Gothic Granola

This is not sorbet.  You have been warned.

Pistachio buns, meet pistachio cake.

If a recipe has a superlative adjective in the title, I raise my eyebrows.  Calling something the "best," "last you'll ever need," "fudgiest," etc., is a matter of opinion. Crustuli delectamentissimus sunt. That photo couldn't be more staged if I tried (and I tried to take a neat photo for once!).

Ice cream cake is simple: cookie crumbles, ice cream, and syrup and/or preserves. Remember when cookie used to be spelled "cooky?"  I wasn't alive then, but I read my mom's copy of Ginny's Baby-sitting Business (Catherine Woolley, 1969) in 2001, and there it was, "cooky" instead of cookie.

The old woman nodded as she listened to the soft, bubbling words [of the spirit of the well].  Then she went back to the cottage, her eyes bright with resolve, her step firm with courage. She took water from the sieve and sprinkled it over the doorstep.  When she got inside she saw a cake, dark reddish brown and unappetizing to look at, on the table.  'They didn't even wait for me to come back with the water,' she said to herself.  'They were greedy as well as wicked.  But thanks to the spirit of the well I know what is in that cake.' Geoffry Palmer and Noel Lloyd, "The Horned Witches," Nine Witch Tales, ed. Abby Kedabra (New York: Scholastic Book Services, 1998), 13. There were a few magical things about this cake I baked for my birthday: I still had the book from which the above quote is excerpted and the cake actually  worked this time.  

Hey, it's my birthday! I'm going to revel in my Early Onset Grumpiness . via GIPHY  

There are some cookies that just get down on their knees and beg to be rewritten.  Not such a tough cookie now, are you?! [caption id="attachment_5007" align="aligncenter" width="225"] MINE, says Poppet bun.[/caption]

Fun fact, Gothic Granola isn't dead.  Neither am I.  I've been Instagramming my creations but haven't been blogging as I've been creative writing and working on other projects.  Since November 2015 , I have made several kinds of vice cream (vegan ice cream) including: Chocolate Rocky road Mint chocolate chip Pistachio Cherry chocolate chip Kind of whippy vanilla (that's a lot like coco whip )

If you have ever read any Buddhist sutras translated to English, you will recognize the title structure:  "Thus I have heard..."

Ginger Orange Booze Cookies, that is.  While I had real ginger in the house, and could have coloured them orange with real turmeric root, I followed TC's suggestion and made a ginger liqueur and triple sec chocolate chip cookie.  Sweetened with agave, vegan, gluten-free, slow-food, housemade, local... No, I'm not trying to up my SEO. I'm being ironic.    

This is not a coffee cake in the sense of something that's covered in streusel. Sorry. This is a coffee cake in the sense of a cake that's not quite sweet enough for dessert but is perfect for a mid-morning or mid-afternoon caffeine break. Not sorry. I don't even drink coffee. I have no clue if this will "go" with coffee or not. Pairing sourdough with sour coffee doesn't make sense to me, but I don't make the rules, I just follow them . This is my first time participating in one of these link-ups.

Regular Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal is not vegan and gluten-free. HOWEVER, Van's makes a reasonably close VGF alternative, Cinnamon Heaven . I reviewed this cereal last year. TC challenged me to make a coffee cake with cinnamon toast crunch. Pinterest yielded several recipes, precious few from scratch. For my junior paper on diets and religion, I picked up a series of essays on women and food, and I recall one that was elaborating on why women in the '50s felt pressured to "do it all": keeping the perfect house, dressing neatly, managing the children, and making dinners with all the new electric gadgets and convenience foods. That drive to use convenience foods is why I find some 1950's cookbooks gross (et tu, ridiculous Sunset cookbook in my grandparents' home library). I think the essay was from this book?

More strawberries and chocolate chips this week. My harshest critic was in town and TC asked me to make him a "moist" baked good (AKA: my other father-in-law, Bandit the dog's owner).

When Greek yoghurt became popular a few years ago (or to use my husband's phrase, it "blew up"), naturally bakers of all stripes put it in their products. Three tablespoons, though, is superfluous. It's not enough to add flavor or a preponderance of acidity to make a cake rise, especially when the leavening agent is baking powder, not the basic (as in pH, for all of you who failed chemistry) baking soda ( Na HCO 3 ). But I may just be an old vegan codger. Greek yoghurt does make good traditional cheesecake, and I used to eat a lot of it before I became lactose-intolerant. Anyway, strawberries were on sale at Lucky's.

 I found this recipe years ago (2010) soon after becoming vegan. I brought home some agave nectar from the Whole Earth Center in Princeton since I had switched to natural and vegan sweeteners. The picture on the source website looks nothing like the finished product. Although, I suppose if you used the full 1/2 cup of canola oil, the cookies would spread. Did I mention I was also hypersensitive (mentally) about using too much fat in recipes in 2010, too?

Every vegan and their mom has a recipe for a berry tart. Because vegan desserts have to be fruit and plant-based, right? Nope. By the way, I learned about this crust recipe from my mother, so there. She made it in December 2012 for a holiday desserts presentation I did for Lawrence Library . My mom made the same crust again as berry mini-pies in for Fourth of July in 2013. These are my fresh berry tarts.  

Mmm, this dessert made me realise how much I miss bread pudding-type desserts! I haven't made any "pain perdu" situations in a while because I have rarely had leftover baked goods, if TC has had any say. Father-in-law gave me two small bottles of Limoncello and said to make something. TC presented it to me as an Iron Chef Challenge. Evaluating what we had on hand, I quickly made a batch of vanilla cupcakes and set some cashews to soaking. Lemon Tiramisu it would be!

The second paleo recipe of late...what is this madness?! One of my neighbors gave me an entire bag of Nutiva coconut flour, and this was the first thing I made with it. The Wednesday farmers market is usually a little thin on goods, but one vendor offers an "all you can fit" bag for $10. I used zucchini in this recipe from the farmers market.

Not much is new around here. Last weekend we hiked at my husband's stepfather's family property and we just returned from camping at said property this weekend. Pants and Pomely had fun!

National Chocolate Chip Day is another one of those made-up holidays that must have been made just for bloggers. Actually, I'm pretty sure it's been around since before the Internet since most sites about it seem to reference the original chocolate chip cookie . NCCD is 15 May, and my post is a day late. I went to see Mad Max: Fury Road on Thursday (the other day I usually blog) and didn't decide what to bake for NCCD until yesterday afternoon.