Sweet Vegan Living - Autumn Rituals & Almond Fig Cake.mp4

There's something about autumn that makes me feel so compelled to start preparing, planning projects, and taking inventory, meal prepping, planning, batch cooking, writing lists, even more lists than I already write, which is really a lot, a lot of lists already, cleaning out the pantry, sorting, purging, all of it. And I don't know if it goes back to when we were kids and we were preparing for the school year, getting new school supplies and pulling out clothes for the new season or things like that, but it feels almost more instinctive than that, more intuitive, more related to days of harvesting and preservation and preparing for the long winter ahead, which I know some people still do, especially out in the country, but I live in Montreal. There's really, there's not a lot of need for that here and there's not really any room in our tiny apartment for nine months worth of pickles and firewood, basically. One of the things I love so much about autumn is that it's so rich with tradition and rituals, some that are very unique to each person or family and others that we share, many of us in common, like going to the apple orchard and eating fruit fresh off the trees, the only time of year that most of us will spend $25 on apples and then go home and make cakes and pies and sauces and crumbles and crisps and anything else we can possibly think of to do with them. And then you go to the pumpkin patch with the intention of just buying a couple of pumpkins to make jack-o'-lanterns, but then you see squash of every shape and size and color that you've never even seen before, maybe, and next thing you know, you're on your way home with enough squash to feed your family for the entire winter. There's something extra special in the air when autumn comes. Dusk arrives early in the evening as a gentle reminder and comforting nudge from the sun that it's time to wind down for the day. The ground a royal palette of deep reds, burnt oranges and golds. The last of the vegetables and herbs are harvested, making room for the autumn gardens to become natural larders of fall berries, fruit and insects for the birds who have yet to fly south. Soul-soothing memories flood the senses as the warm kitchen air is infused by bay leaves, rosemary, eucalyptus being hung to dry, cardamom, cinnamon, and the steam of healing lemon balm, rose hips, or sage steeping. The low rumble of the oven starts up in anticipation of roasted squash and root vegetables, bubbling casseroles, and steaming loaves of sourdough bread. I'm still pretty housebound because of my ankle injury and I decided I wanted to make sourdough bread but I didn't have any starter in the house and it's not something that's easily delivered to the house. And I could have made it myself but it would have taken days or weeks to get a good starter going. So I just asked on Facebook if anybody had any established sourdough starter and a complete stranger who lives not far from me offered some. And not only was I excited because that meant I got to make bread, yay, so exciting because bread is beautiful and delicious, but it also just gave me such a huge warm feeling of joy inside and I just love, I don't know how to explain it even, I just love that feeling, that feeling of community and that sharing and those exchanges and I think the bread that I made from that starter is easily the best loaf of bread I've ever baked in my life and I'm convinced that part of the reason why was because it brought me so much joy to make it. One of my new favorite autumn desserts that I have been baking lately is this fig cake. I say lately because I've tried it a few different times now just to get it right because I found the recipe online and I've changed it a bunch of times. It wasn't vegan, it was gluten-free, I don't remember where I found it but now it's vegan and it's not gluten-free, although you could probably make it gluten-free. At any rate, this pan that I have tends to stick a bit and the cake is quite moist so I'm putting a piece of parchment in the springform pan and I'm using an already mixed egg, like a pre-prepared plant-based egg replacer called Just Egg, but you could use whichever favorite egg replacer of yours. I have the recipe on my website if you want to go have the exact measurements and instructions, they're all there. I'm using olive oil for this cake. This is new, I've just started trying olive oil cakes and I absolutely love them. I love them so very much and it really goes beautifully with the figs I find. So I'm using a combination of all-purpose flour and almond flour. If you wanted it to be gluten-free, I imagine you could just use a an all-purpose gluten-free flour. I know normally you would sift all of these things in advance but I've been really going rustic lately when I'm cooking so we're just dumping it all in. It blends perfectly, it's really not, it's not a problem. We're not making a big fancy wedding cake, it's a very rustic sort of Italian inspired. Olive oil and figs and almond and we're keeping it rustic. For my egg white replacer, I'm using aquafaba. So for those of you who don't know what that is, it's the liquid from canned chickpeas and you just beat it on a high speed just like you would with a whipping cream until they have nice firm peaks and then you fold it in really really gently because we don't want to lose the air that's giving volume to the batter. So you do want it to be thoroughly folded in but to do it gently enough so you're breaking as few of the air bubbles as possible. I'm going to put the cake in the oven without the figs because the figs are very heavy and like I said I've tried this a few different ways now and if you put the figs in right away they sink to the bottom. So I'm putting the cake in the oven for about 10 minutes and then after that I pull it back out and just quickly lay my sliced figs across the top. I also sprinkled some brown sugar on the top of the cake and then put it back in the oven for the rest of the baking time. You don't have to put brown sugar on the top though, it just kind of gives it a caramelly, a little bit crispier top I find. This cake is so beautiful to look at especially when you slice into it and you can see the figs inside but it's also absolutely delicious. The full autumn moons mark a time of balance, transition, completing cycles and letting go of that which no longer serves us. It carries messages of abundance and gratitude reminding us to take stock of our blessings and the fruit of our efforts. Candlelight hours before bed host a warm glow from the dancing flames that cast flickering shadows on the walls. The call from within to practice tradition and ritual comes telling us that it is time to conjure magic.