Desserts « Low Fat Vegan Cooking

June 12, 2010

Soy Panna Cotta with Fresh Berries and Two Sauces

Filed under: Desserts, Gluten Free, Higher Calorie Density, Italian Cuisine — admin @ 1:01 am

Soy Milk Panna Cotta with Blackberries, Raspberries, Grapes, Apricot and Blackberry Sauces

Soy Panna Cotta with Fresh Berries and Two Sauces

I recently decided to learn more about presentation, and got two books by vegan chefs to work my way through. Here is my first attempt. It’s actually a pretty simple pudding made elegant with agar agar and two simple sauces, plus fresh fruit.

Panna Cotta comes from Italy originally, but from there it has become widely diverse. I have seen Panna Cotta with fruit from mangosteen to raspberries, plus chocolate and caramel sauces.

The beauty of this dessert lies in the agar agar making the pudding stiff. It looks elegant, but it is pretty low fat.

I recommend using a vanilla bean if you can afford it, for the more intense vanilla flavor, but also for the little black specks in the pudding and apricot sauce.

I used soy milk, as this was my first attempt, but i plan to try almond milk. Now that i see how easy it is, i think any vegan milk would do.

I actually got the fruit for this twice. Last week i got too busy to experiment, and i ate the fruit before it went bad, so i got it all again – luckily raspberries and blackberries are in season, and are not too dear. But it’s all for a good cause.

Last night i made the blackberry sauce and went to put it in the freezer to cool quickly for dinner. It slid off the shelf and the bowl shattered and the blackberry sauce went everywhere! After i cleaned it all up, i made the sauce again, but this time i just put it in the refrigerator in a jar until today.

Makes 4 servings

Preparation about 1 hour, divided

Panna Cotta keeps in the refrigerator for a couple of days

The pudding:

4 c. vegan milk

2/3 c. refined sugar

1 vanilla bean or 2 t. vanilla extract

4 t. powdered agar agar (not flakes)

Blackberry Sauce:

6 oz. fresh blackberries (about 1 c.)

2 T. refined sugar

Apricot Sauce:

¼ c. apricot jam (sugar free if possible)

1 c. white grape juice or sweet white wine

½ vanilla bean or 1 t. vanilla extract

The fruit:

1 c. fresh blackberries

1 c. fresh blueberries

1 c. fresh raspberries

½ c. seedless grapes

Make the pudding:

Have ready ramekins or small bowls that will give a nice shape to the finished pudding.

Measure the vegan milk and sugar into a heavy medium pan. Scrape the seeds out of the vanilla bean and stir in well. A whisk makes short work of this. Add the bean to further flavor the pudding and heat to a simmer over medium heat, stirring frequently.

Sprinkle the agar agar a teaspoon at a time and stir in well after each teaspoon. Stir until it boils, then boil and stir two minutes. The mixture will be thin.

Scoop out the vanilla bean, or strain it out, if it isn’t all in one piece.

Pour the pudding into the ramekins. You can measure ½ c. if you want to have them all the same. Cool at least 2 hours. The pudding should be quite firm.

Make the blackberry sauce:

After you get the pudding squared away, make the sauces, as they need to cool too.

Crush the blackberries and 2 T. sugar in a small saucepan with a fork. You have to press pretty hard to get the juice out. Make sure the sugar is all dissolved. Let this sit at least 10 minutes.

Then put the mixture on the stove and stir and simmer about 5 minutes, until there are several tablespoons of juice in the pan.

Make the Apricot Sauce:

Meanwhile, heat the apricot jam and grape juice/wine with ½ scraped vanilla bean, stirring constantly until it is smooth. Boil 1 minute. Remove from heat and take out or strain out the vanilla bean, and chill at least 2 hours.

Assembling or plating the Panna Cotta:

Put each ramekin of chilled pudding into a bowl of warm water that will heat the pudding but not flow over the top. Count slowly to 5. Dry off the ramekin and invert it over the center of the plate or bowl you will be using. Be sure the bowl is big enough for the presentation of fruit and sauce around the edges. If the pudding stubbornly won’t come out, run a sharp knife, or, ideally, a small icing offset metal spatula carefully around the edge. Invert again, and maybe tap it a little. Repeat if necessary.

Spoon the apricot sauce around the edges of the pudding, using about ¼ of the sauce.

Spoon the blackberry sauce along one side of the pudding, on top of the apricot sauce.

Arrange the berries and grapes on top of the pudding and sprinkle a few in the sauce if you want, but you want the sauce to show clearly.

Carry carefully to the table. Accept accolades.

Adapted from Great Chefs Cook Vegan by Linda Long

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May 29, 2010

Cherry or Berry Triffle

Filed under: Desserts, English Cuisine, Higher Calorie Density — admin @ 1:01 am

Cherry and Raspberry Triffle

Cherry or Berry Trifle

When i was a really little girl, my mom was going to college, and she left me with my Great Aunt and a little table set for a tea party with my stuffed animals. I remember the absolutely exquisite table she set that kept me busy and not missing her the whole time she was gone. In fact, i am not sure i really noticed she was gone.

We had grown-up teas all my life. There was a tea shop that my mom and i loved to go to when we lived near enough to see each other regularly. I began to make my own teas when i became vegan. I didn’t find it difficult. Most teas are easily made vegetarian, and most food with dairy in it easily translates into vegan with soy cream cheeze, vegan cheeze, vegan margarine, and soy whipped cream.

I had intended this tea for the first day of spring, but, well, things got away from me for a while with other more urgent projects.

It’s a little harder to make a low fat tea, and although the tea i am presenting here is not extraordinarily low fat, it’s lower in fat than i used to eat, and is quite tasty. And pretty.

I actually wasn’t overly fond of trifle as it is traditionally made with rich pudding and brandy laced cake. But trifle is so traditional for an English tea, i made a vegan one, and i loved it. Pudding, fruit, and cake go quite nicely together, and if you layer them in a tall glass, it can be quite elegant.

I had planned to just use cherries, but i ran out, and got some raspberries out of the freezer, and i thought the bright red raspberries contrasted well with the dark sweet cherries.

Instead of brandy, i used a little bit of Amaretto, which i find a lot less harsh. Another way to go would be to use a small amount, maybe ¼ t. of raspberry or orange extract, or a different liqueur.

It is best to make trifle well ahead of when you plan to serve it, both to get it to the right temperature, and to let the flavors blend. But i did not do this, and it was quite delicious.

Cherry or Berry Trifle

Makes 4 servings

Preparation about 1 hour

Can be made ahead about 1 day, but is not as pretty

Cake can be frozen, nothing else

Vanilla Cake

Vanilla-Almond Pudding

Liqueur or fruit extract

About 3 c. Fresh or Thawed Frozen Berries

Creamy Sauce

Recipes follow.

Make the cake first and cool. While the cake is baking, make the pudding and sauce.

To assemble:

Cut the cake or crumble into small pieces. I made cupcakes and cut one cupcake for each individual trifle into about ¼ inch squares.

Drain the berries well, if necessary.

Put about ¼ c. pudding in the bottom of a tall glass, or pretty bowl(s), either individual or one large bowl. For an individual serving, add about 6 T. berries, which you might like to first mix with a little sugar, say about 3 T. for 3 c. fruit.

Top with half the cut-up cupcake. Sprinkle with 1 – 3 t. liqueur. Some people spread the cake with jam before it’s cut. I don’t think this adds anything, but it is more authentic, and gives you another chance to contrast flavors, with say, an apricot jam with fresh strawberries.

Repeat. End with the creamy topping. Gauge how much to use for each layer depending on how big your glass or bowl is.

Top with one to three perfect berries or cherries.

Refrigerate until a half hour before serving.

Vanilla Cake

Makes about 12 servings

Preparation about 20 minutes

Can be made ahead

Freezes well

1 ½ c. whole wheat pastry flour

2 t. baking powder

1 ½ t. Ener-G Egg Replacer

¼ t. salt

¾ c. vegan sugar

¾ c. vegan milk

2 T. water

2 t. vanilla extract

1 t. almond extract

Preheat oven to 350°.

Mix dry ingredients. Add wet ingredients and mix just until mixed.

Pour into cupcake paper lined muffin tin, or lightly oiled 8 x 8 inch baking pan.

Bake 20-25 minutes for cupcakes, or 25-30 minutes for cake.

Cool. If you’re in a hurry, you can stick the cake you need in the freezer for about 45 minutes. You will have leftovers, which can be frozen.

I invented this cake recipe when i was first a vegan and did not have any vegan cookbooks. I later discovered Sarah Kramer, who in How It All Vegan, had a very similar recipe, but instead of 1 ½ c. sugar and ½ c. margarine, she had half those amounts. Well, that is just like me to want more fat and sugar. But i decided she was right, until i started baking low fat, and found the cake was fine without any fat, except what’s naturally in the flour and so on…

Vanilla-Almond Pudding

Makes 4 ½ c. servings

Preparation about 20 minutes

Can be made ahead

Keeps refrigerated about 2 days

¼ c. arrowroot or cornstarch, stirred into:

½ c. vegan milk (i prefer soymilk for this)

1 ½ c. more of the same kind of vegan milk

1/3 c. vegan sugar

1 t. vanilla extract

½ t. almond extract

Mix arrowroot (which gives a milder flavor and gentler thickness) with ½ c. vegan milk. Set aside.

In a medium saucepan, mix the 1 ½ c. vegan milk and sugar. Heat until bubbles form, but don’t let it boil.

Stir in the arrowroot/cornstarch and over medium heat, cook and stir until thickened.

Remove from heat and stir in the extracts.

Cool. If you’re in a hurry, you can put it in the freezer for about half an hour, but set a timer so it doesn’t freeze, which would ruin it. The water in soymilk freezes and separates from the creamy soy part. I don’t know about other vegan milks, but i would think they would be similar.

I’ve made this pudding for so many years, i don’t even look at my recipe card, but originally i adapted a recipe from Laurel’s Kitchen.

Creamy Sauce

Makes 4 servings

Preparation about 15 minutes

Can be kept refrigerated about 2 days

7 oz. silken tofu (fresh is better)

¼ c. powdered sugar

2 T. vegan milk

1 t. vanilla extract

½ t. almond extract

1 t. lemon juice (optional, gives more of a sour cream flavor)

4 t. cashew or almond butter (optional, makes the sauce richer, but with trifle you don’t really need that)

Put everything in a blender or food processor. My blender works better for this sauce. Mix until smooth.

Refrigerate until ready to use.

This is my own recipe, but the first creamy vegan sauce i made was from a recipe from Vegan Planet, and i am grateful to Robin Robertson for it.

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May 1, 2010

Cardamom Cashew Cake or Cupcakes

Filed under: Desserts, Higher Calorie Density, Middle Eastern Cuisine — admin @ 1:01 am

Cardamom Cashew Cupcake with Cardamom Cashew Icing

Cardamom Cashew Cake or Cupcakes

Cardamom Cashew Cake has been about my favorite cake since my first bite. All the flavors in the cake blend together into an indescribable taste sensation! I wrote on my recipe card: “Absurdly good!” I found a recipe for cardamom cupcakes in the wonderful Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, which is a great cookbook just for the pictures, let alone the recipes, which usually just need to have the oil replaced with some pureed fruit. I never made these with margarine or oil, as i was already cooking low fat when i found the recipe. I certainly don’t think anyone would miss the oil.

You could make the cake with 2/3 c. applesauce, or most other pureed fruits, (which don’t have to be cooked), and leave out the cashew butter. In the icing, in place of the cashew butter, you might want to add a little orange juice, but put the rest of the ingredients in first, and add it by the Tablespoon at a time. I haven’t actually done that with this cake and icing, but i have done it with similar cakes and icings. The icing would be runnier, and would need to dry before you move or cut the cake.

It’s a funny thing about cardamom. My daughter and i both love it, but i know not everyone does. Maybe there’s something hereditary in who likes it?

Makes 1 – 8 x 8 square cake or 12 cupcakes of about 3 T. batter each, so about 12 servings, if you only want a small treat and taste, otherwise 6 servings or less

Preparation about 40 minutes, plus 20 for the icing

Can be made ahead

I haven’t frozen them, but i think it would be fine

1 c. plus 2 T. whole wheat pastry flour

¾ t. baking powder

½ t. baking soda

½ t. salt

1 t. ground cardamom

¼ t. ground cinnamon

1 t. finely grated lemon peel (a microplane works best for this)

2/3 c. vegan sugar (raw sugar works well, giving the cake a richer taste)

1/3 c. cashew butter

1/3 c. applesauce

¼ c. orange juice

½ c. plus 2 T. vegan milk

Make the applesauce, or other pureed fruit, if necessary.

Preheat the oven to 350°. Prepare pan by oiling lightly or fill muffin tins with cupcake liners. I usually make cupcakes so i don’t have to use the oil.

Mix the dry ingredients.

Mix the sugar and cashew butter. Add the dry ingredients and mix well. Add the applesauce, orange juice, and vegan milk, and mix until just blended. (If you are not using cashew butter, add the sugar to the dry ingredients.)

Spoon into cupcake liners or pour into a prepared cake pan. If you want the cupcakes to be uniform, measure 3 T. into each of 12 liners (i used a 1/4^th cup measure and scooped out about 1 T before i scraped the contents into the liner). Measure or estimate any leftover batter and fill each liner with the same amount. Or, just guesstimate, and maybe have a couple of smaller cupcakes or less total cupcakes.

Bake about 25 minutes for the cupcakes, and 35-40 minutes for the cake. The edges should be light brown and a toothpick inserted in the center of any cake should come out clean. The smell will be heavenly.

Cool.

Ice with:

Cardamom Icing

2 c. sifted powdered sugar

½ t. ground cardamom

1/3 c. cashew butter

1 t. vanilla extract

2 T. maple syrup

Add each ingredient and stir well before adding the nest ingredient.

An interesting garnish might be a whole cardamom pod. You can find them at Indian markets. Some people eat them (my husband). Lemon or orange peel might also look nice.

Adapted from Cashew Butter Cardamom Cupcakes in Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World by Isa Moskowitz and Terry Romero

Nutritional information – not guaranteed to be accurate:

Per serving (1/12 th of the whole recipe) – 258 calories/4.3 g protein (6.6%)/6.9 g fat (24.1%)

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April 3, 2010

Green Tea Cupcakes

Filed under: Desserts, Higher Calorie Density — admin @ 1:01 am

Green Tea Cupcakes with Marzipan Fox and Dog and Green Tea

Green Tea Cupcakes with Green Tea Icing and Marzipan Cut-Outs

Marzipan is really easy to work with, and it makes a great decoration for cakes. If you can find it, India Tree makes a natural food coloring without any nasty ingredients. I found mine at Whole Foods, although it is rather expensive.

I like the cupcakes without the cashew butter, although it gives a more familiar cake texture and taste to those of you who still remember higher fat cakes. The icing is also good without the cashew butter, although it doesn’t firm up the same, so you might not want to make it this way for company. But you might want to go without the cashew butter, since there’s also nuts in the marzipan. Of course you could leave off the marzipan, but i find the resulting cake not nearly so wonderful.

Makes 12 cupcakes or 12 – 2” x 2.6” squares

Preparation about 90 minutes

Can be made ahead

Freezes well

3 t. green tea leaves

1 ¾ c. vegan milk and ¼ c. cashew butter or:

2 c. vegan milk

¼ t. vanilla extract

½ t. almond extract

1 ¼ c. whole wheat flour

1 t. baking powder

¼ t. baking soda

¼ t. salt

¾ c. vegan sugar

Icing and Marzipan recipes follow

Put the vegan milk and green tea in a small pan and bring to just under a boil. Reduce heat to low, and, stirring frequently, cook for about 10 minutes. Cool slightly.

Mix sugar with cashew butter in a large mixing bowl, if you are using cashew butter. Set aside.

Strain the tea leaves and measure the tea-steeped milk. Press down on the tea leaves in the strainer to get as much of the green tea milk out as possible. If you are using cashew butter, measure 1 ¼ c. of the milk, otherwise measure 1 ½ c. of the strained green tea milk. Set the rest of the milk aside for the icing. If you find that the milk has cooked down too much, pour in more vegan milk to make up the difference, plus about 2 T. more, and mix it all together, then measure out what you need for the cake, so that the green tea milk you use for the icing has the green tea flavor in it.

Add the vanilla and almond extracts to the tea milk. Add this to the sugar or sugar and cashew butter and mix well. An electric mixer makes this quick and easy.

Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, and optional salt into the bowl of the wet ingredients, and mix.

Fill a muffin tin(s) with 12 cupcakes liners. Fill each cupcake with about ¼ c. batter, or about 2/3rds full. Or:

Lightly oil an 8 x 8 inch baking pan and pour in the batter. Smooth the batter to the edges of the pan as necessary.

Bake the cupcakes about 20 minutes or the cake about 25-30 minutes, when a toothpick inserted into the middle of a cake comes out clean. Cool.

Green Tea Icing

1 ½ c. powdered sugar

2 T. cashew butter (optional)

¼ t. vanilla extract

½ t. almond extract

Food coloring

1 – 2 T. green tea milk

Mix the powdered sugar and cashew butter, if using. Add the two extracts and green food coloring, if desired and mix. Add a little green tea milk at a time until the icing is spreadable. Discard any remaining green tea milk. Don’t ice the cupcakes until they are cool and the marzipan decorations are done.

Marzipan Decorations

About 1/3 of a tube of marzipan, which i have found at both Whole Foods and Safeway.

Food coloring

Choose some small cookie cutters to use. Or you could cut the rolled marzipan free hand with a sharp knife. Decide what colors you want to make.

Mix the food coloring with the marzipan. I mix the whole tube and give the leftovers to my husband. Or, it freezes well, and would last a year, if you wanted to make these cupcakes an annual event, as i plan to. Sometimes you find an old tube of marzipan that needs an electric mixer or some warm elbow grease and a little vegan milk to make it soft. Hopefully, your marzipan will be pliable. The food coloring i use won’t stain your hands, so i just knead it in. If you use a food coloring that stains, it probably would work best to still use your hands, but wear latex gloves.

At this point, ice the cake(s).

Roll the first colored marzipan out about 1/8^th inch thick. I find i have to pat the marzipan flatter after i’ve rolled it, and then give a final smoothing with my hand. Slip a metal spatula under the rolled out marzipan, and loosen it from the board. This really helps you get the decorations up without being squashed.

Cut out the shapes you want. Using the metal spatula, carefully lift up each cut-out. This may take a few trials to perfect. Put each decoration on a cake. The icing will harden around the marzipan and hold it in place.

What i do with leftover marzipan when all the cakes are decorated is to roll each color out into a snake, and then press all the colors together and carefully roll the big colorful snake a little smooth. Cut into small pieces and give away. Or save it to decorate another cake someday, if you can let that stuff alone in your freezer.

Adapted from Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero’s Green Tea Cupcakes

The innovation of infusing vegan milk with a fresh flavoring came from The Conscious Kitchen’s Thai Basil Cupcakes.

Nutritional information – not guaranteed to be accurate:

Per Serving – with cashew butter in cake and icing: 249 calories/4.2 g protein (6.7%)/5.5 g fat (19.8%)

Per Serving – without cashew butter in cake and icing, but with marzipan: 231 calories/2.2 g protein (3.8%)/2.9 g fat (11.2%)

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March 13, 2010

Vegan Carrot Cake

Filed under: Desserts, Higher Calorie Density — admin @ 1:01 am

Carrot Cake with Walnut Icing

Carrot Cake with Walnut Icing

Every vegetarian cookbook seems to have a recipe for Carrot Cake, but this is one dessert that i don’t love every permutation of. I love raisins in carrot and raisin salad, and in pumpkin cookies, but for some reason, i hate them in Carrot Cake. Then there are the walnuts. They go so well with the carrots and the super sweet icing, but of course you don’t need nearly as many as most recipes have. So you may have your own favorite recipe already, but in case you don’t, here is mine.

Carrot Cake

Makes 12 cupcakes or 12 – 2 inch squares

Preparation about 60 minutes

Can be made ahead

Freezes well

1 ½ c. whole wheat pastry flour

¾ c. raw, demerara, or turbinado sugar

2 t. baking powder

1 ½ t. Ener-G egg replacer

1 t. ground cinnamon

½ t. ground allspice

½ t. ground ginger

1/8 t. ground cloves

¼ t. salt (optional)

1 c. vegan milk or carrot juice

2 t. vanilla extract

¼ c. chopped walnuts (optional)

1 c. carrot, grated, about 2 carrots

Preheat oven to 350°.

Prepare a muffin tin with 12 cupcake liners or lightly grease an 8 x 8 inch baking pan.

Mix dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Add the vegan milk or carrot juice and vanilla and mix until the batter is uniformly wet. Mix in the walnuts and grated carrots.

Fill the cupcake liners or baking pan and smooth the top with a rubber spatula.

Bake 20-25 minutes for the cupcakes or 25-30 minutes for the cake.

Cool.

Walnut Icing

2 c. powdered sugar

¼ c. walnut or other nut butter, but not peanut butter

1 ½ t. vanilla extract

1 T. vegan milk

Orange food coloring (optional)

Garnish:

12 nice looking walnut halves (optional)

Ice the cake(s), preferably with an offset spatula. Or you could use a pastry bag and decorator’s tips to swirl the icing on top. Top with the optional walnut before the icing sets.

Adapted from Country Carrot Cake by the delicious Sarah Kramer in How It All Vegan and from Carrot Cake Cupcakes by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero in Vegan Cupcakes Take over the World, which is worth owning just for the pictures.

Nutritional information – not guaranteed to be accurate:

Per serving – 242 calories/3.5 g protein (5,7%)/5.3 g fat (19.7%)

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February 27, 2010

Chocolate Vanilla and Raspberry Parfait

Filed under: Desserts, Gluten Free, Higher Calorie Density — admin @ 1:01 am

Chocolate and Vanilla Tofu Pudding with Fresh Raspberries

Chocolate Vanilla and Raspberry Parfait

In years past, my Valentine’s Day dessert was coconut cookies from a recipe my Great Aunt found long ago in a Parade Sunday newspaper supplement. Since coconut is high in fat and saturated fat, i thought i would try a cherry cookie instead. But Valentine’s Day while i was thinking about how i was going to do that, and thawing some frozen cherries, my husband and i decided we had better get the new flooring down on the floor while we had a few sunny days for the furniture to be outside. So i postponed my Valentine’s feast, and a few days later when i had a little time, i made a quick but pretty dessert to have as my Valentine’s Day treat. I ate it and watched Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown, and went back to work on the floors. I will make those cherry cookies someday – i have all the ingredients, all i need is time.

Meanwhile, here’s the parfait.

I call it chocolate tofu pudding to differentiate it from a pudding made with vegan milk. Some of the people you feed might not like the name, so you can just call it chocolate pudding. Make the Vanilla Pudding first, so you don’t have to clean out the blender so well – the vanilla pudding will blend in with the chocolate and disappear, but the chocolate makes the vanilla pudding an unappetizing beige. I washed out the container and dried it, but i’m rather fastidious about such things. You don’t need to be.

I am always looking around for interesting ingredients, and i found some raspberry extract at Safeway. I didn’t know what i was going to do with it when i got it. I have tried it in tea and frozen banana ice cream too.

You want the chocolate flavor to really shine, so use the best cocoa you can afford. Right now my favorite is Rapunzel Organic Cocoa Powder which is non-alkaline and unsweetened, and Fair Trade. Did you know that chocolate is sometimes picked by very down-trodden people without fair treatment or wages? Fair Trade chocolate is usually more expensive but assures you that the laborers who produce it are treated fairly. I haven’t been able to find Fair Trade chocolate chips yet, but i have used dark chocolate bars in place of them.

Chocolate Vanilla Raspberry Parfait

Makes 2 large servings

Preparation about 20 minutes

Can be made ahead, in fact best cold

Chocolate Tofu Pudding (see recipe below)

Vanilla Tofu Pudding (see recipe below)

1 – 2 c. fresh or frozen raspberries

Powdered sugar (optional)

Parfait or tall glasses or several smaller glasses

You can sweeten the raspberries with about 2 T. powdered sugar. You can mix the powdered sugar more gently into the berries so they don’t smoosh as much. Save a couple of nice looking raspberries for the top of the parfait.

Vanilla Tofu Pudding

14 ounces or 1 package silken tofu (fresh is best)

¼ c. powdered sugar

1 ½ t. vanilla and/or raspberry extract

A blender works better than a food processor to make the tofu really smooth. Just blenderize the ingredients together, put the pudding in a bowl, and clean out the blender.

Chocolate Tofu Pudding

1/3 c. good quality unsweetened cocoa

½ c. sugar

14 ounces or 1 package silken tofu (fresh is better)

2 t. vanilla and/or raspberry extract

Heat the cocoa, sugar, and water in a small pan, stirring constantly and watching carefully. In about two minutes, the sugar will dissolve and the mixture will bubble. Turn off the heat, and if you have time, cool slightly. You might want to do this step before you make the vanilla pudding to give it more of a chance to cool.

Mix the cocoa mixture with the tofu and extract(s) in a blender and blenderize about 1 minute, until well mixed and smooth. You may have to scrape down the sides a time or two.

Layer your parfait. Carefully spoon in a couple of tablespoons of chocolate pudding into your parfait or other tall glasses. You can also use small glasses for a lot of tiny parfaits. An iced tea spoon works best. Have a thin cloth or paper towel ready to clean any pudding off the sides of the glasses. I slopped my first spoonful, but then i figured out how to reach the spoon down into the glass without touching the sides.

Next put a couple of tablespoons of vanilla pudding. Work slowly so the pudding layers nicely. It tastes just as good if you flub it, though.

Top with a few raspberries.

Repeat the process once or twice, depending on the size of your glasses. Try to end with at least a little of the vanilla pudding and top with your nicest raspberries.

Chill until ready to serve.

I looked all over to find where i first learned about using tofu for pudding in a very rich pie. It was years before i found Mary McDougall’s recipe for a chocolate tofu pudding, in which she melts chocolate chips. But good ideas are born spontaneously in many minds. I am grateful to whoever introduced me to tofu pudding. It is a very quick and easy way to make pudding, and more luxuriously thick than vegan milk pudding.

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February 20, 2010

Vegan Chocolate Cherry Cordial

Filed under: Desserts, Gluten Free, Higher Calorie Density, Holidays — admin @ 1:01 am

Vegan Chocolate Cherry Cordial

Vegan Chocolate Cherry Cordial

When i was shopping for the meals i intended to make for Valentine’s Day, the stores were filled with red and white displays with every kind of disastrous goodie and treat that could be thought of. I skirted around them and got my vegan low fat food and got out of there. On Valentine’s Day i realized that i had always had one of the many vegan chocolate bars, and i didn’t think it would be Valentine’s Day without some kind of chocolate, so i set out to make a relatively low fat chocolate using some of the frozen cherries i had gotten for another dish, cherry almond cookies, which as of this writing i still haven’t concocted. (When i say relatively low in fat, i just mean they don’t have margarine or oil in them. Chocolate is high in fat all by itself, and these cordials are 41% fat.)

My daughter and son-in-law make wonderful chocolates, being very careful of tempering and so on, and using high-quality chocolate, but this was not to be so time consuming or careful. I melted some chocolate chips and made a thick icing with cherry juice and stuck a cherry in the middle of a more or less ball of the icing. Then i poured the chocolate over them. They were tasty and satisfied my sudden chocolate desire.

You can buy vegan chocolates. They are very pretty and very expensive. These cherry cordials feature fresh cherries and you can only make a couple so you don’t eat too many, unless you think that any chocolates are too many. They last at least a couple of days in the refrigerator.

If you use fresh cherries, you could put about 6 in a small pan over low heat, maybe with a teaspoon or two of sugar, to get the juice, or squeeze or press them. If the cherries are frozen, there should be plenty of juice after they thaw. You can hurry the thawing along by putting them on the stove for a minute, and stirring them, but you don’t want them to actually cook.

The “cor” part of the word cordial means heart, so cherry cordials are hearts of cherry.

Chocolate Cherry Cordials

Makes 6 cordials

Preparation about 20 minutes

Refrigerate if you don’t eat them right away

Probably freezes well

1 c. vegan chocolate chips or a bar of plain vegan chocolate

6 cherries and juice

½ c. powdered sugar

½ t. vanilla extract

Optional: 1 T. almond or other nut butter

Prepare the icing first. Sift the powdered sugar into a small bowl. Mix in the almond or other nut butter, if you are using it. Add 1 t. cherry juice and vanilla. Stir well and add more juice is needed. The icing should be very thick though. Add more powdered sugar if it is too thin. Set aside.

Melt chocolate in a small pan, stirring constantly, about 3 minutes. Ideally, you should heat them over boiling water in a double boiler. But if you want them fast and watch the chocolate, it should be okay.

When the chocolate is melted, pour 6 small discs on a plate or other smooth surface. Working quickly, form two half circles of icing with your fingers. You will find that the icing doesn’t stick to the cherries. Press a half circle of icing on either side of a cherry as best you can and lay the result on one of the chocolate discs, which will be cooling and so not too soft. It doesn’t matter if the cherry is completely covered by the icing.

Repeat with the other six cherries. Pour a little chocolate on top of each cherry and smooth the edges as necessary to cover the cherry and icing. You probably want to be conservative with the chocolate so that each cherry is more or less covered, and then go back and finish the cordials with the remaining chocolate.

Wait a few minutes for the chocolate to harden. You can stick the whole thing in the freezer if you’re in a hurry. Scrape the finished cordial off the plate with a steel spatula and eat or store in a covered container in the refrigerator.

By the way, there is about 20 mg. of caffeine in each cordial, which is about as much caffeine as a cup of green tea.

Nutritional information – not guaranteed to be accurate:

Per serving without the nut butter – 232 calories/2.6 g protein (4.5%)/10.6 g fat (41.1%)

Per serving with the nut butter – 248 calories/3.3 g protein (5.3%)/12 g fat (43.5%)

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February 13, 2010

Almond Pudding and Lime Cookies

Filed under: Cookies, Desserts, Gluten Free, Higher Calorie Density — admin @ 1:01 am

Almond Pudding and Lime Cookie

Almond Pudding and Lime Cookies

I wanted a dessert that would go with Asian food, and I thought of the good almond cookies that i would sometimes get in Chinatown. I thought a simple almond pudding would work well. The creaminess balances the heat of the chilies in many Asian dishes.

The cookies were originally an adapted recipe for lemon cookies that i researched when i found Meyer lemons in the local health food store New Leaf last summer. If you’ve never had them, they are small lemons loaded with flavor. I got a dozen and then a dozen more and froze them for special dishes. We planted a Meyer lemon tree several years ago, but the deer ate it almost immediately. We are going to look for another one today, and bird netting.

I adapted my Meyer lemon cookies to lime cookies for a Thai dinner. They are a simple cooky, so the simple pudding pairs well with them. To zest citrus, a microplane zester is really indispensable. If you can’t find one, use a small grater and do the best you can.

I use lemon extract in my lemon cookies, but i wanted the lime cookies to taste like lime, so i left it out, but i just Googled lime extract and Amazon.com does carry it, so that’s going on my wish list! The lime taste shines through more in these lower fat cookies that it did with my original cookies made with margarine.

For baking with less or no fat, you can substitute almost any pureed fruit. I used mango, which i keep in the freezer, but papaya would also be in keeping with the Thai flavors, or a mild fruit like cantaloupe or apricots would probably work. In pureeing the fruit, you may find you need to process more than you need for the recipe to get it smooth… at least with my blender and food processor. Just freeze the rest. I also measure the pureed fruit and label it to save time when i need it for the next baking. I want to try pureed lemon, but i will have to adjust the sugar, but you might want to give that a try.

If you choose not to use the nut butter for the cookies, the result will be more cake like, and the cookies will brown less, but of course the result will be a lower fat treat.

Most of the flavor of the cookies is in the icing, so i suggest you do ice them.

Peanuts are the nut i see the most in Thai recipes. I plan to try the pudding and cookies with them next time i bake them, but i think the flavor will be too strong, especially with the delicate lime flavor. With the pudding then i would try vanilla extract.

Almond Pudding

4 c. almond milk
¼ c. arrowroot or cornstarch
2/3 c. vegan sugar (raw works well here)
1 T. Ener-G egg replacer
¼ c. almond butter (optional)
1 – 2 t. almond extract
4 t. sliced or chopped almonds for garnish

Measure the almond milk and pour all but about ½ c. into a medium pan with the sugar and heat for about 4 minutes until steaming but not boiling.

Meanwhile mix the arrowroot and egg replacer with the remaining milk. Stir well.

Stir in the almond butter when the milk is hot. The heat helps dissolve the almond butter so it is well distributed.

Add the arrowroot mixture and stir until the mixture thickens. Turn off the heat and add the almond extract and stir well. Pour into small bowls and top with sliced almonds. As it cools, the pudding will form a thick top, so be sure to put the garnish on while the pudding is hot so it sticks to the pudding.

Lime Cookies

Makes about 12 – 24 cookies, depending on the size you make
Preparation about 30 minutes
Can be made ahead
Can be frozen

5 or 6 limes
½ c. either pureed fruit or ¼ c. pureed fruit and ¼ c. nut butter such as cashew, macadamia, or almond
6 T. vegan sugar (raw is fine)
1 – 2 t. lime extract (optional)
1 T. lime juice
1 ½ T. lime zest
1 c. plus 2 T. whole wheat flour
¼ t. salt (optional)
¼ t. baking powder

Icing:
1 ½ c. powdered sugar
1 T. lime zest
1 t. lime extract (optional)
2 T. lime juice

Zest the limes until you have 2 T. Push the zest down a bit in the Tablespoon, but don’t tightly pack it. Juice the limes after you have the zest you need. Set aside.

Whisk the egg replacer with the lime juice until frothy.

Mix the sugar with the pureed fruit and nut butter. Add the vanilla and whisked egg replacer and lime juice. Add 1 ½ T lime zest.
Mix the flour, salt and baking powder together and add that mix to the sugar and fruit mixture. Mix until blended, but don’t over mix.

Gather into a ball and refrigerate at least 1 hour, or freeze about ½ hour.

Preheat the oven to 375°.

Now you have some options. I collect cooky cutters, so i usually use a variety of them. Small cooky cutters make a bite sized cooky that you can pop in your mouth between bites of pudding. This time i used some small molds made for chocolate. If you use the nut butter, you shouldn’t need to oil them, though i had to help the finished cooky out of the mold by going around it with a toothpick. I tried taking the dough out of the mold before i baked it, but the design didn’t show up as well. It is covered in icing, so it isn’t really distinct anyway. You can also just roll the dough into balls and flatten it with a flat surface like the bottom of a glass. Roll out the dough about 1/3 inch thick if you’re going to use cooky cutters. Make the balls 1 ¼ inch round if you’re going to use that method. Press the dough into molds if you choose that option.

Bake about 10 minutes for the flattened balls, or a little less for the rolled or molded cookies, depending on the size of the cookies. The edges should be slightly browned.

Cool at least 15 minutes.

Mix the powdered sugar with 1 T. lime zest and then add 1 T. lime juice and 1 t. lime extract, and stir well. Add a little more lime juice if necessary to make the icing easy to spread. Spread or drizzle the icing over the cooled cookies and set aside until it solidifies, about half an hour. Then you can put the cookies on your serving plate. If you are going to put the cookies directly on the pudding, wait until the last minute so they don’t get soggy.

Lemon Cookies:
Replace the lime zest, lime juice, and lime extract with lemon. Add ½ t. vanilla to the cooky dough.

Adapted from Lemon Sugar Cookies by the Chocolate Gourmand.

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February 6, 2010

Vegan Cream Puffs

Filed under: Desserts, Feasts, Higher Calorie Density — admin @ 1:01 am

Vegan Cream Puffs with Tofu Salad and with Vanilla Pudding with Chocolate Sauce

Recipe to follow…

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January 30, 2010

Lemon-Lime Pie

Filed under: Desserts, Gluten Free, Higher Calorie Density — admin @ 1:01 am

Lemon Lime Pie with Oatmeal Sorghum Crust

More to come… hopefully in the next few days, but it will be coming eventually…

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