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APPLE QUINCE PAH, KITTEN

Ok, I'm gonna be brief. This specimen is actually my contribution to Thanksgiving dinner! It's been languishing on the old comp and I've been too busy to get in there and talk about it. In fact, I'm still too busy. So, like I said, brevity:



Homemade vegan butter crust.



A couple of peeled, sliced green apples (local, organic, and I got lazy and didn't peel all of them. I like a little peel anyway. Fiber!)



Quince paste. Quince paste? Yeah, you get it in the cheese section, of all places. Normally it's unholy expensive, but Harlem Citarella has smiled upon me once again, and a 10-ounce container cost but a fiver. Anyway, half of this container goes on the bottom of your crust in a big, luscious schmear.



The other half of your quince paste gets cooked down with water and a little sugar until it's melty and liquidy. This gets tossed with your apples 'til they're coated in goodness.



Dot that shit with Earth Balance, lots.



Drape on your top crust, seal everything by crimping with a fork, stab some holes in there. Bake or some shit.



Nom 'til you can't no more.

This was a big hit, most of all with me. I made the crust pretty thick, since this is one of my fave parts of a good pah. I love apples, am not a big cinnamon lady, and hate nutmeg, so it was really nice to taste apple pie with a different flav angle. My other favorite part of a good pie? Eating it cold for breakfast, the day after Tofurkey Day. This was done, with awesome results.



Also, it's a kitten on a cabinet thingy! Being cute and dainty! How'd she get up there?

GARLIC-Y ROSEMARY FAUX-CACCIA

There's nothing really faux about this here 'caccia, except for the awesome, faint cheese-y taste (cheesy bread!!), but everybody knows I can't stay away from a stupid pun. This recipe is adapted from the "blitz bread" recipe found on one my fave baking resources, the King Arthur Flour Bakers' Banter blog. I know it's a blogvertorial(?) designed to make me want to purchase crap from them, but I already like and want to purchase their crap! And, I am a baker, who loves banter! So we are really a match made in heaven. Anyway, it's a good place to go to geek out about sourdough starters, baguette pans, exotic flours and the like. So, I was craving an herb-y, umami-y treat, and this is what I hatched from my noggin:

Garlic-y Rosemary Parm Focaccia

1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon shallot salt
1 teaspoon vegan parm
1 1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon rosemary powder (I got mine here)
1 tablespoon yeast (instant, rapid-rise, whatevs, I've used many kinds in this recipe, and all have worked fine)
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 cups warm water

Optional but awesome topping:

2-3 tablespoons olive oil
1 clove fresh garlic, finely grated and left to infuse in the olive oil while the dough rises (see below)
a big pinch of rosemary powder

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Here's the best thing about this recipe (well, if you have a standing mixer, that is):

Dump all the above ingredients, minus the awesome topping fixins, into your standing maker, fitted with the, uh, batter-mixing attachment.

Mix on high for about sixty seconds. The dough should be elastic and sticky.

!!! How easy is that? Easy is right up my alley these days.

Cover in plastic wrap, set in a warm place (like on top of your pre-heating oven) and let rise for an hour.

Press dough into a pre-greased 9 x 13 inch pan. Poke a bunch of pokes in it with your finger, so it's got lots of dips in it to absorb the oil and spices.

Drizzle on the olive oil/awesome toppng, and/or any spices you want up in there.

Bake for about 35 minutes, or until the focach is golden brown.

I'm not gonna lie; this came out pretty rad. One of our homies blogged about Maldon sea salt a while back, inspiring me to invest in this fancy-pants condiment, and it definitely shone in this recipe.

The BF and I eated an unseemly quantity in one sitting.

APPLE FRITTERS N COOKIES

I don't have too much to say about these apple fritters, except that they were whipped up by me, on a whim, when the bf requested them one morning for breakfast. As per usual, I hit the Google with the standard "vegan + recipe I want" formula, and apparently struck gold. I stumbled upon this recipe, doubled it, and veganized it, using two different egg substitutes commonly used in vegan baking - flax seed meal mixed with water, and soy yogurt - and the results were delicious deep-fried goodness.



The original recipe calls for a sugar glaze, which sounds like it could only lead to further awesomeness, but it was early and I was feeling lazy, so a plain old dusting of confectioner's sugar did the trick lusciously. So lusciously, in fact, that when my awesome friends over at the Hit Factorie informed the gang that there was to be a cooking-themed Hit Book!, a Hit Cook! if you will, I knew these bad boys had to be in there. Plus, since it's my most favoritest cookie of all time, and another best case scenario for veganizing a classic recipe, I threw my Peanut Butter PMS Cookies in the mix for good measure. Behold! The final Hit Cook! lineup:



An extra-special thanks must be given to the bf, who is an extremely skilled deep-fryer, and was therefore charged with realizing the apple fritter dream.

I LIKE BIG BREADS

And I cannot lie!

I wasn't as on top of documenting the many stages of the bread-making process as I normally would be, but please accept my most solemn pinky-swear that these whole wheat rosemary loaves rose perfectly the first time around. On the second rise, I apparently ran into some trouble, trouble of the flattening-out-and-fusing-into-an-ass-of-bread variety.

Well, maybe I'm putting the cart before the My Little Pony here. Yeasted bread dough pretty much always needs about an hour to rise, usually doubling in size during that time, and then depending on the shape/type of bread yer bakin', a second rise is often required (seasoned bread bakers out there, correct me if I'm wrong). Such was the case with this recipe, which I got while trolling the 'Net for cooking tips for the, you know, poor. It's not that the economy hitting the shitter has any direct affect on me, as I have no assets (hur hur hur), but I anticipate tough times ahead and generally just want to make everything from scratch anyway, so, yeah, that's what I did.

The recipe, which comes from the informative thirty dollar a week blog, is supposed to yield two, uh, good-sized round loaves. You make your dough, which I of course did in the standing mixture with the dough hook attachment. Once the dough has been sufficiently kneaded (It should be smooth and elastic, and you should able to touch it with it sticking to your hands too much), you pat it into a ball, place it in an oiled bowl, kinda roll it all around 'til its coated in the oil, and then cover it and let it rise in a warm place for, in this case, at least an hour, 'til it doubles in size. So, you'll just have to take my bloggin' word for it, but this part went off without a hitch for me.

Once this part has happens, you uncover your dough and punch it down. This part is pretty gratifying. It's all sticky and light and full of air, yet it completely collapses with a fart-like sigh of defeat under the lightest of girl-punches, such as mine. It's like what I picture beating up the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man would be like. Next, you break up your dough into two chunks, shape them into balls, and set them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment for the second rise. Signs of this dough's bread-ass destiny should have been painfully apparent at this point:



But it wasn't.

In fact, I decided to just stroll right out of the NOM NOM NOM lair, leaving my rising dough unattended. I had an hour to burn, I figured, so why not run some errands and just watch the clock? Well, for whatever reason, when I got back home, two sad, flattened disks awaited me. They had not yet met in buttcrack-like unison, but I had a pretty good idea that there was a bread rump in my future at that point, since, amazingly, these bastards had not tried to eat it.

Anyway, long story short, this was a delicious but unfortunate looking fuck-up. I truly have no idea what I did, but I reckon I'll stick closer to home and maybe watch the clock a little better next time there's yeasted bread to be made. Oh, and I couldn't let things lie without a photo shoot featured lewd and potty-humored bread ass pix. You'll be spared the "CultWife Gets a Prosthetic Ass" series, but check out this wicked case of the caper shits!!!



Oh! So wrong dude!

MAPLE OATMEAL SAMMICH BREAD

Whoooooo doggie! I'm a little rusty on this blogging about deliciousness hustle, so please bear with me. I have a backlog of things that I've been baking/roasting/cooking/pickling/deep-frying that I want to discuss with ya'll, but this loaf of bread has captured my heart, taught me how to love, shared its traveling pants with me, etc., and so I must begin with it. Maple Oatmeal Sammy Bread, bitches. It is so good! Celine of Have Cake, Will Travel adapted an epicurious recipe and made it back in like February, and it looked so awesome that I filed it away for eventual baking and consumption. What is my problem! I can't believe it took me so long to get my act together and make this. It's soft, whole-wheat-y, slightly sweet and maple-scented. When toasted and buttered for breakfast, it inspires Homer Simpson drool-y noises.



Maple Oatmeal Sandwich Bread
(recipe from Have Cake, Will Travel, my comments in italics)

makes 1 loaf

1 cup + 2 T warm pure water [about 105F]

2 T ground flax + 3 T warm water, whisked vigorously until viscous

This takes the place of the egg called for in the original recipe, and adds some sweet Omega-3 goodness to your loaf. Don't be a dillhole and use an egg! Try it like this first.

2 T vegan margerine

1/4 cup pure maple syrup

1/2 t maple extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups white whole wheat flour

1 cup old-fashioned oats

4 t vital wheat gluten

My friends, vital wheat gluten is the main ingredient in seitan, and is also used in all manner of processed foodz as a binder or stabilizer. It's basically just wheat flour where the starch has been magically dissolved out of the equation, leaving only the gummy, sticky gluten part of the deal. While I have decidedly mixed feelings about seitan, in baking it can definitely help provide a dense, rich texture without the use of eggs. Anyway, long story short, this could possibly be an optional ingredient. I don't know, try it sans VWG and let me know how it goes!

1 t sea salt

2 t instant rise yeast

Place all ingredients in the bowl of your stand mixer attached with the dough hook, in the order written above.

[If you don't have a stand mixer, just do it all by hand, it'll work fine too.]

Beat at low speed until the dough is smooth. If it is too sticky, add more flour a little at a time. Beat for about 8 minutes.

Remove from bowl, shape into a ball. Place in a large bowl greased with a little vegetable oil, move dough around until it is covered with oil.

Cover tightly with plastic wrap and towel. Place in a warm, non drafty area and let rise for 90 minutes.

I just set it on my stove, with everything turned off, and the warmth from the pilot light totally does the trick.

Prepare a 9×5x3-inch loaf pan with non-stick cooking spray and flour.
“Butter” up a plastic wrap in advance to use for covering up the dough’s second rise.

Punch dough down once it is ready, knead for a couple of minutes on a lightly floured surface, if need be. shape into a log, place into greased pan. cover loosely with “buttered” up plastic wrap, let rise in a warm, draft-free area for another 45 minutes until the center of the dough reaches about 1 1/2 inches higher than the pan.

How cool is this?

Before:

After:

I like how the plastic wrap is straining against the massive pressure of twice-risen yeasted bread, like, "eeeehhhnn..."

Preheat oven to 350F. Once the dough is ready, remove plastic wrap and let bake for 30 minutes, or until a thermometer gives a read of 180F when inserted in the center of the bread.

You'll totes be able to see/smell when it's ready.

Remove from pan and let cool completely.

So, not content to be standard, buttered-toast-nomming chubs, the BF and I drizzled a tiny bit of maple syrup on the bread for double maple-y goodness. If you like delicious things, I highly recommend this!

C U NEXT TUESDAY

As you might have guessed, I've been taking the summer off. However, one member of my household has not taken the summer off from being a human-food-stealing bastard, so my other blog is still happening at a steady clip. I'll be back soon with hare-brained baking ideas and food porn a'plenty. See you in September!