My apartment is cold!! Brrr…so this is my favorite time of year to bake. Not only does it satisfy my sweet tooth but it also warms up the place. I love multi-tasking..ha!
First up was something that I wanted to do over the holidays but it didn’t happen. We love stollen (see Mihl’s blog for more..she’s the expert)..except that most stollen that we can buy around here in the Boston area isn’t vegan and has raisins, the one food that H avoids more than anything. I don’t get the whole raisin avoidance thing..but we all have things that we can’t stand to eat right? Mine are..well, what don’t I like to eat? Obviously anything not vegan but, hum, hard to think of anything I really, truly hate. Must ponder that..there must be something?! Back to stollen, I knew that I wanted to replace the raisins with some candied orange peel and candied ginger. And I also knew that again I would turn to Mihl’s blog whenever I want to take a German recipe to vegansville..she’s my subject area expert on the matter. The result was incredible! It yielded three mid-sized loaves stuffed to the nth degree with a marizpan that I made myself (and was a bit cruncher than expected because my grinder broke). We quickly gobbled these up with the help of our upstairs neighbors. Everyone loved them even though I ran out of Earth Balance and had to “frost” the stollen with a little marzipan to keep them moist.
Stollen ready for the oven
The final product
Next up was a recipe from “Eat, Drink and Be Vegan” from Dreena Burton. Have you checked this book out yet? It’s great..I’ve got it on loan from the library right now while I evaluate whether I want to buy it or not and I think this one is a keeper. I tried her “Cocoa Banana Muffins” on a cold, snowy day (do you crave banana bread during a snow storm? I do!). With some cinnamon and nutmeg to spice up the cocoa tones, this muffin is really special. The original recipe calls for spelt flour but since I didn’t have any (and wasn’t leaving the house no matter for what), I did half wheat flour/half white flour. I suspect the texture would be different with spelt and I look forward to checking that out next time!
Cocoa Banana Muffins
