Everything But the Kitchen Sink

Though I have been no where near as diligent at keeping up with blogging in the last few months, if you have been around for a while you probably know that I am obsessed with all things involving meringue. From trying to make french macarons and "the world's best cake" to the lemon meringue pie I posted last. When I was making the topping for the pie, I knew I had to make an extra bit of fluff to bake off a few dozen meringues. The crisp exterior and marshmallowy interior is perfect. I made half vanilla and half one of my favorite flavors, hibiscus. Flavored & tinted naturally with hibiscus powder.


The concept of horchata cookies had been mulling around inside my head for a while. While I made eggnog snickerdoodles a few months ago and knew I could easily make a horchata flavored cookie in a similar way, I felt compelled to add rice to the cookie. I added a fair portion of super soft, steamed rice to the mixer after everything was blended and while the dough taste amazing the cookies just got a funny, plastic-like texture as they cooled. Several friends offered up suggestions such as making a rice meal to add or pureeing the steamed rice before mixing it into the dough. I haven't revisited the concept yet, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time.


I was craving something with a crumb topping when I stumbled on Top with Cinnamon's chocolate vanilla crumb cake. I veganized the recipe, which was simple as could be. It was great with coffee. Rich but not too sweet and cut easily into beautiful, big slices. The cake was a little too dense for me, so I might play with the recipe again a little more in the future trying to get a slightly lighter texture and maybe a little more vanilla flavor in the base of the cake batter.


Busy, busy, busy. Trying to stay focused and calm. Working as hard as I can to make all my dreams come true and keeping my chin up until the winter is over. The days are already getting so much longer. I'm much happier in the sunlight.

Peppermint Hot Chocolate Cookies

I'm not a New Year's resolution type of person so I don't really have any promises to myself or hold any particular expectations, but lately I have been trying to make little life changes to just stay as focused & healthy & happy as possible. For example, I've never been a messy person. Ever since I have lived on my own, I have kept things generally tidy. Maybe a tiny mess here and there, dishes left in the sink for one day because I am too sleepy to wash them after dinner, or a pile of jeans & cardigans that I plan on wearing again before washing. But I have even been trying to break those habits. While I make my coffee in the mornings I have been tidying up the kitchen. Putting away all the dry dishes, rinsing out the sink, wiping down the counters. I make the bed before leaving the house & place the pillows and blanket in their proper places on the couch.


I stopped drinking diet soda a week ago. Something that I have long had a problem with and always mean to stop doing. I've also been consistently packing my lunches in the mornings so that I don't eat garbage from a convenience store while I'm at work. I've been taking B12 and making sure our grocery cart has more greens in it than it did before. I'm trying to come up with more interesting dinners so that we aren't tempted to eat out as frequently as we did in DC. Just little things that I am trying to make routine. I remember hearing before that it takes 60 days for something to become a habit, so I'm on my way.
While searching for dinner ideas, these peppermint hot chocolate cookies from Bakers Royale crossed my path. I made a batch & shared it with a few friends because dessert will always be a part of my life no matter how much kale I am eating. I believe that sugar is ok occasionally, and I hope you do too!



Peppermint Hot Chocolate Cookies
recipe inspired by Bakers Royale, cookie recipe adapted from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar

1/2 cup non-dairy milk of choice
1/2 cup canola oil
1 1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla
1 1/3 cup flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 cup chocolate chips (divided into 2 half cup portions)
1/2 cup Suzanne's Ricemellow Creme
1/4 cup coconut milk
1 tbl agave
3 candy canes, crushed to pieces
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment or a silpat mat. Combine milk, oil, sugar, and vanilla and mix until combined. Add flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt, and baking powder and mix until dough forms. Fold in a half cup of the chocolate chips. Using a 2 tbl scoop, portion dough onto tray. Flatten with palm and then make a large indention with thumb. Bake for 8-10 minutes until edges are firm and allow to cool. Fill wells with Ricemellow creme. In a double broiler combine remaining half cup of chocolate chips, coconut milk, and agave. Heat while whisking until a smooth ganache forms. Allow to cool for several minutes, then pour on tops of cookies with a spoon and smooth on top of the cookie. Sprinkle with candy cane pieces. Allow ganache to solidify before eating unless you want a huge mess!

Holiday Cookies

Tonight and tomorrow are some of the busiest cookie-making days of the year. There's not too many days besides Christmas Eve that absolutely require a plate of cookies. Since I'm not working in a bakery mass-producing thousands of cookies this year, I decided to switch up the standard mix of gingerbread, snickerdoodles, spritz, and sugar cookies to include my favorite winter flavor: soy nog! I made these eggnog snickerdoodles from Amy's Healthy Baking using Silk Nog and adding some extra spices to both the batter and the spiced sugar because that's how I roll (insert bad joke drum roll here). I have a half a carton of soy nog left, and I'm hoping to make another soy nog cheesecake before I slowly sip away at it in the middle of the night.


I also decided that I couldn't forego classical cookies all the way, especially when making a new recipe (I mean you gotta have a fail-safe) so I made gingerbread mittens with my top secret recipe. My lips are sealed on this one and I don't think I will ever share it, but the recipe from the PPK is a very solid option if you don't have a top secret recipe of your own yet. Decorating gingerbread cookies is easily the best part of the holidays, so make sure to gather all your nearest & dearest to frost, sprinkle & snack. Happy holidays everyone!

Everything but the Kitchen Sink

Post-move I have been trying to reduce the amount of baking supplies I hoard. I found a pre-made Oreo crust at the very bottom of my box of supplies and knew it had been there for so long that I didn't remotely have a clue how old it was. A chocolate cookie crust called for one thing, pudding pie. Chocolate pudding pie is a tried & true classic. I have blogged about it before, so it's not enough to warrant a new post. However this time around I used So Delicious's new coconut whipped topping. While I think it tastes remarkably like Cool Whip, the texture was a little off for me. It was very heavy and quite hard to spread on top of the pie even though I had let it thaw overnight in the fridge & then beat it for several minutes to try to make it fluffier. I think if it were something that I was going to pipe whipped cream onto, it would be perfect for that & probably hold it's shape remarkably well. I have another tub in the freezer and a few more ideas for what I am going to do with it next.


Every year in DC my friend's host a vegan Thanksgiving dessert potluck. After 9pm once we have all gotten through dinners with our friends & family and maybe foraged through the meal to find the bits & bobs that are vegan, we get together to eat dessert together. Since I spent the last few years up to my knees in pie every holiday season, I decided to take a new route for the dessert potluck this year. I made an apple gingerbread bundt cake, tweaked from the apple cider cake recipe on Pickles & Honey. It went too quickly for me to photograph well. However, in my post-food coma I was wise enough to grab a few of the cookies I made to snap a photo of the next day. I saw these maple walnut cookies during Vegan MoFo on Shannon's blog. I decided to fore-go the frosting since there would be so many desserts and opted for a maple glaze & sprinkles instead.


Greg was in Europe for two weeks and while he was kind enough to bring me back German chocolate bars that are more amazing than I could have even expected, I also got a little stir crazy. I used that momentum to buy a bus ticket to New York and convinced my friend Melanie to go with me. Despite walking around in the pouring rain for almost 8 hours in a city that neither of us are fond of, we had a pretty nice day. I got an amazing hot dog made solely of root vegetables and then topped with more pickled vegetables and a kale caesar salad from Yeah Dawg. But most importantly and the sole purpose for the trip, I got a dozen macarons. Sweet Maresa's released her winter flavors, and I knew I needed to try them. Pictured are hot chocolate, gingerbread, black licorice, carrot cake, caramel pecan, and pistachio. All phenomenal, but I think the gingerbread macaron is one of my new favorites.
I have also fallen pretty under the spell of copper lately. I bought my first copper pan because it was beautiful and not too expensive. Greg's mom, who is an amazing hunter of antique & vintage goods, was kind enough to buy me these copper pots & pans. Just look at that double boiler! A very good start to my newest collection.


And almost a whole year after they were posted in Kristy's cookie swap, I finally made the gluten free turtle cookies I bookmarked. Considering that we are now almost halfway through this year's cookie swap, one could say that I am a little behind in my pleasure baking. I'm going to an in-life cookie swap this weekend, and I am struggling to try and figure out what I want to make. I have tossed around many ideas. Traditionally I feel like I should make gingerbread or snickerdoodles or maybe some snowflake & mitten sugar cookies. But I think I might mix it up. Maybe eggnog cookies? I made a batch of pistachio pudding cookies that I want to tweak and make a little better, so that might be a good option. The pressure of making something with no restrictions whatsoever. It's almost overwhelming.


One of my main routines since my move to Philadelphia has been drinking too much coffee and eating doughnuts. Dottie's Donuts has been growing super rapidly. Originally wholesaling on the weekends to a few coffeeshops, they have now expanded to 6 days a week and are being carried at so many shops! While my favorite is the classic cinnamon sugar, Dottie's really specializes in their interesting flavor combinations. The donut shown here was a Little Baby's exclusive with a glaze of Little Baby's smoked cinnamon ice cream, chocolate drizzle, and waffle cone chunks. Other favorites have included horchata, apple cider, and sweet potato. But they just keep cranking out amazing flavors like Silk nog and cranberry tangerine. If you are in the Philly area and haven't tried these doughnuts yet, you are really messing up.

Halloween Black Cocoa Cookies

I have now been a resident of Philadelphia for three weeks! I have taken public transportation several times a week, and didn't get lost even once! I've managed to find a bank and a grocery store and even develop some semblance of a new routine. This was one of the first things that I baked in my new oven (which doesn't have a timer?!), and I was mostly just happy that the cookies remotely turned out. I have had bad experiences with new ovens in the past, and it's reassuring to know that the temperature isn't off by 40 degrees and doesn't have wild hot spots. I may have let these cookies sit out for 36 hours trying to find a few minutes of sunlight to photograph them. The morning after I baked them I tried to photograph them outside five minutes before I needed to leave for work using a black table cloth. However it was very wrinkly from my not-so-careful packing, and it was a different sort of spooky than what I was going for with these Halloween cookies. I finally realized the light in my kitchen window is quite reasonable around noon and was able to snap these photos. Learning a new houses's light is a tricky thing indeed, but at least this time it involved treats!


Spooky Black Cocoa Cut Out Cookies
makes 2-3 dozen cookies, depending on size of cookie cutters used

8 oz Earth Balance margarine
1 cup sugar
2 Ener-G eggs
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/4 cup black cocoa
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 oz Tofutti cream cheese
Cream margarine and sugar. While this is creaming, combine hot water and Ener-G powder to make egg replacer & allow to thicken. Add Ener-G eggs & vanilla extract to sugar mixture. Beat until combined. Add half of the flour and mix. Add remaining flour, cocoa powders, baking powder, and cream cheese. Beat until a thick dough forms. Portion into two disks, wrap in wax paper, & allow dough to chill in fridge for at least an hour.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Roll dough between wax paper to approximately 1/3" thick & cut out shapes. The dough will hold up fine for multiple rollings. If your fridge or freezer will fit a baking tray, chill the cut cookies for another fifteen minutes before baking. Bake 12-14 minutes until edges are firm. The centers will still be soft, but will firm up slightly as they cool. If you would prefer to have classic sugar cookies, simply replace cocoa powders with additional flour. Some of these cookies are pictured as well!

Natural Black Glaze

2 cup powdered sugar
1/3 cup black cocoa
3 tbl agave nectar
2-4 tbl non-dairy milk of choice
In a large bowl add powdered sugar and black cocoa. Whisk until cocoa is evenly distributed. Add agave and 2 tablespoons of non-dairy milk. Whisk until combined. If mixture is too thick to whisk, add additional milk. However, glaze goes from too thick to too thin, very quickly so be careful to add liquid in very small amounts, whisking to check consistency frequently. Dunk tops of cooled cookies, shaking to remove excess glaze. Allow to harden for at least 4 hours before attempting to stack. I also decorated the cookies with a vanilla glaze (some tinted with a natural green dye) and sprinkled a few of the cookies with naturally dyed sanding sugars. The dye and sanding sugars are from Confection Craft, a really lovely small business based in Portland!



Black cocoa is pretty important to get the coloring of the cookies & glaze as dark as possible. You can buy a pound of Frontier fair trade black cocoa for less than $16 here! But if you can't find it locally and really don't want to order it, you can try replacing it with an extra dark cocoa. While it will still taste similar, it will not be quite as spooky. If you aren't opposed to artificial dyes, you could instead add a few drops of black dye and use regular 'ole cocoa powder in both of the recipes. But at least consider using fair trade cocoa, it's pretty important to protect the livelihoods of many people in the world.

Copycat Early Bird Cookies

I often hear that necessity is the mother of invention. Sometimes necessity means having multiple days in a row craving a cookie you had in another city that you won't have again for months. It means driving to the closest grocery store straight from the gym and buying three boxes of cereal solely because you really need these cookies. It means breaking out your reserve stash of clearance mini-marshmallows that you have been hoarding for a few weeks trying to figure out the perfect thing to use them for. It means eating three cookies while in your now flour-speckled gym clothes, still dripping because the transition from elliptical to oven is not pretty.
These are based off cookies I had at Blackbird Pizzeria in Philadelphia. They started making their own sweets in house, and it was a great decision. I remember there being three kinds, and the chocolate coffee one almost swayed me but then I saw the Early Bird cookie next and never looked back. I may have eaten three or four in two days and I didn't regret it one bit. So this copycat is based off that cookie, but looking back at a picture I took, it doesn't seem to be a very close replica. Theirs is more of a classic cookie, and mine is basically an overloaded oatmeal cookies but it was still delicious.



Copycat Early Bird Cookies
makes 18 large cookies

1/4 cup hot water
1 tbl Ener-G powder
7 oz Earth Balance margarine
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon cinnamon
3/4 tsp salt
2 cup oats
3 cup assorted breakfast cereal, partially crushed
1 1/2 cup Dandies mini marshmallows

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine hot water and Ener-G powder, whisk well, and set aside to thicken. Cream Earth Balance and sugars. Add Ener-G eggs and vanilla. Mix until combined. Scrape sides of bowl and add flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Mix until dough forms. Fold in oats, breakfast cereal, and mini marshmallows. Beat until well incorporated. Using a 1/4 cup ice cream scoop, portion dough onto cookie trays. Flatten with your palm and bake for 18-20 minutes until the edges of the cookies are firm & golden. These will firm up a bit as they cool, but the centers of the cookies will stay soft & chewy.
I highly suggest crushing the cereal for this with your hands, a wooden spoon or by pulsing it lightly in a food processor. I have made these cookies three times now, and learned the hard way that this amount of dough with uncrushed cereal will cause your mixer to stall and you will end up with teary eyes thinking you have killed your KitchenAid. For the cereals I used a mixture of Captain Crunch, Apple Jacks and Cinnamon Toast Crunch but you can use whatever cereals you like best. If you use Fruit Loops or Fruity Pebbles, you might want to omit the cinnamon from the cookie dough because those flavors might clash a little.


While these cookies are holding me over for now, my to-bake is list is starting to get pretty long. It's Vegan MoFo which means it's my favorite time of the year! This month I don't have time to participate in the insanity but I am following along with everyone's progress very happily. Do you have a new favorite blog? What's your favorite theme?

Sweet Maresa's Macarons

I have heard the cliche phrase "never knew what you were missing" used in all sorts of dramatic & ridiculous ways. But I never really got quite what it meant until I tried my first macaron. I didn't realize that this amazing category of sweet had been missing from my life until I tried one of Sweet Maresa's little beauties. As I have never had an egg white laden macaron, it's hard for me personally to compare Maresa's to the traditional French version. But I hear tell that they are indistinguishable. Either way, these vegan macrons won't leave you wanting for anything. Maresa uses all natural, organic, fair trade, & GMO free ingredients. She also never uses palm oil! If you didn't know, palm oil is one of the leading sources of deforestation.


While I might not have known what I was missing, once I did, I quickly made up for lost time. I ordered multiple boxes of macarons three times in the span of 5 weeks. So now I have done my homework and can offer all sorts of solid opinions. The staple flavors are rose, vanilla, pistachio, & almond. Without a doubt, almond is my favorite. It's so perfectly almond-y and always beautiful. The pistachio is my second favorite. Maresa recently reformulated the pistachio macaron to also include a pistachio paste buttercream, so I'm sure it's gotten even better since I last tried it. The vanilla is good & I would suggest it for those without an adventurous palette, but I am just not a vanilla-sorta girl. I adore vanilla beans, but mostly as a base for pairing with other flavors. And when there are so many other interesting flavor combinations offered, I just can't not chose them instead. I have an intense hatred towards rose (I know, I know, I'm a freak), but a friend who I ordered that flavor for said they were quite swoon-worthy.
I have also tried several of the baker's choice flavors. The burnt caramel pecan is at the top of my list for those. I am a sucker for pecans, and the burnt caramel filling just puts it over the top. The jasmine macrons were easily the most beautiful macaron I have ever seen. They also tasted great & were perfectly floral without being overpowering. I also tried cocoa vanilla & black hibiscus! There hasn't been a single flavor I wouldn't order again. There's a few more on my bucket list: lavender, chocolate raspberry & creamsicle! Plus Maresa is always dreaming up all sorts of new concoctions based on what ingredients she finds at local markets, so there's always new combinations to lust after.


If you have ever interacted with Maresa or Lagusta either in person or online, you know without a shadow of doubt that they are the sweetest people in the world. So the next time you need to spoil yourself or buy a gift for someone you love, you should order something from their shop! Support small, woman-run, vegan businesses that work hard to source the best ingredients for the earth & the people on it.
Have you ever tried a macaron from Sweet Maresa? What did you think, and what flavors did you try?! I haven't ever been to the shop in New Paltz, but I am hoping to make a little pilgrimage there someday. It will be a dangerous trip, because I have no restraint around macarons or chocolate. Since I was already paying for shipping with my macarons, I also ordered a few chocolate goods from Lagusta's Luscious! Because it made economical sense, not because I have an insatiable sweet tooth. There were cute vinyl records & beautiful anatomical heart chocolates that made great Valentine's Day gifts. But now I'm already thinking about the amazing cream eggs & chocolate bunnies they just added to the shop! The Bluestocking Bonbon series is incredibly inspirational, so you should check that out too. Sorry if I am getting carried away, but it's hard not to gush when people make things this magical.

S'mores Cookies

The winter always seems to bring out the worst in me. It inflates all my fears and self doubts. It makes me less motivated, tired, less social. It's too cold to spend time outside and too dark to convince myself otherwise. I have been trying to fight the winter blues for a few weeks now. I'm trying to remind myself to keep my chin up. There's only a few more months until it will be warm again, and the days are already starting to get longer. I've been trying to convince myself that it's ok to stay in my bed on my days off and write letters and drink endless cups of tea. But it's hard to not get weighed down by a lack of "productivity" this time of year. This is a cookie that came about because I have drank too much hot chocolate and wanted to use the rest of my mini marshmallows in something new. These cookies came about because our house was too cold and I needed an excuse to keep the oven on for an hour or two. So I could stand in front of it and place my hands on the sides to finally warm them up without taking another bath. The overflowing plate of cookies was a good excuse to pile under blankets and watch a movie marathon. The empty plate was a good reason to go to sleep, comfy and happy. Sometimes winter isn't too terrible.



Vegan S'mores Cookies

1 tbl Ener-G powder
3 tbl water
1 cup Earth Balance margarine
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 tbl vegan "honey" syrup or brown rice syrup
1 1/4 cup graham flour
1 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup Dandies mini marshmallows

Preheat oven to 350. Combine Ener-G and water and allow to thicken. Cream Earth Balance and sugars. Add egg replacer, syrup & vanilla. Slowly mix in flour, baking soda, and salt. Stir in chocolate chips & mini marshmallows. Scoop cookies, slightly flatten tops, and chill dough for at least two hours to keep from spreading. Bake 10-12 minutes, until edges of the cookies are slightly browned. Some of the marshmallows not fully inside the cookie dough might expand and get bubbly. They look a little silly, but still taste great.

Almond Crescent Cookies

Today marks the first snow day in the District. Luckily I had the day off, so I slept in a little and didn't mind waking up to a sky full of flurries. I tucked myself into an extra layer and laid on the couch watching Love Actually before everyone else woke up. I will never under-appreciate the joy of lazy, quiet mornings. After I was moved to tears a few times even though I have the seen movie roughly nine hundred times, I decided it was time to start baking cookies. What better treat for the first snow then a powdered sugar dusted almond crescent cookie?!
I only had a handful of almonds on hand, and there's no way I was trudging out into the slippery streets or taking off my pajamas, so I used almond meal for the majority of the almonds in the cookies. Most recipes you will look out call for coursely ground almonds, and almond meal is quite a bit finer than that. That means my dough is a little more crumbly than you might expect from another recipe, but it still has the melt in your mouth almond flavor and a bit of a smoother texture.



Almond Crescent Cookies
Approximately 30 medium sized cookies

1 cup Earth Balance margarine
1 cup sugar
2 tsp almond extract
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup almond meal
1/3 cup almonds, ground into small pieces
1/2-1 cup powdered sugar, for dusting the cookies

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Cream the margarine and sugar together. Add extracts and beat until fluffy, approximately 2 minutes. Add flour and almond meal and beat until dough forms. Fold in the ground almonds. The dough will be crumbly, but should hold together when squeezed in your palm. Taking roughly 1 tablespoon of dough, roll it in your hands to form a log while applying more pressure to the ends so they are slightly tapered. Curve the dough into an exaggerated crescent moon shape, as it will be less apparent after the cookies are baked. Bake on parchment covered trays for 14-16 minutes until the edges are slightly golden but the middles of the cookies are still soft to the tough. Allow to cool before either rolling in powdered sugar (more traditional) or dusting with sugar(prettier).


Is there a Christmas movie you watch repeatedly every year? Love Actually is the only one I consistently stick with, but let's be honest, it's the only one I truly need. I adore all of the story lines, but Natalie & the Prime Minister are my favorites. Natalie's got a foul mouth, big thighs, & a sweet disposition. A lady after my own heart. If I was really being true to the movie, I wouldn't have let the snow steer me towards crescent cookies, but would have instead made chocolate biscuits. Good thing there's two more weeks before Christmas, so I can probably watch the movie at least four or five more times by then.

Coconut Horchata Cookies

I was invited to a taco party recently and wanted to bring something sweet with me. I racked my brain as I was driving home and remembered reading a beautiful post Ashlae of Oh Ladycakes wrote about finding a place that her made happy. In it she had a recipe and a few lovely photographs of coconut horchata polvorones. I steered through the remaining traffic in the District, excited to bake a tiny batch of cookies. Much different than scooping out three hundred chocolate chip cookies from a bowl my arm can barely reach the bottom of, and much more relaxing. I whisked together the flours and cinnamon, and folded in the coconut oil. I was looking forward to leaving my house to catch up with friends over dinner. I didn't even complain too much about how we were eating dinner at almost 9pm which is actually my bedtime. I woke up the next morning quite sleepy from staying out too late and still full from all the rice and beans, but happy that I pushed myself to appreciate time with friends.


I'm trying to keep balance in mind in these coming weeks. There are 35 days until the holidays over. And while it might seem sacrilegious to most for me to be hoping the holidays end quickly, they probably don't work in retail. For them the holidays are probably still about spending time with their family & friends. But for me, it means being stuck 13 hours from my family baking several hundred pies and thousands of gingerbread cookies. I try to just keep pushing ahead. Knowing that I can probably take a few days off once all the orders have been delivered to customers, and things are back to their normal pace.
I'm trying to stay positive when I wake up in the dark, and come home to darkness, and hate the winter with every fiber of my being. I'm trying to spend those dark hours in the house pouring over new books and playing with rubber stamps. Or curling up on the couch with Greg and watching Dear Mr. Watterson. I've got a long list of errands and things I need to do and things I want to bake. Soon it will be 2014, and I am ok with that.

Almond Biscotti

Another simple cookie that I have somehow never made before. Biscotti! Twice baked, Italian cookies. I love everything almond, so I decided to tweak a recipe from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar for maximum almond flavor. Between the almond extract, almond meal, and sliced almonds there's all sorts of lovely nutty flavor. I often see biscotti dipped in chocolate, but I prefer to drizzle for maximum chocolate to cookie ratio per bite. Of course these flavors are perfect for dipping into coffee. You should probably keep in mind when you are dipping your biscotti into coffee what time of day it is. If it's 5pm and you were just craving a snack, you might not want to dip them. Otherwise you will be wide awake until 3am wondering why you aren't tired even though you need to be up in three hours. This might have happened to me this week. I am not sure where my brain was when I decided to order a cup of coffee while I was catching up with a friend. Hopefully I can keep this in mind next time and just order a nice cup of herbal tea instead.

Almond Biscotti
adapted from cranberry white chocolate biscotti in Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar

1/3 cup almond milk
2 tbl golden flax meal
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 tsp almond extract
1 1/3 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup almond meal
2 tbl arrowroot
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup sliced almonds
2 oz dark chocolate for drizzling

Preheat oven to 350. In bowl of standing mixer, beat almond milk and flax meal for one minute. Add sugar and extracts and mix until combined. Add flour, almond meal, arrowroot, baking powder and salt and mix until a stiff dough forms. Fold in sliced almonds. On a baking sheet form dough into a a long rectangle, only 4" wide. Bake for 27 minutes. Allow to cool for 30-40 minutes.
Heat oven to 325. Using a heavy kitchen knife cut into 1/2" pieces using one solid motion pushing down. Tip the biscotti onto one of the freshly cut sides. Bake for 14 minutes. Flip onto other cut side and bake for the remaining 14 minutes. While the cookies are cooling, melt your chocolate. Drizzle to your content and allow to cool to room temperature.

Momofuku Compost Cookies Veganized

Easily the most inspiring cookbook I read in August was the Momofuku Milk Bar book by Christina Tosi. The food photography is stunning. Every recipe is totally original and innovative. The whole book is beautiful from cover to cover. While many of the recipes would be a tad bit tricky to veganize with all the gelatin and milk powder and what not, the compost cookies caught my eye right away. All the flavors and textures are magical. I didn't make them the way suggested since I had already just filled my rice crispy treats with potato chips, so I upped the amount of graham cracker crumbs and pretzel bits. I am glad I didn't make a half batch like I normally do with cookies, because these flew off the sheet tray almost before I had time to properly photograph them. It doesn't matter what you have in your pantry, it will work in these cookies.


Momofuku Compost Cookies Veganized
original recipe here!

1 cup Earth Balance
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup light brown sugar
1 tbl corn syrup
1 Ener-G egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/3 cup flour
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup mini chocolate chips
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
3/4 cup crushed graham crackers
1 1/3 cup crushed pretzels
1/3 cup rolled oats
1 1/2 tsp malt powder
pinch of ground coffee

Beat Earth Balance, sugars, and corn syrup in a mixer until combined. Add prepared Ener-G egg and vanilla extract. Beat several minutes until fluffy. Add flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda to mixer bowl. Beat until just combined. Add all the mix-ins. Using a large ice cream scoop, portion out the cookie dough & slightly flatten the tops. I piled all the scooped cookies into a tupperware lined with parchment. Chill the dough overnight. Bake at 375 for 18 minutes or until the edges of the cookies are firm & browned.


If you haven't heard of Mind of a Chef yet, it's a PBS show (also on Netflix)featuring David Chang, who opened Momofuku Noodle Bar. While some of it's really interesting, the show has a lot of footage revolving around meat so I tend to skip through them when something comes up I don't want to watch. Towards the end of the season Christina shows up in the show. She makes a burnt miso apple pie in episode 13 (Soy), and all of episode 14 (Sweet Spot) is centered around her recipes! It's worth watching for just her techniques. It really makes me want to invest in acetate strips for making layer cakes. Look at this beauty! There's a few other Milk Bar recipes I think I might make my way to eventually. Those blueberries & cream cookies sound pretty great. And an Arnold Palmer cake! I highly suggest checking out the cookbook if you are looking for a little inspiration or if you are thinking about opening your own bakery someday. Her story will motivate you.

Rugelach

Today I bring to you rugelach from The Joy of Vegan Baking. It's by no means a new cookbook, but Colleen has created one of the most comprehensive vegan baking books so it stands the test of time. I've made several things from it before always with great success. I am by no means a rugelach expert. I remember eating them as a child, but I can't tell you what they were like. These were a wee bit doughier than I expected. I am fairly certain that rugelach are suppose to be crisp and flaky. Mine were a little bit oilier. Maybe it was a bit too much fat or the Earth Balance and cream cheese weren't quite the right temperature when I tried to make the dough? I might have blended it too much or too little? I haven't figured it out yet. Sometimes it's hard to know what's gone wrong when you're teaching yourself. I'll have to try it again. Do you have a rugelach recipe you love? Maybe even a family recipe you've veganized to perfection?!

Viennese Whirls

After my shortbread mishap yesterday, I thought I would follow it up with a perfect shortbread recipe. These cookies are just great. Buttery and crisp. They pair well with the sweet frosting and tart jam. As soon as I found this recipe on the BBC I broke out my trusty scale & piping bag, & gave it a shot. I would suggest piping the rosettes a wee bit smaller than suggested. I think they would be really dreamy if they were bite size. You also want to try to pipe them as flat as possible or you will have difficulty with the sandwiches staying together when sitting on the plate like I did with a few of them.


I just started watching Boardwalk Empire. I needed something to watch while I bake and edit pictures and type all this stuff up. It was a really solid choice. I know I am about four years late to the craze, but somehow it just slipped by me. I am in love with the set design and all the fashion. There have been a few times now that I have looked up from what I was doing and when I finally looked back down it was 20 minutes later. So maybe it's not all that conducive to my productivity. I can't quite put my finger on it, but there's something about the lighting and this tea cup really reminds me of Boardwalk Empire. That's what started this whole tangent.

Almond Sable Roule

Some of my favorite cookies are made at a local bakery called Chez Hareg, I actually blogged about them last MoFo here! If you look at that page, the cookies at the bottom are these beautiful little circles with their edges rolled in sparkly sugar. That my friends is a sable roule. It's a wonderful shortbread cookie. Chez Hareg switches theirs up a little bit with some almond flavoring. I think it might have almond meal in it, I'm not entirely sure. I tried to replicate their cookie, but I didn't even come close. What I ended up with was something much more along the lines of an almond flavored pecan sandie. Other people liked the cookies so I considered sharing the recipe, but I just don't think it's quite up to my standards. Maybe I will work on it more after MoFo and see if I can come up with something better first.
So there we have it. I'm call this one the first miss of the month. I didn't love the cherry cornmeal cookies, but they were by no means bad. 9/10 is still an A in most university classes, so I don't feel too shabby about my performance thus far. Tomorrow's cookies are definitely top notch, so there's also that to look forward to!