Vegan baked French toast topped with maple blueberry crisp

Right after departing from our five days of Suzuki violin force-feeding otherwise known as Ogontz, la familia de Baby June headed right over to Lincoln, New Hampshire for some more vacationing. Why? I am not entirely sure. This is, however, our only big vacation of the year, so it is only natural that we would want to milk the opportunity for all it’s worth.

Neapolitan celebration cakes part III - vanilla layer cake

When you do a lot of baking, you pick up odd tidbits of information that are hard to explain to someone who isn’t as familiar with this form of culinary creation. You learn when you should substitute whole grain flours and when you shouldn’t; you know what ingredients to replace in a pinch; you know if it’s okay to skip a step, if it’s just an unnecessary complication. And most importantly, you learn how to spot a shitty recipe.

I’m still working on that last one.

Neapolitan celebration cakes part II - gluten-free chocolate layer cake

If there’s one thing I don’t understand, it’s the fuss over dietary restrictions that people seem to delight in these days. Everyone loves playing “find the vegan”—you know, that condescending game that apparently disqualifies everything ever said in favor of a vegan diet. Some folks (and not just restaurateurs), bitch and moan when an otherwise normal person dares to alter a menu item to fit their needs or preferences. But mostly, it’s the cultural idea that it’s okay to lecture someone about what’s on their plate that disturbs me—the idea that what you should or shouldn’t eat is someone else’s business.

Neapolitan celebration cakes part I - fresh strawberry layer cake

There’s no feeling quite like knowing that there is a celebration coming up which requires cake. Part of my overly-enthusiastic love for Christmas is the quantity of dessert it requires me, the resident pastry chef, to make for various gatherings and parties. You should’ve seen the cakes I spammed my Facebook friends with last year.

Or maybe not. Secondary sugar rush is a serious thing.

I am also happy to make desserts for any other occasion conceivable (trust me—there is no low I won’t sink to if it means I get to make cake); I’ve made cakes for neighbors and schoolteachers and the pseudo-“tea parties” my friends and I would have (and given that we are all avid tea drinkers, it is quite fitting).

Vegan sweet potato layer cake with candied pecans and chocolate frosting

As you can see, some dramatic, earth-shaking changes have been enacted on this here blog as of late. To the left, there is a line of social media icons, as follows:

No fucking duh, Baby June.

You will find that these symbols link to my social media profiles. Why did I do this? Because I am a validation-starved attention whore, obviously. Feel free to click on them. Or not. It hardly matters, because my point in mentioning this is to give credit to Sew Many Ways’ tutorial on how to create this beautiful line of symbols as well as Carrie Loves’ free downloads.

In case you were wondering, I used “dazzling blue”.

So thank you, Sew Many Ways and Carrie Loves, for this.

Well, that had absolutely nothing to do with the recipe I have here, so let us move on to more fascinating and delicious courses of conversation—I mean, single-stream ranting—like, I don’t know…sweet potatoes.

Sweet, sweet potatoes. source

Imma let you finish, but sweet potatoes are the greatest vegetable of all time. And yes, they are vegetables. Even though they taste like candy.

Not only are sweet potatoes delicious, but they have been a staple of the human diet for millennia. The World Until Yesterday by Jared Diamond, a fascinating book I recently read, described how many traditional societies (the term used for the tribes and bands of, you know, yore). I can’t find a direct quote, but I distinctly remember reading that some societies (mostly those in Polynesia and South America, where sweet potatoes are a native plant) had diets consisting of up to 90% sweet potatoes. In case you aren’t so great in math, that’s a lot. Trust me. I eat tons of sweet potatoes, but my dietary intake probably maxes out at around 5%, depending on the day.

Why were these societies able subsist off of this fabulous vegetable? Because it is a) readily available in their climates and b) super nutritious and c) probably the tastiest food these primitive societies had available to them. I mean, if you have a choice between taro root, plain greens, and sweet potato, would you really  say, “Hey, I’m really feeling that spinach today, let’s go munch on some dressing-less salad while we fight of starvation and disease”? No. You fucking wouldn’t. In fact, you would probably rather go and hunt some lions. Sweet potatoes just happen to be a bit easier to acquire than fresh lion flank steak.

GO EAT SOME SWEET POTATOES, MOTHERFUCKER. source

Okay lion, calm down. Bitch.

And that is how some traditional societies came to rely on sweet potatoes so heavily. Does that make eating 90% sweet potatoes paleo?

I don't think traditional societies were able to acquire that much meat, but whatever. source

Reading The World Until Yesterday in large part justified my obsession with this glorious vegetable. It’s natural. Must be in my genes, buried underneath all of the beer-loving Irishness and croissant-gomphing Frenchness and whiteness in general.

So it came as no surprise to my family that, when I officially finished all of my stupid fucking exams and was home for the summer, I chose to make a sweet potato layer cake to celebrate. 

Um...I don't see any sweet potato.

Yes, there is sweet potato in there. Somewhere. Somehow. If you dig beneath all of that frosting, you shall find it.

Scroll up to the top where I so helpfully placed that shot of a single slice of this beautiful mess, and you will see that the frosting is sort of sectioned off into two layers. That is because there is actually two layers of frosting. The first layer consists of world-famous two-ingredient vegan frosting, made with coconut cream and chocolate chips, and to be honest it came out quite shitty. Shitty enough that I smeared it all over my painstakingly crafted layer cake and cried my heart out before sucking it up and making a batch of buttercream to hide the failure. The second frosting recipe I tried, from Add a Pinch, came out far, far better—and so from now on I recommend that instead as a staple vegan frosting. It is simple and fabulous and fluffy and delicious and every way. You can’t go wrong with chocolate buttercream.

Now about the cake. The pound cake, which I adapted from Taste of Home, was sort of a mess too. I did not think you would have to spread the batter perfectly smooth in the pans before baking. I was wrong. Thus I strongly recommend you make sure to do so if you attempt this recipe. Also—I was lacking silken tofu to make my favorite egg replacement, therefore I was forced to use chia seeds (as you can plainly see). That was not so grand, unless you like having little black dots studded throughout your cake. So feel free to use tofu instead.

Otherwise, there was nothing wrong with this layer cake. Nothing at all.

I know. I’m just perfect that way.

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Sweet potato layer cake with candied pecans and chocolate frosting

Makes one large layer cake

Ingredients

Sweet potato pound cake (adapted from Taste of Home)

56 grams ● Earth Balance, softened ● ¼ cup

54 grams ● coconut oil, softened (or more Earth Balance) ● ¼ cup

100 grams ● granulated sugar ● ½ cup

124 grams ● silken tofu, blended until smooth (or other substitute for two eggs—I used two chia eggs) ● ½ cup

2 grams ● vanilla extract ● ½ teaspoon

187 grams ● all-purpose flour ● 1 ½ cups

4 grams ● baking powder ● 1 teaspoon

1 gram ● baking soda ● ¼ teaspoon

1 gram ● salt ● 1/8 teaspoon

2 grams ● cinnamon ● ½ teaspoon

1 gram ● nutmeg ● 1/8 teaspoon

200 grams ● mashed and cooled sweet potatoes ● 1 cup

Sweet potato cheesecake (adapted from Nutrition Stripped)

318 grams ● sweet potato ● 1 cup plus ½ cup plus 2 tablespoons

141 grams ● cashews, soaked for one hour ● 1 cup

240 grams ● maple syrup ● ¾ cup

14 grams ● coconut oil ● 1 tablespoon

0.5 gram ● salt ● 1 pinch

168 ● chocolate chips ● 1 cup

Candied pecans (adapted from Babble)

100 grams ● pecans ● 1 cup

50 grams ● sugar ● ¼ cup

14 grams ● coconut oil ● 1 tablespoon

2 grams ● vanilla extract ● ½ teaspoon

2 grams ● salt ● ¼ teaspoon

2 grams ● cinnamon ● 1 teaspoon

Chocolate fudge frosting (adapted from Add a Pinch)

170 grams ● Earth Balance, softened ● ¾ cup

43 grams ● cocoa powder ● ½ cup

300 grams ● powdered sugar ● 2 ½ cups

60 grams ● nondairy milk ● ¼ cup

4 grams ● vanilla extract ● 1 teaspoon

1 gram ● espresso powder ● ¼ teaspoon

Instructions

To make sweet potato pound cake, start by preheating the oven to 350 degrees F and greasing two nine-inch round baking pans. Set aside.

Place Earth Balance, coconut oil, and sugar in the bowl of an electric stand mixer and beat until light and fluffy. Add tofu (or chia eggs) and vanilla extract and beat until combined. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. Add to creamed mixture alternately with sweet potatoes and mix just until combined. The batter will be stiff, and that’s okay.

Divide batter into the greased baking pans, smoothing over batter into an even layer, and bake for about 20 to 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let cool for ten minutes before removing from pans, then let cake layers cool completely before making the other layers.

To make sweet potato cheesecake, combine all ingredients in a powerful blender or food processor and let it whir until thoroughly combined.

To make candied pecans, start by placing parchment paper on a baking sheet. Set aside. Then, melt coconut oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add sugar, salt, and cinnamon and stir to combine. Add nuts and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until sugar caramelizes and the nuts are toasted. Remove from heat and add vanilla. Pour nuts on prepared baking sheet and use a fork to separate nuts into a single layer. Let cool completely before using.

Now, place the cooled sweet potato cake at the bottom of a nine-inch springform pan. Sprinkle some candied pecans on top, then pour sweet potato cheesecake on top of that. Add the rest of the candied pecans. Top with the final layer of sweet potato cake and put the whole shebang in the freezer.

To make chocolate frosting, place softened Earth Balance and cocoa powder in the bowl of an electric stand mixer and cream together until well combined. Next, add one cup of powdered sugar and one tablespoon of milk. Turn mixer on high for about a minute, then add another cup of powdered sugar and another tablespoon of milk. Mix on high once again. Finish with the remaining milk and sugar as well as vanilla extract and espresso. Beat like a mofo until it is nice and fluffy and wonderful.

To finish cake, remove the sides of the springform pan from the prepared layers and cover the whole thing with frosting. Do it like a dude; don’t be afraid to get messy with that bitch. Put it on a cake tray and serve it up to your drooling guests. Or yourself.

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Out of all of the components in this cake, I would say the chocolate chip sweet potato cheesecake and the candied pecans are tied for most delicious. I could not stop eating those pecans, I swear. Had to hurry to put together the cake lest I eat them all. Same thing with the cheesecake—could have eaten it with a spoon right out of the food processor like the fucking punk rocker I am on the inside if I hadn’t mustered up a shred of self-control just in time. 

That green plate does not go well with that brown cake. Sorry.

And despite this cake’s imperfections, I would say it was one of the best cakes I’ve ever made. Maybe not number one—the Thin Mint cake still takes that designation—but still up there. So much chocolate. So much sweet potato. I am lost for words.

I'm as confused as this photo is right now.

In other news (besides cake, obviously): I have recently gone to the cake store (or whatever it is called) to get some more awesome-sauce baking supplies, such as new piping tips (ZOMG!), an offset spatula (finally!), a box of fifty piping bags (yes yes yes!), and—wait for it—SPRINKLES! Nonpareils, to be specific. Armed with these and a library copy of Sensational Buttercream Decorating, I shall conquer the world.

You just wait and see. 

Peanut butter and jelly birthday cake

If there’s anything more futile than the pursuit of happiness, that would be the pursuit of perfection.

People used to say I was a perfectionist. A child who painstakingly organized her room every day and fretted over the most insignificant of test scores had to be a perfectionist, or maybe fusspot or a hairsplitter (as the trusty thesaurus would have you believe). And for years, I believed it. I fussed over the stories I wrote and split hairs over school assignments as if they were the difference between life and death—even though my heart was never in it. Eventually, my unsustainable habits came back to bite me in the ass, and whoop-de-doo, I contracted the sad disease.

Not me in there, actually. source

Nowadays, instead of getting ass in gear when faced with a less-than-desirable challenge, I tend to bitch and moan about the problem and, in the end, do nothing about it. This is not an uncommon phenomenon, I think.

My tendency to bitch and moan has led to another brilliant coping skill—avoidance! Genius, is it not? Instead of trying to deal with my imperfections, I slink back up to my room and turn on my laptop. A few hours of interneting later, I’ve totally forgotten about the original issue without having to exert all of that effort to resolve it. Brilliance in motion, I tell you. 

This is also a great method of avoidance. source

You might call it laziness. I know I do; in fact, my laziness is one of the things I bitch and moan about, which is quite meta if you ask me. Lazy little Baby June doesn’t want to go out and run and face the fact that, hey, maybe she ate a little too much cake over this past winter—if she stays inside and internets the time away, she won’t ever have to confront her newfound slowness, the little bit of extra pudge. Perfectionism indeed.

My indulgence in this brilliant coping skill has even been the death of another hobby: drawing. You may have seen the chili I drew against a backdrop of odd-looking fire to accent my sweet curry pancakes.  

You may or may not have been permanently scarred.

For years, I loved to draw and did it all the time, and I’d say I was getting pretty good at it—until the internet, high school, and depression struck all at the same time. Those three factors combined leave very little time for fooling around with a pencil and paper. No; there is only time for fucking around on Reddit and Facebook and blogs, searching for validation where it was lacking inside. That may sound very deep and tragic, but in reality it was the emptiest thing possible. Drawing gave me joy; the internet just made me feel hollow. As time passed and I didn’t pick up the pencil, my drawing skills regressed until I could only muster up the likes of that chili you see above. Because I was embarrassed by my lack of skills, I avoided drawing. That, you see, is avoidance at its best.

Until, of course, I went to the hospital and had nothing to do all day except, well, draw. I drew lots and lots of doges.

One of many.

It was therapeutic, almost, creating that inexplicably hilarious face on paper. It may or may not have made me tear up. 

Every fucking time. source

I may not have liked staying at the hospital, but it made me confront a lot of things. Life, for example. Life is filled with people you have to socialize with and things you aren’t perfect at right away and struggles that can’t be overcome easily. Without the internet to distract me, reality stared me in the face. Even though a hospital is kind of as far from reality as you can get.

Back home, I of course went ahead and made some cake. Imperfect cake. Very messy cake with frosting smudged all over the place and layers that stuck to the pans and pastry cream ridden with lumps. I could have cried about it; I could have ignored the imperfections I had created and gone to hide in my room. But no. I plastered the fucking thing all over the internet, like I didn’t even care. I mean, it tasted good. Probably one the most addictively delicious things I ever made, that cake was, but it wasn’t particularly pretty.

And I was pretty damn proud of that.

So today, I present to you another imperfect cake.

Go on.

My own mother admitted it looked kind of weird. My own mother, goddamit! Will you believe that?

But it’s true. I could have fussed and split hairs for hours, I could have done so many things to make this cake look at least a bit more presentable, yet I was satisfied with this flawed presentation. For my own brother’s birthday, no less.

It tastes amazing. The jelly frosting is slightly lumpy; the strawberry cake layer was dense and flat (probably due to my inaccurate measurements of the strawberry puree); the peanut praline didn’t come out quite like I had imagined. And yet I am satisfied. How could this be? Isn’t Baby June a perfectionist?

No. I’m not a perfectionist. It’s hard enough for me to care about basic things like my own body odor let alone the presentation of cake. It’s time for me to be realistic. I just don’t fucking care anymore, you know?

My new motto, everyone. source

Time to relax. Nobody cares if you are imperfect. We’re gonna keep calm whether your cake falls apart in a mess of buttercream and crumbs or wins Cake International.

Maybe someday I’ll even socialize a little bit. But let’s not get our hopes up.

Here is the recipe du jour:

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Peanut butter and jelly birthday layer cake

Makes one giant cake

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Strawberry cake (adapted from Baker Bettie)

Ingredients

93 grams ● silken tofu, blended until smooth ● ¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons

61 grams ● nondairy milk ● ¼ cup

87 grams ● strawberry puree ● ¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons

3 grams ● vanilla extract ● ¾ teaspoon

1 gram ● almond extract ● ¼ teaspoon

137 grams ● cake flour ● 1 cup

5 grams ● baking powder ● 1 teaspoon

2 grams ● salt ● ¼ teaspoon

113 grams ● sugar ● ½ cup plus 1 tablespoon

38 grams ● Earth Balance, softened and cut into small pieces ● 1/3 cup

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease one 9-inch baking pan and set aside.

In a small bowl, mix blended tofu, milk, strawberry puree, vanilla, and almond extract.

Add cake flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar to the bowl of a stand mixer and pulse a few times to combine. One piece at a time, add Earth Balance with mixer on low until the dough looks sandy—not doughy quite yet.

Add about half of the wet mixture and beat on low speed until combined, then increase speed and beat until light and fluffy. Add the remaining wet mixture on low speed and mix just until incorporated. The batter will look a bit curdled, and that’s okay.

Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for about 23 to 25 minutes, until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Remove from baking pan after cooling for ten minutes. Allow to cool completely before using.

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Peanut butter cake (adapted from Pastry Affair)

Ingredients

60 grams ● vegetable oil ● ¼ cup

65 grams ● peanut butter ● ¼ cup

50 grams ● sugar ● ¼ cup

50 grams ● brown sugar ● ¼ cup, packed

93 grams ● silken tofu, blended until smooth ● ¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons

3 grams ● vanilla extract ● ½ teaspoon

140 grams ● all-purpose flour ● 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons

5 grams ● baking powder ● 1 teaspoon

2 grams ● salt ● ½ scant teaspoon

122 grams ● nondairy milk ● ½ cup

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease one 9-inch cake pan and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, beat together oil, peanut butter, sugar, and tofu until uniform. Add vanilla extract. In a separate bowl, sift together all-purpose flour, baking powder, and salt. Add flour mixture and milk in alternating additions, mixing until batter is uniform and smooth.

Pour batter into cake pan and bake for about 30 to 35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove from baking pan after ten minutes. Cool completely before using.

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Strawberry curd (adapted from Healthy Happy Life)

Ingredients

122 grams ● nondairy milk (I used soy) ● ½ cup

60 grams ● water ● ¼ cup

16 grams ● cornstarch ● 1 tablespoon

75 grams ● sugar ● ¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons

90 grams ● strawberry juice, fresh or bottled (or try using fresh puree) ● ¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons

2 grams ● lemon zest ● 1 teaspoon

71 grams ● Earth Balance or other vegan buttery spread ● 5 tablespoons

Instructions

Head on over to Healthy Happy Life to get the instructions, being sure to replace lemon juice with strawberry juice. Allow to cool completely before using.

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Peanut butter frosting (adapted from All Recipes)

Ingredients

113 grams ● Earth Balance, softened ● ½ cup

256 grams ● peanut butter ● 1 cup

45 grams ● nondairy milk ● 3 tablespoons

288 grams ● powdered sugar ● 2 ¼ cups

Salt to taste

Instructions

Place Earth Balance and peanut butter in the bowl of a stand mixer and beat until fluffy and lightened in color. Gradually add powdered sugar while the mixer is running on low, then increase speed and whip it like you mean it. Add nondairy milk to make it nice and spreadable, and sprinkle in some salt if you think it is too sweet.

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Strawberry frosting (adapted from Food Network)

Ingredients

56 grams ● Earth Balance ● ¼ cup

256 grams ● powdered sugar ● 2 cups

30 grams ● nondairy milk ● 2 tablespoons

3 grams ● vanilla extract ● ½ teaspoon

40 grams ● strawberry jam or preserves ● 2 tablespoons

Instructions

Place Earth Balance in the bowl of an electric stand mixer and beat until fluffy and light. Slowly add powdered sugar. Beat in nondairy milk, vanilla, and strawberry jam / preserves until thoroughly combined and fluffy and smooth and wonderful.

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Peanut praline (from Serious Eats)

Ingredients

220 grams ● brown sugar ● 1 cup, firmly packed

146 grams ● peanuts ● 1 cup

Instructions

Go to Serious Eats to get the complete recipe. Allow to cool completely before using.

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Assembly

Ingredients

1 layer strawberry cake

1 layer peanut butter cake

Strawberry curd

Peanut praline

Peanut butter frosting

Strawberry frosting

Instructions

Place peanut butter cake layer at the bottom of a nine inch springform pan. Smear strawberry curd all over that bitch, then top with peanut praline. Top with strawberry cake layer. Put the whole thing in the freezer until it is nice and hard and easy to frost.

To finish, frost the entire cake with peanut butter buttercream. At this point you can freeze the cake for another few minutes to harden up the frosting, or you can just go ahead and add strawberry frosting in stripes. Doesn’t really matter. Tastes good no matter what.

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Now, if you want to attempt this cake, be sure to measure the ingredients for the strawberry cake layer accurately. You’d think that would be a given by my lazy ass thought measuring was optional for a few ingredients, for some reason.

Wow. Fancy.

I’d also try using fresh strawberry puree instead of bottled strawberry juice, because frankly that store bought stuff is nasty. If you have a juicer, feel free to use that.

But it hardly matters. This cake was delicious. Was. Before we devoured it.

Even if it’s not perfect.