Neverending Winter Cookies

After a 23 month hiatus, Hungry in Halifax is back, dear readers! There will be an update and new project news coming soon, but in the meantime, my friend Jacqueline has shared this post for almond flour chocolate chip cookies--a recipe that can be made with little ones. I'll post an update when I make a batch myself.

Thanks, Jacqueline!

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Life in Halifax this winter has had its challenges. It has been long, cold, snowy and icy. Being home on maternity leave, with two little ones, in the dead of winter is not always as much fun as it sounds. Not to mention our family is missing some special friends that moved away last year, that we love to cook and dine with. What else is there to do than take to the kitchen? 

So I’ve been trying out some new baking recipes with my daughter Clara. Most days we are going for healthy, butter-free, sugar-free and white-flour-free sweets. 

Here's a recipe we have been enjoying that I am so glad to share on this blog. I think I originally found it on a paleo-diet site, but I can’t remember where exactly. This recipe is easy, chewy and delicious – especially still warm from the oven. If you don’t feel like chocolate, try substituting something else for the chocolate chips, like dried cranberries or blueberries. Enjoy!

Almond Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies

Takes 30 minutes

Makes 2 dozen cookies

2 cups almond meal

¼ tsp salt

½ tsp baking soda

¼ cup coconut oil, softened

3 Tbsp maple syrup

2 tsp vanilla

½ cup dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit.

Mix the dry ingredients together, add the wet, mix it all up, and fold in the chocolate chips. 

Roll them into flattened balls, and bake on a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet for 8–9 minutes, until lightly browned at the edges. 

 

So easy, healthy and delicious!

Jacqueline

Queen Elizabeth Cake

This might be the best vegan dessert I've ever made.

A few weeks ago, a friend mentioned a craving for something called Queen Elizabeth Cake. Her grandmother would make it at Christmas-time. I was intrigued, especially when I heard it was a date cake topped with a broiled coconut icing!

I did some research because of the name of the cake. There are many stories about the cake online. Some say it was a recipe made by Queen Elizabeth (there's debate about whether the younger or the elder), and the only cake she made herself!  Some stories say the recipe came together during the war. The cake contains a very little amount of butter or eggs, which would make sense if ingredients were rationed. Another part of the story is that the recipe was sold as a fundraiser.

I'm not sure what to make of all of these stories. It seems to be a very Canadian cake though as I can't find the recipe in British cook books. It's kind of like sticky toffee pudding in cake form.

When my friend made it, it was so good!  Really moist cake, dotted with dates, not too rich!  And the frosting was so good!  Creamy with lightly toasted coconut!  When I saw the recipe, I knew this cake would be perfect for vegan experimentation. It's a simple recipe, and the flavor comes from the ingredients, dates and coconut, not so much butter and eggs.

The vegan version is dense and moist, I upped the amount of dates from the original recipe, and substituted coconut oil for butter.

Enjoy!

Queen Elizabeth Cake

Adapted from Amy Murphy's recipe (Thanks, Nanny Murphy!)
Makes 1 cake

Takes 1.5 hours

For  Cake:

1 1/2 cups baking dates, coarsely chopped

1 cup boiling water

1 tablespoon ground flax seed

1/4 cup water

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup chopped, lightly toasted walnuts (or pecans or hazelnuts or almonds)

1/4 cup coconut oil

1/2 cup sugar

1 tablespoon white vinegar

For Icing:

5 tbsp brown sugar

3 tbsp Coconut oil

1/2 cup dried coconut (I used unsweetened)

3 tbsp coconut milk (perfect to make alongside a thai curry or kuku paka)

In a heatproof bowl, pour 1 cup boiling water over the dates. Cover and let soak for 1 hour.

Mix the ground flax seed with the 1/4 cup of water.  Mix together thoroughly and let sit for at least 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350F. 

Grease a square glass baking dish (make sure yours is broiler proof--mine wasn't, so I used a spring form pan, lined with parchment paper and foil.  I didn't do this on purpose, but I always end up ripping the lining, and thought a double layer to protect against the cake running out the bottom!)

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and 1/2 cup of nuts.

In another bowl, beat together coconut oil and sugar until well-combined and fluffy.  Add vinegar and the flax seed mixture and beat well. Add the dates and water and combine.

Pour the wet mixture into the dry and stir until it just comes together. Pour into the prepared baking dish and smooth the top.  Bake for 35 to 40 minutes until a tester comes out clean.

When the cake comes out of the oven, place an oven rack on the slot second to the top, and turn the broiler on high. Boil together in a sauce pan on medium high heat the brown sugar, coconut oil, dried coconut, coconut milk, and 1/4 cup of nuts. 

Boil for three minutes and quickly pour over the still warm cake before the mixture becomes hard. Broil for about 5 minutes, watching carefully to make sure the coconut doesn't burn.The frosting will bubble madly!

Take the cake out and let cool. You will have this pretty lacy topping for the cake.

 

Eat! It's even better the next day.

Christmas Cake: Day 2

I made two Christmas Cakes!  They are soaking up whiskey and waiting for Christmas and, hopefully, not growing any pathogens. I'll post an updated picture when it comes time to pour a little more bourbon on them this weekend.  Every Sunday between now and Christmas they get a little drink!

Christmas Cake
Adapted from Felicity Cloake's Recipe

Takes 1 hour + 2 hours baking + weeks of waiting
Makes 1 cake

1/2 cup + 1 Tablespoon butter, very soft or melted
1/2 cup + 1 Tablespoon muscovado or dark brown sugar
4 eggs
1/2 cup + 1 Tablespoon flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon mixed spice (a suggestion: 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon + 1/4 teaspoon clove + 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg; you can also use pumpkin pie spice if you have it)
1/4 cup ground almonds
zest of one lemon (an unwaxed one if possible)
1/4 cup blanched almonds
Boozy Fruits

Preheat oven to 280 degrees fahrenheit.

With two layers of parchment, line and butter an 8 inch cake tin, or what I like to use is a 1 1/2 quart Corning bakeware or similar casserole type dishes. Trim the excess parchment.

Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs, one at a time, whisking in each until fully incorporated. This will take some time, but when you are done, your batter will look very smooth and rich. Add boozy fruits and their juices, lemon zest and almonds, and stir until just combined.

In another bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, mixed spice, ground almonds and a pinch of salt. 

Fold flour mixture into butter mixture until just combined.

Pour into prepared cake tin and create a hollow with your spatula. This trick prevents a dome from forming on your cake!

Bake for one hour.  Cover loosely with tin foil and bake for 30 more minutes. Check to see if it's done (an inserted fork comes out clean). If it's not, cover again, and bake in 10 minute intervals until cooked. Each cake took approximately an extra 40 minutes for a total baking time of 2 hours and 10 minutes.

Let cool completely. When cool, poke holes almost all the way through the cake.  Brush with whiskey.  Wrap in foil and keep in an airtight container. Brush with whiskey, around once a week until Christmas!

Stir it Up!: Christmas Cake, day 1

This is the second year that I am making a Christmas Cake.  Known to some as fruit cake, this is not at all one of those bizarrely dry cakes with bits of bright red and green candied something in them. This is a very moist, rich, boozy cake with lots of real fruit.  Just a tiny slice of cake is so good with a cup of tea around 4 pm, when it is starting to get dark, and you just aren't ready to have it be nighttime already. I love real fruitcake for not being too sweet, and being actually fruity, not in a bright, summery way, but in a serious, winter way. It's a very companionable cake, for the quiet, contemplative time of year.

It's also a party cake, though, because it really is full of booze!  If you're going to make it, use something that you like to drink. The alcohol helps preserve the cake and gives it flavor. 

I spent one fall in London (the first year of this blog), and the woman I was living with started making mincemeat for pies in November. I was very impressed, and couldn't imagine planning to cook that far ahead. Last year, I really wanted to make a christmas cake, but, poor planner that I am, I started the week before and I fed it a little whiskey every day leading up to its unveiling on Christmas Day. It was delicious.

This year, I am starting on "Stir Up Sunday".  Not at all sure that this is a real thing in Britain, but I like the idea of it a whole lot better than Black Friday which is a very real thing here in the US.  Stir Up Sunday apparently has its roots in the Church of England, which marks the last Sunday before Advent as a day to: 

Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

I guess Stir Up Sunday hasn't been an entirely religious event for awhile, because in 1849, an observer marked little boys changing these words to:

Stir up, we beseech thee, 

The pudding in the pot: 

And when we get home, 

We'll eat it all hot. 

Phiz (Hablot K. Brown), "Paul Goes Home for the Holidays"
from Charles Dickens' Dombey and Son (1848–9)
image from Victorian Web.

In addition to its religious meanings, Stir Up Sunday now seems to be a day to make mincemeat for Christmas pies, to start Christmas puddings, and to start a Christmas Cake. We may not have a Christmas tree, but we have a little Christmas Cake starting in our house!  My stirring up will be to write some blog posts between now and the end of the year!  I'll be blogging the progress of the Christmas Cake, and maybe you want to start one too. First steps: the fruit and the bourbon.

Christmas Cake--Step 1: Boozy fruit

adapted from Felicity Cloake's recipe

1 cup dried currants
1 cup sultanas (golden raisins, preferably the big ones)
1/2 cup (about 6) dried smyrna figs, chopped
1/2 cup dried plump cherries (not the super shriveled ones)
1/2 cup candied orange peel or mixed peel, chopped
1 Tablespoon candied ginger, chopped fine
1/2 cup whiskey or bourbon 
a splash, Grand Marnier, if you have it around

Stir it up! Let sit for one day, until you are ready to bake the cake.

Cardamom and Saffron Mandelbrot

I love the holidays!  I love the occasions to gather over food with loved ones, the opportunities to reflect on the year that has passed, and to simply enjoy being together.

I also love the family recipes that get brought out around holidays and the stories that go with them.  A friend and I had an early Hannukah brunch where we made Jewish classics with Indian flavors.  She made curried sweet potato latkes, and I made an interpretation of matzo ball soup (recipe coming soon).  The highlight though, might have been cardamom and saffron mandelbroit, adapted from another friend's family recipe.  It came with instructions from Aunt Alice and my friend's mom, and this post-script: "Aunt Alice was the coolest. She was a big, fleshy, jolly, southern Jewish woman from Atlanta with a drawl and a really sassy sense of humor. I am told that at one point she owned a cat named "Damnit" so she could have the thrill of hollering "Come here, Damnit!" off her porch in the evening."

Damnit would totally come running if he smelled these coming out of the oven!  They are delicious--not too sweet, not too hard, but like a cross between a very dry cake and shortbread.  And very nutty too!

I adapted Aunt Alice's recipe for vegans by substituting flax meal and water for the eggs (1 tablespoon flax meal + 1/4 cup water = 1 egg).  Flax meal is a wonderful substitute for eggs in recipes that use them to bind the ingredients together.  It will not help your baked goods rise however!  If you would prefer to use eggs, just switch out the flax meal and water with 4 eggs.

Yum!  Perfect to have around the house for the holidays, or good for any day along with a cup of tea!

Cardamom and Saffron Mandelbrot

Adapted from Aunt Alice's recipe and Nehama Stampfer Glogower's instructions

Takes 2 hours

Makes about 3 dozen cookies

1 cup (plus a little extra) raw almonds

1/4 cup flax meal

1 cup warm water

1 pinch saffron

3 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

1 cup sugar

6 cardamom pods, powdered fine

1 cup oil (I used grapeseed, but I wish I had had almond oil)

Preheat oven to 250 degrees fahrenheit.  Toast the almonds for 15 minutes.  When cool, pulverize to coarse meal in a food processor.  Set aside a few tablespoons to dust the cookies.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit, and make sure the rack is in the middle of the oven.

In a large bowl, mix flax meal, water and saffron.  Let congeal while you mix together the ground almonds, flour, baking powder, and salt in another bowl.  Beat the sugar, cardamom and oil into the other wet ingredients.  Add dry ingredients, and stir until combined.

With wet or oiled hands, form the dough into three 'snake-like things', and place them length-wise and evenly spaced on a baking sheet lined with parchment.  Bake for 40 to 50 minutes 'until it looks toasty'.

Mix the set-aside almonds and a little sugar together.

Slide the parchment paper with mandel bread off of the baking tray onto a counter.  Sprinkle the tops of the snakes with the almond and sugar mixture, and cut into even pieces, about 1/2 inch.  

 
Lie them flat on the baking sheet and return to the oven.  Turn the temperature down to 300 degrees.  Bake for 10 minutes to dry them out.  Turn them over, and bake for 10 more minutes.

Thanks Aunt Alice!  Let the holiday baking begin!

Happy Diwali Pistachio Ice 'Cream'

This year for Diwali, we had a few friends over for masala dosas and sambhar.  Friends brought a salad and chutney and some tapioca payasam!  We had an amazing gluten-free, vegan meal to accommodate everyone's issues, and no one thought for a second that anything was missing.  My contribution to the desserts, because sweets are the most important part of any Diwali celebration, was a Pistachio Ice 'Cream' adapted from David Lebovitz's recipe.  With real nuts and a can of coconut milk it is so rich!

Enjoy, and Happy Diwali everyone!

Pistachio Ice 'Cream'

adapted from David Lebovitz

Makes 6 servings

Takes 1 hour active time (plus cooling and ice cream churning time)

1 14 oz. can coconut milk (make sure it's good and doesn't have any additives)

5 1/2 tsp. corn starch

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup raw pistachios (shelled)

1/2 cup raw cashews

4 cardamom pods, shelled and crushed to a powder

Mix 1/4 cup of coconut milk with the corn starch to make a slurry, taking care to whisk out the lumps.

Heat rest of coconut milk and 1/4 cup of sugar on medium high heat.  Just as it begins bubbling, turn down the heat to simmer, add the slurry, and mix constantly for 3 minutes.  It will thicken right away.  Turn off the heat, let cool, stirring occasionally to prevent a thick skin from forming.  When it's cool enough, put it in the refrigerator.

Bring the raw pistachios, cashews and 1/2 cup of water to a boil.  Remove from heat, and when cool enough, begin removing the skins from the pistachios.  This is tiresome.  You should be able to squeeze the pistachios and the skins should come off neatly, but some times you need to scrub with your finger tips a little for the thin skins.  It's helpful to keep another bowl of water handy to wash your hands. Return the skinned pistachios to the cashews.

When you have skinned all your pistachios, place the pistachios, cashews, powdered cardamom, and remaining 1/4 cup sugar in the bowl of a food processor.  Process, adding the reserved nut-boiling water as necessary to make a smooth paste.  Add this paste to the chilling coconut milk and stir until well-combined.  Chill until you are ready to make your ice cream, or overnight.

Make ice cream according to your maker's directions.  Freeze the ice cream after churning for 30 minutes or so for really nice consistency.

Enjoy!

Sorta Vegan Fat Rascals for Yorkshire Lass Kate

Maybe you have heard that Prince William is marrying Catherine Middleton, a woman whose family includes a Yorkshire miner!  This labouring ancestor has led many to anoint Kate a commoner, and just like the millions of working Britons (and Canadians and Australians and Jamaicans) who will one day be her subjects. I learned from the very good Channel 4 documentary, Meet the Middletons now showing on Bravo and E!, that her ancestors also include Leeds solicitors and mill owners.  The show highlights her social-climbing grandmother on one side, and on the other side, the deaths of her three great-great uncles in the Great War, which allowed for the establishment of a trust for their sister's family (we don't need to go into sexist inheritance laws that wouldn't allow this sister to come into the family money (or go into the family business) in her own right).  This trust allowed for the education of Catherine's father's family, and helped pay for her expensive private schooling.

OK OK, I digress, this is a blog about food after all.  It kind of makes me uncomfortable all the discussion of her blood and the royal line!  Very Harry Potter.  One thing is clear: the lady had a lot of ancestors in Yorkshire.  On my trip to England last month, I went to York and visited the famous and very popular Betty's Tea room.

That was the line to have tea in the tea rooms!  Their most famous baked good is a fat rascal, a yummy, fruity scone, topped with a rascal-y grin.

Here's a sorta vegan recipe in case you are waking up early to watch the big event, or, are just looking for something to eat with tea!

Be careful!  These little scones inspired rascalry!

Fat Rascals

Inspired by Betty's and adapted from the Elmwood Inn's recipe

Makes 6 scones

Takes 1 hour

1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
Pinch salt
4 ounces vegan margarine
1/3 cup granulated sugar
zest of one orange

zest of one lemon
1/3 cup currants
1/4 cup milk, plus more for glazing

6 maraschino cherries, halved
18 blanched almonds

Preheat oven to 375 degrees fahrenheit.  Line baking tray with parchment.

Mix together flour, baking powder and salt. With your fingers, work in the margarine until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.  Mix in sugar, zests and currants. Add the milk and bring the dough together.

Divide dough evenly into 6 balls, and place on baking sheet.  Flatten, and make the rascal faces with 2 maraschino cherry halves for eyes and 3 almonds for teeth.  Glaze the rascals generously with milk.  This is what makes them brown nicely.

Bake for 25 minutes or until golden.They are even better the next day--if you can wait!

Yummy Plummy Crumble

This summer in Halifax, we've been enjoying a lot of delicious plums.  Yellow ones, sugar plums, and the delicious Italian prune plums that are so good preserved, crisped and tarted.

I made this Martha Stewart Plum Crostata earlier this summer, replacing the Port with a simple syrup I made from boiling the plum pits (which always end up with so much flesh: I am so bad at halving and pitting fruit!) with the sugar and water until it reduced to 1/2 a cup.

I made a version of this plum preserve recipe this summer.  We opened the jar earlier this week, and it is so good: tart with a taste of honey.  Extra good on buttered toast!

So when I saw prune plums at the market last week, I snatched them, knowing they'd probably be the last of the season.  I combined a recipe posted by Orangette for the fruit with this simple plum crisp recipe from Gourmet for the crisp, trading out the butter for a combination of Smart Balance and Special Hazelnut butter.  Paddy likes to mix hazelnut butter with honey to make a delicious spread for toast.  We had just a quarter cup left, so I mixed that with the Smart Balance.  Here's my masterpiece.

Vegan Plum Crumble with a hint of honey

Takes 2 hours

Makes 9 servings

Plum Filling

2 pounds Prune Plums, halved and pitted

2 Tbsp. light brown Sugar

2 Tbsp. raw cane Sugar

1/4 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. ground ginger

Crumble

3/4 cup raw almonds (or sliced)

1/4 cup Smart Balance (or butter)

1/4 cup Nut Butter (I used Hazelnut, Almond would work too)*

3/4 cup old-fashioned rolled oats

3/4 cup flour

3/4 cup light brown sugar

3/4 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. salt

Grease a 9x9 baking pan with Smart Balance.

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees fareinheit.

On baking tray, toast almonds until golden, 10 minutes for the sliced almonds, 15 minutes for the raw almonds.  Let Cool.

Mix all the ingredients for the plum filling until combined.  Pour into baking dish.

In a bowl, combine 1/2 cup oats, all of the flour, sugar, cinnamon and salt, and mix until combined.  Work in butter (substitute) and nut butter until the mixture resembles crumble topping.

Once the nuts are cool (smash the whole almonds if you used those, either in a mortar or in a plastic bag with a heavy jar), add those and the remaining 1/4 cup of oats to the rest of the crumble topping.  Mix to combine.  Spread evenly onto the plums.

Bake for 30-35 minutes until the crumble is browned and the plums are done (Stick a fork in a plum, if it's soft, it's done!).

We enjoyed ours last night while watching the Edith Piaf film La Vie en Rose.  Thank god we had this plummy crumble to remind us there is goodness in the world.  That film is sad.

*  Paddy thinks his Special Hazelnut Honey Butter is approximately 60-66% Hazelnut Butter and 33-40% Honey.  I forgot to reduce the amount of sugar I used in the Crumble Topping to compensate for the honey.  It turned out ok because the plum filling remains very tart in this recipe.  I think I will keep the crumble topping this sweet when I make this again next summer.