I love exams!

Well, not really, but these parties of people who passed their exams are giving me a great opportunity to bake. I’m not sure if cookies or cake really make a proper gift, but people seem to like them so I guess it’s alright.

Strawberries are in season and as my parents couldn’t stop buying loads of them, I decided to make my friend the Lemon Almond Cake from Yellow Rose Recipes. It’s topped with sliced strawberries, a lemon glaze and toasted almonds. I used less glaze than this recipe made, because I didn’t want to cover it entirely. I love how this cake tastes, though don’t think it would hurt the recipe to use less sugar. The crunchy almonds on top were great.

Apart from the cake, I made a bunch of cookies. The ones I love the most? These:

They look a bit odd in this picture, but it’s the best one I have: Celine’s Double Chocolate Cookies. As I mentioned in my last post, these are so good. I’ve made them at least five times to give away and I had quite a few myself as well… I also made another batch of her Booze it Up Nut Butter cookies, making sure I added enough fat to the batter this time. I didn’t have cashew/macadamia nut butter and was almost out of peanut butter, so I used part almond butter. They turned out very well this time, I’m glad I tried again! I forgot to take a picture, unfortunately.

I made more cookies, but didn’t take pictures of those, either. They were these Whiskey Cookies. They taste awesome, though the flavours in there remind me more of autumn than of summer so I’m not sure why I’m making this time of year, but anyway – I liked them. I’m just wondering if maybe I did something wrong, as mine seem to have turned out different than Celine’s. She mentions how the cookies are crispy, while mine really are more chewy or cake-like, as someone in the comments there discribed. The dough was also different than the cookie doughs I’m used to, it was much more elastic. Interesting! These cookies were fun to make. And to eat.

So yeah, I’ll make sure to remember to take more pictures next time. Come to think of it, I do have some cupcake pictures to share:

I didn’t make them myself, these are Rosey’s Cupcakes, which I bought at a local organic farm last weekend. I chose the chocolate cupcake in the upper picture and had a piece of every cupcake in the other picture. They were very different from the cupcakes I’m used to (the ones from Vegan Cupcakes Take over the World), more like muffins, in my opinion. I think it was partly because the frosting was much less sweet than most of the VCTotW cupcakes. In any case, I loved that chocolate cherry cupcake and it was pretty awesome being able to buy vegan cupcakes so close to home. And they all look so pretty.

One last awesome thing. One of my friends threw a barbecue beach party yesterday and made sure there was some vegan food for me – including this delicious falafel!

Cookies & cake

As you may have noticed, I just changed my layout. I think I’m going to keep it like this for a while, but maybe I’ll switch back to the old one again. I just can’t look at the same old layout for a long time! I wish WordPress had more (free) options for customization, but I’ll use this design for now. It’s nice and simple.

In other news, I passed my exams!! I am quite happy and relieved. To celebrate, I made a batch of Dreena Burton’s Homestyle Chocolate Chip Cookies and had three of them all by myself. The other ones were eaten by my parents and neighbours, who loved them as well. I didn’t take a picture, I think I already posted pictures of these cookies before.

Now, I also baked some things before I got my exam results. I wanted to keep myself busy so I wouldn’t get too nervous but mostly I just really wanted to try these recipes: Booze it Up Nut Butter Cookies (below) and a Lemon Thyme Cake (above), both recipes by Celine. I made some changes to both recipes, as I didn’t have all the ingredients and wanted to try and be a little bit healthier by using part whole wheat pastry flour. The lemon thyme cake turned out great, but the cookies ended up being a bit dry. I think I’m going to try and make them again sometime following the original recipe. I thought I could get away with using a tiny bit less oil, as the peanut butter had a lot of fat, but in retrospect I don’t think it was such a good idea. They’re still good and full of delicious peanut buttery and chocolatey goodness (I put pieces of chocolate in the middle of the cookies instead of on top), so I think they’re worth a second try.

The lemon thyme cake on the other hand was just perfect. I stored it in the refridgerator and served it cold, which made it a delicious fresh summer snack in all its lemony goodness. Yum. I think I’ll make that recipe again, too.

Now, I’ll probably change a few more things about the layout and bake some more cookies later today. Have I ever mentioned how much I love this recipe? Those cookies are so easy to make and so delicious, I just can’t stop baking them. They make a delicious small gift!

Back from Amsterdam!

Yep, I’m back from by holiday in Amsterdam. I actually returned last Friday, but didn’t get around to posting until now. I stayed at a campsite (Camping Zeeburg) with four friends, which was lots of fun. We slept in a cabin without kitchen, so cooking was a bit difficult. Without any way to heat up or food or a refridgerator to preserve it, we had to rely mainly on bread, salads, canned foods and restaurants. Luckily there was plenty of good food to get in Amsterdam, though, so we were fine. Two of my friends are vegetarians, so we even ate at a nice vegetarian restaurant once! It’s called de Bolhoed and it’s a lovely place. This is the meal I had:

It’s phyllo dough filled with yumminess and a salad on the side with further yumminess and I don’t recall the ingredients exactly but I know that it was generally yummy. One of my friends ordered this same meal, two of them had the Asian stirfry, the other one had Enchiladas and I think they all enjoyed their dinners, so it’s safe to say that this restaurant serves good food. Not expensive, either, so I’d love to go there again!

The interior of the place is nice and colourful:

Makes me happy.

I also got falafel at Maoz, which made a perfect lunch. I love the hummus/eggplant combination with a helping of tomato and cucumber from the salad bar:

That’s pretty much it for the Amsterdam foods, but here’s what I made today:

Yes, poffertjes! I hadn’t had those in a looong time. Tiny little fluffy pancakes covered in margarine and powdered sugar. The last few times that I did have them, they were the store-bought variety, so these homemade ones were surprising to me: they were much more crispy and brown on the outside, which was nice!

I used a special cast-iron poffertjespan to make these, which had been lying in the kitchen for ages without being used by anyone. Is there any other use for the poffertjespan than making poffertjes? I don’t think there is. I guess I just have to make poffertjes as often as possible to get enough use out of the pan. Which could be good, because my poffertjes-making skilles could use some improving. I think my poffertjes were a bit too brown sometimes and even got close to burning, because I couldn’t get them out of the pan very well (you have to turn them once to let the other side brown, you see). I think I just have to turn the heat a bit higher and cook them more quickly. I’ll try that some other day and see if it makes a difference.

For now, I’m waiting for my exam results next Thursday and am just sitting around the house doing useless things like sleeping late, sitting in the garden, being nervous and making poffertjes. Of those things, I think making poffertjes is actually the most useful thing to do. I think I might go on and make some bread next, or something else that involves lots of mixing and kneading dough… I feel like doing that. Have a nice day! Hopefully one that’s just as nice and sunny as the ones I’m having here.

Birthday cake

I only have less than an hour to make sure I have everything packed for my holiday to Amsterdam this week, but I just wanted to share a picture of the cake I made for my friend’s birthday yesterday:

It’s kind of a lousy picture and a lousy decorating job in general (didn’t have much time, unfortunately!), but the cake was tasty and it felt nice to finally bake something again! I used the (doubled) chocolate cupcake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, made it into two round layers and put those on top of each other with coffee-flavoured buttercream in between and on top. I had expected it to be a bit taller, but I guess I should’ve made more batter in order to have a bigger cake. Anyway, it was very filling this way already, so the thin cake layers were just fine!

So yeah, short post! I just didn’t want to be gone without notice for a week again. I’ll probably be back in six days, so have a nice week!