See? This stuff is xxx, people!
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1/2 tsp ground ginger
3 1/2 cups flour
2/3 cup warm water
3/4 cup pumpkin puree
1/4 cup raw sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup soy yoghurt
Mix the yeast in the warm water along with the spices and 2/3 cup of the flour. Let the mixture stand for 10-20 minutes. Whisk the sugar, salt, oil, yoghurt, and pumpkin in a large mixing bowl. Add the yeast sponge. Stir in about 2 cups of the remaining flour, then start incorporating the rest with your hands. You might need a bit more or a bit less. The dough should be soft but not too sticky. Knead for 10 minutes. Dough should be smooth. Place the dough in a clean, oiled bowl, cover, and let it rise in a warm place until it has tripled (2-3 hours).
Punch the dough down. On a lightly floured surface, cut it into 6 equal balls of dough. Roll each one into a rope about 3/4'' in diameter. Try to make the ends of the ropes taper. Braid into a 6-strand braid-- see link above. Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet, and rise until at least doubled in size, about an hour.
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Brush the loaves with soymilk, and bake then for 40-45 minutes, until they are deep golden brown and hollow when tapped on the bottom. Take them out of the oven and brush them again halfway during baking.
Enjoy!
Hi. Have you all recovered from Thanksgiving craziness?
My Thanksgiving wasn't really a "real" Thanksgiving, but the food was pretty good nonetheless. I ended up making (you can assume I made appropriate substitutions if needed):
(Tasty. But brown.)
I've never been the kind of person who had to polish off a bag of chips all at once, or who couldn't stop until they'd eaten the whole batch of cookies, but this cake was really, really hard for me to stop eating. It's so simple and so good, and you probably already have everything in your pantry, so it's perfect for cake-necessitating emergencies. Because I know you have these kinds of emergencies all the time, right?
This is a lightly spiced apple cake-- really, the apples are the star-- that was inspired by this post at La Tartine Gourmande.
Simplest Apple Yogurt Cake
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
3/4 cups sugar
2/3 cups plain soy yogurt
1/3 cup oil
2 tbsp apple sauce
1/4 cup apple juice
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and thinly sliced
2 tbsp raisins
1 tbsp boiling water
1 tbsp rum
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Grease an 8" or 9" springform pan. Put the raisins in a small bowl, and add the boiling water and rum
Mix the dry ingredients together in a mixing bowl. In another bowl mix the wet ingredients. Add the we ingredients to the dry and fold with a rubber spatula, until they are almost mixed, about 3 strokes. Add the apples and fold a few times to distribute the apples evenly.
Spread the thick, apple-filled batter in the prepared pan. Sprinkle the soaked raisins on the top of the cake, and bake for 40 minutes, or until a tooth pick comes out without clumps of raw batter on it.
Enjoy!
Finally, a real recipe! This is one I highly recommend. It tastes a lot better than the photos look, really, I promise.
I've been having the biggest craving for chocolate bread for quite a while. And not just any chocolate bread. Specifically, a yeasted, not-too-sweet chocolate bread with a tender, fine crumb and a very dark-chocolate taste. I'm not really sure why, because I don't think I'd ever had a bread like this before. But, you know, cravings are your body's way of telling you what it needs (ha!), and they are not to be ignored. Especially not when they are for delicious things like chocolate. So chocolate bread it would be.
Of course I couldn't find a recipe for the bread I wanted. I did find one that looked somewhat close, a recipe for Balthazar's chocolate bread. So my recipe is a very loose interpretation of their recipe.
And it was really, really good.
This is a slow rise bread, which gives it a really great, almost brioche-like texture. But please don't let that scare you! It really isn't any more difficult than an ordinary bread. I promise.
Oh, and if the mention of "chocolate" wasn't enough to convince you...this tasted really, really chocolatey, and as far as chocolate goes, it was actually pretty innocent calorie-wise. And you can let it rise in the fridge over night, and just pop in in the oven when you wake up in the morning. Thirty minutes later you'll be enjoying a piece of warm, tender chocolate bread, studded with little pockets of melted chocolate. Yum.
Ok, enough with this restaurant-menu description stuff. Get cooking!
(Oh, and it really is important to use good quality chocolate, and for the chocolate to be chopped, not in chip form! )
Chocolate Bread
Starter:
1/2 cup + 1 tbsp flour
1/2 cup lukewarm water
1/8th tsp yeast
Mix all ingredients and let them sit at room temperature for 6 hours. The mixture should be bubbly and have expanded somewhat.
Dough:
the starter
approx. 2 cups flour
1/2 cup cocoa
6 tbsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp yeast
1 1/4 tsp salt
scant 1 cup lukewarm water
2 tbsp margerine, cut into small pieces
4 oz. 70% chocolate, chopped
optional: 1/2 cup dried cranberries or diced dried apricots
turbinado sugar for sprinkling on top of the bread
Dissolve the yeast in the water. Put the starter and all dry ingredients through salt in a large mixing bowl. Add the yeast water and begin to knead, either in the bowl if it's large enough or on a board lightly dusted with flour. Sprinkle on the margarine pieces, and knead them in. Knead for 10 minutes. Just before the dough is done, sprinkle on the chocolate chunks (and dried fruit, if using) and knead them into the dough.
Cover the dough with a cloth or plastic wrap and let rise for until doubled in size, about 3 hours.
Now shape the bread. Line a baking sheet with parchement. Gently punch down the dough and cut it into 8 pieces. Shape each piece into a smooth, round roll. Place the rolls into the pan. It's fine if they are touching a bit.
You could also bake this as a boule, or you could bake it in two small, greased loaf pans.
At this point you can either let the dough rise for 2 hours at room temperature, or you can cover it and let it rise in the fridge over night. Just let it sit out at room temperature while the oven preheats the next morning if you do that.
Preheat the oven to 375 F. Brush the dough with soy milk and and sprinkle with turbinado sugar. Reduce oven to 350 degrees. Bake until the bread has a slightly hollow sound when you tap tops with your finger, 40-45 minutes. Turn the bread out of the pan, and put it on a wire rack; let cool completely. Wrap tightly in plastic and store up to 3 days or freeze up to 1 month
When I was younger and people would invite my family over for dinner, it felt like we always had the same thing to eat: spaghetti with marinara sauce (from a jar), green salad with Italian dressing (from a bottle), and garlic bread (with garlic powder and Kraft parmesan cheese). Now, of course it was lovely to be invited over to dinner, and of course we're very lucky to have food at all, so I'm really not complaining about that, but....well, you catch my drift. We've all experienced foods we're not so fond of, right?
Anyway, maybe because of this, I don't make garlic bread very often. I love bread and I like garlic, so this is the only explanation I can thing of.
Now, forget about this horrible excuse for garlic bread. Imagine a tender, homemade white bread, spread with a butter flavored with fresh herbs and garlic. Imagine that the bread is folded around this butter to create flaky, flavorful layers. Now we're talking.
I've been eyeing this recipe for a while, and today I ran out of bread and had all the ingredients to make this garlic bread. And boy am I glad that I did! You should make this right now, it's that good. Thanks, Fanny! (By the way, check out her website...Fanny aspires to be a pastry chef, and you can tell that she's well on her way by the wonderful creations she produces!)
I hardly changed the recipe, but I'll post it here with grams converted into cups since most American kitchens don't have a scale.
Small Garlic and Parsley Breads (makes 4 petite, individually-sized breads)
1 1/4 tsp dry yeast or 7 g fresh yeast
1 cup warm water
pinch sugar
2 3/4 cups flour
1 tsp salt
herbed "butter" (below)
Mix the yeast with the water and the sugar, and let it sit for a few minutes. The top should be foamy. Whisk the flour and salt together in a mixing bowl. Add the yeast mixture and knead for 10 minutes, until you have a smooth, firm dough. Cover with a cloth and let rise for 1.5 hours. When the dough has risen, gently deflate it and divide it into 4 portions. Proceed with rolling and folding as outlined here.
Preheat the oven to 400 F. Let the breads rise for 45 minutes, then bake for about 25 minutes, until golden brown.
Herbed Butter
1 bunch parsley, minced (or a mix of herbs)
6 cloves garlic, minced
4 tbsp margerine, softened
Mix all ingredients together.
Every day for a the month of November I'm going to write a post a day about something related to food as part of the Vegan Month of Food project. Ok, I'm starting 3 days late, but do we really have to talk about that?
The recipe is from Orangette. I made the obvious substitutions: margerine for butter and plain soy yogurt for the dairy yogurt. And I used 1/2 a cup of white sugar instead of 2/3rds, but otherwise I followed the recipe exactly.
BBQ Pomegranate Tofu from Vegan With a Vengeance
But for tonight I'll just post a part of my super-simple dinner from tonight. I don't really have a recipe, but if I did it would go something like this: take 6 or so nectarines (never mind if they're slightly tired looking from sitting in the fridge for a week), and slice them. Heat a bit of "butter" in a frying pan, and add a little raw sugar and a pinch of salt. Let the sugar melt into the butter for a minute. Toss in the nectarines and sautee for a few minutes. Done!
I also forgot to buy arugula, so I didn't make the salad that Suzanne Goin suggests. I made a balsamic reduction instead. (Boil balsamic vinegar until it is reduced by half, but not more, or else it will taste burnt.) But arugula salad would go really, really well, so make that to go with this!
Unfortunately it was night by the time I finished this, so the pictures are blurry and dark. Oh well.
Tomato Tart with Capers, Olives, and Caramelized Onions (makes 2-3 main dish servings or 6 appetizer portions)
1 tbsp olive oil
6 cups thinly sliced onions (6 onions)
1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves (or add 1 tsp dry)
1 sheet frozen puff pastry
soymilk for brushing said pastry
3 medium heirloom tomatoes, mixed colors
4 tsp capers
1/4 cups Nicoise olives, pitted and cut in half
basil leaves for garnish
Heat the oil in a large saute pan over high heat. Add the onions, thyme, 1 tsp salt, and some pepper. Cook 10 minutes, stirring often. Turn the head down to medium and cook for 15 more minutes, stirring often and scraping the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon, until the onions are a deep golden brown. Let cook completely before you made the tart, so they don't melt the pastry.
Preheat the oven to 400 F.
Place the defrosted puff pastry on a parchment lines baking sheet. Use a paring knife to score an 1/4 inch thick border around the edge of the pastry. Brush the border with soymilk, and spread the carmelized onions evenly within the border.
Core the tomatoes. Hold each tomato on its side and slice it into 1/4 inch thick round slices. Place the tomato slices, just touching but not overlapping, on top of the caramelized onions. If necessary, cut some of the slices in half so they fit, placing the cut side of the slices flush with the border. Season the tomatoes with salt a a few grindings of black pepper.
Arrange the olives and capers over the tomatoes and onions.
Bake the tart 10 minutes. Turn the sheet pan, and bake another 10 to 12 minutes, until the crust is deep golden brown.
Garnish with the basil leaves to serve.
Also-- salting the eggplant is optional. I think it does make eggplant less bitter, but I know not everyone agrees with me on this account. So do as you see fit.
Don't use too much garam masala-- you really only want just a hint of it.
