Vegan Soda Bread

This year, i went looking for a traditional Irish soda bread recipe instead of one that had been fancied up to taste better, and i found this. The author of this site is pretty adamant about what does and does not constitute traditional soda bread. FYI: raisins in soda bread makes it a "spotted dog", not soda bread.

So, i went with the recipe for White Soda Bread with a couple of mods - 1) because i had to use a substitute for cake flour and 2) to make it vegan.

• The recipe says to use all-purpose (AP) flour, but on the soda bread site, the author said cake flour was the best type to use. The internets told me that i could make my own cake flour by subtracting 2T of AP flour for every cup of flour used and replacing it with 2T of cornstarch. With 4 cups of AP flour, the conversion worked out to 3 1/2 cups AP flour + 1/2 cup cornstarch. Sift together several times before using. Be warned - it makes an unholy mess.


• For the buttermilk, i mixed in 1T + 2 1/4tsp of white vinegar to 1 3/4 cup of unsweetened coconut milk (not the canned kind)

Here's the recipe with some of my own notes added:

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cups of buttermilk (sub sour milk as described above)
• 4 cups (16 oz) of all purpose flour (sub cake flour)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt

Prep the sour milk. Lightly grease 6-8qt heavy lidded pot (i use a Pyrex casserole dish). Place the pot in the oven. Preheat the oven to 425degF.

In a large bowl, sieve and combine all the dry ingredients.

Add the sour milk to form a sticky dough. Place on floured surface and lightly knead. The dough will appear raggedy and will still be tacky. Be careful not to knead too much else all the gas will escape and your bread will be flat and tough.

Shape into a flat ball and dump in the heated pot (cereally. i just drop it into the pot without trying to be pretty about it or anything.). Cut a cross in the top of the dough. Cover and bake for 30 minutes (this simulates the bastible pot). Remove cover and bake for an additional 15 minutes.

Move the loaf to a rack to cool. Cover the bread in a tea towel and lightly sprinkle water on the cloth to keep the bread moist.

Other than the cornstarch flying all over the place, making the bread was pretty simple. And it looked pretty good, too.

As for taste...well, it's soda bread, so there are many other things that taste better. But, it was actually surprisingly tasty considering the lack of the usual mods to make it taste better (sugar, caraway seeds, butter, etc). Toasted with butter, it's almost delicious even. Next year, we say fuck tradition. I'll be making soda bread with mods of yum.

And now onto dessert.

I draw the line at traditional Irish desserts and the reason is because they usually involve white potatoes in some sort of sweet pie or candy concoction and just no. So, i did the lame thing and went with a regular dessert containing alcohol and tinted green. Trust me. Better this than a "soufflé" made of mashed potatoes, orange juice, and eggs. *shudder*

Vegan Vanilla Cupcakes

This is based on a recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.

Ingredients

• 1 cup milk
• dash tumeric, optional
• 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 1/4 cup white flour (i occasionally use a mix of 3/4 cup white + 1/2 cup white wheat for a nuttier texture and so i can pretend it's a tiny bit healthier)
• 2 T cornstarch
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup butter (we like Earth Balance buttery sticks)
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

Yield: 12 cupcakes

What's the tumeric about? Well, if you'd like your cupcakes to be a golden, yellow cake color instead of the pallid, egg-free white of most vegan cakes, adding tumeric can do that.

In a saucepan, combine the milk with the turmeric and heat slowly until the milk starts to simmer (2-3min), stirring to prevent a skin from forming. The milk will become yellower as it cools, so don't add too much turmeric as too much can make the cupcakes bitter.

While the milk is cooling, line a 12-cupcake tin. Preheat the oven to 350degF.

Sift the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together.

After cooling the milk for 5 minutes, add vinegar.

In a mixing bowl, beat the butter for ~30 seconds and then add the sugar and cream at medium-high speed for 1 1/2 minutes. Add the vanilla and cream until combined, but no more than 30 seconds.

Add half of the dry ingredients. Mix on low until the dry ingredients are incorporated (~1 min). Add all of the wet ingredients. Mix on low-med for a minute. Add the remaining dry ingredients and mix on low for another 30 seconds.*

Distribute the batter evenly in each cupcake tin and bake for 20-22 minutes. Cool cakes on a rack.

*It's important to pay attention to the times given here. Overmixing a vegan cake can be fatal and instead of a delicious, light cake, you end up with a less delicious, dense cake.

Irish Whiskey Buttercream Frosting

Ingredients

• 6 T vegetable shortening, softened (we like Earth Balance shortening sticks)
• 1/2 cup butter, softened (we like Earth Balance buttery sticks)
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 T milk
• 1-2 T Irish whiskey

Yield: enough to generously frost 12 cupcakes

Beat the shortening in a mixer until smooth so that it will combine well with the butter. Add the butter and mix until well combined.

Sift the powdered sugar and add to the fat with the vanilla and milk. Mix until smooth. It may seem a bit thick at this point.

Add the whiskey to taste. (I only used 1 T this time as it was my first try and fnord12 assured me there was a faint whiskey taste, so i stopped there. after eating 1 or 4 cupcakes, i still can't taste it, so i think doubling the whiskey might be something to try next time.)

If the frosting still seems too thick, add more milk, 1 tablespoon at a time until it's nice and smooth. Beat it on high for a few minutes until light and fluffy.

There are only 10 cupcakes in this photo because 2 of them were frosted poorly, and you don't get to see them.

You also don't get to see me and fnord12 being completely gross and squeezing the leftover frosting directly into our mouths out of the pastry bag. Yes. We are animals. Fat, happy animals.