Category: Food

Vegan Soft Vanilla Butter Cookies (Original)

• 1/2 Cup Vegan Butter (eg. Earth Balance)
• 1/3 Cup Icing Sugar
• 1 Tsp Vanilla
• 1 1/3 Cup Flour
• 1 Tsp Baking Powder
• 2 Tbsp Almond/Soy/Rice Milk

1. Preheat the oven to 325F.
2. Beat butter and sugar until fluffy. Mix in vanilla.
3. Add the rest of the ingredients and combine. Add milk if too dry.
4. Make small balls of dough and gently pressing them down on the cookie sheet.
5. Bake 18-20 minutes.

Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting

• 4 Tbsp Vegan Cream Cheese (eg. Tofutti)
• 3 Tbsp Vegan Butter (eg. Earth Balance)
• 2 Tsp Vanilla
• 1/2 Cup Icing Sugar

1. Mix the ingredients. If it’s too runny, add icing sugar. If it’s too rigid, add cream cheese/butter. I always play this one out by eye.
2. I dipped the cookie into the mixture then topped off with sprinkles.

Thoughts

I sought to replicate these incredibly soft cookies a coworker obtained. This ended up being quite close to the mark.

I screwed it up and mixed all of the ingredients in one go. Working with it was like working with pastry dough and I added milk to help me through. Still, the end product was very soft and delicious. I wonder if not beating the sugar and butters first was actually a boon. The cookies themselves are without flavour – it’s the frosting that makes them what they are. As an aside – I made sure that the frosting wouldn’t harden by making sure there wasn’t too much icing sugar.

This accidental find is now one of my favourite cookie recipes.

Again with Bridgehead. They had a quinoa chocolate cake and I wanted to try to make something like it.

Chocolate Cake (Original)

• ⅔ Cup Quinoa
• 1⅓ Cup Water
• ¼ Cup Flax Seeds
• ½ Cup Water
• ⅓ Cup Almond Milk
• 1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
• ¾ Cup Vegan Butter (eg. Earth Balance)
• 1½ Cup Sugar
• 1 Cup Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
• 1½ Tsp Baking Powder
• ½ Tsp Baking Soda
• 1 Tsp Salt

1. Bring quinoa and water to a boil in a sauce pan. Cover and reduce to a simmer for ten minutes. Turn the heat off, fluff with a fork and let cool for another ten minutes.
2. Preheat the oven to 350 F.
3. Grease a spring form pan for the cake. If you use a different pan, also cover the bottom with parchment paper.
4. Grind the flax seeds and mix with the half cup hot water to a bowl. Let cool.
5. Combine almond milk, flax mix, and vanilla in a large bowl using an immersion blender or food processor.
6. Add the cooked quinoa and butter to the same bowl and blend.
7. In another large bowl, mix the sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add the blended quinoa mixture and mix well.
8. Pour into the greased pan.
9. Bake for 45 minutes or until a tooth pick comes out clean.
10. Let cool.

Chocolate Frosting (Original)

• 2 Cups Icing Sugar
• ¼ Cup Vegan Butter
• ¼ Cup Almond Milk
• ¾ Cup Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
• ½ Tsp Vanilla

1. Cream sugar and butter.
2. Add remaining ingredients and mix until smooth. Add almond milk by the tea spoon if it’s too hard.
3. Place frosting on top of cooled cake.

Thoughts

The cake was moist. I was in a rush when I made it, so I didn’t give it adequate time to cool before I threw on the frosting. As a result it kind of sunk into the center displacing the batter. You could tell the quinoa and flax meal were there, but it impinge on the taste.

This wasn’t as dense as the usual flourless chocolate cakes and safe dairy-wise. I was wondering how I could enhance the presentation. Maybe a draw pattern on top with white glaze and/or top it with cherry pie filling.

I experimented this weekend, preparing vegan & gluten-free butter tarts. I was looking online for recipes, and they all called for raisins – which I really don’t like. So I improvised.

Vegan & Gluten-Free Butter Tarts (Original Recipe)

Makes 12 tarts.

Pastry

• 3 Cups Gluten-Free All Purpose Flour
• 1 Cup Sugar
• 1 Tbsp Nutmeg
• ½ Tsp Salt
• 1 Cup Vegan Butter
• ¼ Cup Ice Water

1. Oil and flour the wells of a muffin tin.
2. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl. Add the butter and mix until crumbly.
3. Add the water and form into a ball of dough. Add more water by the tablespoon if necessary.
4. Place the dough in the fridge for 30 minutes to an hour.
5. Roll out the dough so that it’s ¼ inch thick and cut out twelve circles. Place in the muffin tin.

Filling

• ½ Cup Brown Sugar
• 2 Tbsp Agar Agar
• ½ Cup Vegan Butter
• ½ Cup Maple Syrup
• 2 Tsp Vanilla
• 2 Tbsp Corn Starch

1. Preheat the oven to 450 F.
2. Mix the sugar and agar powder in a bowl.
3. Add the maple syrup to the bowl and mix.
4. Melt the butter and add to the bowl. If you’re using a vegan spread like Earth Balance, you can brown it instead of just melting it.
5. Add the corn starch and mix.
6. Pour the filling in the prepared shells.
7. Bake until puffed and browned, about 10-12 minutes.
8. Let cool to allow the agar agar to set.

Thoughts

This recipe diverges from the original a bit. A whole nutmeg became ground nutmeg, which is more readily available. The agar agar was added as the mechanism through which to gelatinize the filling. I’m not sure if two flax eggs would have also worked.

Overall, these are okay. The shells are a bit thick. Perhaps cutting down the pastry ingredients by up to a third next time. The filling meanwhile is very average. Perhaps mixing in chopped pecans or walnuts could have given it that extra kick.

This is a functional treat and I can see me making these again, though I do think there’s room for improvement.