Chocolate & Salted Caramel Tarts

A few months ago I made a giant jar of caramel sauce for an ice cream social at my house. I have been grateful to have this jar stowed away on multiple occasions. I highly recommend it. You can just make it once, only have to clean a candy thermometer once, and store it in mason jars. The glass jars are great for the caramel syrup because if it ends up firming more then you want, you can just dip the glass jar in hot water to re-melt to sticky, gooey perfection. It’s also perfect to pour a tablespoon or two over ice cream or onto a slice of cake.


Last week I used a fair portion of my remaining caramel to make a quick tart. I also happened to have a half batch of shortbread tart dough (from Vegan Pie in the Sky) in my freezer. I let it thaw, pressed it hurriedly into a three 3” tart shells and baked them while I melted a few ounces of bittersweet chocolate. As the chocolate and shells were cooling I mixed a teaspoon of salt into the caramel. I poured the caramel into still warm shells. And then without even letting it cool just a little more, I attempted to spoon the molten chocolate over them. The caramel and chocolate mixed a bit, and weren’t completely even, and spilled over the edges as I threw the tarts in the refrigerator.
It may be a little messy, but instant gratification tastes so good. These tarts are like a classy, adult version of the Twix bar. If you weren’t making these just to comfort yourself after a rough day, then you might want to let the tart shells cool completely, add the caramel, and freeze them for just a few minutes before you add the chocolate. I highly suggest using a nice bittersweet or dark chocolate to balance the sweetness of the caramel. The snap of chocolate and crispness of the shortbread tart shell also contrast the gooey center perfectly. A sprinkle of large grain kosher salt on top of the shells adds a nice visual balance. Things just can’t go wrong.

Local Favorites: Chez Hareg

If you have visited Washington, DC before and looked around for vegan food, you are probably well aware that we are not in short supply by any means. There are so many terrific places to eat, that it's hard to name them all off at once. Many people have probably heard of Sticky Fingers. After their two Cupcake Wars wins, they have hit a level of notoriety that makes it sometimes hard to get a table in the tiny shop. What you probably haven't heard of is Chez Hareg. The shop is located on 4th St NE. It might be easy to miss, but you would definitely be mistaken if you didn't enter. Their counters are full of vegan tea cookies. The sable roule is my personal favorite. It's a crisp cookie with edges coated in sugar. The palmier is a close second. The linzer and spicy flax cookies are also worth a try. At a whopping 50 cents a cookie, it's easy to walk away with an overflowing box. Their biscotti were not my favorite, but I might still get a few in my next box.


What you really can't miss out on is the vegan napoleon. I am not sure what their cream is made from, but it's a little mind boggling. The cream piled between crisp layers of pastry and topped with powdered sugar is worth any drive. It's my favorite dessert in the city. If you can't make it to their store front to try the napoleon, you might still be able to try their cookies. Whole Foods recently signed a contract with them, and you can find boxes of their cookies in most stores in the Mid-Atlantic.
Is there a bakery near you that goes under-appreciated? I would love to hear what your favorite shops are!

Apple Speculoos Muffins

Last winter I finally found speculoos spread and sort of went wild. I might have overdosed on it. I couldn’t really look at it for a few months. But now with the mornings and evenings being cool again and the leaves turning colors, I had to break it back out. I found a half empty jar tucked under a few bags of ancient pasta when I was cleaning out my kitchen. I was going out of town for a few days, and I wanted to use as many things as I could before I left, so I found a way to combine speculoos spread and apples into muffins. This might sound like an odd combination to you too, but I thought what the hell, I might as well try it.
I made these muffins the morning I was flying to Nashville. I have learned from experience that it is always a good idea to bring snacks to the airport with me. And it proved to be true yet again. We sat in the airport for just around 4 hours waiting for the flight crew to show up so we could board our plane. We might have also eaten a bag of Sour Patch Kids, but hey, I’m a stress eater. And I probably would have snacked a lot more if we had driven the 12 hours home. So I count it as a win.


Apple Speculoos Muffins
makes five jumbo muffins

1 ½ cups flour
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp ginger
1/3 cup canola oil
1/3 cup speculoos spread
1 tsp vanilla extract
egg replacer for 1 egg- I used Ener-G but I think flax would be great
1 apple, diced

In medium sized bowl combine all dry ingredients. In small bowl whisk together oil, speculoos, and vanilla. Fold wet into dry with a rubber spatula and then add the diced apples. I didn’t peel mine because I love the texture the skin adds. Fill liners ¾ of the way full. These won’t rise very much. Bake at 350 for 22-25 minutes.

These muffins were a wee bit oily. I don’t think it’s anything that most people would notice, but I definitely picked up on it. If I were going to make them again, I would replace half of the oil with applesauce. I would probably also try using a flax egg to add a little extra umph.

Apple Cider Donuts

I am a perfectionist. It drives me crazy when I make something and I know that it’s okay but it could be better. This was the case with my first two batches of apple cider donuts. I found this Vegetarian Times recipe online in the middle of last winter when it was a bit too late for cider donuts. I made them in September and thought they were just alright. The apple taste wasn’t really as strong as I wanted it to be. So I tried again. The next time I boiled down 4 cups of cider to a shy 1 cup and replaced the milk in the liquid with extra cider. While that batch was a bit more appley, it was still just lacking.
A few weeks later, I made the caramel stuffed apple cider cookies and was wowed with their flavor. It hit me that I had a few packets of instant apple cider powder left, and I got to work getting these donuts right. The third time sometimes really is the charm. Apple Cider Donuts
adapted from VeganYumYum, makes approximately 8 large donuts

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 packets Alpine Spiced Apple Cider
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup almond milk
1/2 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 Ener-G egg
4 tablespoons Earth Balance

Preheat oven to 350. Grease donut pan. In medium bowl mix together flour, sugar, apple cider powder, spices, baking soda, and salt. In small saucepan heat the Earth Balance, almond milk, and egg replacer until the Earth Balance is completely melted and the mixture is warm but not scalding. Stir the vanilla extract into the wet ingredients, and then fold all of it into the dry. Spoon the batter into the pans until they are approximately half full. The donuts will rise a fair amount during baking. Bake approximately 12 minutes, until the donuts spring back when touched.
When these were done baking I brushed the tops of the donuts with reduced apple cider and coated them in a cinnamon & Turbinado mixture. I used 1 teaspoon of cinnamon for a half cup of Tubinado. I love the crunch that the raw sugar adds, but if you prefer you can use regular granulated sugar. These also taste great with just a light glaze or powdered sugar.

Pumpkin Crème Brulee

There is a great restaurant in Richmond, Virgina called Ipanema. They are best known for their pies, but when Greg and I were there a few weeks ago I also got coffee crème brulee. Greg hates coffee, so he didn’t get to appreciate how nice it was. But after we got back I was determined to make a batch in a different flavor. I scanned a few cookbooks, and found a recipe for pumpkin crème brulee in Vegan Desserts. I have looked through Vegan Desserts several times, but I think is the first time I actually used it. Confession: I am a cookbook hoarder. I buy them all the time, and they pile up on my shelves and look adorable. But I don’t use them near enough. Hopefully MoFo will help me remedy this.
Anyways, back to the sugar. The crème brulee was really nice. The custard was like warm pumpkin pie with a nice crunchy topping. I think my kitchen torch was a little low on fuel, because I was having trouble getting the sugar to caramelize. I know that I could have broiled it in my oven. But the drawer was full of pans and I just couldn’t bring myself to empty it all out. I would definitely make this again if I were having people over for dinner, so that we could all have nicely plated single serving desserts.
Are there are things that you all use your kitchen torches for? I have used it to toast marshmallows and now for this dessert, but I feel like I need to find more ways to make it useful. Otherwise it's just taking up space that I could put another cookbook on.

Caramel Stuffed Apple Cider Cookies

There's no stopping these cookies. Someone who would rather have no other sweet than a chocolate chip cookie, declared that these were better than chocolate chip cookies. And it's true. They are apple-y and gooey in the best possible ways. There are two necessary ingredients that you might have to go out of your way for: Alpine Spiced Apple Cider and vegan caramels. Alpine Cider is an instant cider powder that I found mixed in with the hot chocolate mixes on the shelf of my local Target. I checked a few other places, but didn't see it at Safeway or Giant. You should just go ahead and buy a box, because I have a few more recipes that will help you finish the whole thing off. And while it tastes great in baked goods, I don't recommend mixing it with hot water to drink. Just buy yourself a jug of fresh, locally pressed cider and leave this for the mixing bowl.
The caramels are a different story. There are a few options here. I happen to live only a few miles from the vegan super-center, Pangea, so I drove over after work one weekend and bought a bag of Cocomel vanilla caramels. Also, Spencer's Market has the Cocomel caramel's on sale right now if anyone wants to buy them here! Pangea also has a store brand called VeganSweets that makes caramels, which are delicious but I think not quite as nice as the Cocomel brand. There is also Feed Your Face caramels, which would work really nicely. Lastly, you can just avoid buying them all together and make your own. I love making caramel using this recipe.


Caramel Stuffed Apple Cider Cookies
veganized from the Cooking Photographer

1/2 cup Earth Balance
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
5 packets of Alpine Spiced Apple Cider
1 Ener-G egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1.5 cups all-purpose flour
7 oz of vegan caramel, chopped into third inch size pieces.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In your standing mixer, cream the sugar with the Earth Balance. Add in the cider powder and mix until combined. Then add the prepared egg replacer and vanilla. Add the remaining dry ingredients and mix until a thick dough forms. I used a small scoop to portion out the dough. I flatted a scoop of dough with my palm, placed a chunk of caramel in the center, and then topped it with another flattened scoop of dough. I then pinched all the edges together and rolled it the dough back into a ball. Based on the size of your caramels and your scoop, the batch size is variable. But I made 15 cookies.
Bake several inches apart for 12-14 minutes. If you bake them for 12 minutes they will be nice and soft the way I prefer my cookies, but if you bake them for 14 minutes they will be firm. It's up to personal preference.

The only downside with this cookie, is that for the most part my caramel dissolved into the cookie rather than staying a separate layer like I saw in the non-vegan pictures. This could potentially be avoided if you used a really dense homemade caramel? I haven't tried it, but if anyone does I would be interested to see their results. Also if you want a heavier, spiced cider flavor I would definitely add some cinnamon and cloves and what not to the cookie dough. The spice of the cider is definitely washed out by the intense appleyness.

Pumpkin Bread

When I started MoFo, I didn't really know if I was going to have a theme. But last night I realized that I unintentionally created a theme. It's fall sweets. Apple, pumpkin, a little bit of pear, and a lot of spice. I might get wild and throw chocolate in there. Because I just can't break chocolate's allure for a whole month. No shame.


There are two pumpkin bread recipes that I always end up back on. They are very, very similar. There's only slight difference in flour choice, a touch of maple syrup, and a bit more spice. Isa's pumpkin bread will never fail you. But if you love your pumpkin bread to be a bit more nutrient dense and have a spice profile reminiscent of gingerbread, then this recipe is for you. I sometimes make things even more convoluted, and make Isa's recipe but replace half of the flour with whole wheat. I didn't do it with those loaf because I was running low on supplies, but I definitely suggest you top the bread with a handful of pumpkin seeds. It adds a lot of beauty and a nice crunch to the crust.
This is the kind of bread that you eat on a rainy morning when you woke up at 4am. This is the kind of bread that you eat when it's the last morning you have to wake up before a mini vacation, where you get to fly home to Tennessee for your friend's wedding. When you are stressing about how everything will get done at work in your albeit brief absence, and whether you have jewelry to match your bridesmaid dress, and if the electric bill ever showed up this month or not? This is the kind of bread that will comfort you, calm down for a few minutes to savor the cool morning, and urge you to treat yourself to a really fancy cup of coffee. I did it, so you probably should too.