Gingerbread Houses and 15th Birthdays

Once again, in keeping with our yearly tradition, we celebrated my middle "Sprout"s birthday with a delightfully messy, sugar-filled annual Gingerbread House-making Birthday party.


















Teen girls and lots of sugar. It gets crazier every year.

But every year the girls are older, they can do more of the prep work themselves, clean up more of their own mess, and their creations get prettier and more lavish.

Everyone loves it. I have Moms calling in September asking if we're making houses again this year.

I always have the house "parts" baked and cooled ahead of time, and after many years of doing this, we have it down to a science.

This year, however, I used the gingerbread recipe from Vegan Dad's blog, as I haven't really liked the texture of the other vegan gingerbread recipes I've used.

I'm not much of a recipe follower, which is why you'll rarely see links to other recipes here; there's millions of better recipes than mine, I just stubbornly prefer to muddle through until I've concocted my own creation (or disaster!).

However, with my daughter's time-honored Gingerbread party I didn't want to experiment. And happily, (as you'll see) the gingerbread turned out great.
(Here are some good cut-out-and-assembly instructions, we use slightly smaller measurements since we're making 6 houses...That equals a LOT of dough!

We DO use commercial Royal Icing however, just to "cement" the house parts together. Yes it has egg-whites. But any and all attempts I have made at decent vegan royal icing have ended up in collapsed houses that look somewhat like a Hurricane Katrina re-creation... Not the effect you're going for at a Holiday party!

However, once the houses are assembled and "set", we mix up some fairly decent vegan frosting for the final (and fun, messy, sticky, icky, sugar-coated) step of decorating...

And no, I am sure some of the candy isn't vegan. Bring on the vegan Police.

Here is my approximate icing recipe (and <-- here is what happens when big sisters get bored with Gingerbread houses); play with it according to the humidity in your kitchen and how much liquid your powdered sugar absorbs.

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"Almost" Royal Icing

7 Tablespoons water

4 Tablespoon Ener-G egg replacer (don't use another brand)

7 cups of powdered sugar (you can make non-bone-char powdered sugar with beet sugar and cornstarch in a coffee grinder, Whole Foods sells vegan powdered sugar too)

1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

Mix dr ingredients together. Add to water. I don't usually add all the powdered sugar/cream of tarter, just keep mixing it in until the right consistency. It still takes longer to set up than royal icing

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And just in case you're thinking this is a worthless post with nothing but frosting, here are the amazing vegan chocolate-chip muffins that big sister Jessika made for everyone for breakfast. (She made the birthday cake too! )

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Pretty generous of her since she had to put up with a housefull of "younger" girls all night!

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Chocolate-Chip-Banana Muffins

3 very ripe bananas
1/4 cup coconut oil
1 cup sugar
2 cups sifted whole wheat pastry flour (or white, or whatever)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup chocolate chips, chopped to make them a bit smaller, and tossed with a bit of cornstarch so they don't "sink" in the batter

Pre-heat oven to 360 degrees.
In a large bowl, mash the bananas with a fork till mushy.

Add the oil and sugar and mix together until creamy.
In a separate bowl combine the dry stuff.

Combine with the banana mixture, stirring gently just to combine.
Grease (WELL!) or line a muffin pan, and fill each muffin about 2/3 full with batter. Bake for about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into a muffin comes out clean.

Here's hoping your Holidays are sweet and memorable.

St. Patrick's Day Bake Sale Cupcakes

Vegan Bake Sale Insanity

Naturally the girls' school just HAS to have a bake sale on St. Patrick's Day (I wonder why we can't salute the patron saint of Ireland with something more appropriate like snake cookies or something) and as is typical, I don't find out about it until 7:PM the night before, which leaves us scrambling to make some thing "eye-catching and appealing to grade-schoolers"...ugh...

Don't laugh!

I really wasn't looking forward to a vegan baking challange at 7 in the evening, but what to do...

Could we do this and maintain the vegan-ness of our kitchen? We wondered (well, OK, I wondered...) if it wouldn't just be easier to go buy some boxed mixes but after taking stock of what cake recipes I actually had, and what ingredients were in the cupboards, we came up with some pretty-good, but disgusting green, sugar-overloaded little bake-sale worthy goodies...

I'm really proud of all the effort my middle Sprout put into helping bake these...

Instead of cupcakes (how traditional!) we made mini-Bundt cakes (about the size of cupcakes) in a White Cake (with some confetti sprinkles added for an obnoxious colorful touch) drizzled with green icing, AND some Chocolate Decadance mini-cakes with chocolate glaze and (of all things!!) green sugar sprinkles!! ALL of it vegan. (OK, well, I can't vouch for the sprinkles 100% because though I usually buy animal-free ones now, we used whatever we had in the house last night!).

This is not one of my shining moments as a Vegan (or healthy) cook, but my kids were absolutely thrilled with the results - as were all the sugar-grubbing little gradeschoolers who bought out the Bake-Sale's mini-cakes within 15 minutes!! And no one complained that they were "VEE-GUN"!

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The first recipe is a simple and basic white cake mix that I veganized without really realizing it, some time back... we added some multi-colored candy sprinkles to the batter. (Looks like that "Funfetti Cake" crap you can buy in a mix, only ours was better). It uses Egg Replacer, which you can find at Whole Foods and most health food stores, however, I have made it without the egg replacer and it came out fine - a bit more moist and dense, but still good.

White CupCakes

1 1/3 cups sugar
1/2 cup non-hydrogenated vegan margarine
3 cups unbleached flour
1 T. baking powder
3/4 t. salt
1 Tb. EnerGee Egg Replacer powder
2 cups soy milk, rice milk, or other non-dairy milk of choice
1 T. vanilla
1 t. almond extract
1/4 cup confetti cake decorating sprinkles
Lightly oil a 9x13-inch pan and set aside. (Or in this case, we used Mini-Bundt pans.

Using an electric mixer or in a large bowl with a hand held mixer, place the sugar and mqargerine, and cream together until light and fluffy. In another bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, Energee Egg replacer and salt.
Add dry ingredients into the creamed mixture, alternating with the soy milk, and continuing to beat the mixture well between each addition. Add the vanilla and almond extract and beat the mixture an additional 2 minutes at medium speed. Gently stir in the confettis.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan, cupcake pans or mini-Bundt pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 iminutes (Less for the cupcakes or Mini-bundts...) or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.
Glaze or frost as desired.
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The second recipe (for the chocolate cupcakes) is much healthier and probably a little more labor-intensive, but my 12-year-old managed to make these just fine with no help from me...

We chose to use it because we happened to have the ingredients available. (I was SO not in the mood to go to the grocer at 7:PM!!). Ironically, I got this recipe from a "Healthy Cooking" class that I attended years ago. I've since modified the recipe quite a bit to suit my preferences.

This makes a really dense, rich, moist chocolate cake/cupcake. Just the way chocolate should be...

I included a chocolate icing recipe here, though for this particular event, we used store bought frosting that we had on hand. (Read your labels, but most store-bought frostings are "accidently" vegan, though they will be loaded with all sorts of gacky hydrogenated oils and such).

Almost-Healthy Chocolate Cupcakes

1 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder (or you can use carob powder if you're in to that sort of thing, which I am not!)

1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup chocolate soymilk
3/4 cup sugar (the recipe calls for honey, or pure maple syrup)
1/2 cup hot, well-cooked long-grain brown or white rice
1/4 cup canola oil
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Oil two 8" round cake pans or 12 cupcake tins; set aside.

Whisk together dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl; set aside.
Combine wet ingredients in a blender container, and blend until very smooth.
Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients, and stir to combine. Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake 20 to 25 minutes for cakes, 15 to 20 minutes for cupcakes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cake or cupcake emerges clean. Cool slightly before turning onto a wire rack.

Glaze with Chocolate Glaze.

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Glaze/Icing
1 cup sugar
6 T corn starch
4 T cocoa
1/2 t salt
2 T oil
1 cup water
1/2 t vanilla
Mix sugar, cornstarch, salt, and cocoa in a medium sauce pan. Whisk in the water. Heat over medium until it gets thick and starts to boil. Boil for 1-2 minutes (make sure you don't boil too long, or it will set like toffee). Remove from heat and stir in oil and vanilla. Cool and spread on cooled cake. If you prefer a thinner glaze, add more water.

Shortbread Cookies

<-- My littlest Sprout takes cookies in to school tomorrow for a Valentine's party.

Instead of something more traditional (well, OK, I'm not exactly sure what would be considered "traditional" treats for Valentine's anyway - pink cupcakes? blechh...yeah...) she wanted to make shortbread cookies.


So naturally I hadn't tried "veganizing" my shortbread recipe yet, and didn't have time to experiment, but we tweaked it only slightly and it turned out GREAT. Here ya go...

VEGAN SHORTBREAD CUT-OUT COOKIES

-- 3/4 cup of margarine (the kind in cubes, like Earth Balance Buttery Sticks - NOT the softer tub-style)
-- 2 TB (or a bit less) coconut oil
-- 1/2 cup powdered sugar
-- 2 cups flour (sometimes I use whole wheat pastry flour)
-- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla (oh please use real vanilla!)

1. Preheat oven to 350F and lightly grease a baking sheet.
2. Cream margarine and sugar very, very well.
3. Add vanilla.
4. Add flour slowly.
5. When well incorporated and forming a dough, roll into a ball and refrigerate for at least 20 minutes, to overnight. (We couldn't wait much longer than 20 min!)
6. Flour surface and rolling pin, and roll out a 1/4 of the dough out a time to between 1/4 and 1/2 in. thick. (Thicker will be more dense and shortbread-like, thinner will be more crisp, we made ours pretty thick!) Cut out using cookie cutters of choice.
7. Bake until the edges begin to brown, 6-10 minutes. Keep an eye on it, depending on how thick you roll the dough.

BEST EVER, FOOLPROOF, VEGAN CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIIES!

Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie recipes are tough to find, even if you're using butter, eggs and whatever else. My 12-year-old adjusted this recipe from an old family favorite one day when she was home alone and wanted to surprise me with some vegan cookies. We didn't exactly have "enough" of several crucial ingredients so she substituted - played around with the recipe and the end result was the most wonderful cookies EVER!!

It is honestly AMAZING (hence the name). Now her recipe is famous among family, friends and her classmates, most of whom had never heard the word "vegan" before - at least now they associate the word with yummy cookie goodness.

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Amazing Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1/2 cup coconut oil
1/4 cup Smart Balance Light (or regular Earth Balance will work fine too, though for some reason SB Light works the best)
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 heaping Tbsp. flax meal
1 heaping Tbsp. Ener-G egg replacer powder
1/4 cup soy milk
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups vegan chocolate chips (Good quality vegan chocolate chips are absolutely essential here. Guittard Semi-Sweet is my favorite - available in regular grocery stores and VEGAN!)

1.) Preheat oven to 375 F.
2.) In a small bowl, mix soy milk VERY WELL (until creamy) with Ener-G egg replacer and flax meal using an electric mixer or hand (immersion) blender. Set aside.
3.) In another bowl, mix together flour, baking soda and salt. Set Aside.
4.) In a large bowl, cream together coconut oil, Smart Balance and sugars. Add soy/flax mixture and vanilla. Beat with electric mixer until smooth.
5.) Gradually add flour mixture to liquids. Stir in chocolate chips.
6.) Drop by well rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 8 - 10 min. until lightly golden. (Can also be made into bar cookies in 9 X 12 pan)

You can add nuts, raisins, coconut, whatever... but we like them just as they are!

Vegan Christmas Baking: GINGERBREAD!

VEGAN GINGERBREAD!

My daughter celebrates her birthday at the end of November every year with a "Gingerbread-House Making Party" for several of her (not so little anymore) friends. It's always a HUGE hit and the girls spend hours making beautifully (?) decorated little houses.

I realize some of the candies you'll see pictured are NOT vegan but the gingerbread is, and actually VERY tasty. Besides making the sheets of gingerbread for the houses, I always make plenty extra, just to be baked into cookies that we eat...

GINGERBREAD COOKIES

1/3 cup canola oil
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup plain soymilk
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour or all-purpose flour (or a mix of both)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
spice blend:
1/2 teaspoon each ground nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger

Directions:
In a large bowl beat together oil and sugar for about 3 minutes. Add molasses and soymilk. The molasses and soymilk won't really blend with the oil but that's ok.

In a seperate bowl, sift together all the other ingredients.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet in batches. MIx together with a firm spoon or spatula until well combined. You should have a pretty stiff dough. Flatten the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for an hour or up to 3 days in advance. (If you chill longer than an hour you may want to let it sit for 10 minutes to loosen up a bit before proceeding).

Preheat oven to 350 F. Lightly grease your cookie sheets.

On a floured surface roll you dough out to a little less than 1/4 inch thick. You can do this in 2 batches if you don't have the space. Cut out your shapes with your cookie cutters and gently place on cookie sheets (if you are using them to decorate with remember to cut a hole with a straw or something before baking).

Bake for 8 minutes.Remove from oven and let them cool for 2 minutes on the baking sheet then move to a cooling rack. Wait until they are completely cool before icing.

If baking "walls" for a gingerbread house, make cookies 1/2 inch thick and bake at 300 F until very firm - about 15 minutes or longer. Then let cook on a rack overnight.

Christmas baking! YAY! ~~ "Cranberry-Orange Bread"

Just finished making this in it's new vegan version, and it turned out scrummy! We used to make this all the time and I'm glad I figured out how to vegan-ize it easily. I wish you could smell it, it's made the whole house smell like Christmas! I think I'll make some small loaves to give out for the Holidays.

Cranberry-Orange Bread

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup vegan sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 Tblsp vegetable oil
hot water
1/2 cup unsweetened (fresh squeezed) orange juice
(I use juice from those tiny tangerines you get around the holidays)
1/2 Tblsp orange peel, grated
Ener-G Egg Replacer for 1 egg
1 cup cranberries, coarsely chopped (fresh or frozen)
1/2 cup hazlenuts, chopped

Directions: Preheat oven at 375 F.
Grease and flour loaf pan.
In a large bowl, mix dry ingredients (flour, vegan sugar, salt, baking powder and baking soda).
In a small bowl, add nuts, cranberries and 1/2 cup of dry mixture to coat the nuts and berries.
In a measuring cup, add oil and top-up with hot water to make 3/4 cup. In a medium bowl, mix oil/water mixture, orange juice, orange peel and Ener-G Egg Replacer. Combine liquid mixture to dry mixture (don't overmix!).
Fold in nuts and berries. Bake for 1 hour.