Almond Cookies

Today I decided to make some cookies and, finding sliced almonds in my cupboard, realised I could at last make the Almond Cookies in Veganomicon. 

It took less than 10 minutes to put together the dough and after 15 minutes in the oven I have far more delicious, caramel-almond flavoured cookies than I can eat.  Maybe...

Perhaps a tweak could be to add some cherry pieces to the dough before baking, so they can count as one of my five a day.

Coconut-Lemon Bundt Cake

Hot on the heels of yesterday's Lower Fat Deep Chocolate Bundt Cake, I decided to try the neighbouring recipe from Veganomicon: Coconut-Lemon Bundt Cake.  I don't think I've ever made a coconut cake before and rarely make anything lemony so this is a departure from the norm.

Having poured a whole can of coconut milk as well as 2/3 cup of oil into the recipe, along with a whole load of sugar, I am feeling today's cake might be somewhat less virtuous than yesterday's.  Definitely need to take it all to work tomorrow and hope it's a hit.

On taking it out of the oven it smells very sweet but ever so slightly like Thai curry, I guess due to the coconut plus citrus flavours.  Looked lovely and golden and seems to have risen well, if not too well - 10 minutes worth of praying it didn't sink before I could turn it out.

Alas! Due to the cake rising well, the top surface was not flat, so when I turned it over onto the flat wire rack, some of the cake split from the rest.  Looks very moist inside though.

Briefly considered making a lemon glaze before remembering it already has enough calories to feed the 5,000, so decided to follow the cookbook's suggestion of a small dusting of icing sugar.

Update!  I completely failed to say how completely delicious this cake was.  Beautiful light texture, really moist from the coconut milk, lovely taste, neither the lemon nor the coconut overpowering.  Rated by my boss as 'one of your best'. Definitely recommended and I will make again when feeling skinny (maybe another trip to Morocco is in order).

Lower Fat Vegan Chocolate Bundt Cake

I thought I'd get my money's worth from my bundt cake tin, which has only ever been used for the Apple Cider cake (see below), and decided to make the Lower Fat Chocolate Cake from Veganomicon.  It only uses 1/3 cup of oil and instead has some apple sauce (which you can buy ready made from the supermarket) to make up for it.  The cake uses freshly brewed coffee and cocoa plus some vanilla and almond extract for flavour.

Result: the cake had a lovely light texture. It wasn't dry at all however did have the tendency to stick to the top of your mouth, so definitely one for eating with a cuppa. Couldn't taste the coffee at all, which is probably due to my not having any proper coffee and substituting espresso powder instead, which may have been less strong in flavour.  Due to the almond extract, if you don't like marzipan you probably won't like this - the almond taste is quite overpowering.  I'd consider swapping it for more vanilla next time to ensure the chocolate flavour can come through. Probably it could do with some kind of icing to make things more interesting - just some melted chocolate drizzled over the top would be good.