T.O.bites | Toronto Food & Restaurant Blog

I’m a stay-at-home Mom with a very active toddler, which means I have zero time to sneeze let alone make a big dinner. I’m also not a big fan of spending a lot of time preparing or cooking a meal (I prefer the food cook itself – in fact I’m a big microwave fan!)  So I am constantly trying to find easy, healthy, and good tasting food to make.  After all why buy it from a restaurant when I can make it for myself for  much cheaper? (Did I mention I was frugal too?)

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Best. Cupcake. Ever.

Seriously, these cupcakes are so awesome that if Helen wasn’t planning on selling them to raise money for a good cause (United Way) I’d be chock full of cupcaked goodness.

The Oreo on the top was Helen’s idea and it worked out great from a presentation point of view.  These ones should come with a warning…if you’ve got hungry friends, they’ll be gone before you can count your cupcakes!

Recipe taken from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World by Isa Chandra Moskawitz and Terry Hope Romero

Makes 12 cupcakes

1 cup light vanilla soy milk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup canola oil
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup flour
1/3 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup crushed chocolate sandwich cookies*

Frosting
Yields about 2 cups
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
3 cups powdered sugar, sifted
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/8 cup light vanilla soy milk
3/4 cup crushed chocolate sandwich cookies

To make the cakes:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. In a small bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

Add the milk and vinegar to the bowl of an electric mixer; allow it to sit for a few minutes to curdle. Add the sugar, oil, and vanilla extract to the bowl and mix until foamy. Add the flour mixture in two additions and beat until no large lumps remain. Stir in the crushed cookies.

Fill your cupcake containers of choice about 3/4 full. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

To make the frosting:
Beat the butter until smooth. Add the milk, vanilla, and half the sugar and beat until incorporated. Add the remaining sugar and beat until smooth. Stir in the crushed cookies.

Another great holiday cookie to make.  The way my turned out tasted sorta like mini lemon meringue pies.  The recipe (take from Chatelaine, as always) calls for lemon curd.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any, so Helen and I improvised and made lemon curd completely from scratch.  It was actually kind of fun but in the end, I can’t say whether lemon curd is any different from just buying the usual Sheriff Lemon Pie Filling power brand stuff.  Honestly, it tastes exactly the same, but if you want to go from scratch on the curd, I’ll provide the recipe for that too.  I’m not so sure whether it’s necessary to use the coconut either.  See I couldn’t find the desiccated coconut the recipe asked for so I went with regular sugar coated coconut.  It was kinda tough making it stick to the cookie… perhaps you can try mixing it in the batter itself.  Oh and zesting lemons.. that’s always fun.  I heard Martha Stewart can do it with a spoon, but we used a cheese grater.

This recipe makes about 35 cookies

• 1 cup of unsalted butter, at room temperature so it’s easier to mix
• 3/4 cup of icing sugar
• 21/4 cups of all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp of salt
• 1/3 cup of store bought lemon curd (we made our own.. recipe below)
• 1 cup of toasted desiccated coconut

Preheat oven to 325F (160C).
Line a baking sheet with parchment.
Place butter and sugar in a large bowl and beat them together with a wooden spoon – beat together until creamy.
In a seperate bowl, stir flour with salt (your dry ingredients).
Gradually stir into butter mixture just until combined.
Pinch off about 1 tbsp of dough and roll into a 1-inch ball.
Roll each ball into the cup of coconut so that it sticks to the outside of the dough.
Place on prepared sheet.
Repeat with the remaining dough until it’s all used, keeping them about 1 inch apart.
Using your finger, make an indent into each of the dough balls (thumbprint) and then place them in the center of the oven to bake for about 15 to 18 minutes (until the edges are a slight golden brown).
Let cookies cool for about a minute and put in about a teaspoon of the lemon curd in the center of each one.

And now the lemon curd recipe we used

Lemon Curd Recipe taken from joyofbaking.com

• 3 large eggs
• 1/3 cup (80 ml) fresh lemon juice (2-3 lemons) (do not use the bottled lemon juice)
• 1 tablespoon (4 grams) finely shredded lemon zest
• 3/4 cup (150 grams) granulated white sugar
• 4 tablespoons (56 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature and cut into small pieces

In a stainless steel bowl placed over a saucepan of simmering water, whisk together the eggs, sugar, and lemon juice until blended. Cook, stirring constantly (to prevent it from curdling), until the mixture becomes thick (like sour cream or a hollandaise sauce) (160 degrees F or 71 degrees C). This will take approximately 10 minutes. Remove from heat and immediately pour through a fine strainer to remove any lumps. Cut the butter into small pieces and whisk into the mixture until the butter has melted. Add the lemon zest and let cool. The lemon curd will continue to thicken as it cools. Cover immediately (so a skin doesn’t form) and refrigerate for up to a week.

Makes 1 1/2 cups (360 ml).

If you want a lighter lemon curd whip 1/2 cup (120 ml) of heavy whipping cream and fold into the lemon curd.

I’ve been feeling more domestic lately so I’m going to start something new with my blog in addition to reviews.  I’m going to bake!  And this week, I’m going to be doing it with my favorite vegetarian bunny lover, Helen.  What a good way to commence the new “recipe” T.O.bites feature than by embracing the upcoming holiday season with none other than gingerbread cookies.  Actually, I’m a bit of a scrooge, but gingerbread is still associated with Christmas in my head somehow.  Today also happened to be the Toronto Santa Claus parade.. what joy!  (Sarcasm never goes over well on the internet).

The ingenious thing about this recipe is the fact that all you’ve got to do is replace the allspice  with a teaspoon of chai tea cut open from your generic supermarket bought teabag.  I was a little hesitant upon reading this as I was expecting it to be tea leaves, but nope, it’s just a blend of dried spices in that tea bag.  The cookies turned out to be quite awesome.  Infact, if I had the manpower, I would propose that most bakeries try adding chai tea to their old gingerbread recipes.

Chai Gingerbread Cookies
(stolen from the November 2009 issue of Chatelaine)

Ingredients:

2 and 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
2 tsp of ground ginger
1 and 1/2 tsp of cinnamon
1 and 1/2 tsp of salt
1 and 1/2 tsp of baking soda
1 tbsp of chai tea (split open the teabag and measure)
3/4 of a cup of brown sugar
1 egg
1/3 of a cup of fancy molasses

1. In a large bowl, using a fork, stir flour with spices and baking soda.

2. In a medium bowl beat butter with sugar for about 2 minutes.  Beat in the egg then beat in the molasses.

3. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and pour the molasses mixture into it.

4. Stir until most of the molasses is absorbed.  Gently knead the dough until it is an even colour.

5.  Divide the mixture into 4 portions by hand.  Roll each into a ball then flatten slightly into a disc shape.

6.  Wrap seperately with cling wrap and refrigerate until firm (about 30-50 minutes).  You can keep this in your fridge for about a week if need be.

7.  When ready to start baking, preheat your oven to 350F/180C and remove the dough from the fridge.

8. Let dough stand for a bit until it is soft enough to roll.  Lightly grease up a baking sheet in the meantime.

9. Place a disc of dough inbetween 2 sheets of wax paper and roll dough.  Make sure it is no thicker than 1/4 of an inch (half of a cm).  Cut out the shapes with a cookie cutter and place them on the baking sheed about an inch apart.

10.  Make in the centre of the oven until the edges begin to darken.  About 8 minutes if you want soft cookies and 10 minutes if you want hard ones.

11.  Feel free to make some icing by adding about 1 teaspoon of water to half a cup of icing sugar.  The best way to decorate the cookies is to put the prepared icing mixture in a ziplock bag and then cut a small hole at one of the corners to squeeze the icing out of.