Mulberry pie

Thanks to a little urban foraging, we had mulberry pie.

For the filling, I was inspired by the blackberry pie in Vegan Pie in the Sky, but even though I used less lemon than the recipe suggested, I still found it overpowering. Maybe the long cooking time doesn't suit mulberries -- a quick mulberry sauce I made (mulberries, sugar, lemon, heated on the stovetop just until juicy, then pureed) had a much better flavour.

My quest for good vegan pie dough continues. I tried this Serious Eats recipe, using mostly shortening with some vegan margarine, but the crust ended up on the short/crumbly side.

Saffron

I don't really know what saffron tastes like. I've had it quite a few times, mainly flavouring rice, and I just can't pick out the flavour. It tastes good; tastes different from the same dish without the saffron (I think), and yet I couldn't really tell you how it tastes.

So now that you know how untrustworthy my tastebuds are when it comes to saffron: I made these saffron-vanilla snickerdoodles from 101 Cookbooks recently. I really liked them, but they taste like marzipan to me. I should say that this photo doesn't quite capture their golden yellow colour. (I veganized them of course, made smaller cookies (a half batch made a dozen), left out the vanilla bean, and also skipped the refrigeration step and baked them straight away.) I think this recipe, minus the saffron, and plus the regulation cinnamon-sugar, might become my standard snickerdoodle -- the cookies puffed and crumpled nicely, and they had a soft chewiness that I really liked.