakfast. The last time I made these was in Taos, at 7,000 ft elevation, but they came out perfectly here at sea level too.

I think it's easiest to roughly double the original recipe, using a whole can (15 ounce-ish) of either pumpkin or sweet potato. I used whole wheat flour, coconut oil instead of olive oil for the sweeter version, and a half cup of organic coconut sugar instead of increasing the maple syrup. These were so good, I'll make them for company, once we have our guest house ready!


Later on, I decided we needed a chocolate cake too. No wonder I'm a little fluffy around the edges these days...

My daughter's mother-in-law, Carol Buchan, is writing a cookbook designed for small kitchens, specifically boats, but also RVs, and little home kitchens like mine. It's not a vegan book, but some of the recipes just happen to be vegan, or easily adapted. I love what she's doing! Her website, Northwest Cooking Afloat, is a great preview to the book. Most especially, check out the recipe for Chocolate Mocha Cake, which I made last night. It's sooooooo easy,  and crazy delicious.


This cake recipe just happens to be vegan, and the frosting can easily make the leap by subbing Earth Balance stick "butter" for the regular butter. Piece-o-cake. I used whole wheat flour for this one too, and the cake was dense and moist and perfect. I decided to make a raspberry sauce instead of the frosting. It was wonderful! And the leftover cake, warmed up just a little bit, was great this morning with coffee. The recipe makes a big 9 x 13 cake, so either make a half recipe, or do like I did - freeze half of the baked cake in two-person servings for other days.

I always love cake, but I don't always feel like baking. This was so simple though, we'll enjoy it whenever we need a cake fix, and like the biscuits, this is something I'll love making for our guests at the beach!

Comments

  1. Laurel (www.ravenandchickadee.com)February 16, 2017 at 9:24 PM

    I am definitely making those biscuits! With quinoa flour so they'll be gluten free. They look delicious. Thanks for the recipe. :-)

    ReplyDelete

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