World vegan day and 3 vegan recipes (Vegan brownies, cinnamon buns & saffron buns)

Hello!

If you follow any vegan accounts online i am sure you havent missed that it is world vegan day today, and if you dont follow any other vegans apart from me... well then now you know (so go eat a plant based meal!!)!

One of the questions i get asked when i say that i am vegan is 1) what do you eat? And my answer is... basically everything you do apart from the suffering. and second 2) Why am I vegan... and my answer is always, well why arent you?

Of course these answers might be a little provacative to some, but thats their reaction. Just like when someone sits infront of me and eats bacon, i can choose to react and say something or choose not to. And i choose to not say anything, only answer if someone asks me... or use my social media, hahha.

Recently i watched the documentary "before the flood" which you can watch HERE and its about climate change, and it was nothing new to me but it did make me think. Especially about palm oil and about certain things i can which i should think more about. I dont think i have a super high co2 footprint compared to some, but i guess there is always a way to lower it... however i also need to be a human being and live life, i.e i could sit in complete darkness if i really wanted to lower my CO2 footprint, but i dont feel like doing that, instead i just have 1 light on instead of 5.

I also think in a way that "we choose our battles" and choosing to fight one battle over the other, for example with palm oil. Quite alot of the vegan substitue products i buy contain palm oil from certified sources, however... i feel like i really should cut down on them and focus primarily on whole foods and maybe find alternatives to products with lots of palm oil.  But i guess just being a vegan makes a difference, i mean its great that people might be driving less cars or their are more efficient cars but the meat industry is the leading cause of climate change and co2 emissions.

There is so much to think about and i guess just doing what i can is the best.

Anyway, how to celebrate that its national vegan day, my test is over with, my group work was sent in and passed.... and of course how to inspire others to want to eat more vegan?
I bake!!

Vegan cinnamon buns

Vegan saffron buns (i.e lussebullar)

and super amazing moist brownies!

(click the titles to go to the recipe!). I didnt actually follow the recipes exactly, i changed ingridients, didnt measure and didnt let the saffron buns yeast enough but they all turned out really good!! And now i just need some self restraint and not eat it all at once, hahaha!

Check out the recipes, and next time you want to bake... maybe consider making a vegan alternative?

Vegan doesnt mean low calorie. Vegan doesnt mean raw food. Vegan doesnt mean restriction.

You can make super fudgy and moist vegan brownies using chocolate, flour, sugar, coconut oil etc 

Easter and my Easter cake 2016

As tradition - and enjoyment, i made an Easter cake this year! Instead of going out 150% on my cake as i usually do and either making one huge cake or 2 types of weird "extra" cakes, i decided to opt for simple today. A chocolate and orange cheesecake... simple and so delicious :) There is going to be so much chocolate eaten so if i made a huge chocolate cake it would just be too much. The recipe for the cake is from HERE, and i can say that the cake tastes super good!!  :)

To celebrate Easter i am going to my step dads mothers place (can i call her a step grandmother? hahah) with my family and we are going to have a late lunch/dinner there.

For me personally Easter isnt that special anymore... it feels like it's a big deal to kids as they get chocolate or candy, and i guess when you are an adult you get free days from work and to spend time with family. But Easter doesnt feel that special, unlike Christmas which feels more special... maybe its just me. But if i could i would actually work during these days if i had work, or it wouldnt really matter if we didnt celebrate. Maybe its just me who doesnt feel so "hype" about things at the moment, or maybe its just that i am older and special occasions like this dont feel like a big deal anymore.... like i have never thought birthdays are that special. The only reason i have liked my birthday the past few years is that i get to bake a cake and go out for brunch to celebrate... haha, but otherwise birthdays arent so special for me.

Anyway, currently i have so much stomach pain so going to just lie down and hopefully the pain will pass so that i can enjoy the lunch/dinner later!

I know most people celebrate tomorrow - Sunday, so i wish you all an Early Happy Easter :) And whether you celebrate or not, make Sunday an awesome day and be kind to yourself.

Chocolate wont harm you, neither will potatoes or dessert. Food is energy. And resting wont harm you either!!! And if you do binge, stay calm... tomorrow will be a new day and the best thing you can do is to distract yourself and not be alone with food if you binge. But the most important thing, give your body food and nourishment. Restricting and starving yourself wont help you at all. Your body needs energy and nourishment to function!!!

Dont let food control you and dont let your eating disorder control you. You can get through this weekend, if you find it overwhelming, you can get through it!!

Cake making

Hello :)

When i choose the type of cake i wanted to make i had high expectations, i wanted it to look and taste good. Though of course, with my baking skills i should have known that it wouldnt turn out to look so good, haha. But that is ok, because it was unique and it still tasted good. But also i was aware that there was a 90% chance that it would go wrong, and well it did 50% anyway, so much better ratio than expected!!

So i decided to do a rainbow cake! It looked good in pictures and i thought it would be fun to make. Though of course things like food colouring are things we definitely don't have at home, my mum hates things like that so i thought i wouldnt mention what cake i was making and she would just have to accept it once the cake was on the table, haha. I mean it is not like we eat cake everyday or eat food colouring everyday, so once or twice in a year should be fine :)

I followed THIS recipe, which was easy to follow and easy to make. Though i realised afterwards that the tins were different sizes which made the cake a little weird, and i didnt think about it until afterwards and my boyfriend didnt want to mention the fact that i put the biggest cake bit on the top and the smallest on the bottom, as i was just looking at the colours and not sizes, haha. Also i think my tins were a little bigger than what they used in the recipe so the pieces turned out super thin, but i guess that is good otherwise the cake would have been ginormous and very heavy!

It was fun to make even if it took two hours or something and like mentioned above, it did taste good :) But as i had tasted everything while baking it was hard to finish a whole slice (almost wrote cake there XD). It was a bit like "taste the rainbow" though all the slices tasted the same;)


And the decorations were just a sort of yolo. I didnt know how i wanted to decorate it so i just did whatever and the top part turned out ok the rest maybe not. Hahahahaha. I know the cake doesnt look the best, but it is homemade and it was fun to bake and eat and that is what matters i guess ;);)

White chocolate and oreo chocolate cake

I think i forget to mention but on Saturday it was the "chocolate cake" day. I am still not sure if it is an international thing... i dont think it is though. But here in Sweden it was "Kladdkakans dag" and that is a good a reason as any to make and eat chocolate cake.

So while i was prepping some lunch boxes before the library opened i also made a chocolate cake using THIS recipe and i added white chocolate, salted almonds chocolate and oreos. It turned out soooo good! I made it for family but of course i had to try a bit (and then eat what was left yesterday when i got back from studying :))

All i can say is delicious.... and  I am still wondering what type of cake(s) to make for my birthday.... not even sure if i have time to make cakes :( But i love baking extravagant and over the top cakes and when is a better time than your own birthday. But there are so many cake inspirations so i dont know which to do, but also some require alot of work, haha.


Below are some ideas/inspirations i have found:

Monday meal inspiration - desserts

Vegan Pumpkin Cheesecake (GF)

How to Make No-Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars
Source: Very Best Baking 

Mini Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Skillet Cookies

Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Cake

Salted Pretzel Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Snickers Bars

Cinnamon Rolls with Brown Sugar Espresso Glaze

4 Layer Peanut Butter Cheesecake Brownies

Snack inspiration (recipes)

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls 

Peanut Butter Banana Overnight Oats

Peanut butter chocolate chip cookie bars

Reese’s peanut butter cup pancakes

Pumpkin cheesecake bars

chewy chai snickerdoodles

Pumpkin Pie in a Mug!

Cinnamon Raisin French Toast

PEANUT BUTTER BANANA STUFFED FRENCH TOAST

Nutella Stuffed Pancakes

Can you tell that there is a slight Autumn theme in these snacks? haha

I need to try some of these myself :) And i hope its not triggering with the food, but i just thought that sometimes its good with some inspiration and to realise that there is more food than the "usual safe/comfortable foods". But you can experiment and try new things, thats the fun thing about food... that there is so much to try and taste!!! Imagine a life where you just eat the same things all the time? Sounds boring and unexciting.... atleast try eat new things or new combinations or flavours, you might just find something you really like!