Happy Birthday, Dad.

Today I turned 35. Son # 1 made these cupcakes for me. What a sweetie.

Happy Canada Day Donuts

Just a quick post after a day of Canada Day festivities. I had a lot of fun in the sun with the kids today, and it was great to just hang out on various porches up and down the street. I made these maple leaf shaped donuts to serve to all who stopped by, and to take when we visited other people. I used this recipe I posted before, and then made this glaze with soy milk and some red dye. I used a maple leaf shaped cookie cutter, then punched a hole in the centre. I am not sure if that was necessary, but I thought it would make them cook more evenly. The shape morphed a bit during rising and cooking, but it still looks pretty good.
Speaking of feeding the neighbourhood vegan goodies, I made these cupcakes for a recent block party.

Portuguese Sweet Bread: Baking Through the Bread Baker's Apprentice

Portuguese sweet bread? Yeah, I've never heard if it either. But, supposedly it's a thing, and according the Reinhart the east coast is the "center of the Portuguese sweet bread universe." I wonder what Portugal thinks of that. This is a large, fluffy, slightly sweet loaf, scented with lemon and orange extracts. It has a thick, deep brown crust and makes great toast in the morning. I also can't find the picture I took of the bread so go check out this one.

GENERAL NOTES
1. I used 9" pie plates, as Reinhart instructs, but my dough did not rise and overlap the edge as his instruction indicate. No matter. It still baked up just fine.
2. I baked for 50 mins. Any more and it would have been too dry, I think.

VEGAN NOTES
1. I replaced the powdered milk with powdered soy.
2. I replaced the eggs with an equal weight of soy yogurt.
3. I replaced the butter with margarine.
4. I replaced the egg wash with plain soy milk.

Your Clay Baker, Your BBQ, and You

Some people are a little baffled when it comes to vegan BBQ, but the truth is you can cook just about anything on a grill. One of my favourite thing to do is use clay bakeware to cook a variety of dishes. I love this little pig clay baker--perfect for potatoes. When you cook in a clay baker you can get rid of the aluminum foil and still get the same result. Pictured below are fingerling potatoes, tossed in a little olive oil, kosher salt, and freshly ground black pepper.
And here are some carrots, potatoes, and onions. Onions are a nice addition to any roasted vegetable since they come out very sweet and add great flavour.
And here is an Italian-style stew: veggies, white beans, and red wine, basted with a tomato sauce and baked without a lid in a high sided clay dish. If want to baste your veggies, make sure you use a warm liquid since adding something cold to hot clay will cause it to break.
The method is all pretty much the same. You toss the veggies in oil, then bake for about 40 mins, stirring the veggies regularly to keep them from burning to the bottom of the baker. You can use the lid or not. Keep the temperature at around 550 degrees, monitoring it with a thermometer like you see here.
And, of course, you can always grill some tofu.

Poolish Baguettes: Baking Through the Bread Baker's Apprentice

Reading Reinhart's description of this bread makes we want to visit Paris. But, alas! I don't think I will be doing that anytime soon (read: never). I am always amazed at how essentially the same ingredients (flour, water, yeast, salt) mixed in different proportions using different methods can make so many different kinds of bread. This is still a baguette, but it uses poolish instead of pate fermente. It also uses sifted wheat flour in an attempt to approximate clear flour. As Reinhart admits, we can't make our bread in "the magical environment of Paris," but this is still pretty good.

GENERAL NOTES
- none

VEGAN NOTES
- none