Vegan apple marzipan cake

This cake has come to be known in our household as the SO's birthday cake, because he loves but it's labor intensive enough that I only make it for special occasions (ie, his birthday). The most fabulous bit about this cake is the thin layer of marzipan rolled out over the top and glazed with apricot jam and rum right after it comes out of the oven. Yum!

The recipe came to me from the SO's mother, and before that from a German vegan listserv. We translated the recipe (which is not as straightforward as you might think since there are several staples of German baking--such as pre-measured baking powder packets and sugar mixed with vanilla extract--that are not available over here) and I've tweaked it a bit over the years. I haven't seen anything similar on any of the vegan blogs I frequent, so I'll share the recipe here.

Apple marzipan cake

For the crust:
1 1/3 c flour
1/3 c margarine
1/3 c sugar
3 tbsp water

For the filling:
1/2 c sugar
1/2 c margarine
1 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp rum
10 drops lemon extract
pinch salt
1/4 c soy (or almond) milk
1 3/4 c flour
2 tsp baking powder
4 medium apples, peeled and finely sliced

For the topping:
150g marzipan
2 tbsp apricot jam
1 tbsp rum

1. Mix all ingredients together for the crust, and store in the fridge in plastic wrap to chill before rolling out.
2. Roll out crust to 1/4 inch thick and place at the bottom of a greased springform pan.
3. Cream margarine and sugar, vanilla, run, lemon extract, and salt together for the filling batter. Blend in soy milk and then sift flour and baking powder into the wet ingredients (note that the batter ends up very thick, sometimes I add a bit more soy milk if it's too thick to spread easily).
4. Spread half of this batter over the crust. Arrange the sliced apples on top of the batter, and then spread the remainder of the batter on top.
5. Knead the marzipan and roll out into a thin layer, spread out on top of the cake and pat it down.
6. Bake the cake for 40 min at 350F.
7. Immediately after the cake comes out of the oven, spread the apricot jam and rum mixture on top of the marzipan crust, and allow the cake to cool.

Bahn mi bowl

I was in the mood for a good bahn mi last night, but I sometimes get tired of buying baguettes because it's hard to eat all that bread before it gets hard (the perils of living in Montreal alone). So, I decided to make a bahn mi bowl, inspired by the dragon bowls at Aux Vivres. The bowl has wheat noodles, lettuce, baked tofu, pickled carrots and radishes, and a dressing made out of tofu marinade and veganaise whipped together. I already had the pickled veggies and baked tofu made, so this was super fast to put together.

The baked tofu is part of my ongoing efforts to figure out a recipe for Tofu Kan, an Ithaca specialty that I've been missing since moving here. I'm already starting to forget exactly what it tastes like so it's hard to say how dead on this iteration was flavor wise, but the texture is quite close and the flavor was delish.

In case there are any other frustrated Ithaca ex-pats out there, here's how I made it.

Marinade:
Soy sauce
Sugar
Lime juice
Brandy
Sriracha
Chopped ginger
Dash of liquid smoke
Garlic/cilantro bullion cube thing (it's rather oily, so I didn't add any other oil)
Enough hot water to dissolve the cube and cover the tofu slices

(Unfortunately I can't really tell you which of these ingredients are essential, and I definitely can't tell you the amounts. I'm more of a dump-stuff-in-and-taste-as-you-go kind of cook, which makes it hard to reproduce things sometimes).

Cooking:
Drain and press the tofu, and then marinate it for a few hours (I left mine overnight in the fridge this time). Take the slices out of the marinade and bake them on a cookie sheet at 350 F for about 40 minutes, flipping them once. They should start to shrink up and brown on the outside. You definitely don't want to bake them in the marinade, I've tried that before and the texture just doesn't come out right. Then, after taking them out of the oven put the slices back in the dish with the marinade to cool down. It finally dawned on me that Tofu Kan is sold packaged in some sort of marinade/liquid, and this seems to be the final trick to really getting the baked tofu to be nice and flavorful.

On being meat-free in meaty places

It was around this time last year (give or take a week or two) that I decided to try out eating exclusively vegetarian. I was in a car with a friend talking about food politics, and we both came to the conclusion that although neither of us was especially comfortable with the idea of eating meat, we both kept eating it out of habit, convenience, and of course tastiness. Out of this conversation, "project bacon" was born: We decided that we would try eating vegetarian for a month and see just how difficult it really was. Although I'd been eating less and less meat over the years anyway, I thought that going full on meatless was going to be too difficult. What would happen when I went to a restaurant or to a friend's house? Would I find myself undone at the sight of bacon and then feel guilty about eating it?

Turns out, it wasn't nearly as much of a problem as I thought. Social situations have been a bit awkward at times, and the only meat I've eaten in the past year was my mother's thanksgiving turkey, mostly out of a desire not to make it an issue at the dinner table (this year I think I'll be able to get away with eating the tofurky). I still do like the smell of bacon, but I haven't really had an overpowering urge to eat it. Frankly, if I had I would have eaten some by now, both because I lack willpower and because I believe in making environmental/social justice life choices that work for you. There are a lot of ways to be better to the world and to other people, some of which will make you more miserable than others. I'm perfectly happy living without a car, but take away my hot shower and I'm a truly cranky person.

I've always thought of these things as personal preferences, which brings me (in a long winded way) to the point of this post. I've been thinking of myself over the past year as a person who is happy not eating meat, but my recent trip to California made me think a lot more about meatless eating and infrastructure. I think about this in transportation terms all the time, because there are some places in the world (California is a bad offender here) that are obviously not built with pedestrians or bikes in mind. Trips that would be perfectly manageable on foot become really unpleasant when there are no sidewalks or crosswalks to speak of, and it changes the way you relate to the world around you. What this trip made me realize is that this is true for vegetarian eating as well (at least in my case). Not only is it difficult or impossible to find tofu in some places, but it changes the degree to which I miss and want to eat meat.

Our flight path took us through a rather long layover in Memphis, and it became obvious to me pretty quickly that this was not a place designed for vegetarians. Trying to eat meat-free there was very much like trying to walk in places not meant for pedestrians: you find yourself doing the culinary equivalent of tromping through bushes and sprinting across freeway entrances. Getting a vegetarian meal would basically require subtracting the meat (where possible) from what was on offer, which would result in pretty boring meals: sandwiches with veggies and a sad slice of cheese, etc. I had nachos without the meaty chili, which was fine for one night but would probably cause serious unhappiness if I had to do it every day. My poor SO has even fewer options, and usually ends up eating fries in situations like these. With his steely German willpower I'm pretty sure he'd stay vegan even if it meant fries for weeks, but I know I wouldn't survive as a vegetarian in these circumstances. I don't deal well with the feeling of deprivation that comes with being a meat-free eater in a meaty land.

Needless to say, I was glad to come out on the other side of the airport system and find myself in California, where the SO and I could eat at an entirely vegan Chinese restaurant (me above, with my fresh rolls and salty plum lemonade) and many other places where meals could easily be made meatless. A friend took us out to Burma Superstar for an absolutely stunning lunch:

I could eat this food forever and never look back. We had the tea leaf salad and the rainbow salad, fried yellow bean tofu, coconut rice and vegetarian noodles. I can't even tell you which dish was my favorite because they were all so good. Too bad they don't have a Burma Superstar Ithaca outpost, because I have a feeling there's no way I'll be recreating a 22 component salad on my own any time soon!

Birthday crafting

My SO's 30th birthday was a few weeks ago, so there was lots of birthday crafting and cooking going on around here! He's tricky to buy for, and I usually just end up pestering him until he gives me a good gift idea and then get him exactly what he asks for. This year it was a mini video camera. You can check out his blog, where he's already got up some bumpy shots of us on the bikes. He's quite happy with the present (although I kind of regret it since it means I'll probably end up in a lot of videos!), but I wanted to do at least some things for him that involved more skill than just handing over my credit card.

First, I tried my hand at making one of his favorite cakes, an apple marzipan cake that his mom used to make for him on his birthday. When he was living in Germany, his mom would actually mail this cake to him -- that's how efficient the German post is, you can get a spoilable item to the other side of the country in 24 hours, no special services required. Meanwhile, I'm a mere five hours away from my parents, and I'm still waiting on a package that my mother mailed weeks ago. Sigh!

Here's how the cake turned out:


He says this isn't what it looks like when his mom makes it, so it's possible that something went amiss in all of the weight to volume conversions that I had to do on the recipe. Appearances aside, this was a pretty tasty cake! Very sweet, though... one slice later and I was taking a sugar-induced afternoon nap.

The other present that I made for him was actually something that I'd promised as a Christmas present, but was obviously veeeerrrry behind in finishing. I got him a wooden serving tray, and told him I would paint him a design of his choosing on it. He likes eating on the couch with a tray and is always complaining about the trays that we have -- too small, too flimsy, nothing just right! Here's a picture of the tray a month or so ago, halfway through painting:

The image is from The Trip to Panama, a German kid's book from a series that features a tiger and a bear (this edition is in English, though). It's really cute, and I had a fun time painting this. Here's what it looked like in the end, after a bit more painting and many coats of stinky spray varnish:
I love how the bear is sitting on a pillow on the couch. I always accuse my SO of just sitting down without looking to see what's actually on the couch first, so it seems pretty appropriate. At some point I may try to figure out some way of making the surface of the tray more heat proof, but for now it works well.

The only downside to all this crafting is that now I've exhausted my supply of SO gift/craft ideas. I think he needs to get another bike soon so I can help him outfit that!

Nom nom nom

Not much to say here, except look at these gorgeous cinnamon buns that I made (or if you're German, "cinnamon snails")! Last week I had a cinnamon bun craving that just would not go away. While I was tempted to just buy a pack of the Pillsbury buns in a can, I knew I'd end up eating them all myself (since they're not vegan) and living to regret it later. I finally got up the motivation to make them from scratch using the Vegan Brunch recipe. I cheated a little and put the dough in the breadmaker instead of making it by hand and that turned out quite well. These took a lot of time to make but weren't exactly time consuming. There's a lot of rising time in there, but not a whole lot of work. So, if you haven't made cinnamon buns before, try it! They're pretty damn tasty.

Canning chutney

I finally got around to making some chutney this weekend with the two absolutely gigantic asian pears I bought last weekend. We're on the last jar of the green tomato chutney we made aaaaages ago, and so I thought I would stock up on some of the asian pear and red pepper chutney that I made a few months ago. The recipe is from the Millennium Cookbook, which is one of those fancyfancy cookbooks with time consuming recipes that become even more time consuming when you have to hunt down all the crazy ingredients that the recipe calls for first. This chutney is surprisingly straightforward, though: It has asian pears and red peppers (surprise), a sugar-vinegar base, some chili paste and roasted cumin seeds. With all the vinegar/sugar/spice in there, I think this one has a good chance of surviving on the shelf, so I made a big batch to can.

I've done some canning before using regular kitchen equipment, but this time I thought I would invest in some proper canning tongs to make the process a little easier. This did make a BIG difference. Pulling those cans out of the boiling water with barbecue tongs is a bit slippery and unpredictable. I'd say the rubberized tongs were totally worth the extra five bucks and kitchen drawer space.

After 25 minutes of rattling cans, and the fun sound of lids popping as they cool, I now have five nice jars of chutney. Nom.


I also made some spicy corn chowder for dinner, which unfortunately I didn't take a picture of. I always get really excited when this soup comes up at CTB, but my SO doesn't really get my love of this soup. Last night I made a veganized version of it so that he could finally try it, and I have to say it turned out really well! The CTB version is already vegetarian, but a lot of the internet recipes I found called for bacon. Ah, bacon. It's one of the few meats that I really do miss the taste of. So, I thought this might be a good time to bust out the bottle of liquid smoke that I've had in the cupboard for a while (impulse purchase at the grocery store) and see what that did. It's fantastic! A couple shakes of that stuff really did give the soup that smoky, bacon-y smell. I'm getting hungry again just thinking about it.