Vegan Practically

I love discovering new vegan food options. Though it is true that veganism isn’t only about food choices, the relentless focus on animal products in the food industry is a demoralizing daily reality. So I welcomed the goody bag of treats my friend Shelley brought me from Sau Bake in Hamilton, Ontario. Sau Bake specializes in vegan Brazilian street food, offering savoury and sweet options, including delicious cakes.

I tried the bolinha de milho (cream corn croquettes), the spinach pocket, the soy beef and cheeze pocket, and the carrot and brigedeiro bolo no pote (jar cake). The croquettes and pockets come frozen and are recommended to be cooked from frozen. Since mine had defrosted quite a bit by the time I got them home, I didn’t refreeze them and instead cooked them from where they were.

I prepared them in the air fryer, with slight modifications to the cooking time since I wasn’t cooking them from frozen. I took the croquettes out when golden, as per Shelley’s recommendations. The dough is a lovely texture and the filling is a creamy sweet corn that oozes out when you bite into it. They’re a savoury treat that make a good snack. I most enjoyed the pockets. They’re stuffed pastries, but the dough is more bread like than pastry-like, and that is to the good. I loved the dough. The spinach pocket had a spinach and tofu filling reminiscent of spanokopita in a bread-like pocket. The beef and cheeze pocket was a flavourful snack that I thoroughly enjoyed. I ate them both warm but I think they would be fine (once cooked) eaten at room temperature, so could be taken for lunch or to a picnic or that sort of thing.

Finally, the carrot brigadeiro jar cake is a yummy dessert. The Brazilian take on carrot cake is a bit different from the carrot cake I’m used to, but that is not a criticism. It’s sweet and velvety, with a chocolate brigadeiro topping (think of ganache piped on and you get the idea). It’s sweet but not too sweet. I could eat a little bit of it every day. It’s quite rich and we found that one piece yielded four reasonable portions (two each!).

As happens often, I totally forgot to take pictures of any of it until it was no longer photogenic (in my opinion, food basically becomes unphotographable once you’ve taken a bite out of it!). So I can’t show it off here and I have violated my own commitment to only using my own photos for blog posts. In any case, I have featured a screenshot of their website header photo. And I recommend you follow the link to their site and have a look for yourself.

I definitely want to go to Hamilton at some point to pick up some more goodies from Sau Bake. If you are in driving distance and have not had a chance to try them, you won’t be sorry.

Bon appétit!