Monat: Oktober 2018

This weekend we had a vegan bake sale at my local vegan grocery (Vegan Haven), and I decided to make pumpkin donuts with a maple glaze. I decided to veganise this recipe. They turned out great!

I doubled it, replaced the cinnamon sugar topping with a maple glaze, and removed some of the spices as I’m not a big fan of ginger and cloves.

Pumpkin donuts:

1. 7 cups all-purpose flour
2. 2 tablespoons baking powder
3. 2 teaspoon salt
4. 1 teaspoon baking soda
5. 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
   
6. ¼ teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
   
7. 2 cups sugar
8. 6 tablespoons vegan butter, room temperature
9. 1/4 cup flaxmeal mixed with 3/4 cup water, left to sit for 10 minutes
   
10. 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
11. 1 cup plus 2 tablespoon nondairy milk mixed with 1 tbsp vinegar
12. 425g (2 cups) pumpkin purée

Icing:

1. 900g icing sugar, sifted
2. 100g maple syrup
3. 100g nondairy milk
4. 1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg in one bowl.

In another bowl, whisk together vegan butter and sugar. Then whisk in pumpkin puree, nondairy milk/vinegar mixture, flaxmeal mixture and vanilla extract.

Add dry ingredients a little at a time, whisking to combine. When it becomes too thick to whisk, switch to a spatula and fold in the rest of the dry mixture.

Don’t use a stand mixer. I did, and it was a disaster. Flour was flying everywhere. Forget about it.

Now spread some clingfilm in a clean large bowl, and place the dough inside. Wrap the dough in the clingfilm and put in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours, or ideally overnight.

Take the dough out of the fridge, and split into two pieces, as this will make it easier to roll out.

Flour both the bottom and the top of the dough, and place on a floured surface.

Roll out the dough to ~1 1/4 cm (0.5 inch) thickness, and use cutters to cut into your desired size. I used a 9 cm cutter for the donuts and a 3 cm cutter for the holes. Place flour on the rolling pin too! This dough is very prone to sticking, even when chilled.

Once you have your shaped pieces, place them on a baking sheet with parchment paper on top. Make sure to flour this as well. I didn’t and it stuck.

Place the baking sheet in the fridge while you heat your oil and make the icing.

Heat oil in a deep fryer to 180°C (355 °F). While this heats, make the icing.

Combine all ingredients for the icing. Add the nondairy milk a bit at a time until the right consistency is reached. It should be very, very thick, but all the sugar should combine with the liquid.

Take your donut pieces out of the fridge.

Then fry your donuts for about 3 minutes, flipping halfway through. Don’t start your timer until the donuts have floated to the top (this will take about 10 seconds).

After removing the donuts, place on a cooling rack with paper towels below it to absorb the oil. Then after just a couple of minutes, while still warm, dip the doughnuts into the glaze, and place back on the cooling rack.

Enjoy!

This recipe is pretty similar to the oatmeal cookies I posted about last week. However, I think it’s still worth sharing.

A few years ago I found this recipe, which I used to make when I wasn’t vegan. Now I’ve veganised it, but I’ve replaced half of the vegan butter with almond butter, and changed a few other things.

Recipe:

• 1/2 cup vegan butter, softened
• 1/2 cup smooth almond butter
• 1 ¹⁄₂ cups firmly packed brown sugar
• 2 tbsp flax meal mixed with 5.5 tbsp water, left to sit for 5 minutes
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  
• ¹⁄₂ teaspoon salt
• 2 1/2 cups chocolate chips

Combine vegan butter, almond butter, and sugar. Then add flax mixture and vanilla extract. Then add dry ingredients. Then add chocolate chips. Then chill mixture in the fridge for 2-4 hours, or overnight. Then shape into cookies and bake on baking sheet at 180°C for 15-25 minutes depending on the size and how crunchy you’d like the cookies to be.

Enjoy!

I finally succeeded at making lamingtons yesterday. I used a doubled version of this recipe for the sponge cake, and I veganised this recipe for the icing. If I did this again, I would probably use a veganised version of the latter recipe instead, since the one I made was not thick enough to slice in half.

• 140g vegan butter, melted
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
  
• 300 mL unsweetened plant milk
• 2 cups + 2 tbsp flour
• 2 2/3 tsp baking powder
• 2/3 tsp salt

Icing:

• 500g icing sugar, sifted
• 200g dark chocolate
• 15g coconut oil
• 125 mL plant milk at room temperature
• 325g dessicated coconut (I used sweetened coconut flakes)

Combine vegan butter with sugar, vanilla and plant milk. Then add dry ingredients and combine. Generously butter a 30cm x 18cm baking pan and sprinkle some flour. Add the cake batter and bake at 180°C for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Let cool for 10-20 minutes and then remove from baking pan and place on a cooling rack. It should come out very easily.

Slice into squares and cut in half.

For the icing, melt the chocolate with the coconut oil, either with a bain marie or in the microwave at low heat. Then add the plant milk (make sure it is not cold, or the icing will solidify too much). Then add icing sugar until reasonably thick – thick enough to stick to the cake but thin enough to only leave a thin layer of icing on the cake.

Dip the cake pieces into the icing, then put on a cooling rack. Immediately cover with coconut flakes, then place in the fridge for about 15 minutes so that the icing sets.

Slice in half and spread some fruit jam, then form sandwiches. I didn’t have time to add the jam, but I will next time. I suggest raspberry jam, but any jam would be tasty I think.

This week I decided to combine two of my favourite cookie recipes – cinnamon almond butter chocolate chip, and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.

I started with this recipe, but veganised it, doubled it, replaced the walnuts and raisins with chocolate chips, and replaced half of the vegan butter with almond butter.

• 1/2 cup (230 grams) vegan butter, softened (I recommend Miyoko’s)
• 1/2 cup smooth almond butter (salted/unsalted is fine as long as it is not too salty
• 1 1/3 cup (250 grams) light brown sugar, packed
• 2 tbsp flaxseed meal mixed with 5.5 tbsp water, left to sit for 5-10 mins
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cup (190 grams) all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 cups (240 grams) old-fashioned rolled oats
• 3 cups dark chocolate chips
  
• 1-2 tbsp plant milk

Combine vegan butter, almond butter and brown sugar. Then add flax ‘egg’ and vanilla extract. Then combine with flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and oats. Then add chocolate chips. If you cannot incorporate all of the flour, add a bit of plant milk until you can.

The dough may be a bit crumbly, but do your best to create pieces of dough. The cookies will hold together once they are cooked.

Bake at 180°C for 15-25 minutes, depending on the size. If you like your cookies to be crunchy, then cook until golden brown. If you like them softer, then cook until slightly springy but a little undercooked.

Enjoy!

A couple of weeks ago, I had the chance to visit what is apparently the only vegan Cuban restaurant in the world.

It happened to be right next to LAX airport, which was super convenient.

They seemed to have everything – vegan “wings” with different sauces, nachos cubanos, tostones and heaps of different vegan meats.

The first time I was there I got El Cubanoso and the Fire Agave wings.

Both were delicious. The fire agave sauce was amazing – the perfect combination of sweet and spicy. The vegan “wing” meat was eerily similar to chicken meat – I don’t know how they do it. There was even a skin. Very convincing.

The cuban sandwich had roast pork which was also very meaty, along with all the fixings.

The second time I went (on the way out from LAX), I ordered the yuca a la yama with the lechón asado – which is shredded “pork”.

The yuca were crispy and tasty and came with black beans and fire agave sauce. The lechón was flavourful and had a great texture, and the sauce complemented it very well.

I will definitely be back. Check it out if you’re in the area!