Cranberry Coffee Cake

A cake. Do you really need a reason to make a cake other then you want to a) make a cake, b) eat cake, or c) make a cake for other people to eat. Sure it is the holiday season and we want pies and desserts and blah blah blah, but it is also do whatever feels right to you in the kitchen season and if cake feels right, well then cake so be it.

I was option c), wanting to make a cake for other people to eat, mostly for the mr to eat. I haven’t really baked much of anything the past few weeks (besides a lot of bread) and basically just wanted to make him something that I knew he would really like. (I know, I know, I am the best!)

Cranberries. Very appropriate this time of year and plus I just bought 5 lbs (to freeze and eat in handfuls frozen or to add to soup) and the mr really likes tart things so cranberry coffee cake it was. A dang good cake if I do say so myself. Dense and moist and rich and covered in crumble and drizzled with lemon glaze. Looks good and smells good and tastes better then that.

The mr. was glad for the cake, so glad in fact he ate almost half of it in a day. Then the other 1/4 the next day even after I yelled at him to not eat all but I think by now, it is gone. He really, really liked it. (He kept telling me how “freaking GOOOOD” it was. I know dude, I know.)

Now to the cake!

The stuff. All purpose and white whole wheat flour, baking powder and soda, salt, ground ginger, brown and white sugar, oil, vanilla, apple cider vinegar, plant milk, and cranberries. Also more flour, brown sugar, cinnamon and vegan butter for crumble and a lemon and powdered sugar for glaze.

Start with the wet. Add both brown and white sugar to a big bowl along with the oil, vanilla, vinegar, and half the milk. Mix together until completely incorporated. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder and soda, salt, ginger, and the zest of a lemon. Dump the dry into the wet, add the rest of the milk, and mix until everything is completely incorporated. But don’t over mix or the batter will get tough.

Lastly, fold in the cranberries. So Pretty!

Real fast make the crumble topping. Just mix together the flour, sugar, cinnamon, pinch of salt, and mix with a fork until completely combined and is kind of crumbly.

Batter gets dumped and leveled into a well greased tube pan and the crumble gets crumbled all over the top of the batter.

And into the oven it goes, 50-60 minutes or until a tester poked into the middle parts comes out clean.

Cake is done. Now pop it from pan and let it cool.

While cake is cooling, mix up the powdered sugar and lemon juice to drizzle.

Cake is cool enough to drizzle so drizzle that drizzle.

You now have your cake go on and eat it.

-C

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Cranberry Coffee Cake

Makes one tube cake (can also be baked in a 9x9 pan)

• For the Cake

• 1 cups all purpose flour

• 1 cup white whole wheat flour (or sub AP)

• 1/4 cup white sugar

• 1/2 cup brown sugar

• 1 teaspoon each baking powder and soda

• 1 teaspoon gound ginger

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1 teaspoon vanilla

• zest from a lemon

• 1 cup plant based milk

• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

• 1/2 cup neutral oil

• 1 1/2 cups fresh (or frozen and thawed) cranberries

• For the Crumb Topping

• 2/3 cup brown sugar

• 2/3 cup flour

• 3 tablespoons vegan butter

• 1 teaspoon cinnanon

• pinch of salt

• For the Glaze

• Juice form 1/2 a lemon

• 1/2 of powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350

In a large bowl mix together the brown and white sugar, oil, vanilla, and vinegar. Add in about 1/2 the milk and mix. Then In a separate bowl whisk together the flours, baking powder and soda, salt, ginger, and the zest of a lemon. Dump the dry into the wet and mix, adding the rest of the milk to the batter. Once batter in cohesive, dump in the cranberries and fold them in. Dump (it is a thick batter) into a well greased tube or burnt pan and level out.

Place all the stuff for the crumb topping into a bowl. Mix together with a fork until completely incorporated. With your fingers evenly crumble the mixture onto the top of the cake batter.

Place cake into preheated oven and bake for 50-60 minutes or until poked with a tester and it comes out clean.

Once baked, remove cake from oven and carefully remove from pan. Place on metal rack and let cool.

While cake is cooling, mix up glaze. Powdered sugar and juice of half a lemon get mixed until smooth and runny, but not to runny. If it is to runny, add a teaspoon or so more sugar to thicken up or if to thick, a touch more lemon. Think drizzle-able.

Once cake is cool enough, drizzle the lemon glaze all over.

And then that is it. You now eat it. For breakfast of dessert and any time in between.

Cake can be left, covered, on counter at room temp for 3-4 days. You can also freeze pieces of it but really, just eat it all and make a new one when the mood strikes for cranberry cake.

Tomato Bundt Cake

Do you have a gazillion tomatoes, like so many that they are practically coming out of your ears? Me too.... Me too. This year the tomatoes have been gang busters, a explosion of the sweetest and most delicious fruit and now I have tomatoes littered everywhere, tucked into all the corners and baskets all over the house. It's getting kinda tomato crazy over here.

 I can only eat so many tomatoes a day before all I have eaten are tomatoes and I start to feel slightly sick. Same with the mr, he has been a tomato eating champ as well but I think he was getting a little bored with all the tomato salads that I have been making. So I thought I would try something new and make a tomato cake. I figured why the heck not, tomatoes are technically a fruit and fruit and cake are great together and yeah. So tomato cake is going to be fantastic. I also wanted to make something that the mr would eat for breakfast. I have been doing this new thing in the mornings for the mr. I have coffee ready, some breakfast food (its been zucchini bread for a while), and a little vase of fresh flowers that I pick on my morning walk, all set out on the counter for when he wakes up. I know, I am so great right. Really I do it cause I want him to eat something before working all morning and plus if I am all sweet in the morning, he can't be an old man cranky pants (at least he tries not to be).  Now for the next few days the tomato cake is breakfast cake and all is good.

Anyway, the cake come out great. Bright reddish orange, dense but fluffy and most, and smells so good. The mr tells me it's amazingand I shared a chunk with some of my family and everyone (minus a little) where fans. I am for sure going to be making this again soon, although I have been toying with the idea of eggplant sweet bread (too far??) but I'll get to that later.

Now for the tomato cake!

The stuff. Flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt (all in the bowl). Brown sugar, oil, vanilla, apple cider vinegar and a few nice and juicy tomatoes.

First off, remove the core from tomatoes and cut into some chunks. Stick the chunks into a blender and blend.

Fresh and smooth tomato puree.

Now just dump the rest of the liquid stuff into the blender now and give it a whirl to mix it all up.

And pour the blended wet into the dry and mix until incorporated.

Pretty pink batter goes in a well greases bundt pan. I had got brown sugar everywhere while I was measuring it out and decided to just toss it on the cake as not to waste it...doesn't hurt.

And now the batter goes into a preheated oven to bake .

A bit of time later you have yourself a cake.

The scary part. Flip the pan and hope all that grease does it's job and the cake pops out. Lucky me this one popped out like a champ.

One de-panned, let the cake cool for a bit before cutting into it.

And now all you have left to do it eat it, so eat it.

Have a great weekend. Eat lots of tomatoes and make lots of cake.

-C

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Tomato Bundt Cake

Makes one bundt cake

• 2 -1/3 cup all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 -1/2 teaspoon powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2-3 large tomatoes (2 -1/2 cups after blended)
• 1/2 cup brown sugar (for a tad sweeter, add another 1/4 cup)
• 1/2 cup of any neutral flavored oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

Preheat oven to 350

Start by whisking together all the dry ingredients into a big bowl. Take tomatoes, remove core, chop into chunks, and place into a blender. Blend tomatoes until a smooth and frothy puree. Now add in the sugar, oil, vanilla, and apple cider vinegar and blend until incorporated. Pour wet mixture into dry and stir until combined.

Pour the cake batter into a greased (and floured if you want. I find it helps to make sure all the nooks are greases) and stick into preheated oven. Bake for 45-50 minutes until it's a dark reddish golden brown and a tester (I use a fork) comes out clean when stabbed.

Remove from oven and let cool for a minute or two then invert cake, give the pan a few tap taps and hope that it comes out all nice and clean. (don't worry if a piece gets stuck, you can just dust the top with some powdered sugar)

Let cake cool and when ready, cut a slice and eat it up. I was told no glaze, but I was going to make a simple lemon glaze (lemon juice and powdered sugar) for the top. The mr said it was perfect, but glaze would have been pretty.  So glaze it up if you want.

Peanut Butter Banana Ice Cream Cake

It's official, all of the littles started school yesterday……HOORAY! (I say hooray cause school is cool and the start of school means it's going to be fall so soon!. Also I like hanging out with the littles more when they are in school. There is more to talk about and any time away from school is cool time so they like to do more stuff and not just be summer bums)

One of the littles had his very first ever day of school. So me, being the bestest most awesomest aunt ever, made that little a celebration, hooray for school, banana ice cream cake.

This little  has been bugging me for a while now to make him an ice cream cake. It all started a few months ago when I gave him a bowl of banana ice cream and told him that when he sleeps over he can have ice cream for breakfast  That blew his little mind. We then proceeded to have a converastawtion about healthy food and what was ok to eat for breakfast. (He is very interested in being healthy) I then told him that whenever he sleeps over I would make a banana ice cream cake for breakfast cause bananas are healthy. But every time he is over, I never seems to have enough bananas.

Well I had the bananas and there is no better excuse then the first day of kindergarten to make a cake.. A very delicious peanut butter banana ice cream cake!  And no, it wasn't for breakfast, but the left overs can be! (there were no left overs here)

The stuff… Crispy rice cereal, peanut butter (I have some chiunky stuff  at the moment, but any nut butter is good) and 4 frozen  chopped up bananas.

Rice ceareal goes into a food processor with the peanut butter. Pulse until everything is all combined and starts to come togerter.

And ump the mixture into a spring for pan. If you do not have a spring form pan, a pie plate will work just as well.

Such a nice looking crust if I do say so myself. Now stick it in the freezer while you make your ice cream.

Frozen bananas go into the processor, get blended for a few mounters, and come out as ice cream…. freaking magic!

Now dump the magic ice cream into the crust.

And smooth it all nice like..and into the freezer it goes until its frozen.

After a few hours, you take it out of the freezer, remove from the pan (or leave it in the pan)

And gather your toppings. A handful of the rice cereal, some melted peanut butter, and a little melted nutella. (use whatever you want.. fruit would be great, some nuts, graham crackers, sprinkles. You get the idea)

 Now, Wait for it….

Go crazy! Toppings all over!

And serve up, and watch out.. I almost got my hand eaten for kids going for seconds..

Have a fantastic day and happy back to school. to littles and parents alike!

-C

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Peanut Butter Banana Ice Cream Cake

Makes a 6 inch cake 

For the cake

• 4-5 frozen bananas
• 2 1/2 cups crispy rice cereal
• 4 tablespoon peanut butter 

To garnish (use any, all or none of what you would like… and maybe not the super sugary ones if a breakfast cake)

• melted peanut butter
• melted chocolate
• Nutella
• handful of rice cereal
• fresh fruit
• jam
• coconut flakes
• sprinkles
• anything else you would like!

Place cereal and peanut butter into a food processor and pulse until crumbly and combined and starts to come away from bowl.

Dump mixture into a 6 in spring form pan (or if you not have one, a pie plate works too) and press it down evenly on the bottom. Stick into freezer

Take bananas out of freezer and place into food processor. Blend until smooth. If needed, you can drizzle a tiny amount of water into it if you think it needs a little help to blend. 

Once smooth, take crust from freezer and dump the nanaer ice cream on top and carefully smooth it out. Stick back into freezer (a pier of plastic over to prevent ice crystals )for at least 2 hours, or until the ice cream has completely frozen.

When it's time to serve, remove cake from spring form (or leave it in the pie plate).and drizzle the top with melted peanut butter, melted, chocolate and another handful of crispy cereal. Or leave it bare. Or add sprinkles… the toppings are all unto you!

Eat like a camp, for breakfast or dessert.. Or eat some for dessert and then some for breakfast.