Triple Christmas Cookies

It is only 11 days til Christmas, and I am in full christmas baking mood!
Up until now I've made rather untypical christmas cookies (for me at least), but they were good nonetheless. In just a few days my sister and my brother will be home too and then we will bake those typical, yummy and perfect christmas cookies. (recipes & pictures included).

But for now....

Coconut Macaroons

makes about 20

Ingredients:
4 tsp. egg replacer ( I used Orgran No Egg)
90 gr dessicated coconut (unsweetened)
25 gr ground almonds (I used ground hazelnuts, works just fine)
50 gr almond paste
a pinch salt
1/2 sachet vanilla sugar
80 ml water
60 gr sugar

Preheat oven to 125°C (250F).
Whisk together egg replacer and water. Mix in sugar, vanilla sugar, and salt. Slowly add dessicated coconut and ground almonds, as well as the roughly cut almond paste. Take a teaspoon and form little balls and place them on a baking sheet. Bake for about 30 minutes.
I figure, mine would have needed 5 - 10 minutes more, they were rather moist.

Optional: Melt some dark chocolate and dip the macaroons in the molten chocolate. This makes them extra yummy!

Mexican Hot Chocolate Snickerdoodles

The recipe is from The PostPunk Kitchen, from my brandnew copy of 'Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar'. Like most recipes from the PPK, these cookies are now one of my favourites!! Chewy and crispy at the same time, ultra-chocolatey and the spicy kick of the cayenne pepper = awesomeness!

Marzipan-Scone Sandwich Cookies, filled with Raspberry Jam & dipped in chocolate

Don't be fooled by the picture (it is a bad one), these are so yummy. The base is a scone-like cookie, topped with raspberry jam with a almond-paste-cut-out on top, all dipped in bittersweet chocolate...

Ingredients:

Scone-cookie:
160 gr flour (I used spelt)
75 gr sugar
65 gr margarine
40 ml soy milk

150 gr almond paste
200 gr bittersweet chocolate
raspberry jam

Cream together sugar and margarine, then add flour and soy milk until you have a kneadable dough.
Chill dough in the fridge for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 160°C (320F).
On a well-floured surface, roll out dough to desired thickness (3-5mm) and cut out shapes (it is easiest to make circles). Arrange cookies on a parchment or silicone lined baking sheet. Bake for 10 - 12 minutes.
Let them cool for at least 15 minutes.

Roll out the almond paste and cut out the same shapes as the cookies. Get your raspberry jam and spread a bit on each cookie and cover with an almond-paste-cookie. 


Melt the chocolate in a waterbath. Dip each cookie gently into the molten chocolate and let cool on a cooling rack, until the chocolate hardens. 





Happy christmas time & enjoy!
Florence

I'm back!!

Wow, it's been a long time since I last posted something. I guess I am sorry, but some things in my life were more important than blogging here. Well, I'm back and firstly here's a little résumé of what I've been up to the past few weeks:

> enjoying the last warm and wonderful autumn days, taking many pictures
> trying out some new recipes as well as creating my own
> sadly not taking a lot of pictures of food


Please read on after the jump....

Vegan MoFo 12 / Pumpkin Barley Risotto

I am still in the middle of my preparations for my A-Level exam next friday, so I'm just popping in to share a delicious & easy recipe with you....

Pumpkin Barley Risotto

feeds 4-5 people

Ingredients:

250 gr pearl barley, rinsed

1-2 Tbsp. olive oil

1 onion, finely cut

veggie broth

1/2 butternut, peeled and cubed 

olive oil

dried herbs 

salt & pepper

 2 Tbsp. oat cream

optional toppings: nutritional yeast, chopped nuts, pumpkin seed oil, vegan cheese

those were just half of my butternut pieces

Preheat oven to 180°C (350F). Start by preparing your butternut. After you've peeled and cubed it, place the pieces in a large bowl. Add some olive oil, so all pieces are lightly (!) coated. Now add salt & pepper, some dried herbs, and more spices if you like. Spread on a baking tray, lined with parchment paper and roast for about 25 minutes, until tender.

Heat olive oil in a pan, and add the finely cut onion. Sautee for a few minutes, and add the well rinsed pear barley. Stir good and just before the barley will stick to the pan, add veggie broth, until well covered. Let cook for 25 - 30 minutes, and until all excess liquid is gone.

When the butternut pieces are ready, puree with oat cream. Add more cream if you like. Now add the butternut mixture to the barley risotto, stir and let cook for a few minutes. You can still add optional toppings, or fold in some vegan cheese pieces, as I did.

Enjoy!

Florence

Liebster Award

 I feel so honored, realising that I have been nominated for the Liebster Award by Caitilin and Rachael! I really love participating in this year's vegan mofo! It has been so much fun, thank you for all your dear comments! This really means a lot to me! :>

 

 

 

 

The idea behind the award is to give recognition to blogs that have less than 200 followers.  Liebster is a German word for dearest, beloved, or favorite.  What you do when you get an award is:

1.  Show your thanks to those who gave you the award by linking back to them.

2.  Link to 5 of your top picks and let them know they’ve been nominated by leaving a comment on their blog.

3.  Post the award on your blog.

4.  Enjoy the love and support of some wonderful people on the interweb!

Okay, so I am not a 100 percent sure, that my chosen blogs have less than 200 followers, but they are great, nonetheless! Spread the love! <3

1. Janet at the tastespace

2. Chow Vegan

3. Kiersten at Vegan Awakening

4. What would Cathy eat?

5. The French Fry Conundrum

Vegan MoFo 11 / Death by chocolate - Layer Cake

 Let's just say, this chocolate layer cake is so worth making! Everyone who tried it, raved about it! But just one word of warning: 1 piece of this will probably satisfy your chocolate cravings for some time :)

Death by chocolate - Layer Cake

make 2 or 4 layers

 adapted from Maple Spice

Chocolate Cake:
190g spelt flour
150g  sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
30g cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
80ml canola oil
1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
240ml sparkling mineral water
 => make twice for 4 layers!








Preheat oven to 180°C (350F). Line a 22cm springform pan with parchment paper. Now mix all dry ingredients in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl mix together canola oil, apple cider vinegar and sparkling mineral water. Now pour it into the large bowl and mix until well combined, be careful not to overmix. Pour the mixture in your lined pan and bake for 30-40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Let it cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack and let cool completely. Then cut in two layers.

Chocolate Mousse Filling:
300g dark chocolate
300ml soy whipping cream, chilled
4 Tbsp. icing sugar
3 Tbsp. coffee liquor





Break your chocolate in small pieces and place in a water bath. Stir regularly until melted. Now remove from  heat and let it cool to room temperature. In a large bowl mix the chilled soy whipping cream and icing sugar and beat for 5 - 10 minutes. Okay, so it is really important to wait long enough, until the whipping cream and melted chocolate are at about the same temperature. And trust me, it is so worth it, as you will end up with this chocolatey goodness! Lastly, carefully stir in the coffee liquor.

Assembling:

 The basic process is the same for every layer: Drizzle with 1 - 2 Tbsp. coffee liquor (don't skip this step) and spread about 1/3 of the chocolate mousse on it. Repeat for the next layers.
The top layer doesn't need any chocolate mousse on top, but save some to straighten out any holes. Mine wasn't perfect, somehow one of my layers is a bit inclined.Place the cake in the fridge for 1-3 hours, so that the filling can set.

Chocolate Ganache:

200 gr dark vegan chocolate

170 ml oat cream

20 gr conut oil

3 tsp. coffee liquor

Chop the chocolate in small pieces and place in a bowl. In a small pan heat up the oat cream and coconut oil until it melts and it all just comes to the boil. Now quickly pour it over the chocolate, let stand for a few seconds and then start stirring until the mixture is smooth. Let cool to room temperature, stirring now and then. 

When you think it's ready take your cake out of the fridge and place on a wire rack, with some parchment paper underneath to catch any dripping chocolate. Now start pouring the ganache all over the top, so that it coats the sides. I only used a palette knife to straighten out the sides, but didn't use it for the top, as I like the glossy look already.
Place your cake again in the fridge, so the ganache will set.

the box for some of my baking & cooking equipment <3

Enjoy!
Florence

Vegan MoFo X / Seitan Cutlets

This blog post comes later as promised, sorry about that. But I was busy studying (still), doing scout stuff and preparing my best friend's birthday gift & cake! (The recipe for her "Death by chocolate layer cake" will come soon!)

And now on to the recipe for this delicious seitan cutlets! Until now, I was not a big seitan fan, as it mostly turned out spongy, which I don't like at all. On the other side, I've made some tasty seitan sausages, and those turned out really wonderful!

But these seitan cutlets and their preparation method changed everything! Who would have thought of using a rolling pin and rolling the individual seitan dough pieces out....!? Apparently, I didn't, but from now on I will definitely do that more often...

Seitan cutlets

adapted from this recipe

 yields12 cutlets

Ingredients: 

Dry:

1 cup gluten flour

1/3 cup nutritional yeast

1/3 cup chickpea flour

2/3 Tbsp. tapioca starch

1 tsp. poultry seasing

1/3 Tbsp. dried parsley

2/3 tsp. onion powder

2/3 tsp. herb salt

1/3 tsp garlic powder

black pepper

Wet:

75 gr medium-firm tofu

25 ml cold water

2/3 Tbsp. oil

more cold water as needed

Broth:

veggie broth (as much to cover all cutlets)

1/6 cup nutritional yeast

1 Tbsp. poultry seasoning

1/3 Tbsp. dried parsley

1/3 Tbsp. herb salt

Mix all dry ingredients, until well combined. Puree the tofu with 25 ml water, until smooth. Add as much water to get 200 ml. Whisk in 2/3 Tbsp. oil.

As it didn't quite work mixing the dough with my kitchen machine, I recommend using it to mix the dry and wet ingredients, but then doing the kneading by hand. This worked well for me. So knead the dough for as long as you can ;). Until the dough seems well combined and stretchable.

Prepare your broth, by combining all ingredients in a big pan. Don't forget, you can still add more veggie broth, when all cutlets are in the pan, so pour in too much at the beginning. Don't heat up yet!

Now break the dough into 12 equally sized pieces. And here it comes: take your rolling pin and roll out each piece as thin as possible and place in the cold broth. If necessary, add more veggie broth, so that all pieces are just covered. Let stand for 10 minutes. Now turn on the heat, cover and bring to a fast simmer. Then reduce the heat and cook for 1 hour. If possible, try to rotate some of the cutlets at the top, so they cook through evenly. 

Take the pan off the heat and let cool, for about 1 hour or so. Now you can remove your cutles and prepare them as you like. I simply coated 2 of them with chopped almonds and roasted for about 10 minuted. They turned out delicious & tender. The rest I layered in an airtight container between sheets of parchment paper, as suggested! 

That's how my cutlets looked just before preparing...

Enjoy!

Florence

Vegan MoFo VIIII / Sunday Dinner

Sorry for my lack of posting, but I am busy studying! Nevertheless, here's what I had for dinner on Sunday night.

Scalloped Cauliflower, Spaghetti with Mushroom Gravy and Seitan Cutlets! 

That was so good, especially the seitan cutlet! I have tried several seitan recipes before, and this was the best yet! So very tender and crispy on the outside.

Scalloped Cauliflower
1 head of cauliflower, washed and chopped into florets
lemon juice
water for boiling

1 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
3 Tbsp. olive oil
salt, pepper

2 Tbsp. nutritional yeast
3 Tbsp. breadcrumbs
2 Tbsp. chopped nuts
1 Tbsp. olive oil
5 Tbsp. oat cream
2 Tbsp. chopped parsley
a splash of lemon juice
salt, pepper

Put the cauliflower florets in a pan, cover with water, add a splash of lemon juice and let boil until tender.
Mix the apple cider vinegar, olive oil and salt and pepper. Place the cooked cauliflower florets in a baking dish and cover in the vinaigrette. Let stand for 10 - 20 minutes.Preheat oven to 160°C (320F). Mix the remaining ingredients and spread over the florets, and bake for about 20 minutes.

Mushroom Gravy
olive oil

1 small onion, chopped
a handful of button mushrooms, chopped
1 Tbsp. cornstarch
veggie broth
oat cream
dried herbs

Heat up the olive oil, and add the onion and button mushrooms. Sauté for a few minutes, add the cornstarch. Stir, so everything is covered with cornstarch. Add veggie broth until the mixture reaches your desired thickness. Let cook for a few minutes and add some oat cream and dried herbs.

The recipe for the seitan cutlets I will post tomorrow, so look out for it! :)