Sunday, October 18, 2009

GUEST POST!! Vegan Candied Clementine Cake

Natalie has appointed me as an honorary blogger for this week. My name is Libby Parsons and while I'm not cooking my way through a fashion degree, I do cook for a vegan co-op once a week (but only for a fun challenge, I love meat!) and also happen to be majoring in International Relations. This is my first ever blog and I'm humbled to be blogging about something I don't know much about.

This past weekend, I made a vegan clementine cake that everybody loved and even went as far as to say that it was one in their top ten cakes they had ever tried (however, obviously they haven't tasted one of Natalie's cakes before). This is quite an accomplishment because, I don't know if you have ever tried a vegan cake, but they are usually quite bland. The recipe is easy and, besides candying the clementines, fast.

My friend, Hugh Brown, candied the clementines which entails simmering the clementines in sugar water for 1 to 2 hours. The recipe calls for pureeing the clementines with peels. However, I blended half of the clementines with peels and half without. I think that this made the cake more moist and less bitter.
The cake turned out to be extremely moist, flavorful, and slightly bitter. The citrus-y sweetness of the powdered sugar/clementine juice icing balances out the bitterness of the cake. I suggest this cake to those of you who want to show your friends that a vegan cake can be moist and flavorful!

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Fall at Pond Hill Farm

This past weekend I took a spontaneous trip to Harbor Springs to see my mom and experience Fall in Northern Michigan. It was freezing! But really, really gorgeous. The leaves were all changing and the whole town was all decorated... so amazing! My mom and I went bike riding and of course ate a ton, but we ended up spending most of our time at Pond Hill. We had apple cider and apple cider donuts in the cafe, and fed the sheep and goats fresh squash. Endless fun. Seriously, I want to live there.