Coming out of hibernation to discuss vegan King Cakes

Well, I started an MFA program last summer (at the wonderful Goddard College) and subsequently abandoned my blog.  But I'm back today, to talk about a very important topic: Vegan King Cakes!  The king cake, as I first discovered while visiting NOLA in 2002 (back when I still lived up north) is a delicious Carnival season dessert.  It's essentially a giant, ring-shaped cinnamon roll covered in  colored sugar.  With a plastic baby in it.  Yum!
When I went vegan, I was very pleased to find that vegan king cakes could be obtained from Whole Foods.  Since then, I've discovered two other places where one can obtain them: The Peacebaker in Metairie, and Truly Free Bakery in Baton Rouge.  So, who has the best vegan king cake?  Here are my reviews:

The best: Whole Foods
Whole Foods king cakes are really close to the real (non-vegan) thing.  Don't believe me?  Once I brought one to a parade with my friend and a bunch of her friends.  Several of her friends, not knowing it was vegan, tried it and commented on what a good king cake it was.  The cakes are generously sized and will serve many people.  The downside of the Whole Foods cake is that it is pricy (this is Whole Paycheck, after all), and you have to call in advance to order one.  As far as I know, they do not make filled vegan king cakes, so you can only get the plain cinnamon flavor.  Also, the frosting tends to get hard quite quickly.  I like to heat up the leftovers in the microwave to soften it again.

Also good: The Peacebaker
The Peacebaker is a new-ish gluten free bakery in Metairie, and most (but not all) of what they make is also vegan.  Their king cakes are the small round type (as opposed to the large oval kind).  They have pretty frosting in the Mardi Gras colors.  This cake was really yummy, and my husband and I devoured it quite quickly.  We agreed, though, that the texture was not very similar to the traditional king cake.  It was more like a muffin or coffee cake.  I imagine this is because it's gluten free.  Like Whole Foods, they don't make them with fillings at this point, but they told me they hope to next year.

Not so great: Truly Free Bakery
It really pains me to write this, because I LOVE Truly Free.  Anton and I enjoy going there for lunch on days when he has doctor appointments.  They have delicious, healthy things to eat and a great kid's menu.  Also the staff is super-friendly.  So when I discovered that they made king cakes, including several with FILLING, I was psyched.  Sadly...this cake was not so good.  I got a blueberry cream cheese filled cake.  The filling was yummy.  The cake?  Not so much.  It was hard as a rock and really, really dense.  I considered my microwave trick to see if it would soften, but I was afraid that would ruin the cream cheese filling. Everything else I've ever had from Truly Free was awesome, so I don't know what went wrong here :(

If there are any other places in NOLA or BR that make vegan king cakes, I'd love to hear about them!  In the meantime, I will fantasize about a Whole Foods cake, with The Peacebaker's frosting and Truly Free's filling.  That would be the ultimate vegan king cake!

Vegan Russian Napoleon Cake

So...don't ask your Russian boyfriend what kind of cake he wants for his birthday. Just make him a chocolate cake or something and be done with it. Otherwise, he might tell you he really wants a "Napoleon Cake" like he used to have as a kid...which can be challenging if you've never eaten such a thing and it sounds pretty tough to veganize.

But, love makes us do crazy things, so today I made a vegan Napoleon cake.

Internet research informed me that the Napoleon cake basically consists of layers of puff pastry and cream filling. Further internet research informed me that Pepperidge Farm's frozen puff pastry is one of those accidentally vegan (but nowhere near accidentally healthy) junk foods. Like Oreos! So I ventured away from my safe and familiar Whole Foods, and went to a Normal Grocery Store (eek!) to purchase the puff pastry.

The cream filling was more of a challenge. The boyfriend described it as being similar to the filling in an eclair. I ended up making this recipe for coconut milk whipped cream, and also a package of vegan vanilla pudding (made with soy milk), and mixed the two together in my stand mixer. I thought it could be a bit sweeter, so I added some powdered sugar. The resulting cream was OMGyum.

Then all I needed to do was assemble it. The top has crumbs of puff pastry on it. This crappy cell phone pic (sorry, real camera's battery died) actually depicts an additional mini cake I made, because I had extra pastry and cream. I suppose I could have trimmed the edges to make them neater, but I'd rather have more cake than prettier cake.



I will report on the Russian's reaction later :)