Make Your Own Vegan Dog Treats

Back in May, we adopted the most amazing dog in the world.  His name is Louis, and we’re pretty sure he’s half Chihuahua half Pekingese.  And all adorable.  And most importantly for this blog, he is 100% vegan.

And today, we’re making vegan dog treats!  Our dog cannot get enough of these things.  And, because we spoil him rotten, we cannot get enough of giving them to him.  Oh well, at least we’re all happy.

If you want to make Vegan Dog Treats, too, you’re gonna need:

1/2 cup soy flour
3/4 cup cornmeal
1/4 cup dried parsley
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, divided
1/4 cup canola oil
1 cup vegetable stock
2 tablespoons natural peanut butter

So now you’re going to:

1. Preheat your oven to 375°F.  Lightly grease two cookie sheets.
2.  In a large bowl, whisk together soy flour, cornmeal, dried parsley, and 1 cup of all-purpose flour.
3.  Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour in the stock and canola oil.  Mix until combined.
4.  Add peanut butter and additional 3/4 cup flour and mix with a wooden spoon until combined.  If the dough becomes too stiff to stir, use your hands to knead it until everything is thoroughly combined.
5.  Turn the dough out onto a clean counter, and use a rolling pin to roll out to 1/4 inch thickness.
6.  Use mini cookie cutters to cut out individual cookies and place them on the prepared cookie sheets.

7.  Bake the cookies for 20-25 minutes, or until very well done.  Be careful not to burn them, but they can certainly get a little dark.
8.  Air dry on wire racks for at least 8 hours before serving.

OK, so let’s talk about these things.  First, you want to be sure to take the cookie size into account when baking.  If your dog is a bull mastiff, it’s totally fine to make really big cookies for him or her.  Just increase the baking time to 30 minutes or so.

Also, storage can be a little tricky.  In the summer in the South, it gets humid.  So humid, in fact, that these cookies don’t harden at room temp like they’re supposed to.  The first batch of these we made molded in their jar in less than a week.  The second ones, we baked a second time (a la biscotti), and had slightly better results.  This time around, however, we aren’t taking any chances.  After the 8 hour cooling period, we store these cookies in a tight-sealing jar in the freezer.

This seems to have done the trick, and our wacky dog seems to like the frozen treats even more than room-temperature ones.  So that’s what we’d recommend.  Just look at that happy, spoiled dog.

And here, because I’m just sure that you want to see as much of Louis as I do, is a video I made of him eating these treats.  This was my first foray into film making/editing, and I know it’s not the best quality, but I think you get the picture.

Vegan Dog Treats for our Spoiled Chihuahua from Ian Grout on Vimeo.

OK, so I know that saying that my dog is vegan is a kind of hot-button announcement to make, and if you have any questions about how you can have a happy, healthy vegan dog, you’re welcome to email me at SugarbombBakery@Yahoo.com.  Please don’t, however, leave negative comments on this blog post.  I’d love to facilitate discussion, but I really don’t want to start an ideological battle.  So let’s all be nice, OK?  Thank you.

And, lest I take myself too seriously, here’s Louis one more time.

Y’all come back now, ya hear?

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Hey.  So you may have noticed that I’ve been a little absent for the last couple of months.  Well now I’m ready to start blogging again, and it occurred to me that I had three options:

#1.  Put up a blog post today about pie or something and pretend that this whole two month hiatus never happened.  OR

#2.  Write a little two sentence blurb at the beginning of said post describing how my life had been busy and blah blah blah.  OR

#3.  Do a blog post about where exactly I’ve been for the last two months.

Now, I know that, if you read this blog with any frequency back when I was posting regularly, you prob have noticed that I was gone and you may even be wondering why.  And it’s a given that my life has been busy for the last two months.   My life is always busy, as, presumably, is yours.  So just trying to write a simple sentence or two explanation seemed insulting to us both.  So here, at long last, is a detailed account of exactly what’s been going on the last couple of months.

OK so back in the beginning of May, Amanda (my boss) and I decided to convert the retail shop where I work into a cupcake bakery.  We still sold our cupcakes and supplies, but the focus shifted from the merchandise to the cupcakes.  You may have seen this post describing the process.

So what we hadn’t really considered realistically was that, while we were going to try to do the same amount of work in the shop, we were also going to become part-time professional bakers.  Which basically made for 60-70 hour weeks for me.  At first, it was so amazing to be baking professionally and seeing my cupcakes delight so many people that it didn’t even really matter that I never slept or spent any time with my boyfriend, my friends, or my amazing new puppy.  But it quickly became evident that I was neglecting large parts of my life.

Oh, and I stopped blogging.  It was pretty ironic that the time in my life when I was making more blog-worthy recipes than ever was also the time in my life when I was least able to write about any of them.  Hmmm.

Another big development in my life around that time was that Jason changed jobs.  He had been working for a very corporate job that he wasn’t crazy about pretty much hated, and he finally decided that he needed to get out of it for his own sanity.  What does this have to do with blogging?

Well, Jason and I only have one car, and we both work about 30 minutes away from our house.  His old schedule had him going to work hours before me every day, leaving me sitting around coffee shops every day with lots of time on my hands.  Which was time I used to blog.  And after he changed jobs, it was time I used to sleep in.

It was awesome.

The third, but by no means least important reason I stopped blogging was that summer arrived.  Have you spent much time in the South in the summer?  Well if you haven’t I don’t blame you!  It is hot as the dickens here in the summer.  For real, it’s oppressive.  So any baking that I didn’t absolutely have to do for work was completely out of the question.  And while it’s still hot here, the fact that I don’t have to turn my oven on if I don’t want to anymore makes the prospect of baking a lot more enticing.

And Amanda and I decided, after a couple of grueling months, that we were really in no position to continue baking at the rate we were.  So we’ve turned the shop into a bakers’ collective.  It’s been really amazing, actually.   You can read more about it here, if you want.  So there it is.  And here I am.  I have survived the summer (or most of it, anyway) and lived to tell the tale.  And I am so inspired to start baking again.  And most importantly, I’m excited to be sharing stuff with you again.  If you are reading this right now, you make all the work I put into the blog totally worth it.  I’ve missed you guys, and I am so ready to get back in the kitchen!

Love,

Ian
Oh yeah, P.S.  Here’s a video Amanda and I made partially about the whole process I described above.  Please forgive the sound quality.  So there. 

The Amazing World of Spam Comments

I love the spam comments I get on my blog posts.  If you do not blog, you are missing out on a whole world of grammatical errors and computer-generated engrish.  The comments range from the indecipherable to the accidentally wise or witty to the shockingly insulting.

One type of spam comments that cracks me up is the one or two line comment in which almost every word is misspelled or grammatically incorrect.  Here’s some examples of this type of thing:

– “Remarkably.  Thanks you.”

– “Good idea! Can be considered a learned thing, ok;”

– “you’ve gotten an ideal blog here! would you wish to make some invite posts on my weblog?”

See, aren’t they great?  Another type of spam comment I really like is the really, REALLY long comment that is vague enough that it could pretty much relate to almost anything.  For instance:

– “I just wanted to jot down a quick note to appreciate you for all of the great guidelines you are sharing at this site. My particularly long internet investigation has at the end of the day been rewarded with reputable facts and techniques to share with my partners. I would tell you that we readers actually are very much lucky to dwell in a magnificent site with very many wonderful people with very helpful concepts. I feel truly fortunate to have seen the web site and look forward to tons of more amazing minutes reading here. Thanks once again for all the details.”

– “I’m impressed, I need to say. Really hardly ever do I encounter a weblog that’s both educative and entertaining, and let me tell you, you’ve gotten hit the nail on the head. Your idea is outstanding; the difficulty is something that not sufficient persons are speaking intelligently about. I am very happy that I stumbled throughout this in my search for one thing relating to this.”

So there are also the totally insulting comments.  I might love these most of all.  Here’s some:

– “That is a super-peachy-keen post. Thanks for really blathering on like that! Seriously, I don’t think I could have spent more effort wishing for something heavy to fall on me to erase that nonsense from my mind!”

– “How many people do you get on your site per day? I have been reading some of you content and i think its good but hardly anyone leaves any comments which makes me think your not getting much traffic? Check these guys out, they helped my site and i think they can help you achive your online goals (LINK DELETED FOR OBVIOUS REASONS).”

– “Go kill yourself”

God, I love this stuff.  Full disclosure:  I also really enjoy bathroom graffiti and voice-activated automated phone menus.  For real.  And it seems to me that spam comments are sort of the best of both of those worlds.

OK, we’re almost done.  I think the most obvious spam comments are the ones like these:

– “Hi Webmaster!! Check out this awesome WordPress plugin (LINK DELETED)”

– “Yesterday, while I was at work, my sister stole my iphone and tested to see if it can survive a 40 foot drop, just so she can be a youtube sensation. My apple ipad is now destroyed and she has 83 views. I know this is totally off topic but I had to share it with someone!”

But the ones I particularly enjoy are the ones that ALMOST seem like real comments.  These are easy to fall for, but there’s usually a pretty obvious giveaway.  For instance:

– “This is without question the most detailed content I’ve seen on this subject. Phenomenal job. Continue the good writing!” (LEFT BY USER NAMED “RINGTONES FREE DOWNLOAD”)

– “Very good post. If there were more writers like you I’d have more websites to visit when I do go online. LOL.”  (USERNAME: FREE ROCKET SPANISH)

– “Great post.  Can’t wait to try this!” (USER NAME: GOLD DIPPED ROSES.COM)

Then, there are the comments that just make you say “huh?”  Here goes:

– “Your article made me understand some things.”

– “One day, Xiao Ming another class …. a sudden “rush”(fart) a cry;sitting next to a small U.S. scolded and said: Xiao-Ming Ah ~ if you could not make a noise.”

– “Your website is like pie, they’re sweet and cute. I’ve just strolling from every web page to web page until I met naughty topic in this page. From first impression, I underestimate your topic ideas, but it is my fault, sorry for considering this (I advised you what I believed in my mind). Here’s my unhealthy habits, sorry to listen to that. Regardless that it was my bad sign for future, but I understand that my mind can be used for other experimental study with you. Please observe that I write this comment in response to true story, and you are the chosen one to make this decision. I want you to become my associate in desired subject, we are able to examine together with our skills, and you get the benefit by getting new ride with me. Sorry for giving my invitation on this remark page, but if you don’t mind, which you could give me your opinion about my comment, I’m desirous about creating your website as massive web site, so you can use it as your passive income.”  (UM, WHAT?  AND IS DESIROUS EVEN A WORD?)

And now, the piece de resistance.  This comment is my favorite for several reasons.  It is almost indecipherable on the first reading, it is really long, the user name is a clickable link, and it is totally insulting.  You ready?

– “The core of your writing whilst appearing reasonable originally, did not sit properly with me personally after some time. Somewhere within the paragraphs you actually managed to make me a believer unfortunately just for a very short while. I however have a problem with your jumps in logic and one would do nicely to fill in all those breaks. In the event that you actually can accomplish that, I would definitely end up being amazed.”

You’d definitely be amazed?  Well, in that case, I’ll get right on it.  Oh, and incidentally, this was left on a post about pizza crust.  I can see how the commenter would have become a believer, even if just for a very short while.

All the spam comments above came from my blog, as well as the blogs of my friends Jen and Amanda.  If you’re a huge nerd like me and you want to share your own spam comment gems, I’d love to see them!

My 30th Birthday Party

Last weekend, I had a birthday party.  And, since my favorite thing in the world is vegan brunch, the party was a big, huge vegan brunch.  It was so fun!

When oh when will I learn that I have got to take pictures when I throw a party?  Thank God Amanda thought to take some, or I wouldn’t have any!  So here are some of the highlights of the party.

Jason did all of the decorating, and he did an amazing job.  I told him that I would love it if the color theme was teal and red (my favorite) and he went all out!  He even spent a week making hand-sewn bunting!

Isn’t it so cute?  So since he did all of the decorating, I decided to do most of the cooking.

The menu was:

Mini Muffins (mocha chip and blueberry)
Roasted Potatoes
Scrambled Tofu
Tempeh Sausage Pastry Puffs (I told you I always make them)
Coconut Chocolate Chip Pancakes (My sister loves these!)

In the center of this picture is an Apple Tatin made by my sister, Alison.  In the left corner are biscotti (cranberry chocolate chip and gingerbread) made by Jason’s sister, Janell.  We are so fortunate to have such talented siblings!

These were glazed Mixed Nuts brought by my friend Julie.  I can’t tell you guys how good they were.  Lucky for us, she posted the recipe on her blog.  So go check it out!

As you guys may or may not know, Jason and I just adopted a dog, Louis, last week.  So this was his first experience with entertaining, and other than some skittishness, he did great!

And while we’re talking about new additions, here’s my niece, Cadence, at my party.  She seemed to have a very good time, and was all smiles most of the day.

In addition to getting the whole yard decorated for the party, Jason spent weeks getting the garden in shape.  It has never looked better!

I had such a nice day, and I was so fortunate to have spent my birthday with old and new friends, as well as the people I love the most.  I especially appreciate all of the work Jason did to throw this party for me!  I sure love that guy!

Come to my Birthday Party!

Hey Guys!

I’m having my 30th birthday party brunch this Sunday, May 22, and I’d love it if you’d come!  The food is guaranteed to be amazing, and there will be an amazing mix of family and friends both old and new.  It’s at our house in Canton, NC, and it goes from 11am to 4ish.  I would really love to see you so if you live near, please come by!

Love,

Ian

Chocolate Cupcakes with Raspberry Filling and Chocolate Ganache

So for the shop this week, I more of a variety of cupcakes than I ever have before.  I thought I had so many tricks up my sleeve, but I totally exhausted my repertoire after about four days.  Not that I can’t have duplicates, but I’m really challenging myself to see how many different varieties I can come up with.

So this recipe is actually one that I made once before with OK results.  I decided to tackle it again, and see if I could get it right this time.  So if you want to make these Chocolate Cupcakes with Raspberry Filling and Chocolate Ganache, you’re gonna need:

1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup almond milk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1/3 cup canola oil
3/4 cup white sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

So you want to:
1. Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Line your muffin tin with silver foil liners.
2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  Sift in the cocoa.  Seriously, you guys, sift it.  I wouldn’t say that if it wasn’t important.  Now whisk this mixture together for about thirty seconds, to make sure it’s evenly mixed.
3. Pour the almond milk into a glass measuring cup and add the vinegar to it. Let this mixture sit a few minutes, until the almond milk looks slightly curdled.
4. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the oil and sugar until very well combined. Add the extracts. Now beat in the curdled almond milk.
5. Slowly pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture and beat with a whisk until the batter looks very smooth. Don’t worry about over-mixing; it’s better to beat it until there are no lumps left.
6. Fill your baking cups two-thirds of the way full with batter (usually about a scant quarter cup of batter per cupcake).
7. Bake at 350ºF for twenty minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the biggest cupcake comes out mostly clean. A few moist crumbs on the toothpick are absolutely fine.

OK, so the Raspberry Buttercream Recipe we used is based on one from Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero’s book, Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. Here goes:

1/4 cup nonhydrogenated shortening
1/4 cup margarine
2 cups confectioner’s sugar
1 tablespoon soy milk
3 tablespoons raspberry syrup, divided (the kind they use in coffee shops)
Drop of red food coloring (optional)

So now you:
1. Beat together the shortening and margarine with a stand mixer or hand mixer until it is all fluffy.
2. Sift in your confectioner’s sugar (and yes, you have to sift it. I know, it sucks, but you don’t want lumpy frosting, do you? No, you do not).
3. Beat the sugar and fats until, miraculously, the combine to form small, pebble-sized crumbs. This takes a few minutes — maybe five on the outside. Don’t be afraid to run your mixer that long, it loves it.
4. Once combined, drizzle in the soy milk, along with two tablespoons of syrup and, and beat for several minutes. If, in about three minutes, your frosting looks really stiff, add the third tablespoon of syrup. Beat for another minute or two, until it’s all nice and fluffy.
5. Taste your frosting. It should be smooth and creamy, with a fairly strong raspberry flavor. If it is not like that, add more raspberry syrup, about half a teaspoon at a time until it is awesome.  Now add a tiny, tiny bit of food coloring, if you want.  Totally up to you.

Then, with the handle of a wooden spoon, poke a hole into the top of each cooled cupcake.  Now you’re ready to fill them.  The easiest way to do this is with a piping bag fitted with a small round pastry tip.  Pipe frosting in until it is even with the top of your cake.  Smooth the top, if necessary, with a spatula.

So let’s make our Chocolate Ganache!  You need:

8 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 tablespoons nonhydrogenated shortening

So you’re going to:
1.  In a medium-sized saucepan, bring about a cup of water to a simmer.
2.  Place a heat-proof bowl on top of the saucepan, making sure it doesn’t touch the water.
3.  Add the chocolate and shortening to the bowl, and stir occasionally until it’s totally melted.
4.  Dip your cupcakes one at a time in the melted chocolate mixture, shaking off the excess.
5.  Place your dipped cupcakes in the freezer until the chocolate is set.
6.  Repeat this process, dipping each cupcake a second time.
7.  If desired, melt white chocolate chips using the same technique as above.  Add the melted white chocolate to a piping bag, and drizzle over the tops of all the cupcakes.  Place the cupcakes back in the freezer until the chocolate is totally set.

These are super-delicious, and the people who bought them were really pleased.  I have also learned that the frosting recipes that I usually make are pretty heat-sensitive.  So, while I was perfecting a frosting recipe that could sit in a lighted display case all day without melting, these were a life-saver.  Because the melty frosting is inside the cake, and the ganache on top stays really firm, these are a great cupcake to bring to, say, a picnic where they will be in the heat all day.

So go make these and be happy!

Come on in to the New Cupcake Shop!

So I keep telling you guys about how we’re changing the Bake it Pretty shop into a cupcake bakery, but so far you don’t have any proof.  For all you know, I could be making the whole thing up as a clever ruse to explain away the fact that I have been blogging with an unforgivable lack of frequency.  Well, speculate no further!  Here, at long last, are some pictures of the brand new bakery.

That’s me behind the counter.

That’s a shot of the interior of the shop, to give you some perspective.

Our first day’s offerings.  The “Southern Culture”, “Salty Dog”, and the “Chocolate Cupcakes with Toasted Coconut” came from my bakery.  We had some very happy vegan customers who wandered into the cupcake shop assuming there wouldn’t be anything they could eat!

On the right is a close-up of the Southern Culture cupcakes.  The pink lemonade frosting was a big hit!

These were called “Inner Beauty,” and they were a chocolate cake with raspberry buttercream filling, and topped with a double chocolate ganache.

This is a closeup of the “Salty Dog” cupcakes (you can find the recipe for them here) .  In the background, you can see the Chocolate Cupcakes with Toasted Coconut.  They were in black and white polka dot wrappers that were so cute.

Just look at that full, happy bake case!  We have learned a lot about running a bakery (already!), and I’m sure we’ll learn a whole lot more.  But we’re having such fun, and I can’t wait to share more with you guys.  Oh, and if you’re in the Asheville area, be sure to stop into Bake it Pretty to get some vegan cupcakes!

Love,

Ian

Oh yeah, P.S.  If you follow the Bake it Pretty Blog, you may recognize a lot of these pictures from over there.  Thanks to Amanda for letting me use them!

Tempeh Sausage in Puff Pastry

You guys, I haven’t abandoned you.  Seriously.  I have been working like a madman the last couple of weeks trying to get Bake it Pretty set up all bakery-style and hire somebody to work with.  So, suffice it to say that I’ve been busy.  On that note, I haven’t made anything new and blog-worthy in a while.  Luckily, I have a very small stash of stuff that I have made previously that I can blog about.  So today we’re going to talk about one of my old standbys.

Two years ago, I had a big brunch party for my birthday.  It was awesome.  Lots of friends came, and lots of people brought really amazing vegan food.  Moreover, several of my very very non-vegan friends had the opportunity to try really excellent vegan food for the first time.

So I made scrambled tofu, cinnamon rolls, roasted potatoes, and tempeh sausage pastry puffs.  The recipe for the latter came from the amazing book Vegan Brunch by the amazing author Isa Chandra Moskowitz.  You may have realized by now that I am a huge devotee of Isa.  Her cookbooks are remarkably readable, and her recipes are often spectacular.  I highly recommend her books in general, and I very highly recommend this book in particular.  For whatever reason, it seems not to have gotten as much praise as her other more popular books.  But there are some incredible recipes in here, and it’s absolutely worth buying.

Anyway, on my brunch day, I made these pastry puffs.  And they are as easy to make as they are delicious and impressive.  If you wanna make Tempeh Sausage Pastry Puffs, you’re gonna need:

8 ounces tempeh, crumbled
1 package vegan puff pastry, thawed in the refrigerator overnight
1 cup vegetable broth
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 red bell pepper, diced as finely as you can
1 small onion, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 teaspoons fennel seeds
2 teaspoons dried thyme
2 teaspoons dried rosemary
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon salt

So you’re going to:
1.  Combine vegetable broth, soy sauce, and lemon juice in a small bowl.  Add the tempeh and marinate for one hour (or longer if you want).  Drain, reserving the marinade.
2.  With a mortar and pestle, grind your fennel seeds until there are no whole ones left.  This takes a while, and some elbow grease.  But stick with it.  Once the fennel is all ground, add the remaining spices and grind a few more times to make sure everything’s all fragrant.

3.  Preheat your oven to 400°F.  Preheat a heavy bottomed pan over medium heat.  Add the red bell pepper and onion, and saute until the onion is translucent, about 7 minutes.  Add the garlic and spices, and saute another 3 minutes.
4.  Add the drained tempeh to the pan, and cook for about 15 minutes.  If the mixture starts to stick, add a splash of marinade at a time to unstick everything.  Keep a close eye on it to make sure the mixture doesn’t burn.
5.  Now we’re going to prepare the pastry.  If you haven’t worked with puff pastry before, don’t worry:  It’s totally easy.  So what you do is unfold one pastry sheet, and cut it into nine pieces.  Arrange them on a greased cookie sheet about an inch apart. Thoroughly spray the tops of each pastry square with nonstick cooking spray.  Repeat with the other pastry sheet.
6.  Now place a heaping tablespoon of the tempeh mixture in the center of each square.

7.  Bake at 400°F for 18 to 20 minutes, until the pastry is super puffy and golden brown on top.  Yum.

The offensive meat has been censored from this picture

So we made these for Easter, along with our Cinnamon Rolls.  Mmmmm . . . so much bread.  We actually made these because my mom, having had them at my birthday party a couple of years ago, now requests them whenever we’re all having brunch.  Even my super-omni, sausage loving stepdad is crazy for our crazy fermented soy sausage pastries.  And that’s impressive.

Vegan Pizza with Homemade Crust!

Ding dang, you guys.  I have been so busy at work.   You remember, a couple of weeks ago, when I told you that I was going to be selling cupcakes at work soon?  Well, that soon is Friday.  But before that can happen, we basically have to transform the retail shop into a bakery, and hire someone to work in it.  So, we’ve got our hands full.

Luckily, I had the foresight on Monday (my day off) to realize that, since I was going to be crazy busy this week, I needed to take care of myself while I could.  So I spent the day doing as little work-related stuff as possible.  And I did something I rarely do:  I made pizza.

Don’t get me wrong, I love pizza.  A little too much actually, and that’s the problem.  Jason and I can polish off a pizza between the two of us in about twenty minutes.  So in our house, pizza is a sometimes-treat.  And while it’s not hard to make, it is a little time-intensive.  We often don’t have the time to start dinner a couple of hours before we eat.  But it was the perfect project for a day off.

Oh, and just so you know, I’m going to tell you how to  make this dough in an electric stand mixer fitted with a dough hook.  If you don’t have these things, just knead with your hands instead.  No big thing.

The pizza dough recipe I use (always) is from Vegan with a Vengeance, by Isa Chandra Moskowitz.  I always start exactly like her recipe does, but I get all crazy about half way through, and really do it my own way.  The following recipe is for how I do things.

To make this Pizza Dough, you’re gonna need:

1 cup warm water
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
1 (1/4-ounce) package dry yeast (not rapid-rise!)
2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for greasing the rising bowl
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt

Now, you’re going to:
1.  Proof your yeast: Measure your water into a glass measuring cup, and stir in the sugar.  Now add the whole packet of yeast on top of the water/sugar mixture, and stir lightly until the yeast is just wet.  Place the measuring cup in a warm place for about ten minutes (see the notes at the bottom).  When you come back to check it, if it’s all covered with crazy, foamy, yeasty-smelling goop, it’s . . . ALIVE!  Which is a good thing.
2.  Place your flour and salt in the bowl of a stand mixture, and stir to combine.  Pour in the proofed yeast mixture and olive oil.  Use a wooden spoon to stir everything together.  It will pretty quickly become unstirrably thick.  Now it’s time to knead.
3.  Fit your mixer with a dough hook, and follow your manufacturer’s instructions as to how to use it.  You probably d0n’t want to turn your mixer up higher than the lowest setting.  Anyway, beat the dough for between six and eight minutes, stopping to scrape the excess flour into the mix often in the first couple of minutes.  You will know your dough is ready when it feels cohesive, stretchy, and just slightly sticky to the touch.  If, after a couple of minutes, it is feeling really wet, you can add a tablespoon or so of extra flour.  If it’s too dry, you can add a little water, maybe a teaspoon or so.
4.  So when your dough is finished kneading, take it out of the bowl and throw it from one hand to the other about ten times.  It should now be in a ball (that’s Jason’s trick.  Isn’t it awesome?).  Place that ball in a well-oiled bowl (not the one from your mixer) and cover it loosely with a damp dish towel.  Place it in a warm spot, and let it rise until doubled, an hour or so.
5.  Here’s everyone’s favorite part:  With your fist, punch your dough firmly once to deflate it.  Now turn the dough out onto a clean surface and stretch and knead it with your hands for a minute or two.  This won’t be serious work, you’re just getting it back to the texture it was before it rose.  Once you’ve achieved that, place it back in the bowl, covered, back in a warm place.
6.  At this point, the dough is totally forgiving.  I would recommend letting it sit at least an hour, but you could probably use it sooner, if you had to.  The best flavor, in my opinion, comes from letting it sit for three or four hours.
7.  When you’re ready to use it, Preheat your oven to 500°F.  Place a pizza stone in the oven right when you turn it on.
8.  Now, cut the dough in half, and take one half and stretch it and flatten it until it’s vaguely disc-shaped.  Then, start to stretch it.  An easy way to do this is to hold the disc with both hands and let the dough hang down until it seems like it’s about to rip.  Then move your hands a little to the left, and let the dough hang again.  Keep at it until the whole deal is roughly the size/shape you want it.
8.  Now, lay your dough out on a sheet of parchment paper on top of a large, flat cutting board. Further position it into the shape you want.  Now, spray the edge all around with non-stick cooking spray.  Then, build your pizza however you see fit.  See below for our suggestions.   When it’s all ready, open the oven and slide the parchment off the cutting board right onto the pizza stone.  Bake your pizza at 500°F for  10-15 minutes, until the crust is thick and golden brown.  Yum.

OK, so let’s talk about all of this.  First, I use parchment instead of cornmeal for a couple of reasons.  Mainly it’s because I don’t really like the texture of cornmeal on the bottom of a pizza crust.  Also, no matter how much cornmeal I have ever used, I can never get the unbaked pizza to slide off the cutting board.  And parchment is really handy when removing the pizza from the oven.  You just grab a corner and go.

Another thing is, I have heard that it is somehow possible to make homemade pizza dough totally round and beautiful and not all rustic-looking.  I don’t believe it for a second.  I have made this recipe a lot, and it is not possible for me to get an evenly round crust.  I like that though.  Especially on the browned parchment, I feel like it looks like the peasant food it is.  Like, all Martha or whatever.

Oh, and one last thing.  Our house is cold unless it’s hot.  That is, it is hardly ever warm or cool, so it’s hard for us to find a warm place for yeast to proof and dough to rise.  So here’s what I suggest.  Turn your oven on to 350°F and immediately set a timer for two minutes.  As soon as your timer goes off, turn off the oven.  Then put your yeast mixture or your kneaded dough in the oven and let it rest for your rising time.

So we made two different pizzas.  The first one was direct from Vegan with a Vengeance, and it’s called the Isa Pizza.  We’ve made this one a lot, and we love it.  It has pizza sauce, tofu ricotta, pesto, kalamata olives, and mushrooms.  Dang that pizza is good.

The second one we made we called the Omnivore’s Dilemma, since it’s covered in a bunch of fake meat and cheese.  It has pizza sauce, sun-dried tomatoes, onions, spinach, mushrooms, thick-sliced garlic, tofu ricotta, Gardein chicken, Daiya mozzarella.  Oh my god, you guys.  This pizza was all melty, garlicky, meaty, and awesome.

So, if you have a few hours, I would highly recommend making some homemade pizza.  And if you want leftovers, don’t invite us!

Love,

Ian

The World’s Best Vegan Cinnamon Rolls!

This is the longest post ever.  Sorry.  Oh, and it’s about Easter.

Ugh.

Easter.

We had to make something for Easter brunch at my mom’s house.  What she expected us to make (as always) was something totally simple, like scrambled tofu.  What we delivered (as always) was something way more elaborate.  Someday I will let Jason sleep in on a holiday.  But not anytime soon.  So we decided to make cinnamon rolls.

These cinnamon rolls are actually Jason’s recipe, which he found online a long, long time ago.  And, since back then we didn’t have a blog where we posted recipes all the time, he didn’t write down the source of this recipe.  I normally wouldn’t just share somebody’s recipe without giving them credit, but this time I have to.  Because these cinnamon rolls are SO GOOD!

They are very much in the style of the overly sweet, desert-y type cinnamon rolls that mall chain-stores sell.  If you don’t like cinnamon rolls to be super-sweet and covered in icing . . . well, you should.  So here’s Jason’s recipe:

The World’s Best Vegan Cinnamon Rolls!

You’re gonna need:

2 1/4 teaspoons dry yeast (one packet)
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup soy milk, warm but not hot
1 tablespoon ground flax seed
6 tablespoons warm water
2/3 cup margarine, melted and divided
4 1/2 cups unbleached flour
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 cup brown sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

For the Cream Cheese Frosting, you’re gonna need:

6 ounces of vegan cream cheese (we used Follow Your Heart brand)
1/2 cup melted margarine
3 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt

So what you do is:

1.  Mix the yeast, sugar, and warm soy milk in a large mixing bowl and let it stand in a warm place until it gets all foamy and proofed.  This can take up to ten minutes.  If, after that time, your mixture doesn’t have a layer of foam on top, discard it and try again.
2.  In a large mixing bowl, whisk the ground flax seed with the warm water for a couple of minutes until it is really thick and goopy.  That’s right.  Goopy.
3.  Now add 1/3 of a cup melted margarine, along with the flour and salt to the flax seed mixture.  Pour in the yeast mixture, and stir to combine.  It will very quickly get too thick to stir.  At this point, turn the dough out onto a well-floured surface.
4.  Knead it for 5-10 minutes.  Jason really likes to knead, so he did it for 10 whole minutes.  What we’re looking for is a dough that is firm and smooth, without being sticky at all.  If your dough isn’t like this, keep kneading until it is.
5.  Form your dough into a ball, and place in a well-oiled bowl covered by a damp dishtowel.  Put that whole thing in a warm place (like an oven you’ve pre-heated for 2 minutes and then turned off), and let it stay there for an hour.  It should double in size.  Also, when you press the dough lightly with one finger, it should leave a lasting indentation.

6.  While your dough is rising, combine the brown sugar and cinnamon in a bowl.  Melt the remaining 1/3 cup margarine.
7.  Now that your dough is done rising, turn it out on a floured surface and let it sit, covered, for ten more minutes.  Then, roll it out into a rectangle that it is between 1/8 and 1/4 of an inch thick.

8.  Coat the whole surface with melted margarine, and then evenly coat it with the brown sugar and cinnamon mixture.

9.  Roll it into a big log, and cut it into 12 equal-sized rolls. Place the rolls on a greased cookie sheet, and cover and let rise again.  This time they should double in size in about 30 minutes (but they can sit in the fridge overnight, if you want).

10.  Preheat your oven to 400°F.  Bake your delicious cinnamon rolls until golden brown, between 10 – 15 minutes.

11.  When your cinnamon rolls are finished baking, make your icing.  Beat together all the frosting ingredients together until totally combined and smooth.  Spread the frosting on warm cinnamon rolls just before serving.

So these were amazing.  And Easter was actually great.  My mom The Easter bunny got us an Easter basket full of vegetable-themed stuff (like cabbage-shaped salt and pepper shakers and a carrot-shaped vegetable peeler) and vegan truffles!  It was awesome.  I hope you guys had a good holiday, if you chose to.  And I hope that you make these cinnamon rolls soon.

Oh, and here’s some things you should know about this recipe.

First, don’t be afraid to start over if your yeast doesn’t proof.  It sucks to waste that much milk and sugar, but it sucks way worse to have flat, dense cinnamon rolls.  Our first batch of yeast was dead, so see?  It happens to everyone!

Also, we tried Follow Your Heart brand cream cheese this time (instead of our usual Tofutti), and we liked it way better!  The texture is nice, the flavor on its own is much less “tofu-y,” and it has way better ingredients.  If you care about that stuff (like we do).

Lastly, don’t be afraid of all the fat and sugar in these.  They are not health food, they are special occasion, wow your omni family food.  They are a lot of work and they take a lot of time.  If you’re going to do all of that work, don’t skimp on the fat.  Isn’t it better to eat one amazing cinnamon roll than four really lacking ones?  It is.  Take it from one who knows.

Love,

Ian