I believe I posted a recipe for vegan apple pumpkin bread made out of random stuff I have in my kitchen, which at the time did not include butter or eggs.
It turns out that I'm quite fond of vegan recipes. This is probably because I frequently run out of eggs and butter (my housemates use some of my eggs, it's a long walk to a store that has cheap groceries, I have no budgeting skills, I made a chocolate torte that takes three eggs and half a stick of butter when I only had three eggs and a stick of butter left, and my baking cravings are unpredictable). Vegan egg substitutions are cheap, and it's fun to try recipes that don't have any cholesterol (yay, shitty heart issues!). I also stick with vegan milks because it's too hard to keep regular milk fresh and around with how little I use it on a day to day basis (mostly, a glug or so in my tea every morning when I can be bothered to wake up in time for tea, since I don't eat cereal hardly ever). I'm thinking I might try some vegan cheese just to see if it's quesadilla-worthy, even though it's probably more expensive.
Today, after a weekend of homework, I NEEDED to bake oatmeal cookies. Unfortunately, as I mentioned before, I used most of my butter and all my eggs in a chocolate torte that is, quite frankly, pretty damn good for a first try and without a machine to beat my egg whites into stiff peaks.
So, I started hunting for vegan cookie recipes. Eggs I could handle, but the butter... I don't have any coconut oil on hand. I need some, but I am currently without.
I found one recipe that seemed pretty legit, although it didn't include oats, and figured I could just add in oats.
It worked okay until I added too many oats and dried the whole thing out. I also used brown sugar instead of raw sugar. I added 1/3 of a cornstarch egg (1 tbsp water, 1 tsp cornstarch) to moisten it up, and the result was a slightly dry but surprisingly soft and delicious cookie.
I did end up adding about two tablespoons of soy milk to the second batch, but they came out cakey. Another tablespoon of cornstarch egg would have been a worthy addition. Ground up nuts and applesauce might have been good as well.
I hope to make a review of milks for my own purposes at some point, but I need to try rice milk first. So far, almond milk is way too thin for use in tea but fine for everything else, and soy milk is great in tea; maybe a little thick.
Which reminds me, there was something else I was going to post a review on... I forget. Oh, the oriental hy-top stir fry mix is all beans and pretty much nothing else. Don't get that again.
29 April 2012
03 April 2012
Vegan Apple Pumpkin Quickbread -- Sixty Ninth Post
I've taken to cooking lately, my dear reader(s). I want to bake all the time. Homework? No, baking. Organizing recipes. Finding new recipes and trying them out right away.
One day, I found myself totally out of butter and eggs and desperately wanting to bake bread.
The problem: no breads, yeast or quick, can be made with the ingredients I have on hand. If it's not calling for butter and eggs, it's calling for 15 cups of flour or a bread machine or a loaf pan or something ridiculous like that. Yeah, my communal kitchen is understocked in some respects. We have five muffin tins, but no loaf tins or cheese graters. We have fifteen knives, but none of them for bread.
So, I turned to quickbreads, my preferred drop biscuits being out of the question due to their 5 tablespoons of butter.
Most quickbreads take freaking eggs.
My alternative eventually became apparent to me when I googled "quickbreads no eggs no butter" and pulled up a lot of links with "egg" and "butter" and about two that said "vegan".
AH!
I am not vegan, although I am vegetarian, but I'm a butter-and-eggless vegetarian at the moment, which renders me a cow-milk-consuming vegan for the time being. Not that I'm opposed to vegan milk options; soy, rice, and almond milks can be stored in the cupboard until opened, my friends with no fridge space and erratic milk-drinking habits. They are also quite tasty, although they are best, in my opinion, in cooking rather than in cereal. Soy's a lot thicker than skim. Rice and almond are more skim-y, and a mix of rice and soy makes for great box-bought mashed potatoes.
Anyway. I found this "vegan" apple bread recipe that didn't have applesauce (also not in my kitchen) or pumpkin (technically, the stuff in my fridge isn't mine, but I'm the one storing it, so I didn't want to use it). It called for an egg (goddamnit), but the Cook's Thesaurus provided me with a whole heap of egg substitutes. I used the cornstarch (1:3 with water) and added a bunch of oil and heaped my spoons of baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
It was super dry since I chopped the apples instead of grating them (it was about two of my favourite itty bitty apples that remind me of the ones I got in England and that are the perfect size for cutting and eating straight off the core), so I frantically added the last two tablespoons of my soy milk, a massive glop of raspberry jam (sounded better than plum in this context and is way cheaper than my other jam), and, in desperation, what was left of my friend's slowly going bad pumpkin puree. I then added a handful of dark chocolate chips.
Here's the recipe as I wrote it down:
Vegan Apple Pumpkin Bread
1.5 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup sugar
cinnamon and cloves, and other spices to taste
At least 1 cup shredded apple
1/2 cup raspberry jam (but any fruit jam would do, probably)
1/2 cup pumpkin (apple sauce or any other fruit puree would do)
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 tsp vanilla
squirt lemon juice
1 egg: 1 tbsp cornstarch, 3 tbsp water, glug (probably about a tsp, up to a tbsp) olive oil
2 tbsp milk (enough to moisten batter)
Handful chocolate chips (or more)
If you use less jam, add more sugar, or less sugar if you use a sweeter fruit puree (applesauce, for instance).
Preheat oven to 350 F; grease pan. I used olive oil and it worked okay.
Mix up dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately. I added the "egg" mixture last to the wet ingredients.
Gently, gently mix wet and dry ingredients just until there's a thick batter. Any more stirring and it might get tough.
Fold in chocolate chips (gently!)
Pour into pan with same capacity as a shallow 9" pie tin.
Bake for about an hour, checking periodically, until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.
Let it sit in the tin for about 10 minutes to cool, then tip it out onto a cooling rack. Flip it right-side-up when it's cool enough; no use having it break now when you've done so much work to keep it pretty already.
Not that it would be any less delicious if it broke.
The cornstarch egg worked well. The bread is fairly light, not tough, and flavourful. It's a little sweet, as I followed the original recipe and put in a full cup of sugar, but it's okay in small amounts. It's also incredibly rich; I believe that adding more fruit puree and less oil makes it lower calorie, but I don't know about richness. The chocolate chips probably don't help that, either. Using banana or zucchini might have improved the richness problem, but I really like the flavour without those. Again, any jam would probably work; whatever strikes your fancy. It would probably be good with cranberry, blackberry, apricot, peach, cherry, plum, or strawberry; but don't limit yourself. If anything sounds unappetizing with the pumpkin, swap it out for something else, like applesauce. Applesauce would be delicious in this (but I don't have any). There is definitely a nice pumpkin background to the whole bread, but it's not too overwhelming. The apple and raspberry are definitely present. I happen to love pumpkin, but banana would work as well. Also, mine is incredibly sweet because I followed shannonsrunning's recipe (which does not include mostly-sugar jam) and put in a whole cup of sugar. This was too much, at least if jam is used.
I would photograph it and post the picture for you, but my camera's batteries are dead and I'm too broke to buy eggs and butter right now, let alone batteries.
Just trust me, it's delicious looking.
According to my housemate's boyfriend, it smells like heaven. After eating a piece, he informed me that I was "doing the Lord's work". I've decided he can stay around; anyone who compliments my kludged up recipes is a friend of mine.
One day, I found myself totally out of butter and eggs and desperately wanting to bake bread.
The problem: no breads, yeast or quick, can be made with the ingredients I have on hand. If it's not calling for butter and eggs, it's calling for 15 cups of flour or a bread machine or a loaf pan or something ridiculous like that. Yeah, my communal kitchen is understocked in some respects. We have five muffin tins, but no loaf tins or cheese graters. We have fifteen knives, but none of them for bread.
So, I turned to quickbreads, my preferred drop biscuits being out of the question due to their 5 tablespoons of butter.
Most quickbreads take freaking eggs.
My alternative eventually became apparent to me when I googled "quickbreads no eggs no butter" and pulled up a lot of links with "egg" and "butter" and about two that said "vegan".
AH!
I am not vegan, although I am vegetarian, but I'm a butter-and-eggless vegetarian at the moment, which renders me a cow-milk-consuming vegan for the time being. Not that I'm opposed to vegan milk options; soy, rice, and almond milks can be stored in the cupboard until opened, my friends with no fridge space and erratic milk-drinking habits. They are also quite tasty, although they are best, in my opinion, in cooking rather than in cereal. Soy's a lot thicker than skim. Rice and almond are more skim-y, and a mix of rice and soy makes for great box-bought mashed potatoes.
Anyway. I found this "vegan" apple bread recipe that didn't have applesauce (also not in my kitchen) or pumpkin (technically, the stuff in my fridge isn't mine, but I'm the one storing it, so I didn't want to use it). It called for an egg (goddamnit), but the Cook's Thesaurus provided me with a whole heap of egg substitutes. I used the cornstarch (1:3 with water) and added a bunch of oil and heaped my spoons of baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
It was super dry since I chopped the apples instead of grating them (it was about two of my favourite itty bitty apples that remind me of the ones I got in England and that are the perfect size for cutting and eating straight off the core), so I frantically added the last two tablespoons of my soy milk, a massive glop of raspberry jam (sounded better than plum in this context and is way cheaper than my other jam), and, in desperation, what was left of my friend's slowly going bad pumpkin puree. I then added a handful of dark chocolate chips.
Here's the recipe as I wrote it down:
Vegan Apple Pumpkin Bread
1.5 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup sugar
cinnamon and cloves, and other spices to taste
At least 1 cup shredded apple
1/2 cup raspberry jam (but any fruit jam would do, probably)
1/2 cup pumpkin (apple sauce or any other fruit puree would do)
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 tsp vanilla
squirt lemon juice
1 egg: 1 tbsp cornstarch, 3 tbsp water, glug (probably about a tsp, up to a tbsp) olive oil
2 tbsp milk (enough to moisten batter)
Handful chocolate chips (or more)
If you use less jam, add more sugar, or less sugar if you use a sweeter fruit puree (applesauce, for instance).
Preheat oven to 350 F; grease pan. I used olive oil and it worked okay.
Mix up dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately. I added the "egg" mixture last to the wet ingredients.
Gently, gently mix wet and dry ingredients just until there's a thick batter. Any more stirring and it might get tough.
Fold in chocolate chips (gently!)
Pour into pan with same capacity as a shallow 9" pie tin.
Bake for about an hour, checking periodically, until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.
Let it sit in the tin for about 10 minutes to cool, then tip it out onto a cooling rack. Flip it right-side-up when it's cool enough; no use having it break now when you've done so much work to keep it pretty already.
Not that it would be any less delicious if it broke.
The cornstarch egg worked well. The bread is fairly light, not tough, and flavourful. It's a little sweet, as I followed the original recipe and put in a full cup of sugar, but it's okay in small amounts. It's also incredibly rich; I believe that adding more fruit puree and less oil makes it lower calorie, but I don't know about richness. The chocolate chips probably don't help that, either. Using banana or zucchini might have improved the richness problem, but I really like the flavour without those. Again, any jam would probably work; whatever strikes your fancy. It would probably be good with cranberry, blackberry, apricot, peach, cherry, plum, or strawberry; but don't limit yourself. If anything sounds unappetizing with the pumpkin, swap it out for something else, like applesauce. Applesauce would be delicious in this (but I don't have any). There is definitely a nice pumpkin background to the whole bread, but it's not too overwhelming. The apple and raspberry are definitely present. I happen to love pumpkin, but banana would work as well. Also, mine is incredibly sweet because I followed shannonsrunning's recipe (which does not include mostly-sugar jam) and put in a whole cup of sugar. This was too much, at least if jam is used.
I would photograph it and post the picture for you, but my camera's batteries are dead and I'm too broke to buy eggs and butter right now, let alone batteries.
Just trust me, it's delicious looking.
According to my housemate's boyfriend, it smells like heaven. After eating a piece, he informed me that I was "doing the Lord's work". I've decided he can stay around; anyone who compliments my kludged up recipes is a friend of mine.
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