I’ve now been in Cordova for a little over a year, and I’m enjoying being able to attend some favorite events from last year for the second time. Tonight was the Copper River Watershed Project’s Berry Festival. It’s a pot-luck dinner where everyone brings berry-themed appetizers, drinks, salads, entrées,  and of course, desserts in order to celebrate local food. Last year I brought berry-pear custard bars, this year I was imagining a blueberry cream puff, but I didn’t get to experiment with the pâte à choux – the special dough used with cream puffs and éclairs, and since I’d never made one before, I thought it might be a bit risky to test it out on a crowd. Instead, I came up with a sweet roll filled with some salmonberry-nectarine jam that my friend Becca made. You can substitute any kind of jam for the filling.

Berry Sweet Rolls

Dough (made in a bread machine)

1 c. soy milk
1/3 c. orange juice
3 T canola oil
1/4 c. non-hydrogenated margarine (I use earth balance)
1/3 c. sugar
1 t. salt
3 c. unbleached flour
1 c. whole wheat flour
1 t. cinnamon
1 1/2 t. yeast

Add all ingredients to your bread machine in the order listed. Set machine to the dough setting. When the dough is just about done, prepare the filling.

Filling

1/2 c. salmonberry-nectarine jam (or any flavor of berry jam)
1/4 c. non-hydrogenated margarine
1 small handful of slivered almonds

Heat jam and margarine in a small saucepan until margarine is melted and whisk to combine. Remove from heat.

Assembling Sweet Rolls

When the dough is ready, roll it into a large rectangle approximately 1/4″ thick on a lightly floured surface. Spread the filling evenly over the dough, and sprinkle the almonds over the filling. Roll the dough up lengthwise, as tightly as possible and pinch to seal. (The seal might not stay, and that’s ok). Prepare a pan to hold the rolls by spraying with oil and lining the bottom with parchment paper. (I used a 14″ cast iron skillet, but any baking dish should work). Using a clean piece of thread, cut 1″ rolls and place them into your baking dish. Cover the dish with a towel and set in a warm place to rest for 20-30 minutes.. Preheat the oven to 375F. Bake the sweet rolls in the oven for 20-30 minutes, until lightly browned (or until internal temperature of the rolls reaches 160F).

While the rolls are baking, prepare the frosting.

Blueberry Buttercream Frosting

1/2 c. non-hydrogenated margarine
2-3 c. powdered sugar (or enough to make a thick frosting)
1 T. vanilla
zest of 1/2 an organic lemon
1/2 c. fresh or frozen blueberries
1/4 c. slivered almonds for garnish

In a mixer, whip the margarine until fluffy, add the powdered sugar and whip until you have a smooth frosting. Add vanilla, lemon zest and blueberries, adding a little more powdered sugar if necessary to maintain consistency.

Frost the rolls as soon as you’ve removed them from the oven. Sprinkle with slivered almonds. Serve warm. (Note: I had a bit of frosting left over-it will keep very well in the fridge for the next time you’re making sweet rolls.)

Selma was home from school today recovering from a stomach bug, and by evening she was feeling better and looking for something yummy to eat that wouldn’t be to hard to digest. She requested gingerbread, and this is what I came up with after reading quite a few recipes (looking for one that used only ingredients already in my pantry). I was inspired by a Blackstrap Gingerbread on Jennifer’s awesome Recipes from the Vegan Lunchbox, and adapted it to fit our tastes and available ingredients.  Jennifer likes her gingerbread with lemon sauce. I’m more traditional and serve it with applesauce (which is also good for ailing tummies).

Gingerbread

Preheat oven to 350F
Grease and flour an 8″ glass baking dish

DRY
1 3/4 c + 2T flour
1/2 c. whole wheat flour
2 T tapioca flour
1 1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t baking powder
2 t ground ginger
1 t cinnamon
1/8 t salt

WET
3/4 c unsulfured molasses
1/4 c honey
1/2 c canola oil
1 c hot water (I don’t know the science behind using hot water, but so many of the gingerbread recipes I read included it, that I’m using it too)

In a medium bowl, whisk together dry ingredients. In a smaller bowl, stir together wet ingredients. Once oven is preheated, combine wet with dry and stir until smooth. Pour into prepared baking dish and bake 30-40 minutes or until done.

Enjoy with applesauce while still warm!

I know, I should be done with the holiday baking. But we were invited for dinner at a friend’s house the other night, so I made a batch of cookies to bring along. I also made quick work of eating the extras we had lying around the house. These cookies are dangerous, I have no resistence to them. It’s great to have a go-to vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe. This one is authentic, tollhouse-style, and it’s also easy using standard pantry ingredients.

I made just a few adaptations to Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s recipe from The Post Punk Kitchen blog. I doubled the recipe, and used a 15ml (1 Tablespoon) melon baller to scoop out the dough, which got me about 5 dozen 2-inch cookies. I did not flatten them, the oven took care of that nicely. I also baked at 360 degrees for nine minutes. If you read the PPK post you’ll see lots of comments with ideas for creative adaptation including adding cinnamon, pecans, dried cranberries. I’m sure that would be delicious too, but I’d rather not let anything get between me and a chocolate chip.

I don’t know if you’ve ever decided to make a yummy looking recipe and realized that it had “chocolate wafer cookies” as an ingredient. They are a tasty simple cookie, that I think used to be readily available in stores, but now are limited to gourmet shops (Gourmet shops don’t exist in Cordova). These little cookies can be used in cookie crusts or in sandwich cookie desserts or pies or tarts or anywhere a bit of chocolate crunchiness might be a welcome addition–i.e. crumbled on top of pudding or ice cream or used to decorate the sides of a cake or as one layer of a trifle. At any rate, I had typically avoided such recipes because I didn’t have a ready source for chocolate wafer cookies, and I also don’t like to use a lot of processed foods in my cooking because, I’m a little perverse that way.

This weekend, I needed to make a dessert for a progressive dinner and I was devoid of inspiration. I felt tarted and pied and caked out from all of the fall fruit I had baked and birthdays I had fêted over the last few weeks. So it was time for something new. Thumbing through my cookbooks, I got a little obsessed with cheesecake. I had never made a cheesecake with actual cream cheese–In my days as a vegan chef I’d made plenty of delicious “cheesecakes” with tofu. But we’re in using things up mode since we’re travelling over Christmas, and I had a bunch of organic neufchatel cream cheese in the fridge from a bulk order earlier in the fall (when Jay was big in a bagel eating jag). Selma said, “Make a graham cracker crust!” But that didn’t really appeal to me. I definitely wanted chocolate involved. On top of that, my spring form pan has gone missing, or more likely didn’t make the move because the movers left my house without taking any of my baking pans, and tho’ I rushed a box down to them at the warehouse, it wouldn’t surprise me if something got left out.

One thing led to another, and I only had about three hours left before the party, so I got to work making the batter for some mini chocolate cheesecake bites, in tiny mini muffin tins with no crust. While the cheesecakes were cooling, I improvised this recipe for chocolate wafer cookies which served as the base or “crust” for the cheesecakes after they had cooled.

Chocolate Wafer Cookies

1 1/4 c flour
1/4 c. cocoa powder
1 T baking powder
1/2 c. canola oil
1/4 c. blackstrap molasses (important for giving the cookies a nice dark color and rich flavor)
1/2 c. maple syrup
3 T – 1/4 c. water

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder and baking powder. In a small bowl, whisk together oil, molasses and maple syrup. (TIP: if you measure the oil first, then the molasses and syrup will slide right out of your measuring cup). Add wet to dry and stir to combine, kneading with your hands when the mixture is too thick to stir. If it seems to dry to hold together, add a Tablespoon of water at a time until the dough can form a ball. Use immediately, or chill until ready to use.

To make the cookies, roll the dough out between two pieces of parchment paper or waxed paper to a thickness of 1/8 – 1/4 inch. Cut with a small biscuit cutter or cookie cutter. Bake for 9-10 minutes in a 350 degree oven. It is very hard to tell if the cookies are done by sight, if you can smell them, they’ve probably been in there too long.

Makes approximately 2 dozen, depending on the size of your cookie cutter. This recipe is easily doubled.

I’ll post more about the cheesecakes soon.