In My Kitchen: May 2026

How can it be June already!  This year is speeding towards the winter solstice and beyond.  In my kitchen we have mostly been revisiting old recipes with a few new ones.  There have been lots of noodles, tempeh, greens and apples.  Above is a photo of a favourite recipe for Mee goreng that I tried with tempeh instead of tofu and it was so so good.  We've had lots of interesting food from supermarkets and the farmers market, with a few fancy morsels from Smith and Deli and Tofu Shoten.  

Life has been ridiculous as usual.  I lost my car key only to find it days later in my bed under the covers.  I subscribed to the Age years ago for local news but that has got so hard to find among the click bait that I have finally cancelled it.  I bought an insert for our air fryer that looked small but like so many other purchases, once inside our small house it looked much bigger and would not fit.  I had hoped that logging my account would have given proof of purchase, in lieu of a receipt, but I found out after a long queue that it did not.  

This is how I have been frying the tempeh in thin triangles so it gets crispy.  It was really good in Mee gorang and Laksa.  As you can see our egg flip had tired of overwork on the cast iron frypan and collapsed.  Or maybe it had too many falls on the ground.  

I also tried frying diced tempeh with tofu bacon marinade.  It tasted great but did not get crisp in the way that tofu does.  I will try it with bigger slices next time.  However the diced tempeh bacon was excellent on top of the cheese on a veg pizza.

I revisited this Pumpkin Laksa with both fried tofu and tempeh.  Sylvia did not fancy that pumpkin chunks so I pureed the pumpkin and added to the broth.  I used a vegan laska curry paste to save time making spice mix (though I still added onion and garlic) but it still took a while.  I also used broccolini instead of asparagus.  We were impressed at how good it looked when served with been sprouts, spring onions, a wedge of lime (off our tree) and Vietnamese basil.

When we had unused cabbage, I decided to look at a different sort of minestrone than our usual one.    The paler Minestrone with Cabbage and White Beans was a great change.  It was also a great  opportunity to use leek from the farmers market.  I changed this recipe to have more pasta, 2 tins cannellini beans, no walnut parmesan, added a finely chopped half a cauliflower, finely chopped herbs and garlic.  

The following night when we had leftovers I made Gaarlic pizza with our regular Fast track sourdough pizza base.   I sprayed it with olive oil, spread some garlic paste, sprinkled it with Italian herbs, garlic granules , flaked salt and black pepper.  Then I grated cheddar cheese over it. This made an excellent accompaniment to the soup.

There was half a cauliflower to use.  I had bought it because it was in season and it felt like we had not had much lately.  This half was fried in the air fryer with just a spray of olive oil and some seasoning.  It took about 18 minutes at 200 C.  I was inspired by the Tinned Tomatoes blog's Air Fryer Cheesy Cauliflower Steaks.  Ours were used in a bowl of vegies and beans with the below Mexican spiced rice. 

I have made the Mexican spiced rice from PlantYou quite a bit but this was my worst one.  It was soggy and I am unsure if it was due to getting the cooking time wrong (15 not 10 minutes) or if I put too much water in or both!  Sylvia thought it great.  I had thought I had found a good recipe for Mexican spiced rice and hope this is a blip.  In the past spice rice has always burnt so I liked this with more water than the recipe said.  I will need to try again.

This is a humble but delicious salad sandwich made with a potato sourdough bread from the supermarket.  Inside is cheese, mayo, grated carrot, sliced purple cabbage, rocket and mayo.

We walked most of the way to Tofu Shoten in Brunswick where they make fresh tofu.  Sylvia was excited to have the banana bread milkshake with fresh soy milk.  We tried the tofu balls which were nice by themselves but fairly plain and probably better in soup as recommended.  Best of all was the smoked tofu.  It was a lot softer than most tofu I cook with.  This was a challenge.  I wanted to feature it's fresh smoky flavours.  I found a fairly simple crispy breaded tofu nuggets recipe that was an excellent way to eat it.  I needed about 2 tbsp more of the milk.  It was much quicker than my usual tofu nuggets.  Next time I need to plan a recipe to add in the tofu nuggets.

We had another go at making a spanikopita.  This one was bigger and better. I used a bunch of spinach and a bunch of curly kale so it was packed with greens.  It never ceases to amaze me at how little greens are left after cooking. Next time I will also add some fresh dill.  

Here is my final spanikopita.  We made a lot of changes to the previous spanikopita attempt.  As well as lots of greens, we used tofutti cream cheese (which seems to have made a resurgence in the shops) and the rest of the almond feta from the Damona factory.  It was probably double the size of the last one and I had worked out that I needed to bake the scroll in a round dish to keep its shape.  I liked the Damona feta more than Sylvia.  She is keen to try one with homemade feta so that is the next step in the challenge.

We were at KFL for sticky rice.  Sylvia has enjoyed it in the microwave pouches from the supermarket but it is neither the cheapest or most eco-friendly way to buy it.  So we headed to the KLF Asian supermarket.  While there we also bought Lychee and passionfruit Lady boba bubble tea (enjoyed), Vincent vegetarian food's vegan super vegie balls (still in our freezer), Surasang Japchae Gyoza (oops found they had shrimp paste in them and gave the rest away), Passionfruit popping boba and Pandan Chendol (these two were for a sticky rice dessert that is yet to be).  

We have only made the sticky rice once which involved soaking the rice overnight and then steaming in a steamer basket lined with cheesecloth.  I want to try this 16 minute method for cooking sticky rice in the microwave.

I ended up in Thornbury High Street after an appointment and visited Naturally on High.  I love a fancy health food store.  I got tempeh for Mee Goreng, a packet of Keogh's Guinness Irish potato crisps and Stroopwafels.  After the gyoza vegan fail I suddenly remembered that Guinness had once been not suitable for vegans but was relieved to find online that it is now suitable.  Which was just as well because the chips were really tasty and moreish.  They reminded me a bit of Marmite crisps (if I can say that without offending Guinness and Marmite fans!).  The stroopwafels were to share with Sylvia but I forgot to to check these and found they were not vegan.  So I had to eat them all by myself.  A delicious mistake!

 
I brought home this Snickers doughnut from Smith and Deli in Collingwood.  I was too ful after half a sandwich to eat it there.  I had expected a lots of gooey chocolate on top as well as caramel and peanuts.  In fact it was more like a chewy chocolate caramel fudge topping scattered generously with chopped peanuts and drizzled with a peanut sauce.  Although not as expected, it was excellent.  I loved the fudgy topping that was a lovely contrast to the soft doughnut.

We love our kombuchas and have enjoyed some of the Remedy Small Batch series.  Sylvia really loved the Lychee and Strawberry flavour and I really loved the pomegranate and cherry.  I also really enjoyed the Twinings Sparkling Tea with Raspberry Lemonade and White Tea.  It was fizzy and had a nice light fruity flavour.  However, I don't think it would replace my love of kombucha.

Carmen's protein pistachio delight - on special and nowhere to be seen the next week - sylvia annoyed that she gets drawn in by pistachios but then finds it has peanuts

These Zucchini, Pea and Danish Fetta Fritters were just for me as they were Vegetarian but not vegan.  I cooked them in the airfryer and they were beautifully crisp and light.  I ate them with hummus, red pepper, cherry tomatoes, baby spinach and our favourite Turkish bread from the Melbourne Kebab Station.

On Mothers Day, Sylvia kindly went out and to buy us doughnuts fromAll Day Doughnuts while I was out at a talk.  She chose Choc fudge, Coconut lime and Orange and rhubarb fritter.  (Yes, they had been sampled by the time I took a photo.)  Also in the photos are some presents from op shops including a replacement copy of a favourite book from Sylvia's childhood that we can't find.

Here are a few more supermarket purchases.  We were amused by the message on the vegan Oatly cream packet that we bought for leek and potato soup.  The dill was for the soup.  Sylvia wanted to try the Health Lab Mylk chocolate juicy cherry bars.  She liked them but I found they has an odd taste of added flavours.  I think they are like a healthy version of the less healthy Cherry Ripe chocolate bars, which I must prefer.

I took this photo of some of the stuff hanging around our kitchen.  We had bought a variety of apple s from the Coburg Farmers Market.  (I still miss the Three Bridges apples we used to buy there.)  They were great with muesli.  The limes in the cup are from our tree and were mostly used in limeade.  Not as many as we have had from our tree in the past but better after the trees have been battling citrus lime miner and gall wasp.  I only got one lemon from our other citrus tree this year.  Slim pickings.

Also in the photo  is a vase that Sylvia found in an op shop, a smart little tartan case where I keep my phone's headphones, a sparkly bracelet that Sylvia put back together with gorilla glue, some chimes that make music in the a garden, birthday cake candles that I washed individually after the ants got them, sweet little glass covered stand, and our score for a Scrabble game (Sylvia won)!

We had another visit to Coburg Farmers Market when we met a friend.  Our haul included the bread, tomatoes, leek, kale, eggplant, babaganoush, sauerkraut and pickled grapes.  On the way home we dropped into Terre Madre for a large bag of wholemeal flour and also purchased kombucha, Damona cheese and Love Love's Pistachio mylk praline and Double chocolate truffle.  All good stuff!

It was a long queue to buy Psomi bread but well worth it.  This former Australian masterchef contestant makes amazing bread.  The previous week, we had queued only to find that they only had their regular Farmers Bread.  So I got there earlier and hoped I could try the Black sesame porridge bread.  It was sold out again but we bought some wonderful olive bread.  Just look at that open crumb and shiny crust.

Even more amazing was the Mulled Wine Pickled Grapes from Acide.  It is not a stall we usually go to but Jo stopped to taste some of the wares.  We did too.  And walked away with a couple of jars.  The sauerkraut was great but these pickled grapes were amazing.  I've never seen any like it before.  The grapes are pickled in vinegar, sugar, star anise, mandarin peel, clove and cinnamon.  Slightly sweet with a bit of acid and lots of warm spices, they are begging to be on a fancy cheese board.

In case you are wondering about how we ate them, the olive bread and the mulled wine pickled grapes were wonderful on a grazing platter of red capsicum, cheddar cheese, fried eggplant, sauerkraut, cherry tomatoes and baby spinach.  Such a good dinner!

I am sending this post to Sherry of Sherry's Pickings for the In My Kitchen event. If you would like to join in, send your post to Sherry by 13th of the month.  Or just head over to her blog to visit more kitchens and her delightful seasonal hand drawn header.  Thanks to Sherry for continuing to host this even that brings together some wonderful bloggers who share glimpses into their kitchens.  

Coconut and chocolate layer cake -- for blog anniversary (and cake picnic)

When we were planning to go to the cake picnic, I panicked about my cake needing to be a layer cake to fulfill the requirement that it was at least 7cm high.  I am not one for lots of frosting and my experiences with layer cakes have had not always been the most stable creations.  Today marks my 19th blog anniversary and each year I celebrate by sharing a fancy cake.  So today I bring you the story of baking a coconut and chocolate layer cake for the Melbourne Cake Picnic.

The Cake Picnic was a huge and daunting experience.  I don't have many layer cakes in my repertoire and don't feel comfortable making them..  I also wanted some decoration, but this is as challenging for me as creating layer cakes.  To add more complications, my daughter Sylvia, who had also booked to take a cake to the Cake Picnic, was in hospital on a drip for acute tonsillitis two days before the picnic.  I had also agreed to take a vegan cake in solidarity with Sylvia has become vegan at the start of the year.

The practice cake

When I looked at previous of my cake recipes that I have loved, not many are layer cakes.  After considering a number of previous looked at quite a few possible cakes but ended up with one that I loved.  Like most of my cakes, it did not meet the minimum 7cm high required for entry to the Cake Picnic.  It had been previously shared with friends who were impressed.  This time it had to be a layer cake!  Gulp!

One of the best parts of my chosen Coconut and chocolate chunk cake was that it was not over sweet, it had bits in it and had a simple but wonderful roasted coconut and melty chocolate topping with a light drizzle of icing.  Plus it was vegan!  These were not the ingredients for a fancy Cake Picnic layer cake.  

I made a practice cake the weekend before the cake picnic.  It looked impressive without the icing but a complete mess once the icing was added.  

The beautiful and unusual topping is one of my favourite parts of the recipe but sadly did not make it into the final layer cake.  I have thought about whether it was a mistake to lose it and am still not sure.  When I made my practice cake, the roasted coconut seemed difficult to slice through cleanly.  It was not the only problem.  The drizzle split and looked like curdled milk.  The buttercream frosting was soft and oozy.    In retrospect I also blame my impatience.  We cooled the cakes just long enough to layer and ice them and then sampled the result.

 A layer cake is not made to be eaten fresh, which is how we sampled it.  A layer cake should have time to compose itself, to cool before being iced and then to allow the icing (or frosting) to firm up before it is presented and sliced as a showstopper!  I am not a showstopper sort of person!  Perhaps this is why I love cakes less than 7cm high that can be sliced up warm from the oven without the collapsing mess of a fresh layer cake.

Another reason I don't make layer cakes often is that they are made to be shared at an event.   I was fine to take a large cake to a cake picnic but found it challenging to make a large cake at home for practice.  It felt wasteful and greedy.  And because it collapsed, it did not look great for slicing or storing.  I ended up having some at home for us and Sylvia shared some with E.  Most of it I packed into a large box and took into work including a lot of crumbs.  My colleagues were very grateful and ate most of it over a week.  I came back at the end of that week to find a couple fo  crumbly slices left in the cake box that some kind soul had put in the fridge.  It still tasted wonderful.  Yes, I finished it off!

Considering how to refine the recipe 

I was so unhappy about the presentation of my cake that I considered making something else.  However firstly it tasted amazing, and secondly I didn't have time or the stomach for another practice.  Instead of finding another recipe, I spent a lot of time thinking how to improve this one.  How to make it slice neatly.  How to make stable frosting!  How to make the frosting less tooth-achingly sweet!  How to decorate it!

One of the issues I found really difficult was how soft the frosting was.  Vegan butter (I used Nuttalex) is softer than dairy.  I needed some ballast so the frosting would hold up the top layer.  I read online and found useful advice at Life, Love and Sugar.  She has some great tutorials on frosting cakes and recommended using vegetable shortening.  Can't stop 

Cakers Paradise had a good post on How to use Vegetable Shortening with an Australia perspective.  They describe the buttercream with shortening as more stable and less likely to slide off the cake.  That really appealed to me as a baker who has had the top slide off layer cakes in the past!  It was in this article that I found that Solite is the Australian version of Crisco in America.  Can't stop Baking also has useful advice on shortening in Australia and describes it as giving the icing a velvety soft 

I searched online to find where to buy Solite locally.  It is available at cake stores (not supermarkets) but often in bulk.  I found a 500g tub for $7.95 at My Dream Cake Decorating Supplier SuperStore in Sunshine.  I only used 95g but it is shelf stable and I am told it can be used in pastry and cake recipes.  I was also pleased to get cake boards and cake boxes fairly cheaply there.  It is the first time I have ever used a cake box and it is so long since I bought cake boards that I can't remember where it was.  They were really useful for the cake picnic so this shopping trip reduced my stress levels.

One of the attractions of the coconut and chocolate topping was that it meant very little need for fancy decoration.  However when it did not quite work I had to think more about decoration.  This is not my forte.  The cake has some orange zest in it so I decided to use some dried orange slices.  (Ironically I never used enough orange to add much to the flavour.)

I was gobsmacked that Woolworths supermarket sold a large 125g jar of dried orange slices for $24.  I looked elsewhere.  Our local Al Alamy Middle Eastern grocer had a 150g tub of dried orange slices for about $5-8.  I can't remember the exact price but I do remember laughing with the guy who sold it to me about how ridiculously expensive they were in Woollies.  Like the Solite I have not used the rest of them since despite good intentions! 

Baking the second and final cake

I had planned to make cakes on Friday, the day before the cake picnic.  Sylvia would make her own.  Our plans were thrown out after we unexpectedly spent hours on the Thursday afternoon prior as she was hooked up to a drip in the Emergency Department for acute tonsillitis.  The doctor cleared her to go out on Saturday but her energy levels were still low.  So I baked the four cakes for our two layer cakes on Friday but Sylvia helped with decoration.  That's her thing!

I adjusted the recipe slightly to use desiccated coconut instead of the larger shreds and I cut the chocolate chunks a tad smaller.  I am not sure it made  a huge difference to slicing but I missed the larger bits.  Maybe I would not do that next time.  You can see in the picture above just how much chocolate is added to the cake.  I think this is one of the reasons I love it so much.  It is so satisfying to bite into a chunk of dark chocolate that counters the sweetness of the cake batter.

I really love cakes fresh out of the oven.  This is not why I kept a small amount of the mixture aside to bake a mini cake.  It was my worries about the texture and flavour not being quite right.  I hate taking a cake to a gathering that I have not had a chance to test taste.  It makes me nervous.  Having a taste of this cake prior to the picnic reassured me.

Frosting the cake

The icing that I made was excellent.  I decided to add some cocoa and salt after the practice icing was far too sweet, especially for a cake that was not overly sweet.  This worked well to give it flavour rather than just sweetness.  I also was pleased that the frosting recipe at Life, Love and Sugar directed to just add the icing sugar in two lots.  Other recipes have said to add the icing gradually in a constant cloud of sweet dust because I have been told that too much will crush out the air that was beaten into the butter.

Just look at how that icing holds its shape!  I piped the icing onto the bottom cake in (wonky) circles so that I could spread it out evenly.  (I also trimmed the top of this cake to make sure that the top cake sat neatly on the bottom.)  We have a cake decorating turntable (that gets very little use) that helped with even piping around the cake.  One of us would pipe and the other would gradually rotate the cake.

My decorations and Sylvia's matcha layer cake

When it comes to cake decorating ideas, I go blank.  Just like I have the best ideas about what to say when it is too late, I also get much better ideas after I finish decorating a cake.  I wish we hadn't been so unexpectedly busy in the run up to the cake picnic so I had time to practice the decoration.  If I had my time over, I would do this differently.  I would focus more on chocolate and coconut but this wasn't too bad for a time-stretched amateur such as me.  

The halves of dried orange slices sat in blob of frosting.  I finely chopped dark chocolate for the centre.  In mind I had planned gorgeous chocolate curls but did not have the energy or time.  Sylvia used a fine pair of tweezers to arrange the gold stars on the spaces and I sprayed some gold dust over it. 

 

Sylvia is very creative when it comes to decoration.  After I baked her Matcha layer cake we were disappointed that the matcha was too old to make it a lovely green like the first version of this cake about a year ago.  You can see the cake turntable in the top left of the above photo collage.  (I had suggested she make a practice cake but she told me she did not need to!)  Top right is her jam dam!  I don't know how she knew to make the dam for the apricot jam as we have never done it before but she did it with style.  After the first layer she added some matcha to the frosting which made it a lovely pale green.

On top of the cake, she had a lake of apricot jam surrounded by swirly icing (bottom left photo above).  She then added halved dried orange slices, gold sprinkles, gold spray and arranged gold stars one by one.  I was in admiration of her patience.  If we had thought of it earlier, all the frosting would have been green but she added gold stars to the edge of the middle layer of frosting to mirror the gold on top.  Above in the bottom right photo you can see the final version that was finished at 11.30pm on the Friday!

The Cake Picnic 

We stored our cakes in cake boxes in the fridge overnight and took them along to the cake picnic the next day.  Here is my cake in the marque with other cakes in the background.  I felt good about my offering even if it wasn't as jaw dropping as some of the cakes.  At the end about three quarters of my cake was eaten and I took the rest home to store in the freezer (it was too messy to share).  Occasionally I have a chunk.  A lot of it is still frozen waiting for a moment that demands cake!

You can read more on my blog about my experience at the Melbourne Cake Picnic 2026.

Here is a slice of my cake on my messy platter of cake picnic slices.  In the rush to select the best of the 1600 cakes at the cake picnic we were guided by our eyes rather than flavour.  While my cake was not the prettiest, it was one of my favourite cakes there.  It is great to try other people's cakes but I know what I like and baked for my preferences!  

Reflections on 19 years of blogging and how it helped make this cake 

As it is the 19th anniversary of my blog, I will close with reflections about how much I have learnt from the blog.  It is one thing to bake a lot.  It is another to constantly be photographing, recording and reflecting on recipes, and to have all this to look back over when I want to bake a cake or cook a meal.  Without my index of all that I have made, choosing this cake would have been far harder.  It was stressful making it but so much less than it would be without my blog as an important aid in baking, and learning about developing recipes.  Crucial to this is the support and inspiration of the online community.  

I have learnt so much and made such amazing creations over the 19 years since I thought I might like to start a blog.  At the start I didn't know what I was doing.  It was sometimes a bit of a car crash.  (It sometimes still is!)  Who could have known how much it would have nourished my love of food, photography and writing; fed my curiosity; and more than satisfied my desire for an amzing meal.  Today as I look back over those years, it has made my life a lot richer and exciting.  I thank you,  dear readers, for joining me along the journey!

More layer cakes on Green Gourmet Giraffe:

• Butterscotch layer cake 
• Carrot cake (with cream cheese frosting and fondant carrots)   
• Floating Malteser cake with fudgy buttercream frosting 
• Ginger Fluff Sponge (gf) 
• Matcha layer cake with strawberry and cream 
• Vegan chocolate (layer) cake (v)   
• Vegan Victoria sponge cake (v)
• Zucchini layer cake with cream cheese frosting (gf, v) 

Coconut and chocolate layer cake
Adapted from Green Gourmet Giraffe 

Dry ingredients:
2 cups white flour
1/2 cup wholemeal flour
2 cups shredded or desiccated coconut
1 1/2 cups raw sugar 
1 tbsp baking powder
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tsp salt

Wet ingredients:
240g vegan butter, melted
2 cup coconut milk
1 cup applesauce
1 tbsp grated orange zest
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 teaspoon vanilla extract 

300g dark chocolate, chopped into small chunks

Vegan Chocolate Buttercream Icing (see below recipe) 
Additional decorations such as chocolate flakes, coconut flakes, oranges and stars as desired. 

Baking the cake 

Preheat oven to 180 C and grease and line 2 x 20cm round cake tins.

Mix dry ingredients in a mixing bowl.  Mix wet ingredients in a small mixing bowl or large jug.  Pour the wet into the dry and mix until just combined.  Mix in the 300g dark chocolate chunks.

Scrape mixture into prepared cake tins.  To get even cakes, weigh the mixture (mine was about 11000g for each cake.)

Bake for about 40-45 minutes (or 60 minutes if your oven is a bit slow like mine).  Test the cakes with a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean (try to avoid the melted chocolate if possible but even if you don't you should see if the mixture clings to the skewer).  if cakes are getting too dark before it is cooked, cover with some foil.   Cool baked cakes in the tin for at least 15 minutes and then turn out onto a wire rack to cool.

Frosting and assembling the cake 

I left my cakes to cool for 4-5 hours but overnight is fine.  Before frosting, check if cakes are level for layering by sitting them atop each other without frosting.  Now trim top of one cake to make sure it is flat enough tso the second cake sits neatly on top..  I did not trim the top cake.  

Place the bottom cake onto a cake board (or plate).  Pipe the icing in an even swirl onto the cake using a thick nozzle.  Use a spatula to spread the icing neatly and place the second cake on top gently.  Spread icing on top of the second cake.  At this stage you can finish or you can decorate the cake.  

I piped blobs of frosting around the edge and press half rounds of dried oranges into these and put thinly sliced flakes of chocolate in the middle and use a pair of tweezers to place gold stars onto the icing.  If I did it again I would like wedges or lines of alternating chocolate and coconut with lines of frosting between to make it look neater.  There are so many options.

NOTES:

If you look at the recipe I used as a base, you can see it has chocolate and coconut baked on top, which I really liked but did not do this here due to concerns about neat slicing.

Icing sugar and icing are Australian terms - Americans will be more familiar with powdered sugar and frosting! 

I have not specified an amount of buttercream because it depends how much decoration you want to do.  I prefer minimal icing and used much less than half the recipe below but it keeps in the fridge for ages. 

I used Whittakers Dark Ghana chocolate which is vegan.  I worked out that 50g of their chocolate is about 9 squares of chocolate.  When I chopped the chocolate into chunks my notes say that I chopped each square into about 3-4 pieces.

Vegan Chocolate Buttercream Icing (Frosting)
Adapted from Life, Love and Sugar

115g vegan butter
95 g shortening
460g icing sugar
15g cocoa
2 tbsp coconut cream (or milk)
1 tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp salt

Beat butter and shortening together until soft and creamy.  Beat in half icing sugar until well mixed and repeat with second half of icing sugar and cocoa.  Beat in coconut cream, vanilla and salt.  (If needed you can adjust thickness as desired by either adding more liquid to make it softer or more icing sugar to make it thicker.)  Use straightaway or store in the fridge if not using that day and bring it back to room temperature just before you are ready to use it.  Leftovers can be stored in the fridge or freezer.

On the stereo:
Forever is a feeling: the Archives - Lucy Dacus

Vegan Hot Cross Buns: Matcha, white chocolate and coconut

Yesterday I made made my usual traditional hot cross buns and also experimented with vegan matcha hot cross buns.  I learnt not to use old matcha and if you want to add white chocolate it has to be decent chunks, not chopped thin melts.  Despite these glitches, the HCBs turned out rather well.  They were soft with a matcha aroma - that I recently saw described as "turf" - and the chunky crosses that we love.

You can see in the below photo collage of the steps in making the hot cross buns that the dough was a green that gave me hope of some colour but in the above photo you can see by the time it baked it was a dark green.  

You can also see in the above picture that this is not a simple recipe.  I put the dough together the night before, in the morning I chop the dough into pieces that I roll into balls, set aside to rise, pipe the crosses before they go into the oven and glaze them when they come out piping hot.  It is worth the work but it is enough to just bake one or two batches each Easter.  

I have a tradition of spending Good Friday baking hot cross buns.  Coming from a Catholic family, it is a quiet day for me of withdrawing from the world.  Despite no longer being a practicing Catholic, I still consider it one of the holiest days on the calendar where sorry and hope co-exist.  A big baking project is the perfect way to slow down life.  

I made the matcha hot cross bun batch for Sylvia who had requested this flavour combination.  (The coconut was interesting but quite subtle).  My favourite hot cross buns are the traditional ones with dried fruit, but I like to use cranberries and dried stone fruit.  So I also made a batch of those ones yesterday.  I have had so many sweet treats lately (hello Cake Picnic) that I have held off on the HCBs and only had one before Good Friday.  
 

It was so good to have hot cross buns hot out of the oven yesterday.  I was reading an article on the best way to eat hot cross buns and was surprised that the options were unheated, toasted or microwaved, with unheated being seen as the worst way.  I don't like the crisp charred edges of toasted hot cross buns not the drying effect of the microwave.  

In my family we always had hot cross buns heated in the oven and I still prefer this.  The smell of spiced warm buns is amazing!  My mum now used the air fryer.  The very best way to eat a hot cross bun is when it is warm and just baked.  This is one of the best reasons to bake your own.  It is the best!

There is a lot of waiting around while baking hot cross buns.  Some of it is useful for cleaning up the kitchen but I spent some of it going down some online rabbit holes about Easter.  It was a nice change from all the depressing news.

Here are a few highlights of my reading.  (I have shared some links to Easter stories below):

• Discovering Norway's obsession with crime fiction at Easter (Påskekrim) that has led to "grisly decorations like chalk body drawings on pavements and cute baby chicks holding bloody knives",
• Reading an Australian ex-pat in the America scratching her head about the holiday-loving USA's lack of enthusiasm for Easter, 
• Laughing at humour about outrageous hot cross buns flavours including mugshot photos of said buns, and 
• Hearing the animal rights activists' ethical alternative to rolling your Easter egg down a hill at the annual Preston event in the UK.
• Delighting in a New Zealand article that muses on the perpetual tension down under of celebrating a spring festival in the midst of autumn and suggests the feijoa is a suitable seasonal food for "a holiday in search of a culinary tradition".

It was also great fun to read some novelty hot cross bun flavours such as fairy bread, rhubarb and custard, tiramisu, and iced vovos.  I was glad to be part of the hot cross bun craziness this year!  Maybe next year I will try making these hot cross buns again but with fresh matcha!

Fun Easter links:

The Easter crime wave sweeping Norway in BBC, 30 March 2026.

Why Easter in America is my first expat culture shock in Australian Financial Review, 2 April 2026

Albanese To Address Nation About Alarming New ‘Doritos Cheesy Jalapeño Hot Cross Buns’ (spoof), in The Shovel, 2 April 2026 

Rat race: inside Sydney’s Royal Easter Show rodent judging – where the winners are decided by a whisker,  in the Guardian, 3 April 2026

Easter has a soundtrack just like Christmas, so why do we never hear it? in The Conversation, 2 April 2026.

Hot Cross Crimes: The Supermarket Easter Buns No One Asked For, in Broadsheet, 26 March 2026.

Easter egg rollers should use potatoes, Peta says, BBC, 31 March 2026.

Why the feijoa is the true taste of Easter in New Zealand, The Spin Off, 3 April 2026.

More vegan sweet yeasted bakes on Green Gourmet Giraffe:

Doughnuts - baked, vegan, overnight, sourdough (v)  
Hot Cross Buns - wholemeal and yeasted (v)
Overnight sourdough cranberry nut rolls (v)
Overnight Sourdough Hot Cross Buns (no knead) (v)  
Rhubarb and raspberry no knead focaccia (v)

Overnight sourdough hot cross buns
An original Green Gourmet Giraffe recipe
Makes 6-8

125g ripe starter (100% hydration)
50g vegan margarine, room temperature 
1/2 cup mashed banana (about 1 and a half bananas)
3/8 cup soy milk, room temperature
1/4 cup aquafaba
3 1/2 tbsp matcha powder
60g vegan white chocolate chopped (more?)
40g desiccated coconut
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp mixed spice
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1//2 tsp dried ginger
225g white bread flour

Crosses:
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup flour (or a little more)

Glaze:
2 tsp water
1 tbsp caster sugar
good shake of mixed spice 

Measure out the starter (mine is best when it is rising and had lots of little bubbles and smells lovely and is still a bit thick in texture) and stir in the margarine, then add banana and soy milk.  (It is ideal the mixture is room temperature.)

Add remaining ingredients and stir well.  Leave for 30 minutes.  Knead in the bowl for 15 seconds.  It will be very soft still but you should be able to knead it and wipe most of the mixture off your hands.  Cover well with clingwrap or beeswax and leave overnight - about 8-10 hours until well risen.

When dough is risen, scrape out onto a well floured surface.  Cut into 6-8 pieces (depending on the size of your tin - I had 6 largish buns in a medium rectangular baking tin.).  I use a metal pastry cutter (dipped in flour for each cut) but a large sharp knife will do.  

Gently roll each piece into a ball.  Do this by putting the corners as tightly as possible around the bun (without squishing the bun) so the floured bottom of the bun is like a little blanket around the bun.  Toss in flour as though it is very fragile just using finger tips so it is not sticky.  Then use your hands to shape into a smooth ball, continually very gently pulling the dough to the bottom of the bun and lightly rolling in more flour to keep it from sticking to your hands.

Line a a baking tray or medium roasting dish medium dish with baking paper (and/or grease) and arrange balls in it quite close to each other so they are just touching but not really snug against each other.  Cover buns with beeswax or clingfilm or a clean tea towel and leave to rise for 30 to 2 hours.  Heat oven to 220 C while buns rise (or 30 minutes before you are ready to put in the oven).

Mix flour and water together to make the mixture for the crosses once buns ready for oven.  It should be thick enough to be almost stretchy and drop off the spoon in soft clumps.  Pipe crosses onto the buns.  Bake for 15 minutes.  Turn buns around for even baking and reduce oven to 180 C and bake for another 25 minute or until golden brown and sounding hollow when tapped.

Five minutes before buns come out of oven or just as they come out, mix glaze ingredients together and microwave for about about 15-30 seconds on high or until the mixture boils.  Remove buns from oven.  Transfer to a wire rack.  I have found it this easier if the baking paper has some overhang so you can use it to pick the buns up (even easier with another person who can pick up the other two corners to help you lift it).

Brush buns with prepared glaze and see if you can wait for them to cool before you sample one.  They are good for 2 to 3 days or can be frozen.  I reheat my buns from room temperature for 10-12 minutes at 180 C. 

On the Stereo:
For all our days that tear the heart: Jessie Buckley and Bernard Butler 

In My Kitchen: February 2026

February was busy with back-to-school, birthday celebrations, Shrove Tuesday, a mouse murder (by our cat), bike rides, and quite a few new recipes. We ate lots of Asian and Mexican recipes as befits a month of hot weather.  I am glad summer is now over and we will have cooler weather but I will miss all the salads and summer fruit.  It was also a month of big religious events such as Lent, Ramadam and Lunar New Year. 

Above is one of our thrown together salads.  This one had fried caramelised tofu, which we first had in rice paper rolls but found it is every bit as good in a bowl with sticky rice (from a microwave packet), edamame, cucumber, red cabbage, carrot, spring onions and furikake.
 

 

We are still trying new vegan foods since Sylvia went vegan at the start of the year.  We have had Milk tea boba mochi and Pickle crisps both of which have been new favourites for Sylvia.  I liked the crisps but am not a mochi fan.  Sylvia tells me not all mochi is created equal and she loved the above milk tea boba one much more than the below matcha mochi with the bean paste.

More vegan goodies: agar agar (for feta cheese below), Beefy Brats (still unopened but destined for greatness, we hope), the not good mochi, Wildy Good Cheese Cauli Poppers (excellent) and Pana vegan Rocky road Chocolate.  The chocolate was amazing.  Sylvia was excited she could eat it because it was peanut-free and had vegan marshmallow.  It is lucky to get one or the other and rare to get both of them in a any sort of rocky road.  This one also had vegan raspberry lollies and finely chopped almonds.  

Many months ago, I was given the olive oil bottle on the left by a friend who had two.  In February I finally finished the commercial oil spray can.  Since then I have had my olive oil in this bottle with a pouring spout and a spray mechanism.  This spray doesn't froth up like the commercial one so I like it better.  Next to my new olive oil is a pretty bottle of LaEspanole olive oil with an olive flower pattern and my favoured local olive oil from Cobram.

Sylvia has had some chia pudding breakfasts in the last few weeks.  She makes chia pudding with soy milk and serves it with coconut yoghurt, thawed strawberries, sliced bananas and my toasted muesli.  This seems too much milkiness for me but Sylvia really enjoyed it.

 

I was intrigued by this vegan cashew feta recipe which had agar agar and olive brine.  It was blended and then cooked.  As I have not used agar agar much, I was unsure if I cooked it long enough.  It tasted delicious as a spreadable feta but not quite as easy to crumble as the recipe suggested.  I definitely want to try it again.

Sylvia made a really nice Pasta salad with jalapeno and chorizo from TikTok.  It was quite spicy for me with the jalapenos but I really loved the vegan chorizo chopped up small and fried into crispy crumbles.  It was great for one of the last warm days of summer.

 

We have enjoyed the spiced rice from the meal prep burritos in a few meals - it is an easy way to add more flavour to meals.   In the above photo I had quesadillas with the spiced rice, lettuce, cabbage, red capsicum, yoghurt, salsa and feta.

This is another very satisfying meal with spiced rice topped with lettuce, red cabbage, tomatoes, corn, seasoned black beans, feta and crispy fried Field roast chorizo crumbles (leftover from the pasta salad).  

We have been enjoying La Costena whole black beans in Mexican style bowls.  Then we accidentally bought the La Costena refried pinto beans.  The labels are pretty similar.  We used it because it was there and enjoyed it.  When we went to buy it again, we checked the ingredients in the supermarket and found it had pork lard in it.  Urgh!  So sadly this is off the menu now.  But the whole black beans are vegan so we are still buying those.

My worst cooking experience of the month was making a stuffed onions recipe that Sylvia had chosen.  It was a recipe I didn't understand, it took forever, the ingredients didn't work as I expected and I thought the end result was not worth the stress.  My idea of stuffed onions was a British one where the onions are hollowed out and stuffed.  Sylvia's stuffed onion recipe was more Greek and Middle Eastern where each layer of onion is boiled and stuffed.  I learnt the hard way that you don't separate the layers until you boil the onions.  I didn't like having the different size layers and also having to cut down the side of the layers being stuffed, Even worse was adding faux mince meat for Sylvia.  Of course it knocked all the ingredients off balance and I had to tweak and tweak and tweak!  Next time I will make these baked onions with hazelnut, sultana and feta stuffing.

Sylvia made Sesame noodles from TikTok (rhi.scran): ramen noodles with a sauce of tahini, soy sauce, rice vinegar and maple syrup.  We served it with lettuce, red cabbage, carrot, cucumber and furikake.  After the photo, I remembered to eat the edamame we had heated.  I enjoyed the noodles much more than Sylvia, which is not surprising given that I love tahini and she is not much of a fan. 

Sylvia made some very impressive Tempah and black bean tacos for dinner.  Another TikTok find from rhi.scran.  I had mine  -  The filling were made in the frypan with tempeh and blackbeans, onions, garlic, seasonings, lime juice and water, staffed into tortillas and baked in the oven.  I served mine with guacamole, yoghurt, pickled red onion, lettuce and cabbage. 

I made the Sticky miso tofu that Sylvia found on Plant Based RD (I found out that RD at means registered dietician not Road).  The miso made it a lot creamier than the fried caramelised tofu you can see at the top photo.  I prefer the caramelised tofu but both are great.  What was a great revelation was tossing the chunks of tofu into cornflour and seasoning and then air frying it.  It was so crispy and delicious.  We served it with sticky rice, lettuce, cabbage, cucumber, carrot and edamame.  You might have noticed how much we have loved pairing lettuce and raw cabbage this summer!

I found this Sweet Plus Dubai chocolate in Terra Madre.  It was pretty delicious and cheaper (and smaller) than some other bars I had seen.  I can't find it on their website so will need to check it out in store when I am next there.

Sylvia's favourite chocolate of the month was also pistachio.  She was very happy to find the Loco Love's Pistachio Mylk Praline.  It was pricey at $11 for 70g.  It had not been easy for Sylvia to find so she was delighted both to be able to eat it and with the bar.  She thought it a bit like a vegan Dubai chocolate but I did not, though we both agreed it was delicious.

Shrove Tuesday always a great reason to make pancakes.  I have fond memories of eating pancakes at this time of year as a kid before giving up dessert (which we called "sweets") for Lent.  My childhood pancakes were never as decadent as these vegan chocolate pancakes I made this year.  I wanted them extra chocolate so I added an extra 1/2 cup cocoa instead of 1/3 cup of the flour.  I did not have choc chips but added 2 extra tbsp of sugar and used wholemeal flour.  I cooked them with olive oil spray over medium to medium hot heat on my cast iron frypan for 3 minutes on each side.  (The timer was more reliable than checking for bubbles.)  They were delicious and not too sweet.  

I served the chocolate pancakes with a strawberry chia jam (1 cup frozen strawberries, 1-3 tbsp water, 2-3 shakes of mixed spice, the juice of half a lemon, 2-4 tbsp maple syrup cooked on the stovetop  about 5 minutes till thickened slightly), Sanitariums's vegan chocolate soy ice cream, Billy Van Creamy's vegan caramel cashew ice cream and maple syrup.  Totally amazing!  The recipe made a lot for the two of us.  (This is not in the spirit of Shrove Tuesday to have pancakes leftover for Ash Wednesday when Lent starts but we are not practicing Catholics!)  Next time I think that half the pancake mixture would be find and we would both love more of that chia strawberry jam.  

We held a Birthday tea for Sylvia's birthday.  She had cucumber and cashew cheese spread sandwiches, sushi stacks, crisps, fairy bread, vegan marshmallow teacups, pink iced cupcakes and fruit.  It was a small and relaxing get together.  My mum brought the cupcakes and my dad helped saw through the old padlock on our back shed that refused to open up after I locked it (and I remembered the code).

Here are some of Sylvia's birthday presents: an Angelina ballerina book, stickers, snacks, chocolates, jewellery, a butterfly hair piece, a photo frame, a Tori Amos CD, a tapestry purse, a tiny tea set and jewellery holders.  So much good stuff.

I also took Sylvia for a little drive in the west of Melbourne which included a visit to the Damona vegan cheese factory where we got all these offcuts cheaply.  There are packets of American cheese, feta, Pecorino, Brie which cost $35 in total.  We weighed the huge bag of feta a week or two after buying (and using) it.  It weighed almost 700 grams and it was excellent.  The American cheese was great on pizza and quesadillas.  The Pecorino was really good on a Minestrone but had to be crumbled because it did not grate well.  We still have quite a bit of it left.

While out in the West I bought some Pistachio Kunafa Sptead from ipantry in Sunshine.  I bought a jar of this from a local Middle Eastern shop last year and loved it so much I went back for more a few months later.  They had stopped selling it as the Dubai chocolate craze is on the wane, apparently.  Sunshine was the closest place I could buy it, though I had to order online at the door so they could give me the jars.  I bought two because if it is not being sold widely I probably wont go out of my way to buy it again for a long time.  It is so delicious and creamy and crunchy but is so sweet and decadent too!

My final meal for the month was a quick Burger bowl (inspired by the one I made in my July 2025 IMK post).  I really loved the vegan cauliflower and cheese burger from the Coles plant based range called Nature's Kitchen.  We are not going to Coles very often lately due to the some of their underhand practices but these burgers call my name.  I at it with tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, carrot, cornichon pickles, pickled red onions, yoghurt and tomato sauce.  (The tomato sauce is one from my sister at Christmas that has a personalised label! So cool!).  

I also used up the last of the packet of parmesan cheese.  Sylvia had loved it before going vegan but I don't eat it nearly as much.  With her now being vegan, my eating habits are also changing.  I am not sure I will continue to buy parmesan regularly, I haven't bought eggs fall year and I only have bought the vintage tasty cheese but none of our regular mozzarella grated blend.  I am eating less sweet foods as being vegan has limited the amount of sweet baking Sylvia and I are eating from fancy bakeries.  Overall the change is positive and as you can see, we are finding lots of new vegan meals to enjoy!

I am sending this post to Sherry of Sherry's Pickings for the In My Kitchen event. If you would like to join in, send your post to Sherry by 13th of the month.  Or just head over to her blog to visit more kitchens and her gorgeous hand drawn header.  Thanks to Sherry for continuing to host this even that brings together some wonderful bloggers who share glimpses into their kitchens.