Peanut Butter Blossoms

These were my favorite cookie when I was growing up. My Mom would pretty much only make these for Christmas and I'd spend the rest of the year pining for them. This year I asked her for the recipe and found them surprisingly easy to create vegan versions!

The Stuff

• 1 3/4 cups flour (you can use half whole wheat pastry flour)
• 1/2 sugar (evaporated cane juice)
• 1 t baking soda
• 1/2 t salt
• 1/2 cup shortening (Spectrum Naturals or Earth Balance)
• 2 T soy milk (rice or almond would work fine)
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1 t vanilla
• 2 T golden flaxseed meal (Bob's Red Mill) whisked with 3 T water
• Extra sugar to roll cookies in
• 2 large bars of dark chocolate (70% cacao or more) broken into rough squares or rectangles (I used the Theo Jane Goodall bars)
  

The Making

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.

Blend all ingredients at low speed in a large bowl until a stiff dough forms. Shape dough into 1" balls and roll each ball in sugar. Place balls 2" apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake cookies for 10 to 12 minutes, until golden brown.

Immediately top each cookie with a piece of chocolate. Press down firmly and into the hot cookie so they crack around edge. Remove from cookie sheet to wire rack to cool completely.

Makes 3 dozen.

rhubarb sour cream cake

if you like rhubarb, this is just yum yum yum. my mom gave me this recipe, and i made it vegan with sour supreme, lemon juice and earth balance.

ingredients

2 cups diced rhubarb

1-1/2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup sour supreme

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups flour

earth balance

nutmeg to taste

directions

1. mix rhubarb and 1/2 cup sugar. let stand 30 minutes.

2. mix baking soda, sour cream and lemon juice. mixture will almost double.

3. sift salt, flour, and 1 cup sugar.

4. combine all and stir a little - don't overmix. mixture will be thick.

5. spread in a 9" pan.

6. sprinkle sugar, nutmeg, and dot with earth balance.

7. bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes (until cake springs back when touched).

Diwali Happiness 1 - Besan Ladoo

I suck - again, no pictures! I will just have to make some of these again and photograph.

Two of my co-workers are here from India and they came up with the idea of having a big lunch to celebrate Diwali. This is a huge, multi-day festival celebrated across India; a time for big gatherings and lots of food. My co-workers missed this celebration working in Portland, Oregon, so decided to bring it to their American teammates.

When I started looking at recipes for desserts I noted that they all contained dairy products. This is pretty standard for Indian sweets, so I never have any now (oh, how I miss gulab jamun). The only way to ensure a sweet at a potluck, should I desire one, is to make them myself. Not being really familiar with any of the sweets in the recipes for Diwali I thought I'd try out the recipe for cashew cardamom cupcakes in Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. I hadn't yet and have always thought it sounded tasty.

A couple of days before the potluck I stopped into my favorite Desi market, India-4-U, to pick up fresh kari leaves for making sambar. While purchasing these I was chatting with one of the owners, Alka, about my plans to make the cupcakes although I know they're not traditional.

She looked at me and said, "Oh, you should make besan ladoo!"

I know what besan is, but a ladoo?? Alka assured me it was easy, if time consuming, to cook the besan. She knows I'm vegan and that I have something I use where ghee is called for (hoaray, Earth Balance). She said that ghee was the only non-vegan thing in besan ladoo, so I should have an easy time of it. Besan ladoo, she insisted, we the best thing to make as a sweet for a Diwali party.

Right. Once home I stashed the kari leaves in the fridge for sambar making later and did a little research. After a few Google searches I found a recipe that sounded like the rough ingredient list Alka gave me: besan, ghee, sugar, cardamom, cashews and raisens. The only problem -- no pictures and the recipe directions ended with the notation to, "shape into ladoos".

Uhh... Google image search to the rescue! Moments later I discovered that "ladoo" meant "little ball".

As Alka had said, it was pretty easy if a little time consuming. I followed the recipe and directions exactly, substituting the amount of Earth Balance for the ghee, and after many minutes the kitchen was scented with the nutty aroma of the toasted flour. I added the sugar & cardamom and immediately found a problem.

I had a pan of toasted, cooled besan, a bunch of sugar, a fair bit of cardamom, some chopped raises & toasted cashews. It smelled wonderful, however, there was no way that it would be pressed into any kind of firm shape!

Since ghee is clarified and Earth Balance is a vegetable fat, something was lost in trying to do a direct substitution. What I've learned is that when substituting Earth Balance for ghee the amount should be doubled! This worked fine and the results delighted Indian co-workers who said I got them just right. They were thrilled to get a handmade sweet they associate with home.

The Recipe

Besan Ladoo -- Vegan Style!

1 cup Earth Balance
2 cups gram flour
1 cup evaporated cane sugar
1 teaspoon powdered cardamom
1/2 cup of chopped raisins and cashews

I toasted the raw cashews and set them aside. Once they were cool I chopped up these and some raisins for the 1/2 cup.

In a large frying pan melt 1/2 the Earth Balance over medium-low heat and add in the 2 cups gram flour. Keep stirring with a spoon, making sure there are no lumps, until flour has turned a rich, dark tan and smells very aromatic -- at least 10-15 minutes. Take off heat and let cool.

Once the besan has cooled add in the sugar, cardamom, cashews and raisins. Mix together so that all ingredients are well incorporated. Melt the other 1/2 of Earth Balance. Drizzle Earth Balance into other ingredients, keep mixing and adding Earth Balance until the dough can be pressed together in a small ball and retain shape when set down.

Form dough into small balls, ladoos, and plate. Should be kept refrigerated if not being served right away. Makes approximately 24 ladoos.


**Note: I am not sure at this time if I could have just toasted the gram in the full amount of Earth Balance. Since I discovered after all the other steps were done that I needed more Earth Balance, this is how the steps went. I will amend this if I discover I do not need to do the Earth Balance in two parts.

Chocolate Pudding

Have you ever purchased a recipe shortcut and then realized that you might as well have thrown a few bucks into the food processor? No? Damn. Well, just pretend you did, because I really did and I don't want to feel like the only schmuck on this blog.

I actually purchased a tofu pudding mix that promised to make a brick of extra-firm tofu into a bowl of creamy, delicious pudding. And it kind of worked. I had to add some sweetener and cocoa to pep up the flavor, but the end product was surprisingly puddingish.

Then I looked at the ingredients:

dehydrated raw cane juice, Dutch cocoa powder, potato starch, guar gum, non-hydrogenated coconut oil, soy lecithin, vanilla

Hmm... sweetener, cocoa, thickeners, oils, and vanilla. Not exactly rocket science.

So I zipped over to VegWeb.com to see if anybody had a reasonably easy recipe for pudding, and found this five-star recipe. The ingredient deck here is even simpler:

1 block extra firm tofu
3 tablespoons high quality cocoa powder
3 tablespoons to 1/4 cup soy milk
3 tablespoons liquid sweetener. (flavored syrup, or maple syrup works really well)

And the method is exactly like the mix: throw everything into a bowl or blender and blend until smooth; chill while licking the mixing equipment.

I made it tonight, using agave for the sweetener, and I'm never buying pre-made pudding or a pudding mix ever again. My Pizzakrap blender even managed to puree the tofu into a darned interesting approximation of pudding. Or, really, more like mousse.

Future pudding explorations:

• a teaspoon or so of mint extract for chocolate mint numminess
• one of the commenters on VegWeb -- commenting on a similar recipe -- says this makes a tasty frozen treat
• I'm thinking of trying a vanilla or almond version and layering it with the chocolate for a party parfait

*** Next day update ***

I was dreaming of parfait, I think, or maybe just Shrek. Anyway, I decided to make the parfait.

I made a vanilla-almond pudding this morning:

• 1 block extra firm tofu
• 4 T maple syrup, or to taste (I thought 3 T was a little light on the sweetness, but I'm aiming for decadence)
• 1.5 t pure vanilla
• 1 t almond extract
• 3 T almond milk

Method: Blend until smooth.

The chocolate I made last night set up firm and silky, so I spooned some into a large, glass bowl and poured the vanilla over it. Chilled that for a couple hours, then spooned the rest of the chocolate over it. Topped with Soy Whip and sprinkles.

I can't wait to see my little creation demolished at a potluck this afternoon. Ev'body love parfait!

*** Two days later update ***

The parfait went like a Sweet Pea turtle cheesecake, which is to say, WHOOSH! I set it on the table at the potluck, went away to swim, and came back in maybe half an hour to see an empty bowl. It was a huge hit. While the different flavors were nice fresh out of the blender, they turned into a delightfully creamy moose mousse when properly chilled.

The frozen version, however, is a disappointment. I put it directly from the blender into the freezer (using a container -- this time), and it froze into a snirt-like mass of ice crystals. Perhaps I'll try letting it set up in the fridge before freezing, or adding a little oil to see if that keeps the mess from solidifying too much. Ideas welcome.

Also, chocolate mint works very well. I'd start with 1/2 teaspoon of mint extract added to the chocolate recipe above. 1 teaspoon is a little too Altoid-y (or a comparable, vegan mint-y).