the secret ingredient is love.

Or so I told my buddy when she showed up for her birthday breakfast cake to celebrate the beginning of her third decade. When pressed, I had to admit that there were a few other ingredients holding the love together for better bake-ability. You see, I think that it's important to have cake for breakfast on one's birthday. To start the year off right, and make the day special, and to take advantage of being a grown up and actually remembering to go ahead and have cake for breakfast every now and then. It's good for the soul. Buddy requested ginger cake, and peaches are lovely right now, so here's what the birthday girl found when she arrived at my flat.

Gingerbread cake, cardamom icing, fresh peaches, ginger ice cream.

For the cake

Mix liquid ingredients

1.5 cups applesauce
1/2 cup almond meal left over from making almond milk (or use 1/2 cup ground almonds + 3 tbs water)
1 good size slice of fresh ginger
1 tsp almond extract
3/4 cup molasses
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup ginger wine

blend all of this in a blender.

Now, mix up the dry ingredients

1.5 cups self-raising whole wheat flour
1 cup soy flour
pinch salt
1 tbs ground ginger
1/2 tbs cardamom
1/2 tbs nutmeg
1/4 tbs cloves
1/4 tbs cinnamon
1 cup chopped candied ginger

Pour wet into dry and mix to combine. Pour into a greased and floured (or just silicone) cake pan and bake at 180C until done. Depending on your baking vessel and your oven, "done" is probably between 40 mins and an hour. Poke the cake with a knife occasionally, and when the knife comes out clean, it's done. If you want to ice the cake, bake it the night before.

Also the night before, make the icing:

1 package vegan cream cheese (I use Sheese)
1 tetra pack firm silken tofu
pinch salt
4 tbs icing sugar
1 tbs cardamom

Combine using a hand blender. Leave in fridge overnight. It will firm up a bit.

The next morning, ice cake and top with fresh peaches. Yum.

I served it up with ginger ice cream from here. I modified the ice cream by adding xantham gum and a splash of ginger wine(before blending, to keep the ice cream from getting too solid in my fridge), and then stirred in an ungodly amount of crushed candied ginger in syrup (after blending). I used homemade soy kefir instead of yogurt, and subbed stevia for the sugar.

dancing to: happy birthday toooooo youuuuuuuuu!

compassion. also, carob.

Compassion is a word that gets thrown around lightly, but it's one I take quite seriously. I sat down the other day and posed one of those ridiculous hypothethicals to myself (If someone were forced to describe me in a single word, what would I want that word to be - in other words, what is the outwardly acting part of me that I most value), and my first instinct was to answer "compassionate".

I thought about this a lot, because the answer surprised me and frankly, I thought it was boring and maybe a little too woo-woo to admit to publicly. I wanted a more exciting answer. I expected me to say "intelligent" or "creative". Secretly, I longed to have picked "transgressive". But when I was honest with myself, I stuck to "compassionate". So what does this mean in terms of habits? Habits are what we do every day. They are our default actions, and I would argue that our habits (rather than our occasional acts of grandeur or madness) tell what kind of people we are.

First of all, a compassionate person habitually acts with compassion. Yup. In my books, intentions matter less than actions. Intentions matter, of course, but the point of an intention is to inform action (or inaction). To act with compassion, I have to know what compassion is, and how the intention of compassion manifests in action. So.... compassion is a sympathetic consciousness of another's suffering (part one) combined with a strong desire to alleviate it (part 2). The definition is paraphrased from my trusty OED, and the parts are my addition.

Part 1: A sympathetic consciousness of another's suffering. This means that to act with compassion, I first have to put myself in the other guy's shoes. Or the other guy's feet, if the other guy happens to be unshod. To experience the first part of compassion, we have to shut up and observe others and try to figure out their point of view rather than our point of view. That annoying person next to me on the plane who can't shut up is lonely, or maybe scared of flying, or maybe they're just trying to be nice to me. There they are. I'm annoyed. I don't have to stop being annoyed, I just have to acknowledge that and also look at it from their perspective. Or... there's a chicken somewhere who has their own agenda. Most likely, being someone's dinner is not part of that agenda, even if that someone is hungry and likes the taste of chicken. From the chicken's point of view, my dinner is not their concern, and most certainly not something that they're willing to die for.

Part 2: A strong desire to alleviate the suffering of another. To act with compassion, after putting myself in the other guy's feets, I have to think of possible courses of action, and choose the one that makes them suffer least or (even better) brings them joy. So, maybe I can spend a few minutes talking to the annoying person next to me on the plane, at least until we're through the turbulent takeoff and they're no longer clinging white-knuckled to the armrest, and then tell them politely that I'm *really* looking forward to my book rather than glaring at them and putting on my noise-cancelling headphones as the plane lurches left and right. For the chicken, one option is to kill them quickly, but actually a better one is not to kill them at all. Food-wise, being vegan is how I understand compassionate action. And compassion is more important than pleasure. Of course, it's also possible (and important) to be compassionate towards oneself, but there's a big different between compassionate towards yourself and being indulgent or entitled.

Cultivating compassionate habits means that the day-to-day of what I do should be based on the two things above. Too often I see the pattern of merely declaring oneself compassionate rather than a focus on compassionate action. Frankly, if we have a strong desire to alleviate the suffering of another but fail to do so given an easy opportunity, then the desire probably isn't all that strong. It's true that some situations are harder to figure out, but many are simple, and working on the hard stuff is no excuse for not doing the easy stuff. It may be unclear to me which approach is best with a student who is struggling (tough love or gentle nudging or asking if they've considered a different area of study altogether), but that wouldn't excuse me mocking someone with a learning disability.

So what does that mean in terms of concrete action? I try not to look away from suffering when it is right in front of me. I refuse to pretend that homeless people aren't there. I refuse to pretend that the meat in the supermarket wasn't a sentient, feeling being. But I'm not perfect. Right now, I secretly wish that whoever stole my bike wheels returned home to find that their car was gone. Sigh.

Now, in the spirit of this actually being a food blog: carob. Another place that compassion is hard is towards people who keep on pretending that carob is just like chocolate. They ruin carob, which is perfectly delish in it's own right. So, while I go and try to cultivate compassion towards those well-intentioned destroyers of desserts, I leave you with this super-yummy dessert that in no way resembles chocolate.


Carob brain-freeze enabler

4 frozen bananas, peeled and in pieces (keep them already peeled and chopped up in your freezer at all times in case of emergencies)
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 tbs balsamic vinegar
4 heaping tbs carob
1 tbs maple syrup
tiny itsy bitsy pinch of salt

up to 1/4 cup soy or almond milk OR 1/3 cup soy yogurt

Put everything in either a high powered blender (like a Vitamix) or a food processor. Add enough soy milk or yogurt to let it blend, but only enough to let it blend, or your brain freeze enabler will go from spoonable to slurpable, which might not be a bad thing.... Blend until smooth and about the consistency of soft-serve ice cream. Serve drizzled with a little more balsamic and a little more maple syrup. Serves 2-3 people, depending how reasonable you want to be about serving sizes.

I wanna be a chocolate god: vegan != healthy

This recipe singlehandedly (singlebrownie-ly?) disproves the often-made (erroneous) assumption that vegan == healthy. I modified the recipe from here, making it more spicy and less sweet. And... more chocolatey. I put some of them in the freezer "for later" and discovered that they are reeeeeeeally delicious and highly addictive frozen. Especially made into a brownie sundae on banana soft-serve. I imagine they'd also be good on coconut milk ice cream, but that much coconut at once is probably lethal.

Chai brownies

1 cup coconut oil
200g dark chocolate (I used about 80% cocoa content, leftovers from homemade bars)
1 tsp vanilla
chai spices: 1 tsp cardamom, 1/2 tsp each of cinnamon, ginger, ground aniseed and black pepper, 1/4 tsp of cloves. Optional 1/4 tsp of chili powder.
1 cup very strong black tea
1 and 1/4 cups sugar (1/2c white and 3/4 cup brown works best)
2 cups cake or pastry flour (I use whole wheat pastry flour)
1 scant cup dutch process cocoa
2 tsp baking powder (omit if you use self-raising flour)
1/2 tsp salt
3 tbsp flax seeds (ground)


1. Preheat oven to 350°F and grease an 8 x 8 pan, or use an ungreased silicone pan.
2. In a double boiler or makeshift equivalent, melt the coconut oil, chocolate squares and vanilla together. Add sugar and remove from heat.
3. Make tea (3 teabags). After it has steeped and the teabags have been removed, stir the flax into the tea. Let this sit for at least 5 mins. It will thicken into goo.
4. In another bowl, sift together the flours, cocoa, baking powder and salt.
5. When your flax mixture has thickened, add it to the chocolate/coconut oil / Now combine the chocolate/coconut oil/flax/tea mixture with the flour mixture and stir to incorporate. The batter will be less liquid than you are probably used to. Fear not.
6. Spread the batter into the greased baking pan and bake for 30-40 minutes. Test after 30 mins, but in most ovens that I've used, it takes closer to 40. I did have one very overzealous oven that used to do them in 30, though. Best to check.
7. When finished, remove the brownies from the oven, and *do not try to remove them from the pan*. They need to be completely cool before cutting them. Best is to make them the night before you need them.

I've also made these with Dove's gluten-free flour blend and tapioca flour (3:1 ratio), and they are delish, but need 1 more tbs of flax and an extra 1/4 cup or so of tea.

For the icing, I used 1 package vegan cream cheese (Sheese brand), 1/2 cup icing sugar, and 50 grams melted chai-flavored chocolate (I had some "failed" chai chocolates left over from making them for a friend) and a pinch of salt all mixed with a handblender.

Dancing for the brownies: Suzanne Vega: Nine objects of desire.

I wanna be a chocolate god post (large number): spiceh!

Okay, so you know how sometimes I make chocolate tea? Then I'm left with boiled nibs. Also, I make almond milk, leaving me with almond pulp. This uses up the nibs and pulp and is super yummy. And spicy. And fun. They're very, very coffee-dippable and highly addictive. Just warning you. For those of you who aren't plagued with leftovers from chocolate tea and almond milk: I can't help you. Work out your own substitutions. Or just get into chocolate tea and almond milk. Trust me, it's not a bad combo, especially if you have these cookies to dip in them.

So, I have this idea that there are three main lineages of cookies: persian, italian, and american. Persian cookies are the sweet, halvah-ish ones that are meant as rare indulgences. Italian cookies are dry and not so sweet and decidedly grown up, meant to be dipped in vin santo, or strong coffee. American cookies are child-like and moreish. If I had to vote, I'd go with italian. These cookies are what would happen if turkish coffee careened into chocolate biscotti. And frankly, I hope that such happy accidents happen more often.

1 and 1/3 cups simmered cocoa nibs, drained and ground
1 cup almond pulp (leftover from making almond milk, or just use ground almonds mixed with almond milk or water to form a paste)
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 soy flour
1 tsp baking powder (not soda!)
pinch salt
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1/2 tsp ground anise
1 tsp pul biber or similar chili
1/2 cup finely chopped coffee-infused bitter chocolate (optional, or use plain chocolate and add a tbs of instant espresso to the batter)

Combine all ingredients. Using a teaspoon and wet hands, form into balls. For extra points, roll in sugar. I do not need extra points. Place balls on a greased cookie sheet. Smoosh carefully to desired thickness. The cookies won't change shape much as they bake. Bake at 200C for 15 mins, then drop the heat to 150, and bake for another 30 mins. Let them cool for a bit on the cookie sheet, then gently lift them onto a cookie rack and cool completely. They keep for frikkin' ever, in theory. In practice, they get eaten long before that.

kitchendancing along to: C is for Cookie, sung by none other than The Cookie Monster.

two-toned yum

Two tone yum!

A nice light dessert that screams "IT'S STILL THE HOLIDAYS DAMMIT!", and is perfect when heavy foods are just sooo last week. Plus (for those of you in the UK), I'm pretty convinced it counts for two of your five a day.

cranberry layer:
1 - 1.5 bag (4-6 cups) fresh or frozen cranberries
75 mL apple cider or redcurrant vinegar
3 whole star anise
5 whole green cardamom pods
1/3-2/3 cup agave (1/3 if you're using redcurrant vinegar, 2/3 if you're using apple cider vinegar)
1/2 tsp
splash lime juice
1/2 tsp aniseed, crushed (optional)
1/2 tsp guar or xantham gum

Put cider vinegar and whole spices in a pot and simmer until reduced by half. Add cranberries and cook until you have a glorious mush. Allow to cool. Fish out the whole spices, add the agave, lime juice, aniseed, and guar or xantham gum and then blend until creamy. Start with a little agave, taste, and then add more until it's as sweet as you want. The blood orange layer is quite sweet, so you might want to leave the cranberry layer a little tart. Push through a fine sieve if you are so inclined. I am not so inclined, especially since my vitamix pulverizes cranberry skins to nothingness anyway. Plus, life is far too short to be pushing things through fine sieves, but I'm not going to stop you if you are more of a kitchen perfectionist than me, and let's face it, the bar is low in terms of perfectionism in my kitchen. Anyway, after that harrowing decision, pour your unstrained (or strained) goo into a freezable container where your cranberry layer will fill it up halfway. Freeze. When the cranberry layer is frozen (say, the next day), do the blood orange layer:
2-3 cups blood orange sections
1/4 cup elderflower cordial
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/8 cup rosewater
1 tbs vanilla
splash lemon juice
agave to taste
1/2 tsp guar or xantham gum

Blend! Blend! Blend! Go through the whole difficult "to strain or not to strain" rigamarole again, then make peace with your decision and pour the blood orange goo on top of the frozen cranberry layer and replace in freezer until both layers are frozen. Remove from freezer about 10 minutes before you plan to eat it. Slice. If you are feeling extremely fancy, drizzle with caramel sauce, or maybe decorate with a bit of candied lemon peel, or even some mint and basil leaves. Admire briefly. Devour. Be pleased.

Two-toned music: two-toned skuds theme, on the All Skanadian Club...

sheer beanius! part 2: Persian-inspired biscuits

These are loosely based on a persian sweet called Nan-e Nokhochi, which are usually just chickpea flour, oil, sugar and cardamom. These have a similar taste, but a different texture, and are oil-free. They make stupendously good hiking or biking treats.

2c cooked chickpeas
1/2 c soy or almond milk
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbs rosewater
3 tsp cardamom
dash salt
1/4 cup powdered sugar (pref brown) + stevia to taste
1 tbs arrowroot
1 and 1/3 cup chickpea flour

Blend chickpeas, milk, vanilla, and rosewater until you have a smooth paste. Empty into a bowl and add everything else. Mix. Using wet hands, take tablespoon-sized chunks and roll into balls. This makes 12. Place ball on a teflon cookie sheet (or a greased cookie sheet). Flatten. Cookies will not expand much. You can use more sugar if you don't have stevia (about 1/4 cup more should do it), but it will affect the structural integrity of the cookies, so you may want to make smaller ones and just bake them a little less long.

Bake at 200C for 15 mins. They should brown slightly. Cool. Eat.

Jostaberries!

For my friend M's birthday, we went berry picking. We'd emailed in advance, and been told that the place was open until 6, and there was lots of soft fruit in the fields. When we got there, it was closed for the season, and the girl at the counter said she'd never heard of the woman who'd sent us the detailed emails about opening hours and fruit. We were confused. Who was this mysterious woman who'd given us information? Why was she answering the fruit farm's email? The girl at the counter didn't have any answers, but since we'd come all that way on the bus, she said we could pick some apples if we wanted to. Why not? And so off we went to pick apples. And on the way to the apples, we found Jostaberries (a black currant-gooseberry hybrid). And this is the cake that came out of it. If you can't find jostaberries (I'd sure as hell never seen them before), use any tart berry, such as gooseberries.

Mystery berry farm birthday cake

Start with at least 3 cups of jostaberries
-put these in the oven at about 100C, in a single layer, and let them dry out a bit while you eat dinner... say about 30 mins - 1 hour. You should see them forming syrup, but they should still have their own shape.

After dinner, assemble the cake:

2 c ww pastry flour
1/3 c cocoa
2 tbs carob
2 tbs cornflour (north america)/ maizemeal (uk)
1 tbs baking powder
1 and 1/2 c sugar (I used a mix of white and brown)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cardamom

mix all of these together

1 tetra pack of firm silken tofu
1/2 cup pear puree
1/2 cup soy milk
1/2 vanilla bean

blend all of these together. if you don't have a supa-blender, use vanilla extract, or scrape the seeds out of the bean and use those.

Remove berries from oven, and heat the oven up to 190C
Oil and flour a 9 inch cake pan.

Stir 2 tbs of sweet vinegar into the cake batter (I used blackcurrant vinegar), or 1 tbs of balsamic vinegar if you don't have blackcurrant or some other sweet vinegar hanging around. You can also just skip the vinegar, but the cake will be a bit denser.

Spread half the cake batter into the pan, then the jostaberries, then the rest of the batter. You can't really stir the berries into the batter because they are too delicate after the baking and will explode. Sprinkle the top of the cake with sugar, and bake for 55 minutes (check after 45). Allow to cool for 10 mins, take out the pan carefully, and serve with chocolate sauce and a drizzle of blackcurrant vinegar. Carob vincotto would also be nice.

....and in case you haven't guessed. Berry season is totally over. I saved this post for a week when I was too busy to actually post. Haahahahahahaha! I'm sure frozen berries will work just fine.

music: Happy Birthday, sung with enough enthusiasm to make up for my lack of skill (duh)

Market Iron Chef

Here's how it works. You find a trusted friend, and send them to the farmer's market with money. They return with vegetables, herbs and a cocky "this is totally going to stump you" look on their face. You (and another friend) make dinner for 8 from the ingredients. This is how we spent our Saturday, and oh-my-goodness, was it fun!

Here are two of our creations. The chocolatey ones.

Wilted kale salad with pickled cherries.

3 bunches of black kale, destemmed and chopped
1 punnet cherries, quartered
1c balsamic vinegar
50 gr dark chocolate

juice from 1 lemon and salt, to wilt kale.

As early in the day as you can, quarter the cherries, discarding the pits, and cover them with the balsamic vinegar. Set aside on the counter to pickle. Later, massage kale with lemon juice and flaked salt until it turns bright green and wilts. Rinse lightly, so it remains a bit salty and lemony. Alternately, mix about 9/10 of the kale, and keep a small handful unrinsed, and then mix it back in to the rinsed stuff. Just before serving, drain cherries, reserving the vinegar. Mix cherries and kale together in serving dish. In a pan, reduce vinegar to about 1/3 cup. Remove from heat and stir in chopped chocolate until it melts. Drizzle over the salad. Serve.




Here's what we came up with for dessert.

Chocolate-berry mousse.

4 c almond-macadamia nut cream (method below)
1 whole vanilla bean
1 package agar, or enough of your favorite form of agar to set 1L of liquid
400g dark chocolate
2 tbs balsamic vinegar
1 tsp flaked sea salt (vanilla sea salt preferred), or 1/2 tsp granulated salt
freshly ground black pepper to taste

at least 1/2 cup mixed berries per person

700mL apple-rhubarb juice (or other juice)

To make the cream: soak nuts as long as you can (we only had a few hours). Blend 1.5 c almonds + 1 tbs lecithin (optional) in 4 c water on high speed. Strain. Rinse blender, and return the almond milk to it. Add 1 c drained soaked mac nuts + 1 whole vanilla bean to blender. Blend until smooth. Do not drain.

Transfer nut cream to a pot, sprinkle in agar, and heat on low-ish heat to a simmer. Simmer until agar dissolves. Remove from heat. Stir in the chocolate. Now stir in the other ingredients. You want to add more pepper than you think, because the tastes will tame down as it cools. Pour mousse into a bowl and set in the fridge for a few hours. It should set super-solid and dense. Worry not. We are going to make it lighter in the next step.


Reduce juice to about 1/2 cup. Wash and dry berries

Before serving, whip mousse with a hand-held blender. This is how you get the air into it.(If you want a lighter mousse, you can also fold in vegan whipped cream at this stage, but I'm not a big fan of whipped cream, and I like my chocolate mousse pretty intense). Divide into 8-10 cups. This is super-rich. We made 8 servings from it, but we could have made 10 easily. We probably should have made 10. Top each serving with insane amounts of berries and drizzle with juice reduction (this makes everything shiny and fancy). Garnish with a giant mint leaf.


The other things we made:
clear tomato consommee with homemade crackers, tomato-balsamic vinegar reduction, and tapenade
wilted kale salad with pickled cherries
beet and cauliflower medly
potato-crusted pizza with garlic-tomato sauce, smoked tofu, pattypan squash and two pestos

rhubarb sorbet

Yes. Rhubarb sorbet. Very grownup. Very yummy. Ridiculously easy, and about 10 minutes of work.

5 slim stalks rhubarb
1/2 cup white wine (I used sauvignon blanc, but I think reisling would work better)
1/3 cup agave (or more to taste... i like the tartness)
1 tbs rosewater
pinch salt
2 drops lime oil or a bit of lime zest
5 mint leaves, chiffonaded
3 large basil leaves, also chiffonaded

Blend everything but the basil and mint. Press through a strainer. Discard pulp. Taste. Adjust sweetness. Stir in the mint and basil. Freeze, stirring every 2 hours or so until done. This won't freeze completely solid, because of the booze and agave. Make it before lunch to have it after dinner. You can also let it chill and drink it as a cocktail. In that case, I recommend mixing it with sparkling water, and doubling the wine.

sweet tart music: stockings, with Suzanne Vega

halvah cherry torte

For my sweetums' birthday. What can I say. The boi has a thing for cherries and middle eastern food. This isn't halvah, but it has that same dense, rosewater-spice-nut type thing going on. It's the torted-up dream of halvah. Or something.


1.5 c cooked chickpeas, drained
1c ground almonds or pistachios (I used the leftover almond meal from making almond milk)
1 tsp ground cardamom
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 tsp vanilla
3 tbs rosewater
1/4 c sugar + stevia to taste (or just a full cup of sugar if you want)
1/4 tsp salt

Blend all of these together until you have a paste. It should hold it's shape when you scoop it up with a spoon, like mashed potatoes before you add any liquids.

Stir in
1/4 c almond milk
3/4 c flour
1.5 tsp baking powder (not soda)
1 tbs dried rose petals (optional but pretty)

Just before putting it in the pan, stir in 2 tbs cider or other mild vinegar. spread into greased and floured pan

Top with as many cherries as you can fit on top, halved (uh... about 2 cups, after halving), tossed in juice from 1 lime. Be generous with the cherries. There is a special place in culinary hell for people who are stingy with seasonal fruits and/or chocolate in desserts. Sprinkle with about 1/4 tsp (or less) ground black pepper. No, I'm not kidding.


bake at 200C for 10 mins, lower heat, and bake at 175C for 35 mins.


Lately, I've just found rich foods unappealing. Maybe it's all the traveling, where I end up sitting on my ass too much, which is making me develop an aversion to even the slightest twinge of feeling sluggish because I associate it with being forced to sit between overly-talkative vacationers, leery men who keep touching my thigh "accidentally" and leaning closer and closer over the course of the flight and then look surprised and offended when I tell them off, or (on one memorable occasion) a fundamentalist who spent 6 hours trying to save my evolutionary biologist, queer, atheist soul from eternal damnation (he failed) - If there is a God, why does He not send me boring seatmates on long flights? Maybe it's the sun. Maybe it's because I'm having fun running, having fun working, and just generally not wanting to feel weighed down. I still wanted to present my sweetums with a yummerific birthday treat, but I wanted to enjoy eating it (that's the point, no?). Plus, we both like really *dense* cakes. No fluffy cakes here, no thank you. We tested it on/shared it with an innocent bystander (who had no idea it had been healthified), and he loved it. So there. It's not just "good for a healthified dessert", it's just good dessert. You could make it all chickpeas (no almonds), which should work just fine (and make this low-fat), but I had almond pulp lying around, so I threw it in.

piratical!

For my birthday: rum-themed flaming desserts! Arrrrrrrrrr..... Now, the ice cream looks simple, but trust me, it is heaven in a dish. And totally what pirates would have eaten had they had freezers. And blenders. And raisins. The date cake is dense and fabulous, and flaming it makes the brown sugar into a kickass layer of rum-flavored caramel on the top. The flaming date cake is an invention of my sweetums, who made it for me, and so I've copied her recipe here.

Flaming date cake:

18 pitted dates soaked in the soy milk (below), about an hour

Soy Milk 3/4 cup

Sugar ½ cup

soak ½ cup pitted prunes in the same soy milk with the dates

All purpose flour 1 cup

Baking soda 1 teaspoon

Cashews, walnuts, brazil nuts for selenium (to taste)

Dark rum, brown sugar, and matches for flaming (optional)

Soak the dates and prunes in soy milk for 1 hour up to overnight. Add sugar and grind to a smooth paste along with the milk. (Use hand blender or mortar and pestle, depending on degree of technophobia. I use the mortar and pestle).

Sieve together flour and baking soda. Add the flour one tablespoon at a time and mix slowly. Add the broken-up nuts and mix.

Preheat the oven to 350F. Bake the cake in a greased oven proof dish for 35-40min (or till a knife inserted in the cake comes out clean). Or, line a cast iron skillet with grease/ovenproof paper and bake in this.

OPTIONAL

To flame, spread brown sugar evenly across the baked cake surface to “hold” the rum. Heat the rum till hot but NOT boiling (boiling will remove the alcohol, which is needed for flaming). Pour onto cake and light with match. Remove pouring vessel with hot rum from near vicinity of the cake before lighting, as it may catch fire too. This is okay of you are prepared for it (if you are pouring from a metal saucepan with a handle, for instance) – you can pour the flaming rum for added dazzle in this instance. The brown sugar will caramelize. After flames go out, tilt cake back and forth to disperse the caramelized sugar.

Piratical ice cream:
10 frozen overripe bananas
1 cup raisins, soaked in enough rum to cover for at least 1 hour, preferably overnight
1 tsp vanilla
1/4-1/2 tsp black pepper
pinch salt
pinch nutmeg 1/2 c soy milk
agave to taste if your bananas were not sweet enough

Drain raisins, keeping rum. Set raisins aside. Try not to snack on them, but if you know beforehand you will fail in not snacking on boozy dried fruit, then just set up more the day before! This be my trick. Blend everything else (including rum). It will be too runny to serve as ice cream at this point. Put it back in the freezer in a metal bowl (the rum will keep it from freezing solid) for a few hours, stirring whenever you remember (once or twice in 4 hours does just fine). Stir in the raisins just before eating.

more fun with blowtorches

I couldn't help it.

pumpkin creme brulée

1 package soft silken tofu
500g pumpkin puree
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cardamom powder
1/2 tsp nutmeg powder
pinch salt
1/4-1/2 tsp black pepper
3 tbs arrowroot powder
1/4 cup soy milk

Combine everything and blend! blend! blend!, then pour into 6-8 small coffee cups or ramekins and bake at 180C for 40 minutes in a pan of water. Cool completely. Sprinkle a thin layer of sugar on top of each one, and have fun with the blowtorch. Or just pop them under the broiler.

I'm getting much better at the sugar-melting part. The trick, it appears, is to use a thin, uniform layer of sugar, and to make sure you are using the end (invisible) part of the flame from the blowtorch. Oh, and lots of practice helps.

fun fun music for fun fun kitchen implements: the laughing gnome by david bowie

fun with blowtorches

.... because who could resist buying a little blowtorch?

You see, I was in the hardware store, looking for a replacement knife for reasons that are neither interesting nor any of your business, dammit. Hardware stores are my favorite, because they tend to have both power tools and kitchen stuff, often in the same room. If there is a consumer-whore heaven, this would be it. In this particular hardware store were lovely little blowtorches. Lovely. They called my name, and I couldn't resist thier siren call. "Wield us!" they said. Who could say no? Not me. After all, I'm only human. Anyway, freshly armed with a new blowtorch, I had to make creme brulee, like, right away. And for some reason, I wanted it to be green.

I've had vegan creme brulees based on both cashews and coconut milk, but find both of them a bit much. They just sit there in my stomach, being heavy. I don't like it. I like the tofu ones, even if it is super-fashionable right now to cook all desserts with ungodly amounts of cashews. Oh, and have I mentioned I also don't make cupcakes?

Anyhow, these are yummerific, subtle and just the right amount of sweet and rich without tipping over that edge of making you regret it an hour later. Plus, they're green! Yay! And more importantly than the taste or colour: you get to use a blowtorch.

green tea and almond creme brulee

1 package soft silken tofu
1/2 cup almond milk
1 tsp almond essence
1/4 vanilla bean
3/4 cup sugar
1 tbs matcha
pinch salt
2 tbs cornstarch

mix together and blend! blend! blend!

Pour into 4-6 oven-safe containers, and place them in a pan of water. The water should come halfway up the containers. Bake, uncovered at 200C for 45 mins. Cool completely. Sprinkle with sugar and then melt it with a blowtorch! Wooohoooo! Alternately, place under a broiler until the sugar caramelizes (this is not even nearly as much fun as using a blowtorch, but will produce perfectly good creme brulees, if you're into that sort of thing). I think I need to practice a bit to get the top of these perfect, but I'm totally willing to put in as many tries as needed.

I made them in glasses, because I was excited about the colour, but I actually think they'd be prettier in ramekins. I'm sure you can make your own decisions on this front.

Untraditional traditional familiy irish pudding!

Veganizing traditional holiday favorites is always a bit tricky, because you're often fucking with something imbued with a great deal of nostalgia and meaning. And in this case, something that until now, was imbued with a great deal of Guiness. And as we all know, Guiness is not vegan.

I've seen a few vegan Christmas pudding recipes. Most are, um.... lacking. One was nothing more than fat-free banana bread with raisins. Now, I like banana bread with raisins as much as the next vegan, and I do keep added fat to an absolute minimum on a day to day basis.... but c'mon.... It's frikin' CHRISTMAS! A feast day should be a feast, dammit. This is one of those holiday dishes that I look forward to, but only want to eat once a year, so rich and boozy and sweet is it. To me, this *is* what Christmas tastes like. So I give you my mommy's recipe (which was my gramma's recipe, which ... oh... you get the idea) for (Irish) Christmas pudding, which I've veganized. Irish pudding differs from (the dreaded) fruitcake in that it barely maintains enough structural integrity to slice, and is basically just dried fruit rehydrated in a winning mixture of stout and whisky, and then sterilized and left to age to perfection for several months. It is like the embarassing drunk-on-sunday-afternoon cousin of respectable fruitcake. Usually, you'd make this at Easter-ish and store it until Christmas. The best puddings are the ones that have sat for TWO years...

1 loaf white bread, in crumbs (stale is best)
1 pound cocoa butter, grated (you could use margarine or vegetable suet if you'd rather, but I hate the taste of both of those, and figured that cocoa butter would taste better)

1 heaping tbs baking powder
1 cup white wheat flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp allspice
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp cloves
1 tsp nutmeg

In a blender, mix:
3/4 cup cold water
1/2 cup arrowroot flour
1 lemon (or orange), chopped, peel and all, but de-seeded
1 apple, cored and chopped (you can use a grated carrot instead if you want)

add this to the bread and spice mixture.

Add
4 pounds (yes POUNDS) raisins, currants, sultanas etc. your choice of mix
1.5 cups fancy dried fruit (I just used dried pears and candied ginger)
1 cup halved candied cherries

Slowly stir in 2 pints of cold stout (I used Suma organic stout... a good list of vegan beers is here, 2 tsps almond extract and 2 shots whisky. I've been told that the whisky must be Irish. I suspect this is true. Anything other than a splash of Irish might hurt the very soul of the pudding. This would be unwise.

Let the pudding batter sit overnight, covered, soul intact. You can see it in the photo of the pudding-mess in the giant pot. It looks gross, and tastes and smells oh-so-good.

The next day....give it a stir and divide it into 3 large or 6 small puddings.

You can cook them in air tight tins or other containers that you can boil for 9 hours. I used sandwich containers that are microwavable and freezable, so I figured that they were boil-able as well. I turned out to be right (phew!).

For each pudding:

It is very important to line the tins very well because the puddings must stay dry while they're being steamed. We use layers of brown paper and wax paper. Put a triple layer of brown paper on the bottom of your tin and then put strips from one side to the other going across the bottom again until the side is covered. Then, put another piece around the side. The particular pattern doesn't matter, but the key is that you shoudn't have any holes in the paper nest.Make a wax paper pocket inside that and spoon the pudding in. See photo. Close the wax paper over the pudding and put a triple layered piece of wax paper over it. Put more brown paper and close the tin tightly. There should be no spare room inside the tin.

Put a little rack on the bottom of your pot and put enough water in to have the pudding tins float. You need fairly big pots as they need lids on. Let the puddings simmer for 9 hours. Yes, 9 hours. This is serious, folks. I made several small puddings instead of 3 large ones because I didn't have any containers big enough to do big puddings. Meh. So I only simmered them for 7 hours. I am such a slacker.

At the end of this marathon simmer, rescue the puddings by removing the tins from the water and drying off the outsides. Open the tins. Double check that no water got in. If it did, that pudding won't keep and you should eat it in the next few days (it'll keep for a few weeks in a tupperware container in the fridge). Assuming all your pudding wrappings are dry, DO NOT TAKE THEM OUT OF THE TINS. Let them sit for an hour on cooling racks before removing the puddings from the tins. DON'T UNWRAP THEM.

Let them cool and wrap them well in 2 layers of tin foil. The tin foil goes over the many layers of wax and brown paper already encasing the puddings. If you have any tin foil leftover, you can make yourself a tin foil hat. You know you want to. Let them sit somewhere cool and dry until Christmas. Ideally, this should be about a year (which explains the careful wrapping), but we've been known to just make them a few weeks before. They really do taste better the longer they age.

Me and my dad eat this pudding with vanilla ice cream (I think coconut-milk based would be best). Everyone else seems to just eat it plain.

Untraditional traditional music: The Pogues, or to get in the holiday spirit: Lump of Coal (the only acceptable Christmas album ever).

Almond cake with green tea white chocolate ganache-like-stuff-that-isn't-technically-ganache.

Since white chocolate isn't really chocolate (in my books), I think it's okay to make it into something that isn't really ganache. This cake is lovely and fall-coloured, and we had a lovely cozy dinner party where this was a lovely cozy end to it. Summer is definitely over here in Edinburgh (see photos for evidence, taken out of my kitchen window just seconds after I photographed the cake... that's the castle I plan to hide out in when the zombie apocalypse occurs). Ahem. Right. It's fall. It's rainy. The days are getting short at an alarming rate. Let the evenings of long post-dinner conversation in cozy kitchens begin!

Warning: You need to make the cake and the ganache the day before you intend to serve them! Or at least the morning of the night you plan to serve them! The cake is much much better after it's had 24 hours to sit there, and the choc stuff needs to set. Don't try to do this at the last minute and then blame me when it gets all melty.

For the cake:
2 cups soy/almond okara OR 1 c soy yogurt and 1 cup almond meal
3/4-1 c soy milk (3/4 if you use the yogurt, 1 if you use the okara).. basically, you want your wet ingredients to be the consistency of yogurt. act accordingly.
1 tbs almond extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
drop lime oil

1.5 -2 c flour (depends how wet your wet ingredients are)
1 tbs baking powder
dash salt
1/2 c. sugar (that's all the sugar you'll want, given how rich the icing is. up this to 3/4 c. if you're not using an insane icing)

Mix wet ingredients. Mix dry ingredients. Mix wet into dry. Or dry into wet. I don't care. This will make a fairly wet batter. Add 2 tbs vinegar (I used elderflower, but use apple cider or other mild-ish if you don't have elderflower vinegar lying around). Pour into a small oil and floured cake pan. Bake at 190C until done (mine took about 30 mins, but I like to make cakes that are small and thick, as opposed to large and thin). The cake will seem slightly undercooked. Leave in pan, covered with a clean towel, to cool overnight. Don't remove it from the pan or it will dry out too much. The next day, cut cake in half, and put a layer of white choc. green tea stuff in the middle, and a layer on top. A piping bag helps here, or just a leftover plastic bag that you've cut a hole in. If the not-ganache has set *too* much, disrupt it with a fork and then have a quick go at it with the hand blender again. The heat from just moving it around will be enough to make it workably soft and melty. Garnish with pretty white or light fruits.


For the green tea white chocolate ganache-like-stuff-that-isn't-technically-ganache:

chop up 3/4 cup of cocoa butter, and put it in a container that you're going to use a hand blender in.

add 1/2 cup raw cashews to the cocoa butter. Place this container aside and try not to snack on the cashews. Add a pinch of salt. Just a tiny pinch.

Prepare almond cream, made by blancing a big handful of almonds in boiling water, draining them, and then blending them with about 2/3 cup of soy milk and then straining the whole mess through a cheesecloth. You should have just over 1/2 cup of very thick liquid.

bring the almond cream, along with 1/2-3/4c of vanilla sugar (depends how sweet you like your sweets), to a boil on the stove. Take off the heat as soon as it boils.

Dump the very hot almond cream into the cashews and cocoa butter and blend! blend! blend!

Add 1 tsp macha and blend! blend! blend! some more. Test it out by dipping your finger in and licking it off. Test as much as neccesary to convince yourself that this was a good use of so much cocoa butter, but not so much that you don't have enough left to ice the cake.

Let set overnight.

Now, you can either decorate this cake like an adult, as others would do, or make it kind of look like a physalis-topped toadstool, as I have done. Here, where it is already fall and my kitchen is *cold*, I could have rolled out the chocolate into a sheet, but I distrust cakes with rolled icing, so I went with something a little more playful. Personally, I think my way is more fun, but you should suit yourself.

music for people who suit themselves: nanny nanny boo boo (Le Tigre)

Cherry Bomb! or... I wanna be a chocolate god part 9: Cherries!

Birthdays are an excuse for me to do stuff like this. My sweetums loves cherries and balsamic vinegar and fine chocolate. So this is a cake of (you guessed it) cherries, balsamic vinegar, and fine chocolate. Your birthday is the one day a year when you don't have to make any concessions to other people's tastes, so this is when "love it or shove it" recipes come out. This is one of my favorites. The cake is dense and fairly dry and not sweet. It gets soaked with syrup, which it drinks up like mad, and then covered in layers of ganache and fresh fruit. Oh, and you have to start it a day and a half in advance. One of the guests said that this cake was nearly enough to make her believe in a higher being.

On a really odd note: it's hard to find people to feed around here.I love making stuff like this, but you need an occasion. Or at least a few hungry friends.   

For the cake:

Note that this makes TWO CAKES (ie- each layer is a full cake, making this a 10-12 serving cake). If you're not making a layer cake, half the recipe.

500 g pitted cherries that have been soaked at least overnight or overday in enough balsamic vinegar to cover them. drain the cherries, reserving the (now cherry-flavoured) vinegar. 

2 c sugar

2 c water, hot

1/4 c cocoa butter

1/2 cup balsamic vinegar (use the stuff that the cherries were soaking in)

1 tsp vanilla

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

5 cups plain white flour

1/2 cup arrowroot flour

2 tbs cocoa powder

1 tbs carob powder

Preheat your oven to 180C

Melt the sugar and water in a pan without stirring so that it forms a syrup. When the syrup has simmered for about 5 mins (reducing a little), take it off the heat and add the cocoa butter, vinegar and vanilla. The cocoa butter should immediately melt. Set this pan aside. 

Mix the dry ingredients together, and then pour the wet ingredients into them, and then fold in the cherries. Bake in two cake pans at 180C for about 45 minutes, or until a knife comes out clean. 

Take em out and let them cool for a few minutes in the cake pans, and then turn them out of the pans and let them cool completely, preferably upside down. I just cover them with a tea towel and leave them out overnight. The cakes should be dry-ish (but not overcooked)

The next day... make the syrup:

3/4 c balsamic vinegar

1/4 c agave 

simmer to reduce by about a third. Take off heat and allow to cool. 

You'll also need 

300g of chocolate worth of your favorite ganache, with a sprinkling of salt added (trust me... this whole cake is quite sweet, and you need to counteract it). I used dark, dark chocolate and just make a simple water ganache. 

another 300g or so of pitted fresh cherries. Save a few whole ones for the top. Things are so much nicer with a cherry on top, don't you think?

Assembly:

This cake tastes best if the syrup has time to do it's thing. Assemble it at least an hour before you plan to eat it, preferably more. Put the bottom layer of the cake on the plate you will serve it on. Poke a few holes in it with a fork. Now pour about 1/3  of the syrup over it, and let it soak in. The syrup is *intense*. Use it as described above if you want a really strong cake, or replace some of the vinegar with water, for a calmer cake. But don't just leave the syruping out, or you will just have a dry cake, and not in a good way.  Once it's soaked in, cover that layer with a layer of ganache (half the ganache) and embed a layer of halved, pitted cherries in the chocolate. Place the top cake on top. Poke a few holes in it with a fork. pour about 1/3-1/2  of the syrup over it and let it soak in (are you seeing a pattern here?). Then cover the cake with the rest of the ganache and place cherries on top. Let the cake sit for a while. The syrup will make everything all moist and cakey and the ganash will harden to a shine. Serve with vanilla ice cream and let guests drizzle the extra syrup on their cake to taste. 

As usual, please don't use slave chocolate. Use fair trade and/or organic chocolate (some minimum level of human rights need to be respected to get the organic stamp), or chocolate that you know is not sourced from places that use slaves. 

Dancing along to: Joan Jett, Cherry Bomb! 

lentil cakes: east meets west meets Bogle

East meets West meets Bogle

Inspired by Bogles and the chickpea blondies here, I thought I'd invent a decidedly east-ish take on a west-ish dessert, and then use it for this years Bogle festivities, which have taken over the entire month. I dialed down the fat and sugar by a bit (depending on how sweet your quince paste is). Using legumes in desserts is nothing new in Indian and Japanese cooking (and I suspect other types of cooking too, but these foods were my gateway into leguminous desserts).

Just for the record, we seem to have decided that traditional Bogle celebrations must include: 1) gin, 2) cakes and 3) poetry. You should also bring your own Bogle, as prized for "best Bogle" are encouraged at any Bogle event. And this (I've decided) is one of many Official Bogle Cakes.

1 cup red lentils (I cup raw), cooked in as little water as possible, and mashed to a paste (I ended up with about 1.5 cups cooked)
1 cup quince paste or quince jam
1 tbs almond or pistachio butter
1/4 c ground flax seeds
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 tbs rosewater
zest from 1 lime plus 1 tbs lime juice
optional: 1/4 c chopped dried sour apricots

1/2 cup flour OR 1/4 cup wheat flour + 1/4 c chestnut (or chickpea) flour. Note that using either chestnut or chickpea flour will change the taste (I think for the better) and make the cake more dense.
1 tsp baking powder
dash cardamom
dash cinnamon
pinch salt

Mix first group of ingredients together. Mix second group of ingredients together. Then (oh the shock!) mix the two groups with each other. Spread into an oiled and floured baking pan. I find a small pie dish is the ideal size. Bake at 180C for 35 minutes. Remove from oven and spread with a very thin film of adhesive, um, I mean agave, then sprinkle with dried rose petals and the tiniest tiniest bit of cardamom. Allow to cool a bit before slicing.

For cupcake versions, decrease baking time to 25 mins. Note that these don't rise very much, so fill the cupcake moulds up almost as full as you want them to be in the end.

happy bogle day! part 2

Oh yes, it's that day again: Bogle Day. Yes, Bogle Day. Don't you celebrate it? You should.

In my tireless attempt to vive the fine tradition of Bogle Day, I give you: Bogle Cake. Or rather, Bogle pudding. In honour of a) spring b) hygiene c) fine whiskey and d) fine vegan dessertery, this year's Boggle Cake is steamed rhubarb pudding with whiskey sauce, made in my supacool vintage pudding steamer. The pudding steamer makes all kinds of claims about hygiene, so this may be the most hygienic pudding I've *ever* made. Be impressed. Be very impressed. Also, go wash your hands before reading further. And, because it is Boggle Day, the cake includes spuds. Hey, my vived tradition, my rules. Vive your own damn tradition if you want spudless cakes. This is kind of like the Scottish version of mochi. Spring mochi. Spring mochi in Scotland. With Bogles. It's got that kinda chewy, not-too-sweet thang going on. The sauce, on the other hand, is very sweet, and not unlike a nice kick in the ass.

Bogle cake.

I medium spud, grated
1 scant cup rhubarb, chopped
1/4 c currants
3 tbs grated ginger
1 lemon of zest
1/2 c. sugar
pinch salt
3/4 c white self-raising flour
(or white flour + 1 tsp baking powder)
1/4 c arrowroot flour

Mix ingredients in order. Place in greased container suitable for steaming (closed containter). Steam for 45 mins. Let cool for a bit, and then attempt to liberate the pudding from the container. This will be difficult. I failed, which is why I took the photos with the pudding already in a bowl. So, on second thought, I recommend a *well* greased container, not just one that you've lightly greased in a half-assed manner. The Bogles get angry when you slack off, and pudding welded to the extra-hygienic pudding steamer is their swift and Bogley revenge.

Whiskey sauce:
1/4 c. whiskey
1/4 c. agave
lemon juice from that lemon
1/2 tsp arrowroot.

Heat sauce until it thickens. Pour over pudding.

Bogle music: Monster Mash.

I may never sleep again

Espresso sorbet (or, more accurately, mokka sorbet). Not for the faint of heart, the low on caffeine tolerance, or the afraid of bitter. Or those who suffer from insomnia. Two photos: the fancy way to serve it, in a very very tall wine glass, and the way I actually like to eat it, in an espresso cup (from whence it came).

11 shots mokka or espresso (I had planned on 12, but I accidentally drank one)
scant 1/2 c. sugar + 1/4 c. agave syrup.
1/3 c. unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 -1 tsp vanilla
3/4 tsp xanthan gum

Make coffee, and while still hot, dissolve the sugars in it. You may want more sugar. I like things pretty bitter. Once the sugar is dissolved, let the coffee cool. Once cool, mix in everything else using either an immersion blender or a blender blender. You'll need one or the xanthan gum won't dissolve. Freeze. I don't have an ice cream mixer. I also didn't have any orange oil left, but I was planning to add a few drops, so do that if you can. Eat.

note: if you have an ice cream maker, you can probably cut down on the xanthan gum a bit.

music that hasn't slept in centuries: Bach, the coffee cantatas.

pistachio rosewater cookies

...because being vegan is all about depravity, um, I mean deprivation.

I give you proof that I am capable of branching out: Pistachio Rosewater cookies without any chocolate at all.

Shockingly, we actually did "recipe R&D" for this. Like, several iterations. And yes, made pistachio flour. Yum! These are pretty much the perfect tea cookies. They're crumbly and not too sweet but have lots of lovely delicate flavours. Here, rosewater, lime and pistachio. Though they also have maple, vanilla and cardamom which you don't really taste distinctly, but they do make the cookies surprisingly complex for a damn cookie. Not the cheapest, or the fastest, or even remotely good for you, but the yummiest. They're a great end to a fancy persian or indian dinner, and honestly are interesting enough to hold their own as a full dessert course. We suggest mint and tarragon tea, or black tea, or turkish coffee (with cardamom). I have this fantasy of serving them with lime sorbet. And as an interesting side note, I think each cookie actually contains more pistachios than does an equal volume of pure pistachios. They're kinda the sugar syrup of pistachios. Plus, they're a vaguely alien-ish green colour. Bonus. This really is a rave, because I can usually take or leave cookies, but I ate several of these in a row. And then had more the next day for breakfast. And that was the first try....

We also found that this cookie dough was highly addictive raw. This is my official attempt at "raw vegan", though I suppose that our interpretation of it is somewhat unconventional. Does that matter if it's soooo yummy?


The goods (makes about a bazillion small cookies, and trust me, you don't want big ones):

2 c white flour
1 3/4 c "pistachio flour" ie ground pistachios. use that blender! (almost 2c pistachios before grinding)
2 tbs cornstarch
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cardamom
1c whole pistachios (in addition to the ground ones)
1 tsp lime zest
3/4 c + 2tbs maple syrup
1/2 c light olive oil
1 tsp vanilla
5-6 tbs rosewater
1 1/2 tbs lime juice

Mix dry ingredients together. Mix wet ingredients together. Mix wet into dry. Form into balls with a teaspoon and flatten a bit with your fingers on a greased cookie sheet. Yes. These are meant to be quite small cookies. Bake at 350F for 15 mins, then reduce heat and bake at 325F for a further 15 mins. Let cool a few minutes, then remove from cookie sheets and cool completely. These shouldn't be very brown at all. If you see them browning, drop the heat earlier. NO BROWNING! You don't want to ruin all those pistachios, now do you? You want them to get dry-ish, but not brown. Like miniature green alien pistachio rosewater biscotti, okay? They'll seem underdone when you take them out, but they're not.

Note that you can easily half the recipe to make it less expensive, or if you don't have much use for a bazillion cookies. I guess you could also sub in almonds for some or all of the pistachios, but that would sort of defeat the point, now wouldn't it?

"oh, these are just some simple cookies i whipped up in no time at all" music: Old-fashioned girl. Eartha Kitt.