Blueberry Lavender Lemonade - Sugar optional!

Blah blah blah, summer, blah blah blah, fresh berries like whoa, farmers markets double rainbows naked swims, blah blah blah... I've actually been making some amazing food like whoa, but I've also been on a dietary cleanse that restricts me to mostly fresh fruits and vegetables so my standard for "amazing," may be a little uncalibrated at the moment.  Regardless, I'm honestly going to try to get a few blog posts in before I head out to Burning Man for the summer (where I'm camping with TottenKitten!). Wish me luck, I know I said the same thing my second to last post, in uhm... April.

Anyway, on this recipe. I'll post the notes here. You can ditch sugar for your sweetner of choice (a blend of erythritol and stevia is pretty solid, or a blend of stevia and sugar). Refreshing, perfect for summer, all that jazz. Oh, speaking of jazz... It goes great with a little bit of champagne or sparking water! 

Lavender Blueberry Lemonade

• 1 cup/130g sugar
• 4 1/2 cups water
• 1/4 cup dried lavender blossoms *
• 1 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
• 3/4 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

Step 1: Combine 1 c water and the sugar (or sugar sub) into a small sauce pan and bring to a boil, stir until sugar is dissolved. Kill heat and add the lavender. Cover and let steep for about 10 minutes (if you over-steep this, it will become too medicinal tasting), strain into blender bowl and let cool.

Step 2. Add the remaining ingredients and blend. Strain if desired (but I like the blueberry solids, personally), and pour into glasses with a few blueberries to accessorize your beverages.  You may also mix with some sparking water or spirits.

* You can get lavender blossoms from any number of places. I picked mine up at the Copley Square Farmer's market in Boston.

Spring! Wait, Summer? Whatever, it is time for refreshments!

Tibicos, this is my blog. My blog, this is Tibicos. Courtesy of a friend, via Clotilde, I was informed of the existence of a new ferment. I have been a big fan of kombucha since GTs started showing up in Whole Foods years ago, and started brewing it my self. Unfortunately a life of transience and a kombucha distillery are not particularly compatible, but I didn't loose my taste for the sharp, dry, fizzy beverage. The only loss suffered were the bills in my wallet for every 4 dollar bottle that point forth.

Enter Tibicos: also known as Tibi, or Water Kefir. According to some, the name Tibi is one given by Mother Therese of Calcutta, who once traveled to Tibet and met the monks and masters of that region who gave her this beverage, hence the name is Tibicos. I didn't have to taste it, I mean who hesitates to try a new fermented beverage? I did have to try it, though, and the only way to do that was to make it my self: I went onto Craigslist and was lucky to find a local fellow giving away extra water kefir crystals (also called Japanese water crystals), and tried my hand...

The end product is one I have quickly become quite fond if, bottling it in those old GTs bottles, letting it do a secondary ferment over night before refrigerating, and starting my day with one. It is dry, with hints of citrus and the lightest of light bubbles that tickle your tongue. I could imagine it going quite well with gin, or sake.

It is rather easy to make, hard to fuck up (at least I haven't managed yet), and oh so very rewarding. You also get the cool bonus of having a jar that looks like the vegan counterpart to those side-show attractions of two headed fetuses in jars.

Anyway... onto the recipe....!

Water Kefir!

• 1/4 to 1/2 cup of Japanese Water Crystals*
• 1 dried fig, halved
• 1/2 lemon
• 3-4 tablespoons of white sugar
• 1 litre (4 cups) of purified water
• 2 litre jar with lid
• *optiona items*
• Cinnamon stick
• Cardamom pods
• Unsulphured dried fruit slice such as mango, pineapple, apple, etc.

Note: You want to use organic as much as possible. The tibi crystals are fungal/bacterial in nature and can be damaged by pesticides and other materials.

The recipe is pretty straightforward from here. Place ingredients in jar, cover with cheesecloth, let sit for 24-48 hours.

Strain and filter liquid into drinking jar.

Let drinking jar sit overnight, then refrigerate.

Place ingredients back in jar, and add another 3-4 tablespoons of sugar, cover with cheesecloth and let sit for 24-48 hours, to repeat above process 1 to 2 more times.

After 3rd bottling, separate crystals from other materials, clean jar, and start again or store crystals in a clean container with enough water or tibi to cover and a tablespoon of sugar in the fridge to let hibernate for a couple of weeks.

Tada! I quickly started doing this in a 4 or 5 liter bottle, so I could keep up with my 16 oz a day habit. I will possibly have more pics later, but go easy on me... I'm just starting this blog, again!

Wedding Cake (part 1) !!!

So, I was given the ultimate vegan blogger honor the other day. My friend Jenny asked me to do her wedding cake!
WIth some talk I also convinced her to let me do most of the food for most of her wedding, as well.
So first, congradulation are in order to Ms. Jennifer Harder Mr. John Alexander, the future Harder-Alexanders.
The wedding is not until May 2010, but time does move by oh so very quickly and of course I need to practice, so periodically that is what I will be doing... Practicing! As if there is any reason _not_ to make cakes that you disseminate among your friends on a semi-regular basis!

So... Round one. I believe I did find one good lavender lemon cake for one layer. I will also likely do a chocolate layer, as well as a diabetes-friendly Groom's carrot cake.

An added bonus of this cake was that it was served to a friend of mine who has a nightshade allergy. The powdered vegan egg replacers tend to contain potato starch in them, while this recipe used no such agents.

So, onto the recipe...

Lavender-infused Lemon Layer Cake

2 1/2 C Pastry or Cake flour
1 1/2 C sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1/4 C plus 2 T butter sub
2 T fresh lemon juice
1 C + 1 T water
grated zest of 1 large organic lemon
3/4 C soy or rice milk
1 and 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp lemon extract
2 t dried lavender blossoms

Bring the water to a boil, cut the heat, add the lavender. Let cool. Strain and set aside. Discard the lavender blooms (or make more tea with em!)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Prepare two 9 inch round cake pans by covering them with a thin layer of shorteing then dusting them with flour, tapping off any extra flour.

Mix the dry ingredients together and stir well.

Mix together the wet ingredients and the lemon zest. I cut the butter-sub in with a blender, but to each their own. Pour the wet ingredients into a mixing bowl. From there I sift the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and stir just until consistent, about one minute.

Pour evenly into the pans, and set in the oven. Bake for 25 minutes or until done (a toothpick or fork inserted in comes out without batter sticking to it).

Remove from oven, let cool for a couple of minutes, run a knife around the edges, and invert onto a cooling rack.

Next up.. The curd.

1/2 C lemon juice
1/4 C water
3/4 C sugar
2 T cornstarch
1/8 tsp salt
grated zest of 1 organic lemon
3 T. full fat soymilk, nut milk, or organic nondairy creamer
1 T Butter Sub (I used coconut butter here)

In a blender, mix together the juice, water, sugar, cornstarch and salt. Pour into a heavy saucepan with the zest. Whisk over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it comes to a full boil. Boil 1 minute, not stirring. It should be thickened and turning clear. Remove from heat. Add milk choice or alternate and butter choice. Blend well with the whisk. Cool the curd, then refrigerate in a covered container. It thickens as it cools.

When everything is cooled, well... Do assemble as you would any layer cake, with the curd in the middle. I suddenly lost my attention to detail so will hopefully post proper assembly instructions later.

Spring Awakenings, with Pinkly Peppered Lemon Yogurt Cake

So my blog has been long neglected. Just as the earth has been buried under snow and ice. Unlike winter, though, things in my kitchen have been far from dead. Indeed, this time has been a lovely proliferation of new and exciting recipes. All too many will be lost to the halls of my memories, dust growing ever thicker... Some strong recipes have survived, and will be popping up here in the coming weeks, like the crocuses and daffodils in my yard. Appropriately enough, to welcome this blogging springtime, is a lemon cake! I made this to attend a Time Trade Circle meeting in Cambridge, and it went down very well. When I grabbed the plate to take off people started saying "You are the one who made that? What is it?" and a multiplicity of voices started saying how the TTC should start a cookbook of shared recipes. So as usual I am trying to buy as little as possible and liquidate as much as I can...

One of the things I need to use up are my experimental batches of home made soy yogurt. My house recently acquired one, and I decided I wanted to try my hand at soy yogurt (I have also tried my hand at sesame yogurt.. interesting, and not bad.. could be delightful for baking with). So while I seem to have making soy yogurt down, the milk our machine makes is more of a soy porridge and needs to be strained. This works ok for baking yogurt but not the silky creamy sort of thing. So I have a fair quantity of this grainy yogurt and baking seems like a lovely way to use it up. I first made some of the chai cupcakes from VCTOTW. Dissapointed with them, but much like curries... the flavor did improve the next day. So here I had a potluck, and some soy yogurt to use up. So I hunted down yogurt baking recipes, and Alpine Berry had a tasty looking French-Style Yogurt Cake.

I glanced over the recipe, easy to veganize. and I certainly had every thing on hand. I made a couple of changes though, more lemon peel, and rather than poppy seeds I crumbled some pink peppercorns in a pestle and added them... I feel the flavors were very complimentary, and I would definitely make again. So, onto the recipe. Oh, an unhelpful note.. I have a suspicion I may have ground up half of a vanilla bean.. but cannot remember. Still, a dash of vanilla rarely hurts anything.


Lemon Yogurt Cake with Pink Peppercorns

Cake
3/4 cup plain soy yogurt
1 cup granulated sugar
1 lemon's worth of finely grated lemon zest
3 egg replacements (I used Bob's Red Mill)
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 T crushed pink pepper corns
1/3 cup canola oil

Glaze
The juice of a squeezed lemon juice
1/3 cup powdered sugar

Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter a 9-inch round cake pan. Line with a parchment circle and butter the paper.

In a large bowl, mix the yogurt, sugar, and lemon zest with a wooden spoon. Mix in egg replacer.

Add the flour, baking powder, and poppy seeds. Mix until flour is just incorporated.

Add the oil and mix well. The batter will look curdled at first but it will come together.

Pour the batter into your prepared pan.

Bake at 350F for 30-35 minutes, until your cake tester is clean and the cake springs back when lightly touched.

Allow cake to cool in pan on a rack for about 15 minutes.

Gently remove cake from the pan and set on a rack to cool completely.

Combine the lemon juice and powdered sugar and spoon it gently over the cake. The glaze will be thin and will soak in like a syrup.

I then cut off "corners" of the cake, to shape it like a sun. I thought it was a nice after-touch, and the people at the pot luck seemed especially impressed with it.

Coming up, sorbets!