“Bring Your Own” Bento (#182)

Last night I went to a party buffet and as the birthday grrl wasn’t sure whether there’d be anything vegan among the Moroccan caterer’s food, I offered to bring something myself.

Top: chakchouka (a kind of ratatouille that can be eaten either hot or cold, made from roasted peppers and tomato)
Bottom: spinach spread
Not shown: pide bread — okay, that’s Turkish ;)

On a party you’re supposed to have something sweet as well, so I pulled a cranberry muffin from my freezer, made a pink glazing of powdered sugar and cherry syrup and topped it off with some cherries. Perfect, as there was pie for dessert.

Now can you guess what’s in the present? ;)

– – – – –

Join Beth Fish’s Weekend Cooking with a food-related post!

Advertentie

Cranberry Muffins!!!

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has some kind of food-related post to share: book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. It is hosted by Beth Fish Reads.
Why don’t you join us?

I’m writing this post in whisper-mode. That has nothing to do with Mr Gnoe sleeping late this Saturday morning. I’m just embarrassed to confess that with the dawn of February, I still had some ‘fresh’ cranberries left over from… Christmas. Oops!

So I felt a jolt when I stumbled upon the cranberry muffins Uniflame had baked. Just perfect! Except.. they weren’t vegan. But now that I’ve been ExtraVeganza for more than a year, it’s about time I took on a challenging recipe to veganize. So I went back to the original Dutch recipe on Yummy in my Tummy and got to work.

What do you know? I was done in a jiffy! :) [drumroll..] Here’s the result!

These muffins are awesome! Light, sweet -but not too much- and with a sour ‘pang’ each time you bite a cranberry. So I’m MEGA proud of myself — and future veganizing projects seem less daunting! #happy :)

Now I’m rather eager to share the recipe with you all!

Vegan cranberry muffins

Makes about 16 cakes.

Ingredients

• 150 gr fresh cranberries (washed)
• 265 gr all purpose flour
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 160 gr demerara sugar (cane) sugar
• 240 ml (1 cup) vanilla soy milk
• 60 ml (1/4 cup) soy yoghurt
• 85 gr vegan butter or margarine (I use Provamel Bio Soya Cook & Spread)*
• zest of 1 organic orange
• pinch of salt
• optional: powdered (confectioners) sugar

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 200 °C ().
2. Grease a muffin tin or fill either silicon or disposable cupcake liners.
3. In a large bowl combine flour, baking powder, sugar, salt and cinnamon. Whisk well.
4. Add orange zest.
5. Melt the butter.
6. Combine the soy milk and yoghurt in another bowl or measuring cup, add the melted butter and stir well.
7. Add the wet to the dry mixture and stir with a wooden spoon until batter is just mixed.
8. Spoon batter in muffin pan/cupcake liners. (You can also use a piping bag or sturdy plastic bag with a corner cut of but I find this too much trouble.)
9. Bake the muffins about 20 minutes in the oven; they should be golden and when you pierce them with a skewer it should come out dry.
   Mine took 23 minutes but it depends on your oven.
10. Let the cakes cool down in the tin for 5 minutes, then take them out and let cool further on a rack.
11. If you wish you can sprinkle the muffins with powdered sugar after they have cooled down completely. I didn’t find this necessary taste wise.

Enjoy! :)

Can you freeze these muffins?
Although these muffins are best eaten on the same or next day, they stay pretty good for a while longer. It’s just that the top gets a little sticky after two days, but you can hide fix this with a sprinkling of powdered sugar.
After freezing they still taste very good, but again the top gets sticky and the texture less fluffy: a little drier and more compact. So they’re fine, but not their original awesomeness. ;)

With all the exclamation marks in this post I guess I left the quiet-modus very quickly. :) Well, that just shows you my enthusiasm about these muffins! So I hope you’ll be trying them someday too. :)

Now Mr Gnoe has woken up and it’s time to get the day started — maybe do some more baking this weekend? ;)

– – – – –

Part of the February Sweet Luv event on Zesty Palette

& Zesty Palette’s ongoing Bake Fest #4 hosted by Tomato Blues

* I’m not a shareholder of Provamel! ;) I’ve just had great experience with their products. You can use any plant-based butter but if it’s got vitamin D3 added (which it often does), it’s not vegan!

Pomegranate Bento #169

Thanks to the use of pomegranate, this Meatless Monday bento has a taste of the Middle East. I had a big day ahead of me so I took plenty of food!

Upper tier: Ottolenghi’s kisir with pomegranate seeds and (homemade!) pomegranate melasse, cucumber and simmered kabocha pumpkin (freezer stash).

Lower tier: kiwi fruit, cukes, Greek-style salad with haricot verts, faux feta and pomegranate seeds.

On the side: breakfast muffin (freezer stash; recipe from Puur Plantaardig cookbook), and a caramel soy dessert that didn’t get eaten.

Midnight Maniac’s Meatless Mondays

Updating this post to submit it to the May 2012 bento of the Week challenge: isn’t this a great tease for a bento with NO CHEESE?!

Een mooi gevulde tas (week 42)

• Spitskool
• Andijvie
• Tomaten (uit Schalkwijk)
• Bospeen
• Rode bataviasla
• Koriander

Perfect, want a.s. zaterdag komt er bezoek mahjong spelen en het menu ligt al klaar: wortel-gembersoep (met koriander), kooltaart en herfstsalade. Tjee, dat doet me eraan denken dat ik vast azukibonen in de week moet gaan zetten… Want ik ga voor die dag een spannend experiment aan: groene-theemuffins met rodebonenpuree die helemaal ‘from scratch’ worden gemaakt! Te beginnen met tsubushi-an (grove rode bonenpasta).

[fluister] Ik zal maar bekennen dat ik voor de zekerheid ook een blik heb ingeslagen ;)

ETA @#^!$%$# Waarom kan ik nu dat succesrecept voor kooltaart nergens meer vinden??? :(

Bento musings: what to pack ’n stash (#1)

I guess all bento-ers have future plans for foodies to put in their bento. I know I do ;) As a reminder to myself — but also to inspire other people — I’ll be posting them as Bento musings: what to pack ’n stash.

I do try to be original: recipes by others will be linked. And of course suggestions are always welcome! :)

So here’s my first ‘note to self’: next time I am going to cook semolina pudding, I plan to make a few small ones in my mini muffin mould. Seems like a great thing to put in my bento! Especially when I add a container of raspberry sauce… *drewl* :P

Or maybe I’ll be making custard pudding first, you never know ;)

Is there anybody clever out there who can tell me if these desserts can be freezed??? :-o