Baking- Cookies + Cake

I've been doing some baking recently so thought I would do a baking post. :)


Oatmeal Cookies

The other week I made oatmeal cookies. The recipe is from my new book Magical Housekeeping by Tess Whitehurst. It's actually an oatmeal cookie ritual for abundance and luck but you can make them without doing the ritual. :)

The recipe is adapted from a book called The Garden of Vegan by Tanya Barnard and Sarah Kramer. I'm not vegan, so I made some substitutions. I can't actually copy the recipe on here but here are a couple of other vegan cookie recipes:

http://minimalistbaker.com/5-ingredient-vegan-gluten-free-cookies/

http://itdoesnttastelikechicken.com/2016/09/08/vegan-oatmeal-chocolate-chip-cookies/


The cookies have tofu in them. I'd never cooked with tofu before. I used the Toofoo brands which I bought from Tesco. I used white flour and ordinary white sugar and vegetable oil instead of canola oil. The recipe has agave nectar or maple syrup in it but I decided to use golden syrup with a bit of maple.

I wasn't sure what they would be like but they came out quite nice. The only thing was I think they could have done with being baked a bit longer, because some of them were a bit soft in the middle and the tofu was a bit chewy. But I was worried about burning them! They taste different to ordinary cookies but still yummy. Here's a pic:

If you're interested in magic/witchcraft then you might like Tess' site: www.tesswhitehurst.com



Black Tea Chocolate Cake

Then a few days ago I made a one bowl black tea chocolate cake. I was looking for a recipe to make; preferably chocolate cake and found one from A trEATS affair (formerly Roxana's Home Baking). Here's the link: http://atreatsaffair.com/one-bowl-black-tea-chocolate-cake-warm-chocolate-frosting-recipe/

It was quite easy to make, especially because everything was in one bowl! lol. I had all the ingredients in too which made it easier. I did halve the recipe though because I didn't want to use up all the ingredients in one go. It still made a decent amount.

While I've made a Coca-Cola chocolate cake before, I'd never made a tea one. I don't drink tea that much, I prefer coffee but I do like tea to dunk biscuits in! lol. I thought I'd have a go though.

The cake was nice. The tea makes the sponge moist; much like the Coke does in the Coca-Cola one. But it was a bit bitter; I think I could have done with putting more sugar in. Apart from that it came out well and I really liked the warm chocolate frosting. It was a bit lumpy because I got impatient mixing it, but tasted nice! lol. I was going to put some sprinkles on but discovered that my sprinkles (well, sugar strands) went out of date in November! I'll have to get some more soon. Here's a picture of the cake:

Roxana's recipes are good. I've also made her Christmas vanilla roll cake and quick dinner bread.

I'm thinking of making another Coca-Cola chocolate cake in the future but maybe a slightly different recipe (I have another saved) and I also plan to have another go at making red velvet from scratch. I made it once and it came out horrible! lol. So look out for future cake posts!

Also Imbolg is coming up next week, so I'll post what I did for that soon. Probably going to make pancakes. I have a lemonade I got before Christmas and never got round to drinking, so I thought I'd save that for Imbolg. The weather has been very cold lately but it's encouraging that spring isn't too far off. Have a good Imbolg. :)