Baked apples

I am a big fan of apple crisp – the sweet, crunchy topping with the tender, juicy apples – but sometimes I just don’t have the right amount of apples or time on my hands. And sometimes I don’t really want to make all that extra effort of peeling and cutting up the fruit. I decided to try to find a recipe that would allow me to make apple crisp on a smaller scale and that would still have the taste of crisp without too much extra effort.

This baked apples recipe is so versatile – it’s hard to mess it up. Make it yours – add raisins and walnuts, or bake it in apple or orange juice. It’s really up to you what the final dish will be. Plus it’s great for breakfast or dessert.

Baked Apples
This recipe yields four servings.

• 2 apples, cut lengthwise and cored
• 1/4 cup rolled oats
• 1/4 cup white flour
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• Cinnamon
• Dash of salt
• 2-3 tablespoons vegan butter
• Raisins or nuts, optional
• 1 cup water

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Prepare your apples by cutting them in half. You can also peel your apples if you do not like the skin, and you can also discard the stem.

Cut your apples in half

Core your apples with a melon baller. It might not be entirely even, but that’s okay because you’re going to cover it up with topping.

Coring apples with a melon baller

Mix all of your dry ingredients together. Note that since this is a small batch, I didn’t measure out the cinnamon. I just sprinkled in a little bit (probably about 1/4 teaspoon).

Mixing the dry ingredients together

Once the dry ingredients are incorporated, add the vegan butter and incorporate with your bare hands. It should become a crumbly mixture, yet still a little moist.

Mixing in the vegan butter

If you want to add in nuts or raisins, now would be a good time to add those. Just mix them in with a spoon or with your hands.

Place the apple halves in a deep dish and spoon the topping onto each apple. The topping should cover as much of the top of the sliced apple as possible.

Adding the topping to the apples

You can add the raisins and nuts on top of the topping, but when I did this it did dry out the raisins a little bit.

Add the water to the baking dish (don’t pour on top of the apples), cover with foil and put in the oven for about 30 minutes. The apples may not be entirely done at this point, so remove the foil and bake for another 10 or 15 minutes. Check with a knife to see how soft the apples are. If you need to continue baking them, allow them to bake for 10 or 15 minute intervals.

Once done, allow them to cool for a few minutes and then serve. You can serve with a vegan ice cream, vegan whipped topping or just by themselves.

Yum - the taste of apple crisp without too much effort!

I do admit that the apples didn’t seem to bake long enough. I think that next time I might try increasing the oven temperature to 375 degrees Fahrenheit or I might try to bake for a little longer. Still these turned out really nicely, and I liked the addition of walnuts and raisins.

Do you ever make baked apples or apple crisp?

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?

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

The van’s doors were open, and several bags of contraband were heaped in the back, all taped up in clear plastic bags. A few of them had already been transferred to a waiting wheelbarrow. Tarquin was looking around furtively as another bear wearing faded Levi’s and a BEARZONE T-shirt cut open a packet of the contraband and carefully drew out a spoonful. He sniffed it suspiciously, mixed it with milk and heated it over a lighter before adding some brown sugar and salt, then sipping the result.
“This is good,” he said at last in a deep voice, making a few lip-smacky noises. “How much you got?”

-The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde

Reading Jasper Fforde’s novels is like watching Monty Python or a Leslie Nielsen film (Naked Gun movies come to mind) – the comedy is cheesy and completely funny, but mostly the language and dialog are clearly representative of a writer who loves wordsmithing.

I am no expert wordsmith myself, but whenever I read one of his novels I know that I am in for a very entertaining and satisfying read. The Fourth Bear was no exception – and this one left me trying to figure out which food to focus on for the blog.

First there were the prize-winning cucumbers, then the highly-sought after porridge, and finally the diabolical Gingerbread Man. There was also the diesel – but yeah, not so much.

I was very tempted to make ginger cookies, but realizing I was low on a couple of ingredients I decided to make porridge, for which I was amply supplied. According to the Internet, porridge can be made out of a variety of grains including, but not limited to, rice, barley, oats, and quinoa. I decided on the traditional steel cut oats.

I’ll admit that I am not the biggest oatmeal fan, so I took it as a challenge to myself to figure out how to make oatmeal that would make me craving for more. What resulted was a very creamy oatmeal with the appropriate amount of sweetness.

Prohibition Porridge

• 1 tablespoon butter (I used Soy Garden, which is vegan)
• 1 cup steel cut oats
• 3 cups water
• 1 cup milk (I used Silk, also vegan)
• Nuts, raisins, brown sugar, and agave nectar to taste

Melt the vegan butter in a medium-sized or large pan on low heat, and stir the steel cut oats into the melted butter. Stir the oats for a couple of minutes, toasting them on the low heat (increase the heat a little if necessary).

Add the 3 cups of water and stir. Leave it on low heat for about 25 – 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Your oatmeal will still be a little watery at this point, so no fear, it’s not done yet. Stir in the non-dairy milk. Let it continue for another 15 – 20 minutes, but keep an eye on it so that it doesn’t burn the bottom of the pan. Sample it as you get closer to the end to make sure it has cooked enough and is the consistency that you want.

Take it off the heat, pour some into a bowl, and add brown sugar, agave, raisins, or nuts depending on what you prefer. I added a sprinkling of brown sugar, about 1 tablespoon agave nectar, a few raisins, and some pecan pieces.

I enjoyed my bowl of oatmeal quite well. I don’t know if it could ever earn “illegal substance” status, but I will likely make it again. Next time, though, I think I will add more raisins and stir them in so that they can plump up a little. I also think that this would be great made with almond milk.