Vegan with a Vengeance

baking powder
    Â½ teaspoon salt
    Â½ cup slivered almonds
    FOR ORANGE RUM SYRUP:
    â…“ cup freshly squeezed orange juice
    2 tablespoons sugar
    2 tablespoons rum
    Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray your cake pan with nonstick cooking spray or lightly grease with oil.
    In a large bowl, mix together the soy yogurt, oil, and sugar. Add the soy milk, orange juice, orange zest, and vanilla. Mix well to combine.
    I like to sift the dry ingredients directly into the wet at this point, but you can also use a separate bowl to sift together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt, and then add that to the wet mixture, and mix to combine.
    Transfer the batter to the prepared baking pan and bake until golden, when a toothpick or knife inserted in center comes out clean, about 35 minutes.

    Remove from oven and let cool 10 minutes or until you can handle the pan and remove the cake; let it cool upside down or on a cooling rack. At this point you should prepare the syrup.
    In a small saucepan, bring the orange juice and sugar to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring constantly until the sugar is dissolved. Lower the heat to a simmer, add the rum, and simmer for 2 more minutes. Remove from heat and let cool completely.
    When the cake has cooled completely, place on a serving plate and arrange the slivered almonds on top. Pour the cooled orange syrup over the top; let sit for a couple of minutes to absorb the syrup. Serve.

Chocolate-Rum Pudding Cake
    SERVES 8-10
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    I found a recipe like this in a cookbook for one-bowl desserts and decided to veganize it. The rum flavor isn’t overpowering at all, it just adds a little hint of sumthin’ sumthin’. You can serve it warm with the pudding layer oozing all over the place, or serve it chilled with the pudding layer nice and thick on the top. It’s a quick recipe that will make people think it took more work than it really did. If you are a pathological liar, just go ahead and let them think that.
    1 cup all-purpose flour
    2 teaspoons baking powder
    Â½ teaspoon baking soda
    Â¼ teaspoon salt
    1 cup sugar
    Â½ cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
    Â½ cup plain soy milk
    Â¼ cup canola oil
    1 teaspoon vanilla extract
    1 teaspoon rum extract (or just use 1 more teaspoon vanilla if you don’t have rum extract)
    Â½ cup pure maple syrup
    Â¼ cup light rum
    Â½ cup boiling water
    Boil some water in a teakettle, preheat oven to 350°F, and grease a 9-inch round springform cake pan.
    Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ¾ cup of the sugar, and ¼ cup of the cocoa powder. Add the soy milk, oil, and extracts, and mix into a thick batter. Spread the batter in the prepared cake pan. Sprinkle the top with the remaining cocoa powder and sugar. Pour ½ cup of boiling water into a glass measuring cup, add the maple syrup and rum to the water, and pour this mixture on top of the cake batter.
    Place the cake on a cookie sheet in case of pudding overflow and bake for 30 to 35 minutes. Let cool just a bit; while it’s still warm, place the cake on a large plate and release the sides (your plate should have a slight rim to prevent spillage). Throw on a scoop of vanilla soy ice cream if you like and you’ve got yourself one impressive dessert.

    Let You Eat Cake
    I’m a chubby girl. I say it proudly and with no bad feelings. I’m happy with my body (except for those days when I hate it) but sometimes my weight pushes past my comfort zone (writing cookbooks doesn’t help this) and I need to lose a few pounds. Losing weight doesn’t mean I have to stop eating cookies and cupcakes, it just means I have to change how I prepare them and then somehow get myself to consume only one. So if you, too, occasionally bust out of your bullet belt, here are some tips for healthier baking.
    Making your baked foods low fat is really super-duper easy. I’m almost ashamed to write about it because it’s such a gimme. There are two fat substitutes that I use: pureed prunes or applesauce. The great thing about these fat replacers is that they also work as binding agents (meaning they help hold the cake together), so it’s a win-win situation. Generally, I use the prunes in chocolate things and the applesauce in anything that isn’t chocolate. The applesauce doesn’t usually leave any sort of a taste but the prunes give a somewhat “healthy” (for lack of a better word) taste to things, but it adds a nice