You might think that I can present you a few traditional recipes from Latvia after living several months there. Well, better don’t look for that on my blog. But I wanted to do a bit better with traditional Norwegian dishes, so I was looking for a recipe to veganize. Not that easy. You have to imagine: The cooking books often have the categories fish, meat and desserts. Vegetable dishes? Nope ;) And vegan alternatives like vegan margarine, tofu and stuff like that are not that easy to find in Norway, but I found something: I ended up with a recipe for cardamom buns (Cardamom boller). You can find cardamom in many dishes here anyway… which is not that bad as I like cardamom :)
It’s a while since I heard about Lívance for the first time – to be exact it was when I was in Trondheim and visiting the Trondheim Vegan Fair. When I was in that nice city a girl from the Czech Republic who did her erasmus semester there hosted me. She is a really good cook dreaming every now and then about working in a vegan café. Her cooking skills would definitely allow that.
One dish she made was Lívance. Lívance are Czech pancakes. I usually don’t really like pancakes. And I actually don’t understand why everyone loves pancakes. But Lívance are different, I really liked them! (Actually a pity that I found pancakes I like, not that good for my body shape ;))
But what makes Lívance different from normal pancakes?
Blueberries, blueberries and blueberries again! I love them and at the moment I really eat them a lot. And as I love to bake, I brought you a recipe for blueberry muffins today. I enhanced it with coconut milk and coconut shreds as well as with a pinch of cardamom. Because since I got to know Korvapuusti, I started to love cardamom :)
Did you know that macaroons exist already since the 16. century? And they were already mentioned for the first time in a cook book in 1604!
And I can’t really tell you why, but a few days ago I desperately wanted to eat coconut macaroons. Coconut macaroons belong to the typical German Christmas biscuits. Unfortunately they’re usually made with a lot of eggs. So at first I thought it would be impossible to make a vegan version: But it’s not! Actually it’s very easy, so you should definitely try it!
By the way the word “Macaroon” comes from the greek word Makarios which means something like blessedness. And I felt really blessed when I ate them :)
I like the Italian kitchen! But I guess I’m not the only one =D But really: There are so many delicious italian recipes and moreover a lot of them are vegan or very easy to make in a vegan way. Also this one: Cantuccini! For sure you have already heard of these small biscuits and probably you also tasted them already. This summer I was in Italy and I saw them in every supermarket. Unfortunately always with egg, although there’s absolutely no need for that. But I was happy to eat the Cantuccini a few month later… although it wasn’t in Italy then :)
To increase your general knowledge: Cantuccini are small almond biscuits from the province of Prato (near Florence) in Italy. They are often offered with wine, tea and coffee. The secret of making them is to bake them twice. Once as rolls and later onwards cutted into biscuits.
Ciiiinnamon stars! It wasn’t too easy to find all the ingredients here in Latvia, at least not in the right shape (keyword ground almonds and ground hazelnuts). But I did it! So I could bring a bit more Christmas feeling to Riga and Lithuania. Lithuania because this was the destination for my weekend trip and I decided to bring some cinnamon stars for my couchsurfers there :)
And to be honest I was suprised that nobody in Latvia and Lithuania knows cinnamon stars. And also in bakeries, supermarkets and so on you can’t find them. So I asked Wikipedia which told me: They’re typical German! They come from Swabia, a district in southwestern Germany!
The central market in Riga was sometimes kind of strange: For example just before I left there we’re sooooo cheap avocados and tons of it everywhere. Although it was December and obviousely avocados don’t grow in Latvia. Same with limes. But as I was walking there and seeing all these fruits, I decided to do something with them. And I ended up with creativing a delicious cashew-lime-cake :)
Many people don’t know that Oreos are usually vegan, but yes, they are. (Just be careful about the “fake ones”, they often contain milk!). And knowing this I wanted to bake something with them. Actually I wanted to bake cupcakes, but as making cupcakes just always goes wrong (I definitely have to practise it!), I decided to go for a cake instead.
I made the cake for my flatmates and neighbours when I moved out to study in Latvia and doing that internship in Norway, so I’m always thinking of my flatmates in Germany, when I see the photo of the oreo cake once again :) Greetings to you, if anyone will read that :)