A Sunny Disposition: Vegan Mango Cupcakes with Saffron-Pistachio Frosting

It was spring this weekend—cool and rainy punctuated by sunniness. I spent much of the weekend with Belle and it really lifted my mood. I might not have her pictures but I have those memories—and her.

On Saturday, Belle’s cousins were coming over so I decided to make cupcakes. I rushed around and got two kinds made during her naptime. For picky eaters, I made fluffy white vegan cupcakes from Shmooed Food with strawberry “whipped cream”. I just added fresh strawberries to vegan buttercream, but as I was on the phone while I was doing it, I just lost track and the cream broke. I then proceeded to add way more sugar, and then began to give up. Finally, I put it some chilled coconut milk, whipped it again, and then accepted defeat. The result was tasty but not pretty. But, no one asked what was in the frosting.

Then, I made vegan mango cupcakes. Since I was going to include these in the Livestrong event, I wanted to try to work out a recipe on my own. My recipe resulted in a vat of batter which resulted in 48, yes 48, mini-cupcakes. But, frankly, they were wonderful—moist, fluffy, not too sweet. I have less than a dozen left to take to work tomorrow. So, if you decide to make this recipe, feel free to ½ it—or accept that you are about to have one hell of a good time and just make the full order.

Late one night last week lying in bed awake, I was using my time wisely planning these cupcakes. Yellow for me could be acid free tomatoes, saffron, cornmeal, schmaltz… I had already seen a saffron cupcake recipe for Livestrong. Frankly, being near the end of this gave me some good parameters, the world was no longer my yellow oyster, and I was glad for it. Belle had been enjoying mango this week, so I decided to go with that.

We all love pistachios, and I decided to go Indian fusion with the dessert. One of the best things at Indian restaurants is the kesar-pista or saffron-pistachio ice cream. This flavor is repeated in any variety of desserts. One dessert, shrikand, basically thick sweet yoghurt, seemed like the perfect frosting for mango cupcakes. Could I veganize a dessert for which dairy is central? I thought the result was wonderful.


Finally, I had some crazy notion, thanks to its late night inception, to make a mini-cake. Not a cupcake mind you, but a minicake. I pictured making a three layer cake with mango jelly in the middle and shrikhand frosting. It was a little annoying to make because I don’t have a tiny lazy susan. I ended up using the bottom of a wine glass. And then in the final minute as I was cutting into the cake, it tipped over. So even though there is no picture of the final cake perched alone on the cake pedestal, there is a picture of one slice with a fork and a teacup for scale. And, I know some friend or another will say to me, why exactly minicakes? I have a feeling there are tea parties in my future.


Recipe:
Vegan Mango Cupcakes with Saffron-Pistachio Frosting


Vegan Mango Cupcakes
Cream in a blender
4 oz Earth Balance Margarine
3/4 cup sugar

To the blender bowl add
1 T apple cider vinegar
1 cup plain soymilk
1/3 cup very finely chopped mango
¼ cup mango pulp (available in cans from Asian Grocery Stores)
½ cup oil
1 tsp vanilla extract

Blend the wet ingredients and then dump in
2 ¼ cups flour
2 ½ tsps baking soda
¼ tsp cream of tartar
½ tsp salt

After all of this is mixed add
3 tsp Egg Replacer dissolved in 4 T Warm Water

Fill (up to about 3/4ths full) greased cupcakes tins. Makes 48 minicupcakes. (To make mini-cakes: fill mini-cupcake tins until only ½ full. Use 3 to make a layered cake with mango puree or mango jam as the filling.)


Vegan Saffron-Pistachio Frosting (Shrikhand frosting)
Tie up in cheesecloth and drain overnight
1 cup soy yoghurt

In a blender, add the drained soy yoghurt (which should be much less wet)
1 cup Tofutti cream cheese
¼ cup Tofutti sour cream
¾ cup sugar

In a small mug, warm
3 T soy milk
8 threads saffron
2 cloves cardamom

Add the warmed milk to the blender with 1/8 cup crushed pistachios and, if desired, diced dry mango. (I decided at the last minute not to do this step.)

This frosting is not as thick a real shrikhand, which is important, b/c this frosting is very easy to pipe.

Crying over Spilled Marmalade

I am very ambivalent about the nature of the universe--Is there a greater being? Can we change our destiny or is it written in stone? Are there forces greater than yourself that can affect your life? What does this have to do with marmalade? Well, very sadly, this week I have had my wallet stollen and my computer harddrive with a good portion of my pictures of Belle (and all my blog pictures) died. This is not to mention a variety of other things that have made me feel grey and limp. (Two sad starts to entries, huh. When will Spring arrive on this blog?)

So, my point is that I no longer have all the pictures from Preservation Saturday that happened a few weeks ago. We had so much citrus--so much. And, so my gorgeous friend M--, my husband and I spend a great Saturday night drinking beer and putting food by. We made made different kinds of marmalades, Indian Pickles and pickled eggplant.

With started early with an easy recipe. Charcuterista has a good kumquat marmalade recipe. This was a very yummy recipe and we then used it to fill vegan linzer cookies using a rose water cookie recipe from Veganomicon (oh how I love you Veganomicon.)

After that, we went on to play with kumquats. I wanted to make the most of the pectin in the rind (I assume that is why Charcuterista's kumquat marmalade had no need of pectin). But, I wanted to have a sort of asian dipping sauce inspired marmalade. Rather I wanted something sweet, tart and spicy. I used pectin, limes, kumquats, a tiny pinch of five spice and star anise.

Then we got really fancy and decided to make orange marmalades. (Yes, this was a very long night.) We made a blood orange marmalade with black peppers. This was so lovely; slightly kick but mostly sweet. And, then an orange/meyer lemon marmalade with cardamom. This last one was a little odd, and not necessarily a success. It felt a little medicinal.

And, then it got spicy. We decided to make two Indian-style pickles. The first was a simple meyer lemon pickle using a recipe from Indian Food Rocks. The second was an orange pickle. I have never eaten orange pickle--or even heard of it--but there is only so much orange marmalade that you can consume (or give away.) I read a few different recipes and combined them. This resulting recipe involves some amount of fortitude. All of the spices need to be browned over heat. As pickles are said to cure for a few months, it is not as if I could taste this recipe and understand if the spice was right. Instead, I had to go by smell, and that sense really couldn't be trusted either. Because, well, the fumes of spices that traveled through the kitchen were halting. (My husband might say instead noxious.)

Just before the concoction was ready to be bottled, we tasted it. My husband, first to the tasting, was fairly convinced we had failed. It was bitter, spicy and strong. M-- just passed on the tasting phase all together. For me, I tasted it and extrapolated that this would be just right. It was unbalanced but had the right undertones that I have tasted in Indian pickles. In fact, I was so jazzed by the process that I went out an bought more canning jars.

Sadly, my recipes were basically lost in the computer death--so I can't even write about the eggplant pickle--it was rice wine vinegar, sugar, salt, and what else, who knows. But, I can put down a few basic recipes--though I am doing these from memory.
Recipes:
Kumquat/ Lime Marmalade
Wash and slice, very thin,
1 lbs kumquats
½ lb limes

Boil for 30 minutes in 5 C water with
½ cup lime juice

Add
6.5 cups sugar
3 star anises/ stars of anise
½ tsp Chinese fivespice

Cook for another 45 minutes or so on medium. Add ¼ cup pectin, boil for 1 minute. Transfer to sterilized jars when marmalade is thick and hot. Sterilize jars according to package directions
Blood Orange Marmalade with Peppercorns
Wash and dry
2 meyer lemons
8 blood oranges

With a sharp paring knife, remove the rind of the citrus, and then juice all the fruit. With a sharp knife, slice the rind into thin slivers.

Boil the peels for 15 minutes in 1 cup of water in a heavy-bottomed pan and boil.

Boil for 20 minutes:
2 cups of juice from meyer lemons and blood oranges. (You might need to juice more fruit to get the right amount of juice.)
1 cup orange juice (ideally freshly squeezed)
½ cup pulp from the blood oranges

Add and then cook on medium for 35 minutes
6 cups sugar
6 peppercorns

Add and boil for 8 minutes
1 pkt pectin

Once the mixture has gotten thick, place the mixture when hot in sterilized canning jars. Makes 7-1 cup jars of marmalade.
Spicy Orange Pickle
Wash and then dice
4 medium oranges (leaving the skin on)

In a heavy bottom pan, sautee in olive oil for 2 minutes
1 tsp fenugreek seeds
2 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp black onion seeds
6 whole dried red chili pods
1 tsp asafetida powder
¼ cup chili powder
½ tsp haldi (turmeric) powder

Add and simmer for 15 minutes
cut oranges
4 green chilies
1 inch piece of ginger in long slender slivers
½ cup salt
2 cups waters

Once the mixture is cooked down and slightly cooled, add
¾ cup canola or mustard oil

Add the mixture to canning jars and then sterilize.

Vietnamese Style Vegetarian Crepes with Curried Sweet Potato Hashbrowns

All Life is suffering, according to the Four Noble Truths. In Buddhist thought, humans are marred by their keen and unmitigated desire and this desire leads to suffering. (Freedom from suffering is gained through a release of desire but through various means, depending on the school of Buddhism.) But, sadly, I am not a Buddhist, so I have only really understood the problems with desire; in other words be careful what you wish for…

And, I had wished for a promotion at work; and having gotten it, I wonder…well, I just wonder. One major ramification is that there is more work and less time to cook and be with Belle. I see a moment in the near future where my work will be more clear and predictable, but as it stands, I don’t have time to play, cook, eat, rest, write my blog, hang out with my husband, talk to my friends….so instead for the last few weeks I have been mostly playing with Belle and eating take out more than we should.

So, today, I ran in only 20 minutes before dinner time. Belle was absolutely bouncing off the wall, yelling “yum, yum, yum, yum.” (This is her code for dinner.) On Sunday, I had made dosa batter.

I often make masala dosas. I usually make a basic masala (with turmeric, onions and cumin) but vary the vegetables—confetti masala, I call it, and it always includes carrots and potatoes—sometimes rutabaga and parsnips. This dosa filling has always been a hit. I have also played around with the chutneys—I made one where I added spinach to a fairly basic chutney recipe. I have also made an arugula chutney, but it really work with the dosas.

But, tonight Masala Dosas it was not to be . Instead, I wanted something hearty for dinner, because I had felt unsatisfied with the old pasta that I took for lunch. I still had some fake ground meat and so I decided to make faux Vietnamese crepes with curried sweet potato hashbrowns. My husband had bought eggs the other day, so I scrambled a couple for his crepes. I didn’t have bean sprouts, so for the crunch I used shredded lettuce and shredded cabbage. (If you think, this Maybelle’s Mom seems to use A LOT of cabbage, well, yes; Belle loves it and spring veg has yet to be seen in Cleveland.)

This dinner was good, but it wasn’t as fast as I would have liked. I felt a little like an octopus . With all of my burners going, while I was madly chopping things, I felt like I had 8 hands going. When I make Vietnamese food, I know why traditionally women cooked all day—they spent half their day chopping.

I noticed on Is My Blog Burning that there is a dosa event, Dosa Mela at Cooking 4 All Seasons, and I believe that my recipe qualifies.

Recipe
Faux Vietnamese Crepes
In a bowl combine and then set aside
¼ cup shredded red cabbage
2 T sesame oil
2 T rice wine vinegar
1 t oden broth
2 t finely slice green chillis

Slice and sautee
1 cup mushrooms

In another sautee pan,
Scramble 2 eggs in butter and olive oil

In yet another pan,
Steam broccoli (cut into small florets) and sugar snap peas (sliced fine)

In yet another pan, brown:
1 cup fake meat
1 shallot diced fine

In yet another pan or griddle,
Make small dosas

Shred some lettuce and then assemble the crepes. To assemble: on a warm dosa, add some browned “meat”, warm scrambled egg, sautéed mushrooms, steamed vegetables, quick-pickled cabbage, shredded lettuce.

Sweet Potato Hashbrowns
Steam until half cooked
1 diced sweet potato

Sautee in 2 T of Olive Oil
2 t curry power
1 t cumin seeds
1 t black onion seeds
1 t mustard powder

Add the sweet potato to the spices and sautee until browned.

Dosa Batter
Soak overnight in two separate bowls:
2 cups urad daal
1 cup rice

Blend until you get a thick batter. (I did this by blending each separately and then mixing the two in a bowl.) Add
1 T salt.

Ferment over night. (I placed the bowl on a chair over the heater vent.)