Scraps and Snippets ~ Delicious Vanilla Cake

The epic cake adventure was made possible by this cake. 

3 and 1/3 Cups flour
2 Cups sugar
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 TBSP and 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
3 tsp vanilla
2/3 Cup oil
2 Cups water

Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour two cake pans or a 9 x 13. Or prep 18 cup cakes, or a combination that makes sense for your creation. 

Place all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Stir well. Dig wells in the dry mix, two smaller and one larger, large enough for nearly a cup of liquid. In the large well pour oil, vanilla in one of the smaller and vinegar in the other. Pour the two cups of water in and stir well. 

Divvy up the batter. 

Bake until golden and the cake springs back and knife comes out clean. Bake cake pans approx 28-30 minutes. 9 x 13 approximately 33-35 and cupcakes about 17-20 minutes. 

Cool about 10 minutes. Pop out of pans. Cool completely. Frost. 

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Cake Diva Continued

The day of creation was here. And Cakey-Girl was thrilled. 

We set the fondant out to hit room temperature. As I said yesterday this is something I wouldn't do again. The fondant was pretty easy to put together. I'd make it right before I needed it, maybe while the cake is cooling. It was so much easier to work with while still slightly warm from the microwave. 

Since my job was basically grunt labor, wrestling and rolling the cooled and stiffened fondant Cake-Diva was full on decorating, dictating and running the show. She wanted bright vivid colors and I think she pulled that off. 

We dirty iced the layers, she plopped the fondant down and cut it and patched it. This went real fast and we both loved the texture of the covered cakes. With a little buttercream to hold the second layer we repeated that step with the different shaped cake and the differently colored fondant. 

We slapped more buttercream down, glued the cupcakes in place and began to make them look like roses. I did half of the first one and suggested a technique. She went rodeo and did her own thing. They looked enough like roses that she was happy. At this point we popped the cake into the fridge because it was warm enough in the kitchen to soften the butter cream a bit too much. 

While that firmed up I rolled out the third and fourth colors of fondant for the decorative touches. She took to the  cookie cutters and the cute little metal alphabet cutters we got at Hobby Lobby for under $6.00. I'm definitely going to get $6.00 multiplied worth of fun and joy out of that purchase. She found that she could use jack-o-lantern cutters, and corn-on the-cob skewers for shaping and and detail. 

She began loading shapes with buttercream details, and cutting/poking and prepping like a beast. Once I got the cake back out of the fridge she frosting glued all of her designs on the cake and embellished everything. 

It was so cute. And surprisingly delicious and oh so sweet. 

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Cake Diva Part 1

I mentioned that my oldest granddaughter was staying with us and wanted to make a welcome home cake for her mom and siblings. We had watched several episodes of the Next Great Baker and she was enthralled. 


I have an awesome and easy vanilla cake recipe and I found a DIY fondant recipe, too. How challenging can this be? I thought. 

So over the course of three days we set out to build an epic cake based on the lil baker's cake book. (Drawings, diagrams, plans sketched by the nine-year-old master chef.)

A square layer, a round layer and 4 cupcakes were baked and frozen for ease in frosting. On day 1. 


Fondant made of marshmallows and an unholy amount of powdered sugar was put together on day 2. This was so easy. A big bowl, 4 cups of miniature marshmallows, 2 TBSP water and 4 plus cups of powdered sugar. Yep. That's right. Marshmallows and powdered sugar. You melt the marshmallows with the water in the microwave, stir it till smooth and begin adding powdered sugar one cup at a time. Then you sprinkle more powdered sugar on the surface of the table and begin kneading until it is no longer sticky, turning it over and folding it as needed until its all smooth. 

Roll it out. 

Lay it over the "dirty iced" (technical term learned from "reality" television in which a cake is iced with a thin layer of butter cream to set the fondant and cut down on crumbs) cake and smooth it out. 

That's if you want white. If you want colors then warm up because you have the need to knead some more. Our creation needed four colors. So to be safe we doubled the batch above. (If you are local and have a need for marshmallow fondant which tastes eerily just like Lucky Charms marshmallows, come on over, we have some left.) Green, blue, lavender and orange. We used regular food color, no need for the heavy and more expensive paste. 

I was the sous chef mixing and kneading because the executive pastry chef lacked even more height than me and lacked the kneading hand muscles. This next step I will skip when attempting fondant in the future. We wrapped the little logs of fondant in plastic and chilled them once the colors were mixed. 

The next day after we made the buttercream we began to work with the fondant. The much harder and firmer fondant. The little cake diva immediately assigned the rekneading to me. The rolling became mine as well. She work on the cutting and placement instead. 

More steps and the final creation tomorrow. My typing muscles took a beating from the fondant wars! 

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Whoooo Boy Learning Curve Ahead

Our 9-year-old granddaughter is staying with us for a couple of weeks.                                       One of our couple rituals is when we have finished what we need to finish (i.e. when we are tired and should just go to bed early to get a great night's sleep) we end the evening with Hulu or Netflix. Our favorite shows are usually reality. The cooking challenge shows are right up there. 

So CeeCee (the 9 year old, name changed to protect me) has joined in with us watching whichever shows strikes our fancy collectively. What has become her favorite and possibly a new obsession is Next Great Baker. This photo is her first cake design. CeeCee wants to make a cake welcoming her mom and siblings home. And she wants to make this cake. 

Okay. Now here's where is gets real challenging. I don't have the skill set.  I have never, ever worked with fondant. And I've watched some epic fails on this type of show. I also made one huge and elaborate cake for each of my children then began buying them after that telling myself that I had indeed accomplished memorable cakes and now could hang up the apron with a smile. And I never really desired to pick up said apron again...so inside my brain somewhere is a WaaWaaWaaWaa siren sound attempting to remind me how very, very complicated cake making is and this probably shouldn't be attempted at home. Especially with fondant. Even now my brain is screaming "Leave that to the professionals, Honey," (Okay, I added Honey to soften it...my brain never calls me honey.)

Like with her mother before her and her aunt and uncle, I have always melted when presented with a kid dream. I mean, if I don't put some effort into helping them explore, then they don't learn, and if they don't learn, maybe they are missing out on something huge inside of them that the world needs. Or a coping skill that will help them navigate life and all its challenges.  

 Fortunately, I've convinced her that it needs to be real small. Like the top tier (ha, ha I gots the lingo down) could be a cupcake. Praise the Lord she thought that was a good idea. I even found a recipe for DIY fondant made out of marshmallows and powdered sugar. Seriously, marshmallows and powdered sugar....wonder if that's going to be sweet or savory? 

I told her we'd begin this epic project on Saturday. Because the professionals on the show get hours to create and pull off a cake, therefore, we will need days. 

I will be reporting on this adventure...stay tuned. Now to make the shopping list. 

Scribbles and Scrambles - Idea

 Had a brilliant idea and thought I'd share it with you. Yesterday was just beautiful in Iowa. Almost 80. It triggered a hankering for sun tea. You know the slow brewed tea that lounges in the warm afternoon sun? 

I had thrown together a lemon blueberry coffee cake real early on Sunday morning. I used beautiful organic lemons to get the juice I needed, but even with a hand held citrus squeezer there seems to be so much more juice left. I had even zested the lemons. But because I am somewhat crazy, and cheap and just want everything to get it's fair chance to shine I tossed the mostly used lemons into a ziplock for some future use.

While thinking about sun tea, I remember the lemons. So I tossed 4 used lemon halves into a 2 quart pitcher with 5 normal old tea bags and filled it with water and let it sit outdoors for 4 hours. 

How stinking refreshing and delicious. So. If you are a tea drinker and love lemon, save your squeezed lemons and make yourself a treat. 

Scraps and Snippets ~ Spicey Dicey Onion Rings and Frying Pan Factoids

Taking another break from posting puppies. I don't know why anyone would not want to look at the sweet puppies all day long, but I digress. 

A few months ago an author I Linked-In'd with, Nancy Jarvis, contacted me about a cookbook she was putting together. Nancy had the cool idea of gathering recipes from different cozy mystery authors. 

Because Michelle and I have an upcoming release (without a date, or...ummm exact publisher yet, the wheels turn veeerrrry slowly sometimes) she asked if we wanted to submit a few recipes. 

I asked Michelle. What would it hurt? We need a few recipes for the book anyway because Zula is an amazing cook who can whip up some mean dishes. But it turned out the deadline for recipe submission was looming and there was a whole lot of food mentioned in Out of the Frying Pan. I asked Michelle to send me dish names. (Zula names all her signature dishes.) Michelle tossed out the appetizer from a dinner party fail. (Well, the food didn't fail at all, unless you count the uneaten bombe when tension ramped up and sent everyone scurrying after their own agendas instead of toward dessert.) 

The appetizer winner? Spicey Dicey Onion Rings. Yum. And what did Michelle have in mind for this recipe? I asked her. "I don't know. I just liked the way it sounded," was her paraphrased response. "Make something up." So I did. And submitted it. We were able to submit two recipes and do a mini write-up of our character or a scene, etc. 

It was terribly fun. And the onion rings were off the charts. 

Here's the link to the cookbook. 

Here's one of our recipes. The write-up is on the sneak peek. Or it was when I looked. Some of the other recipes in the sneak peek looked pretty fabulous, too. Be sure to check it out.  

Spicey Dicey Onion Rings

1/3 Cup garbanzo bean flour (besan)

1/3 Cup water ( use 1/4 and add a 1/2 TBSP at a time until you get consistency for the batter you want, you may need less)

1/2 TBSP lemon pepper or lemon garlic blend or lemon peel/fried garlic

1/4 teaspoon sea salt (additional for cooked rings if desired)

1 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1 1/2 teaspoon of dried parsley

1/2 TBSP brown or yellow mustard

1/2 TBSP lemon juice

1 1/2 teaspoon of siracha sauce or pepper sauce of choice 

Mix dry ingredients until well mixed, add 1/4 cup of water to the wet ingredients and mix into the dry. Add more water if needed. You don't want watery nor so thick it's gooey. Just dippable. 

Slice a medium onion. 

Heat oil on a stove top or in a deep fryer. When hot add the dipped rings. When the rings are golden either flip if you don't have enough oil to cover the top of the onions or remove and place on paper towels to absorb the grease. Sprinkle with salt if desired. 

Serials and Scenarios ~ Archetype Coffee Reviewed

I love that Omaha is getting more and more trendy and bringing some of the best from other locales into the area. 

The newest coffee shop in town is absolutely a blast from Seattle. Two years after visiting, I still miss the plethora of coffee shop choices and fine brews we got to experience while there. Now, the Omaha metro area is offering quite a few choices, each with it's own unique strengths and personality. 

Archetype Coffee (the link is to their FB page) just opened last week. 

They offer an urban and sleek atmosphere and beans from small coffee roasters. 

The menu is clean and sleek as well, and we enjoyed an excellent pour over. 

Though I didn't try an oat milk latte, that's for next time, I'm excited that they offer different non-dairy milk choices. They didn't have baked goods or treats other than fresh fruit the day we visited, so don't plan on being able to get goodies. Though if you check the Facebook page before going you might get the lowdown. I noticed that they did mention having a bakery that was going to supply something or other. 

If you are in the "Blackstone District" just West of Midtown (40th and Farnam area) and you want a great cup of coffee, give them a try.

I love the little quirky touch of the beaker that holds another 1/3 cup of coffee. And the covered outdoor seating. 

Serials and Scenarios ~ Kitchen Table, Omaha Nebraska Restaurant Review ~

 I've eaten at Omaha's Kitchen Table a handful of times since it opened over a year ago. I have not been disappointed, ever. Twice I've gone to Vegan Omaha meet-ups where the entire restaurant was filled with vegans and the food was amazing... a Mexican themed food night and an Italian food night both with delectable courses with interesting and tasty twists on the classics. 

Twice, I've gone as just a random diner who wanted something delicious for dinner. (:  ) ) The latest visit was this week where I noshed on a three bean roasted red pepper burger with a side of local, fresh asparagus. In a word. Yum. The burger was delicious and the texture was perfect. 

I love the atmosphere of the restaurant, very trendy yet comfortably rustic. The kitchen is open providing the perfect smells and sounds that make the diner feel at home away from home. All guests should be able to find something perfect on the menu as they cater to all sorts of eaters who love local and fresh. 

Everything I've tasted has been very much about the taste and clearly the kitchen team loves food and preparing it for others. Plan on dropping about $15+ a person. Though they do have a happy hour that looks like it could be a bargain.  

Go to the website to see the professional and decent pictures of the joint, details about times, and to drool over the locally sourced gourmet offerings they provide. 

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Ronald's Donuts ~ Las Vegas ~ Review

Doughnuts aren't vegan. Nope, those Krispy Kreme "Hot Now" little suckers just aren't. Two years ago, my daughter & and I went to Seattle and enjoyed Mighty O's and Portland treated us to Voodoo. Since then, nada. Until last week in Vegas. 

One of our traveling companions had checked with Isa and John for the must go places in Vegas. They both said Wynn and Ronald's Donuts. 

Wynn was on our list. We ate there last year and the setting and decor is terrific, and vegan food, amazing. And that was true for this visit, too.

But I digress, we're talking doughnuts, here. So, armed with a google search of Ronald's and a taxi we loaded up and headed out for vegan doughnuts. 

And when the taxi pulled up to a strip mall at the edge of China town, we were a little "hmmm." 

We walked into a 70's dinerish doughnut shop with the classic full glass case of donuts, lots of formica and paneling. A smiling man greeted us. And two gentlemen chatted and noshed doughnuts in one of the booths. We all wondered...the question bubbles were hovering over our heads...hmmm, is this the shop? Did we spell it wrong? 

Lindsey walked toward the counter. "Uhhh, which ones are vegan?" 

Mr. Donut smiled wider. "This rack, this rack and some down here." 

"So all of these are vegan, right here?" Lindsey asked. He smiled and nodded. 

We ordered. Three of us are vegan, two others are not. We each ordered several. (Won't say how many and we did share... even with a lovely British man who was walking down the street with us while we carried our bounty.) Suffice it to say that we ordered on Thursday, used the glass casserole dishes in the condo for freshness sake, and finished them on Sunday. 

Like children in a candy store, we debated, dreamed and ordered. Hopefully we didn't leave behind drool marks. 

Juggling cups of cold, creamy almond milk and our doughnut smorgasbord  we sat down at one of the formica booths. There was a moment of awed silence as each pulled a doughnut out of the boxes and sunk our teeth into them. Oh mercy. Every. One. Of. Them.  Amazing. Sweet, tender, puffy sugar bombs of airy magic. The non-vegans were just as much in love. And I'm pretty sure the regulars who came and went weren't there because the doughnuts aren't made with animal products. 

Nope, they seemed oblivious to the contents, just looking for their sugar fix. We may or may not have ruined our lunches and might have crashed into sugar comas later that day. But. Seriously. If you are vegan, or love delicious doughnuts and find yourself in Vegas. Ronald's Donuts. Nuff said. 

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Learning Slugs

I have a confession to make. I don't have cable which is probably real, real good. Because if I did I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to get anything else done outside of watching shows about food. 

Fortunately, we only have Netflix which is dangerous enough. 

Our usual nightly routine is Rob and I winding down our day watching something together. By watching I sometimes mean bingeing on old series. The more intense the more likely we are to extend beddie-bye time. Our current series is Kitchen Nightmares. Okay, it was. We watched the last episode last week. I can't really recommend it because it's A) offensive. B) nauseating. C) highly dramatic. However, there is a sense of escapism and the whole check-out-that-accident,-don't-look,-don't-look,-whoa!!!! syndrome.  My favorite episode included the owner of a reformed and fixed up restaurant that Gordon Ramsey revisited tricking him with a vegan chicken salad! Yes!

Since we watched our last episode we searched Netflix for more cooking/chef shows. We found one that's a PBS show called The Mind of a Chef Sunday around dinner time while I was continuing to convalesce. (Who slices an eye, has random rounds of gastrointestinal distress, a cough, random headaches, a raging sore throat, and intermittent blasts of fever?) (No change of life jokes allowed!) In The Mind of a Chef a different dish or topic is covered by a chef and a scientist. I got mini lessons on making gnocchi out of ramen noodles and good bacteria in food. Short episodes might be dangerous, easy to justify just one more bite.  

On another note. Since I'm randomly nauseated I have not cooked a blasted thing all week. Seriously. I'm living on dry toast or cereal and tea with a random attempt at something else every once in awhile. And oddly, chocolate soy milk. Good times. At least I washed and folded laundry. Now to put it away.

Scraps and Snippets ~ Cafe Gratitude Kansas City Reviewed

Strangers on a subway pose?
We Iowa and Nebraska vegans certainly enjoyed our trip to Cafe Gratitude.

Love that their dishes ask what we are grateful for and
the water bottles are etched with uplifting words.
What was I grateful for? The delicious vegan food. 

A lemon almond cake that was my least favorite menu item. 

I am Extrordinary

Our big vegan restaurant blast included dinner at Cafe Gratitude. All but one of us had been there before and it's earned a stop every time we even get near Kansas City. 

Favorite items we've found items that we love. Their milkshakes for starters. Named, I am Beautiful, I am Cool and I am Eternally Blessed. Crazy good. A dreamsicle orange, a fresh mint and cocoa nib, and a coffee. 

We shared and were glad the portion sizes left us with room for dessert, however, we would have ordered it anyway. As it was we took portions back to our airbnb. 

A figgy nutty cheesecake. Good. But neither of these desserts
touched the unpictured orange chocolate mousse cake..

The starter potatoes were delicious. Heck, do I need to break it down. They were all delicious. The I am Terrific was probably the least favorite of the group and the I am Sensational was just that. Spaghetti squash, alfredo sauce with nut parm. Amazing. The green salads included on most of the entrees are light and delicious as well. 

The prices for organic and vegan with the care going into the preparation are definitely reasonable. 

I have to give Cafe Gratitude thumbs up and I totally recommend it to anyone looking for fresh and delicious. I also think omnivores should check out how delicious vegan eats can be. I honestly don't think anyone eating there could walk away disappointed. 

I am Terrific

I am Sensational

I am Grounded

So. Smarties being disobedient to the sign.
However, we were obedient to the hugging, smiling and warm fuzzy feeling part.
So much so I was afraid we'd be kicked out! 

Scraps and Snippets ~ Mud Pie Bakery, Kansas City, Reviewed

I love coffee. Since going vegan I've learned to love good coffee black. But when I go somewhere that has non-dairy milks (and an assortment at that) I always go for the unflavored, unsweetened latte. The best of both worlds, rich, creamy coffee deliciousness. Mud Pie Bakery makes a mean cashew milk latte. Mean. As in excellent, should you need clarification. :  ) 

A few friends and I traveled to Kansas City for a vegan food frenzy that lasted just about 24 hours. I had been to Mud Pie on a previous trip and was excited to go back. 

One of the gals got a box of goodies to take home. Two of us ordered a vegan sausage, cheese scone, one got a lemon blueberry muffin and I ordered this lemon baby bundt cake. 

We all shared bites and sips and nearly licked plates. Seriously. Everything was delicious. Tender, tasty, perfectly textured. The lemon blueberry was declared "best muffin ever" and the rest of us had to agree that it was top notch. 

In addition we each ordered a couple extra treats to share when we got home or eat on the car trip. 

I ordered a peanut butter cookie and a 7 layer type bar. They sat in a brown paper sack wrapped in bakery paper for 30 hours. Generally, baked goods treated like that get stale, or certainly lose a large chunk of quality. Right? 

These didn't. They were both delicious. I was a little sad I had to share with Rob. 

Bottom line. If you are going to KC and are vegan or not, give them a shot. Two thumbs up and I'll throw in both big toes, too. 

Scraps and Snippets ~ Fud Kansas City Restaurant Review

 A couple vegan friends joined me for a whirlwind tour of Kansas City area vegan restaurant fun. That's right. We drove three ish hours to eat copious quantities of vegan grub and do a bit of shopping. An overnight stay via Airbnb helped us sleep off Friday night's food coma and prep for the Saturday's eating adventures. 

My first restaurant review is Fud. This was my second visit to Fud. We bought a sundae there a year of so ago and devoured it and felt the need to repeat that yummy experience. We entered the small restaurant with the groovy atmosphere and quickly ordered our treat. 

The Sweet stack is a huge sundae made with cashew based ice cream and covered with all the toppings they have on their menu. The four of us split one delicious sundae and ordered some mac and cheese on the side. 

The mac and cheese was a delicate, subtle bowl of deliciousness. Creamy, comfort food and mildly tangy. 

While enjoying our snack we discovered that Fud offers brunch on Saturday from 11 to 3. We returned and ordered three entrees to split four ways. 

They had a reuben tempeh "corned beef" hash. Purple cabbage and jackfruit provided the corned beef pink, A side of sour kraut added the perfect additional tang, fried potatoes rounded it out and it was truly amazing. 

Blueberry pancakes were our nod to traditional breakfast foods. And we weren't sorry. The others poured maple syrup on theirs but I stuck to the way it was prepared, blueberries, a little powdered sugar and a drizzle of blueberry syrup poured over the stack. The two plate sized pancakes had a hint of savory and we decided there might have been some cornmeal in the recipe. 

The last dish was a tofu open faced sandwich. Two thin slices of tofu, one smoky the other eggy stacked with greens, tomato and a delicious drizzle. The eggy tofu was amazingly eggy. I think it was a sulfurous salt that I'm going to have to add to my pantry. 

If you find yourself in the Kansas City area I definitely recommend Fud. 

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Scenes from the Farm...and Maybe a Few Other Places...