Pfeffernuesse Cookies

As I am getting older, I am understanding more the whole issue about Christmas – and holidays in general – being about materialism and less about sharing cultural and familial traditions. If you’re anything like me, you find yourself doing some last minute shopping online, hunting around for coupons and wondering what on earth this or that someone would want to receive – and winding up rather irritated by the whole thing. I admit that I did it this year, but I am already thinking that next year will be different. With a little planning and personal ingenuity, I’ll make Christmas more satisfying for everyone.

I confess that I nearly did that this year, but when confronted with five dozen of your favorite cookies, it’s actually rather hard to share. Yes. I have eaten nearly five dozen cookies by myself (and now I seriously need to exercise).

Vegan Pfeffernuesse Cookies
I veganized this Pfeffernusse Cookies recipe from AllRecipes.com
Makes about 5 dozen cookies

• 1/2 cup molasses
• 1/4 cup agave nectar
• 1/2 cup vegan butter or margarine
• Egg replacer for 2 eggs (If using flax, you can mix 2 tablespoons ground flax seed with 6 tablespoons of hot water)
• 4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cardamom
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 2 teaspoons anise extract
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground black or white pepper (I used white)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup confectioners’ sugar for dusting

Stir together the molasses, honey, shortening, and margarine in a saucepan over medium heat; cook and stir until ingredients are well incorporated. Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature. Stir in the anise extract, as well as the prepared egg replacer (confession – I forgot to do the egg replacer at this point, but adding it later is okay).

Mixing together molasses, agave nectar and vegan butter

This recipe is all about the spices, so get together all your powdered spices and measure them out separately if you have a tendency to forget what you just added last (raises hand).

Spices for pfeffernuesse cookies

Combine the flour, white sugar, brown sugar, cardamom, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, pepper, and salt in a large bowl.

Mixing together dry ingredients

Add the molasses mixture and stir until thoroughly combines. You may have to mix together with your hands to make sure it is very well mixed. Refrigerate at least 2 hours.

Incorporating the wet ingredients

Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Roll the dough into acorn-sized balls. Arrange on baking sheets, spacing at least 1 inch apart. Bake in preheated oven 10 to 15 minutes.

Pfeffernuesse cookies

Move to a rack to cool. Dust cooled cookies with confectioners’ sugar.

Dusting cookies with confectioner's sugar

I don’t know what possessed me to make so many cookies, especially when this was experimental for me (this is the first time I’ve made vegan pfeffernuesse cookies – and they were based upon a recipe with honey and eggs), but I really truly lucked out big time. These are AMAZING! If you have never had pfeffernuesse cookies, they are spicy, which can add a little heat, and sweet to take the edge off, but surprisingly, not too sweet (if you counted, you’ll know there are five sugars in this recipe). When you bite into them, they are a little harder on the outside and completely chewy on the inside.

Five dozen pfeffernuesse cookies

I let my husband try part of one and he thought they were awful, so these are obviously not for everyone. (That’s actually one reason I didn’t ship these off – I had visions of cookies going into trashcans. I just had to be the cookie advocate and put them on my thighs instead.)

But if you love pfeffernuesse like I do, and know people in your life who would be up for a tin of these little goodies, they are the perfect solution for your gift-giving dilemma during the holidays. Just remember to wrap them well, and ship them within a day or two of baking them so they are less likely to arrive stale.

Vegan Pfeffernuesse Cookies

Happy Holidays!

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

I have to tell you that I am a little surprised with myself that I have not shared a chocolate chip cookie recipe with you yet. It’s not like I never make them – I probably make these every few months. Plus it’s not like I don’t like them either, because if you put one of these things in front of me it would be hard for me to resist them. When it comes to cookies, these are my weakness.

So hard to resist!

So here I am finally with a pretty fantastic chocolate chip cookie recipe. I don’t remember the blog where I first came across this recipe, but I do know that it can be found in Vive le Vegan! by Dreena Burton, and I have to say that this is the best vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe I’ve come across. As far as flavor is concerned, they have a perfect balance between chocolate and cookie, a nice hint of saltiness, and a buttery sweetness to top it off. Also, although they do firm up, they are still a little bit chewy the next day, and even nicer if you warm them up for a few seconds in your microwave or for about 30 seconds to a minute in your toaster oven.

Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes about a dozen regular-sized cookies. Based upon the chocolate chip recipe found in Vive le Vegan! by Dreena Burton

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 cup white or unrefined sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup maple syrup
• 1/4 teaspoon blackstrap molasses
• 1 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract OR 1 1/2 teaspoon rum or brandy and the seeds of 1/4 of a vanilla bean pod
• 1/4 cup vegetable or canola oil
• 1/3 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a bowl, sift in the flour, baking powder and baking soda.

Sifting the dry ingredients

Add the sugar and salt, and stir until well combined.

We ran out of vanilla extract, but I had some vanilla bean pods on hand, so I took the seeds of about 1/4 of one of the pods and let it sit in about 1 1/2 teaspoons of rum for a few minutes. Here’s a nice video on how to split open a vanilla bean in case you’re interested in trying it out for yourself.

Scraping the seeds out from a vanilla bean

In a separate bowl, combine the maple syrup with the molasses and vanilla, then stir in the oil until well combined. As you can see, it separates quickly, so just before you add it to your dry ingredients give it another quick stir.

Liquid ingredients for chocolate chip cookies

Lately we’ve had a hard time finding vegan chocolate chips, so what I’ve been doing is chopping up Trader Joe’s Pounds Plus 72% dark chocolate which is vegan (here’s a handy .pdf which Trader Joe’s provides showing all their vegan products, and this product is on the list). Here you can see I chopped up six squares.

Chopped dark chocolate used in place of chocolate chips

Add the wet mixture to the dry, along with the chocolate chips, and stir through until just well combined (do not overmix).

Chocolate chip cookie batter

Place large spoonfuls of the batter on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and flatten a little. Alternatively you can roll a spoonful in your hands and then press down a little on the baking sheet (this is what I’ve done).

Chocolate chip cookies about to go into the oven

Bake for 11 minutes until just golden (if you bake for much longer, they will dry out). Let cook on the sheet for no more than one minute (again, to prevent drying), then transfer to a cooling rack.

Homemade vegan chocolate chip cookies

What’s your favorite kind of cookie?

When we moved into our new apartment we gained a display case for knick knacks, so for the first time in my marriage or our relationship, I broke out The Collection. I’d never really had a good way to display my various rabbits until now – sure I had placed a few pieces here and there. But my husband really had no idea that I was “one of those” until a few weeks ago. You know, like the guy with hubcaps all over his yard or that lady with the zillion Christmas trees all over her house. I’m in the beginning stages, but I think that I’m young enough that in thirty years Channel 5 will be over at my house asking me, “So what got you started collecting rabbits?” and I’ll reply, with a contented sigh, while holding up a very worn out looking bunny, “I don’t know. I just love them.”

Maybe the reason is because of Easter, though. When I was a kid Easter was one of my favorite holidays. One parent would run outside while I wasn’t looking, deposit a basket of goodies outside the front door, and the other would say, “Did you hear someone knock at the front door? You’d better go see who that is.” Then I’d open up the door and I’d see an Easter basket and probably wonder where the Easter Bunny went (or where my other parent went). Then there was the Easter egg hunt, which my cousin and I proudly continued playing with plastic eggs long into the summer when he was visiting.

My latest acquisitions from an antique store in Massachusetts

These days, we don’t really do anything for Easter (this year I might admire my rabbit collection), but one thing I do attempt to do is to make something good to eat (of course – what else did you expect?). This year I decided to give VeganYumYum.com’s crumb cake recipe an early try, and I have to tell you – even if you don’t celebrate Easter, you should still make this. The cake has a dense, yet moist texture and the crumb is a perfect amount of crunch and sugary goodness. It’s rich, though, so you’ll want to have this with some coffee or tea.

Crumb Cake

Crumb Topping

• 8 tablespoons vegan butter, melted
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon molasses
• 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 pinch of salt
• 1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour

Cake

• 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil, or 6 tablespoons vegan butter, softened
• 1/3 cup vegan milk, plus 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch mixed with 1/4 cup water
• 1-2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Put the sugar, molasses, cinnamon and salt in a bowl.

Add in the vegan butter and whisk well with the other ingredients.

Mix in the flour.

If it doesn’t seem to be mixing well, go with the old fashioned method of using your hands.

A thick dough should form, but as in my case, if a thick dough doesn’t form just add in a tablespoon or two of vegan butter at a time until it gets to the right consistency, similar to that of cookie dough.

Let sit to cool for about 10 minutes. It should be ready when after you’ve put together the batter for the cake.

Line an 8×8 pan with aluminum foil (two sheets in a cross formation, leaving excess draped over the edges to help you remove the cake later), and then spray with vegetable oil.

Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

Add oil, vegan milk mixture, cornstarch mixture and vanilla extract.

Whisk until smooth, but do not overmix.

Add the batter to the lined pan.

Begin to break apart the crumb mixture into smaller, pea sized pieces. You want to take chunks from the bowl and gently break off the crumbs. Cover the batter evenly with all the crumb mixture.

Bake for 40-50 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit, or until the crumbs are slightly browned and a toothpick in the center of the cake comes out clean. Grab the aluminum foil and gently lift the cake out to cool for 20-30 minutes on a cooling rack, then serve with a pot of coffee or tea.

I hope you all have a lovely Easter weekend no matter what you do. But if you make some crumb cake, make sure you eat an extra piece for me!

These last couple of weeks have been a bit of an adjustment for our cat, Pixel. When we first got him, he was still young and pretty resilient, but I think as he has gotten older he’s become a bit more fussy and picky. Even though we moved very close to our last apartment, he was fairly traumatized and weirded out by the whole thing. Here’s the palatable version – pretty soon his system essentially stalled and we were desperate to figure out how to get things moving along again. After a failed visit to the veterinarian (don’t get me started), we relied on the internet for hints on what to do. One way to get a cat or dog to do its business? Feed it pureed pumpkin.

Now things are back to normal and I had quite a bit of leftover pumpkin, so I decided that I’d use it for less practical purposes and indulge in making some pumpkin muffins for breakfast.

Unfortunately, things don’t always go to plan (I did not fully read all of the instructions on the recipe, plus I’m still getting used to our oven), so my muffins didn’t exactly turn out right. Thankfully not all was lost, so I wound up with pumpkin bread instead.

Pumpkin Bread
For the original recipe that this is based on refer to theppk.com for their Pumpkin Muffins

• 1 3/4 cups flour
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon allspice
• 1 cup pureed pumpkin (fresh or from a can)
• 1/2 cup soymilk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 tablespoons molasses

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease muffin tin(s) and/or small cake or bread pan with vegetable shortening or vegan butter.

Sift together dry ingredients.

Quick note – I ran out of granulated sugar so without really thinking, I dropped in some turbinado sugar to be sifted as well. The grains are too large, so they would not sift.

Anyway, I just stirred them in later. :)

In a separate bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients.

Pour wet into dry and combine.

If you are making muffins, fill the tins 2/3 of the way, then bake for about 15 minutes (you’ll need to check to make sure they don’t need more time).

If you make pumpkin bread, bake for 27-30 minutes in a baking pan, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Unfortunately, I was doing something else as I was making these and didn’t pay full attention to the original instructions which says to bake your muffins for less time if they are not going to be jumbo muffins. So I wound up with six very sorry and burned muffins. Sadly, they were beyond repair.

Thankfully I did use the rest of the batter in a larger pan and made pumpkin bread. The edges were only slightly singed, but otherwise it turned out pretty well.

Aside from being a bit overdone, these were very moist and chewy. I spread slices with vegan butter, but they didn’t really need it. It was nice, but they were so rich on their own that it was just probably unnecessary.

I definitely plan on making these again – just next time I’d better pay closer attention so I can make sure to not miss out on all of the chewy goodness. Also, I hope that next time I go out and buy pumpkin that it isn’t in a desperate attempt to fix the cat. :)