I adore this recipe.

When I went vegan a little over five years ago, I had a minor panic attack when I realized I’d never eat another Cinnabon again. I remember I used to ask my dad to bring them home from the airport for me when I was little, whenever he had a business trip. The fluffy swirls of dough, the sugary syrup, the cream cheese frosting… I needed to recreate them perfectly, vegan style. And let me tell you, these are a dead ringer for our mall and airport favorites.

But it comes at a price. If you’re looking for a healthy, low-fat, calorie conscious treat, I can’t help you today. If you’re looking for a recipe that is guaranteed to win over any vegan doubter, guaranteed to please any Cinnabon lover, guaranteed to send any child into a permanent sugar high; these buns are for you.

There is a lot of sugar and Earth Balance margarine in these. But hey, the recipe makes a ton of rolls, and it takes four hours to make, so they’re really special occasion buns. Embrace the cups (and cups) of sugar and fat, and you will definitely be rewarded with the most perfect cinnamon bun you’ve ever had. Isn’t it worth it, at least once?

I think so.

For those of you who haven’t yet overcome your apprehension about yeast breads, I encourage you to give these a try. I’ve included tons of photos and a video to clarify the process and give you an idea how the dough is supposed to look at every step. They might seem intimidating, but they’re easier than you think!

I think these would be an amazing way to wake up Mom on Sunday, paired with a nice hot cup of coffee. You can make these ahead of time, refrigerating over night before the second rise and popping them in the oven in the morning, or you can freeze them for later. More info on that at the end of the recipe.

Perfect Cinnamon Buns
Makes 12 Large Buns

Yeast Mixture
4 tsp Active Dry Yeast (a little less than 2 packets)
1 tsp Sugar
1 Cup Water, 110º F

Dough
1 Cup Soymilk
2/3 Cup Sugar
2/3 Cup Earth Balance Margarine
2 tsp Salt
2 Ener-g Egg Replacer Eggs, prepared, optional
Yeast Mixture, from above
6 Cups All Purpose Flour, more for kneading

Dough Filling
1/2 Cup Earth Balance Margarine, melted
1 1/2 Cups Sugar
3 Tbs Cinnamon

Pan Sauce
1/2 Cup Earth Balance Margarine, melted
1/3 Cup Sugar

Cream Cheese Frosting
1/4 Cup Earth Balance
1/3 Cup Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 Cup Powdered Sugar

Combine yeast mixture and set aside to proof.

From the dough ingredients, combine the soymilk, sugar, earth balance, salt, and ener-g eggs in a small sauce pan. Heat until earth balance is melted and all the ingredients are well combined, but do not let the mixture get too hot. You should be able to put a finger in it without burning yourself.

The yeast should now be nice and foamy (proofed). Combine it with the warmed liquid you just made; make sure it’s not too hot, or you will kill your yeast.

Place 4 cups of all purpose flour in a large bowl. Add the warmed wet ingredients.

Beat the batter well with a wooden spoon. The dough will be very wet and liquid, much more like a batter than a dough.

Add 2 more cups of flour and mix in partially. It’ll look like a wreck. That’s fine! Turn out the dough onto a large table/kneading surface, scraping out everything in the bowl.

Begin kneading, gently at first. It’s going to take about 8 minutes to get the dough where it needs to be. Add more flour only if the dough starts sticking to the table and there is no more dry flour to be worked into the dough. You want the dough to end up smooth and elastic, and slightly tacky, but not sticky. You should be able to knead it on a bare table without it sticking.

Here is a video of the kneading and cutting process, so you can see the stages the dough goes through.

Cinnamon Buns

Once the dough is ready, place it in an oiled bowl, covered with oiled plastic wrap, to rise for 90 minutes in a warm spot. If you’re lacking a warm spot, turn your oven on low for 1 minute, then turn it off and place the dough in the oven to rise with the door closed. Remember to turn the oven off after one minute, and remember the dough is in there — no preheating for other things! (I’ve made that mistake more than once, it’s never good.)

Once the dough has risen completely, it’ll leave a little dent when you poke it. If it springs back, it needs more time.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and press it down (this is part is in the video above). You want it press or roll it out into a 15 x 20 inch rectangle. You can use a roller if you want, but it’s not necessary.

Pour the 1/2 cup of melted earth balance on the dough. Brush it so the dough is covered completely. It’s okay if it pools in some locations.

Mix together the cinnamon and sugar from the dough filling above. Sprinkle it evenly over the dough.

Prepare a large baking dish, like a lasagna dish, by pouring in the melted earth balance from the pan sauce ingredients above. Brush the sides of the pan so they are greased.

Add the sugar, spreading evenly over the bottom of pan. The pan is now ready for the buns.

The following steps are shown in detail in the video above: Roll the dough up gently, starting from one of the short sides. Let it rest on the seem once it’s rolled up completely. Cut 12 rolls with dental floss or sewing thread. Place the rolls in the pan. (Ignore the fact that they are practically floating in earth balance and sugar.)

Cover the buns and let rise for 45 minutes if you will be baking these immediately. If baking the next day, cover the buns and let rise in the refrigerator overnight. Bake in the morning with no need for more rising. If making the buns for a date in the future, cover the buns and freeze immediately. The day before you are ready to use them, defrost in the refrigerator overnight, then let warm up on the counter the next morning for an hour. In any case, when ready to bake, follow the directions below.

Preheat the oven to 350º F, remembering to remove the rising buns if they are in there!

Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until golden brown and bubbly. Let cool for a few minutes.

Stir together the frosting ingredients. It takes a bit of elbow grease to mix it together, but resist the urge to add liquid. It will come together, I promise. Whisk until there are no lumps.

Serve the buns warm with frosting. I like to microwave completely cooled buns for 45-60 seconds before eating.

Happy Mother’s Day!

I always have trouble finding vegan graham crackers at the store. Nearly every single brand has honey in them. The one version that doesn’t is full of icky ingredients.

When I got my Dandies in the mail, I knew I had to make my own graham crackers once and for all. The recipe turned out really good. I’d like to perfect the texture a little (ideally, I’d actually like them to be more crumbly than they are), but the flavor is nice and mellow, and it really highlights the sweet, nutty taste of whole wheat without being overly sugary. If you like your graham crackers really sweet, add a bit more sugar than I call for.

Graham crackers are traditionally made with graham flour, named after Sylvester Graham, a really interesting (if slightly crazy) health nut from the 19th century. He promoted the vegetarian diet (yay!) to cure, among other things, sexual desires (I did say he was slightly crazy).

Graham flour is whole wheat flour. What makes it different from standard whole wheat is the ratio of endosperm to bran to germ. Sylvester Graham ground these parts of the wheat berry separately to preserve texture and then re-combined them in a specific proportion. You can find graham flour in some stores and online, or you can make your own. Wikipedia says “one cup of graham flour is approximately equivalent to 84 g (~2/3 cup) white flour, 15 g (slightly less than 1/3 cup) wheat bran, and 2.5 g (1.5 teaspoons) wheat germ.”

Or you can do what I did and just use stoneground flour and call it a day.

Actually, you can use whatever flour you like for these. I used stoneground flour because it has little flecks of bran in it, which adds some lovely texture to the crackers. I really recommend using at least some form of whole wheat, because it gives the graham crackers their traditional nutty flavor. Oh yeah, and it’s healthier. And rest assured it won’t mess with your libido. Sorry Sylvester.

Graham crackers are tasty, but they aren’t the sexiest food in the world. S’mores, on the other hand? Sexy. I made these with Chicago Soydairy’s latest vegan treat, Dandies vegan marshmallows. They are awesome! It’s my understanding that they’re being sold online, but sell out FAST. So if you see them available, scoop them up! They taste great, and they’re gelatin free, and they roast up just like the non-vegan version. Perfect for s’mores.

How about a little video before the recipe? Don’t forget all my videos are HD, so you can watch them full-screen!

Making Graham Crackers on Vimeo.

Graham Crackers
Makes at least 24 3×3″ Crackers

2 1/2 Cups Graham Flour or Stoneground Flour or Whole Wheat Flour
1 Cup All Purpose Flour
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 Cup Earth Balance Margarine
1/4 Cup Dark Brown Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
1/4 Cup Agave Nectar (or a little more sugar mixed with water)
3/4 Cup Water

Mix the all the dry ingredients together. Cream together Earth Balance and sugar. Add vanilla and agave and beat with a whisk until smooth. Add a little of the flour and a little of the water to the earth balance/sugar mixture and combine. Continue adding in flour and water, a little at a time, until all flour and water is added. Work the dough with your hands until everything is evenly combined.

Divide dough in half and cover. Let rest for 30 minutes at room temperature.

Preheat oven to 325º F. Roll out the dough into a rectangle that measures approximately 11″x15″. Trim edges. Using a knife or a pizza cutter, cut the dough into squares or rectangles (I cut mine into 3′x3′ squares). Prick the squares with a fork.

Bake for 30-40 minutes at 325º F or until the crackers are turning golden brown around the edges. You can sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on top of the crackers during the last 10 minutes of baking if you like.

Remove from the baking sheet and let cool on a wire rack. See the video above for visual directions.

For S’mores

Place the crackers in multiples of two on a baking sheet and preheat the oven to broil. Add chocolate to one cracker and vegan marshmallows to another until all the crackers are topped. Broil for less than 1 minute, watching constantly, until the marshmallows are golden and melty and the chocolate has softened.

Remove from oven, assemble the s’more, and eat! The graham crackers are also great plain, or topped with cream cheese frosting.

I have a knack for inventing things that have already been invented. I made my husband an apple pie for his birthday, and was reminded how annoying it is to peel, core, and chop a lot of apples. But I really like pies made with fresh fruit, so it’s not a process I’m planning on giving up anytime soon.

I went ahead and bought a jar of apple pie filling anyway, just in case I wanted to make a quicker pie with it, or do something else. I thought it might be really brilliant to use the filling in a coffee cake, and hey! It turns out there are lots of other brilliant people out there who have thought the same exact thing.

But my coffee cake is vegan, so nanner nanner boo boo! It’s also really quick and easy to put together, so it’s perfect for that lazy Sunday morning-turned-afternoon baking project.

Let this cake cool for a bit before cutting and you’ll be surprised how easy it is to serve; the cake holds up really well and doesn’t fall apart when slicing. It would be really nice served with a little scoop of vegan ice cream.

Apple Pie Coffee Cake
Makes 1 Cake

2 1/2 Cups Flour
1 Cup Granulated Sugar
1 tsp Baking Powder
3/4 tsp Salt*
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
2/3 Cup Canola Oil, or 2/3 Cup Earth Balance Margarine, softened
2/3 Cup Soymilk + 2 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar (or lemon juice)
2 Tbs Cornstarch mixed with 1/2 Cup Water
2 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 20 to 25 oz Jar Apple Pie Filling
1 Tbs Sugar mixed with 1 tsp Cinnamon, for topping.

*Reduce salt to 1/2 tsp if using Earth Balance.

Preheat oven to 350º F.

Combine all the dry ingredients of the cake and mix well. Add all of the liquid ingredients and fold the batter until just combined. The batter should be thick and nearly dough-like, as this will prevent the filling from sinking to the bottom of the pan.

Spread 1/2 of the batter in the bottom of a 9×11″ (or whatever) greased baking dish.

Add apple pie filling evenly over the top.

Spoon the rest of the batter over the top in clumps, leaving some of the apple filling showing through.

Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar mixture.

Bake for 80 to 90 minutes or until a tester comes out clean. Be sure not to under bake. You may wish to cover the coffee cake with aluminum foil for the last 20-30 minutes to prevent over-browning.

Remove coffee cake from oven and let cool before serving. It’s just as good or better the next day.

——-
Gab Gab Gab

Stephen Metcalf endorses VeganYumYum on his podcast, Slate’s Culture Gabfest! Listen to it here, or subscribe via iTunes. It’s a fabulous podcast and I’m thrilled to get mention. Thanks Stephen!

It’s Christmas Eve, and so my husband and I are about to hop in the car to visit his side of the family. I’m brining along these cute little gingerbread cakes to share for dessert.

These cakes are spicy and dense (in a good way) with just a tad of lemon cream cheese frosting to complement them. They have the consistency of a cake-y brownie but the flavor of gingerbread cookies. The petite cakes are about the size of cupcakes, but with a touch more style.

Frosting the sides of the cakes turned out to be a disaster. Feel free to try it, but all the cake crumbs made for a messy finish, even with a crum layer of icing to minimize them. I prefer the look of these bare-sided cakes, which has the extra benefit of better proportion of frosting to cake. If you like frosting but are easily overwhelmed by it, leaving the sides unfinished might be a good solution for you, too.

I baked these as 8×8 sheet cakes and then used a biscuit cutter to punch out small rounds after the cake had baked and cooled. You can also just make cupcakes if you don’t want to deal with the assembly.

Gingerbread Cakes
Makes 9 small layer cakes

2 Cups Flour
2 tsp Ginger
2 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1 Cup Molasses (unsulphured, like Grandma’s brand)
2/3 Cup Hot Water
1/2 Cup Earth Balance Margarine
1/2 Cup Sugar
1 Ener-g Egg, optional

Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting
8 oz Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese
1/4 Cup Earth Balance Margarine
1 lb Confectioner’s Sugar
2 tsp Vanilla Extract
Zest from 1 Lemon

Preheat oven to 350º F.

Mix the flour, ginger, cinnamon, salt, and baking soda in a large bowl until well combined.

Prepare two 8×8 baking pans as follows: grease the pans with margarine. Lay a square of parchment paper down in the inside of the pans, cut to fit the bottoms. Grease the paper as well. Use some of the try mixture you just made to flour the pans, shaking/tapping out any extra.

Whisk molasses and hot water together.

Cream the margarine and sugar. Whip the mixture with the optional Ener-g egg until light and fluffy.

Add part of the molasses mixture and part of the margarine and sugar mixture to the dry ingredients. Begin to combine. As the ingredients come together, add more of the margarine mixture and more of the molasses mixture until everything has been incorporated. Whisk to remove lumps, but to not over-mix.

Pour the batter evenly into the two prepared pans. Bake at 350º F for 30-40 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean, or the top of the cake, when touched, springs back. Let cakes cool completely, then remove from the pan. You may need to use a knife to loosen the edges, but the parchment paper should keep the bottoms from sticking.

Once the cakes have cooled and have been removed from the pans, use a small biscuit cutter to cut 9 rounds from each cake.

Prepare frosting by beating all of the frosting ingredients in a stand mixee until well combined and fluffy.

Place a small amount of frosting on 9 rounds.

Stack the rounds.

Place the rest of the frosting in a piping bag and frost the top of each cake.

I garnished them with green and red nonpareils, but maraschino cherries would be awesome! Keep in an airtight container until ready to serve.

I hope you all have a great holiday season!

I love snickerdoodles. Plain sugar cookies just don’t do it for me, but roll them in a little cinnamon-sugar and I’m sold. (Roll nearly anything in cinnamon sugar and I’m sold.)

This is a cookie that preforms beautifully when veganized. If you have a family recipe you use, I can almost guarantee you that all you need to do is sub Earth Balance Margarine for butter and Ener-g G Egg Replacer for eggs and you’ll be set. Here is a recipe I made after checking out several different snickerdoodle recipes. It’s fast, easy, and pretty near failproof. In fact, stick some ribbon on them and you have an instant holiday gift!

One thing you should know, that I just found out today. The temperature of the cookie dough as it goes in the oven determines the shape and overall look of the cookies. If you want cookies that are pillowy and show a lot of cracks and texture, the dough needs to be pretty cold as it goes into the oven. If you like thinner, more even-looking cookies, let the dough warm up a little before baking.

If the dough is cold, the cookies don’t have much time to warm up and flatten out before the outside of the cookie bakes and prevents further expansion. If it’s already a little warm, the cookies will expand and spread (and flatten) in the first few minutes of cooking. The pictures above are cookies baked when the dough was cold. The photo to the left was made with warmer-dough.

These cookies are a snap if you make them in a stand-mixer, but only take slightly more elbow grease if you’re doing them by hand. And they ship beautifully.

Snickerdoodles
Makes about 18 Cookies

1 Cup Sugar
1/2 Cup Earth Balance
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 Prepared Ener-g Egg-Replacer Egg
1 1/2 Cups Flour
1/4 tsp Cream of Tartar
1/4 tsp Baking Soda

Cinnamon Sugar, for rolling

Cream sugar, Earth Balance, and vanilla extract together. Prepare the Ener-G Egg by following the package instructions (1 1/2 tsp powder whisked with 2 Tbs hot water until foamy), and add it to the Earth Balance and sugar mixture. Whip (or whisk) it all up until it’s light a fluffy, like so:

Whisk the dry ingredients together. Add 2/3 of the dry ingredients to the whipped mixture and whip until combined. Add in the remaining flour and mix by hand. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 375º F.

When the dough is chilled, line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Using a #40 ice cream scoop, make balls of dough (each ball will be made with 2 Tbs of dough, if you don’t have a #40 scoop). Roll each ball in cinnamon sugar.

Now time to squish them! Using a fork (or whatever you want), squish the dough out into cookie shapes.

Bake at 375º F for 10 minutes for chewy cookies, 12 minutes for crunchy. Remove from oven and let sit for 30 seconds. They’ll be very soft when they come out of the oven, but that’s just fine! Gently remove cookies from the baking sheet and let cool for a few minutes on a wire rack before serving.

These are especially good with soy nog. Just saying.

So basically, my crock pot hates me.

It’s supposed to be one of the easiest appliances to use, right? Everytime I’ve tried to something has gone wrong. Things are either over cooked or undercooked, and definitely not very tasty. I decided I needed to find a recipe that couldn’t possibly fail. When I realized I had 5 pounds of apples, I had my answer.

I found a recipe for crock pot apple butter, and it seemed super easy. Peel and chop the apples, add sugar and spices, let cook overnight. I could do that. My crock pot could do that.

It turns out peeling and chopping 5 1/2 pounds of apples is kind of a pain in the a…pple. Your hands get all slippery and tired, and you get sticky apple juice everywhere. Then the apples didn’t fit into my crockpot, so I had to puree them all in order to make the most of the space I had. Finally I got everything in the crock pot and turned it on. The recipe said the whole thing would take less than 12 hours. Great!

12 hours later? Not even close to done.

I ended up cooking this apple butter for a full 24 hours. Between prepping, cooking, and canning, the whole project took 26 hours! 26! A lot of that was downtime, but still. My crock pot is cursed.

It was so worth it though. It’s dark, sweet, tangy, silky, and spicy. It is SO GOOD on toast with a little vegan margarine, you have no idea. It’s like concentrated apple pie. I wish you could taste it. Well, actually, you might be able to!

Since I have a lot of this stuff, and it’s such a b…anana to make, I’m going to give away three jars to VeganYumYum readers. Yay!

Win Homemade Organic Apple Butter!

Contest is closed!  Stay tuned for the winners!

1) Comment!
2) Use a valid email address! (Will not be published!)
3) Win apple butter!

In one week (November 11th at 5 PM), I’ll use a random number generator to pick three numbers, corresponding to the comments here. Those people win a 1/2 pint jar of organic apple butter, complete with fun spreader knife and recipe card. I’ll email you to tell you you’ve won: just reply with a mailing address.

Some general rules: If you don’t leave a valid email address with your comment, I’ll pick another person. If I don’t hear back from you with your mailing address, I’ll pick another person. I’ll ship overseas, so don’t worry, everyone can play!

For those of you who don’t win, here’s the recipe. I used this recipe found I online.

Crock Pot Apple Butter
Makes 4 Pints

5 1/2 lbs Apples, peeled and finely chopped (as many different kinds as you can!)
4 Cups Sugar
2-3 tsp Cinnamon
1/4 tsp Ground Cloves
1/4 tsp Salt
1 Sprinkle Nutmeg

Peel and core the apples. Slice finely or puree in a food processor. Add apples and remaining ingredients to your crock pot. Cook on high for 1 hour, then on low for 8-10 hours. Remove lid (or crack it open a bit) and cook on high until a wooden spoon stands upright in it. The apple butter will have reduced by about half to get to this point. Blend if desired.

Fill sterilized jars with simmering apple butter and process for 15 minutes in a boiling-water bath. Remove jars and let sit, undisturbed, overnight. Test the seals and refrigerate any jars that have not sealed completely. Fully sealed jars will keep for 18-24 months unopened. Once opened, the apple butter will keep for 2 months in the refrigerator, or indefinitely in the freezer.

Good luck!

Yeah, I’d never heard of a blueberry grunt, either. Until I became friends with Sandy. Every since we became friends, I couldn’t use the word “blueberry” without her saying “Mmmm, blueberry grunt…” eyes half-closed and smiling. I knew it was one of her favorite desserts, but I couldn’t bring myself to make something called a grunt.

Until, that is, I had four cups freshly picked blueberries.

A grunt is in the cobbler family, and it’s a traditional East Coast maritime dessert. It’s perfect for people who might want something like a pie, but are too lazy make an actual pie. So that means it’s perfect for me!

Blueberry is a popular flavor for grunts, but I imagine you can use pretty much any berry or fruit. They’re a great way to use up bountiful–but fleeting–summer fruit. The most common way to make a grunt is to boil berries with water, sugar, and lemon juice, then add biscuit dough to the top, cover with a tight lid, and steam. It’s a one-pan, stove-top operation. I chose to bake mine because I had these ridiculously cute gratin dishes that I’d been dying to use for a blog post. I’ll give directions for both methods of cooking.

Recipes for grunts are all pretty standard, I adapted and veganized this simple recipe.

Blueberry Grunts
Makes four individual grunts, or one large

Blueberry Filling
Four Cups Fresh Blueberries (or frozen)
3/4 Cup Sugar
1 Tbs Lemon Juice
1/2 Cup Water
1/2 tsp Each Cinnamon and Nutmeg, optional (I left them out)

Simple Biscuits
2 Cups All-Purpose Flour
4 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Salt
3 Tbs Earth Balance Margarine, or veg. shortening
3/4-1 Cup Soymilk

Add all of the ingredients for the blueberry filling into a large skillet.  If you’re going to be making one large grunt and steaming the biscuits, make sure this skillet has a tight fitting lid. If you’re going to be baking the grunt, preheat the oven to 400º F.

Boil the berries for 10-15 minutes until the mixture has thickened a little.

Meanwhile, combine all the dry ingredients for the biscuits. Using a pastry cutter or a fork, cut the margarine/shortening into the dry ingredients. If you’re berries aren’t done yet, go ahead and stick the dry mixture in the fridge or freezer to keep the margarine cold until you’re ready for it.

When the berries are ready, add the soymilk to the dry mixture to form a soft biscuit dough. The consistency is pretty forgiving, a slightly too-soft or too-firm dough won’t make a difference in the final product. As long as it holds together, but is soft enough to break apart into clumps, you’re good to go. Don’t over-mix the dough, or the biscuits will be tough. But you knew that!

For one large, steamed grunt:
Break the biscuit dough up into small, bite-sized pieces.  Place the pieces on top of the hot, still-cooking berries, spread evenly across the top.  Cover the skillet with a tight fitting lid, reduce the heat slightly, and steam for 15 minutes without peeking.  The biscuits should be puffed up and cooked all the way through.  Serve warm.

For one large baked grunt:
Follow the instructions for a steamed grunt, but place in the oven to bake at 400º F (without a lid) for 20 minutes.  You can sand the biscuits sugar before baking if you like! Serve warm.

For individual baked grunts:
Transfer berry mixture to individual ramekins or gratin dishes, filling only half-full.  Add biscuit mixture on top.  Sand with sugar and place all the grunts on a baking sheet (this will help you take them out of the oven with burning yourself).  Bake for 20 minutes, serve warm.

Here’s what my individual grunts looked like before baking:

These are great just as they are, but you can also serve them with some ice cream if you want. I invited Sandy over to try them, and she said that not only were they delicious, but they “taste exactly like a non-vegan grunt.” So if you’re looking for a simple, but elegant dessert to use up summer berries, I highly recommend this one.

I won’t blame you if you call it a cobbler, though.

I’ve been looking for the perfect vegan crumb topping for a while now. Before today, my crumb toppings had always been sort of soggy, sort of greasy; more crummy than crumby. I wasn’t sure how to fix the problem.

About a month ago, I subscribed to Cook’s Illustrated. My mother used to get a subscription years ago that I loved, and but it’s taken me this long to finally get my own. Along with the magazine, they sent me their new cookbook The Best of America’s Test Kitchen: Best Recipes and Reviews 2008, and in it is a recipe for crumb cake. I read a little closer, and saw a technique for crumbs that I’d never tried before. I ran into the kitchen to try it out, and oh my, it worked! Perfect crumbs!

This is a veganized version of the recipe found in The Best Of. It’s easy to throw together with few simple ingredients (no specialty egg replacers), making it perfect for a weekend treat or a quick dessert or teatime cake for guests.

Crumb Cake
Serves 9 (8×8″ cake)

Crumb Topping
8 Tbs Earth Balance Margarine, melted
2/3 Cup Granulate Sugar*
1 tsp Molasses
3/4 tsp Cinnamon
1 Pinch Salt
1 3/4 Cup Flour (cake flour or all-purpose)

*The original recipe calls for 1/3 cup granulated sugar and 1/3 cup brown sugar.  I was out of brown sugar, so I used only granulated sugar with added molasses.  Afterall, that’s how brown sugar is made commercially–they simply add molasses back into the sugar after processing.

Cake
1 1/4 Cups Flour
1/2 Cup Granulated Sugar
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 tsp Salt
1/3 Cup Canola Oil, or 6 Tbs Earth Balance Margarine, softened
1/3 Cup Soymilk + 1 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar (or lemon juice)
1 Tbs Cornstarch mixed with 1/4 Cup Water
1-2 tsp Vanilla Extract
Powdered Sugar, for dusting

Preheat the oven to 350º F.

Whisk the still-warm melted earth balance with the sugar, molasses, cinnamon and salt.  Mix in the flour with a spoon, or your hands, until a thick dough forms, similar to the texture of cookie dough.  Let sit to cool for about 10 minutes.  It should be ready when after you’ve put together the batter for the cake.

Line an 8×8 pan with aluminum foil (two sheets in a cross formation, leaving excess draped over the edges to help you remove the cake later).  Spray with vegetable oil.  Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.  Add oil, soymilk mixture, cornstarch mixture and vanilla extract.  Whisk until smooth, but do not overmix.

Add the batter to the lined pan.  Begin to break apart the crumb mixture into smaller, pea sized pieces.  You want to take chunks from the bowl and gently break off the crumbs, like so:

Cover the batter evenly with all the crumb mixture. It will seem like a lot! When I thought I had enough, I wasn’t even half-way through the mixture. Use it all, as the cake will expand and the crumb mixture is tasty. After all, this is crumb cake. Don’t be shy!

Bake for 40-50 minutes at 350ºF, or until the crumbs are slightly browned and a toothpick in the center of the cake comes out clean. Use the toothpick to push over a crumb or two in the middle an make sure the top doesn’t look gooey (I went the whole 50 minutes).  Grab the aluminum foil and gently lift the cake out to cool for 20-30 minutes on a cooling rack. Give it a nice dusting of powdered sugar, slice and serve.

Wrap up any leftovers in plastic wrap. If there are any leftovers!

I’ve been thinking recently about the five flavors that many thai dishes revolve around: hot, sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. I wasn’t necessarily looking to create a thai dish, but a dish that balances those five flavors without being overly complicated. I’m really pleased with the result; tofu so easy to prepare you won’t mind whipping it up after work. And this recipe also has no added fat! It certainly has a good deal of sugar and salt, but hey, old habits die hard.

If you’ve read my blog for any length of time, you’ll probably realize that this recipe falls within the basic equation for my favorite meals: flavorful tofu + dark leafy green + grain/rice/pasta base. I love this combination because it’s easy and super customizable depending on what you have on hand. I use collards greens and quinoa in this recipe, but feel free to use spinach, kale, mustard greens, chard, arugula, chinese broccoli, cabbage… whatever for the greens, and wheat pasta, rice, millet, rice noodles, barley, orzo etc. for the base.

A sauce can make or break a dish. This sauce is easily whisked together from a few simple ingredients. It’s super duper flavorful, and added to a smoking hot pan full of tofu, it turns into a delicious glaze. I think you’ll be surprised at how easy it is to create a restaurant quality glaze at home. The glaze, combined with the greens, creates the five flavors I was blabbering about:

Hot: Red Chili Flakes
Sweet: Sugar
Salty: Tamari
Sour: Lime Juice
Bitter: Collard Greens

Sweet Chili Lime Tofu with Wok Steamed Collards and Quinoa
Serves 2-3

1 Block Tofu, extra firm, 14 oz

Sweet Chili Lime Sauce
3 Tbs Sugar
3 Tbs Reduced Sodium Tamari (or soy sauce)
1 3/4 Tbs Fresh Lime Juice
1/2 Zest of the Lime
1/2 tsp Red Chili Flakes (or 1-2 fresh hot chilies, minced)
1 Clove Garlic, pressed, optional
1/4 tsp Salt
4 Mint Leaves, chiffonaded

Quinoa*
3/4 Cup Quinoa, rubbed/rinsed in cool water, drained
1/2 Zest Lime
2 Bruised Cardamom Pods, optional
1 Tiny Stick of Cinnamon (a broken piece of a larger stick), optional
1/4 tsp Salt
1 1/3 Cup Water

*Other options: For brown rice, adjust water to 1 1/2 cups, for medium/long grain rice, water measurement is the same. Noodles can be boiled, drained, and given a light splash of soy sauce and lime juice for some background flavor. The tofu is very flavorful, so whatever base you choose, it needs only subtle additions, if any at all.

Wok Steamed Collards
1 Bunch Collard Greens, middle veins removed, washed
2-3 Tbs Water
1 Pinch Salt
1 tsp Lime Juice

Directions

Combine all the ingredients for the quinoa in a pot that has a tight fitting lid. Bring to a boil, then cover and reduce heat to low. Cook for 20 minutes, then turn off heat. Do not open lid. Let steam for 10 minutes before serving.

Prepare the sweet chili lime sauce by whisking all of the ingredients together until the sugar and salt is dissolved.

Drain tofu and cut it into small triangles. I slice the block into 8 rectangles, then each rectangle in half to make two squares per rectangle. I cut each square diagonally to make four triangles per square. Tofu geometry is my favorite kind of math! You can cut the tofu however you please, but a thinner, smaller shape will work best for this method.

Heat a well-seasoned cast iron or non-stick skillet over medium heat. A 10″ skillet will fit all the tofu, so if you’re using a smaller skillet, you’ll need to do this in batches. In order to properly “dry fry” the tofu, you’ll need a pan the tofu won’t stick to even without any oil.

Spread the tofu out in one layer in the pan. Using a spatula, press the tofu. The liquid will squeeze out and boil away, and the tofu will begin to turn golden. The more water that evaporates, the sturdier the tofu will be, so be gentle at first to prevent the tofu from breaking up. After several minutes, flip the tofu over and press the other side. After about 10 minutes of dry frying, you can turn off the heat and set the tofu aside for finishing later, or proceed to adding the sauce. (You might want to set the tofu aside before finishing in order to to prepare the collards, below.)

To finish the tofu, bring the pan back up to temperature if it’s not already very hot. You want to heat the pan and the tofu over high heat, making sure the tofu is hot all the way through. Add the sauce and stir to coat the tofu. Turn off the heat. The sauce will bubble up, reduce, and form a glaze. If it isn’t bubbling up and forming a glaze, turn the heat back on high and cook until the glaze is.. well.. glaze-y.

Stack the collard leaves on top of each other, 3-4 at a time, and roll. Slice the roll in 3/4 inch segments. Run your knife through the chopped collards to make smaller pieces, then add them to a wok with the water, lime juice and salt. Cover with any lid that will contain the collards and cook over high heat for 3-4 minutes until the collards are steamed and tender.

For plating, arrange the collards atop of a bed of quinoa. Add tofu over the top, drizzling any leftover sauce over the dish. Garnish with lime slices and mint leaves. Serve.

I know it’s not fall, but I saw a photo of an apple tart a few days ago and have been craving it ever since. I just had to have one.

If you’re looking for an easy, no-fail dessert, this is for you. It’s perfect for a special after dinner dessert, or for company, or as a gift for the next host or hostess that invites you into their home. It’s straightforward, pretty, travels well, and can be served cold, room temperature, or hot. And did I mention it’s yummy?

If you haven’t made your own pie crust yet, this is the recipe to jump in with. It’s a basic pate brisee, which is a standard flaky crust made with flour and fat. I like to use a mixture of half shortening and half Earth Balance margarine, but you can use all Earth Balance if you prefer.

I used granny smith apples because I like a tart tarte, but if you’re looking for something a little more mild, give golden delicious a try. Any apple that keeps its shape during baking will work, and you can even mix and match varieties to your liking.

A tarte pan isn’t required. Feel free to use a regular pie tin. Or, make a rustic galette-style tarte by simply piling up the apples in the middle and folding the edge of the dough over the top. I was about to do it this way myself, but I couldn’t withstand that pretty, polished, fluted tin. What can I say? I’m easily distracted by shiny things.

Tarte aux Pommes
Makes one nine inch tart

4-5 Granny Smith Apples (or sweeter Golden Delicious)
1 Lemon, juiced
2-3 Tbs Sugar
1 tsp Cinnamon
1 Pinch Nutmeg (optional)
1 Pinch Allspice (optional)
2-3 Tbs Melted Earth Balance
Your favorite jelly/jam, for glazing

Pate Brisee
1 1/4 Cup All Purpose Flour
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Sugar
1/4 Cup Non-Hydrogenated Veg. Shortening
1/4 Cup Earth Balance Margarine
2-4 Tbs Ice Water

Add the flour, salt, sugar, and fats together in the work bowl of a food processor.*

Pulse until the mixture looks like wet sand, with pea-sized lumps here and there.

Slowly drizzle in water while running the machine until the dough forms a ball. If in doubt, add less water as opposed to more.

Turn out the dough onto the counter and press to form a disc. Cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1/2 hour.

Preheat your oven to 400º F. Juice your lemon and place the juice in a small bowl. Peel the apples, brushing them with lemon juice as you go to prevent discoloration.

Slice the apples in half and core them. I use a 1 tsp measure to core my apples, it works just like a melon baller would.

Don’t forget to brush the insides with lemon juice, too.

Roll out your pate brisee on a sheet of parchment or wax paper. The dough should be 1/8″ thick and should be larger than your tart tin on all sides.

Invert the dough (using the parchment as support) over the center of the tart pan. If you’re making a pan-less galette, skip this step and move on to arranging the apples.

Gently work the dough into the pan and start arranging your apple slices in rings, starting at the outside and working in towards the center. It won’t really matter what it looks like once it’s baked, so don’t freak out about aesthetics. Just make sure to jam a bunch of apples in there, since they’ll cook down as it bakes.

The color is off, because at this point a huge thunderstorm had rolled in and messed up my lighting. The humidity and heat even wreaked the dough a little, but it still turned out just fine! If your dough gets too warm it may break apart (like mine did), but just mend it and soldier on.  You won’t notice after it’s baked.

Once the apples are all in there, coat the top with the sugar and spices. Fold over the edges of the dough towards the center (they won’t cover the top completely–I don’t have a picture of this step because by this time the storm was so bad I couldn’t photograph anything at all).

Brush the entire tarte with melted Earth Balance and sprinkle with more sugar. Pour any leftover earth balance over the apples.

Bake at 400º F for 45-55 minutes, or until the tarte is golden brown and the apples have color on them. Glaze with warmed jam. Let cool most of the way before slicing.

*A food processor isn’t required, it just makes your job a lot easier. If mixing by hand, be sure to work the fat all they way into the dough before adding the water.