Cinnamon Coffee Cake with Mocha Icing

By Anni | December 16, 2008 – 21:13

I enjoy experimenting with different sweeteners, and lately I’ve used a lot of whole cane sugar in baking. It has the most flavor of the options I have tried so far, but I am still waiting for the perfect moment to crack open that jar of black treacle! There is a definite liquorice undertone in the flavor of whole cane sugar, most pronounced in the South American varieties that are often called rapadura in Germany or “Indian sugar” in Finland (I could write an essay about the colonialist connotations of that one). For this cake I combined the lighter raw cane and the darker whole cane sugars, resulting in a balanced sweetness - so sweet that even a small piece is enough to lift my spirits on a gloomy December day in Helsinki.

Apple sauce made this cake very moist and gave it a little bit of fruity flavor as well - I wanted to bake an extra moist cake after having a disappointing chocolate cake experience at a nearby vegetarian restaurant. The cake had a nice crumble, thanks to the whole spelt flour that also adds great flavor. We stored this cake in the fridge after the icing had set, and it was even more flavorful on the following days.

The Cake Batter:

  • 5 dl whole spelt flour
  • 2 teaspoons cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 dl raw cane sugar
  • 1/2 dl whole cane sugar (rapadura)
  • 2 dl unsweetened apple sauce
  • 1/2 dl canola oil
  • 1 tablespoon coffee liqueur (or coffee)
  • 1 tablespoon desiccated coconut (for the baking dish)

I preheated the oven to 175 degrees Celsius and greased a round baking dish, and then sprinkled the desiccated coconut over the bottom of the dish and up the sides. I used a small round baking dish with a diameter of 15 centimeters.

To make the batter, I first mixed the dry ingredients (flour through salt) together, then mixed the wet (sugars through liqueur) in another bowl, and then combined the two with a fork until smooth. Now I poured the batter in the dish and baked it on the lower rack of the oven for 35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted came out clean.

The Mocha Icing:

  • 1 and 1/2 to 2 dl (raw cane) confectioner’s sugar
  • 1 to 2 tablespoons coffee liqueur (or coffee)
  • 2 teaspoons desiccated coconut
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

I started by mixing 1 and 1/2 dl confectioner’s sugar with 1 tablespoon of the liqueur, added the coconut and cinnamon, and stirred. Then I added a bit of sugar and a bit of liqueur until I had a good spreadable consistency. Then I spread the icing over the cooled cake and let it set for an hour before serving.

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Carrot Oven Fries with Chipotle

By Anni | December 8, 2008 – 22:56

I know four carrots doesn’t sound much like a meal, but served alongside a pile of my avocado-yogurt dip, these fries did make a perfect light lunch to start the week with. Smoky chipotle flavor roasted right into the heart of my sweet carrots, and they came out of the oven crispy around the edges and soft on the inside. Extremely tasty, yet so simple - as I guess the best recipes always are.

I think this amount would be enough as a side dish for 2-3. The quality of carrots really does make a difference here - I used a bunch of organic carrots that still had a nice protective layer of dirt on them when they reached us. Root vegetables keep better and stay much more flavorful if they’re not cleaned after harvesting, but unfortunately the supermarkets rarely carry “dirty” veggies.

The chipotle I used in this recipe is the adobado kind. Heikki mashed a can of chipotles in adobo sauce when he made the black beans from Veganomicon, and we still have some of the paste in the fridge. Chipotles are amazing in their depth of flavor, but I’m sure these fries would turn out well with other spices if they are hard to find.

The Carrots:

  • 4 large carrots, scrubbed and cut into sticks
  • 2 teaspoons mashed chipotles in adobo sauce
  • salt to taste
  • a dash of olive oil to coat

I cut the carrot into thin fry-size sticks and then tossed them with the chipotle and the olive oil. There’s no need to use much oil, just enough to coat the carrots. Then I spread the carrot sticks on a baking sheet in one layer, and sprinkled them with salt. I baked my carrots in 200 degrees Celsius on the upper rack of the oven: first for 35 minutes, then tossed them around, and then another 10-15 minutes until slightly charred here and there.

The Avocado Dip:

  • 1 ripe avocado
  • 3/4 dl plain soy yogurt
  • pinch of salt
  • pinch of sugar
  • 1 clove garlic, crushed
  • black pepper to taste
  • 1 tablespoon cilantro, chopped

I simply mashed everything together with a fork and chilled while the carrots were baking.

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Vanilla Custard Brownies

By Anni | December 2, 2008 – 19:40

I found a recipe for non-vegan cheesecake brownies through tastespotting, and it didn’t take me long to veganize it. I used my trusted brownie recipe and added a topping made with silken tofu, oat cream, and agave syrup, and the end result was really just deliciously decadent. The topping is more like a creamy custard than a cheesecake filling, hence the title of this post - I think I actually prefer the lighter texture of a custard to complement the rich brownie layer underneath!

The agave syrup in the custard caramelized around the edges, which gave it a very nice burnt sweetness.

The Custard Topping:

  • 175 g (half a package Mori-Nu) silken tofu
  • 2 dl oat cream (or soy creamer, or any other vegan cream)
  • 1 tablespoon lime juice
  • 2 tablespoons vanilla sugar
  • 4 tablespoons agave syrup
  • 1 and 1/2 tablespoons tapioca starch
  • pinch of salt

I combined all the ingredients and blended until completely smooth.

The Brownie Batter:

  • 70 g vegan chocolate (semi dark)
  • 60 g margarine
  • 1 dl plus 2 tablespoons whole wheat flour
  • 2/3 dl dark cocoa powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 and 1/2 dl plain, unsweetened soy yogurt
  • 1 and 1/2 dl raw cane sugar
  • 3 tablespoons soy milk
  • 2 tablespoons vanilla sugar

First, I preheated the oven to 175 degrees Celsius, and melted the chocolate and the margarine in a water bath. Once melted, I let them cool down while preparing the other ingredients.

I mixed the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder in a small bowl. Then I placed the soy yogurt, the soy milk, vanilla sugar, and raw cane sugar in another bowl, and whisked them for about 3 minutes. I wanted the sugar to dissolve, so at this point I took the time to prepare my baking dish.

I covered my baking dish (26 X 18 cm) with parchment paper. Then, I whisked the cooled down chocolate-margarine mixture together with the other wet ingredients, and then added the dry ingredients in the bowl. I stirred with a wooden fork to combine, and poured the batter to the baking pan, spreading it evenly.

Then I spread the custard topping over the brownie batter. The original recipe advices to swirl the brownie with a knife for a marbled effect, and that’s what I did. However, since these vegan brownies are leavened with baking powder, the end result is very different - well, if you look at the picture you see what I mean! But I think our brownies came out pretty too, especially after I decorated them with some cocoa powder, and this way you get nice custardy caves in the brownie layer.

I baked the brownies in 175 degrees Celsius, on the lower rack of the oven, for about 35 minutes, when a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake came out cleanish (with only some custard topping stuck to it). Then we let the brownies come to room temperature and refrigerated them for a few hours before eating.

Well, actually we had a little bite before refrigerating, but I strongly suggest serving these fridge-cold - it improves the texture immensely!

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Beet Kimchi

By Heikki | November 28, 2008 – 11:41

I have a love-hate relationship with pickled vegetables. I absolutely love pickles when they’ve been made by fermenting in brine, but I can’t bring myself to like pickles that have been preserved with vinegar. For example, when I was a kid in school, we’d often have slices of pickled beet as part of our school lunch, of the vinegar kind. I detested them, and because of that, it took me years to learn to like beets! When I read about Liz’s pickled turnips, I thought that maybe making pickled vegetables isn’t that hard, and I’ve been wanting to try my hand making some since. I decided to start with kimchi, and add my favourite root vegetable - the one I used hate in school, beetroot.

After googling, reading and watching through a plethora of kimchi recipes, I settled on the one that looked most promising, and adapted it to my liking. Not only it proved to be really easy to make, but supremely delicious too! I am already planning my next batch of pickled vegetables. Even though making kimchi is easy, it does require some planning ahead. During the first day, there are two separate stages of preparing, and a six hour wait between them. After that, it takes three or four days of fermentation before the kimchi is ready.

This is what I used:

  • 650 g chinese cabbage
  • plenty of salt
  • 1 beet, grated
  • 2 red onions, chopped
  • 2 - 3 cloves of garlic, crushed
  • slice of ginger, about 1 cm thick, crushed
  • 2 teaspoons hot chili powder (or to taste)
  • 4 teaspoons sugar

When making the kimchi, I mostly followed the instructions from the Pyongyang metro kimchi recipe.

I began by rinsing and chopping the cabbage, resulting with pieces of cabbage about 5 cm in diameter. I made layers from the cabbage in a plastic bag, sprinkling salt liberally between each layer. At this stage, it’s important to ensure that the cabbage is thoroughly salted, so next I poured some salt over my hands and rubbed the pieces of cabbage between my hands. I added some more salt, and repeated until I’d gone through all of the cabbage. Then I squeezed the pieces of cabbage between my hands to extract as much water out of them as possible. I did this over the plastic bag, so that all the extracted water was collected in the bag. I tied up the bag, and let it sit for 6 hours.

At this point, the original recipe said rinse the cabbage “if necessary”, and remove the extra water, but since my cabbage wasn’t that watery, I decided not to remove any water. Moreover, I didn’t rinse the cabbage, since I hadn’t used that much salt. Most of the saltiness disappears in the fermentation process anyway. Now I put the cabbage in a plastic container with a tight-fitting lid, and added the rest of the ingredients. I put on my kitchen gloves, and started squeezing the ingredients in my fists. I continued squeezing the cabbage mix for a couple of minutes.

All done! I tasted it a bit, and it was already really yummy, a bit salty perhaps. I closed the lid, and put the kimchi box into our coolest cupboard for 3 days. I think I read from one of the recipes, that the place to keep the kimchi should be under 20 degrees Celsius.

After three days, the kimchi was ready! I kept it in the fridge now, so that it wouldn’t go extra sour too quickly. We ate it as a side a couple of times, and I had it over rye bread a few times. We also made kimchi fried rice, which was really great! I followed this recipe pretty closely, except I substituted the meat for tofu, and omitted the eggs, of course. Oh, and I used 2 or 3 times more tamari than the recipe calls for, adding more of it in the end, tasting until the balance was right.

Kimchi fried rice with some steamed bok choy

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Walnut Cookies

By Anni | November 25, 2008 – 21:59

Walnuts, vanilla and raw brown sugar melted into nice caramel flavor in these cookies. These nutty treats are rather soft and a little crisp on the bottom right after baking, perfect with a cup of tea and snow falling silently outside our window. Helsinki has tons of snow right now, but the weather forecasts say it should be more or less gone by tomorrow, so it’s best to celebrate with a cookie (or a few) while the magic lasts!

I’ve found that using soy yogurt with whole flours somehow improves the texture of the final product. I checked out a few recipes in cookbooks before improvising this recipe, but I think the idea of using tapioca starch definitely lurked into my mind from the Post Punk Kitchen Blog’s Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe from a few weeks back.

The Cookie Dough (20 medium cookies):

  • 3 to 3 and 1/2 dl whole wheat flour
  • 1 and 1/2 dl walnuts, chopped
  • 1 dl canola oil
  • 1 dl plain soy yogurt
  • 2 dl brown sugar (I used yummy raw sugar from Bolivia)
  • 3 tablespoons white sugar
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla sugar
  • 2 tablespoons tapioca starch
  • 3/4 teaspoon salt
  • 3/4 teaspoon baking soda

First, I whisked together the soy yogurt, canola oil, sugars, and tapioca starch. Actually Heikki helped me with this step when I got tired of whisking - it takes a bit of time until all the sugar is dissolved. Then I combined 3 dl of the whole wheat flour with the baking soda, and Heikki chopped the walnuts. Now, I added the flour mixture to the wet mix bowl, stirred until combined, and added the walnuts. The dough seemed a little too sticky so I added another 1/2 dl of flour, and the dough was ready.

There’s been a lot of talk about refrigerating the cookie dough after an article about perfect cookies appeared in the New York Times, but I didn’t have time for this step. I will try that trick some time soon for sure!

So I just rolled the dough into 20 balls and flattened them with a fork on two cookie sheets covered with baking parchment. Then I baked the cookies one sheet at a time for 8 minutes, until slightly browned on the bottom side. Overbaking makes the cookies dry out, so it’s best to be careful - they didn’t look quite baked enough after eight minutes, but they were!

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