Piña Colada Tres Leches Cake
It’s, like, a heatwave. Burning in my heart.
I’m staying near Chicago most of the summer for an internship in the city during the week, and access to a full kitchen and people to eat lots and lots of dessert the rest of the time. The temperature has been hovering around 105°F for the past week, and it’s deliciously humid, so this weather is perfect for basking on the couch in a house with central air, watching TV, and making summery treats. A few steps outside is more than enough to reverse any showering attempts. It’s a tropical paradise.
So, I’ve decided to live vicariously through cake. Piña Colada Tres Leches Cake, a sturdy vanilla coconut cake drenched in “tres leches” cream syrup, and topped with chopped pineapple and whipped coconut cream.
This “beach” may just be a slightly overexposed crispy yellow lawn with an over-saturated blue-tinted bike path in the distance, and I may have burned my bare feet on the deck while sweating all over my camera during this photoshoot in my pajamas. But I’m going to pretend I took this photo at a fabulous beach party in a temperate climate while lounging out eating cake and fruit salad. Then splashing around in the ocean, because that’s way more fun than laying out in the sun, anyway. Life’s a beach.
Lastly, I made a Pinterest! If you like food, art, photography, food styling, and internet comics, follow me. Let’s be friends!
Fried coke for rescue monkeys!
A little while ago, the good people of Vegan Corner came to me with the challenge to create a vegan version of deep-fried Coca-Cola, the sugary fried concoction made famous at the State Fair of Texas. Hungry Monkey Vegan Cookzine was looking for submissions for their new issue, a collection of vegan donut recipes to benefit rescue monkeys. Deep frying sugary dough for a good cause? Sign me up!
Besides the crispy donut base, the dessert includes a generous drizzle of Coca-Cola syrup, cinnamon sugar, whipped cream, and a cherry on top. It’s the kind of recipe that seems fundamentally gross, but tastes SO GOOD. You can’t not finish a bowl, but shortly after, you’ll find yourself laying on the ground twitching in a sugar coma.
You can find this recipe, along with nearly 60 other donut recipes, in the upcoming issue of Hungry Monkey. Besides traditional yeasted and cake donuts, the zine includes raw, gluten free, and allergen free vegan donut recipes. Donuts for all! The proceeds from this zine will be donated to eight rescue monkeys (previously lab monkeys) who live in Oklahoma at Mindy’s Meomory primate rescue.
The official release date for the cookzine is August 1st, but it is currently up for pre-sale on Etsy. Keep updated with Hungry Monkey Vegan Cookzine by “liking” their Facebook page.
I got an ice cream maker!
And it’s quite possibly the best kitchen toy ever, especially in the summer.
Margarita Ice Cream
A creamy orange lime tequila ice cream served in a salt-rimmed glass.
Rosy Peach Green Tea Ice Cream
Matcha infused ice cream with peach puree and rosewater.
Tequila Sunrise Ice Cream
Orange tequila pomegranate ice cream with tequila grenadine syrup.
Bananas Foster a la Mode
A simple vegan version of this classic flaming dessert with brown sugar butter rum sauce.
Summer test kitchen
Now that the drab spectrum of winter is behind us, the weather is warm and a variety of produce is in season, baking with fresh flavors and lots of color is an effortless decision. I’ve been cranking out cookies, cupcakes, cakes, candies, ice creams, puddings, breads, donuts, and whoopie pies nearly every day for the past few weeks at work on new book recipes, effectively creating a surplus of sweets around the house. You’d think making desserts every day would be a fantastic way to happily replace two meals of the day with cake, but it’s actually a strange way to instill portion control. I really enjoy the inventive process and baking sweets, but at the end of the day my sweet teeth crave something hearty like falafel! And maybe a little cake. Here are a few of the decidedly summery treats that have made their way through my kitchen recently.
Blackberry Cosmopolitan Mini Cake
I almost always prefer mini cakes over traditional eight inch double layer cakes. You don’t have to whip out a gigantic batch of buttercream, tiny cakes are easy to transport, and mini cakes are the perfect amount of cake for a small group. This cake is two layers of vanilla orange blossom orange zest lime cake with blackberry swirls, blackberry jam filling, lime triple sec buttercream, and fresh blackberry garnish. I think orange blossom water tastes like sunblock, but a small amount is a perfect floral accent. A taste tester (my mom) described this cake as having a “wedding cake texture” and lots of fresh, citrus flavor.
Strawberry Basil Balsamic Cupcakes
I had leftover basil syrup from the Cucumber Basil Sorbet (or maybe it was the other way around, we’ll never know. The tofu chicken or the egg replacer?) and combined the iconic pairings of strawberry/basil and strawberry/balsamic in an eccentric cupcake. I’m not sure if the phrase “eccentric cupcake” is ever usable again in this context since Cupcake Wars presented contestants with hot dogs, head cheese, and bone marrow.
Okay, I made those up. Was I right?? Anyway, this cupcake is a very vanilla (see what I did there, using an alternate meaning of vanilla? Hilarious! …I’m sorry) chocolate cake infused with basil and the addition of balsamic vinegar and strawberries. It’s filled with basil buttercream and topped with balsamic chocolate ganache and a strawberry garnish.
Strawberry Kool-Aid Cookies
I’d say “keeping with the strawberry theme…”, but I’m not sure strawberry Kool-Aid has ever met a real strawberry. It’s its own neon pink animal. Kool-Aid is actually pretty fun to bake with because it makes your batter the brightest of bright colors, replaces flavor extract (who’s laughing now, $6 bottle of strawberry extract?), and the acid in the package reacts with baking soda, so you don’t have to worry about lemon juice or vinegar for leavening. Sure, it’s completely artificial and chemical, but the concept of using natural food coloring in a dessert, full of sugar and fat by nature, is lost on me. I like to believe most people don’t make dessert multiple times per day, so when they do, it won’t hurt to load it up with neon sugar once in a while! These cookies would be great at a lemonade/Kool-Aid stand in the summer.
Cranberry Lime Gin and Tonic
Here’s a cookie to take Play-Doh cookies a notch down. This moderately sweet cookie teeming with tart lime and gin-soaked cranberries is a great finish to a low key dinner party.
Tropical Banana Smoothie Pudding
This coconut-based pudding (people like coconut-based things, right? I’ve been putting coconut milk in EVERYTHING lately) has every element of a tropical smoothie: banana, pineapple, orange, cherry, and a cocktail umbrella. Well, this bowl of pudding doesn’t have one, but it could! Plain chocolate pudding is nice, but a yummy banana pineapple pudding done up like a cocktail is a great summer treat.
That concludes this round-up! Stay tuned for more dessert blogs and updates.
Cucumber Basil Sorbet
I’m really not a fan of sorbet. It’s among the ranks of spaghetti and marinara, steamed vegetables, the infamous hummus plate, and every half-baked idea of a meal dreamed up by omnivores as desirable vegan fare. Oh, ice crystal-encrusted frozen strawberry pulp that melts into soup within thirty seconds? Mmm, delicious. That sounds way better than ice cream or chocolate cake. The problem is, most sorbets are too sugary, artificial tasting, and unsatisfying compared to other desserts. However, I’ve had a few sorbets in the past year or so that I’ve been slowly warming up to the idea of sorbet. One is the selection of sorbets at Cold Spoons Gelato in Milwaukee. They have exciting flavors like blood orange, honeydew, grapefruit, blueberry, and mango, and texture is incredibly creamy. No pesky ice crystals! That’s a sorbet I can get behind. I’ve also really been into the idea of basil sorbet since eating it in Seattle last year. I think the key to making a sorbet alluring is the right texture, fresh natural flavors, and dressing it up a bit so it’s its own thing, not a sad comparison to ice cream or gelato. I decided to give basil sorbet a whirl by making my own version using cucumber as the base.
This sorbet combines fresh cucumber, basil leaves, and zesty lemon, and salt, pepper, and olive oil bring depth to this frozen treat. Nothing is worse than a shallow, flavorless dessert. Admittedly, it wasn’t really appropriate sorbet weather when I made this, but since we’re nearing the month of May, I’m hoping that thinking about summer treats will reign in the warm weather!
The first part of this recipe is the basil syrup. Making the basil syrup is something that will need to be done ahead of time, and it’s probably the most time consuming part of making the sorbet, apart from the freezing time. Any leftover syrup is lovely in lemonade or with fresh fruit. Now, I completely understand not wanting to turn on the stove and make a syrup in the middle of the summer when you want a refreshing treat, so if you really would like to substitute the syrup, using 5-6 tablespoons agave nectar and adding extra basil leaves to the food processor could be an acceptable substitution.
Basil Syrup
½ cup basil leaves
¼ cup sugar
¼ cup water
Stack the basil leaves atop each other, roll the stack up tightly, then slice the roll of basil finely to produce thin ribbons. This is called chiffonade and will allow the basil to infuse the syrup with the most flavor.
Combine the sugar and water in a saucepan over medium-high heat and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Continue to stir and boil until all the sugar is dissolved and the mixture is clear. Remove from heat and stir in the basil. Completely submerge the leaves and coat thoroughly with the syrup. Basil loses its flavor at high temperatures, so don’t be tempted to put the saucepan back on the heat. Let the basil sit in the syrup for 45 minutes to an hour.
Basil syrup, not pee:
Cucumber Basil Sorbet
Makes 4 servings
2 cucumbers
6-7 tablespoons basil syrup (recipe below)
4-5 large fresh basil leaves
¼ cup lemon juice
Pinch of lemon zest
Salt and pepper to taste
Peel your cucumbers, then scoop out the seeds.
Combine the cucumbers, basil syrup, basil leaves, and lemon juice and zest in a food processor. Add the salt and pepper, then adjust flavors as desired.
Either freeze the sorbet in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions, or plan to freeze it the manual way. Pour the mixture in a shallow bowl, stick it in the freezer, and then stir every 30 minutes for 3-4 hours until frozen to a scoopable consistency.
To serve, scoop onto individual plates, then garnish with basil leaves, a sprinkle of lemon zest, a pinch of salt and pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil. Now, eat sitting in bed huddled in blankets while wishing for warm weather!
Breaking news!
Last week I received a phone call saying my apartment managers tipped off maintenance that I could use a brand new oven. This is a totally correct statement. Have you seen my stove? It’s covered in rust, cooked on grease, and other disgusting surface flaws that most assuredly will not clean off. Oh yeah, and that one time a pilot light went out and filled my apartment with gas.
So you can imagine how much I hyperventilated inside when I heard I was going to get a brand new oven. This is what happens when you’re on your landlady’s good side. You bake her cookies and be not an asshole tenant, and she gives you new ovens, ceramic bunnies, tote bags with cats on them, and Christmas cards signed from her cats.
This morning she knocked on my door and informed me that my oven is here, right now! I was still in pajamas and my kitchen was partially taken over by lasagna remnants from yesterday, but it was almost noon and I was getting a new oven, so I can’t complain. Just own up to my lazy Tuesdays. Anyway, maintenance wheeled in the new oven. It was brand new, shiny, and the knobs even had numbers on them!
Wide angle oven. It has a handle that I can hang stuff on. The old one did NOT have that. Towel, meet your new home.
Taking it for a test drive. You guys, it boils water!
I think I’ve reached my excitement quota for the day. If it goes any higher, every other day after this will be a disappointment. But it has been a successful day thus far. Now there are only three annoying things about my kitchen: the sink, darkness, and lack of space.
I’m sorry if you were expecting something a little more exciting, like a cookbook release date or a video of a puppy eating a cake, so here are some banana (“bunana”, HAHA SO CLEVER) butterscotch cupcakes with bunnies on top:
Compassionate Cake Easter goodies
Jess of Compassionate Cake consistently amazes Milwaukee as she bakes up beautiful, delicious desserts for every holiday and every day in between. She definitely went all out for Easter and so sweetly brought little baskets of chocolate to our last dinner meetup with friends!
A white chocolate bunny:
Giant, decadent peanut butter egg:
Crispy jelly bean chocolate nest:
Thanks, Jess! <3
For Easter day, I visited my grandma (and followed my holiday dinner rules for the most part!) and made a coconut curry Pad Thai-like noodle dish and a simple batch of cupcakes. I’d post a picture of the entree, but I didn’t photograph the complete, plated product. Showing you guys a photo of noodles in a wok would be like it just got out of the shower and is still hanging around the house in a towel. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s just not photogenic. So, here’s some Coconut White Russian Cupcakes, a coconut coffee Kahlua-infused cake batter with a Kahlua buttercream.
The weather was pretty nice in Illinois on Easter day, but it has cooled off dramatically since. It was 30°F out a couple mornings ago in Milwaukee! Today I saw these flower buds forming on the vines on my windows, so hopefully spring will be here soon (again)!
Video teaser
My blog is a videopalooza lately! Last weekend my good friend and filmmaker Andi Woodward came over and we spent the day filming around my apartment, talking about vegan baking, making cookies, and rifling through my kitchen for a brand new film she’s making about me (you can see the first video she made here)! I’m so lucky to have a talented person asking me to be involved in her projects! I have somewhat of a handle on the still image, but design and video work flusters me to no end, so Andi’s got my back! And oh my god, she made me an animated logo!
Thanks Andi! Check out this trailer and stay tuned for the film in a few weeks!
Kelly Peloza Animation from Andi Woodward on Vimeo.
Lazy Vegan Cooking Show in Bed [video]
This is the premiere of my brand new online cooking show, Lazy Vegan Cooking Show in Bed! Today we’re making pancakes.
The Kombucha/Vega Challenge [video]
My kombucha addiction is no secret. I love the stuff. Besides being an absolutely delightful drink, the chia seed variety has happy memories attached to it! I tried it for the first time en route to the very first Vida Vegan Con last year and soon found that others at the conference enjoyed it just as much.
Now, kombucha in general is a hit or miss for some people. They claim it tastes like vinegar, old apple cider, and fungus…but haters gonna hate. When chia seed kombucha became more popular, the outcry against the fermented love bubble tea was outrageous and rampant! People were personally offended and threatening to barf at the sight of the bottle because the chia seeds look like frog eggs. So then I became personally offended* and made sure that everyone knew how wonderful the chia wonder drink is. I got a few people to try it, and now they’re hooked on the stuff. Solidarity!
*I wasn’t really personally offended.
Now, if you need more convincing:
Even Erica Shaffer loves kombucha. She represents TV products such as the Food Saver System, Ninja blenders, and Shake Weight, so this highly-esteemed infomercial queen’s recommendation should not be taken lightly. Erica knows what’s what and kombucha is just that. The uncertainty of the gentleman in the photo suggests he is not down with the ‘buch, but he probably is not down with fun, happiness, or taste either. For goodness sake, his shirt matches his bedroom and he’s probably reading the dictionary. What a boring dude. Erica, leave your pretend boyfriend and find a guy who truly understands the scoby lifestyle.
So, getting back to the point, the following video may or may not have converted another member to the Kombucha Kult. You’ll just have to watch and see.
Last week I was in Omaha visiting Isa and John. From the very beginning of my affection for chia seed kombucha, John has been quite a vocal opponent. He said he’d puke on my face if he took a sip. He said he’d make me drink Vega if he were to try chia seed kombucha.
Well, I’m not one to pass up a hypothetical gross drink showdown, so when 3D real-life me arrived in Omaha, chia seed kombucha was acquired and challenge accepted. A taste of Vega? Psh, no big! Apparently I was willing to risk The Laziest Vegan in the World projectile vomiting a week’s worth of Amy’s burritos all over my face, because the Vega/Chia Kombucha Showdown became a reality:
SPOILERS BELOW!
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So, John said kombucha is good! Well, as time went by, I think he started to think it was more than good because he wanted more kombucha.
We went to Whole Foods the next day and loaded up.
Will John like the two new flavors (one without chia seeds!) as well? Here’s part two of the challenge:
SPOILERS BELOW!
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So, I think he’s converted. We got another round of kombucha the next day (Isa too, this time!).
I left Omaha three days ago, but what does John send me today? This photo that proudly displays his beverage selection: Grape Chia Seed Kombucha. Though several hundred miles away, I pulled out the lonely Cherry Chia sitting in my fridge and drank in solidarity. Go kombucha.
What a whirlwind! I think we need a lifetime supply of kombucha for this ode to the baby scoby nectar of deliciousness. Please, GT’s? We love you!
Thanks for following through the journey, everyone! Drink up, baby scobies!
