Saturday, March 31, 2012


Vegan cupcakes from the "Last Friday" event 

Friday, March 9, 2012

Spring is here- I can feel it. That means tons of beautiful, sunny days with warm breezes, long, uninterrupted, afternoon naps and plenty of opportunities to just hang out and catch up with old friends are well ahead of us. However, that also means tons of gloomy, rain-soaked afternoons are ahead of us as well. Today was one of those gray, disagreeable-looking days.

What do you do when you can't/don't feel like going outside on your day off? You bake! Or, at least that's what we do in the Adams household. I've been baking a lot of cake recently so, today, I thought I would shake things up and bake some of my favorite Spring cookies- Alfajores. Alfajores are traditionally from Spain but all sorts of variations exist, spanning all across the globe. My recipe most closely mirrors the peruvian version. Typically two shortbread cookies are sandwiched between a thick Dulce de Leche filling and the tops are sprinkled with powdered sugar. Of course, I've tweaked the recipe a bit. I've swapped out the lime zest/juice in the cookie for lemon zest/juice and instead of decorating the tops with powdered sugar, I've simply used a chocolate drizzle.

These gooey sweet treats are great for parties (easy to make ahead, portable & portion-controlled) or even for a simple night at home. The lemon zest adds just the perfect amount of tartness to the cookies. I find, with every bite I take of a cookie, that little bit of zest brings a smile to my face. There's nothing quite like celebrating the little things on your day off.

Alfajores
(Adpated from Relish Magazine)

10 Tbsp room-temp unsalted Butter
3/4 cup Sugar
1/2 tsp Vanilla
1/4 tsp Salt
3 room-temp Eggs
1 Tbsp Pisco or Cognac (optional)
2 tsp Lemon zest
Juice of 1/2 Lemon
1 1/2 cups Cornstarch
1 1/2 cups Flour
1/2 tsp Baking powder

Filling-
14 oz. can Sweetened Condensed Milk

Beat the butter and sugar together in a small bowl. They should be light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and salt. Beat once again. Add the eggs, one at a time. Beat until well-incorporated. Stir in the cognac, lemon rind and lemon juice.

Sift the cornstarch, flour and baking powder together in a large bowl. Scrape the butter mixture into the dry ingredients. Whip until smooth. (Tip- if you use extra-large eggs you will have to add a little more flour to the dough, otherwise, it will be too sticky.) Cover the dough and let it firm up in the fridge- about an hour.

When the dough is cooled, divide it into thirds. Place the 2 other portions back into the fridge. Roll the remaining dough out on a floured surface to about an 1/8 of an inch thickness (actually, the thicker, the better). Use a 2 inch cookie cutter to cut out 18 circles. (Tip- if you don't get 18 circles, just gather together the scraps, mush them together and roll the dough out again.) Transfer the circles to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Bake at 325 degrees for 12-14 minutes or until the cookies start to brown on the edges.

When the cookies are cooling, begin the filling. Pour the can of sweetened condensed milk into an 8 inch baking dish. Cover the top with aluminum foil. Place the baking dish into a larger dish and fill the outer dish halfway with boiling water. Bake at 425 degrees for 1.5 hours. (Tip- make sure to check your water level every half hour. Refill with more boiling water if it gets too low.)

Take the 8 in dish out of the water, remove the top and stir the filling until it's smooth. It should be a nice caramel color. Let sit 15 minutes.

To assemble- spread about 2 Tbsp of filling on half of the cookies. Top with the remaining cookies, to create a sandwich. Sprinkle with powdered sugar or drizzle with chocolate or caramel sauce.

Sunday, March 4, 2012


Vegan food porn.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Over the past two weeks, I've been working on some of my vegan cupcake recipes. For the most part, I've just been making subtle tweaks- adding different kinds of flour to emphasize certain flavors, adjusting the amount of liquids to get fluffier cake, etc. but, I did end up developing one new recipe. In "A Monsterous Appetite for Cake", I included a heavenly coconut cake recipe, which is terribly delicious, but, I thought I would spruce it up a bit by adding in a couple other flavors. Below, is a picture of my newest creation- Vegan Coconut Espresso Cupcakes with Mocha Frosting.