hamantaschen

I was having company for breakfast and again for lunch on Purim, so I decided to make a bunch of hamantaschen with my spelt cinnamon roll dough. According to Jewish Cookery I erred in serving them with tea--the cookie variety goes with tea, while the yeasty buns should be served with coffee. They were a success nonetheless, so I thought I'd record how I made them so I can do it again next year.

There are bigger sections of bread uninterrupted by sweet filling in these than in cinnamon rolls, so I think next time I'll add a little more sugar to the dough, and maybe a little lemon zest. One recipe's worth of dough is sufficient to make eight hamantaschen. I doubled the recipe as I was serving them twice and hoped to have some left to take to work the next day, so I made two different fillings: apricot and poppy. The apricot filling was very easy to make--mix together equal parts apricot jam and grated apple. I invented the poppy filling and didn't write down the amounts, but here's the general method: soak poppyseeds in water overnight, then cook in soy milk with sugar, honey, cinnamon, and some raisins. add a little vanilla, and grind in a blender. If it's too watery, add some more raisins and grind some more.

Divide dough into eight equal portions, and roll each out into a thin disk. Put a blob of filling in the middle, and fold the edges in to form a triangle. Leave the center open so a little filling is peeping out. Bake at 350° for 17-20 minutes.

spelty cinnamon rolls

I must apologize to all my fans for my lengthy blogging hiatus. I had all kinds of ideas for things to write about, and took lots of pictures, but just haven't been in the mood to actually write anything down. I'm back now, though, and have a nice veganised, speltified cinnamon roll recipe for you. It's adapted from the 'Twinkling Rolls' recipe in an old Good Housekeeping cookbook.

They're small and raisin-and-frosting-free, because that's how I like them. Rachael agrees, and adds that they are the perfect sweetness. I used a little bit of whole spelt flour along with the white, because it seems to make for a livelier dough than one made with only white flour. These aren't quite as soft and fluffy as regular wheat cinnamon rolls, but they're close.



Cinnamon Rolls

makes 12-14 little rolls, enough for 3 people

dough:
175g white spelt flour
75g whole spelt flour
1T each potato flour, chickpea flour
150ml soy milk, warmed
25g oleo
2T sugar
1t yeast
1/2t salt

filling:
40g oleo, melted
1/4C sugar mixed with 1t cinnamon

Mix together all of the dough ingredients and knead till smooth. You can either let it rise now or stick it in the refrigerator to rise slowly overnight if you plan to have cinnamon rolls for breakfast. In either case let it double.

Heat the oven to 350°. Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface into a big rectangle, about 14"x10". Smear with melted oleo, leaving about 1/2 an inch along the long side ungreased so you'll be able to seal it up. Sprinkle evenly with cinnamon sugar. Roll the dough up, pinch shut along the ungreased edge, and cut into 12-14 little rolls. Arrange them into a greased 8"x8" pan. Sprinkle any remaining cinnamon sugar over the rolls, and smear them with any sludge that oozed out when you cut them. Bake for about 20 minutes.

superhealthy scones

I made these vegan, wheat-free, whole grain, no-cane-or-beet-sugar, trans-fat-free, no nuts or legumes scones the other day and they turned out really well. They weren't dry and dense like whole wheat biscuits usually are, and are edible by everyone I know except the gluten intolerant and coconut allergic. The recipe's adapted from a raspberry scone recipe in Babycakes.

Cranberry Spelt Scones

makes 8 smallish scones

4oz cranberries
3 3/4 oz light agave nectar, divided
8oz whole spelt flour (if you grind it yourself, run it through the mill twice to get it really fine)
1T baking powder
1/4t cloves
1/3t salt
2 1/2 oz coconut oil
1T grated orange zest
1T vanilla extract
2T oil (whatever kind you like: I used canola)
1/4c hot water

Preheat oven to 400°.

Cut the cranberries in half and toss them with 1oz of the agave nectar. Set the bowl on the stove so that the heat of the preheating oven warms the berries up; periodically squeeze them a little with your hands to work the agave nectar in.

Whisk the flour, baking powder, cloves and salt together, then rub in the coconut oil till the mixture looks like cornmeal. Make a volcano and put in the orange zest, vanilla, and remaining agave nectar. Mix it up, then add the hot water and mix some more.

Divide the dough into two blobs on a floured board. Flatten each with a floury hand, cut each into quarters, then transfer the wedges to a parchment or Silpat-lined baking sheet. Bake for about 15 minutes.

apricot bread

Last Saturday, Annie, Rachael, and I went to our friend Julie's house for dinner and to exchange Epiphany presents. My holiday preparations this year were halfhearted (I get more misanthropic at Christmastime with every passing year), and on Saturday morning I decided that Julie's little bag of presents was inadequate. What else could I make that would be unusual and festive, and not require going to the store to get ingredients? I decided to make pan de albaricoque, similar to this apricot bread but with more flavors. I was astonished when we opened our presents to find that Julie had made us Turkish fig balls--a very similar concept, dried fruit whizzed in the Cuisinart with nuts.

My apricot bread was easy and pretty successful, so I'll present you with its recipe:

Pan de Albaricoque

375g dried apricots (I used Trader Joe's Blenheim apricots, as they're a lot more flavorful than Turkish ones)
90g each pistachios and almonds
2t orange zest
1T each sugar and honey
1T brandy
1t powdered ginger
optional: more dried apricots, bay leaves, dried cherries

Toast the nuts in the oven at 350 F° for about 10 minutes, then grind them up in your food processor till they're fine meal. Don't let them turn to greasy butter! Put them in a bowl, then grind the remaining (non-optional) ingredients till they're a nice, smooth paste. Scrape the paste (watch out for the blade! I nearly made pan de albaricoque y sangre!) into the bowl of nut meal and mix everything together thoroughly with your hands. Divide it in half and shape into two big, flat circles.

You can make a cereza sandwich with one of the circles if you like, by cutting it in half, pressing dried cherries onto one of the halfs, covering it with the other half, and squashing it some more to make it as thin as it was before. You could decorate the other circle by covering it with some of your prettier dried apricots, or just cut it into wedges and stick a bay leaf on each.

If these are anything like the pan de higo I made a couple of years ago that's still good, they should keep a long time.

squash bread

I worked on Christmas, so had to bring something for our potluck. As I planned to spend most of Xmas eve day at Annie's, I needed to bring a dish that didn't take much time or advance preparation. I actually ended up taking two things--a pie made of leftover applesauce and cranberries from the previous week's latkes, and this very successful bread.



Squash Bread à la New York Times

makes one big loaf

800g all-purpose flour
300g pumpkin purée (I had it frozen, but canned would also be good)
400ml water
1t instant yeast (2g)
2t salt (15g)
200g raisins
150g chopped pecans
2t cumin seed
wheat bran

On the morning of the day before you plan to bake, mix everything but the bran together till there are no visible streaks of flour or squash remaining. Do a couple of stretch and folds over the next hour, then let it rise in a not-too-warm place till just before bedtime.

That night, scrape the dough onto a lightly floured counter and roughly shape it into either a round or oblong loaf, depending on what pan you plan to use to bake it. Generously cloak with bran, and set into an appropriately shaped dish (round bowl or oblong pan) sufficient to contain it when it's risen one and a half times and lined with a well-floured linen cloth. Rye flour, if you have some, has better non-stick properties than wheat. Put everything into a big plastic bag to prevent a skin forming prematurely on the loaf. If your house is warm at night, put in the refrigerator; otherwise, leave out on the counter.

When you get up preheat the oven to 425° with a 7 liter heavy, lidded casserole in it (I use this). If the dough's in the fridge, get it out and let it warm up. After an hour, carefully turn the loaf out into the hot pan, put the lid on, and bake for 25 minutes. Take the lid off and bake for another 25 minutes, or until its internal temperature is over 200° or it sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom.

Xmas cookies

This year I again made only seven kinds of cookies. I didn't get started on them till about a week before Christmas, so I couldn't make Aachener Printen or my favorite kind of Lebkuchen as they both require at least two weeks of aging to get non-leathery. From the top and working around clockwise, there are windmills, sugar cookies, Annie's favorite Lebkuchen (from Betty Crocker), Afghans, Linzer cookies (my fancy Linzer cookie cutter didn't work very well, and kept falling apart as I tried to cut the too-soft dough), lemon-pistachio wedding cookies (made from this recipe but with twice the sugar and a little lemon juice added), and in the center, Pfeffernüsse (with icing adapted from this icing recipe).

five-can dinner

I used to make tamale pie for Rachael and Annie all the time--it was an easy dinner, and very quick to make if you discount its time in the oven. It was always kind of a thrill, too, to make something involving so many cans. Rachael tired of it, though, and I forgot about it. I hadn't made it for years till last week when I was working on my Christmas baking and needed to fix something for dinner which would make nice leftovers for work lunches. I had my Betty Crocker cookbook out for its lebkuchen recipe and it reminded me of my old standby, which is heavily adapted from Betty's version. I rushed to the store to buy some cans, and soon I was eating this nostalgic dinner.

If you wanted to make it without mussing up your cutting board, you could even use pre-cut onions (I've seen them at Trader Joe's!) and squash your garlic through a press. For variety, I bet this would be good if you added some Soyrizo, fried along with the onions.



Fiesta Tamale Pie

serves 4, or 1 with lots of leftovers

1 medium onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1T oil
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can beans (pinto or black), drained
1 can corn, drained
i can diced green chiles
2t chili powder
1 cup corn meal
2T garbanzo bean flour
2T nutritional yeast
1 can black olives, drained
10oz unsweetened soy milk

serve with vegan sour cream and a lettucey salad

Fry the onions and garlic in an 3-4 quart ovenproof pan till the onions are yellowing. Add the tomatoes, beans, corn, chiles and chili powder, and bring to the boil. Meanwhile, whisk together the corn meal, garbanzo bean flour, nutritional yeast, and milk. Carefully pour over your hot mixture, then strew the olives over the top. You probably won't be able to fit all of the olives on, so the extras can tide you ever while you bake your pie for 40 minutes at 350°F.