Molasses Gingersnaps

If you love ginger, these are the cookies for you. After seeing these cookies on The Daily Dietribe and these cookies on Andrea's easy vegan cooking, I was in the mood to make some spicy, gluten free, vegan cookies with a molasses finish. Teff is a very versatile flour that I have used heavily in the past few months. It has molasses undertones, so although there isn't very much molasses in this recipe, it does come through.

Molasses Gingersnaps
yield: 1 dozen good sized cookies
3 oz White Rice Flour
5 oz Teff Flour
1 oz Arrowroot Powder
1/2 cup vegan Sugar
3/4 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1 Tb ground Chia Seeds
1 tsp powdered Ginger
1/2 tsp Allspice
2 oz finely minced Crystalized Ginger*
2.4 oz Sulfur Free Molasses
4.5 oz Sunflower Oil
2-4 Tb Turbinado Sugar

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Combine all of the dry ingredients thoroughly, then add the minced crystalized ginger and stir so it is distributed evenly. Add the molasses and sunflower oil. This is a dryish batter (it won't be a big cohesive chunk of dough; it will clump together in separate large clumps). You will need to handle and press the cookies together a bit. It shouldn't be hard to get the cookies to take a cookie shape on the cookie sheet. Press a little bit of turbinado sugar onto the top of the cookies and then bake for 12 minutes.

*A lot of crystalized ginger is treated with Citric Acid or sulfur dioxide to keep a light yellow color. The problem with this is that Citric Acid is made from corn and sulfur dioxide is a preservative otherwise known as "E220" and the precurser to sulfuric acid. I was able to find some crystalized ginger that was a darker brown that only contained ginger and evaporated cane juice in the bulk section of my health food grocery store.

To see what treated ginger looks like, click here.

To see what untreated ginger looks like, click here.

Lemon Bars & Seattle Bake Sale Tomorrow

I have been thinking a lot about food again! I think I burned out during Vegan Mofo, but I'm back in the kitchen trying to cook up a storm. Christmas time for me always meant pies, and lots of them, but I know plenty of people who associate that time of year with cookies and dysfunctional family gatherings. Not that it wasn't the case with my family at times - I'm just so food focused I'd cope by hiding in a corner stuffing my face with pie. Awesome mental picture, huh?

In the spirit of all thing sweet and rich, I decided to open up my repetoire a bit and start expanding my cookie collection. I was at the grocery store the other day picking up regular lemons for some citrus salad dressing when a beautiful, sunny yellow bag of meyer lemons caught my eye. The whole way home I was thinking of various lemony desserts that I could create, and some of those visions were a little on the ambitious side. I decided to go with a childhood favorite. Lemon bars were one of the few things my mom would cook better than anyone I knew (sorry Mom).

Lemon Bars
Shortbread
7 oz Palm Oil
5.2 oz Amaranth Flour
2.5 oz Potato Starch (can sub with Tapioca or Arrowroot)
2 oz White Rice Flour (can sub with Sorghum)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp Meyer Lemon zest

Filling
3 Meyer Lemons, juiced
Zest of 1 and 1/2 Meyer Lemons
8 soaked Dates
1/2 cup Date soak water
5 oz Agave
4 Tb Tapioca Flour
3 oz Coconut Oil (melted)
2 Tb ground Chia
pinch Salt

Topping
3 Tb powdered sugar*

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 7X11 rectangular baking pan with bleach free baking paper. Combine the shortbread ingredients with a pastry cutter. Freeze the dough for at least 5-10 minutes to make it easier to work with and then press into the pan. Bake for 25 minutes.

While you are baking the crust, combine the filling ingredients in a high speed blender and blend until combined. Take the crust out of the oven and pour the filling on top of the crust (the crust will not completely set by this time...I was a little worried it wouldn't at all when I first looked at it, but it works well). Bake for another 25 minutes.

These bars are better the next day, after they rest for an evening. I will even throw them in the fridge for a bit the next day. Sift a little powdered sugar over the top and cut into bars to enjoy.

* Allergy & Vegan Note: Most powdered sugar that is readily available contains corn starch. Some brands, however, will use tapioca starch instead. I use Wholesome Sweetners Sugar because it contains Tapioca Starch and I know they don't use bone char filters during processing so it's vegan.

Bake Sale!

Sidecar for Pigs Peace in the U-District of Seattle is having a bake sale tomorrow. I'm not bringing lemon bars, but there will be chocolate cupcakes, thumbprint cookies, and probably some kind of shortbread. The bake sale will go on from 10 AM to 8 PM and they are located on the southeast corner of University and 55th. Click here for driving directions.

Vegan Mofo Day 17: Thumbprint Cookies with Orange Caramel and Chocolate Drizzle

I've been thinking of shortbread with an orange caramel for a while, so I decided to try it out. I love these.

Orange Caramel Thumbprints with Chocolate Drizzle

Cookies:
1 batch Thumbprint Cookie Dough

Caramel:
6 dates, soaked at least 20 minutes
1/2 cup date soak water
pinch salt
1 vanilla bean scraped
zest of 1 small orange

Chocolate Drizzle:
1/2 a batch of the chocolate recipe found here (or less than 1/2 - you'll still have leftover for dipping strawberries or bananas)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Put the caramel ingredients into a high speed blender and blend until smooth and well combined.

Form the cookie dough into small thumbprint shapes. They will expand a bit, so make sure there is about 1 inch between them. Spoon enough caramel to fit in the indentation. Bake for about 10 minutes. They will come out soft, but will harden as you let them cool. I recommend baking them the day before you plan on serving them. I let them cool on the cookie sheet over night to reduce the chance of cracking or breaking on a cooling rack.

Once the cookies have cooled. Drizzle the chocolate over the top.


Enjoy! I know we did. In fact, I had way too many today :P

Maple Pecan Shortbread

Shortbread was always a favorite of mine. I think that was because it's a little salty and not as sweet as some of the cookies out there. Shortbread tends to disappear in my house quickly, and these were not an exception. Let them cool for a while as they tend to harden as the cool. Of course, a good quarter of the batch didn't get that luxury.

Maple Pecan Shortbread

1 cup pecan flour
1 1/4 cup sorghum flour
1 tsp salt
2/3 cup shortening
1/3 cup maple syrup

Put a little over one cup of pecans in a food processor with an S-blade to make the pecan flour. Don't overwork the pecans or you will end up with a nut butter. You just want them broken down enough to resemble a coarsely milled flour. Put the nut flour in a large bowl and add the sorghum flour and salt and combine the dry ingredients. Measure out about 2/3 cup of palm oil shortening (vegetable shortening is fine I suppose, but I avoid soy and corn at all costs) and mash the shortening into the flour with a fork or pastry cutter. Add in the maple syrup and mix until well combined.

I put baking paper in a 10X10 pan so it wasn't such a chore to get the shortbread out of the pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. I plan on using this recipe down the road as a cookie as I think they will hold up well in a cookie shape (reduce cooking time to 8 minutes for a drop cookie).

Fresh out of the oven:

Vegan note: It's best to research your maple sources as not all are vegan. Some will use bone-char as a filter or fat to keep the maple from boiling over the sides. I recently checked Shady Maple Farms and they claim they do not use bone char and the maple syrup is vegan. I encourage people to do their own research. If you aren't comfortable using maple syrup, try splitting the amount of maple syrup with date paste and turbinado sugar.