One Year Anniversary: Chocolate Orange Almond Cake

What is that quotation about “the best laid plans of mice and men...”? Well, bloggers ought to be included in that as well. For the past month I have been contemplating what I might write about for my one year anniversary post. Nothing seemed quite monumental enough to commemorate the last year of my eating and writing life. So, apparently I sidestepped the issue by completely ignoring my blog for a month and thus avoiding the problem. Oh well.

So, I’m asking you to suspend reality for a moment and imagine that today is the one year anniversary of Dinner Peace, and celebrate the occasion with me! In honor of “today,” I am providing the recipe that started it all: Chocolate Orange Almond Cake.

A little over a year ago, I asked my mom what she wanted for her birthday cake. She has always loved the Chocolate Orange Almond Cake from Prolific Oven, but as it’s not vegan, she asked me to make a compassionate approximation of her favorite dessert. After a lazy summer, I felt up to the challenge. I prepared the two different cakes, two frostings and photographed the result, intending to post it on facebook with the caption “the most productive thing I’ve done all summer.” Well, that photograph was the impetus for everything that has come since. This year I prepared the cake once again, photographed it as beautifully as possible, and am now providing the accompanying recipe. Bitter cocoa, tart, sweet oranges, and a subtle almond flavor comprise one of the most delicious birthday cakes I’ve ever had!

Chocolate Orange Almond Cake

Prepare 1 recipe Chocolate Cake

Prepare 1 recipe Yellow Cake (substitute almond extract for the vanilla extract)

Prepare 1 recipe Chocolate Frosting

Orange Frosting

1/2 cup non dairy butter
3 cups confectioners sugar
1 teaspoon orange zest
3 to 4 tablespoons orange juice

Once the cakes have cooled completely, slice each cake in half. Lay one half of the yellow cake on a plate. Spread 1/3 of the orange frosting over the top. Cover with one half of the chocolate cake. Cover with another third of the orange frosting. Lay the second half of the yellow cake on top. Cover with the last third of the orange frosting. Top with the second half of the chocolate cake. Cover the top and sides of the cake completely with chocolate frosting. Allow to set in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

A Vegan Birthday Party: Chocolate Cherry Cake

What kind of birthday would it be if you only had one cake? Fortunately, that’s not really the way we do things at my house. When it comes to dessert, more is more. So, of course, yellow cupcakes were not the end of Summer’s birthday celebration. On her actual birthday, she requested our traditional family birthday cake: Chocolate Cherry Cake.

My mom invented this cake for me when I was a kid, and I had it every year on my birthday. One memorable year, my 15th birthday, my mom had baked an especially beautiful cake for me. When my friends came over for dinner, 3 year old Summer decided to carry the cake out to show everyone. Well, two layers of chocolate cake, a can of cherry pie filling, and a serious amount of frosting proved too much for my baby sister. The cake landed on the floor, irreparable.

I decided not to hold it against her though, and even offered to make her a Chocolate Cherry Cake this year. Served in the afternoon with green mint iced tea, it was a festive end to Summer’s Birthday Weekend!

Chocolate Cherry Cake

2 recipes of chocolate cake baked in 8” round pans
1 can of cherry pie filling
1/2 cup non dairy butter
3 cups confectioners sugar
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 to 4 tablespoons water

Turn cakes out of the pan onto a cooling rack. Allow to cool completely before assembling.

Drain the can of cherry pie filling into a small bowl, and set aside.

In the bowl of a mixer, whip the butter until it is smooth and creamy. Sift the sugar and cocoa into a medium bowl. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter, alternating it with tablespoons of water, mixing well. Add the vanilla, and mix thoroughly. Add more water if the frosting looks dry, or more sugar if it looks wet. Set frosting aside.

Place one cake on a plate. Spread a thin layer of frosting on top of the cake. Cover with the cherry pie filling. Set the second cake on top of the cherry pie filling. Cover the top and sides of the cake with the remaining frosting. Refrigerate for at least one hour to allow the frosting to set. Enjoy!

A Vegan Birthday Party: Yellow Cupcakes

The most important part of any birthday party isn’t the dinner, though. It’s the cake! Or cupcakes in this case. My friend Jessica often says that the best test of any cupcakery is their simplest offering: yellow cake with chocolate frosting. It’s always the first thing she orders.

For a while now, yellow cake has been something of an Achilles Heel in my cupcake repertoire. My first attempt was culled from Colleen Patrick-Goudreau’s The Joy of Vegan Baking. While the taste was fine, the texture was too sticky and dense. When feeding non-vegans I never like to serve something imperfect. I want them to walk away exclaiming about how delicious everything was! So, the first batch was a wash, but I didn’t exactly have time for a lot of yellow cake experimentation.

Recently my mom and I have been watching the Food Network show “Cupcake Wars.” We had heard about the show after Chloe Coscarelli won her competition with a vegan cupcake. This was not a vegan cupcake competition, just a cupcake competition, and her light, fluffy, vegan cupcakes won! We looked her up and found this delightfully simple coconut cupcake recipe. Already having all the ingredients, we whipped up a quick batch, and waited.

They turned out absolutely perfectly. Light, soft, tender on the inside with a crisp, sugary edge. They are everything I look for in these individually-sized treats. Topped with rich chocolate frosting, they were the perfect end to a teenage vegan’s birthday party.

Yellow Birthday Cupcakes
adapted from Chef Chloe

1 3/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
1 cup unsweetened non dairy milk
2 tablespoons vanilla
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

Heat the oven to 350ºF. Prepare two 6-cup cupcake pans with paper liners. In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar. Whisk until thoroughly mixed. In a small bowl, combine the oil, milk, vanilla, and vinegar. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, and mix completely. Fill each cupcake cup 2/3 full. Place the pans in the oven, and bake for 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Transfer to a cooling rack, and allow to cool completely before frosting. 

Blueberry Cake

Dear readers, I hope you will forgive me, but I am having a bit of a rough week, and as such, I am going to cop out on you a little bit and recycle one of my recipes. A couple of weeks ago I wrote about this spectacular strawberry cake. I mentioned then that it was super versatile. Case in point: one slight adjustment, and we have blueberry cake! Now, imagine it as sour cherry cake, white peach cake, pineapple cake. The key is to pack in the fresh fruit as close together as possible, and bake until juicy and sticky delicious.

I have also been looking for an opportunity to use the vanilla sugar that is very prettily adorning my kitchen counter. This specialty ingredient seemed quite appropriate for this festive beach picnic dessert. Unfortunately, or not actually, California's somewhat bipolar weather patterns kept me from the beach, and this cake from leaving my kitchen.

Blueberry Cake

3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
3/4 cup barley flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons butter
Slightly less than 1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon ground flaxseed
3 tablespoons water
1/2 cup unsweetened non dairy milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Zest of 1 lemon
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries
2 tablespoons vanilla sugar

Heat the oven to 350ºF. Grease a 9” or 10” pie pan. I used the stunning red 9” pie dish I received for Valentine’s Day.

In a medium bowl, combine the flours, baking powder, and salt. Whisk until thoroughly mixed. Beat the butter in the bowl of a mixer until smooth and creamy. Add the sugar and beat until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. In a blender, combine the flaxseed and water. Whip until thick and creamy. Add to the butter and sugar along with the milk, vanilla, and lemon zest. Beat until combined. Add the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Pour the batter into your pie dish, and spread evenly along the bottom. Top with the blueberries, pushing them gently into the batter. Sprinkle with the 2 tablespoons vanilla sugar.

Place in the center of the oven, and bake for 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to 325 and bake for another 50 to 60 minutes, until golden and a toothpick inserted comes out clean (don’t worry about a little strawberry juice though). Remove from the oven, place on a cooling rack, and allow to sit for 10 minutes. Serve warm, or cover and refrigerate for up to 3 three days.

Ginger Snaps

When I was a little girl, I used to spend my summers in Thousand Island Park, NY. It is a truly idyllic community almost out of time. I have the best childhood memories of getting a quarter every afternoon to spend at the penny candy counter, competing in sailboat races with my cousins, and lying on the dock until the sun was barely peeking over the river. As with all of my memories, food plays a very central role. Everyone would gather around the picnic tables out back which were always covered with simple, fresh ingredients, prepared deliciously: grilled tomatoes stuffed with corn, iced tea with fresh mint, and the best peach cobbler.

One of my fondest memories is of melt-in-your-mouth ginger snaps made by my cousins’ grandmother, Edna. Neither of my grandmothers left me with an illustrious culinary heritage, so naturally I turned to other people’s grandmothers. Edna’s ginger snaps were crisp on the outside from their generous sugar coating, and cakey on the inside, full of sharp ginger flavor. When we were little, my cousins and I used to sneak into her cottage and steal a few from the tin where she kept them. It’s hers I think of whenever I make these so-called “Screaming” Ginger Snaps.

Screaming Ginger Cookies
adapted from Alice Medrich’s Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-In-Your-Mouth Cookies

2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons non dairy butter
1/4 cup molasses (not blackstrap)
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger
1 tablespoon ground flaxseed
3 tablespoons water
3/4 cup crystallized ginger, 1/4” dice
1/2 cup Demerara sugar for rolling

Heat the oven to 350ºF. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, ground ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and salt, and whisk until thoroughly combined.

Combine the flaxseed and water in a blend, and whip until thick and creamy. Set aside.

Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Remove from heat and add the molasses, sugar, fresh ginger, and flaxseed mixture. Stir until combined. Add to the flour mixture and stir until just incorporated. The dough will be soft.

Scoop tablespoons of dough into balls and roll in the Demerara sugar. Place 2” apart on a cookie sheet. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, rotating front to back and top to bottom halfway through; 10 minutes for chewier cookies, 12 for crispier ones. Remove from the oven and transfer to a cooling rack. Try not to eat the whole batch in one sitting!

Strawberry Summer Cake

Sometimes I make dishes and it takes me a long time to write about them. It’s not that they weren’t delicious. I promise, dear readers, that I will never recommend a dish that isn’t absolutely delectable. But, rather, I have forgotten how delicious it was, how satisfying to my hungry belly, how heavenly it made my kitchen smell. I have to conjure the experience again in order to convey it to my readers. But, other dishes linger richly in my memory, calling out from my desktop for a reverent portrayal. This Strawberry Cake is one such dish.

I saw this cake first on that most excellent food blog, Smitten Kitchen. I absolutely worship everything this woman does, and when I became vegan, her blog was the first place I went. Although she is a devoted omnivore, doing things with butter, cheese, and cream that I would never dare in my kitchen, she is also quite fond of vegetables, and actually prefers to leave them be, allowing them to taste of themselves. She has introduced me to such favorites as cold peanut noodles, scalloped tomatoes, and mushroom bourguignon. The moment I saw this cake, I wanted it. This is surprising because I’m not actually that fond of yellow cake, and strawberry jam is always my last choice. But, for some reason, this juicy, fresh dessert (and probably breakfast) had me drooling. A big slice, fresh out of the oven was just as great as I had imagined.

Strawberry Summer Cake
adapted from Smitten Kitchen

3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
3/4 cup barley flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons butter
Slightly less than 1 cup sugar plus 2 tablespoons
1 tablespoon ground flaxseed
3 tablespoons water
1/2 cup unsweetened non dairy milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Zest of 1 lemon
1 pound strawberries, hulled and halved (quartered if very large)

Heat the oven to 350ºF. Grease a 9” or 10” pie pan. I used the stunning red 9” pie dish I received for Valentine’s Day.

In a medium bowl, combine the flours, baking powder, and salt. Whisk until thoroughly mixed. Beat the butter in the bowl of a mixer until smooth and creamy. Add the sugar and beat until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. In a blender, combine the flaxseed and water. Whip until thick and creamy. Add to the butter and sugar along with the milk, vanilla, and lemon zest. Beat until combined. Add the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Pour the batter into your pie dish, and spread evenly along the bottom. Top with the strawberry halves, pushing them gently into the batter. Sprinkle with the 2 tablespoons sugar.

Place in the center of the oven, and bake for 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to 325 and bake for another 50 to 60 minutes, until golden and a toothpick inserted comes out clean (don’t worry about a little strawberry juice though). Remove from the oven, place on a cooling rack, and allow to sit for 10 minutes. Serve warm, or cover and refrigerate for up to 3 three days.

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

I don’t like to play favorites, but I think cookies are the best sweet treat. A wide variety of textures, flavors, and styles, mean that cookies can satisfy so many different tastes. They’re also quick to put together, easily assembled from your standard pantry ingredients, and flexible. I’ve been working my way through Alice Medrich’s Chewy, Gooey, Crispy, Crunchy, Melt-In-Your-Mouth Cookies recently; see the Peanut Butter Cookies I made a few months ago. Teaching high school students gives me a lot of opportunity to test recipes, and my family is also willing to evaluate any treats that happen to appear in the kitchen. So far, everything has gone over superbly; the Salted Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies are becoming my signature recipe.

The most amazing thing about Medrich’s book is how perfectly every recipe turns out. Medrich is fastidious about her books, each recipe tested extensively, and the specificity of ingredients unparalleled. I’ve never been a huge fan of oatmeal raisin cookies. They seemed kind of pedestrian, nothing spectacular. But, somehow Medrich manages to elevate even the simplest of cookies. Melted butter and sugar creates a caramelized edge, pairing perfectly with cinnamon, chewy oatmeal, and plump raisins. Great texture and great flavor have now made these cookies among my favorites.

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

2 cups rolled oats
1/4 cup water
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 cup non dairy butter
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon ground flaxseed
3 tablespoons water
1 cup walnuts, chopped
1 cup raisins

In a small bowl, combine the oats and 1/4 cup water. Stir to combine, then set aside.

In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Whisk together thoroughly.

Blend the flaxseed and 3 tablespoons water until thick and frothy.

Add the butter to a small saucepan. Heat over medium heat until completely melted. Remove from heat, and add the brown sugar, granulated sugar, vanilla and salt. Whisk together thoroughly. Add the flaxseed mixture, and stir to combine. Add the flour mixture, and stir until just combined. Stir in the raisins, walnuts, and oats. Cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least two hours, preferably overnight.

Heat the oven to 350ºF. Scoop tablespoons of dough onto cookie sheets, and bake for 10 to 12 minutes, rotating the pans from top to bottom, and front to back halfway through. Remove from the oven when the cookies are golden brown on the bottom, and transfer to a cooling rack.

Vanilla Sugar

Writing this food blog has opened my life in a lot of different directions: my own recipe development, recipe testing for Christy Morgan, planning and hosting Dishcrawls with Tracy Lee, even part-time subtle persuasion at Williams-Sonoma. When Tracy and I met up for the vegan Dishcrawl a couple of weeks ago, she had just come from another event the night before, where Dishcrawlers had visited Xanath Ice Cream in San Francisco. Xanath, while not vegan, is devoted to pure, clean flavors, especially vanilla and saffron. As a parting gift, Xanath gave every visitor a vanilla bean, and Tracy passed one along to me. I confess, I’ve never worked with a real vanilla bean before. I am a devoted user of pure, high quality vanilla extract, but have never had cause to use vanilla bean. A quick google led me to vanilla sugar, which I whipped up in about 5 minutes. It has to “marinate” for a couple of weeks, which will give me time to think of something lovely to use it for.

Vanilla Sugar

1 vanilla bean
2 cups sugar

Using a small, sharp knife, slice the vanilla bean in half, lengthwise. Use the edge of the knife to scrape the seeds out of the pod, then deposit in the sugar. Bury the two halves of the bean in the sugar, and pour the whole thing into an airtight container. Let sit for two to three weeks. Check back to see what happens next!

Melt-In-Your-Mouth Peanut Butter Cookies

Even though I am abstaining from sweets for the next six weeks, that doesn’t mean the rest of you should suffer! When it comes to cookies, there is no greater expert than Alice Medrich. The thing I respect the most about Medrich is her scientific devotion to baking. She truly understands that baking is not an improvised endeavor, and every recipe is an experiment with variables and controls. Her research into the usage and function of ingredients, precision of measurement, and combination of elements is truly awe-inspiring.

Medrich’s first home baking tome, Cookies and Brownies, came out more than a decade ago. Before releasing a new edition of this seminal cookbook, Medrich revisited her original recipes with an eye to updating and improving them. What resulted is the magnificent and encyclopedic Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-In-Your-Mouth Cookies. One major addition to the book is the inclusion of gluten-free recipes. Although vastly different, people tend to think of gluten-free and vegan together. I have my fingers crossed that this gluten-free exploration will lead Medrich to devote her considerable knowledge to vegan recipes. Until then, I will offer my own attempts at veganizing these spectacular cookies.

Peanut Butter Cookies

hardly adapted from Alice Medrich’s Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-In-Your-Mouth Cookies

1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon sea salt
8 tablespoons non dairy butter
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon ground flaxseed
3 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups natural salted chunky peanut butter, stirred to incorporate oil

In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt. Whisk to incorporate all ingredients.

Place butter in the bowl of a mixer, and whip until smooth, about 10 seconds. Add the sugar and blend until creamy, about 1 minute. Combine the flax seed and water in a blender. Blend until thick and creamy. Add to the butter along with the vanilla and peanut butter, mixing all the ingredients together. Add the flour mixture, and stir until ingredients are just incorporated. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least two hours, preferably overnight.

Heat the oven to 325ºF. Scoop large tablespoons of dough, and form them into ball. Place balls of dough 2” apart on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Flatten each ball with a fork, pointing the prongs in two directions to make a crosshatch pattern. Bake for 16 to 18 minutes, until light golden on the top. Remove cookies from the oven and transfer cookies to a cooling rack.

Chocolate Orange Pudding

Today is the first day of Lent, and if that means being vegan for you, you’re probably thinking that the next six weeks are going to be all about brown rice, tofu, and steamed vegetables. But, the goal of this blog has always been to show how varied, exciting, and delicious a vegan diet is.

Sometimes, as a vegan, I feel as though I am trying to cook food that lives up to its animal based counterpart, like macaroni and cheese. But, some recipes highlight how amazing the vegan diet is. This chocolate pudding is one such dish. When I’ve made chocolate pudding in the past, I’ve struggled to get all the chocolate melted, so that it is smooth and creamy, rather than grainy. This is something I’ve never been able to accomplish. Yet, the very first time I made chocolate pudding using almond milk, it turned out so perfectly. It was smooth and rich, loaded with chocolate flavor. Even better, it retained a lightness that just isn’t possible when you use cow’s milk.

In a moment of divine inspiration, I added some orange zest to the milk as it simmered, which gave it just the right brightness and depth of flavor.

Chocolate Orange Pudding

adapted from Kingsford's Corn Starch's Rich Chocolate Pudding

1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup corn starch
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 cups vanilla almond milk
2 tablespoons non dairy butter
1 teaspoon orange zest
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

In a large pot, combine the sugar, corn starch, and salt over medium heat.

Slowly add the milk, whisking constantly.

Add the butter and orange zest. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring constantly. Boil for 1 minute, then remove from heat. Add the chocolate chips, and stir until the chocolate is melted and the pudding is smooth.

Transfer to individual bowls, cover, and refrigerate.

Vegan Products I Love: Cinnaholic

From time to time I like to talk about vegan products that make this lifestyle just a little bit better. One of my guilty pleasures in my omnivore days was Cinnabon. It was the kind of thing I only allowed myself to eat ever so rarely, and no, I don’t want to know how many calories are in one. I had lost all hope of ever enjoying a gooey, buttery, cinnamon-spicy treat again, until I found out about Cinnaholic.

Cinnaholic takes the cinnamon bun to a whole new level. It starts with a warm, soft, and chewy roll that tastes of sugar, spice, and everything nice. Then, it’s topped with a rich, creamy, finger-licking frosting. And here’s where it gets good. First, you get to choose what kind of frosting you want; my personal favorite is orange, but you can pick your poison with flavors like caramel, cream soda, and pumpkin spice. Then, you get to personalize your bun further with all kinds of toppings: almonds, strawberries, shredded coconut, and graham crackers are just a few of the delights you can choose from. This is no ordinary vegan treat.

But, the best part of Cinnaholic is husband and wife team, Florian Radke and Shannon Michelle Radke. Shannon personally prepares your cinnamon bun, while Florian handles everything else. It all comes together to make you feel like you’re hanging out in their kitchen, chatting with the best friends you’ve never met. Cinnaholic, and all its charms, is surely a Berkeley institution in the making. Check it out the next time you’re in Berkeley, or order a dozen for your friends and family!

Visit Cinnaholic at 2132 Oxford Street

or

Order Online!

Raspberry Filled Chocolate Cupcakes

Last week, I wrote about these luscious jam filled muffins, and ever since then I have been thinking of other ways to apply this technique. My friend Jessica hosted a grown-up version of the middle school slumber party, complete with pajamas, deliciously bad 80’s movies, and elevated junk food. This seemed like a perfect occasion to experiment with baking.

The vegan chocolate cupcakes I wrote about a few months ago are among the most perfect of my vegan recipes. The texture, the flavor, the frosting are everything I could want from a chocolate cupcake. But, one of my favorite treats is a filled cupcake. Whether filled with fruit, ganache, or cream, there’s something delightful about that sudden variation in flavor, right in the middle of your cupcake. By simply applying the same technique I used in my lemon raspberry muffins, I was able to create lovely, decadent, raspberry filled chocolate cupcakes.

Raspberry Filled Chocolate Cupcakes

Follow the recipe for chocolate cupcakes. Fill each cupcake tin half full with batter. Spoon 1 teaspoon raspberry jam into the center of the batter. Cover with batter until the cup is 2/3 full. Bake according to the recipe.

Vegan Pound Cake

As if Chocolate Fondue isn’t enough of a treat, I like to pair it with homemade pound cake. At its best, pound cake is light, crumbly, and buttery which makes it perfect for the bitter richness of dark chocolate. You’ll find that everyone gathered around your fondue pot has a different favorite combination. For me, it’s a square of pound cake topped with a slice of strawberry. For others it’s just one clean raspberry. Or orange and pineapple. Whatever it is, the real joy of fondue is the “do-it-yourself” aspect, where everybody gets exactly what they want. And pound cake is the perfect addition to the table.

Pound cake is also great because it is so versatile. Add some blueberries and you have a simple breakfast bread; top it with an orange glaze and you have a light summer dessert; spread a slice with your favorite jam for a perfect tea snack; the possibilities are endless!

Vegan Pound Cake

Adapted from “A Vegan for Dinner”

1/2 cup non dairy butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
6 ounces of silken tofu, blended until smooth
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup water
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoons baking powder

Heat the oven to 350º F. Grease a 5” x 9” pan. In the bowl of a mixer, beat the butter until smooth and creamy. Add the sugar, and beat until fluffy, about 1 minute. Add the silken tofu, and mix until combined. Add 1 cup flour, and mix until just incorporated. Add the water and vanilla, and mix. Add the remaining cup of flour and the baking powder, and mix on medium for 2 minutes. Pour the mixture into the pan, and bake for 55 to 65 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Allow to cool before removing from the pan. Cut up into 1” cubes for fondue.

Chocolate Fondue

One of the secrets no one ever tells you about food blogs is that sometimes there is a serious time delay between the food and the post. Take today’s dish for example. I first mentioned Chocolate Fondue almost a month ago, and my family and I enjoyed it after our gorgeous Christmas dinner. And yet, I am only just now getting around to writing about it. I wondered whether I should even post it, because I know January is a time for abstinence and restraint, but once again, being vegan allows for indulgence without remorse. Light and nutritious almond milk gives dark, antioxidant-rich dark chocolate the perfect texture.

Chocolate Fondue is a holiday tradition in my household, but it needn’t be restricted to the decadent holiday season, especially with Valentine’s Day coming up! Traditional fondue recipes consist of chocolate and cream, melted into a thick, smooth consistency. But, for some reason, a lot of vegan fondue recipes called for strange things like non dairy cream cheese, or marshmallow fluff. My philosophy of vegan cooking is to keep things as simple and natural as possible. Just because we’re removing the animal products from our food doesn’t mean we have to reinvent the wheel. I serve my fondue with several kinds of fruit, and a homemade pound cake. So, make a trip to the farmer’s market this weekend, pick up an array of your favorite fruits, and make this extraordinary dessert for the people you love!

6 ounces good quality dark chocolate, chopped into small chunks
1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk

Heat the almond milk in a small saucepan over medium heat. Slowly add the chocolate stirring constantly, allowing the heat of the milk to melt the chocolate, take care not to let the chocolate burn. When the chocolate is smooth and melted, transfer to a fondue pot, or a small bowl. Serve immediately.

Check back tomorrow for light and buttery pound cake!

Baking Without Eggs

When I became a vegan, I knew it could never be a lifestyle if I couldn’t master non dairy baking. I love sweets; I love sugar; I love chocolate. My lifetime of memories is punctuated by dessert: the chocolate cherry cake my mom invented for me, and has baked for my birthday since I was a little girl; cutting out and frosting Christmas cookies with my baby sister every holiday season; baking pans of brownies for all my girlfriends on their birthdays. Giving up meat would be easy, but giving up my memories was not feasible.

At the beginning of my vegan experiment, I happily discovered that Earth Balance can do everything that butter does. It makes perfect sense; housewives have been cooking with margarine for years. My buttercream frosting turned out so well, I can’t believe it’s not butter! Eggs, however, are the real challenge to vegan baking. This is primarily because eggs are doing multiple things in any given recipe. We have to start by isolating the purpose of eggs in traditional baking. Eggs are primarily useful for leavening, thickening, moisture, and binding. For example, eggs are what give rise to a soufflé; eggs provide that rich texture in a key lime pie; eggs give a brownie its moist cakiness; and eggs hold everything together in a chocolate chip cookie. Because of the variability of the egg, it is necessary for vegan bakers to have a flexible assortment of egg replacers. First, let’s consider some common ingredients that can be utilized in egg-free baking.

Applesauce: Applesauce is the most familiar of the possible egg replacers. It is good for both moisture and as a binding agent. In fact, many brownie recipes call for applesauce as a way to cut down on the oil, so this is not especially unusual. However, this brings us to the negatives of using applesauce. Using applesauce to replace eggs, and oil to a certain extent can steal some of the richness and pleasure out of your baked goods. Applesauce, therefore, is best used for reduced fat treats, which may also mean reduced flavor.

Banana: A ripe banana is an excellent replacement for eggs, in very specific instances. It works best as a binding agent, and provides some moisture. However, the moist richness of this fruit goes hand in hand with an unavoidable banana flavor. This is fine, if you’re making banana bread, or even chocolate bread pudding, but banana oatmeal cookies would not be advisable.

Vinegar and Baking Soda: Vinegar and baking soda is a well known leavening agent, known to amateur scientists everywhere. Using this combination as a replacement for eggs is somewhat limited though. It works incredibly well in giving your baked goods rise and levity. However, it isn’t especially effective as a binding agent, nor does it provide much moisture. These shortcomings would need to be compensated for in the form of oil and water. As housewives discovered during the Great Depression, oil, water, baking soda, and vinegar can make an excellent chocolate cake when eggs and butter are being rationed. This decades-old recipe has become a staple for the vegan community.

Silken Tofu: This egg replacer is the one that gets the strangest looks from people. However, it is highly capable as a thickener in anything requiring a smooth, custardy texture. Tofu is wonderful because it takes on the flavors around it, rather than asserting its presence like the banana. I have had great success with Key Lime Pie, and Pecan Pie, using silken tofu as a base. Silken tofu is not a universal egg replacer though, as it is very dense, and thus, can weigh down lighter foods like brownies, or cakes.

Ground Flaxseed: Until I began experimenting with vegan baking, I had never worked much with flaxseed. I only knew it as some kind of health food that I probably should be eating, but didn’t look too appetizing. I had no idea that, when ground and mixed with water it could be widely useful as an egg replacer. Flaxseed, like an egg, is multi-functional, providing fat, moisture, and acting as a binding agent. I use ground flaxseed in place of eggs, in almost all of my food, for pancakes, waffles, brownies, chocolate chip cookies, scones, muffins, and more. Ground flaxseed is the most able to fulfill the role of an actual egg.

Salted Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

If you’re like me, you are probably drooling over the mere title of this post. But, maybe you’re nothing like me and you need a little convincing. Well, here it is. These cookies are amazing! They are soft and chewy with an edge that fights back just a little. They start off with bitter chocolate, then mellow into sweetness, and linger with a salty finish. If you’re not panting with desire for these buttery delights, then I think we should see other people. But, if you are, could you whip up a batch and bring them on over?

1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup Dutch process cocoa
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
a heaping 1/4 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons non dairy butter softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar packed
1 tablespoon ground flaxseed
3 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Heat the oven to 350º

In a large bowl, combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. In the bowl of a mixer, whip the butter until it is smooth and creamy. Add the sugar and brown sugar, and mix until smooth and combined. In a blender, combine the flaxseed and water and blend until thick and frothy.  Add the flaxseed mixture, and the vanilla to the butter and sugar and mix until combined. Add the flour mixture to the butter and mix until just incorporated. Add the walnuts and chocolate chips to the batter and mix.

Scoop large tablespoons of dough onto a cookie sheet. Bake for 12 to 14 minutes, rotating the cookie sheets and exchanging the top and bottom halfway through. Cookies will puff up as they bake, and then deflate as they get closer to being done. After baking, transfer the cookies to a cooling rack. Enjoy!

Chocolate Toffee Bars

This may actually be my last Christmas cookie post, although not my last cookie post by  a long shot. I already have a queue of cookie posts waiting for after the holiday season. But this officially marks the last batch of cookies I baked and sent to the people I love. Everything else is for my own selfish enjoyment.

This is another recipe from Alice Medrich. For a few years now, my mom has made these fantastic blondie brownies with chunks of dark chocolate and toffee pieces. Unfortunately, pre-made toffee has cow’s milk and butter among its initial ingredients, and is therefore no longer a resident of my baking cabinet. But, I was longing for a similar flavor, and happened upon these Chocolate Toffee bars. These treats hit the perfect balance of chocolate, toffee, and almonds, three ingredients that seem destined for each other. And again, this recipe is a snap to put together, making it exceptionally appropriate for this busy time of year. Happy Holidays everyone!

8 tablespoons non dairy butter
1/2 cup brown sugar packed
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup almonds chopped and toasted

Heat oven to 350ºF. Melt the butter in a medium saucepan. Remove from heat and add the brown sugar, vanilla, and salt. Stir until incorporated. Add the flour and mix until combined. Bake on a rack in the lower third of the oven, for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the center is golden, and the edges are browned.

Remove the pan from the oven, and sprinkle the chocolate chips over the top of the hot crust. Return to the oven if the chocolate is not melting. When the chocolate is melted, spread it smoothly over the top of the crust. Sprinkle the almonds evenly over the chocolate. Allow to cool thoroughly before cutting into squares.

Chocolate Shortbread

One of my favorite indulgences is shortbread. I practically subsisted on it while traveling through Scotland; I said no thank you to haggis even before I was vegan. I even purchased a few packages of shortbread to give out as gifts and shamefully ate them myself. I have always had a predilection for sweet and salty together: chocolate covered pretzels, salt caramels, world peace cookies, and salted brown butter rice krispy treats. Shortbread is buttery, crumbly, and in this case dark chocolatey, with a perfect salty finish that lingers on your tongue. This recipe also happens to be incredibly easy, so I’ve made it three times already this Christmas season. Whip up a batch for your friends and family this week!

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
3 tablespoons Dutch process cocoa
12 tablespoons non dairy butter softened
6 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar for sprinkling

Line a 9” round pan, or an 8” square pan with foil, and grease with cooking spray.

In a small bowl, mix the flour and cocoa thoroughly.

In the bowl of a mixer, beat the butter until smooth and creamy. Add the sugar, vanilla, and salt, and mix until combined. Add the flour and cocoa mixture, and beat until just combined. Press the dough into the bottom of the pan. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Heat the oven to 300ºF. Place the pan on a rack in the lower third of the oven. Bake for 65 minutes, or until firm. Sprinkle with sugar while it’s hot. Let cool for five minutes, then cut into pieces using a sharp knife. Enjoy!

Chocolate Covered Cherry Cookies

Are there people out there who only make one kind of Christmas cookie? Obviously I am not one of those people, what with the three and a half cookie recipes I’ve already shared and more to come. If you’re a one batch of cookies kind of household, then just consider this a plethora of choices for this festive season. One thing I should mention though; I haven’t eaten 13 batches of cookies. That’s something I do not recommend, and fortunately, cookies make the perfect holiday gift!

These cookies are fun because they are almost like candy, except they’re cookies! They are also full of rich chocolate flavor, and a little decadent. The chocolate provides a nice balance to all of the butter cookies I’ve written about so far, and cherries go very well with the season. These cookies also happen to be beautiful. Whomever you serve them to will be very impressed!

48 maraschino cherries with stems
2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon reserved maraschino cherry liquid
1/2 cup non dairy butter
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon ground flaxseed
3 tablespoons water
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
2 tablespoons unsweetened non dairy milk

In a large bowl beat the butter until smooth. Add the sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and baking powder, and beat until combined. In a blender, mix the water and ground flaxseed until thick and frothy. Add to the butter mixture with 1 teaspoon of the cherry liquid and combine. Add the flour and mix until combined.

Heat the oven to 350º. Form 1 teaspoon of dough around each maraschino cherry and place in a paper candy cup. Place the candy cups on a baking sheet. Bake for 14 minutes, or until the top of the balls is dry and slightly firm to the touch. Remove from the oven.

While the cookies are in the oven, melt the chocolate chips in a saucepan over medium heat. Add 2 tablespoons of the cherry liquid, and 2 tablespoons of non dairy milk and stir. Spoon the chocolate mixture onto the warm cookies. Allow to cool before eating.

Chocolate Dipped Cookies

I know I just wrote about the Orange Sablés a couple of days ago, but I have infinitely improved them, and I didn’t want anyone to make these cookies without the benefit of this amendment.

I had mentioned in my initial post that I thought these cookies would improve with the addition of a little dark chocolate, and I took the opportunity to drizzle some of the cookies with dark chocolate. This turned out so well, that when I made the next batch, I decided to dip them.

Dipping chocolate is more complicated than simply melting chocolate and dipping your cookies in it. However, don’t be intimidated, because it is altogether fairly simple. The important thing to remember is that working with chocolate is about science, and it is necessary to be precise.

When you buy a bar of chocolate in a store, what you are purchasing is tempered chocolate. When the chocolate is made, it is kept at a lower temperature causing a dense crystalline structure to form, resulting in a hard and shiny bar of chocolate. When you are creating chocolate for dipping, the end result should also be a hard and shiny layer. What this means is that you must melt the chocolate at a low temperature in order to maintain the same dense crystalline structure.

Enough theory, now practice. Chop 6 ounces of chocolate very finely. Place in a bowl, preferably a metal bowl which is more conducive to heat transfer. Fill a larger bowl half full with hot water, between 110º and 115º using an instant read thermometer. Place the metal bowl in the bowl of water and begin slowly stirring the chocolate, pressing it up against the sides of the bowl to enable melting. Be very careful not to get ANY water in the chocolate as this will cause seizing and entirely disrupt the crystal structure. If the water cools too much, and the melting slows, microwave the bowl of water until it is once again 110º to 115º. Once the chocolate has melted, begin dipping your cookies in the chocolate. Once dipped, place on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Allow to set by placing the cookies in a cool, dry place. Setting should not take more than 30 minutes. Allow to set completely before packing the cookies.