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| Notice also my new pink glass cake platter ^-^ |
Yes, it's still Lent. I'm Orthodox, go Google it. Normally I'm not the type to talk about religion on my blog but it helps explain why this omnivore has a soft spot for vegan food. Being Orthodox Christian, during Lentwe fast from animal products alcohol (except wine on weekends, lol) and olive oil. This year from March 18th till Easter (May 5th)
The hardest part for me is as always the sweets. I had been craving good old fashioned strawberry shortcake. I'm not talking angel food cake and CoolWhip, with that obnoxious gel. Tender flaky southern style shortcake, fresh whipped cream and fresh strawberries.
With it being Great Lent however, buttermilk shortcake is out, so is fresh whipped cream. So I set to fiddle in the kitchen to make Lenten ergo Vegan version and it turned out beautiful. It was so good that I literally double checked to prove that I in fact did not use a dairy product.
My continental cousin demanded I have some example recipes using the flours from the first "All the pretty flours" post. I mentioned this was a southern style shortcake so can you guess which flour I used? That's right! Self Rising. I was actually out of White Lily so I used GoldMedal instead.
Vegan Strawberry Shortcake
The Shortcake
I used Crisco *ducks* Personally I'd love to use that expensive Spectrum palm shortening but unfortunately it's not in the cards. I've tried using earth balance before and it just was way too soft. This recipe is adapted from Alton Brown's shortcake recipe.
Ingredients
- 8oz/228g/about 2 cups Self Rising Flour
- 1/4 Coconut Cream
- 1/2 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
- 4 tbsp vegetable shortening
- 2 tbsp fine organic cane sugar
- 4 oz/ about 3/4 fresh strawberries diced
- Preheat oven to 425F
- In a large mixing bowl, mix together flour and sugar
- Using a cold spoon or fingertips, cut in shortening into the flour.
- In a separate cup stir together coconut cream and almond milk.
- Mix milk mixture into flour till almost combined
- Gently mix in strawberries till just combined
- Drop by large spoonfuls onto a baking sheet. Sprinkle with sugar.
- Bake for 15 minutes or until brown.
- Cool and eat with fresh berries and whipped cream (see below)
The Whipped Cream
Some of the more seasoned vegan sweet tooths are familar with whipping coconut cream. Honestly I never could get it as stiff as I like my dairy whipped cream. So I decided to stabilize it. Usually this means adding gelatin but being being the blasian that I am, I used kanten powder also known as agar agar powder. A seaweed derived gelatin equivalent. My dad used this to make the best marshmallows I've ever tasted in life. Lavender homemade marshmallows think about that for a second. Yea... I know. AND they're vegan (because 46 is cheap and won't use eggs :P) But that's another post...
Ingredients
- the remainder of the coconut cream (used Chanoyu brand) that is cold I kept it in my very cold fridge for 2 hours
- 1 tsp kanten powder (also known as agar agar)
- 1 tsbp of very hot water
- vegan powdered sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
- Stir kanten powder into hot water set aside and let cool (I went and made the shortcake)
- Open can of coconut cream, drain any liquid off, put into a cold metal bowl
- With a mixer beat cream for 1 minute, add vanilla paste and sugar. beat till combined.
- Then beat in kanten mixture
- Fill a pastry bag and chill till ready (at least 2 hours)
Putting it all together
This weekend I stacked shortcake, sliced strawberries, piped on whipped cream, more sliced strawberries, another shortcake, and some ore whipped cream for good measure. Strawberry on the side coz those were awesome.Today I brought a shortcake and 2 tbsp of whipped cream into work. This time, in a bowl, 1 short cake, 3 sliced strawberries and a spooned dollop of whipped cream. Yum!
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