Sweets

KIND (yes, the company that makes bars) says there is a difference between “nice” and “kind”.

According to them, “nice” is polite, but “kind” is honest.

A few days ago my husband spent an afternoon with his father.

They had lunch, worked on his computers, and then went shopping together.

When they went to Costco for shopping because each needed something there, my father-in-law, without telling my husband, bought an extra large jar of peaches for my husband to bring home.

He used to get us meat or homemade ice cream.

It makes me appreciate that he still tries to get us something even after our diet changed.

That really warms my heart.

He always does things to make you feel that you matter.

My father-in-law is truly a kind man.

When my husband came home with a jar of peaches, I happened to have just baked a sponge cake.

We looked at each other and said “peach cake!”

We even had the same idea of adding raspberries to our peach cake.

Instead of using whipped cream, I decided to make vanilla cashew cream.

The Peaches were generously used for this cake.

They were placed on the top and also between the cake layers.

This cake tasted delicious and “kind”.

I truly believe that this no-egg no-dairy cake is “kind” to our body.

I’m anxious to finish this post and send a picture of the cake to my father-in-law.

A lot of good things come in a jar, if you ask me.

And this is definitely one of them.

Since I’m more confident in making vegan sponge cake, I don’t get stressed out much anymore.

I found this recipe a few months ago, and I’ve made cake using this recipe so many times already.

I trust this recipe, because every time it comes out of the oven perfect.

I wasn’t sure if these jars I already have would work for jar cakes, but I decided to go with them.

I Thought smaller but taller ones would be better, but these actually worked just fine.

You can see the layers well, and since they are not too tall, it’s easy to get to the bottom with a regular spoon.

I guess I haven’t told you exactly what kind of cake it is that I made.

Well, this is basically a red wine dark chocolate cake.

Rich dark chocolate mousse was sandwiched with delicious moist cake soaked in heavenly red wine syrup.

(And extra wine syrup was drizzled later as well!)

This is definitely a dessert for adults.

Or specifically the adults who can handle the decadent flavor combination of dark chocolate and red wine.

You may ask “How did you come up with the idea?!”

Well, it all started with our leisure stroll to the specialty food store, Golden Fig.

When I saw this chocolate covered wine grapes, I knew I wanted to make a cake that would combine dark chocolate and wine flavors together.

This jar cake was absolutely wonderful.

Moist yet light cake, sweet yet slightly tart red wine, and rich yet not-overly sweet dark chocolate…

Each component was great, but when they were put together?

Well, unbelievably GOOD.

Have an awesome weekend everyone!

I often talk about where I get inspiration for my food.

Well, this time, the inspiration came from a bit unusual place: in a shower!

At our house my husband makes body wash because he was getting frustrated with all the unnecessary chemicals used in many store-bought ones.

He uses different scents every time he makes a new batch, and apparently the most recent one is almond.

So whenever I take a shower, I will get a craving for something “almondy”!

And lucky me!

I found the perfect vegan cake recipe, here.

This recipe for vegan vanilla cake is amazing.

Apparently, I made mine almond flavor instead of vanilla, but it resulted in a delicious cake with the perfect sweetness and the perfect texture.

Trust me, this cake is better than non-vegan cake!

My awesome almond cake was decorated with fresh strawberries.

Simple but elegant.

I made my frosting almond flavored as well.

This was such a huge hit.

My husband and I loved it so much.

Another place where I often get craving for something “almondy” is a car wash (lol) where they use almond scented soap.

This cake recipe will definitely be going into my recipe box.

I just need to find time to write it down, though.

Oh, I almost forgot, but I chose this post today, because I thought this cake would be a wonderful cake to make on Mother’s Day.

I know I haven’t spent Mother’s Day together with my mother for many years now, but today I’m thinking of you from thousands miles away.

I love you.

Happy Mother’s Day, everyone.

One of the things that were not so cool about being on the plant-based diet is that we cannot enjoy the food made with the family recipes.

My husband loves his grandma Kiel’s Molasses Sugar Cookies that his grandma and his mom both have made for the family for many many years.

So I asked his mom to share the recipe and tried to veganize it.

I used my vegan butter for shortening and flax meal/water mixture for an egg, and the cookies turned out awesome!!

My husband loved them, and they were officially approved by his mom as well.

Grandma Kiel passed away before I met my husband.

I wish I had a chance to share these cookies with her.

I like technologies, but in many ways I’m still pretty old-fashioned.

I found these recipe box and recipe cards at Target, and I’m planning to start writing my favorite recipes down on these cards.

These are from their newly launched Hearth and Hand brand.

I love their simple and country-looking, yet has a sophisticated design.

I’ve also bought a few other items from this brand as well.

Do you think out loud?

Well, I do.

Mostly when I’m thinking about food.

We had some friends over for dinner the other day, and I was thinking about what I should make for dessert.

Apparently I was thinking out loud, and my husband heard me saying “French silk pie” as one of the ideas.

He loved the idea and he insisted that it should be the one to make.

I like my crust thick.

As you can see.

This Vegan French silk pie turned out to be absolutely delicious!

I would have to say this is probably one of my favorite desserts.

The major ingredient of the filling is avocado, and even though you don’t taste it at all, you feel less guilty eating it.

Avocado is a vegetable, right? (lol)

I topped it off with coconut cream (sweetened with sugar).

4 small V French Silk Pies – filling: 2 avocados, melted chocolate, sugar, strong coffee, non-dairy milk

I’ve never been a big ice cream person.

So when a vegan ice cream shop, Crepe and Spoon, opened, I did go check it out, but I didn’t think I would go back so quickly.

But I did.

Because I found the flavor I loved.

Ube is not only pretty-colored, but also delicious.

The ice cream shop changes their flavors quite frequently, so when I was there last time and found that they did have Ube, I decided to come home with a pint.

By the way, this is how my husband eats his ice cream.

He is a “melter”.

It is obvious that he was eating the melting edge!

This Ube parfait was so good.

Along with the Ube ice cream, what you find in this parfait are sweet red beans, wonton crisps, and roasted chestnut.

When I decided to make this parfait, I knew this is the bowl I wanted to serve it in.

This beautiful organic look screams “wabi-sabi”.

Happy Thursday evening, everyone.

Who else is excited about getting close to the weekend?