I spent all day at WW yesterday making this rainbow cheesecake. I was interrupted a lot, and took a break to make the snickers bar (also pictured) but I still want to rename it the 'forever cheesecake'. The base cheesecake cream is cashew, cocoa butter, and coconut milk. The pink/red layer is dragonfruit, the yellow is mango, the purple/blue is blueberry, and the green is spirulina.
Today I made loooads of exciting things. Banana almond muffins (destined for the homeless of George Town's KOMTAR bus station), marmalade, a gooey chocolate orange cake (containing the marmalade), and vegan nacho cheese.
A good day in the Wholey Wonder kitchen!
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Today I made date syrup and almond milk. The ingredients were dates and water, and almonds and water, respectively.
In the first case, I soaked the dates in hot water for five minutes, then applied a blender; this took far longer than expected, but was well worth it. Actually I think the main ingredient is patience. Two parts dates, one part water.
In the second case, the almonds had already been soaked overnight and drained. I applied a juicer. Two parts almonds, two and a half parts water.
Both suuuuuper good. I might use date syrup for anything that requires any kind of sweetening in future.
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I made coconut cookies today.
I am a grown up.
You can tell it's been a thesis writing sort of weekend. I made two types of cookies, went for a run, and finished a budgeting app that reads my /stuff feed and tells me when I've bought too much.
Banana choc chip cakecookie
I think CHI submission reviews coming in tipped me over the TODOs edge, I developed a powerful cake craving, but didn't want to leave my apartment/pyjamas so the natural outcome is... procrastabaking!
This was improvised, and I don't normally have much success with full-size cakes, but lack of other baking dishes left me with little choice. It turned out great! Maybe using US units of measurements is the secret after all.
All measurements approximate:
Combined dry and wet ingredients separately, then mixed together. Baked for 40 minutes (with poking breaks at 20 and 30) at 350F.
For the chocolate coating:
Stir vigorously over a very low heat to make it foamy and wonderful. When it cools it separates, so as soon as the cake is cooled, pour it over and immediately refrigerate. Still separated a bit, but tastes great.
I should be packing.
Could have been better.
I based it on this bread recipe, but amended according to my mother's advice.
Thus, I made a batter with 1/3 of the flour (strong white bread flour; 6oz), all of the yeast (one 7g packet) and all of the water (415ml) and the oil (30ml), and left that covered in the airing cupboard for an hour where it bubbled away merrily.
Next I mixed in the rest of the flour (12oz) and some salt and a handful of sunflour seeds, poppyseeds and pumpkin seeds. Contrary to what my mother promised, it was very sticky. I stirred vigorously and kept adding flour until I could cope with it, and kneading began. I kneaded for fifteen minutes, having discovered that sometimes punching instead of regular kneading is much more enjoyable.
I turned it into six balls and one long bit, and arranged them on a tray and in an ad-hoc loaf tin, and they went back in the airing cupboard for about two and a half hours (I went out). I covered them, as instructed, and that was where things started to go wrong..
The bits that didn't get stuck to the tinfoil rose great. But the bits that stuck pretty much didn't get to rise. They rose outwards loads, but upwards was constrained. Rubbish.
I baked them anyway (30 minutes, 220 degress celcius).
Tastes great, textures is okay, appearance is disappointing. Next time I won't cover them quite so securely while they're rising. Far more holey than I was anticipating too; I'm not sure if under- or over-kneading causes this.
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