Natalie Slater - Bake and Destroy: Good Food for Bad Vegans

When I was a kid, if I wasnt sitting too close to the TV with a Nintendo controller in my hand, you could find me in the kitchen with my mom. No matter how grown-up I got, the magic of turning a handful of ingredients into cake or pizza or pie was never lost on me, and it helped me to form a very DIY credo: If youre hungry, you should cook yourself something.

But cookbooks can be so bossy! Just a bunch of people telling you how to make the best cupcake and the ultimate cornbread. My natural aversion to being told what to do is exactly what inspired me to start Bake and Destroy in the first place. I wanted to inspire people to try new things in the kitchen with a no-holds-barred approach. Food tastes better when you have fun making it, so why stress over whether or not its perfect?

For years Ive shared dessert recipes on my blog, but after transitioning to a mostly plant-based diet, I started getting more and more questions about what I eat besides cookies and cupcakes, so in this book not only do I give you awesome dessert recipes, Ive also collected recipes for the food I really eatfrom tacos to casseroles to a dairy-free version of the birthday cake my mom made me every year for my entire life. Theres vegan food inspired by my favorite music, restaurants and even a few pro-wrestlers. My hope is that these recipes encourage you to try something newand to use what youve learned to create your own recipes.

So get in the kitchen, and lets get weird.

Natalie

Sophia Loren once said, Everything you see, I owe to spaghetti. Im no Sophia Loren, but I feel the same way about cupcakes. They took me to the Food Network as a judge on Cupcake Wars, to the Cooking Channel where I demonstrated my award-winning Banana Bread French Toast Cupcake recipe on The Perfect 3, and now, they have brought me to youwhich might be my most exciting adventure yet! So while I dont have Sophias sweet bod, she never wrote a cookbook, so who cares? (Dang it. I just Googled and she wrote two cookbooks. I shake my fist at you, Sophia Loren!)

Since launching Bake and Destroy in 2006, I have made cupcakes inspired by everything from slasher films to Andrew W.K. and it only gets weirder and more delicious from there. In this chapter Ive included my award-winning recipe as mentioned above; a chocolate, coconut and caramel cupcake inspired by pro wrestler Samoa Joe; and a handful of other easy-to-make and even easier-to-eat cupcakes.

Ive also included an over-the-top cake named after my favorite late-night B-movie hostess, Rhonda Shear, and some from-scratch snack cakes that might look familiar, but they certainly dont taste like Mom didnt used to make. Along with those, youll find whoopie pies that look like tiny burgers but taste like a banana split and a couple of homemade cake mixes that make it easy to whip up dessert in minutes.

Brownies made with flaxseeds? Cheesecake made from tofu? What sorcery is this? This is what I do, dudes. I can turn a handful of cashews and a can of coconut milk into dessert faster than you can say, This is vegan. And you can do it, tooso cmon, lets get some sugar into you before we all starve!

If youve spoken to my mom lately, you might know that I won a Cooking Channel competition with this recipe. Inspired by a dish at Salt & Pepper Diner in Chicago, these moist cupcakes combine cinnamon, maple and banana for a breakfasty-dessert.

Makes 12 cupcakes

cup (113 g) mashed overripe banana

1 cups (156 g) all-purpose flour

teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

teaspoon salt

cup (150 g) sugar

cup (80 ml) canola oil

cup (160 ml) rice or soy milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

teaspoon almond extract

cup (60 g) chopped, toasted walnuts

2 cups (250 g) confectioners sugar

6 tablespoons (85 g) nonhydrogenated vegetable shortening