Vegan Sweets: Cooking with or without?

I went to bed last night determined to cook up a storm today. I regularly have Wednesdays off from work now so I like to use these free days to test whatever recipes have been floating around in my head for the past few days. I had some guava puree that was just screaming to have something done with it, Stephanie Alexander featured some sweet rhubarb recipes in this week's Epicure and I've had a few limes lingering around the depths of my fruit bowl, so I went ahead and tried to base today's cooking around those items. Alas, it has been raining all day, so I've been confined to using items I had on hand: limes and guava puree. I already knew I'd be satisfying my sweet tooth today so I also whipped up Espinacas con Garbanzos (spiced spinach and chickpeas), a typical dish from southern Spain, to counteract the massive amounts of sugar about to enter my body. I somehow ended up baking two vegan pastries: Citrus Tea Cake and Guava-Cinnamon Scrolls. Both taste nearly as good as heaven would taste if it were built from sugar, I reckon.

the fermentation batter

Rolling out the dough

Spreading the guava

Making the "sausage"

Resting scrolls

The finished product

Guava and Cinnamon Scrolls -- makes 8 scrolls

fermentation batter --
6 g active dry yeast
125 ml water at 38º C (it should feel slightly warmer than your body)
50 g plain white flour or bakers flour
10 g sugar
**Dissolve the yeast in the water, then add the sugar until dissolved. Sieve the flour over the mixture, cover and allow to ferment for 25-30 minutes until frothy and collapsed.

the scroll dough--
100 g plain white flour or bakers flour
100 g plain wholemeal flour (substitute white flour if preferred)
2 g salt
30 g Nuttelex or other vegan margarine
20 g sugar
the filling--
40 g raw sugar
30 g Nuttelex or other vegan margarine, melted
ground cinnamon
160 g guava puree (optional)
**Combine all dry ingredients and sieve into a bowl. Rub the butter into the mixture until it resembles grains of sand. Make a well in the centre and pour the fermentation batter in it. Using a spatula, carefully fold the dry ingredients into the fermentation batter until thoroughly mixed. Turn dough onto a floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. Allow to rise in a warm, draught free place covered with plastic wrap or a moist tea towel for 40 minutes. Knock the dough back to its original size after 40 minutes, then allow to rise for an additional 20. Preheat oven to 210º C.
** Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and roll out into a rectangle until dough is 1cm in thickness. Brush melted butter on surface, sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon. Using a circular motion, use the back of a spoon to spread the guava paste over the entire surface. Roll the rectangle into a sausage from the shortest side and press the edge closed. Cut the roll into 5 cm slices with a serrated knife or a sharp knife and place onto a baking tray lined with non-stick baking paper leaving 1-2 cm between each slice. Set aside to rest for 15 minutes then back for 10-15 minutes until the surface in light golden brown. Allow to cool slightly before dusting with pure icing sugar.
**In place of pure icing sugar, mix 1/2 cup of pure icing sugar with 1 tbs of soy milk and drizzle over the scrolls. The scrolls are equally as tasty without the guava filling, just sprinkle slightly more sugar over the dough.

Sweet Temptations: Smacks & Sugar

Going clockwise starting at 12 o' clock: Coffee Scrolls x 4, Eclairs & Paris-Brests

My eating habits have turned to complete crap since I started my pastry making unit at the college. Today we made classic puff pastry (to be used next Monday for a few product of which I'm not sure of), coffee scrolls, and choux pastries -- eclairs, profiteroles (puffs) and Paris-Brests. The last three products are simply variations of each other as far as shape is concerned as they are all topped or filled with a custard filling. I particularly liked making the coffee scrolls because they were simply the best to eat! I had to redo my choux pastry dough after the lunch break because I removed them from the oven too soon and they collapsed. That put me way behind everyone else as I was the last one to finish. Nevertheless we got out an hour early.

And last but not least, did I happen to mention that I officially hate school? It's become like a sort of a chore. Its the absolute worst when something you once took great interest in suddenly becomes a chore, like sex in some relationships, for example. If it were up to me I'd be threatening to fail those brats left and right and when they failed to perform, I'd just fail them. I actually yelled at a few people today, but it didn't make me feel better. Clean up duties ate up a half hour of our lunch break because some people (ahem, theIndianbratsinclass) can't wash their own dishes and crockery after using them and follow one of the golden rules of cookery: clean as you go. Instead of things being a competition to see who can make things better, it's who can make things faster. And of course, everything looks like crap.

You can't force someone to love you and you can't force anyone to love cookery.

Banana-Orange Piñon Bread

I needed to entertain myself this morning by channeling my anger and frustration over work (or lack thereof) into something positive. So, I challenged to hijack a recipe and turn it into something I could make using ingredients I had on hand. Using the Cranberry-Orange bread recipe from What do I know?, I created a delicious Banana-Orange Piñon Bread finished with a very light drizzle of honey. The result: a perfectly sweet, moist bread where all three flavours are winners -- nutty undertones, a burst of citrus and the natural sweetness of the banana. At about 100 calories per slice and 100% wholemeal, one can't go wrong with this sweet bread.

Banana-Orange Piñon Bread (makes 10 tea time slices)
150 g plain wholemeal flour
65 g raw sugar
3 g baking powder
2 g baking soda
1 g salt
15 g pine nuts, roughly chopped by hand
3 g orange zest
60 ml of freshly squeezed orange juice
85 g banana, mashed
22 g Flora Light brand table spread, melted
1 tsp vanilla extract (imitation is OK)
40 ml soy milk
honey, for drizzling

1. Preheat your oven to 180º C. In a large bowl, combine all the dry ingredients. In a smaller bowl, add the orange zest and table spread and put in the microwave until melted. Stir the mixture and add the mashed banana, soy milk and vanilla until thoroughly blended.
2. Add the banana-orange mixture to the dry ingredients and stir with a flexible spatula so the bits of banana can be mashed into the mixture until smooth. The batter should be fairly thick.
3. Pour the batter in a greased loaf pan using the spatula to ensure that the batter is covering the entire bottom of the pan.
4. Bake in a preheated oven for 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the centre of the bread.
5. Allow to cool slightly on a cooling rack and then lightly drizzle with honey vertically, horizontally and diagonally.

Mango-Coconut Bread

1 1/4 cup of organic white self-rising flour
1 cup of Splenda brand sugar for baking
2 eggs
1 cup mango puree (I used Doles frozen mango chunks, defrosted them and mashed them)
2 tsp essence of coconut
1. Preheat oven to 350F
2. Blend wet ingredients until smooth.
3. Add flour and stir until completely blended.
4. Grease loaf pan with non-stick cooking spray and pour in batter.
5. Bake in middle rack for 50 minutes then place on cooling rack until cool.

The mango and cocount flavours melt together rather well. For being a horrible baker this came out tasty and practically guilt-free!