Oh. Em. Gee. Guilt-free cupcakes

With blurry photo-documentation, unfortunately.

I actually managed to make vegan, sugar-free cupcakes. And they taste good! They're not as sweet as sugar-sweetened cupcakes, of course, but they're lightly sweet and yummy.

• ⅔ cup soy milk
• ½ tsp apple cider vinegar
• ⅔ cup unsweetened applesauce
• ⅓ cup canola oil
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup whole wheat flour (use all-purpose for less texture, if desired)
• ⅓ cup cocoa powder
• ¼ tsp salt*
• ½ tsp baking soda
• ¾ tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 350° F. Line muffin tin with cupcake liners. Mix wet ingredients together in one bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together dry ingredients. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and stir to incorporate, until no large lumps remain. Pour mixture into liners until ¾ full. Bake for approximately 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the centre of a large cupcake comes clean.

* this iteration uses salt, but I think I will omit it next time; the salt is a bit too overpowering in this version

For the icing, I winged it. The following measurements are approximate:

• 6 unsulphured Medjool dates, pitted
• one avocado, peeled and pitted
• scant ¼ cup cocoa powder
• splash of soy milk (or until the icing is suitably moist)

To the bowl of a food processor, add the dates and pulse to coarsely chop. Add the avocado and pulse further. Scrape down the sides of the bowl when necessary. Add the cocoa powder and pulse further, again, scraping the bowl down when required. Add soy milk as needed.

Pipe the resultant icing on your cupcakes and eat to your heart's content!

July 31 update: it's official, using all-purpose flour and omitting the salt makes a better cupcake. Yay for half-batches!

Hot enough to proof bread

When I woke this morning, we were down to two slices of bread from our weekly loaf, so I chose to make a new loaf, rather than buy one.

Rather than gently pre-heating the oven as a proofing area, I thought I'd try proofing outdoors, under a loose layer of plastic wrap. The two risings each took about half the expected time and the resultant bread has a fantastic crumb.

A dairy- and milk-free quiche!

As mentioned previously, my dietary restrictions are making my food choices look more and more vegan, so it should come as no surprise that my weekend craving for quiche resulted in me researching vegan quiche recipes. Girl Makes Food's Vegan Quiche looked promising, but my own vegan reference cookbook, Vegan Recipes, suggests flavouring the custard-replacement with mustard, rather than garlic powder, and that seemed like a better fit for my Quiche Lorraine/Florentine hybrid. A quick taste of the not-a-custard also indicated that a splash of apple cider vinegar was called for, and I'm very happy with the results. This might not be the prettiest thing to come out of my kitchen, but it certainly is delicious.

My recipe follows:

• single crust worth of my much-touted go-to pie crust dough
• one small onion and one large shallot, chopped, sautéed and allowed to cool
• about 250g frozen spinach, steamed, drained and allowed to cool
• one package prosciutto, thinly sliced, lightly cooked and allowed to cool
• vegan custard "slurry", omitting garlic powder, and adding dry mustard and cider vinegar to taste

Preheat oven to 400°F. Place the dough over top of a pie or tart pan, gently push it into the bottom and trim (if desired). Fill the crust with onions, then spinach, then prosciutto, distributing evenly. Pour the "custard" over top and smooth out. Bake for approximately 30 minutes. Allow to set slightly before cutting.