Vegan by Nature
inherent recipes from a passionate cookArchive for October, 2009
Daring Baker’s October French Macaroons!
The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.
To make the Vegan version of this, I used ener-g egg replacer instead of eggs, ground almonds instead of almond flour, and used my home made powdered sugar which uses fructose. I also reduced the recipe to yield a smaller batch.
Mine were Vanilla flavoured with a choco-currant filling.
For the filling:
cocoa powder
soya yoghurt
blackcurrant jam
fructose
(this bit was less measured I’m afraid)
Ingredients
Confectioners’ (Icing) sugar: 2 ¼ cups (225 g, 8 oz.)
Almond flour: 2 cups (190 g, 6.7 oz.)
Granulated sugar: 2 tablespoons (25 g , .88 oz.)
Egg whites: 5 (Have at room temperature)
Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 200°F (93°C). Combine the confectioners’ sugar and almond flour in a medium bowl. If grinding your own nuts, combine nuts and a cup of confectioners’ sugar in the bowl of a food processor and grind until nuts are very fine and powdery.
2. Beat the egg whites in the clean dry bowl of a stand mixer until they hold soft peaks. Slowly add the granulated sugar and beat until the mixture holds stiff peaks.
3. Sift a third of the almond flour mixture into the meringue and fold gently to combine. If you are planning on adding zest or other flavorings to the batter, now is the time. Sift in the remaining almond flour in two batches. Be gentle! Don’t overfold, but fully incorporate your ingredients.
4. Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a plain half-inch tip (Ateco #806). You can also use a Ziploc bag with a corner cut off. It’s easiest to fill your bag if you stand it up in a tall glass and fold the top down before spooning in the batter.
5. Pipe one-inch-sized (2.5 cm) mounds of batter onto baking sheets lined with nonstick liners (or parchment paper).
6. Bake the macaroon for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and raise the temperature to 375°F (190°C). Once the oven is up to temperature, put the pans back in the oven and bake for an additional 7 to 8 minutes, or lightly colored.
7. Cool on a rack before filling.
Yield: 10 dozen.
Caramel Experimentation
I have been meaning to try this caramel recipe for some time and eventually got round to playing with it. The results were pretty good!
The macaroon is made from potato, icing sugar and coconut topped with chocolate and coconut.
Dried apricots produce a lovely sticky consistency when soaked and blended in a processor.
Add in 1/4 cup of margarine, I like to use the vegan kind and a touch of barley malt syrup is also a nice addition.
Continue processing and as the mixture is spinning, slowly pour in some milk of your choice, I like soya, just enough to make it smooth.
Suit yourself on that one.
Once made it is lovely spread on anything: biscuits; toast, baked apples… me I made caramel shortcake.
Furthermore, if you have time heat the caramel in a pan over a low heat, continually stirring to prevent burning. This will make it sweeter and stickier. Plus sweet things warmed up on rainy mornings like today are always welcomed.
Un-cheese cake! Blackcurrant and cherry.
This is a big achievement for me and I finally feel like I have perfected the recipe without the use of fake cream cheese. Hooray!
Here goes:
1 avocado
1 packet of silken tofu approx 300g (I used homemade from 2litres of soy milk)
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp barley malt syrup (could sub with maple or rice syrup here but if using maple increase arrowroot quantity)
juice of 1 lime
fresh vanilla or 2 tsp good vanilla extract
4 tbsps fructose (it is 3 times sweeter than ordinary sugar so adjust accordingly)
2 tbsps arrowroot
For the base:
I made a random graham cracker recipe with a basic biscuit recipe subbing some gram flour and wholemeal spelt for the ordinary flour. This one’s good http://www.animalsnotingredients.co.uk/2008/10/02/shortbread-biscuits/
1/3 cup melted dairy free margarine
1/3 cup fructose
1 tbsp barley malt syrup
1. Once baked and cooled whizz the biscuits in a processor until it resembles sand.
2. Slowly pour in 1/3 melted dairy free marg followed by the fructose and then stop the processor. Add in the syrup, then back on until combined.
3. Press into a springform cake tin and refridgerate while making the filling.
4. Whizz all the ingredients together in a processor until thick creamy consistency. Pour on top of the base and cover with topping of your choice. I like blackcurrants and cherries myself.
5. Refridgerate overnight minimum, but if you can wait longer it’s soo worth it.
Vegan by Nature 