Vegan Witches Fingers

As I am getting older, I am realizing more distinctly what I love about each holiday – and most of the time it almost always has something to do with the food, whether I am making it or eating it. What I love most about Halloween is the creativity and creepiness of the recipes – tombstone cookies, frog spawn tea, eyeball appetizers (although it doesn’t sound very appetizing, does it?). It’s probably the holiday where the cook or baker has the most creative license to make something utterly horrifying and delicious at the same time.

This year I could not figure out what I wanted to make, but I finally settled on a recipe that I felt would be easy for not just me to make, but for you as well. I decided to make witches fingers – firm, yet melt in your mouth cookies. I knew I had a real winner of a recipe on my hands when, as I was finishing up the last cookies and putting them on the cookie sheet, my husband declared (gleefully) that they looked disgusting and realistic. Perfect!

Witches Fingers
This vegan recipe is a modified version of the Spooky Witches Fingers recipe on Allrecipes.com, and yields approximately 30 cookies if you make larger fingers or 60 cookies if you make smaller fingers.

• 1 cup vegan butter, softened
• 1 cup vegan confectioners’ sugar
• 1 tablespoon ground flax seed mixed with 3 tablespoons hot water, or use egg replacer for 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup whole, blanched almonds

Combine the vegan butter, sugar, flax seed mixture or egg replacer, almond extract and vanilla extract in a mixing bowl. Beat together with an electric mixer.

Mixing together wet ingredients and sugar

As it is mixing gradually add the flour, baking powder, and salt.

Mixing cookie dough for witches fingers

Once your dough is well mixed, refrigerate it for 20 to 30 minutes. This will make the dough easier to handle when you are shaping the witches fingers.

Just before you take the dough out of the refrigerator, preheat your oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Lightly grease baking sheets, or use silicone baking mats.

Remove the dough from your refrigerator, and using a teaspoon or tablespoon scoop a heaping spoonful onto a piece of wax paper.

Tip: If you use a teaspoon you will get about 60 cookies; if you use a tablespoon you will get about 30 cookies.

Spoonful of cookie dough

Use the wax paper to roll the dough into a thin finger-shaped cookie.

Rolling out the cookie dough for witches fingers

Press one almond into one end of each cookie to give the appearance of a long fingernail.

Pressing the almond, a.k.a. fingernail, into the cookie

Squeeze cookie near the tip and again near the center of each to give the impression of knuckles. You can also cut into the dough with a sharp knife at the same points to help give a more finger-like appearance.

Giving the cookie a finger-like shape and look

Arrange the shaped cookies on the baking sheets, being sure to give each cookie a little space so that they do not bake into each other.

Witches fingers ready to bake

Bake in the preheated oven for about 20 to 25 minutes or until the cookies are slightly golden in color. If your cookies are larger, it may take more time for them to bake.

Optional: After you have allowed your cookies to cool, remove the almond from the end of each cookie. Squeeze a small amount of red decorating gel (not all decorating gels are vegan, so be sure to check the ingredients) or melted chocolate into the cavity. Replace the almond to cause the gel or chocolate to ooze out around the tip of the cookie.

Spooky...and yummy!

These are so delicious that I am having a hard time not eating them all at once! I can see how they are perfect for parties – they’re great finger-food! Muhahahahaha!! I am so funny, it’s scary! :)

What are you making for Halloween this year?

Carrot cake muffin with vanilla soy yogurt

A couple of weeks ago when we went strawberry picking at Boxx Berry Farm, we also had the fortunate opportunity to pick some vegetables from a small farm called Half Acre Farm located on the same property. They had a variety of vegetables ready, but we decided to pick only a couple of items – some Walla Walla onions and two of bunches of carrots. As we dug the vegetables up, we had a really nice visit with the couple who are running this one-acre farm (yep – it’s one acre). They both work full time, but are passionate about gardening, so decided to start up a little vegetable farm. Seems ambitious, but I admit that we were standing there feeling a bit jealous. In our minds, being able to garden and have a positive impact on the community is a worthy combo.

When we got home, Matt opted to juice the carrots which resulted in a rich and sweet liquid. The other thing that resulted was about a cup of carrot pulp that I couldn’t face throwing away. After doing a little bit of research I realized that juicing takes away a lot of the flavor of the carrots, so if you try to make dishes where grated carrots are a large part of the ingredient list, you’ll find that you won’t taste them quite as much. I finally decided to try making some muffins. In the end the carrot flavor was definitely mild, but if you are not a big fan of carrot cake, this may be a viable alternative for you.

Carrot Cake Muffins
Makes about 12 regular sized muffins

• 1 cup white flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ginger
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon ground flax mixed with 3 tablespoons hot water (or egg replacer for one egg)
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup vegan milk
• 1 cup grated carrots or carrot pulp
• Vegan vanilla yogurt, optional

Turn on your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a cupcake tin with cupcake liners or grease them with vegan butter (or spray with a cooking spray).

In a large bowl, sift your flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger together. Mix in the brown sugar.

Mixing together the dry ingredients

In a separate bowl, mix together the flax seed mixture or egg replacer, oil, vanilla extract and vegan milk.

Mixing the wet ingredients together

Take the shredded carrot or carrot pulp and mix it in with the wet ingredients.

Mixing in the carrot pulp

Add the carrot mixture to the dry ingredients and mix until it is just combined.

Carrot cake muffin mixture

Add the mixture to your cupcake/muffin tin, and then bake in the oven for 25 or 30 minutes.

Carrot cake muffins about to go into the oven

Allow the muffins to cool before serving. You can serve with vegan butter or with a dollop of vegan vanilla yogurt.

Fresh out of the oven carrot cake muffins

The carrot flavor of the muffins was definitely mild, but I felt that what really made these was the addition of cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger. They added a nice balance of spice with the other ingredients. The muffins were also dense, yet moist.

Also, while I don’t really like nuts or raisins in my muffins, I am sure the addition of a handful of walnuts, pecans, raisins or cranberries would be a nice complement to these.

Carrot cake muffin

Do you ever bake or cook with carrots? If so, what is your favorite recipe?

Mexican Cornbread

Most of my childhood was spent in the South – Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee. I grew up with things like fried green tomatoes, grits and boiled peanuts. I liked them all, but one Southern food I never enjoyed that much was cornbread. It was just okay and I often found it to be dry and bland. But my whole family seemed to enjoy it, so we had it with frequency. I was eventually introduced to Mexican cornbread, and I loved it. It was flavorful and moist, and ever since then I have thought off and on that I should try and make it.

As I was trying to decide what to make yesterday, I realized that I had everything I needed to make Mexican cornbread. This recipe doesn’t contain cheese (of course), but we tried it with some vegan butter and nutritional yeast sprinkled on top and it added a nice extra saltiness and savory flavor.

Mexican Cornbread

• 1 1/2 cups cornmeal
• 2 1/2 cups vegan milk
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup plus 3 tablespoons sugar
• Egg replacer for two eggs (if using flax, mix together 2 tablespoons ground flax seed and 6 tablespoons hot water)
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 or 1 onion, chopped
• 2 jalapeños, stemmed, seeds removed and chopped (if using sliced jalapeños from a jar, measure out about 1/8 cup)
• Corn, optional
• Sweet pepper, chopped, optional

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a 9×13-inch baking pan. If you are using a smaller pan like I did (I used an 8×11-inch pan), you may want to preheat to 350 or 375 degrees Fahrenheit, because it will take longer to bake and you don’t want the bread to burn.

In a small bowl, combine the cornmeal and vegan milk. Make sure to mix it well so there are few or no lumps left. Set aside.

Mixing cornmeal with vegan milk

In a large bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. I like to use a wire whisk to make sure everything is well incorporated.

Mixing dry ingredients

If you haven’t already, prepare your onion and jalapeños, and set aside in a bowl. The pepper will not yield a lot of heat in the end, so you could probably add more if you wanted.

Chopping up onions and peppers

Add the liquid cornmeal mixture, egg replacer and oil to the large bowl of dry ingredients and mix well so that no lumps remain. Whisk together for several minutes (maximum of five).

Mixing the wet and dry ingredients together

Stir in the onions and peppers, as well as any other optional ingredients (like corn), then pour into your baking dish.

Stirring in the onions and peppers

Put in the oven and check after 35 minutes of baking. Insert a knife or toothpick in the middle and if it comes out clean then take it out of the oven. Because of the size of my pan I baked probably a total of 55 minutes, with the last 20 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Mexican cornbread, fresh from the oven

This was really very good, and was extremely moist from the fresh onions and jalapeños. Because of the level of moisture it had to be eaten with a fork. Still, it was flavorful and delicious, especially with some vegan butter spread on it. This would be great as an accompaniment to soup or salad.

Do you ever make Mexican cornbread? What extras do you like to add?

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

After launching my new Facebook fan page for Novel Eats, I asked if anyone had requests for pre-Thanksgiving recipes. Someone suggested pumpkin cinnamon rolls, and others chimed in that they would love to see them. Sadly, as you can tell, it’s a little post-Thanksgiving. With traveling, vacation time, and still trying to get our bearings in Washington, I just couldn’t post until now. I did make these before the holiday, if that counts!

Big disclaimer – this is a very experimental recipe. I haven’t played around with the cinnamon rolls recipe too much, so I still have to figure out what its limitations are in relation to all the ideas floating out there. Since it’s an experiment, this is a smaller batch, but even then I found I had to add extra flour for the dough to be firm and smooth after the additional moisture that the pumpkin puree brought to the recipe. I also discovered that it would probably do better to bake at a lower temperature for longer, because the dough was still too doughy after baking the rolls. If you choose to experiment with this recipe, I’ve added some notes throughout that may help you have a more successful batch than I.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

Note: Since I was experimenting with this recipe, this is basically a half batch of the regular cinnamon rolls recipe that I posted a few months ago.

• 1½ teaspoons active dry yeast
• ¼ cup unbleached sugar
• ¼ cup pumpkin puree (Idea: increase the pumpkin for a stronger flavor, but you’ll need to reduce the liquid in the recipe as well as probably add even more flour)
• ½ cup vegan milk, warmed
• Egg replacer the equivalent of one egg OR 1tablespoons ground flax seeds whisked together with 3 tablespoons hot water
• 3 tablespoons vegan butter, melted
• 2 ¾ cups unbleached flour
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ cup brown sugar, packed
• ½ tablespoon ground cinnamon (Idea: maybe reduce this and add some other ground spices like nutmeg, ginger and allspice)
• 3 tablespoons vegan butter, softened
• Optional: raisins, nuts

Mix yeast, sugar, and heated vegan milk in a large mixing bowl and let stand until foamy. Add egg replacer, pumpkin, melted vegan butter, flour, and salt.

Making pumpkin cinnamon rolls

Mix well and knead for 5-10 minutes. The dough should be firm and smooth, not sticky. Note that I kept having to add flour to the mixer at this stage until it looked pliable like this. It was too sticky of a dough otherwise. My suggestion would be to add a tablespoon of flour at a time so as to not accidentally make it too dry.

Set the dough aside in a covered bowl and let double in size.

Mixing the dough

After the dough has doubled, turn it out onto a floured work surface, cover, and let rest for 10 more minutes.

As the dough is resting, mix the cinnamon with the brown sugar.

After the dough has rested, roll it out into a rectangle.

Preparing the dough

Spread dough with vegan butter, then sprinkle each dough evenly with your sugar mixture. You can add other items to your filling like nuts or raisins.

Adding the good stuff

Roll the dough on the longer side, then cut the rolls so that you have even slices. Tip – use a serrated knife – it’s so much easier!

Rolling and cutting the dough

Place rolls in a lightly greased baking pan. (A cookie sheet also works fine.) Cover and let rise until nearly doubled, about 30 minutes.

Letting the rolls rise

Meanwhile, preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit (Idea: I would try reducing the temperature to 350 degrees Fahrenheit), and make your vegan cream cheese frosting. I just came across this vegan cream cheese made by Follow Your Heart, the company that is responsible for the goodness that is Vegenaise. Their cream cheese works great in the frosting recipe.

Follow Your Heart Vegan Gourmet Cream Cheese Alternative

Bake rolls in your preheated oven until golden brown, about 15 minutes (Idea: if you reduce the temperature, bake for 20 minutes and check to make sure they are done – if not, bake another five minutes and check again).

Vegan Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

In the end, these rolls did not taste a lot like pumpkin, but they were still good. I do wish that I had kept them in the oven for longer, but as you can see in the picture above, they were already getting brown on top. To be honest, I doubt that I will try to improve this recipe. While I like pumpkin, I do not like it enough to try to make this particular recipe work for me. I have too many other ideas I want to try – so be on the lookout for those in the future!

Yum.

Have you made pumpkin cinnamon rolls before? How did they turn out?

Vegan Oatmeal Raisin Cookie

I guess you could say that I’m on a cookie binge lately. I really love cookies, but I don’t make them very much because I don’t really like to share, which always means more for me! – but also means, more for my thighs! If only “vegan” preceding “cookie” meant calorie-free, bland, and boring in our household; I’m afraid it’s quite the opposite.

I have been meaning to try to find a vegan oatmeal raisin cookie recipe, but haven’t really spent the time and effort until just the other day. Luckily for me I found a winner on the first try which doesn’t always happen. This is an amazing recipe: plump and sugary raisins, a little crispy where the brown sugar didn’t get fully mixed into the rest of the batter and still chewy on the second day. It’s a rich and hearty cookie, too, so you only really need one or two before you’re satiated.

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
Via VeganFamilyFavorites.com

Note: I halved this recipe and it still yielded me 14 cookies. For bigger cookies or for two dozen normal sized cookies you can make the full recipe.

• 1 cup vegan butter, softened
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• Egg replacer for 2 eggs (If using flax, you can mix 2 tablespoons ground flax seed with 6 tablespoons of hot water)
• 1-1/4 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 cups oats
• 1-1/2 cups raisins
• 1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°F.

In a large mixing bowl, beat margarine, brown sugar, sugar, and vanilla until light and fluffy.

Mixing the first part of the batter

Add egg replacer eggs and beat until well blended.

Adding egg replacer

In another bowl, combine flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt. Gradually add to margarine mixture (or vice versa, which is what I did!) until well blended.

Continuing to work on the batter for oatmeal raisin cookies

Stir in oats, raisins, and nuts (if using).

Finally - the stars: oats and the raisins!

On a baking sheet lined with parchment paper (or a nonstick cookie sheet) drop the dough by 1/4 cupfuls (or large spoonfuls) and pat down slightly. Bake for 15-17 minutes or until edges begin to brown.

Ready to go into the oven

Let stand for 3 minutes before removing from baking sheet.

Yum - vegan oatmeal raisin cookies

A lot of cookies allow for a ton of creativity, but these cookies are kind of fun with how much you can do. Maybe next time I’ll add in some peanut butter and/or peanuts, and substitute chocolate chips for the raisins. How do you make your cookies?

Cinnamon & Chocolate Rolls

A few days ago when I was going through all of my old recipe posts and tagging each with the appropriate ingredients, I soon realized that there was a little bit of a trend going on that I had not really noticed before. I have thought for most of my life that I am not a big one for sweets, but after tagging many of my recipes with the ingredient “sugar”, I realized that I do indeed have a sweet tooth. If anyone has this concept in their minds that a vegan diet is healthy, all they need to do is visit my blog and have a look at the “Browse by Ingredients” list. Sugar, vegan butter, salt… Now that we have that out of the way, let’s jump in and take a look at my latest sweet success (which, dear reader, was made as a thank you to my husband for all of his hard work on helping to make this redesign even possible).

A couple of years ago I was really craving cinnamon rolls – the warm, gooey and total comfort-food kind – and so when I came across a vegan recipe that had rave reviews, I thought that I had a winner on my hands. Unfortunately, the cinnamon rolls were a complete disaster and I wound up defeated and deflated. Of course, I gave up, that is, until a few weeks ago when I was craving them again. I did another search for a good recipe online and came across a recipe that claimed to be better than the rolls you can get at Cinnabon. Again, people raved. Again, I decided to follow the masses. Yet this time, I was so utterly blown away that I purposely held off on taking pictures and writing a blog post because I wanted to be sure to “have to” make them again for you. I finally succumbed and here we are, but believe me I’m trying to come up with another excuse to make them again very soon.

Cinnamon Rolls and Chocolate Rolls

Based upon this Better-than-Cinnabon’s recipe

Rolls

Note: One thing I want to point out is that I have only made this with flax seed as a binder and I have not used Ener-G egg replacer. I have no idea if this recipe turns out exactly the same or comparably if Ener-G were to be used instead. Because the flax has worked so well for me and because I have not been able to taste it (I hate the taste of flax) I just haven’t allowed myself to try the alternate method. If you do try it with Ener-G please report back to let us know how the rolls turned out for you.

• 2½ teaspoons active dry yeast
• ½ cup unbleached sugar
• 1 cup vegan milk, warmed
• 2 eggs worth of egg replacer OR 2 tablespoons ground flax seeds whisked together with 6 tablespoons hot water
• ⅓ cup vegan butter, melted
• 4½ cups unbleached flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ⅓ cup vegan butter, softened
• Optional: chocolate chips, raisins, nuts

Frosting

Note: If, like me, you don’t care that much for icing or prefer to let your cinnamon or chocolate rolls shine on their own, then these are perfectly fine without. I will say, however, that this is a good icing recipe and I sometimes will have some. The reason why I probably like it is because it isn’t just about the sugar. The Tofutti cream cheese and the vegan butter give it a smooth and creamy flavor that you wouldn’t get if it were just a plain sugar icing.

• About 3/8 (3 ounces) of a container of Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese
• ¼ cup vegan butter, softened
• 1½ cup vegan powdered sugar
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
• ⅛ teaspoon salt

Mix yeast, sugar, and heated vegan milk in a large mixing bowl and let stand until foamy. Add egg replacer, melted vegan butter, flour, and salt.

Letting the yeast activate, then adding the other dry ingredients

Mix well and knead for 5-10 minutes. The dough should be firm and smooth, not sticky.

Mixing the dough in the Kitchenaid Mixer

Set the dough aside in a covered bowl and let double in size.

I allowed my dough to sit for about an hour to an hour and a half

After the dough has doubled, turn it out onto a floured work surface, cover, and let rest for 10 more minutes.

Letting the dough rest

Meanwhile, divide your brown sugar into two small bowls.

Getting ready to mix my cinnamon/chocolate roll fillings

Mix the cinnamon into one bowl of brown sugar, and mix the cocoa powder and vanilla into the other bowl of brown sugar.

Fillings are now ready!

Note: If you just want to do cinnamon rolls, increase your cinnamon to 2 tablespoons and mix it into the full amount of brown sugar, omitting the cocoa powder and vanilla extract. If you just want to do chocolate rolls, increase the cocoa to 2 tablespoons, the vanilla to 2 teaspoons, then mix it into the full amount of brown sugar, and omit the cinnamon.

After the dough has rested, get it into a shape that you can easily divide into two equal halves with a knife or by pulling it apart with your hands.

Dividing the dough in half

Note: If you are doing only one type of roll (i.e. cinnamon rolls) you will not need to divide your dough in half.

Take one half of the dough and roll it out into a rectangle. Here I am using the Vic Firth French Rolling Pin which I am totally and completely in love with.

Rolling out my cinnamon and chocolate roll dough

June 19: Be sure to enter my first ever giveaway for the chance to own your own french rolling pin. The giveaway ended on June 21st. See who won!

Spread dough with vegan butter, then sprinkle each dough evenly with one of the sugar mixtures.

Adding the filling to the cinnamon and chocolate rolls

You can add other items to your filling, like chocolate chips or raisins. I didn’t have any chocolate chips on hand, but I did have Trader Joe’s dark chocolate, which I just chopped up into chip-sized chunks.

I've added raisins to the cinnamon roll filling, and chocolate pieces to the chocolate roll filling

Roll the dough on the longer side.

Rolling the cinnamon and chocolate rolls

Cut the rolls so that you have even slices. I like to cut straight down the middle first (1), then cut straight down the middle of the two sections (2), and finally cut down the middle of the four sections (3). In the end you should have eight evenly sized rolls (or thereabouts) if you follow this method.

Cutting the rolls

Place rolls in a lightly greased baking pan (or two). (A cookie sheet also works fine.) Cover and let rise until nearly doubled, about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Tip: Use a pie pan or a larger pan where your rolls are allowed to expand. I found that the chocolate rolls made in the pie pan were fatter than the cinnamon rolls made in the straight-sided glass dish.

Allowing the cinnamon and chocolate rolls to rise

Bake rolls in preheated oven until golden brown, about 15 minutes.

Cinnamon (bottom) and chocolate (top) rolls straight out of the oven

While rolls are baking, beat together Tofutti, vegan butter, powdered sugar, vanilla, and salt. Spread frosting on warm rolls before serving.

Making the vegan cream cheese frosting

Unless I’m told a better recipe exists or I somehow lose this recipe, I will never try another. The rolls are amazingly fluffy and gooey and are just perfect straight out of the oven. If you were to take these to your non-vegan friends no one would be the wiser. These taste and have the consistency of what you or they would expect in a cinnamon roll, and there’s no reason for them to suspect that they are vegan. They are seriously that good and perfect.

This is a great foundational recipe, too, because once you have dough that works this well, you can get very creative. I recently saw on The Pioneer Woman Cooks a marmalade/butter filling and an orange flavored icing. I think you could do other jams (strawberry jam sounds great!) or you could try fresh fruit. You could probably do vegan caramel or toffee. If you like coffee, you could probably even go there, too. But for me, my absolute favorite is just the basic, gooey cinnamon roll. Perfection.

Vegan cinnamon rolls

Many of the challenges that we have had so far with The Daring Bakers have seemed to be more complicated both by number of ingredients and the feat pulling it all together. This month’s challenge seemed to focus less on ingredients and more on the method. It’s been a nice change of pace this time around, because I do feel like I have learned something new – although it’s clear I need a bit more practice before I perfect these cookies.

It has been ages since I have eaten a tuile cookie, which is essentially a very light cookie that can come in a variety of molded shapes. One of the more common is the cigarette shape, where the cookie is rolled. The key to shaping these is to bake them flat first, then shaping soon after taking them out of the oven.

We were given a variety of recipes, but I decided to go with one that was created by a fellow vegan, Lolo of VeganYumYum.com. There were a couple of reasons why I was drawn to her recipe – one, I had all of the ingredients on hand and two, she used flax seed as a binder, which, believe it or not, I have never tried. I was slightly hesitant to use flax seed because I do not like the taste, but I was highly curious how it would work. It worked really well, and I am interested in trying it again as a substitute for the other egg substitutes found in other recipes (i.e. Ener-G or the baking powder, oil and water concoction – which is totally fun to make, by the way).

Vegan Tuile Cookies
This month’s challenge is brought to us by Karen of Bake My Day and Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte aka Kochtopf. They have chosen Tuiles from The Chocolate Book by Angélique Schmeink and Nougatine and Chocolate Tuiles from Michel Roux. Original recipe I have used can be found on www.veganyumyum.com

• 1/2 cup vegan butter, softened
• 1/2 Cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons Flax Egg*
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour

*Flax Egg

• 1 tablespoon flax seed, ground
• 1/4 cup water

Grind the flax seed to a powder in a spice grinder.

Whisk with water and set aside. Use 2 tablespoons of this mixture for the tuile cookies, you’ll have a little left over.

Preheat oven to 375° Fahrenheit.

Whip the vegan and sugar until light and fluffy. I used our brand spanking new KitchenAid mixer.

Add flax egg, extract, and salt.

Whip until well mixed or you see medium to stiff peaks. Notice how the batter binds together well with the flax.

Gently fold in flour and mix until well combined.

What you are typically supposed to do at this point is create templates to spread the tuile batter in. For example, using a clean piece of cardboard or heavy plastic, you can cut shapes like circles or hearts and then you can fill in that space with the tuile batter. Unfortunately I didn’t have any of that on hand, so I used the next best thing – a biscuit cutter.

Place a sheet of parchment paper or silpat on a baking sheet, then put your template or biscuit cutter on top of that.

Spread some batter as thinly and evenly as possible in the template or cutter.

Repeat this only once or twice more because these cookies will firm up fast when they come out of the oven and you’ll need to be able to shape them.

Bake the cookies for 8-10 minutes or until edges are golden brown. You may need to experiment with baking time to reach the ideal balance between strength and pliability.

Once they are out of the oven, let them sit for 15-30 seconds before removing and then shaping. Carefully remove a cookie from the sheet, and shape depending on what you are envisioning for the final look. I used the end of a round handled spoon to roll mine into large cigarette shapes. You can also do bowls or cones or anything else your imagination comes up with.

After a few minutes the cookies will fully harden and they will be done.

A couple of things.

First, while it can be done, I now see why it is not the best idea to use a biscuit/cookie cutter for forming the cookies. You really do need something that is flat and closer to the work surface. Spreading the cookie dough should be far easier this way.

Second, I would recommend making smaller cookies (smaller circumference) if they are to be rolled into a cigarette shape. If forming bowls or cones, a larger shape would make more sense, but the shape I went with gave me cookies that I felt were too large.

Finally, going back to the flaxseed binder – my cookies did not taste like flax at all, which was really nice. I’m definitely going to revisit using that again in the future.