Monday 28 November 2016

VeganMoFo 2016 #28: Holiday baking.



28th: Holiday Bake Day! – What are you planning on baking over the winter holidays? Do you make cake, or cookies? Or something savoury?

I used to do a lot of baking just for fun, and to take to work, and to eat. Not so much anymore. I lost my baking mojo in a massive way during and after Gizmo's passing, and I have never quite recovered it. I still bake, especially for things like bake sales, but nowhere near as much for fun random baking as I used to do. So I don't do a lot of Christmas baking these days.

The nice thing about a blog, when you blog consistently (which I haven't always), is that you get a nice time capsule of certain aspects of your life to look back on. For example, I can see that 2008 I had a big Christmas bake-a-thon, which included these cute reindeer cupcakes.

Reindeer Cupcakes


I also made these adorable Strawberry Santa Hats the same year, and the year after. These really are very good, should do it again.

Strawberry Santa Hats


By the way, both of the recipes above came from the wonderful Wing It Vegan blog.

My next big Christmas bake-a-thon apparently didn't happen until 2014. I don't often feel the so called Christmas spirit anymore, but apparently in 2014 I had a stirring, so I put it to good use baking. I stuck to pretty simple things, like these Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies from Isa Does It.

Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies with Chocolate Chips


Gingerbread and ginger cookies are some of my very favourite cookies. As opposed to gingerbread men, which I can take or leave. My favourite ginger cookie recipe is the Sparkled Ginger Cookies from Vegan With A Vengeance. I have made these so many times, though sadly not recently.

Sparkled Ginger Cookies


This year I am not planning any huge baking extravaganzas. I am tired, which is boring because I know we are all tired, but I am. I will be working right up until Christmas Eve afternoon, because I only get public holidays off, so I won't have time to do heaps of Christmas prep. Plus I have a bake sale next weekend, that is using up all of my current baking focus.

So instead I am dipping into the convenient world of pre-packaged vegan christmas-style goodies!

I was super excited to find the fabled vegan stollen at Aldi. I love stollen but haven't had it since before going vegan!

Stollen


I also have two types of ginger cookies to enjoy. The big cookies are from Smith & Deli, I bought them in Melbourne in November. And the ginger snaps are a random pack my mum bought that happen to be vegan.

Ginger Cookies


What is your favourite thing to bake for the holidays? Or your favourite packaged treat if you don't have the time?

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post

1994_08_PascallOnBackOfSofa4


Sweet little Pascall, my fourth kitty. We didn't get to be together for very long, it broke my heart (and ended my childhood dream to be a vet... though obviously I came back to that later in life), but it was so sweet while it lasted. This little girl would sleep in my bed, under the covers with her head on the pillow. It was good times.

12 comments:

  1. The reindeer cupcakes and strawberry Santa hats are both such cute ideas! :)

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  2. Santa hats! Thanks for the linkage! :)

    I have also lost my festive baking mojo. Meh. What would we do without festive packaged treats?

    Pascall's tail is quite magnificent.

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    1. Thank goodness for conveniently packaged food for us!
      Perhaps we shall get our mojo back one day, and you can create something else very cute that I can copy... without coconut oil. ;)

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  3. I don't bake very often. I like to just throw things together, and baking requires so much organization. Plus, I'm the only human in my house so baking can be dangerous on the old waistline!
    I love the cupcakes and santa hats!!

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    1. Solo baking needs to be approached with caution. Even with three of us at home, it is still better if I can share it around with other people as well. I used to bake so much, I would take it to work to share.

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  4. The cupcakes are amazing! I want to make them. I usually book a day off work to do a bit of festive baking to give away as presents. It's usually things like truffles and biscotti as they keep a while.

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    1. Alas, the pretzel antlers went soggy pretty fast, so if your plans are much more sensible if you are giving things away that will last a bit longer.

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  5. I don't do much baking either for the holidays. I don't celebrate it at home, and I am not a Christmas fan either. If I have time and a desire to, I might bake some cookies. Maybe the ginger-chocolate ones from Isa Does It? I haven't tried them yet. Or some "butter cookies" from The Urban Vegan, to use up for a second time the nice cookie cutters I was gifted something like eight years ago.

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    1. The Isa cookies are good and pretty memorable. I have the Urban Vegan but haven't used it much. Should look up that recipe.

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  6. Oh I love holiday baking! I can't wait to get started. Last year, I was busy developing holiday candy recipes for the VegNews feature that's out now. But this year, I don't have a project that I have to do, so I'll probably just make some standard things — ginger cookies, wedding cookies (cause they look like snowballs), etc.

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    1. I look forward to seeing what you make. :)

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