Bird-less cow-less shortbread cookies

I had set my heart on baking vegan cookies for my coworkers's Christmas presents this year because one of them had become vegan this past year. It wasn't easy because most recipes called for butter or eggs, and I refused to shop for specialty ingredients in an expensive store. I managed to find a piped cookie recipe and decided to modify it with the intention of giving away adorable little bagfuls of pretty piped cookies. However, my modified recipe was too thick to pipe even after adding a ridiculous amount of soy milk so I rolled the dough into logs and sliced them instead. This is what I ended up making:

• Bird-less cow-less shortbread cookies
•  
• 1 cshortening
• 3/4 cicing sugar
• 2 1/4 call-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 Tbspvanilla extract
• 1/2 csoy milk
• Handfulalmonds, toasted
•  
• Cream shortening with sifted icing sugar and flour. Add vanilla and soy milk and mix well. Add almonds and mix.
•  
• Separate dough into 2-3 portions and place onto plastic wrap. Using wrap, shape dough into logs approximately 2" in diameter. Wrap up logs and freeze until hard.
•  
• Slice frozen logs approximately 1/4" thick and place 1" apart on lined cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees F for 22 minutes.
•  

It was during my recent baking adventures that I started sifting my icing sugar regularly. This is because it settles and cakes into small clumps. If it is not sifted before using, the baked goods end up with the tiny clumps inside and look unprofessional as well as taste strange. Here is my bowl of sifted icing sugar:


After mixing all the ingredients (pre-almonds), I realized the dough was much too thick to pipe. This would not change no matter how much soy milk I added to the recipe and I am not sure if this is because I substituted shortening for butter:


In any case, I realized that the dough consistency was suitable for log rolling so I added some toasted almonds and rolled everything up. Although I don't have pictures of the logs, here is the dough after adding almonds:


The dough must be completely frozen when slicing or the almonds move around and destroy the shape of the logs. Here is what the cookies looked like after baking:


Although my presents looked nothing like I had originally envisioned, they were well received nonetheless. The cookies were just a tiny bit sweet and met my requirements for vegan ingredients. So now the last thing... Why are they called bird-less and cow-less? That's because my vegan coworker jokes that regular baked goods have birds and cows inside, referring to eggs and butter.

Vanilla cake with raspberry cream filling and lemon buttercream

Remember the pretty bow cake I made? Here are some in-progress photos along with the recipes at the end!

I already had a lovely moist chocolate cake recipe so I set upon finding one for a basic vanilla cake. Along came another recipe that called for oil instead of butter and here was one of my two cakes:


I greased and flour the cake pans properly and the cake released without a hitch. Here's the proof via a perfectly smooth bottom:


Just like my chocolate cakes, I cut each cake into two layers and torted using the method I learned in the basic decorating class. Here is what my cake looked like after the first torting:


And here are two photos showing what I did... After piping a dam using lemon buttercream, I spread a thin layer of raspberry jam and then added a generous layer of raspberry cream filling:



Once I finished torting, I covered the entire cake with the remaining buttercream. Unlike the pure buttercream cakes, I didn't do a crumbcoat plus a top layer because no one would care about crumbs inside a fondant cake:


I took the cake to class along with my pre-flavoured and coloured fondant. We rolled out our fondant in class, covered our cakes, and started decorating. As I had decided to use the giant fondant bow I made in my first class, I pulled it out:


I glued it to the top of my cake using gum glue (made of fondant and water) and added some mini flower cutouts for a little something extra:


When I got home, I couldn't wait to give my cake a try so I removed the bow and sliced it up right away!


Here is a snapshot of the inside and the layers clearly show the cake, buttercream, jam, and cream filling:


What did I think of the cake? It was quite tasty, although I would cut the sugar in the cake recipe next time. Half would be about right since the jam and buttercream were already sweet, but the rest of the recipe is a definite keeper! Here are all the different parts of the cake except for the thin jam layer (which is just jam) and the fondant (which is Wilton fondant flavoured with Galloway's raspberry extract and dyed with Wilton burgundy icing colour):

• Vanilla cake
•  
• 2 1/2 call-purpose flour
• 2 1/4 tspbaking powder
•  
• 4eggs
• 2 cgranulated sugar
• 1 csoy milk
• 3/4 coil
• 1 Tbspvanilla extract
•  
• Sift flour and baking powder. Set aside flour mixture
•  
• Beat eggs and sugar for approximately 1 minute until slightly thickened. Add all liquids and mix well. Fold in flour mixture.
•  
• Pour into two 8" round pans and bake at 350 degrees F for 30-35 minutes.

• Raspberry cream filling
•  
• 1/2 cwhipping cream
• 1/2 craspberry jam
•  
• Whip cream until soft peaks form. Add jam and mix.

• Lemon buttercream
•  
• 1 cshortening
• 1 tspbutter flavour
• 1 Tbsplemon extract
• 2 Tbspsoy milk
• 3 1/2 cicing sugar
• 1 Tbspmeringue powder
•  
• Cream shortening, butter flavour, lemon extract, and soy milk. Add icing sugar and meringue powder. Mix until creamy.