Cran-apple crumb muffins

I know I haven't posted an recipes in a while, so I thought I'd write up this muffin recipe even though I don't have any photos for you. Sorry! My camera is broken. The white whole wheat flour I use in this recipe is available at lots of places, but the cheapest place to get it seems to be Trader Joe's.

Note: I edited the original post to include an agave-sweetened variation at the end.

1 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour
1/2 cup minus 1 Tbsp all-purpose flour
1/2 cup quick-cooking oats
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp cardammom
3/4 tsp salt
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/3 cup canola oil
3/4 cup sugar*
1/2 cup non-dairy milk
1 smallish apple, peeled and chopped into itsy bitsy pieces
1/4 cup fresh or frozen cranberries
1/4 cup chopped walnuts

crumb topping:
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white whole wheat flour
1 sprinkle cinnamon
3 Tbsp margarine, melted

1. Preheat your oven to 350 F. Oil a 12-cup muffin pan, or line with paper liners.

2.Combine the flours, oats, spices, salt, and baking powder & soda in a medium bowl. Break up any lumps of soda/ baking powder with your fingers and whisk until it's evenly mixed.

3. In a large bowl, combine apple sauce, sugar, oil, and milk. Stir well. Add chopped apple.

4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet, and stir until just combined--a few lumps are ok! Add walnuts and cranberries. Let the batter rest for about 15 minutes.

5. While the batter is resting, make the crumb topping by mixing the flour, cinnamon  and brown sugar with your fingers, breaking up any stubborn brown sugar clumps. (You can use the bowl from the dry ingredients to save yourself some washing.) Drizzle in the melted margarine and work the mixture into coarse crumbs.

6. Scoop about 1/3 cup of batter into each muffin cup (they'll be pretty full; these are fairly tall muffins.) Sprinkle the muffins liberally with crumb mixture, because it's everyone's favorite part. Bake 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle of a muffin comes out clean. You don't have to let them cool down all the way before you eat them, but please don't burn yourself because the apples and berries get hot!

*Agave Variation
Replace the sugar in the batter with 1/2 cup agave nectar, and reduce the soy milk to 1/4 cup. The agave makes this brown more quickly, so check these after 18 minutes. You can replace the crumb topping with a little sprinkle of cinnamon sugar, or just leave it out.

Lemon pound cake

It's been a really long time since my last post! There are lots of things that have been going on in the kitchen since my Halloween candy post, but I've been keeping them all to myself. Well, how about a recipe for lemon pound cake with some very lemony glaze? I have to tell you, it's not exactly quick to make. It requires some slightly annoying prep (pan-flouring, flour-sifting, lemon-zesting), and takes a lot of time in the oven. But even though that stuff might seem a little fussy, the difficulty-to-impressiveness ratio still comes out in your favor. It's zippy from all the citrus, and the glaze gives the outside of the cake a crunchy coat. Kind of like those really sour English lemon drops in cake form. I'm starting to think every cake should have a glaze. Here's the (very step-by-step) recipe, because I want you and the people you love to eat this cake.

(PS I think that paragraph can be summed up as, "cake cake cake cake cakety-cake cake cake! And glaze.")

Ingredients:
2 lemons
3 cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. salt
2 sticks margarine
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup soy yogurt
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup non-dairy milk
2/3 cup more sugar (for the glaze)


1. Dry Ingredients
First, you'll need 3 cups of sifted all-purpose flour. If you've never done that before, it's easy, and there's a first time for everything. Here's all you do: Sift about 4 cups of all purpose flour into a large, dry mixing bowl. Now measure 3 cups of that sifted flour into a different mixing bowl. Sift in 2 1/2 tsp. baking powder and 3/4 tsp. salt. (The leftover flour that you sifted can get added right back into your flour canister.)

At this point, you'll also want to grate the peel of two lemons. Make sure you wash your lemons first! I use the finest side of a four-sided grater, and to grate onto a flexible cutting board, since grating into a bowl can be kind of wobbly. You want to get as much of the yellow outside zest as possible, but try to not get too much of the bitter white pith that's just under the skin.

2. Baking Pan
Grease (I use cooking spray) an 11-cup tube/bundt pan. If you don't have one of those, or if you like your pound cake loaf-y, grease 2 8" loaf pans. Dust the oiled pans with vegan breadcrumbs (NOT the seasoned kind!!! Blech. And check the ingredients for milk products.) If the only vegan bread crumbs you can get your hands on are panko, you'll want to crush/grind them up first. You can do that with a blender, food processor, mortar & pestle, or ziploc bag & rolling pin. Tap any excess crumbs into the trash, you only want a very fine coating.

Preheat your oven to 350 F.

3. The Fun Part: Cake Batter
Use an electric mixer or fork to cream 2 sticks (that's 1 cup/ 1/2 lb.) vegan margarine. If you use something salty like Earth Balance, you should omit the salt from the dry ingredients.
Once the margarine is soft, add in 2 cups of sugar, and beat until well incorporated. Use a rubber spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl so that everything gets mixed evenly. It should look pale yellow, fluffy, and smooth. Beat in the 1/2 cup soy yogurt, vanilla, and lemon zest.

Now turn your beater down to low, and add in about half of the flour mixture. Once that's almost all mixed in, add 1/2 of the milk and stir until incorporated. Now add the other half of the flour, and finish with the rest of the milk. Mix just until everything's smoothly incorporated, because overmixing will make your cake tough.

Pour the batter into your prepared cake pan(s) and bake for about an hour and ten minutes for a bundt, or 40 minutes for a loaf. Check your cake by poking it with a toothpick. If the toothpick comes out clean, its ready to come out of the oven! If not, give it another five minutes and test again.

Remove your cake from the oven and let it sit for five minutes in the cake pan while you prepare the glaze:
Juice the lemons and strain out the seeds. How much juice do you have? You only need 1/3-1/2 cup of the juice for this glaze, so put the rest in your seltzer or in some salad dressing or something. Add 2/3 cup of sugar and stir until the sugar is mostly dissolved. (It doesn't have to be perfect.)

Now invert your cake onto a wire cooling rack and brush or spoon glaze all over the warm cake. It will be messy, so put some foil under the cooling rack to catch the drips.

Let that sit for a few hours until cool, and serve to your friends and family, who will adore you forever. My sisters describe it as "nom nom nom," if that gives you an idea

Goodies!

Today I was supposed to clean the kitchen, so instead I made a mess in the kitchen. Sound familiar? I made some stuff and dipped it into chocolate. It was fun and Halloween-y.
Here is what I made:

Peanut butter candies

Chocolate Peanut Butter Candies
(Or you could use the same basic recipe to make peanut putter cups.)

1/2 cup peanut butter
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 pinch salt
12 oz. vegan chocolate chips or chopped chocolate

Combine 1/2 cup peanut butter (the no-stir variety) with a pinch of salt. Sift in 1/2 cup of the powdered sugar and stir until well combined. Add more (sifted!) powdered sugar as needed until you have a stiff dough-like consistency. Roll the peanut butter into teaspoon-sized balls and place on a piece of parchment  on top of a cutting board or cookie sheet (something flat.) Put the peanut butter balls in the freezer to firm up for about 30 minutes.


Meanwhile, melt the chocolate in a double boiler. If you don't have a double boiler, make one by placing the chocolate in a metal mixing bowl on top of a pan of simmering (not boiling!) water. The mixing bowl should be wider than the pan, so that steam doesn't get into the melted chocolate.

Use a fork or a toothpick to dip the peanut butter balls into the melted chocolate. Try not to worry about making them look professional! Drippy chocolates with fingerprints on them will still impress your friends.

If you want them to harden really quickly, put them back into the fridge or freezer until the chocolate has set. You might want to store them in the fridge, too, depending on the temperature of your house.

Peppermint Patties

Peppermint patties

1/4 cup agave syrup
2 cups powdered sugar
1 drop pink or green food coloring (optional, of course)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 Tbsp. peppermint extract
1 pinch salt

Combine the agave, salt, food coloring, and extracts in a small bowl and mix well. Sift in 1 cup of the powdered sugar, and stir to combine. Sift in enough additional powdered sugar to make a firm dough.

Dust your hands and a work surface with more powdered sugar. Form heaping teaspoons of peppermint mixture into balls and smoosh them to form patty shapes. Place them on a parchment-lined baking sheet and freeze for about 30 minutes.

Prepare your chocolate for dipping, as in the above recipe.
I had a really hard time dipping these, since the patties were sort of soft. Instead, I spread a spoonful of melted chocolate on top of each peppermint patty, and put them back in the fridge. When the chocolate was set, I gently peeled the parchment of the bottoms, flipped the candies over, and coated the other side with chocolate.

And don't eat these for your entire dinner! Unless you want people to start asking you questions like, "Where do vegans get their protein?"

Meat-less pies revisited, and a pita recipe

Do you remember those Lebanese meatless pies I made back in March? Well I finally got around to making a batch with the pita crust, and it was very yum yum. I left out the soy sour cream from the filling, and didn't miss it at all. I also added a little more paprika and cinnamon, and a little extra mint since it's still really thriving in my garden.
One advantage of making a pita crust is that if you have leftover dough, you can make pita bread! They get nice and puffy in the oven. I was too hungry to take pictures, sorry!

Pita dough
Combine 1 packet of yeast with 2 1/2 cups warm water. Let stand 5 minutes.
Combine 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour with 2 tsp. salt. Add to the yeast mixture and whisk until smooth.
Knead in 3 1/2-5 cups white flour, until a soft but not sticky consistency is reached. Knead until stretchy. Put the dough in an oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let it rise in a warm place about an hour, or until doubled in size. Punch down and let rise again. (That step isn't really necessary, but the extra time gives the pita more flavor.)

If you have a pizza stone, this is a great time to use it. Place the stone near the bottom of your COLD oven and preheat to 450 F.
If you don't have a pizza stone, you can preheat a cookie sheet and bake the breads on that.

To Make Pies:
Divide your dough into 12-16 equal pieces. Roll them out to 1/4 inch thickness and spoon some of the "lamb" mixture into the center. (Don't worry if they're not perfectly round, just do your best.) Bring up 3 sides of the circle and pinch together in the middle. Pinch the seams closed to form a triangular pie. Brush the tops with olive oil. Bake them 2 or 3 at a time on the preheated baking stone or cookie sheet for about 9 minutes. The tops should be barely golden and the dough should still be soft.

To Make Pitas:
Roll out the dough into 1/4 inch thick rounds (or ovals or amoebic shapes or whatever) and let rest 5 minutes. Bake on a preheated baking stone or sheet until puffy, about 5 minutes.

Serve the pies and pita with some green salad, and maybe some hummus and baba ganouj, for a gigantic and tasty Middle-Eastern feast.

Vegan Challah Round 2

Poppy seeds, or sesame? I can't choose!

I made another batch of challah today. The recipe is courtesy of challah-genius Sara Rivka at www.CreativeJewishMom.com. Check out her blog!


She also has posted a really neat guide for how to braid round challah for Rosh Hashanah. I made one loaf with sesame seeds, and one with poppy. Instead of an egg wash, made a little bit of flax seed goo (that's the technical term for it, anyway.) I poured 3 Tbsp of boiling water over 1 Tbsp of flax seed meal, whisked it for 3 minutes, strained out the bits of flax seed, and brushed it over the top of the loaves. Using soy milk is a little easier and works fine, but this way comes out shinier.

Ready to go into the oven

There was a little cross-pollination that happened with the two loaves on the same pan, but I think that probably won't hurt anything.

Here they are about to go in the oven.

Let cool before cutting

Let them cool on a wire rack. And don't overbake! Because then you'll have to make a whole lot of French toast.

Vegan Rosh Hashanah

Here is attempt #1 at vegan challah.
Here is the dough that I used:

3 c flour
1/4 c sugar
1 packet dry active yeast
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp tumeric

Whisk all that together in a medium bowl and set aside.

In a small bowl, whisk 2 Tbsp flax seed meal with 1/4 cup warm water. Beat this mixture for about a minute. It should be sort of gooey. Add 1/4 cup soy milk and another 1/4 cup warm water. Stir in the dry ingredients with a wooden spoon.

Turn the dough out onto a clean, floured cutting board and knead until the dough is stretchy and elastic.
Put the dough in an oiled bowl, cover it with plastic wrap, and let it rise until doubled in size. Punch it down, and let it rise another hour.

Now it's time to shape the dough. This is the fun part!


Turn the dough onto a cutting board. I didn't need to dust it, but you can use flour if you need to.

Cut the dough into two pieces, one about twice the size of the other.

Divide each of these pieces into thirds. Roll each piece into a rope. You want all the ropes to be equal in length.

 First, make a big braid from the three bigger ropes. Next, make a smaller braid from the remaining dough.

Using the rush the top of the big braid with some soy milk. Tuck the ends of the braids underneath so that it will look pretty, and stack the little braid on top of the big braid. Now brush the whole thing with soy milk.

Cover the loaf with plastic wrap, and put it in a warm place to rise for 40 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 375 F. Bake for about 40 minutes. To test for doneness, tap the bottom of the loaf. If it sounds hollow, it's ready to come out of the oven.

I think I'll try adding more oil and more water next time, and baking it in a slightly cooler oven. In the meanwhile, this is yummy with apricot jam.

Peanut butter & sesame seed cookies

This is just to say

I have eaten the cookies

I baked for my weblog

and I didn't even take any pictures.

Forgive me, but they were delicious

with a hot cup of coffee. 

I did a bad thing. I made a batch of cookies, and then I ate them all without taking any photos for you.

Fortunately, it is an exaggeration to say that I ate them all. I had help. But still, no photos. I'm sorry. Forgive me. These are very similar to regular old peanut butter cookies, but with a slightly more assertive flavor. They are a little chewy and a little crumbly and a little crunchy all in one, and they're not too sweet.

Here is the recipe:

1/4 c peanut natural smooth peanut butter, unsalted*

1/4 cup sesame tahini

1/2 cup non-hydrogenated margarine*

1/2 cup white sugar

1/4 cup light brown sugar*

1 1/4 c flour

1 Tbsp cornstarch

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt*

1 Tbsp each of black and white sesame seeds*

1.  Preheat the oven to 350 F. Grease two cookie sheets. Using an electric mixer or fork, cream together the margarine, peanut butter, tahini, salt, and sugar in a medium-large bowl. Beat until the mixture is fluffy. Taste a tiny bit and adjust the salt, if necessary.

2.  Add the cornstarch and the flour. Mix with your hands until the dough comes together. If it's really really dry, add a tablespoon of soy milk, but only do this if the dough is too crumbly to work with.

3. In a shallow bowl or a plate, mix the two colors of sesame seeds together.

4.  Scoop up a 2-tablespoon sized piece of dough, and roll it into a ball. Flatten it a little between your palms, and dip one side into the sesame seed mixture. Place seedy-side-up on the cookie sheet and repeat with the remaining dough. If you want to, you can use a fork to make a criss-cross pattern on top of each cookie, as you would for classic peanut butter cookies. Bake the for about 12 minutes, until they are golden-brown around the edges.

*So many stars, right? Well, here's what you should know. You can absolutely use salted peanut butter, but if you do, and especially if you're using salty Earth Balance, then leave out the additional salt. 

As for the margarine, you are of course welcome to use regular old hydrogenated margarine. Cookies aren't really good for you anyway. But read the ingredients to make sure they haven't snuck any whey or other dairy ingredients in there, or else the cookies won't be vegan and you'll have worked so hard only to make cookies that you won't want to eat, and that would be the pits.

If you don't have light brown sugar, you can just use white sugar. If you don't have white sugar, you can use Sucanat. The sesame seeds are primarily for decoration, and while they are lovely, they can be omitted without really ruining anything. You will still have yummy cookies! If you don't have sesame seeds, you can dip the cookies in coarse sugar instead.

In short, you are your own person and you can cook however you gosh darn please.