Curried Veggie Pie with Buttermilk Crust

Someone gave me a bag full of parsnips. "What will I make with these?" I asked myself. My love of all foods encased in dough caused me to Google "parsnip pie"; a recipe popped up that I tweaked to my liking. The result was a deep, creamy pie full of veggies, cashews, and raisins encased in a tender crust washed in egg and sprinkled with black sesame seeds. Perfect comfort food for a cold winter's night.

for a 9.5-inch pie dish

Ingredients

 

Crust

 

1 1/4 cup white flour
1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
salt and pepper
2 tsp dried oregano
2 sticks cold butter, sliced
splash or two cold buttermilk
egg (for the wash)
black sesame seeds (for sprinkling on top; optional)

 

Filling

 

4 parsnips, sliced thinly
4 carrots, sliced thinly
8 shallots, chopped
1 cup frozen peas
4 small golden potatoes, diced
1/3 cup cashews
1/3 cup raisins
1/3 cup cilantro, chopped
2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp flour
1 Tbsp curry powder
1 1/4 cups whole milk
4 oz grated sharp cheddar
salt and pepper

Process

 

Crust

 

Sift flours and add salt, pepper, and oregano. Cut in the sliced butter (I usually crumble it in my hands until the flour is uniformly coarse, with some pieces as big as peas). Add the buttermilk a splash at a time, mixing with your hands until the dough comes together in a ball. Divide the ball into two, flatten into discs, and wrap each disc in plastic. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes (or freeze for later use).

Filling

 

Place parsnips, carrots, potatoes, and shallots into a large pot or Dutch oven. Cover with water and heat until the water comes to a boil. Simmer for 5 minutes then drain the veggies, saving 1 1/4 cups of the stock.

While the veggies are simmering toast the nuts on a pan over high heat until they are golden-brown (a little burnt is okay).

In your pot, melt the butter. Add the flour and curry powder and stir for two minutes. Add the veggie stock and the milk. Simmer for two minutes, stirring until the roux becomes uniformly thick. Remove from heat and add the cheese (it's okay to keep the pan on the heat for a minute or so if the cheese doesn't melt; I use Grafton cheddar, which is particularly resistant to the charms of fire). Stir until the cheese dissolves to make a thick, creamy sauce. Add salt and pepper to taste. Stir in the veggies, peas, cashews, raisins, and cilantro. Mix well. Your kitchen will be the envy of all your neighbors as they inhale the warm Spice Islands aroma.

Let the mixture sit as you roll out the pie crust.

Preheat the oven to 400. 

Place one of your discs on a large piece of parchment paper. Place another large piece of parchment paper on top. Roll out the disc until it fits in your pie pan as the bottom crust. Poke a few holes in the crust with a fork, place some pie weights on top, and bake the crust for 10-15 minutes, until it begins to turn brown.

Meanwhile, roll out the remaining disc in the same way.

Allow the crust to cool (20 minutes is okay). Pour in the filling. Place the top crust on top and pinch along the edges. Hopefully, everything fits like a dream. Refrigerate for 30 minutes to firm up the top crust.

With a large knife, slice from the center of the top crust to the middle of the crust. Do this in a circle all around the crust. You'll have 6-8 slices radiating from the center of the crust to its middle. It will look fancy and delicious, like a pie in a stock photo. Beat the egg and brush it on top of the crust (I use my hands; the Tipsy Crumpet has no pastry brush). Sprinkle liberally with black sesame seeds. Your pie looks stunning!

Place the pie in the oven, but wait! Be sure there's a layer of aluminum foil on the bottom rack so that you don't have any burning pools of curry smoking up your kitchen as the pie begins to bubble. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until the crust is golden brown and the curry simmering beneath it. If you've refrigerated the pie longer than 30 minutes (you can leave it in the refrigerator overnight), bake for 40 minutes.

Remove and dig in!

Notes

• You can use any combination of veggies you like for this recipe. Next time, I'm going to sub 1 cup each of chopped cabbage, small broccoli florets, and small cauliflower florets for the parsnips. The parsnips tasted better to me over time (this pie ages well and will taste just as good, if not better, five days after baking), but at first, their sweetness seemed to clash with the savoriness of the other veggies. Green beans sliced into manageable pieces would also be killer in this pie.
• I used to enjoy a similar pie at Sally Lunn's, an English tea shop in Princeton, NJ that has since closed. I added the raisins in homage to Lunn's. 
• You could easily make this pie vegan by subbing coconut milk for the regular milk; in fact, this might work even better with the curry. I didn't taste the cheese at all after baking, so you could probably use another Tbsp of flour as a substitute. 

Verdict

5 stars. This is wholesome and winsome, with flavors to die for. The crust perfectly complements the spiced veggies in their curry cream, and a small slice goes a long way. This is a winter dinner to last all week.

Smoky Vegetarian Pepperoni Rolls

It was the Super Bowl! Time for some snacks. These rolls are based on the pepperoni rolls native to West Virginia, but they have a twist: instead of meat pepperoni, they have the veggie kind, and instead of regular cheese, they have smoked. This year, I added herbs and spices for a flavorful bite. You'll want to dip these in pasta sauce--I like fra diavolo or puttanesca; something with an edge. This recipe makes enough for a party, but if you're making rolls for one or two, you may want to halve the recipe.

makes about 24 rolls

 

Ingredients 

 

3 cups water
1 Tbsp sugar 
2 packets yeast
1 1/2 Tbsp salt
6 1/2 cups white flour
olive oil
cornmeal
2 packages veggie pepperoni (I prefer Yves)
4 cups shredded smoked provolone
ground black pepper
red pepper flakes
dried basil
dried oregano

Process

Dough

Heat the water in a saucepan until it is wrist temperature. Add the sugar and yeast. Let sit for 10 minutes.

In a bowl, combine flour and salt. Mix with yeast water. Knead until the dough is smooth and elastic. I like to coat my hands with olive oil as I'm kneading. When the dough is pliable and smooth and responds when poked, with that living quality yeast dough takes on, coat it with olive oil, pat some around the inside of the bowl, and let rise. I like to put a damp cloth over the bowl and set it in a barely-warmed oven. The rising should take 1-1/2 hours, until the dough has doubled in bulk.

Once the dough has risen into a puffy mass, punch it down and roll it up again. Divide into four rounds. At this point, you can save the dough for later by coating each round in olive oil, sliding it into a one-gallon plastic bag, sealing the bag TIGHTLY, and putting the bag in the refrigerator. You want to make sure to seal the bags oh-so-tightly because, any gap, and you'll open your refrigerator to an oozing dough monster that has snaked out and expanded to engulf other food items. You may want to open the fridge and punch down the dough in each bag every so often until the dough has chilled into submission.

Pepperoni Rolls

40 minutes before you want to bake your rolls, set your oven to 500. Put your pizza stone, pizza pan, or other pizza-baking device in the oven so that it heats up and gets all ready to produce a crispy crust for you.

Get out your grated cheese, your pepperoni, and your spices. If you wish, divide pepperoni into four piles.

Obtain a large sheet of parchment paper and lay it on a flat surface. Sprinkle plenty of cornmeal on the parchment paper. Take your first round of dough, lay it on the cornmeal, and turn it to coat it on both sides. Smush it horizontally into a long, flat shape. Lay another sheet of parchment paper on top and then roll out the dough with a rolling pin until the dough is flat and vaguely rectangular. This is not an exact science, and the dough doesn't need to be paper-thin (maybe 1/8-inch thick). You want about a four-inch width. Remove the top sheet of parchment paper and cover with a layer of grated cheese. Sprinkle with pepper, red pepper flakes, basil, and oregano. Then, layer with pepperoni. A single line of continuous, slightly overlapping pepperoni is fine. Again, not an exact science.

When you have the right balance of pepperoni, cheese, and spices, roll the dough lengthwise into a long, thin cylinder. Pinch the ends closed. Cut the cylinder into segments with a knife: maybe five or six. If you want, you can create dimpling in each segment by pressing the blade of the knife down a few times without breaking the dough.

Place the pizza rolls on a third sheet of parchment paper and repeat the process with the other three rounds of dough.

Pull out your pizza stone or baking sheet and--very carefully--place your pizza rolls on top. Put the stone back in the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until lightly brown.

Remove from oven and serve with dipping sauce. Your kitchen will smell like Sicily.

 

Notes

• This seems like a lot of effort, but it's really quite easy.
• I usually like to add whole grain flour to anything I bake. Not this time, though. Whole-wheat pepperoni rolls sounds downright un-American.
• In the past, I used smoked mozzarella instead of provolone. Smoked provolone has more flavor and a meatier texture, in my opinion, but mozz will do if that's what you have. 
• I estimated four cups of cheese, but I grated mine right on top of the dough, so I'm not sure. You may want to go the Tipsy Crumpet route and improvise until it feels right. Tip: you can't really overdo it, but you can underdo it.
• The recipe I used said to boil some water and put it in a baking pan underneath the pepperoni rolls to create a steamy atmosphere. The oven sauna seemed to create a tender, airy texture, but the bottoms of the rolls weren't as crusty as I wanted. You can try this or not; the rolls will be scrumptious either way.
• You will end up sweeping up a lot of cornmeal. But those golden crunchy bits add the perfect bit of texture the final product. Viva Quaker!

Verdict

4 stars. A great snack, and leftovers will keep for about a week in your fridge in an airtight container. Don't microwave, though; this is one snack best reheated to toasty perfection in the oven. 

Roasted Vegetable Pot Pie with Rosemary Biscuit Topping

I wanted to make a main dish for a party, and a pot pie topped with biscuits--a savory cobbler--seemed irresistible. I used a recipe, but I adapted it so much, I might as well have created it from scratch. This pie takes a long time, but it's worth it. The double roasting of the vegetables produces maximum flavor and sweetness, and the dried mushrooms balance out the pie with an earthy note. The biscuits are fluffy and tender due to the use of buttermilk. You can use any mix of fresh and frozen veggies for this pie; it's extremely versatile. Sadly, I did not get a good photo of it, but you can see it on my holiday table being upstaged by a cake and a loaf of bread.

Ingredients

 

6 carrots, preferably of different colors, sliced
2 large parsnips, sliced
1 large or 2 small sweet potatoes, cut into 1/2-inch chunks
1 Tbsp olive oil
salt
pepper
6 cups water
2 Tbsp vegetable bouillon base
1 oz dried porcini mushrooms
1 small package microwavable fresh green beans, trimmed
3 Tbsp butter
1 onion, chopped
6 shallots, chopped (about 1/2 cup)
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 stalks celery, sliced
1 cup peas, fresh or frozen
1/2 tsp minced fresh rosemary
1/2 cup flour
1/4 whipping cream or sour cream
2 Tbsp dry sherry
dried sage
dried thyme
dried savory
celery seeds
1 small package chives, chopped (about 1/3 cup)

5 cups flour
2 Tbsp baking powder
1/4 cup fresh rosemary, minced
2 tsp salt
1 1/2 sticks chilled butter, cubed
2 1/2-3 cups buttermilk
paprika (optional)

Process

Got three hours? Roll up your sleeves!

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, then cover it with the carrot, parsnip, and sweet potato chunks. Massage the veggies with the olive oil and grind in some salt and pepper. Roast until tender, checking with a knife in 20 minutes and every 5 minutes after that. When you take out the veggies, reduce the oven temperature to 400.

While the veggies are roasting, microwave your green beans according to the package directions (a lazy step, I know, but the rest of this is so labor-intensive, you'll thank me).

In a saucepan, heat the water and bouillon. When these reach the boiling point, add the dried porcinis. Remove from heat.

In a Dutch oven, heat the butter. Add the onions and shallots and cook for 10 minutes on medium-low heat until transclucent.

Chop the cooled green beans into 1/2-inch pieces.

Add the green beans, garlic, celery, peas, and rosemary to the Dutch oven. Cook for another 5 minutes.

Add the flour and coat the veggies evenly. Stir and let cook for one minute.

Add the cream or sour cream, sherry, and broth with the mushrooms. Cook until sauce has thickened and reduced somewhat, about 8 minutes. Stir in more flour as needed to thicken the sauce.

Add dried sage, thyme, savory, and celery seeds as seems appropriate to season the broth (around 1 tsp each). Grind in more salt and pepper as needed.

Add the roasted veggies (they should be done by now) and the chives. Stir until veggies are evenly coated with sauce and sauce seems sufficiently thick and well-integrated with the veggies.

NOW, get a 9 x 13 glass baking pan. Will the veggies and sauce fit in the pan? You can always do like the Awkward Chef and line the bottom oven rack with aluminum foil to catch drippings. Pour the veggie mixture into the baking pan. Hopefully, it's enough to fill the pan, but without the danger of leaping overboard in simmering zeal. This was miraculously the case with my filling, which, although dangerously close to sloshing out, never did (at least, not until I topped it with giant clumps of biscuit dough).

Bake the filling for 40-50 minutes. The roux will brown and the veggies will meld, the onions and shallots transforming into a sweet, slow-roasted glue.

While your pie is deepening into itself, make the biscuit dough. (Okay, first clean up a bit. I bet your kitchen is messy and splotched. No roux spatters!)

Stir the flour, baking powder, rosemary, and salt in a large bowl.

Cut in the butter until the flour becomes a coarse sand.

Add the buttermilk slowly, mixing all the while, until you have moist clumps of dough.

Pull your baking pan from the oven. Blanket that filling with biscuit-sized rounds of dough. Nice, big ones. When you're finished, sprinkle the biscuits with paprika.

Now you're really going to want to make sure your oven is lined with aluminum foil. Put some beneath the baking pan for good measure. At this point, you may wish that you and your kitchen were aluminum-lined.

Bake for about 45 minutes, until a knife inserted into the runniest biscuit terrain comes out clean.

Cool for 15 minutes before serving.

This tastes even better in a day or two, heated up in the oven.

Notes

• This pie was originally all root vegetables, but my boyfriend doesn't like turnips or rutabagas, and celeriac seemed a dubious option. As I noted above, you can be extremely versatile with ingredients. Some blue potatoes, for example, would be nice in place of the yams. Roasted red cabbage would add an interesting note. I wouldn't go with fresh mushrooms, though, because you want the chewy texture of the dried.
• You can also be versatile with the seasonings and herbs used. No need to go with any of the any of the above if you'd prefer something else.
• While we're at it, I doubt that the dried mushrooms HAVE to be porcini.
• I used vegan sour cream in the roux because I have a lactose-intolerant friend and accidentally bought the French vanilla soy creamer. A frantic ransack of my fridge brought to light a still-good container of Tofutti. To my relief, it turned out great! Anything creamy will do.
• The original recipe called for half the amount of biscuit dough. It obviously didn't know with whom it was dealing.
• You don't HAVE to roast the veggies the first time around. It will not kill anyone if you saute them along with the other veggies.
• One small package of rosemary will do for the rosemary. One small package of chives will do for the chives. No need to kill yourself with precise measurements.
• If all your oven-dripping prevention activity is for naught and you end up with quickly burning patches of roux on your oven walls, know that the appetizing smells of the roasting veggies will overpower the acrid scent of burning flour and bouillon. I would not have dreamed that this was true, but it is!

Verdict

5 stars. If you get past my finicky notes and messy kitchen-shaming and make this, you'll be glad you did.

Green Tomato Pie with Buttermilk-Cornmeal Crust

Inspired by Nothing in the House's green tomato pie, I decided to bake a pie featuring the unripe fruit, but savory instead of sweet. Being from the Bronx, I know next to nothing about green tomatoes and their properties, but I threw together a heap of my favorite ingredients, and the end result was smashing. A flaky, tender crust with a hint of grit gives way to a forkful of the season's bounty. I bought most of my ingredients at the Silver Spring farmer's market, and it was worth the airiness in my wallet to put this on the table.

Ingredients

 

Crust

2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
pinch salt
2 sticks butter
3/4-1 cup buttermilk

Filling

 

4-5 medium green tomatoes (the unripe kind, not the heirloom kind--they should be as hard and sour as a third-grade teacher coming back from vacation)
1 package veggie bacon
4 ears corn (or half a bag frozen, preferably Trader Joe's blackened kernels)
1/2 red pepper, diced
1/2 green pepper, diced
1/2 onion, diced
1 garlic clove
3 scallions, sliced
handful basil leaves, chopped fine
2 Tbsp cornstarch
pinch or two salt
generous amount ground pepper
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
squeeze lemon
1/2 tsp honey
1 cup sharp cheddar, grated

Process

 

You'll probably want to alternate between the crust part of the instructions and the filling part. You can also make the dough ahead of time and freeze or refrigerate it. If you freeze, let it thaw for a few hours in the refrigerator before attempting to roll. You can also make the filling ahead of time and refrigerate.

Crust

Obtain a 10-inch pie pan. Set aside.

Cut the butter into cubes. Put in a bowl and place in the freezer until frozen--about 20 to 30 minutes.

Pour flour, cornmeal, and salt into a food processor. Pulse to aerate. (The lazy chef's way of sifting.)

When butter is frozen, pulse with the flours until the butter is in pea-sized chunks. It won't take a lot of pulsing. Even if you overdo it and the mixture turns into a sandy powder, let's face it, it will still be pie crust.

Pour everything into a bowl. Add buttermilk a little at a time and work it in with your hands until the dough just sticks together in a ragged clump. (I estimated the amount above, but use your best judgment.)

Form dough into two balls, wrap tightly in plastic, and place in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to an hour. Now you can start the filling!

Filling halfway there? It's time to roll the crust. Here is my no-fail, easy-if-you-have-all-the-components method.

Tear off two large sheets of parchment paper or wax paper.

Lay the first sheet on a silicon pie mat or your countertop.

Place one of the rounds of dough on the sheet. Place the other sheet on top.

Using a rolling pin (I prefer the French kind), roll out the dough, turning the mat or the sheet of paper as you go so that it flattens into an even circle (who are we kidding--a geometrically unclassifiable surface that looks vaguely round if you take off your glasses).

When the dough seems roughly the size and flatness needed to serve as a bottom crust, peel from the paper and place in the pie pan, trimming, adding, and crimping as needed. Prick some holes on the bottom and sides with a fork.

Place the pan in the freezer for 20-30 minutes. 

You have the filling all ready to go?

Don't reach for your iPhone just yet! You still have the other round of dough.

Repeat the steps above, chortling gleefully this time, as the dough won't have to labor like its more industrious twin to line a baking dish. It need only be dropped from above to form the perfect covering for your filling.

When the dough seems flat enough and the circumference long enough to form a top crust, take the bottom crust out of the freezer. Heap with filling, then top with top crust. Prick holes in the top crust with a fork.

Follow the instructions below for baking.

 

Filling

Preheat the oven to 425.

Put a little oil in a pan. Sear the veggie bacon. Remove from heat.

Thinly slice tomatoes and place in a large bowl. Add salt and toss.

Tear veggie bacon into pieces and toss with tomatoes.

Scrape the kernels off the ears of corn (or pour in frozen corn) and add to the tomato mixture.

Mix in red pepper, green pepper, and onions.

Crush in garlic.

Add scallions and basil.

Add cornstarch and toss until consistency is uniform.

Add ground pepper and red pepper flakes. Squeeze in lemon and massage in the bit of honey.

Grate in the cheese (I did this right into the bowl--the measurement above is an approximation).

Toss everything together with your hands. Add more of anything that seems underrepresented.

Once you've assembled your pie as described above, place it in the oven.

Bake at 425 for 10 minutes, then lower heat to 350 and bake another 40-50 minutes, until crust is golden-brown and edges are fizzing.

You may want to cover the crust with aluminum foil after the first 5 minutes, taking the foil off 10 minutes from the end.

Set pie on a rack to cool. Serve at room temperature or slightly warm.

I bet this pie tastes good cold.

Notes

 

• I completely winged this recipe, and suggest that you do the same. For the filling, use whatever you like, in whatever quantities. The green tomatoes provide a backdrop for anything pungent, spicy, savory, crunchy, or herbal.
• I actually used green olives instead of green pepper and onions, but tasting the pie a few times convinced me that green pepper and onions would have been the better call. This pie is so glorious, though, that olives won't exactly leave you crying in your beer.
• If you want, you can chop up some rosemary and add it to the pie dough. You can also use dried herbs.
• Gruyere would be good in lieu of cheddar.
• I used veggie bacon because I'm a vegetarian. Salty protein from a vegetable: modern life is delicious.
• I did not add a lot of basil for fear of overpowering the pie. You can experiment with more, or try other herbs such as marjoram or oregano.
• This recipe is for a 10-inch pie. For a 9-inch pie, your crust could have 2 heaping cups flour, 1/3 cup cornmeal, 15 Tbsp butter, and 1/2 cup buttermilk. Maybe subtract a tomato.

 

Verdict

5 stars. One of my favorite recipes yet and a summer keeper.

Tangy Lemon-Herb Salad

This herbaceous salad dances on your tongue with a combination of summer greens, lemon, artichoke brine, and salt. You'll swoon, you'll eat more, you'll want only salad for dinner, you'll forget about dessert. If the Tipsy Crumpet would rather eat salad than anything else, you KNOW it's a good salad.

serves 4 as a dinner salad and 8 as a side salad

 

Ingredients

1 bag prewashed arugula
1 head radicchio
2 cups quartered artichoke hearts in brine (from the deli section is optimal)
1/2 cup pitted kalamata olives
any other veggie you want to add--cherry tomatoes, chopped red bell pepper, etc.
bundle fresh mint
bundle fresh chives
bundle fresh dill
1 lemon
pinch salt
few grinds pepper

Process

Obtain a large bowl. Fill with arugula.

Half the radicchio. Slice each half into ribbons, then turn 90 degrees and slice the ribbons into ribbons. It's like delicious geometry homework!

Mix the radicchio and the arugula. Add the artichoke hearts. Pour in some of the brine (when I say "some," I mean "some." Use your intuition.)

Add the olives. Give a few good tosses with your hands. Looks pretty good, doesn't it?

Chop as much mint, chives, and dill as seems appropriate. Toss with the veggies. Add any other veggies you have.

Cut the lemon in half and squeeze one half on the salad. Toss with your hands. At this point, you may nibble an arugula leaf. Does it need more lemon? Squeeze on the other half (the Tipsy Crumpet likes a LOT of lemon).

Add the salt and pepper. Toss with your hands.

Now you have a fresh, gleaming, tart, tangy, and tender dinner accompaniment.

Notes

• You could add some feta cheese. You don't need it, but it couldn't hurt.
• If you're not crazy about feta but still want cheese, grate in some parmesan or asiago, using the larger grater holes so the cheese doesn't dissolve into the dressing.
• This is a flexible salad. You can use other herbs, though chives, dill, and mint play well together and taste great with lemon. Basil would overwhelm the salad and hog all the attention. Oregano might taste too bitter. But mix and match and try anything you want. As long as you have brine, lemon, and salt, you'll want to keep eating until the last leaf is gone.
• You really don't need other veggies for this salad. But if you're serving it as a dinner salad, garlic bread would be a terrific accompaniment. Slice a whole-wheat baguette lengthwise, smear with olive oil, and top with crushed fresh garlic. A few shakes of dried basil and red pepper flakes, a brief stint in the oven at broil, and you'll have a crunchy, pungent sidekick to your meal.

Verdict

This is a five-star salad.

Seven-Mango Layer Cake with Raspberry Filling and Mango-Rum Frosting (vegan)

I created this cake for an Earth day/birthday party. Super moist and fluffy despite the lack of eggs, the cake earned rave reviews from the non-vegan crowd. You need a LOT of mangoes to make this work, and the cake is somewhat labor-intensive, but it's worth it. It's like a vegan prima donna strutting her pulchritudinous self down a fruited runway.

serves an adventurous crowd

Ingredients

Cake

 

3 cups flour
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
dash salt
tsp cardamom
2 cups mango puree (see below)
3/4 cup almond milk (or other kind of non-dairy milk)
1/4 cup rum
2/3 cup canola oil
1 1/3 cups sugar
2 tsp vanilla

Raspberry Filling

 

12-oz package frozen raspberries
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
1 Tbsp lemon juice
3 Tbsp cornstarch dissolved in 1/4 cup water

Frosting

 

1/2 to 1 cup mango puree (see below)
1/4 cup softened Earth Balance
1/4 cup softened Tofutti cream cheese
2 cups confectioner's sugar (more as needed)
1 tsp vanilla extract
dash or so rum
raspberries and blueberries for garnish (optional)

Mango Puree (3 cups)

7 or 8 champagne mangoes
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice

Process

 

Let's start with the puree, as you'll need it for both the cake and the frosting. 

Mango Puree

 

Peel the mangoes, then slice them. This is rather tricky with champagne mangoes, but you should be able to get off most of the flesh.

Put the sliced mango in a food processor. Add the sugar and lemon juice.

Puree until smooth. You may have to do this in batches.

You can make the puree ahead of time and keep it in the refrigerator, tightly covered.

Cake

 

Preheat oven to 350.

Oil two round cake pans.

Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cardamom into a large bowl.

In another bowl, mix the mango puree, almond milk, rum, oil, sugar, and vanilla.

Tip the wet ingredients into the dry. With bold strokes, mix until batter is smooth. Don't overmix, lest you want the crumb to turn from silky to rubbery.

Pour equal amounts of batter into the two cake pans. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until an inserted knife comes out clean. You may find a few golden crumbs clinging to your utensil. This is fine.

Let cakes cool for 10 minutes before turning them onto a wire rack.

Meanwhile, make the. . .

Filling

Pour raspberries, water, sugar, and lemon juice into a small saucepan.

Bring to a boil and simmer for 15-20 minutes, or until raspberry globules have freed themselves from the raspberry unit and mixed with all the other globules in a communal slurry.

Strain the mixture using a fine sieve. Pour the seedless communal slurry into the saucepan and return the saucepan to the stove.

Pour in the dissolved cornstarch solution and mix.

Bring the slurry back to a boil and simmer for 5 more minutes.

Remove from the heat to let it cool completely, stirring now and then. If the slurry becomes a gob of unspreadable raspberry goo, add a little water to thin it out.

When both cakes and filling are completely cool, spread the filling on one cake and place the other cake on top. We're nearly there!

Frosting

 

Cream vegan cream cheese and Earth Balance.

Add confectioner's sugar, whipping the two together all the while. If this takes too much coordination, alternate adding sugar and whipping.

Mix in the vanilla and rum. Take a swig of rum. You deserve it!

Stir in half a cup of mango puree. How's the consistency? Add more mango and/or confectioner's sugar as needed, tasting the frosting to make sure it's the tropical topping of your dreams.

When all is to your liking, spread the frosting along the sides and top of the cake until cake is completely covered. Only lick the spatula when you're suuuuuuuuure you're satisfied.

When the cake looks like a snowy mango bride, dot the frosting with raspberries and blueberries. Refrigerate until serving so that the frosting doesn't slump.

Notes

• I used champagne mangoes, which are small and have a tart flavor that I like. If you go for a sweeter mango, such as Haitian or the larger, orange variety with the greenish skin, you'll probably need fewer mangoes for the puree.
• When I made this cake, I did not believe that the frosting would be enough, and doubled the recipe (keeping the one cup of mango puree). This produced way too much. I then felt compelled to bake vegan chocolate cupcakes from Isa Chandra Moskowitz's Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, spread them with the frosting, and top each with a strawberry slice. Not a bad way to use any leftovers.
• You don't NEED rum. But it's a nice addition, especially if you use the tarter mangoes.
• It will take you at least half a day to bake and assemble this cake if you complete all the steps in one day. If you want, you can make the puree, frosting, and filling ahead of time.

Verdict

 

It's exhausting just to write about this cake, but it truly is worth it if you have a friend or loved one who requires some vegan cake magic. Especially nice during early spring, when everyone starts craving fruit.

"I am the mango cake monster who eats up all your time and resources. . . but everyone else will love me. Muhuhahahaha!"

Pumpkin Chocolate-Chip Breakfast Cookies

These cookies are a morning treat: plump, rich in color, redolent with oats, and filled with exciting nuggets of chocolate, ginger, and walnut. You'll enjoy them, but you won't experience a sugar crash and burn after eating. Think of them as craggy condensed muffins.

makes about two dozen cookies

Ingredients

2 sticks butter, softened (one cup)
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
1 can pumpkin
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 dash whiskey or rum
2 cups flour
2 cups oats
showering of ground flax
4 tsp baking powder
few hearty shakes of cinnamon
dash of ginger
dash of salt
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp milk or almond milk
whopping shake of dark chocolate chunks
1/2 cup candied ginger, diced
whopping shake of walnut pieces

Process

Preheat the oven to 350. Line a few baking pans with parchment paper.

Combine butter and sugars. Whisk until they form one silken ball, or mush together with your hands like I do.

Add the pumpkin, eggs, vanilla, and whiskey or rum. Inhale--yum. Don't forget to give the chef a tipple.

In a separate bowl, combine flour, oats, flax, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, and salt.

Gingerly (har!) mix dry and wet together.

In a separate dish, stir the baking soda into the milk. Add to the batter.

Toss in the chocolate chunks, ginger, and walnut pieces. Mix with your bare hands.

Put the bowl in the refrigerator for half an hour or so to firm up the batter.

Using a cookie scoop, an ice-cream scoop, or your hands, form ping-pong ball-sized rounds of batter and plop them on the cookie sheets.

Bake for 8-10 minutes. The cookies will look slightly underdone and liquidy in the centers, but they'll slide around the baking sheet intact when prodded with a spatula. My oven is built such that it take only about 6 minutes for the cookies to bake, but I think it's a freak oven.

If you overbake these, they'll still be soft and delectable because of the pumpkin content.

Notes

• These would be great with raisins, cranberries, or dried cherries.
• You don't really need three kinds of sugars. I used all three because I don't like just relying on white sugar, but any kind will do.
• Oat flour instead of oats would give you a smooth texture with just as much fiber.
• Perfect with a cup of black tea. I enjoyed some with Palais des Thés' Margaret Hope.

Verdict

5 stars. Wholesome and decadent: Tipsy Crumpet heaven!