No Panicking! A Last Minute Treat for the Fourth

Whenever a friend or family member is hosting a shindig, I am only too ecstatically happy to help them out by bringing a treat. Unfortunately, I also can be a bit flaky at times, so if I haven't implemented my super favorite trick of baking and freezing ahead, I tend to realize the night before, or more horrifyingly, the day of, that I forgot to make something. Usually this isn't a horrible crisis; I just end up bringing cookies so fresh, that maybe they're still warm from the oven...

If you've been enjoying the beautiful summer weather and taking a well deserved break, you might now be coming to the violent realization I often do, and remember that you need a hostess gift/present/potluck item for a Fourth of July party. Not to fear - I've got a recipe that is simple yet non-traditional, very tasty, and that uses most everyone's favorite BBQ item - beer! (Although, if you stay away from the stuff, fear not! I'll give you a modification in the recipe below.)

I got hooked on beer bread many years ago, thanks to Tastefully Simple. It's no secret that I almost always stay away from boxed mixes as much as possible, but I have to say, Tastefully Simple tend to be high quality, very yummy, and easy to gussy up and look very fancy. One of those items? Their beer bread. Absolutely delicious. I introduced it to Greg, and he loved it too. And we left it out on the counter once, and Maggie, our faithful dog we had before our three girls, who was always so good about not going near people food, ate an entire loaf off the counter once when we weren't looking. Trust me - if it was irresistible to Maggie, then this must have been good stuff.

That said, we haven't had it in a long time because all of my Tastefully Simple contacts either got out of the business or we lost touch. I have often dreamed of delicious, delicious beer bread, but not really doing anything about it.

Then, I was reading a book written by my new favorite frugal bloggers, Wise Bread, and lo and behold, what was on the list of 21 Things to Do with Beer? Make delicious beer bread. I monkeyed with the ingredients a bit and came up with a foolproof recipe that you can put together in no time with ingredients you probably already have in your house. Bonus: if you are making it at the last minute, it is fantastic hot, so partygoers will be impressed with you (just wrap it in foil, not plastic, when you bring it over.) Beer bread is great because 1) turning beer into bread is kind of novel and people tend to want to talk about it (ice breaker!); 2) it goes well with the BBQ theme; and 3) people will be impressed with you - as well they should.

Beer Bread (adapted from the bloggers at Wise Bread)
Yields: 1 loaf

Ingredients:
3 c. all purpose flour
5 tsp. baking powder
Scant salt
1/2 tsp. onion powder + 3/4 tsp. Italian seasoning (Actually, I have this awesome stuff my sister Alison gave me from Penzeys called Sunny Paris Seasoning that I use - but certainly don't run out and buy it just for this recipe)
1/4 c. brown sugar
A can or bottle of beer (Not into alcohol? Just substitute 12 ounces of something fizzy - juice, pop, whatever tastes good to you)

1) Mix together flour, powder, salt, and spices. When well mixed, incorporate brown sugar.
2) Mix in the beer. Keep mixing (either with a mixer or by hand) just until all ingredients are incorporated and a dough ball is mostly formed.
3) Pat the dough into a greased loaf pan.
4) Bake in a 375 degree oven for 45-50 minutes. You will know it's done when you can knock on it and you get a rocking sound (and nothing feels squishy).
5) Cool on wire rack. (If cutting while hot, use a serrated knife.)

**RECIPE UPDATE: Although I found this version to be delicious, Greg thought the spices were weird and didn't reflect the "tasty" of the Tastefully Simple version. When I made it again and left out Sunny Paris Seasoning (or in this recipe, onion powder and Italian seasoning), he loved it. If you're going for a less savory approach, or if you don't like buying spices, I'd go ahead and leave them out.

Doin' It Up Old School...With A Vegan Twist

I love to bake all kinds of things, but I still maintain that the best recipes are the old classics. I've noticed time and again that whenever I pull a recipe from an old cookbook that was sold as a local fundraiser where I grew up, or if I use an old family recipe (either my family's or a friend's!), those are always the foods that are favorites. I'm not sure if these foods just bring back good memories for people, or if the recipes are just classics that have been perfected over the generations, but I know better than to question a good thing.

One of my absolute favorite treats as a kid was straight out of my elementary school cookbook: chocolate caramel brownies. My mom would make these, and I would just melt. These brownies are just ridiculously rich and intense, with sweetness of chocolate mixing in with the salty stickiness of the caramel. Very yummy indeed! They are great because they are a hit with kids, but because they are so decadent, they also pass as a very "adult" dessert as well. What is also great about this recipe is that it took German chocolate cake mix and jazzed it up, so if you don't normally keep baking ingredients in your home but you want to bake something special, a box of cake mix will do the trick.

Let me tell you though, the recipe violates just about every rule of vegan baking that there is. First, cake mix - not only do you find dairy and egg products, but healthywise, these are the worst offenders of partially hydrogenated yuck you can buy. Second, evaporated milk is critical in this recipe. And finally, the caramels. Besides having milk in them, they are just annoying to handle, even if they are delicious in the final product. The original recipe calls you to buy a bag of caramels and individually unwrap each of the 50 caramels. Let me tell you, I'm usually fairly bitter by the time I'm done with that process, and I'd rather just eat the 50 caramels than keep baking.

Fortunately, all of these fixes are pretty easy! I've previously extolled the virtues of Cherrybrook Kitchens (http://www.cherrybrookkitchens.com) vegan cake mixes, and it is just as delicious here, too. Just pick up a box of chocolate cake mix, and you're all set. Evaporated milk? No problem. Just take the amount of milk you need and double it, swapping in soy milk. Then, heat up the milk over medium low heat; the soy milk will get hot, but don't let it boil. Just stir occasionally, and the milk will reduce. Once reduced by half, you have evaporated milk.

And the caramel? That ended up being the best surprise of all. Not only is this stuff delicious in this recipe, but it's actually meant to be a topping for ice cream. The batch whips up really quickly, and the final product has an intense, almost nutty flavor. Two thumbs way up, and a special thank you to http://veganicecream.blogspot.com for posting the recipe! I've put it below.

Chocolate Caramel Brownies
Yields: 20-24 brownies

Ingredients:
2/3 c. soy milk (directions in recipe for turning it into evaporated milk)
Caramel Sauce (recipe follows at end)
1 box vegan chocolate cake mix
3/4 c. non-dairy butter substitute, melted (like Earth's Balance)
1 c. vegan chocolate chips (like Ghirardelli)

1) Prepare evaporated milk. Heat soy milk over medium low heat, occasionally stirring to keep from boiling. After approximately 10-15 minutes, the milk should have reduced by half (1/3 c.). Remove from heat.
2) At the same time, prepare caramel sauce (recipe at the end).
3) Mix together (by hand) the evaporated soy milk, the cake mix, and the melted butter substitute. The mixture will look like brownies.
4) Pat 2/3 of the dough into a greased 9 x 13 inch pan. Bake the mixture for 8 minutes in a preheated 350 degree oven.
5) Remove from oven and sprinkle chocolate chips on top. Add the caramel sauce; you will not need all of it, just add until the caramel covers the top. (Put the rest in the fridge for ice cream!)
6) Take the remaining dough and crumble over the top of the caramel, pushing the dough into the caramel if need be.
7) Bake for 15-20 minutes. Cool completely before cutting. If you are having trouble removing the brownies from the pan or if you used too much caramel, do not worry. Simply leave the cut brownies in the pan, cover, and put the brownies in the fridge until cold. The caramel will firm up, and then you'll have an easier time removing them.

Caramel Sauce
Yields: 2-3 cups sauce

Ingredients:
1/2 c. non-dairy butter substitute (like Earth's Balance)
2 c. brown sugar
3/4 c. soy milk, divided
2 Tbsp. arrowroot.

1) Mix 1/4 c. soy milk and the arrowroot together; put aside.
2) Melt the remaining ingredients in a saucepan, over medium to medium high heat, stirring frequently. Once melted, the mixture should boil (or will shortly begin to boil). Boil for 4 minutes, stirring constantly.
3) Immediately remove the mixture from the heat and add the soymilk/arrowroot mixture. Stir until smooth.

Ask Veg Baker, J.D.: What's the Deal with Applesauce?

Hello everyone! First off, please accept my apologies for my one week delay in posting, but I'm back and raring to go!

To make up for my absence, I thought I would address a question I get all the time: what's my obsession with putting applesauce in so many of my vegan recipes?

My answer: because applesauce is a wonderful multitasker and can replace both a liquid fat AND eggs! (although not necessarily at once...read more below...)

When I was a young sprout, my mom taught me a great trick I could put right up my sleeve: you can use applesauce to replace the oil in boxed mixes. It's great because if you're in a pinch and you're out of oil (or other liquid fat, including melted butter), applesauce can swoop in and save the day. I often bake with it because it works like a fat with the benefit of having no fat; this means you preserve the flavor of a tasty baked good while cutting out obscene amounts of fat. No complaints here! Applesauce also works great because it adds a dense moisture to foods and adds depth to the final product's flavor profile without altering the taste itself. All in all, these are all great things!

When I decided to go the vegan route and was looking for eggs substitutes, I was shocked to see that applesauce can also be used. I should caution that applesauce cannot be used universally as an egg substitute; as Isa Chandra Moskowitz so eloquently stated in Vegan with a Vengeance, it helps to determine whether eggs are used in a recipe to bind the ingredients together or whether the eggs also leaven. As long as the eggs were used just to bind, applesauce is great. Therefore, I find that applesauce works well in quick breads (like pumpkin bread), cakes, and some "heftier" cookies, like the Oatmeal Banana Cookies and the Oatmeal Cranberry White Chocolate Chunk cookies. The other reason I like to use applesauce as an egg replacer is because I cut down on food waste; whenever I would buy a dozen eggs or egg beaters, they almost always went bad before I could finish using them. I don't have that problem with applesauce, or if I have a bunch, I can freeze the applesauce until I need to bake with it.

This all said, I wouldn't use applesauce to replace both the fat and the eggs in a recipe; I would figure out which role you want it to play and then determine a substitute for the other product. For example, with rare exception, I tend to use applesauce as an egg replacer when the recipe calls for a solid fat. Applesauce can only replace liquid fats, and I can use Earth's Balance as a great dairy replacment. However, if the recipe calls for oil, I almost always replace the oil with applesauce to cut down on fat and then play around with other egg substitutes, like bananas or soy yogurt.

So, appropriately, to further today's celebration of applesauce, I am including a recipe for homemade unsweetened applesauce, with tips for how to sweeten it, if that's your cup of tea. I played around with this recipe over the weekend. My wonderful mom offered to pick up "some" apples for me when she went apple picking - she very generously gave me a bushel! So needless to say, I'm trying to put those apples to good use. Similarly, if you ever find you have a couple of apples in the fridge that are not much longer for this world, you can save them by scaling this recipe down and making some applesauce.

I should also note that unsweetened applesauce - which is literally just water and apples - is dog-safe. You can freeze it and give it to the pups like ice cream. I'm not so sure if unsweetened applesauce is universally liked by dogs, though. I made some applesauce for Sheila and Lucy over the weekend and gave them an unfrozen version, and they were kind of confused. They clearly really wanted to like it, but they had never seen anything with that kind of texture before, so they were a little weirded out by how it looked. No matter; it was tasty to this human. :)

Please note, if you do choose to go beyond this recipe and add other ingredients, please don't feed it to your dog.

Unsweetened Applesauce
Yields: 2-3 cups of applesauce

8 apples
1 cup water
(hints for sweetening for a human-only version are at the end)

1) If you please, remove the skins. Some people like sauce with the skins on, but others think it is weird to have skins floating around their sauce. This is a judgment call on your part.
2) Core the apples and cut into bite size pieces. For reference, I often use an apple corer that also yields 8 individual slices; I cut each of those slices into 3 pieces, and that is enough. Don't feel like you have to do a crazy dice.
3) Put apples in a pot with one cup of water and cover. Bring to a boil.
4) When boiling, give the apples a stir (they should start to be mushy at this point), turn the heat down so the water is simmering, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes. Stir occasionally.

That's it! You can easily scale this recipe up or down and freeze what you don't want.
If you like a little sweetness in your sauce, at the end of the 20 minutes simmering, you can add a little white and/or brown sugar and some cinnamon to taste; mix until dissolved, and you're done. Some people also like cloves, but I think cloves are gross, so I wouldn't know about that. :) Just remember, if you add these ingredients, this recipe is no longer dog safe.

Having an Open and Honest Relationship with Boxed Cake Mix

I have had a long and sordid relationship with boxed mixes, and cake mix in particular. When I first starting baking in junior high, it's not too surprising that cake-making from scratch was not my strong suit. After a couple of tremendous flops, I decided, in true dramatic, adolescent form, that I simply was not cut out to make cakes from scratch and that I could never be taught. I discovered Pillsbury and Betty Crocker and gained the confidence to make all kinds of cakes and cupcakes all through high school and college.

After college, I decided that, perhaps, I should try this whole making cakes from scratch thing again. Lo and behold, I discovered that my skills as a baker had improved over the 10+ years I had limited myself to cookies, brownies, and banana bread, turning me into a cocky 20-something who began to foresake the very boxes that had helped hone her baking skills.

I soon began to realize how much of a baking snob I had become and wanted to give the boxes another try, but I soon ran into other food-related dilemmas. In addition to the trans fat and high fructose corn syrup problems that mixes create, I also faced some economic realities as a consistently broke adult; I couldn't really justify buying the box mix because I already had the flour, sugar, and other ingredients in my house to make a cake from scratch. In addition, I rarely needed the full 24-30 cupcakes a box would yield. By making something from scratch, I could control the final quantity, without having spares around the house for me to snack on and get me into trouble. Add in the snob element that was still lurking underneath, and I thought boxed mixes had retired for good.

Finally, though, I think I've struck the balance that was missing. As I've been going through favorite recipes from childhood, I'm finding that more and more recipes relied upon on boxed mixes than I realized. The difference is that the recipes rarely used straight mixes; instead, the boxes were gussied up to take the best of the mix and bump it up into a delicious new product. It's true that the baking purist in me rarely relies on a box anymore, but now that I know I can transform a box into something unexpected, some recipes that use the stuff will occasionally make it into my repertoire. This recipe below is definitely a winner; I got it from a friend of my sister's at a bridal shower. It travels really well and has made an easy dessert at outdoor concerts, or else it can be easily turned into fun cupcakes. I recommend topping with chocolate frosting. I haven't had a chance to fully veganize it, so I hope to update this post soon, but a quick glance tells me that removing the egg shouldn't be too tough. I'll keep you posted!

As a final note, there is still the very legitimate concern of finding a vegan baking mix that does not have trans fats, partially hydrogenated oils, and all of the other scary things that make mixes taste so good. Enter Cherrybrook Kitchen (http://www.cherrybrookkitchen.com); not only are the mixes vegan, nut-free, and gluten-free, but a young child can read all of the ingredients off the side of a box, which I think is the noblest test any foodstuff can pass. I find it is consistently stocked at Whole Foods. And did I mention the final product is delicious?

Banana Cake
Yields: one cake that easily feeds 6-8 people

Ingredients
1 package of plain yellow cake mix (I prefer Cherrybrook Kitchen)
1/2 c. packed light brown sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
2-3 ripe medium mashed bananas (about one cup)
1 c. water
1/2 c. vegetable oil
3 large eggs

1) Combine cake mix, sugar, and cinnamon. Blend in bananas, water, oil, and eggs until well mixed.
2) Pour into a greased 9x13 pan and bake for 40 minutes in a 350 degree oven, or until the top is lightly browned and a toothpick comes out clean.
3) When cooled, frost with your favorite icing (my favorite is the vegan chocolate buttercream frosting).