Knock Knock

Who's there?
Orange.
Orange who?
Aren't you glad I didn't say banana.

HAHA

Yes, lame, I know, but funny none the less.

The joke would have been way better if I had posted about bananas before this post, but I think I am going to be posting some banana recipes after this one. Whoops, aw well. More on that later. Let's talk about oranges.

Remember my cupcake test I did a little while ago: Cake or Death?. Although my favorite cupcake was the spice with an agave glaze, I did also enjoy the creamsicle version. I have been wanting to make that into a full out cake version. So I did just that! I had been saving fresh orange juice and zest from oranges I would eat for breakfast by freezing the juice until I was going to make the cake. I used ruby oranges for this recipe just because they are a tad sweeter then regular oranges and have a pretty pink color. I also have been wanting to try coconut palm sugar for a little while, so I tried it in this recipe. I did a pretty much equal swap of sugar or coconut palm sugar in the recipe, maybe just a quarter cup less of the coconut palm sugar, mainly because I did not want it to end up too sweet, just in case it needs to be cut in half or something because the package didn't say anything according to that. You know usually the packages tell you how to substitute the sugar in a recipe, all this one said was that it was good to use it in baked goods. I did some research on how to use it, but nothing was conclusive on the matter. So I just went ahead an made the cake. The recipe was adapted from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World.

Orange Cream Cake

2/3 cup oil
1 1/4 cup coconut palm sugar

1 1/2 cup almond milk, unsweetened plain
1 cup orange juice
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 2/3 cup cup whole wheat white flour
2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoon orange zest

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 13 x 9 inch pan with non stick spray.

Combine the oil, milk, oj, vanilla, and zest and 2 tablespoons of the flour.

(Using a whisk really works great for this.)

Mix the rest of the flour, baking powder and soda, and the salt.

In three batches, add the dry to the wet. (Or do it like me, I mixed the wet in a large 4 cup measuring cup and then added some of the dry mix to that until it was too full. Then I whisked and poured the wet into the rest of the dry ingredients until it all came together. I do things backwards sometime.)

Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake 30 to 35 minutes, turning the pan half way through baking. My cake took 35 minutes to bake. A toothpick inserted in the center should come out clean, and the cake should give only slightly when pressed.

Allow it to cool completely, then frost and decorate.

I frosted and decorate mine with some good old Truwhip (I really love that stuff! They should hook me up with all the promoting I do for them, just putting that out there.) and vegan sprinkles by Let's Do Organic. I wanted to use the Truwhip because I knew I would not be able to create something as light and fluffy. I really wanted something creamy to make the "cream" part of this cake perfect.

It was a big hit at the party I brought it to as the present for the grad girlie. It was moist, which was even surprising to me (I'm not going to lie) and had a great orange taste. Not too over powering, not too tart, and not too sweet. It came out just right.

So for the banana part of my joke in the beginning, I am finally going to jump on the ban-wagon of the banilla vegan "ice cream" craze. Also know as banana soft serve. I have four flavors I can't wait to try out: cinnamon, chocolate peanut butter, cookie dough, and the last is a toss between chocolate cherry or strawberry. Cinnamon was one of my favorite flavors of ice cream as was cookie dough. So to revamp them is going to be fun. Chocolate peanut butter is just crazy yummy and I am not sure which is more appealing to me to make for the fourth, or hey crazy idea why not get another banana and try both- duh!

Problem solved. So that is what is coming up soon. Also a recipe of my take on baba ganoush. Until then...