vegancooking

Yesterday I came home to find my copy of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World had arrived. There are 75 different cupcake recipes in here, impressive. Anywhoo, here's the recipe I tried this evening. Makes 12 cupcakes.

Ingredients:

1 cup canned pumpkin
1/3 cup oil
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup soy milk (I used almond)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chocolate chips.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line muffin pan with cupcake liners.

In a medium bowl, stir together pumpkin, oil, sugar, soy milk and vanilla. Sift in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Stir together with a fork. Don't use a handheld mixer, it will make the batter gummy. Once all is well combined, fold in the chocolate chips.

Fill the liners 2/3s full. Bake for 22-24 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and let fully cool before icing.

For the icing:
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tbs margarine, melted
1/2 tspn vanilla extract

Sift sugar into a small bowl. Add the margarine, soy milk and vanilla. Stir with a fork until smooth. Keep at room temp until ready to use. The mixture should look opaque and honey brown. If it's too liquid or glistening, add a little extra confectioners' sugar.

Take a small plastic sandwich bag and cut out a tiny hole in one edge (or use a pastry bag with a small holed decorating tip). Fill the bag with icing and decorate your cupcakes. Spots, stars, hearts, blobs, swirls, zig-zags etc. Keep at room temp or refrigerated.

Enjoy!

My mom recently returned from south Texas and brought back a bunch of prickly pear fruits. One problem..I have no clue what to do with them!
I checked the memories and couldn't find anything on them. Is there a certain way to eat them? Or do you know of a really good recipe involving them?(I have a TON)

     From what I've gathered via the intarweb, rice milk seems to be more suitible for cooking than soy (the latter being more likely to curdle and whatnot).  True?



     Even if it's not, do any of you have a preference when it comes to rice (or even almond) milk?  I've never tried it before but am slightly intrigued by it...  I just need to find some!  Are there any nationally known brands, or if nothing else ones that I don't have to order over that internet that you guys can recommend?



     Thanks in advance.  Cheers!  ^_^

It's that time of the year, at least in my corner of the globe, when pumpkins suddenly are in vogue again and that delicious dessert, pumpkin pie, threatens to create a sudden boon to pants retail.

This post is not about pumpkin pie.

It is, however, about something else that's quite delicious--pumpkin spice cake, and a rather easy recipe too, so..
( back into the cut for recipe and picCollapse )

So I just bought some tapioca starch in Chinatown, but I am not completely sure how to use it. Can I just use it the same as corn starch, like to thicken sauces and bake, etc? Anyone who has used this who can explain to me what they do would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

so it's my birthday soon.  my mother is going to make me a special vegan coconut cake. (i love coconut)

I was wondering if any of you know what the best coconut cake recipe is in the world? there's so many online - i'm having a hard time figuring out which will be the tastiest most coconuty...:)

thankssss

I like to eat organic and seasonally, so this is sort of a weird San Francisco seasonal meal. I don't know about anywhere else in the world, but in San Francisco you can still get eggplant, and potatoes are starting to come in. Tonight I roasted 1 eggplant, 2 potatoes, half a red onion, 1 block tofu, and some garlic. Drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled with rosemary & oregano, baked at 400 degrees for 40 minutes. Super tasty!