Orange Spice Cookies - Light, Vegan, & Gluten Free

VegFest was a couple weeks ago and I had the pleasure of helping Laurie Sadowski set up her demo and 200+ samples each for two gluten free baking demos. Today, I thought I'd look through her cookbook I picked up at Vegfest  "The Allergy Free Cook Bakes Cakes & Cookies".  I found a recipe for Orange Spice Cookies that looked nice and I had most of the ingredients.  As usual, I scanned the ingredients and decided what I was going to use for the ingredients I didn't have on hand.  It's Sunday and very cold. I went for a nice long walk today, but I'm not going to the grocery store. I'm sure I have what it takes to make these cookies with ingredients I already have in the kitchen. That's one of the purposes of this blog, to help myself and others get through some of these recipe hurdles.  I always suggest to my cooking students to use recipes as a template and change the components to suit their tastes or availability of ingredients.  Then I need to remember to write down what I did so I can to repeat the recipe again.  It's been very helpfull to have my recipes stored here.

This is Laurie's recipe as it's printed in her book, "Orange Spice Cookies".  It's a good recipe, free of most allergens, but I need to make some changes since I don't have the specific flours suggested and I want to avoid the oil.

1/4 cup unrefined cane sugar
1/2 cup coconut oil, softened
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
2 TB freshly squeezed orange juice (zest orange before squeezing)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups sorghum flour
1/4 cup quinoa flour
1/4 cup tapioca flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/4 teaspoons fine sea salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 TB finely grated orange zest

One of the first ingredients I noticed I would have to substitute was unrefined cane sugar. I have some coconut sugar, but no cane sugar available. Then I noticed 1/2 cup coconut oil, softened.  Although this is a pretty healthy recipe, as is, I still want to avoid processed oils as much as possible, that includes coconut oil.  I decided I had a nice ripe avocado, but didn't want to overpower the flavor so I replaced half the suggested amount coconut oil with ripe mashed avocado and used fresh applesauce to make up the rest of the coconut oil. I have quite a bit of Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Baking Mix in the kitchen, so I used that instead of sorghum flour and tapioca flour. Bob's Red Mill's blend is a combination of sorghum flour, tapioca flour, potato, garbanzo bean, and fava bean. I probably could have substituted all the flour with the BRM blend, but I thought I'd like to use the quinoa flour as suggested in Laurie's recipe. It should add a richer flavor as well as a bit of protein. Quinoa flour pretty easy to make a small amount. Just wipe out your coffee grinder and grind some whole quinoa.

This is what happened to the same recipe in my kitchen:

1/4 cup coconut sugar
1/4 cup mashed ripe avocado (not too ripe)
1/4 cup applesauce (just core and apple and throw in the blender)
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
2 TB freshly squeezed orange juice
seeds from one half vanilla bean
1 1/2 cups Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Baking Flour
1/4 cup quinoa flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/2 teaspoon pink Himalaya sea salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 tablespoon finely grated orange zest

Preheat the oven to 350º F.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking sheet.

Put the sugar, avocado, applesauce, maple syrup, orange juice, and vanilla in the bowl of a stand mixer.  Using the paddle attachment, or a large bowl and hand mixer, beat on medium=high speed until smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes.

Mix the flours, baking soda, xanthan gum, salt, and spices in a medium bowl. I like to sift my flours and spices together in a sifter or mesh strainer. Add the orange zest and mix together.

With mixer on low speed, gradually add dry ingredients to the wet until combined and a soft dough forms.

Scoop out a rounded tablespoon of dough and place on lined baking sheet, leaving 2 inches between cookies.

I topped half of my cookies with a few pecan pieces then baked for 10 - 12 minutes.

These cookies are delightful!  Light and full of flavor.  They are the perfect light snack that might also be good served with a little jam.
 

Vegan, Gluten, & Oil Free Pumpkin Spice Cake

It's about time I catch up on my blogging.  I've been so busy the last couple months and there are a few dishes I've made that I would like to be able to look up again and make.  September and October are busy, stressful months at work.  I am sure if you checked out a blog from this time last year, I probably mentioned the same thing.  My day job is pretty pleasant for the most part, but we do some pretty heavy number crunching in the fall preparing the plan for the next year.  I call it an accounting marathon.  I also had the great pleasure of heading up the kitchen at the VegFest in Portland, OR.  That took a bit of commitment too.  Things are settling back to the normal chaos, I'm coming up for air now, and have time to catch up on some great recipes.

I've been keeping my cooking classes not only plant based, but gluten free.  I am not gluten intolerant, that I know of, but I'm meeting more and more people who are.  I've been out with some friends who have celiacs disease and many times they can only have lettuce or raw carrots in a restaurant.  In all the presentations I attend and articles I read, it's a good idea for all of us to moderate our gluten intake.  It's not been difficult to make some great gluten free meals. 

This cake took some work because I also wanted to make it oil free. It took a few tries, but I managed to come up with a recipe that works every time.  My husband was a little disappointed I figured it out because it meant I wasn't going to make a cake every three days trying to get it right.  Here it is for you to try.  If you don't mind using wheat flour, just leave out the xanthum gum.

Here's one of my first attempts.  It was good, but still a little too moist in the middle for my tastes.

I went to so much trouble to make this cake healthy, I chose not to frost it at my cooking class.  I lightly sprinkled it with a mixture of organic powdered sugar and a dash each of cinnamon and nutmeg.  I thought it was a bit dry for some so I added just a little dollop of some pre-made rice whipping cream and garnished with a couple nice dried cranberries.

Vegan & Gluten Free Pumpkin Cake

               By Debbie Kay

Two eight inch layers or one 9”x 11” baking pan, or 24 mini cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 2 cups pumpkin puree
• 3/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce (1 large or two small apples with 2 TB filtered water puréed in high speed blender)
• 1 teaspoons cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon nutmeg
• ¼ teaspoon each cloves & ginger
• 1&1/2 cups organic Sucanat, coconut sugar, or brown sugar, packed
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3 egg replacements, (I like ENERG egg replacer for this cake, 1 TB egg replacer with 2 TB water = one egg replacer)
• 2 cups Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose flour
  Unbleached all purpose flour can be used, omit the Xanthum Gum
• 1 teaspoon Xantham Gum
• 2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions:

To make the cake:

1. Preheat the oven to 375º
2. Cream vegan margarine or applesauce with the sugar.
3. Mix the powdered egg replacement with water as directed on the package.
4. Add the liquid egg replacements to the creamed vegan margarine and brown sugar.
5. Mix the pumpkin puree and vanilla to the creamed margarine mixture.
6. Sift the flour in a large mixing bowl, add the baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger and mix well.
7. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and blend well.
8. Pour the batter into parchment lined baking pans.
9. Bake for 55 min. to 1 hour. Test with toothpick, toothpick should come out clean
10. Cool on a rack before removing from the pan for five minutes.

Sprinkle warm cake with mixture of organic powdered sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Or, frost with your favorite vegan frosting after completely cooling.

Here's a quick buttercream frosting if you prefer a frosted cake.  Add a tablespoon of lemon juice for a cream cheese taste.

Buttercream Frosting

1 cup softened Earth Balance or other vegan butter

1 cup palm oil shortening

3- 4 cups pound sifted organic powdered sugar

½ tsp Vanilla or seeds from ½ Vanilla bean

In the bowl of a standing mixer or food processor cream together the Earth Balance and the palm oil on medium to high speed until completely combined.  Turn the speed down to low and slowly add in the sifted powdered sugar one cup at a time, allowing it to blend thoroughly before adding more.  Add in the vanilla and continue to blend until the mixture looks creamy. 

 

Vegan Lemon Almond Cake

Happy Mother's Day to all the mom's out there.  I've got a tofu quiché in the oven with fresh picked organic spinach, asparagus, yellow and orange bell peppers, and green onions.  Looking forward to seeing how that comes out.  While it's baking I thought I'd share a quick lemon cake I made last weekend.

I began with a recipe from the Flexitarian Cookbook and veganized it.  That didn't take much to veganize.  I used Ener-G egg replacer and millet milk. Millet milk is something I recently learned to make, it's very creamy. I really like using the Ener-G egg replacer for baking.  It whips up like an egg does and gives a fluffy texture to the batter.

Lemon Almond Cake

1½ cups unbleached whole wheat white flour
1 cup sucanat, raw cane sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼  teaspoon salt
Egg replacer for two eggs, Ener-G or flaxseed meal and water
½ cup non dairy milk, I used home made millet milk
½ cup sunflower, or other light oil (Don't use olive oil for this cake)
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
4.5 tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice
¼ cup sucanat, or other sugar

Preheat oven to 300º Lightly grease a 4 x 8" loaf pan or 9" cake pan

In medium bowl sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

In a separate small bowl whisk together the egg replacer, milk, oil, almond extract, and lemon zest.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir until no lumps remain.  Don't mix it too much.

Spread batter into prepared pan and bake about 30 minutes, until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

While the cake is baking, combine the lemon juice and sugar in a small pot or skillet over medium heat.  Cook until the sugar dissolves.

When the cake comes out of the oven, use a skewer to poke holes through the cake to the bottom, about 20 holes. Let the cake cool about 20 minutes and pour the lemon glaze over the cake.  I sprinkled a little lavender on my cake.

Serve warm

Millet Milk

1 C cooked millet
1/3-2/3 Cup raw cashews or almonds, soaked two hours
2 quart water

Blend the millet, cashews, and 1 quart water in a high speed blender such as a Blendtec or Vita-Mix until creamy.  If your blender is large enough, add a pinch of salt, and the rest of the water.  If not, just pour into a two quart pitcher, add a pinch of salt and the other quart of water. Whisk together and chill.