(696) vegan snickerdoodles

I suggest you go make these, immediately. 

I just made over 50 of these snickerdoodle cookies and I'm considering having them for dinner...but I guess I should eat something a little more substantial. maybe...

Snickerdoodle Cookies (from Babycakes NYC) 
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-2 cups brown rice flour (I found this in the bulk section which was pretty cool!)
-1 tsp xanthan gum
-1/4 C flax meal
-1 tsp baking soda
-1 tsp salt
-1 1/3 C plus 1/2 C vegan cane sugar, divided
-3 T ground cinnamon
-1/2 C unsweetened applesauce
-3/4 C plus 2 T melted refined coconut oil or canola oil
-2 T vanilla extract
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-Preheat oven to 325 F. Line two rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.


-In a shallow bowl, whisk together the 1/2 C sugar and 2 T cinnamon until evenly incorporated. Set aside.


-In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, flax meal, baking soda, salt, xanthan gum, 1 1/3 C sugar, and the remaining 1 T cinnamon. Add the coconut oil, applesauce, and vanilla extract and mix with a rubber spatula until a thick dough like wet sand forms. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.


-Working in batches, drop the dough by the teaspoonful into the cinnamon-sugar-mixture and roll around to coat the dough all over. Place on the prepared baking sheets, about 1 inch apart. Gently press each cookie with a fork to help them spread. Bake for 7 minutes, rotate the baking sheets, and continue cooking for 7 minutes more, until the cookies are crispy around the edges. Let stand on the baking sheet for 15 minutes before serving.


Yields 36 (but I got many more!)

(686) father's day + remembering grandma

so I made a cake for Father's Day:

The most perfect lemon bundt cake was made, to be exact. This was sort of an homage to my late grandmother, Zettie, who used to make a mean lemon pound cake as many times as I wanted it. We never got her recipe for it, or for her famous prune cake, but I wanted to remember her by making this for my father since she was his mother. This cake, adapted from Deb, is moist, citrusy as all gets out, and sweet. It was perfect. This is my favorite cake that I've made so far, in the year and a half span of baking I've been doing. 
I used about 8 lemons in this cake all together for the batter, lemon syrup, and glaze. I could've used more glaze but I didn't want to over do it. Next time, I will use all of the glaze because it sets after cooling for a while and is awesome. 
I converted this using 1.5 C sorghum flour, 1.5 C tapioca starch, 3 tsp xanthan gum, 2 sticks of vegan earth balance sticks, about 1/2 tsp (and a pinch more) of salt instead of 1 tsp, and 3/4 C vegan buttermilk (1 c rice milk + 1 T vinegar, leveled off). 
I am very, very pleased with this cake, and more so with the fact that it came out of the bundt pan perfectly this time! My mother told me more grease and less flour works best. It turned out great. I think Zettie would be proud of me if she could try this cake. I really miss her and don't think of her too often because sometimes it's hard to believe she's gone. I think this reminded my father of her too. But I'm sure that she's smiling somewhere for this cake and me.

(674) sugar dusted rubies

This. Cake. Will. Change. Your. Life.

Ever since Deb posted this beautiful cake, I have been dreaming of baking it ever since on a lovely spring or summer day. After one more prod and recommendation from a good friend of mine, who swore up and down that this was the cake of my dreams, I gave in. I declared to my mother that this cake would be made this weekend in a beautiful Anthropologie pie plate. This is probably one of the easiest cakes to make. A simple batter with all the usual ingredients, topped with sliced strawberries and sprinkled with sugar on top, to make an extra crumbly crust. Do yourselves a favor and bake this, tonight!