14 November 2008

BAKE MY DAY: some like it hot

spiced apple cake with chili de arbol caramel

cayenne persimmon tart

sugar-free chocolate chili truffles

chocolate chili truffles

anaheim lime coconut pie

Linkpoblano almond chocolate cupcakes

For this week's BAKE MY DAY* I decided to use chilis to heat things up a bit. I wanted to try to use a variety of peppers from the Capsicum genus to provide different flavors and different levels of heat.

*BAKE MY DAY is a weekly event I host where I choose an ingredient or a theme and try to make several baked goods, accordingly. It gives me a great excuse to try a lot of new things!


Spiced Apple Cake with Chili de Arbol Caramel Sauce:I started off with this Holiday Bundt Apple Cake from Dessert, Diet and Dogs. I was happy to find a recipe that was using whole grain flours and agave and brown rice syrup for most of the sweetness. Unfortunately, I didn't have barley flour, so I substituted with whole wheat flour. The only other difference was that I added 1/4 teaspoon cayenne to the apples. When I mixed up the batter, it seemed a bit dry, but I baked it anyway. Perhaps I messed up somewhere (but I really couldn't figure out how), or perhaps I just slightly overbaked the cake, but it seemed the slightest bit dry. I'm taking full responsibility for that, though, and, otherwise, it was such a lovely cake, that I still recommend it.

I only added 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne because I didn't want the cake to be too spicy (only some like it hot, and I wanted to make sure everyone could enjoy the desserts). So, I chose to put most of the spice in the caramel sauce.

For the caramel sauce, I used this recipe because I wanted to use up my maple syrup. It tasted good, but it wasn't quite like caramel. I've used another recipe in the past that looked much more like caramel, although now I can't remember what recipe that was. (Does anyone have a caramel sauce recipe that you absolutely love?) I did add 2 dried chili de arbols (stems removed, but I added the seeds), chopped into little pieces. The sauce was spicy and delicious, and poured over lightly toasted spiced walnuts, it really made the cake (and totally made up for any dryness).

Cayenne Persimmon Tart:
When I was thinking about foods that chilis would go well with, one of the first things that came to my mind was mangoes. I love a mango with a little kick. Unfortunately, the mangoes this time of year just aren't good enough to cut it, so I decided to try something with persimmons, which have a similar flavor and happen to be in season now. I found Delicious Coma's recipe for a persimmon tart and decided to give it a try.

I used cold shortening in place of the butter and added cayenne to the spices to be sprinkled on top of the persimmons. The crust turned out quite good; however, the persimmons were not so good. My persimmons weren't ripe enough (and if you've ever had an unripe persimmon, you know how bad they are). I thought they might take on a sweet flavor when baked (much like a quince), but they remained incredibly astringent. But, the tart looked lovely and it would have been great had my fruit been better (and that's the easiest thing to fix, so I'm alright with that).

Chocolate Chili Truffles & Sugar-free Truffles:
recipe here

Anaheim Lime Coconut Pie:
recipe coming soon

Poblano Almond Chocolate Cupcakes:
recipe coming soon

10 comments:

LizNoVeggieGirl said...

I am positively AWSTRUCK by all of those goodies!!! Holy yum!!!

Anonymous said...

Everything looks amazing! Thanks for giving the recipe a try. I'm guessing the dryness was more a function of the whole wheat substitution than anything else (you'd have to decrease the amount of wheat flour to equal the same effect as barley flour). People have told me the cake is sometimes a bit too moist, but never too dry! Glad you liked the flavor, anyway. :)

I love the look of that persimmon tart! But frankly I'd happily take one of anything on this post (or maybe one of everything??) :)

miss v said...

i think those truffles would be dangerous for me. :)

Pearl said...

oh my gosh! those look AMAZING! you are so talented!

i hope to get to know u through blogging! :)

Amey said...

whoa!
what a great post. What on earth will you do with all those delicious treats!? Love the idea of incorporating chilis in so many different ways.

beauty and bread said...

Thank you everyone for your comments.

Ricki, I think you're probably right about the substitution of flours. I can't wait to get my hands on some barley flour and try it again!

Amey, thank goodness I don't have to eat them all by myself (that would be way too much for me! I host weekly events called "BAKE MY DAY" where I serve them up to a lot of my friends. It's a great excuse to see a lot of people, and to share the joy of vegan baking, of course!

emma said...

oh my GOD your treats look amazing! your photos are perfect i'm in love hahaha

actually with alkaline foods it's mostly a vegan diet, but some random foods have a lot of acidity like wheat, walnuts, apples, and brown rice to name a few. it's pretty hard and considering you can't have alcohol, sugar, or chocolate, i lasted about 32 hours. but hey, those 32 hours were okay. despite the fact i was ready to smack someone if i didn't get chocolate soon. But really, it's amazing for your health and i encourage you to look into it and if not fully go alkaline, incorporate more alkaline foods, (like most vegetables, almonds, buckwheat, and certain fruits) into your diet
this was a really long comment i'm sorry hahah

Lisa (Show Me Vegan) said...

I love the idea of the poblano chocolate cupcakes! Can't wait for the recipe.

jesse said...

Wow, I am simply amazed. Speechless! Can't wait for the poblano cupcakes recipe!!

River (Wing-It Vegan) said...

Wow, everything looks amazing! Thank you for your comment on my blog! :)