The winner has been chosen! random.org pulled number 8. Congratulations Gabrielle!
It’s Cyber Monday, and while emptying your bank account for “gifts” for “people who aren’t you” is dandy, giveaways are even better!
If you follow Kelly around on the internet, you know that this book has actually been in the making for a couple of years. So it’s really nice to see all of her work come to fruition in a beautiful book. Kelly studied photography in college, so all of the photographs were styled and taken by her. Fair Winds books are always very well designed. In short, it’s a pretty book!
As you may know, I don’t drink, so it may seem odd for me to review a book that clearly relies on alcohol for a lot of recipes. But that made me want to review it more, and the first thing I noticed when I got the book was that the four recipes featured on the cover are booze-free, and there are many more inside. Some of the recipes with alcohol have a substitution noted, most of the rum recipes can be made with rum extract instead, vodka can be replaced with water, etc. And while some of the recipes don’t have substitutions noted because you want the specific flavor of the alcohol called for, I don’t think it would hurt any of the recipes if you used water or non-dairy milk instead. They won’t taste exactly as intended, but the recipes are still interesting enough on their own.
One thing I will note is, this is not a basic vegan baking book. There are some fancier recipes in here that called for ingredients that I can’t get in my small town, like white chocolate and butterscotch chips, lavender, rosewater, and I couldn’t find rum extract but I did find imitation rum flavoring. There aren’t diagrams or long descriptions of baking techniques. Neither of those things is necessarily a negative: if you aren’t already comfortable with basic baking techniques and don’t want to be adventurous and try fancier recipes, you probably wouldn’t want this book. But if you are and you do, you will love it! Everything I mentioned not being able to find can be easily ordered online.
Onto the recipes we tried! We’ve had a cold and dreary fall for the most part, so I stuck to mostly simple recipes that I could make out of my pantry, and not have to go around town looking for the ingredients.
The first one, Brian actually made for my birthday. We chose the grape soda cupcakes because grape is my favorite of the artificial fruit flavors and they’re pretty simple. The grape reduction didn’t reduce enough, because Brian doesn’t know what a reduction looks like. So the ones one the cover of the book are much prettier, but they were still delicious.
On Halloween, I made the Apple Cider Cinnamon Rolls. My apples were too small so I ended up with less apple filling, so if you make these make sure to get big apples or grab an extra one. Cinnamon rolls have a lot of down time, so they were perfect to make while we set up our Halloween display and filled up the candy bowls.
Next up, Kool-Aid cookies! I think I drank my last cup of Kool-Aid at least 20 years ago, but the recipe was so simple that I had to try it. I thought they would basically be sugar cookies, but they weren’t too sweet and came out soft and cakey. We went with Black Cherry, but you can use any flavor.
Onto something slightly more adult, I made the Arnold Palmer Loaf. An Arnold Palmer is half tea, half lemonade and was my drink of choice at the Farmer’s Market for the past few years before I moved. Another fairly easy recipe, especially if you’re a tea drinker and already have black tea handy. It smells wonderful and would make a great gift if you like to bake mini-loaves for the holidays.
I whipped up the Peanut Butter Banana Smoothie Muffins on a whim one day, I made a double batch so I could freeze half of them. I wondered if I was supposed to melt the peanut butter so it would mix in smoothly, but the recipe didn’t say and i’m glad I didn’t because it made teeny peanut butter flecks throughout each muffin.
And finally, I decided to try a beer recipe. I will cook with alcohol, but since I don’t buy it I tend to avoid recipes that call for say, half a cup of vodka because then i’m stuck with a bottle of vodka. But you can buy a single bottle of beer at most grocery stores, I got a bottle of Fat Tire and made the Beer Soft Pretzels. Making pretzels at home may sound daunting, but it’s really not! The trick is to boil them for a minute in baking soda water before putting them in the oven. Or maybe the trick lies in how to shape them so they look like actual pretzels and not just knotted blobs, I don’t know. But they were DELICIOUS.
The one thing I definitely want to make soon is the Fried Coca-Cola. When you’re raised in the city where the state fair is hosted and you become vegan, you really miss fair food. Deep fried everything, y’all! I had wanted to include this recipe in my Dinner and A Movie post for The Blues Brothers, but at the time the recipe was only available in a charity zine. Now we all can bask in the glory of deep fried goodness! Now if someone will just veganize Fat Balls, we can really get this party going.
And now to the part everyone cares about, the giveaway! Fair Winds said I could give a book away, and it’s open to the US, Canada, and the UK! International shipping is expensive so it’s nice that they’re willing to ship across the pond. As always, you do not have to like or tweet or regram anything to enter a contest on my blog. All you have to do is comment below with a vegan gift idea – you can link to an item or just mention it. I love giving gifts so I would like to know what goodies are out there this year! Also make sure you leave an email address that you check regularly – no one is going to see it but me. If I contact the winner and they don’t respond within two days, I will redraw. A winner will be chosen this Saturday, December 7th.
