Maple Bacon Donuts

I have heard every sort of argument for whether the baked good above is spelled doughnut or donut. I've been told that fried versions are spelled doughnut, and baked cake versions are spelled donut. I've heard that artisanal shops are the ones who can use doughnut, but fast food chains need to use the abbreviated spelling. This is a subject I have thought long and hard about. I generally use "donut" because it's less letters to type, and if I am anything, it is concise.
A few weekends ago while I was driving home TED radio hour came on. When I heard the topic was big data & culturomics I almost turned the program off. Luckily I refrained because it answered some of my questions about the usage of "doughnut". These two scientists, Erez Lieberman Aiden and Jean Baptiste Michel, teamed up with Google to create something called Ngram Viewer. It's basically a highly addictive program that allows you to look at the use over words over extended periods of time. What this all boils down to is that while Teddy Roosevelt suggested changing the spelling to donut in the early 1900s in an effort to abbreviate the English language to make it easier to learn, it didn't pick up any momentum. And the spelling "donut" wasn't really used until 1950 when Dunkin Donuts opened in Boston! Ta-da. Here's your cultural lesson of the day. Apparently there's still a lot of heated debate between the Oxford English Dictionary and Garner's Modern American Usage about which spellings can be used in which contexts, but who really cares about the nitty gritty. Let's get to the sweets!


I used BabyCake's cake donut recipe from BabyCakes Covers the Classics for the base. I am not partial to bean flours, but the quarter cup of vanilla extract goes a fair way in covering up that flavor. It had a nice consistency, and I will definitely make the donuts again. The glaze is simply powdered sugar, maple syrup, and a bit of Frontier maple flavor. I don't know how to properly measure things for glaze, because I tend to just mix things until I get both the right flavor & consistency. I also sprinkled on Phoney Baloney coconut bacon because we had a bit in the cabinet, but I highly suggest making your own! It's so easy. My favorite recipe is from Cupcakes & Kale, but most of them are fairly similar. Just go easy on the liquid smoke or your house will smell like a campfire for weeks.

Rice Pudding

Two of the books that I read last month were focused on Southern desserts. I already mentioned Desserts from the Famous Loveless Cafe this week, but the second was DamGoodSweet, a New Orleans-centric cookbook. It's interesting looking at the two books back to back, and realizing all the similarities and differences between the two parts of the south. There are a few things quintessentially Southern that you will find in any "Southern" book. We're talking red velvet cake (on the covers of both books!), coconut cream pie, and any sort of cobbler, crumble, crisp you can think of. Because if the South has anything, it's fresh fruit everywhere in the never-ending heat of summer. Something that probably doesn't come to mind as a top Southern dessert is rice pudding.
Rice is a huge crop in the South, especially in the Arkansas/Louisiana area. Mahatma is one of the most recognizable brands, generally associated with Cajun & Creole food. But when you have a lot of a crop in one area, you find as many ways as possible to use it. I haven't seen a rice fritter in quite a while, but I haven't hard a warm bowl of rice pudding in several years. There's a few things you have to decide when you're making rice pudding. If you don't like Mahatma or other normal white rice, you could switch it up and use basmati like Loveless. I prefer my pudding made with cinnamon, but some people just top it with cane syrup. Whatever you do, don't you dare put raisins in my rice pudding! I just don't get it.


Rice Pudding
inspired by DamGoodSweet

2 1/2 cup canned coconut milk
1 cup almond milk
1 cup long grain white rice (I prefer Mahatma)
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
1/2 tsp cinnamon
sprinkle of sea salt

Combine all ingredients in a sauce pan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Once boiling reduce heat to low, cover, and cook for 20 minutes, stirring every 3-5 minutes to keep rice from sticking to bottom of pan. Because coconut and almond milk both get pretty frothy, you might not be able to keep the cover on your pan. It will take a little longer, but just keep cooking until the rice is done. Remove from heat, stir, and leave covered for ten minutes. Portion into 4-6 small cups. Serve immediately with an additional sprinkle of cinnamon.
If you need to make this ahead of time, you can reheat the pudding but you will need to add additional milk to bring it back to the proper consistency.

Garam Masala Snickerdoodles

One of my friends recently had a birthday potluck. I always view potlucks as a challenge to make something interesting, and she helped me along with her theme:  Tim Curry! All dishes must contain some sort of curry & everyone voted on their favorite Tim Curry film to watch after eating. When challenged to come up with a curry flavored dessert I was a little overwhelmed initially. A quick google search revealed a lot of curry infused truffles, but I knew I wanted to bake something. In bumbling about our spice cabinet looking for curry powders, I found the garam masala jar. As soon as I opened it, I knew it would work perfectly for spicing up some snickerdoodles.


While not quite a recipe from one of the cookbooks I read (Great Gluten-Free Vegan Eats), it's only the tiniest of modifications from Allyson Kramer's snickerdoodles. Aside from adding two teaspoons of garam masala to the cookie dough, I didn't have any millet flour on hand, so I replaced it with a mixture of brown rice flour & almond meal that worked out well. I rolled the cookies in a mixture of sugar, garam masala powder, and cinnamon. The garam masala blend I used was from McCormick (coriander, black pepper, cumin, cardamom, & cinnamon) but I feel like the mix from Penzey's would be even better if I made these again (coriander, black pepper, cardamom, cinnamon, kalonji, caraway, cloves, ginger & nutmeg). 
Have you made anything a little out of the ordinary recently? The only bizarre ingredient I can't get behind in my desserts is beets. They just taste like dirt to me no matter what I do to them. Beans, throw it in! Potatoes, we can definitely work with that. Spinach? I'm sure we can sneak a little puree in somewhere. Beets, get the frak out! If you get the reference, we should totally be friends.

Mochi & Passion Fruit Sorbet

There isn't a ton of great ice cream options as far as DC goes. There are generally a few flavors available at some of the local gelato shops, and if you're lucky, there is soft serve as the DC soul food restaurant Everlasting Life. My main go-to for "ice cream" dates throughout the summer is the non-dairy frozen yogurt carried at a number of shops like FroZenYo. My cup normally consists of a tiny bit of frozen yogurt & tons of fruit & mochi. If you haven't ever had mochi, they are like pillowy sweet little marshmallows. Most people make daifuku, which is filled mochi. But that's not what I want in the cup with the rest of my dessert, so I didn't worry about the extra steps.
Buy a pint of Ciao Bella passion fruit sorbet, a box of mochiko (glutinous rice flour) at your local Asian market, and you probably have everything else you need at home. I used Vegan YumYum's recipe, and it takes around ten minutes start to finish. If you cut the mochi with a pizza cutter, it's even faster. Which I realized half way through my process of cutting tiny half inch squares with a chef's knife. After it cooled totally, I tossed the squares in a mixture of half powdered sugar/half potato starch. Easy peasy last minute end-of-summer treat!

KitchenAid Mixer Giveaway!

Right now, we're gonna take a break from the scheduled Vegan MoFo programing so that you have a chance to win my favorite piece of kitchen equipment. There are a lot of smallwares that are vital to baking: measuring cups & spoons, mixing bowls, a rolling pin, and a solid set of cake pans & pie tins for example. I made everything by hand for years. At some point I had a handheld mixer, but I broke it making too many batches of frosting. A KitchenAid mixer was never something I felt like I could splurge on, until I was lucky enough to have my partner give me one as a gift. It's still the best present I have ever received. It opened up my abilities to make all sorts of new things. I don't know if you have ever tried to make soft pretzels without a dough hook, but it's tiresome. And you get lumpy pretzels at best.


When Amanda of Little Lady Little City reached out to me about giving away a mixer as part of her blog's third anniversary, I knew I had to jump on the bandwagon. Just take a few minutes to check out all the rad ladies who are participating in the giveaway, and soon you can be making all the brioche & doughnuts your kitchen can handle. The ice cream attachment is also one of my favorite KitchenAid items. I have used it to make everything from strawberry lavender gelato to rocky road ice cream & cider poached pear sorbet!
The pasta attachment is next on my list. I have been dreaming about making noodles for a while. Homemade pasta makes the best spinach lasgana. I know, I know, I eat savory foods too. I just keep it to myself, because sweets are way more fun.

Please note this giveaway will be active until September 30th 11:59PM EST and will be open to all US and Canada readers. The winner will be chosen at random shortly after the giveaway closes and then will be notified. Once notified, the winner has 48 hours to respond otherwise they will forfeit the prize and another random entry will be chosen. Please note that the color of the Kitchenaid mixer is subject to change due to availability. There are quite a few ways to enter so do one or all of them!

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Brown Sugar Pecan Banana Bread

This recipe is brought to you by inspiration from the cookbook Desserts from the Famous Loveless Cafe. I grew up in rural Tennessee, and Loveless Cafe was the stuff of legends. The last time I was in town, I drove by and there was still a line out the door just like normal. While their cookbook is probably one of the least vegan things you can look through, I found it super comforting. It sent me on a hunt for sorghum & made me yearn for the blackberry bushes & fresh peaches outside my front door. Most of all the Loveless cookbook reminded me that my insatiable sweet tooth is totally a normal thing in the South. We are talking about a place where people pour chocolate gravy on a pile of biscuits for breakfast. So it's no wonder that by the time that I finished flipping through the pages, the banana bread I was making that afternoon couldn't be just banana bread. I had to add extra brown sugar & pecans. Pea-cans y'all. 


Brittany at Real Sustenance, came up with the best vegan gluten free quick bread base recipe. The following recipe is her's just tweaked with a little spice & some sugar swapping.  
Brown Sugar Pecan Banana Bread

2 cups Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose flour blend
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp xanthan gum
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp allspice
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup canola oil
3/4 cup full fat, canned coconut milk
1 tsp white vinegar
1 1/4 cup banana puree
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup chopped pecans
Preheat oven to 335 degrees. In a mixing bowl combine all dry ingredients and mix until evenly distributed. Puree bananas. In a small mixing bowl combine sugars, oil, coconut milk, vinegar, banana puree and vanilla. Mix wet and dry until no visible lumps. Fold in pecans. Pour into greased loaf pan (I normally make mini loaves, but this was an 8x4" pan). Top with additional pecans and brown sugar if you can't restrain yourself likes me. Bake for 50-60 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.

This is the best gluten free quick bread I have ever bitten into. It's got a phenomenal texture & no beany aftertaste. I also tried the recipe with pumpkin purée, but that was no where near as enjoyable. The garbanzo bean flour in the Bob's Red Mill AP blend was too strong for such a subtle flavor. I know this recipe will become a mainstay in my gluten free recipe bank. 

As it gets cooler out I have been craving more breads & muffins, so I have a feeling something similar will show up here again soon.  What's your favorite quick bread/muffin flavor? I don't think anything can ever top blueberry streusel, but I am always willing to give things a chance. 

Gluten Free Roll-Out Pie Crust

 

This is the end of my thirty day cookbook challenge and the begining of the month long madness known as Vegan MoFo. I originally toyed around with the idea of recreating a recipe from each of the cookbooks that I read, but I quickly realized that there wasn't a recipe I was interested in trying from each book. My theme is a little more informal this year. I am solely focusing on pushing myself to keep learning & baking things I have never attempted before. I have an idea to also have weekly themes, but I think even that might be a bit restricting for me. At least the majority of this first week I will be focusing on gluten free sweets. I am not sure yet what else this month will bring. Cookies? Cake? Eclairs? I can easily eat ice cream everyday for a week, so that's something that will likely show up here!


The recipe for the pie crust is from The Allergen-Free Baker's Handbook by Cybele Pascal. She is an amazing baker, & I was totally blown away by this cookbook. It's free of the top eight allergens, which makes it a phenomenal resource for so many families. She has a few other cookbooks that I haven't had the chance to check out yet, so hopefully I will find those soon. The pie dough rolled out fairly well after a little bit of chilling, & it cut nicely to boot. Not that you can tell because there's no photos to document the filling (AKA did it ever really happen)but it's a tart cherry pie.


Since I somehow happen to be out of town & away from my laptop during Vegan MoFo again this year, this is my first time attempting to use the Blogger iPhone app. I can already tell that some of the formatting is really wonky on these posts. I will fix it as soon as I am back in town so just bare with me! Here's to a hectic, wonderful month!