German Chocolate Rolls

Two years ago on the 25th of October, I began this blog. I had really only one reason for this. I had a recipe I was burning to share with the world.

Thing was, I hadn’t perfected it yet. I just couldn’t afford to keep buying pecans and cocoanut milk to test it with! Finally I splurged on the ingredients needed, and here it is: German Chocolate Rolls. I am honoured to present these to you at this Virtual Vegan Potluck!

Proof in measuring cup:
1.5 T yeast
1/4 c warm water

Cream together in bowl until smooth:
3/4 c sugar
1/2 c cocoa powder
1/3 c vegan margarine
1 tsp salt
3 flax eggs (9T hot water+3T ground flax)
1 c cocoanut milk (the canned stuff, NOT the beverage! Either lite or full fat will work, but I recommend full fat)
1 tsp vanilla

Add yeast mixture and stir together well.

Add, 1 cup at a time:
5-6 c white flour

Knead 5 minutes.

Let rise in bowl 35 minutes, punch down and let rise 30 more minutes.

Form into rolls just like a cinnamon roll: roll the dough into a rectangle and then spread the filling on the rectangle.

Fill with:
liberal spreading of vegan margarine
3 T brown sugar
1/2 c pecans (or walnuts if you’re broke)
2/3 c cocoanut (a blend of fine shred and large shred is fun)
1/4 c chocolate chips (optional)
Enough agave / dilute molasses to make it stick together
1 tsp vanilla
pinch salt

Roll up the rectangle, pinch it closed, and slice it into 12 rolls. Place in a lightly oiled or sprayed 13×9 pan.

Bake at 350 20-30 minutes.

Right before the rolls come out of the oven, make the glaze:
1c powdered sugar
2.5 T cocoanut milk (or as needed to make a very thick glaze – the heat of the rolls will melt it!)

Drizzle the glaze (or glop it on) over the hot rolls. And then eat them. Yum.

***

To sample another fantastic vegan dessert, keep going down the potluck line to In Vegetables We Trust!

To go back for more of what you already had, step back to Fitting Into Vegan!

Vegan Month of Food, Day 16: Nutty Cheezy Bacun Quiche

First of all, my friends, It’s not a kwish. It’s a KEESH.

Second of all, I’ve never made a quiche, vegan or non-vegan. (At least not that I recall.) But I have eaten them, and this is what I’ve come up with today. You’ll use the tempeh bacon, the eggy tohu, and the cheezy sauce from yesterday’s post.

Heat your oven to 350 and prepare your crust.

In a food processor, process until crumbly:
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
2/3 c walnuts
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 c oats

Add:
1/4 c water

Spray an 8.5″ springform pan, bottom and sides, and press in the crust mixture evenly on the bottom. Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes. Remove from oven and set aside while preparing quiche filling. Leave the oven on!

In the food processor, process until smooth:
24 oz eggy tohu
3/4 c plain soy milk
1/2 c garbanzo flour
1/4 c nooch
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black salt

In a pan, sautee:
1/2 c chopped red onion
1 packed cup chopped greens (kale, spinach, whatever – and by packed, I mean overflowing)

Stir sauteed greens and onions into the “egg” mixture and spread in the pan.

Next, layer on the tempeh bacon crumbles and press them lightly into the top.

Lastly, drizzle on the cheezy sauce. Alternatively, you could wait until the end of baking and sprinkle on some Daiya for the last 10 minutes or so.

You’ll bake this 45-60 minutes. I did mine about 50 and it was still quite soft inside. Or maybe use a larger springform so that the quiche layer is not as thick? I’m not sure. At any rate, it did taste really good even if it was on the squooshy side. I also let it sit for 5 minutes or maybe a little longer after I took it out before I released the spring.

But, reheating slices after it had been in the fridge overnight worked really well. I just plopped a wedge in a non-stick saucepan and heated it over low heat on the stovetop until it was warmed through. It wasn’t squooshy any more and I think it tasted even better than fresh!

Vegan Month of Food, Day 2: Pumpkin-Apple Waffle Sandwich

I love waffles. Really, really love them. Having waffles was always a big event in my house growing up. I remember my mom pulling out her 12″ round Belgian waffle iron (it had no divisions, so you got the whole waffle to yourself). She would whip up the egg whites and everything else and we would eat the waffles as fast as they came off the iron, my mom usually not getting one herself until we’d all had ours. Sometimes we had sliced strawberries, but usually my choice was just a little drizzle of maple syrup on top. I usually ate two or three.

Waffles were one of the first things I learned how to make vegan, thanks to Ener-G egg replacer. I know I’ve already posted my vegan waffle recipe, but I’ve modified it a bit and here it is all gussied up ready to be munched down.

To make waffles, begin with flax egg:
3/4 c hot water+1/4 c ground flaxseed

Set aside to gel.

In one bowl, combine:
3 cups whole wheat flour
1 c white flour
1 T baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg

In another bowl, combine:
2 c non-dairy milk
1 1/2 c water
1 c pumpkin puree
2 T molasses

Add dry ingredients and flax egg to wet ingredients and stir vigourously until smooth.

Then fold in:
1 cup finely diced apple

This made me 3 waffles (or 12, if you count the individual squares in a big one). It took about 9 minutes to cook on my iron.

As to what to put in your sandwich, that’s entirely up to you. You could put on a layer of thinly sliced apples, drizzle some maple syrup or molasses, make a berry sauce…

Or you could do what I did. I had a quart of chunky applesauce my mother-in-law made, which I mixed with a little of my own regular applesauce and a dash of cinnamon and nutmeg and warmed in a saucepan. So I made a waffle-applesauce double-decker sandwichlike thing. And then I sprinkled walnuts on top. Yum.

Tomorrow: a crockpot dish.

Vegan Month of Food, Day 1: Breakfast Bars

Growing up, one of my favourite treats was something our friend Ruth often made: raspberry bars. You press in half the dough to make a crust on the bottom, spread jam over it, and then crumble the rest of the dough over the jam. It was sickeningly, deliciously sweet – so much so that I recall my mom only making them maybe twice. I still use that recipe, and sometime I plan to post it, but here I’ve made some adaptations to it to make it healthier and suitable for a breakfast item.

Crust/topping:
1 c pumpkin puree
1/2 c brown sugar
1 c whole wheat flour
1/2 c white flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 c oatmeal
1/4 c unsweetened cocoanut flakes
1/2 c chopped walnuts (reserve for topping)

Filling:
2 cups mashed fresh fruit (such as blackberries, peaches, raspberries, strawberries)
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Cream pumpkin and sugar. In a separate bowl, combine dry ingredients, then add to pumpkin mixture. Mix well.

Press roughly half of the crumb mixture into greased 13×9 pan, using a spoon or your hands. It will be somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1/4 or 1/2″ thick.

Spread fruit filling. It may appear runny, but that’s okay.

Sprinkle with remaining crumb mixture and walnuts. Bake at 400 for 20-25 minutes.

Cool. Cut into bars.

Yes, she’s 3 and a half and still sitting in a booster on the floor for meals.

Or don’t cool and cut into bars anyway, which is what we did. GooGoo ate two ample pieces. Mr Pine Nut said they were good. I wasn’t sure about them at first bite, but as I kept eating them, they grew on me. They have a nice earthy pumpkin undertone. I used blackberries and I think they lent themselves well to the pumpkin flavour. Betcha cranberries would be really yummy too! But you’d probably want to sugar them up and cook them a bit first to soften them into spreadable goo.

See you tomorrow with a sandwich recipe. Or should I call it a wafflewich?