Experiment #6: Coconutty Lemon Poppy Seed Loaf

So, I had all that lemon curd leftover from experiment #2, and I wasn't about to slather it on a scone or on top of a cake since it was just too lemony for me. I modified a basic coffeecake recipe that called for applesauce and substituted part of it for the lemon curd, added poppy seeds and coconut, and omitted the nutmeg and other spices called for in the original recipe. It was so tasty! Too bad I only made one small loaf. Sad face. I think this would make a great muffin and/or cake recipe too. Just enough lemon but not overwhelming like that first bite of lemon curd. The following recipe will make 2 mini loaves:

1/2c granulated sugar

1T water

1/4c vegetable oil

2T almond milk

1/4c plus 3T applesauce

2T lemon curd

1c flour

1/2t baking soda
1t poppy seeds
1/4c toasted coconut



Combine sugar and all liquid ingredients. Combine dry ingredients in another bowl. Add the dry mixture to the wet mixture (half at first) being careful not to overmix. Divide batter between 2 mini-loaf pans sprayed with non-stick cooking spray. Bake at 350 for approximately 20 minutes.

I had a bunch of toasted coconut left as well as frozen pie dough from the pizza pie experiment. I've had a hankering for cherry pie, so I think that's next.

SO, from this experiment I learned:
1. I don't like lemon curd alone, but mixed into a cake batter...delicious!
2. Large flake toasted coconut adds great flavor and a nice texture contrast.

PSU Earth Day Festival

Oven Thermometer

I finally got around to buying an oven thermometer and discovered my oven is running way hot. I set the oven to 350, but the thermometer read 425!! Geesh, no wonder my cakes get crispy on the outside before they bake on the inside.

Experiment #5: Pizza Pie

I love pizza, and I love pie. I thought I'd combine the two, and turns out, pizza is even better wrapped in pie crust! Here'e my pizza pie recipe:

Pie Dough

20oz flour (pastry flour if you have it but AP flour is just fine)

1/2t salt

16oz cold Earth Balance (EB), cut in 1/4" chunks

5oz cold water

Mix the cold EB into the flour and salt with your hands until the EB is roughly pea to walnut size. Moisten the flour/EB mixture with half of the water first. Add just enough water for the dough to be pressed together. The flour should be hydrated, but the dough will still look dryish. Wrap the dough in plastic and rest for 1 hour in the fridge.

I only used half of this recipe for the pizza pie. Before I wrapped it in plastic, I divided the dough into 4 equal balls. Each ball is enough for the bottom or top crust of a 9" pie, so I put 2 balls in the fridge for my pizza pie and the other 2 balls in the freezer for a later experiment.

(You can keep this pie dough in the fridge for a couple of days if you plan to use it by then, but If you keep it in the fridge too long, it'll start to oxidize and turn grayish. The best bet is to freeze it---it defrosts super quickly in the fridge when you're ready for it.)

Assembly
Preheat the oven to 350. Roll one ball of dough out on a lightly floured surface to 1/8" to 1/4" thickness. Drape the dough over the pie tin and gently press into the bottom and sides of the tin. Trim around the top so that the crust extends about 1/4" beyond the top of the tin. Chill for 15 minutes.

Pour 1 cup of pizza sauce into the crust. Add whatever vegetables and toppings you want. Finish with about 3/4 cup vegan cheese. (The filling of my pie was even with the top of the tin, but yours can be a little fuller, about 1/2" to 1" beyond the top of the tin.) Roll out the other ball of dough, drape over the top, and trim as above. Tuck the edges under to seal the seam. If you want the pie to look pretty, you can pinch the crust around the edge. Cut a vent whole in the top of the crust (a couple of slits or a fancy shape like a heart in the picture.) Chill for at least 15 minutes.

Bake on a cookie sheet (in case of an eruption) for about 45 minutes or until golden brown.

New Book: Vegan Baking Classics

I went for a walk down Hawthorne with my friend tonight and stopped into Powell's. She spied the coolest cookbook I've seen in a while, Vegan Baking Classics by Kelly Rudnicki. Oh yeah! This is exactly what I love: simple recipes that are easy to modify if you feel creative. Buy the book here, and check out the author's blog, The Food Allergy Mama.

Experiment #4: Vegan Meringue

I've been lusting for vegan meringue for some time now and found a simple recipe from the vegan r.d. that works just great. It's made of ingredients most vegan cooks already have lying around except for the agar agar. My local natural food store sells it in bulk which is your best bet since you only need a tiny bit. I've seen small packages of it at other stores for 8 bucks or more, but you can get what you need for this recipe for well less than a buck if you buy from the bulk section.

Agar agar powder (or flakes) is a vegan substitute for gelatin. You'll need to dissolve it in water or other liquid first and heat it before use. I used agar agar in place of gelatin to make sugar paste, and it worked well. Just be careful using it in recipes that call for gelatin since you need a lot less of agar agar to do the job, approximately 1/4th.

Now, on to the vegan meringue:

1 1/3 t agar agar powder mixed with 1/3 cup water
1/2 cup Ener-G Egg Replacer
3/4 cup cold water
1/2 cup sugar
4 t vanilla extract
1/2 t lemon extract (I used lemon juice.)

Mix the agar agar and water in a small saucepan, stir, and let stand approximately 5 minutes. Stir on medium heat until the mixture simmers and bubbles around the edges. Stop stirring and simmer 1 minute.

Beat the egg replacer and water to soft peaks (foamy and slightly firm) in your KitchenAid or hand mixer. (I LOVE my KitchenAid!!!) Beat in the sugar, vanilla, and lemon. Then pour in the agar agar mixture and whip to medium peaks (glossy and almost as firm as regular meringue). This took me about 3 minutes. Refrigerate for 10 minutes then whip again. I was able to get firm peaks this second time around. In other words, to the naked eye, this meringue should look identical to regular meringue.

Now here's where my experiment got messy. I tried to continue whipping the meringue as I added Earth Balance to make meringue buttercream, but the meringue instantly deflated. I'll stick with regular buttercream from now on, but there are 2 other experiments I want to try with this meringue:

1. Fold it into cake batter to make a genoise cake. Hopefully I don't end up with a solid brick with that experiment.

2. Top a pie with it and brown the meringue peaks under my broiler.

So, from this experiment I learned:
1. This vegan meringue wants to be a vegan meringue, not meringue buttercream.
2. I noticed a few sugar granules in the finished meringue. Next time, I'll experiment with cooking the sugar with the agar agar mixture to make sure it dissolves completely.

Pietopia!

The deadline is July 14th, 2011...get to bakin' for Pietopia 2011!

Experiment #3: Natural Food Coloring

In Experiment #2, I learned to use turmeric to add a yellow hue to vegan lemon curd. Well, I made a cake and wanted to add a few flowers with leaves to the top. I was looking around my pantry and found a couple more items to experiment with. Yay! After whipping up a fresh batch of vegan cream cheese frosting, I frosted a cake and reserved a bit for the color experiment.

First, the flowers. I sprinkled a pinch of paprika at a time into about a half cup of the reserved frosting. After each addition of paprika, I tasted the frosting to make sure the flavor didn't change, and I kept adding paprika until I got to a rosey hue I was satisfied with.

Next, I did the same with the rest of the reserved frosting, this time using spirulina powder to turn it green for the leaves. Spirulina is a salt water algae and vegan friendly. The powder didn't alter the flavor, but I accidentally poured too much in at once, turning the frosting a dark gray, almost black. I had extra frosting to try again, and I got a greenish color I was happy with. In both cases, though, you can see teeny tiny specks of the powder in the frosting if you look closely. The specks are so tiny, they don't bother me at all.

As you can see in the picture, the paprika and spirulina powder don't make for the bright, vibrant colors you see on cakes at the grocery store, but the colors look more natural, and I just think it's rad to "repurpose" items you already have in the pantry. Next time I use berries for baking, I'll reserve the juice for more color experiments. I'll also try beet powder if I can find it in small enough quantities since it's kind of pricey.

Experiment #2: Vegan Lemon Curd "A"

I've never actually eaten lemon curd, but I saw this tasty looking lemon cake at Whole Foods with a mound of lemon curd on top and a cute little bee made from a chocolate straw and 2 almond slices. Eeep! I found a ton of veganized recipes online and tried this one from vegansaurus! first:

1 cup fresh lemon juice (I used organic lemons.)

1/2 cup water

1 1/2 cups evaporated cane juice

4 T cornstarch

pinch salt

zest of 2 lemons

1/3 cup plain, non-dairy creamer

2 T Earth Balance

Blend the lemon juice, water, evaporated cane juice, cornstarch, and salt until smooth. Transfer to a saucepan, add lemon zest, and whisk over medium heat until it boils. This took me 15 minutes. Stop whisking and boil for another minute. Remove from the heat and add the creamer and Earth Balance and stir until melted. Voila! Not let it cool a tad before putting it in the fridge in a glass jar or other container for safe keeping.

The lemon curd was a great consistency, and whoa was it lemony! I think it's just too strong to cover the top of a cake, so next I'm going to try a lemon pie filling recipe I found online that calls for almost half a cup of orange juice and less lemon juice and sugar. It'll be milder and better in larger quantities. For the time being, I plan to fold this lemon curd into lemon poppyseed muffins for breakfast. That recipe will follow soon.

Color---Vegan lemon curd comes out a lot paler than the non-vegan version since it doesn't use egg yolks. I added about a half to a full teaspoon of turmeric to the finished product to make it look more lemony, and it worked great without altering the flavor of the curd.

What I learned from this experiment:

1. I need a milder lemon filling to use on top of a cake. Search for lemon pie filling recipes.

2. Turmeric works great as a natural food coloring and won't alter the flavor as long as it's used in moderation.

3. Try folding the curd into muffins or pound cake.

Experiment #1: Rose Water

Went back to Austin for a visit with the twinster and had rose lemonade (plus an oatmeal cookie sandwich) at my new favorite vegan hotspot, Bouldin Creek Coffeehouse on South 1st. When I got back home, the roses were in bloom, so I picked 5 to try my hand at making rose water myself. I picked the petals and put them in a saucepan then poured enough water in  to just cover the petals. I simmered the water over medium heat, stirring continuously, until the petals turned translucent then strained it.

Oh, it smelled quite delicious and boy was it potent. ALLERGY ALERT! But when I looked closely at the water, I discovered I had inadvertently murdered dozens of tiny little bugs in the boiling water! The roses in our garden are pesticide free (very important for making rose water), and the bugs were so tiny, I didn't notice them when I picked the petals. So I did it all again but washed the petals very carefully before I started. Next time, I'll pick 'em in the morning when they're still covered with dew and lightly rinse them outside if I need to. I prefer to leave the tiny little bugs outside where they belong.

Oh, but this time I stepped away from the stovetop to answer a call, and when I returned, the water was boiling. Nooooo, this time the water wasn't nearly as fragrant although it was still a nice addition to this lemonade recipe I got from http://www.food.com/.

So from this experiment, I learned:
1. Use pesticide free roses, and pick 'em in the morning when they're still covered in dew.
2. Don't boil the liquid!!
3. Oh yeah, the darker roses make the prettiest, pinkish water. Yellow roses make the water look like, well, yellow liquid.