I am still very busy and although I am not blogging and commenting that much anymore, I am still eating and cooking. Mostly cake, bread, and ice cream as it seems. But wait, I am still testing recipes for Terry Hope Romero, too. Here is what I cooked and baked the last two weeks.

Although I suck at conversations, my Norwegian skills are still good enough to translate recipes. My Norwegian teacher once told us that Norway is the most “americanized” European country. I have no idea if this is really true, but at least I have a Norwegian baking book which includes recipes for American baked goods. If someone would ask me what I associate with American baking, the first thing that comes to my mind is “brownies”.When I browsed my baking books for a brownie recipe I found a very promising looking one in the Norwegian book  “verdens beste dessert“. I admit that I’ve never made my own brownies before.But I’ve eaten good brownies before. They were dense, but not too dense, moist, very chocolatey, contained walnuts, and they were not vegan.

In my first attempt to recreate those brownies, I just veganized the recipe with no adaptions. The results were very, very, crumbly. The brownie tasted delicious and it was moist, for sure. But I wasn’t able to slice it properly and as soon as I grabbed a piece it fell apart. I let the cake rest for a day and the next day I was able to handle it better, but normally nobody wants to wait a day before she can eat her cake, right? So I tried again and made some adaptions to the recipe. I used less sugar, more flour, less apple sauce (one of my egg replacers), more baking powder, and some cocoa in addition to the chocolate. The result was not as fudgy but definitely very delicious, too. And it did hold together. Unfortunately I can’t find the adapted recipe at this point. In case I find it, I’ll let you know and will add it to this post.

If you are very sad about the missing brownie recipe, how about another ice cream recipe? I had some leftover coconut cream and some canned cherries. What would be a better idea than to make some vanilla cherry ice cream? This ice cream came out creamier than my last versions. I used more coconut cream and some cornstarch instead of the guar gum I usually use.

Vanilla Bean Cherry Ice Cream

210 g (1 c + 2 1/2 T) coconut cream
150 g (3/4 c) sugar
1/2 vanilla pod
360 ml (1 1/2 c) soy milk, divided
2 1/2 T cornstarch
100 g (1/2 cup) canned sour cherries, packed in light syrup.
3 T cherry juice from can

In a saucepan, combine coconut cream and sugar. Cook over medium heat until the sugar is dissolved. Carefully slice open the vanilla pod and scrape out the seeds. Add them to the coconut/sugar mixture together with 240 ml (1 cup) of soymilk. Bring to a boil and cook for 10 minutes.
Mix the remaining soy milk with cornstarch and cherry juice. Add to the saucepan and bring to a boil again, until the mixture has thickened. Let cool to room temperature and then refridgerate for 2-3 hours. Also refridgerate the cherries.
Freeze in an ice cream machine and transfer to a freezer-safe container. Carefully fold in cherries and transfer to your freezer. This ice cream is very sweet, so serve it with fresh or canned sour cherries.

If you are still not in sugar shock mode, I have to show you some pictures I took after I got my new waffle maker. The old one refused to make vegan waffles. It would only work when filled with omni waffle batter. My revenge was to throw it into the trash bin. There.

Our new waffle iron has some issues with vegan waffles, too. But as long as I choose the right temperature (medium!), don’t make the batter too thin, and grease the iron properly it is all fine. So far I have had luck with my favourite waffles (Hannah’s sourdough waffles) and a waffle recipe from “The Joy of Vegan Baking“:

Like every week, I also baked bread. I made “Wurzelbrot” (root bread), which is an adaption of the “Pain Paillasse“, a bread sold in franchises throughout Switzerland. I’ve ssen this bread in Germany both under the name “Wurzelbrot” and “Pain Paillasse”. It is a twisted baguette- or ciabatta-style bread:

I am still working on my recipe for the Portuguese caldo verde, a soup made with potatoes and couve galega, a special kind of kale, which is not available in Germany. Usually most of the flavour in this soup comes from chouriço. I made a version with regular kale and somoked tofu and one with kale, arugula, regular tofu, and liquid smoke. Both versions were tasty and the soup is easy to prepare:

Last weekend I tested some new recipes for Terry’s new book, Vegan Latina. Everything I’ve made so far was very tasty! I am lerning so much about Latin American cuisine. This time I made yellow rice, corn crusted empanadas, and shredded seitan. It was an awesome meal:

This sweet potato chipotle bisque was another test recipe, I made it a while ago. All of Terry’s soups are super-easy to prepare and they are so delicious! They don’t have many ingredients, are very nutritious and come out very flavourful:

Oh, and there will be desserts in Terry’s book, too. Like this tres leches cake. I am already out of words, this was the most amazing cake I’ve eaten in a while. It was P.’s birthday cake and he and his guests loved it, too: