Me and baking. A love story.

Like any love story, there is a conflict. Some hellish mountain to be traversed. With baking, there are many heartbreaks: veganizing cake mix, making pie crust, and making up recipes for something as simple as cookies. Back when I used eggs, I made up cookie recipes all the time. Now, I have to figure out which egg sub will work for which recipe, and through much trial and error, I might come up with something that kind of works. Then I go cheat on baking and use a recipe from VCIYCJ because Isa is much better than I am at these kinds of things. Sorry, baby. I have NEEDS.

Today started out rough. The dough looked a little too moist, and I know from experience that oatmeal cookie dough should be pretty dry. I baked the first batch, and they weren't bad; just a little too spread out and doughy in the middle. I added more flour and oats, and they came out great. I also used more brown sugar than white because I ran out of white, and it ended up being a great idea! They formed an almost toffee edge around each cookie. YUM.



Oatmeal Raisin Chocolate Chip Cookies
makes 2 dozen big cookies

1 cup (2 sticks) margarine
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 medium overripe banana, peeled and squished
2 tsp good vanilla extract
2 1/3 cups whole wheat pastry flour
2 1/3 cups old fashioned oats (not the quick ones!)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°
Cream together the margarine, sugars, banana, and vanilla. In a separate bowl, stir together the baking powder, flour, and oats. Add to the wet ingredients, and combine. Fold in the raisins and chips. Drop scoops onto parchment-lined cookie sheets (I use a spring-loaded ice cream scoop, but I don't fill the scoop up all the way). Leave about 1.5" between cookies. Flatten the tops with a spatula or your (clean, duh) hand. Bake 10 minutes. Cool on wire racks.

Caramel Apple Cookies

This was a whole lot of work for only one decent looking cookie.



So, I made these caramels (minus the cardamom), and I veganized this apple cider cookie recipe (I used Earth Balance and flax eggs), and my cookies exploded and there's caramel all over the cookie sheet and oh fuck THIS. That one is the only one worth taking a picture of. Since I have plenty more cider mix (I only made a half batch, THANK GOD), I might try this again, and instead of caramels inside the cookies, I'll just drizzle some caramel on top.

But I will tell you this: They are pretty damned yummy. I might just crumble them up and mix them into vanilla ice cream.

Greece is the word.

I didn't want to do the thing that EVERYONE mentioned. Spanakopita. I wanted to try something different; something I've never had. I think I found it in these cookies.

They go perfectly with a glass of sweet white wine, or a cup of citrusy tea. They're a bit dry, so a beverage is a must. This would be perfect to serve at a shower or other hen party, where dainty cookies are usually called for.



Vegan Finikia
Makes about 2 dozen cookies*

1 stick Earth Balance, softened (1/2 cup)
1/2 cup superfine sugar (I just put regular crystal sugar in the Vitamix for a few seconds)
grated zest of one organic orange
1/2 cup corn oil
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups semolina
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 cup orange juice

1 cup water
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup Just Like Honey or other honey alternative
1 cinnamon stick
2 teaspoons lemon juice

1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts, sesame seeds, or caster sugar

Preheat oven to 350°. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, cream together the margarine, superfine sugar and orange zest. Gradually mix in the oil and beat until light and fluffy. Combine the flour, semolina, baking powder, cinnamon and cloves; beat into the fluffy mixture alternately with the orange juice. As the mixture thickens, turn out onto a floured board and knead into a firm dough. Pinch off tablespoonfuls of dough and form them into balls or ovals. Place cookies 2 inches apart onto the prepared cookie sheets.
Bake for 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden. Cool on baking sheets until room temperature.

To make the syrup: In a medium saucepan, over medium heat, combine the water, white sugar, honey alternative, cinnamon stick and lemon juice. Bring to a boil and boil for 10 minutes. Remove the cinnamon stick. While the mixture is boiling hot, dip the cookies in one at a time, making sure to cover them completely. Place them on a wire rack to dry and sprinkle with walnuts, sesame seeds, or sugar. Place paper under the rack to catch the drips. Keep finished cookies in a sealed container at room temperature.

*The recipe I veganized says 5 dozen, but I made mine a little bigger.

Boo!

Yeah, not much scary about these cookies. However; I do think it was cute that while I was mixing in the chips and nuts, this song came on the radio: I used this recipe, but added chocolate chips and chopped pecans to it. They didn't spread very well, and kind of came out the same shape as when I dropped them. Lesson learned for subsequent batches. I wonder if oil would work better than margarine? If I can improve on these (I'm already thinking that oats are needed), I'll bring them to all the parties I'm invited to this year. :>/ Upon cooling, these are delightfully chewy and go GREAT with coffee.

Catching up.

Oy, I have not much of an excuse for staying away for so long. One is that I am lazy, and the other is that I lost my camera. But then I found it, so laziness wins out.

Much stuff going on in the little vegan world in Minneapolis. I'll start with two fun and successful bake sales! The first one was to benefit Kinship Circle; an organization organizing rescues for abandoned and injured animals after the Haiti earthquake. The Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale (Twin Cities style) took place at Ethique Nouveau on April 24. Here are some pictures from both (this was also my chance to get some shots of the new store!) :

This tree is in the front window. I love that they bought Aqua Globes.



Beautiful jewelry, handbags, and cosmetics.





Those avocado brownies were awesome. Really. I swear.



These cranberry-almond muffins got many five-star reviews.



Celeste's truffles. By popular demand, they also appeared at the next bake sale.



These are mine. Lemony macadamia white chocolate scones, and double chocolate muffins.



On May 14, I attended a sushi class at the home of Ciree Linsenman. I had a blast (hanging out with other vegans usually is), and found out that assembling sushi is really not that hard. I'm looking forward to having some friends over to roll our own. These pictures were taken with my new Samsung Behold II phone, as I had misplaced my camera. As you can see, it takes pretty okay pictures of food, while my digital camera leaves much to be desired. I guess six years is long enough. Time to get a camera that takes good food pictures, dammit.

Gobo Boats: red quinoa with pickled burdock root. Color is from beets.



Tavo Tavo Maki.



Tavo Tavo Maki, pre-rolled.



Rainbow Inari parcels.



Black Dragon Back Roll (in the back, with the bok choy sticking out).



Coming soon: Waffles! Iron Chef! Skin Trade movie premier! Stay tuned.

Truck Nutz Cookies.

My best friend and I saw the most hilarious bit on the Daily Show the other night (scroll to 8:19) wherein he brought up Truck Nutz.

So, tonight I'm making some cookies to bring to the Book Festival tomorrow. As I dumped a good amount of walnuts from the bag I picked up at Trader Joe's, I realized they were walnut halves, not pieces. You know what's coming. My cookies have big nuts.

I am a sucky tester.

I'm not sure why I keep signing up for testing stuff, because the moon, my time, my kitchen, and my money never line up. I could be sitting on the couch with my thumb up my ass, but I have nothing in the cupboards and nothing in the bank. When I do have money, I'm out running around. Also, Isa has a knack for posting a freaking deeelicious looking recipe just as I walk in the door with my allotted groceries for two weeks. She is aware of this phenomenon with me. Nevertheless, I need to get my testing butt in gear.

As I was getting ready to watch the Vikings get stuffed by the Eagles, I remembered that I have everything needed for Chocolate Crinkle Cookies (didja know there was a cookie book coming? Eh?). Even black cocoa, which I ordered from some Amish store on eBay (really!) for the Fauxstess cupcakes I never got around to making. Plus, I had exactly the amount of chocolate chips* needed for the recipe.



These are AMAZING. I love super chewy chocolatey things, like Tootsie Rolls. These totally satisfied my craving. They are a bit sweet, but not enough to cause a headache. Pretty fast and so easy. This is going to be a great book!

* The jury is in. Guittard are my favorite chocolate chips to bake with, as well as snack on. For only $3.59 at Target, they are a bargain compared to most of the others.

Devil's Night

Today at my job, my boss carved our pumpkin to enter in the district carving contest. Instead of my suggestion that we do a Barack O'Lantern, we settled on something work related. I know, right? LAME.

Anyway, I was given the guts to de-seed. I spent my afternoon in the drive-up with slimy hands, removing seeds from stringy pumpkin guts, and helping customers. One thing I did notice: pumpkin makes your hands feel really smooth. I think I might make a face mask out of that stuff someday. Someday when I don't hate pumpkins anymore.




Tonight, between fighting with my family about politics via email and talking on the phone, I whipped up a batch of tamari-chile oil roasted pumpkin seeds (firey!), and pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. The seeds were mine, and the cookie recipe is from the intertubes. I think I will doctor it up so the cookies are less cakey and more chewy and gooey next time. How come my cookies always come out cakey? Is it the baking powder? And since I made two things today, can I skip tomorrow? No? I hate you.



Tomorrow is the last day of MoFo. Will I make it? Stay tuned.

My Sweet Blondies and ice cream

Sometimes, the simplest dessert can be a real treat.



Hannah's Butterscotch Blondies, So Delicious Dulce de Leche, and a kittynose.

Tofu 1...2...Done.

I thought I'd round out my Tofu 1-2-3 week with a dessert recipe. Since I'm near death, going to the store wasn't an option, so I made something with ingredients I had available. I went with the Fudge Brownies.



This turned out to be a very pudding-like brownie. Definitely not finger food. The gooey fudge was intensely rich and velvety. The recipe called for one cup maple syrup, and I used half maple syrup and half agave nectar. I also swirled a couple blops of blackberry jam into the pan, because I have yet to make a recipe in this book 100% true to the page. At least I wasn't a tester for this one. I have to say, while everything in the book is edible and tasty, I would like to see what Ms. Abrams can do outside of quick-and-easy vegan cooking. I would certainly recommend this for people who are new to vegan cooking, because the ingredients are all easy to come by, however; it's not very adventurous. It's definitely a good one to own if you have kids, since nothing is very spicy or weird. I'll give it three stars.