7.29.2011

Gluten Free Beer and Brownies

Well after a gluten-laden Oregon Brewer's Festival (OBF), it's time to make gluten free brownies (I have no idea how they are going to turn out.)

The 24th Oregon Brewer's Festival did have one gluten free beer from Deschutes Brewery out of Bend, Oregon. The beer had notes of citrus and hops, but, and this breaks my heart to say, kind of sucked. However, I still give them major props for creating a flavorful GF beer.

my dad's & my list of beers to try...& left-over tokens


Straight from the 2011 OBF program, "One of the most asked questions at the festival is, 'are there any gluten free beers available?'- Yes! This hop-forward Northwest pale ale is made of 100% gluten free ingredients: brown rice, sorghum, and dark candy sugar. It's hopped with Nugget Centennial, Cascade, and Citra hops for a Northwest gluten-free experience."

Unfortunately, according to my dad, Whole Foods sells a better GF beer, Estrella Daura out of Barcelona (go figure.) Let's hope my brownies get better reviews from Mr. Lavenberg. GF Brownie review coming soon.

7.16.2011

Crepes with Stuff

This morning I went really far from vegan baking and burned through 1/2 dozen eggs (but they came from cage-free, presumably happy chickens) and a lot of cheese.

Here are crepes with cheesy egg whites, cream cheese, and jalapeƱo jelly (shout out to Jen's mom) . I like my eggs with a lot of cheese and a bit of sweet.




Crepes
(adapted from The Joy of Cooking)


  • 3/4 C flour
  • 2 tbsp powdered sugar
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tbsp ground flax seed (just for fun)
  • 2/3 C plain, unsweetened soy milk (or regular milk)
  • 1/3 C water
  • 2 eggs


Mix the dry ingredients in a medium bowl. Whisk eggs, add liquids and whisk well. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and whisk only a few times (lumps are OK!) Pour some batter onto a hot, lightly oiled pan. swivel the pan around to get a thin layer of batter. When brown on the underneath side, flip.

7.08.2011

Vegan Banana Buttercream Frosting

It's been a year since we celebrated my roommates birth with an epic white chocolate banana birthday cake. This year she once again asked for something baked with banana and for the first time I actually had no over-ripe bananas!

Improvising, I tried to incorporate (vegan) banana buttercream filling into (vegan) chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting on top. Adding real banana, or any fruit to buttercream frosting causes it to separate and loose its texture, but it still worked for the filling and no one else seemed to notice ;)

For fun I added a (vegan) hand-rolled Belgium chocolate truffle on top of the peanut butter frosting.

My favorite flavor combination was actually the one cupcake that was dipped in chocolate ganache because I ran out of peanut butter frosting. It reminded me of a Hostess Cupcake but with a fresh, natural, banana, (and better) filling. It looked just like one and had the same texture without the weird sugar film you get in your mouth after eating Hostess products.

These cakes looked totally awesome, but I didn't take pictures except for this crappy one I took with my 3g phone. With this cupcake, I threw everything on it: banana buttercream filling, peanut butter frosting, a tiny chocolate truffle, then all dipped in chocolate ganache... tasty but messy looking.

Gina's (http://ginaespo.blogspot.com/) photo!

I realized I should have taken a picture of the Hostess look-a-like once I had eaten ½ of it, but I really didn’t want to stop to grab the camera. 

I plan to experiment with the banana frosting a couple more times- First with folding finely mashed banana in at the end and then possibly try heating up mashed banana, letting it cool and then folding it in at the end. Once I do all this, I'll update the blog.