Coffee Crumble Cake

This cake should rather be named "Coffee" Cake. The intended coffee flavor came out only as a fragrance, overpowered by the bananas I used. But more on that further down.

I wanted to use up some instant coffee my uncle had left here. At L's suggestion that I bake it into a cake, I started looking at recipes for espresso-flavored cake. That's when I came across this recipe by The Vegan and the Chef that seemed promising. I started measuring out ingredients, already mixing the flax egg and blending oats into flour, etc. When came the time for the wet ingredients, I realized I didn't have applesauce. Oops.

I do have apples. But at the moment, I did not want to deal with cooking them into an applesauce just to make this cake. I vaguely recalled that mashed bananas worked the same way -- albeit with less liquid -- so I too the 2 overripe bananas and got to work, adding in about 1/4 of hot water to mimic the moistness brought by applesauce.

*Update* After letting the cake sit for a night, the coffee flavor really came out above the banana!

Due to a lack of almond flour, I changed it all to oat flour. I was also too lazy to actually measure the butter required for the crumble topping, so I did it by eye. A lack of almonds turned me to the jar of walnuts I have. I additionally opted out on the vanilla and almond extracts. Last change was to use buttermilk, which I had on hand, rather than the almond milk and vinegar mix.

Next time, I'll use applesauce to preserve the coffee flavor of this cake.

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RECIPE (adapted from The Vegan and the Chef)

  Ingredients

     Cake batter

     Dry ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup oat flour (~1 cup of dried oats, blended until fine)
• 1 tbs instant coffee powder
• 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt

     Wet ingredients

• 1 flax egg
• 1 tbs ground flax seeds
• 3 tbs warm water
• 2/3 cup almond/soy milk*
• 1 tsp vinegar*
• 1/3 cup strong brewed coffee
• 1 cup applesauce
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup unrefined cane sugar
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil

     * use 2/3 cup of buttermilk instead, if you have that on hand

     Crumble topping

• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 3/4 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp instant coffee powder
• 5 tbs butter
• 1/2 cup nuts, chopped

  Procedure

    Cake batter

1. In a small bowl, make the flax egg by combining the ground flax seeds and the warm water. Set aside
2. If using almond/soy milk and vinegar, combine in another bowl and set aside 10 mins.
3. In a bowl, mix all dry ingredients.
4. In a mixing bowl, whisk together all remaining wet ingredients.
5. Add in the flax egg and milk/vinegar mix or buttermilk.
6. Fold in dry ingredients.
7. Pour into prepared pan.

     Crumble mix

1. Mix brown sugar, flour, and instant coffee powder.
2. Rub in butter to obtain a mix like wet sand.
3. Mix in chopped nuts.
4. Spread in even layer on top of cake batter in the tin.

     Baking

1. Preheat oven 180˚C.
2. Bake for 1h15 min or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
3. Cook on a rack before unmolding.

Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

 

With all the academic deadlines flying around at this time of the semester, I needed to get rid of some stress. I had pulled an all-nighter the night before, and was trying to stay awake long enough to go to bed at a reasonably normal time.

I gave in to the temptation that had been gnawing at me for the past few days, but that I had to push away due to the aforementioned deadlines: BAKING.

Trying to think of what I wanted to make, I remembered the last of the dried cranberries sitting in one of the kitchen drawers. I used some for other cookies I will post in a few days, that I plan to give to a friend for her birthday. Then my cousin L (who is also my roommate) complained that I hadn't made normal cookies in a while for her to eat. I think she actually had chocolate chip in mind, but my stash of chocolate chips is long gone. I hit up Google, and came up with these cranberry oatmeal cookies.

The recipe is from Eggless Cooking, and makes more than the pictured 20 as plenty disappeared into L's stomach as I baked tiny batch after tiny batch of 6-7 in our tiny oven. The pack of cranberries had somehow ripped at some point, and wasn't closed properly, so the cranberries were dried up. I attempted to slightly rehydrate them in hot water before using them. I also subbed walnuts for the pecans.

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RECIPE

  Ingredients

• 3/4 cup (70 g) butter, softened; margarine makes this vegan
• 1/4 cup cane sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• vanilla or 1 packet vanilla sugar
• 1/2 cup non-dairy milk
• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1 pinch nutmeg
• 3 cups quick cooking oats
• 1 cup cranberries
• 1 cup walnuts (optional)

  Procedure

1. Preheat oven at 180°C.
2. Cream sugars and butter until well combined.
3. Add in milk, and mix.
4. In a bowl, mix spices, flour, and baking soda. Add to the butter mix.
5. Fold in oats, cranberries, and pecans.
6. Spoon tablespoons of mix onto a lined baking tray. Flatten with a fork.
7. Bake for 12-15 minutes.

Banana Bread

Yay for banana bread! My cousin tends to buy bananas and just leave them in the fruit basket... Since we had to finish a max of food before the Spring Break, it was high time to use them!

Instead of using a large, rectangular pan, I used a loaf pan this time. Makes for a much more bread-like cake! I personally prefer it like this, so I think I will keep making banana bread in loaf pans from now on.

Here it is, fresh out of the oven. It flattened a bit after cooling.

As usual, the filling includes chopped walnuts from my uncle's garden, and some diced dried figs. The nuttiness and texture added just go so well with the cake itself.

Having slices of the banana bread is also much more presentable than the rectangles I have had in the past.

And here's a last picture, one of my favorite ones!

Recipe over this way~

Banana Bread with Walnuts

December 5th

My mom had given me a large bag of walnuts, which I had yet to use due to a lack of a nutcracker. After finally purchasing one, I saw that the bananas in the fruit basket at my college dorm were starting to look like they were in a sad state. Time for banana bread!

Just like last time, I filled it with chopped dried figs and chopped walnuts -- a lot of walnuts! I also tried my best to find whole halves of walnuts to top it up with. This made it convenient for serving: "Do you want a 1-walnut or a 2-walnut piece?"

Choc-Chip and Walnut Cookies

I had this very sudden urge to bake some choc-chip and walnut cookies for my academic counselor (yes, very random). So as I was preparing dinner on Thursday, I got the dough ready for these, and then baked them after eating.

Surprisingly, they didn't spread as much as I expected. They have a somewhat crumbly texture... I can never truly predict how these cookies turn out, since I always treat the butter differently each time (this time I was a bit short on time, so I zapped it in the microwave). Also, I usually beat the dough with egg-beaters, which I don't have with me now, so I just used a wooden spoon to mix everything.

The recipe can be found here, I just used dark choc chips and no lemon, with added walnuts (the lemon in that recipe was to curb the sweetness, which is done by using walnuts in this batch.)