Blackberry Peach Plum Cobblerrumble

Sometimes it's really hard to eat all of the things. The fruit things especially. I bought a giant container of plums last weekend, only to be kind of sort of really disappointed at how bland/tart they turned out to be. I slogged my way through them as best I could this past week, but I know myself well enough to know that pitted against the market's latest bounty of fresh fruit, these lack-luster plums would probably whither in the fridge if they didn't get used up soon. As in, immediately.

I couldn't resist throwing in some of the aforementioned bounty, creating a fabulous  late-summer fruit cobblerumble. 

Cobblerrumble? Yes, about that...




There is, as I learned, a difference between a cobbler and a crumble. Unfortunately my impatience got the better of me, and my crumble topping got hand-mashed into a dough. After freezing it, the dough crumbled into chunks. The recipe outlines how the crumble topping is supposed to come out, but know that if you, too, get impatient the topping will be still be delicious. And on top of it all, I got to invent a pretty catchy portmanteau (if I do say so myself). So. Are you ready to cobblerrumble?!

Blackberry Peach Plum Cobblerrumble

Ingredients

For the topping:

½ c. almond meal

¼ c. all-purpose flour

½ c. light brown sugar

¾ c. rolled oats

½ tsp. cinnamon

½ tsp. nutmeg

½ c. cold butter (1 stick)

Pinch of salt

For Filling:

2 large peaches
½ pint blackberries, cut in half

6-7 small purple or red plums
½ tsp. vanilla extract
1½  TBSP all-purpose flour

2 TBSP of brown sugar (add an additional TBSP if you prefer a sweeter filling)

juice of half a small lemon, or lime

1 tsp. of cinnamon

a of dash allspice or nutmeg

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

To prepare the filling, first pit your stone fruits and cut them into bite-sized slices. In a large bowl combine the peaches, plums, halved blackberries, vanilla extract, flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, allspice or nutmeg, and citrus juice. Carefully toss the fruits so that they are evenly coated. Set aside.

For the topping, combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl. With a fork or pastry cutter, cut in the 1/2 cup of butter by the tablespoon until your topping looks like pea sized crumbles. I got impatient and dumped the whole half cup of butter in at once, which created a bit globby butter mess. I ended up going in with my fingers, warmed the butter, and got one lump of dough rather than crumbles. Like I said above, if this happens don't panic! Stick the bowl in the freezer for 5 minutes, and it'll crumble into clumps again.

Pour the fruit filling into an 8x8 baking dish. Sprinkle your crumble (or clumps) evenly over top. Bake for 35-40 minutes, until filling is gorgeous and bubbly. 

I couldn't wait for this to cool before digging in. The filling turned out thick and juicy, the perfect balance of sweet and tart. An excellent reason to buy fresh plums from your local market! My singular regret about this creation that I lacked the forethought to buy a pint of vanilla ice cream to go with it. 

Ginger Peach Hand Pies

You know how sometimes you wish for something, and then that wish comes true, but not exactly the way you had envisioned? Maybe you're like me, and you wished you could have a nice summer break, a staycation, during which you could visit friends, do some more city exploring, perhaps a few days at the beach. But what you got instead is mandated stay at home time while you wait for your international background check to clear before you can start your new gig in Baltimore. Which will hopefully clear soon because that ding-dong money tree I've been trying for still hasn't sprouted.

The one good thing about this time is I can finally play with recipes that I've been putting off because it's either too time consuming, too complicated, or makes too much of a mess to clean up on a weeknight. I can finally make hand pies!

Again unable to resist the ever-ripening mountains of peaches at the market, I decided to try a tangy element with these pies. Minced ginger has a nice tang that lends itself to either sweet or savory dishes, and compliments the juicy sweetness of these yellow peaches.

 

I tried a different crust from Vegan Pie in the Sky this time around, the Puffy Pie Dough, which came together pretty easily, and is probably less stressful to work with than a pure (vegan)butter dough. (But I still put my roller in the freezer -- work cold, work fast!) But it also doesn't make enough dough for the amount of filling I got, which ended up being close to 3 or 4 cups. Whatever kind of dough you use, make sure you roll it a smidge thicker than you would for a regular pie -- these peaches are juicy and you don't want all that peachy goodness to go anywhere but in your mouth!

Ginger Peach Hand Pies

Puffy Pie Dough from Vegan Pie in the Sky

Dough

2 ¼ c. all-purpose flour

3 TBSP sugar

½ tsp salt

½ tsp baking powder

½ c. cold Earth Balance margarine

½ c. cold plain soy yogurt (I used Greek Style So Delicious brand)

¼ c. cold almond milk

Filling

5-6 medium sized peaches
2 TBSP corn starch
1½  TBSP lemon juice
3 TBSP sugar

1-1½ tsp freshly grated ginger

dash allspice
Pinch salt
2 TBSP flour

¼ c. almond milk
turbanado sugar for sprinkling

For the dough:

In large mixing bowl combine flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. Cut in the margarine with a pastry cutter if you have one, or your fingers. I got mine for a few bucks at a flea market. Because you need to mix in the yogurt with a spatula, I nixed the food processor so that I would have one less thing to clean.

Add half the yogurt, mix with a large sturdy spatula, and then add the rest of the yogurt. Add the almond milk and mix as best you can. The dough will still be clumpy and crumbly, but it comes together nicely when you turn it onto your rolling surface and knead it a bit. It will form a stiff dough.

For the filling:

Score, blanch, and peel the peaches. Dice into smallish pieces and combine with corn starch, lemon juice, sugar, ginger, allspice, salt, and flour in a medium sized bowl. 

Preheat the oven to 400°F.

Pie assembly:

Put parchment paper on a rimmed baking sheet, and get yourself a small glass of cold water. Roll out your chilled dough to about ¼ inch thickness. Using an over-turned bowl or glass, cut out as many round pieces of dough as you can (my bowl is  5½ inches in diameter). Chill any remaining scrapes as you work.

Scoop a scant ¼ c. of filling into the center of each circle. Dip your fingers in the water and gently brush your fingers around the edge of half the circle. Carefully pull the opposite side over the filling, sealing the edges. Use a fork to crimp the edges, cut three steam slits in the top of the pie, and then place the pie on your baking sheet. Repeat until you’re out of dough or filling, but make sure to chill any remaining dough when you’re not using it!

Brush each pie with almond milk and sprinkle with turbanado sugar. Bake on the middle rack for 30 minutes, or until the dough is golden. Let cool at room temperature and then store in airtight container in the fridge.

 I am now of the opinion that hand pies are the perfect summer dessert. No plates, no forks, no mess to clean up! Which means you can spend extra time enjoying summertime things, like peach pie.

Maple Bourbon Peach Pie

After having been away from the amazing farmer's market in Baltimore earlier in June, I've gone a bit overboard the last two weeks. It's not a bad thing, mind you. Having to decide what to do with 3 lbs of squash, 6 ears of fresh, sweet corn (actually, I think I'll just eat that raw), and another $1 pound of kale (best.deal.ever.) is certainly burden I'm happy to bear!

While the vegetables may take some consideration, when I got to the tables piled high with ripe peaches, I knew there was only one option. PIE. 

I made a delicious deep dish caramel apple pie last fall and wanted to apply the same caramelly goodness to these peaches. After scouring the internet (read: one google search) I found a plethora of honey caramel peach pie recipes. I was all set to play with one of these and suggest in the recipe that strict vegans should replace the honey with maple syrup when I thought, now hang on a second. Why don't I just do that to begin with?

 

I love honey, I put it in and on everything. When a recipe calls for liquid sweetener, honey and maple syrup are interchangeable, but because good maple syrup can be pricey, I buy it sparingly, though I usually have enough around that I can sub it when I'm out of honey. But why throw that in as an aside? This time, rather than a second choice substitution, I decided to make the maple syrup shine! It changes the flavor profile a little bit, and is enhanced by the bourbon (because alcohol + baking = awesome!) and some additional spices to become an ingredient worth paying a little more for! And worth lauding as an essential ingredient in this pie.

 This also gave me a chance to work on my pastry crust. I used the buttery double crust recipe from Vegan Pie in the Sky, I'm happy to report that this one turned out really well!  A few tips, though, before you get started, which can be applied to any flakey crust recipe. 

• Keep things cold! I put my pastry rolling mat and my rolling pin in the freezer for 30 minutes before I needed to roll dough. I actually used ice water, which I stored in the freezer, (along with the pieces of vegan butter and shortening), until I needed it. 
• If you have a food processor, use it. Seriously. Pulsing the fats and the flour took zero effort and the pie crust dough came together in 3 minutes. Which leads me to...
• Prep ahead of time, and be ready to work quickly. If the dough is overworked, or the fats get too warm and melty, you won't get a nice flakey crust. Have your kneading surface and your plastic wrap ready to go before you start the whole shebang, and you won't be scrambling around your kitchen leaving flour hand prints everywhere!

 

Maple Bourbon Peach Pie

Ingredients

3 pounds ripe peaches

2 TBSP cornstarch

1½ TBSP all-purpose flour

2 tsp fresh lemon juice

½ tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp salt

¹/₈ tsp allspice

a dash or two of cardamom

½ c. plus 1 tablespoon sugar, divided

¼ c. maple syrup

2 TBSP bourbon

2 TBSP water

3 TBSP Earth Balance Margarine

Cut an X in bottom of each peach, then blanch peaches in batches in boiling water 15 seconds. Transfer with a slotted spoon to an ice bath to stop cooking. Peel peaches and cut into ½ inch-thick slices. 

Toss peaches well with cornstarch, flour, lemon juice, cinnamon, allspice, cardamom, and salt in a large bowl. 

Put a foil-lined large baking sheet in lower third of oven and preheat oven to 425°F. The foil lined baking sheet is really important, because this pie gets oozy. If you don't put something underneath the pie plate to catch the drippings I promise you, your oven will be a mess!

Bring ½ cup sugar, maple syrup, bourbon, and water to a boil in a heavy saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring until sugar has dissolved. Wash down any sugar crystals from side of pan with a pastry brush dipped in cold water. Boil without stirring, swirling pan occasionally so caramel colors evenly, until dark amber, 3-5 minutes. 

Remove from heat and add butter, swirling pan until butter is melted. Pour over fruit and toss. My caramel didn’t harden at this point, but if yours does don’t worry. It’ll melt again in the oven. 

Roll out 1 piece of dough (keep remaining piece chilled) into a 13-inch round on a lightly floured surface with a lightly floured rolling pin. Fit into a 9-inch pie plate. Trim excess dough, leaving a ½ inch overhang. Chill shell while rolling out remaining dough. 

Roll out remaining piece of dough into an 11-inch round on a lightly floured surface with a lightly floured rolling pin. 

Transfer filling to pie shell, mounding it. Cover pie with pastry round. Trim with kitchen shears, leaving a ½ inch overhang. Press edges together, then crimp decoratively. Brush top all over with some of milk, then sprinkle with remaining tablespoon sugar. Cut 3 steam vents in top crust with a paring knife. 

Bake pie on hot baking sheet 20 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 375°F. Continue to bake until crust is golden-brown and filling is bubbling, about 45-50 minutes more. Cool pie to room temperature, 3 to 4 hours.
 

I had a slice for breakfast with my coffee. Obviously you can top it with a scoop of ice cream, but I prefer it plain so all you can taste are the peaches! Enjoy!

10 pounds too many: The story of vegan Strawberry Cake

Straaaaawberries! Come spring they are plentiful, pretty, and pretty delicious, but this year springtime's little red jewels were the bane of my kitchen. I can't hold it against them, though, it was all my fault!

Last Saturday a friend and I trucked all the way out to western Howard County, MD to pick our own strawberries. And pick we did. 15.freakin'.pounds. How did you let this get so out of hand, you may ask. You see, dear reader, the problem is that picking strawberries is fun! I get kind of obsessed with finding all the ripe ones, refusing to leave one edible berry for the bugs. And of course there's the time-honored fruit picking tradition: one for the box, one for my mouth, one for the box, one for my mouth, two for my mouth, one for the...

You get the idea.


So I returned home, unable to convince my dear friend to take more than a mere 5 pounds of fruit, with 10 pounds of sweet, juicy, straight outta the straw strawberries. I was okay with it at first -- I planned on making freezer jam and surely that would require a lot of fruit! Wrong. Then I thought, ohh chocolate covered strawberries! Delicious! 4 dozen! My coworkers loved me! Still, I was left with a cascading mountain of berries in my fridge. I froze some, I ate heaps of them on rice krispies cereal for dessert, I packed myself a container of berries several times for lunch. And yet. Last night when I opened the fridge, there they were, staring at me with accusing little seeds, "You're not going to let us go to waste, are you? You don't have much longer!!"

Ominous little things. But they were right, there was a little over a pound left, and I just couldn't let them go to waste. So I took the suggestion of a friend at work. I turned, in my desperation, to Martha Stewart.


Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against Martha. Apparently she's a firecracker. And she named one of her dogs Genghis Khan. I love a good dog name. But her baked goods are not of the vegan variety, and at 8:15 at night, I just didn't feel like thinking. Just show me an already vegan strawberry cake recipe, internet, would you please?  But all I found were strawberry box cake (BOX CAKE?!) recipes, or pureed strawberry bundt cakes. I wanted the last of my little berries to shine, unadulterated, decorating the cake with their jewel-y redness. And so, Martha.

The conversion was easier than I thought. Sub almond milk for the milk, and 1/4 c. of So Delicious Greek Style yogurt for the egg (I have a couple cups in my fridge and have decided that as plain yogurt, I'm not a fan, so I was happy to find a way to use it!). I also reduced the amount of sugar a bit, because these strawberries are super sweet, and I wanted their naturally sweet strawberry flavor to shine through. So, without further ado, I give you:

Strawberry Cake!
adapted from Martha Stewart

Ingredients:

6 tablespoons Earth Balance, softened
1 ½ c. all-purpose flour
1 ½  teaspoons baking powder
½  teaspoon salt
¾ c. cane sugar
1 tablespoon turbanado sugar (I just happened to have some, but regular or brown sugar will do I'm sure)
¼ c. plain (or vanilla) non-dairy Greek Style yogurt
½ c. almond milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 pound strawberries, halved

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and get our your 10-inch pie plate (mine's glass).

Put Earth Balance and ¾ c. cane sugar in a bowl and mix on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed to medium-low; mix in non-dairy yogurt, almond milk, and vanilla.

Reduce speed to low and gradually mix in flour mixture. Transfer batter to pie plate. Arrange strawberries on top of batter, cut sides down and as close together as possible. Sprinkle the 2 tablespoons sugar over berries.

Bake cake 10 minutes at 350, then reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees. Bake until cake is golden brown and firm to the touch, about 1 hour. Let cool in pie plate on a wire rack.

I let this cool overnight, and had a slice with my coffee for breakfast the next morning. It was absolutely delicious! 

PS - After I layered as many berries that would fit on top of the batter, I still had a ½ cup of hulled strawberries left. I literally scooped them up in my hand, and shoveled them into my mouth. Take that strawberries, I win!

Tropical Cookie Puffs, or Biscuity Lime Cookies, orLimey Coconut White Chocolate Clouds, or maybe...

I'm having trouble naming these cookies, and let me tell you why.

Here are a couple pictures of coconut-lime-whitechocolate-macadamia nut cookies that I made for a friend back in January. This was my first attempt at an artsy food porn kind of picture, and I was (and still am!) pretty pleased with how it came out.

Oooh!

Ahhhh!

The cookie though...meh. It was good, but it was more white chocolatey and nutty than coconut and limey. Which is fine, but not what I had intended. I had been planning on trying to improve that recipe but I sort of lost interest in it as winter progressed and then I lost the recipe (ha!) so when it came time to try again I was really on my own.

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

Pie.Is.Amazing. Seriously, I can say no to a piece of cake, but I will never, ever, pass up a piece of pie. Pie inspires people to break into song (yes, I'm counting the "my oh my, i love pie!" ditty as a song), or shout things like, "I am going to make sweet love to that pie!"

It's powerful stuff.

The Farmers' Market and Bazaar in Baltimore is positively teeming with delicious produce right now, and shows no sign of slowing down. I was particularly excited to see a few vendors with rhubarb right along side fresh strawberries two weeks ago. In the past it seems like the window of time that both rhubarb and strawberries were in season and available simultaneously and in relatively close proximity to my kitchen was really short. But this year the fates aligned, and (my oh my!) I have pie!

Fresh farmers' market strawberries,
with asparagus in the back!

This recipe is adapted slightly from something I found years and years ago on care2.com. It's a pretty simple recipe, using only honey as a sweetener, and therein lies its beauty -- each bite delivers unto your tongue the piquant tartness of fresh rhubarb and the juicy red sweetness of fresh, ripe strawberries, peppered throughout with the pleasant sweet, spiciness of cinnamon and cardamom.  (See, pie can make you wax poetical, too.)


Strawberry Rhubarb Pie
Strict vegans take note: you can easily sub maple syrup for the honey to make a sweet vegan treat!

Ingredients:
1 10 in. double pie crust (I used the Wholly Wholesome pie crust from my freezer)
4 c. fresh rhubarb, sliced about ¾ in. thick
2½ -3 c. fresh strawberries, thickly sliced
1 c. honey (or maple syrup)
5 TBSP. arrowroot (or cornstarch)
2 TBSP. white flour
a generous dash of cinnamon
a generous dash of cardamom


If you're using frozen pie crust, take it out to thaw before you begin.

Once you've sliced your rhubarb, set it in a mesh colander with a bowl or saucepan underneath. Pour the honey or maple syrup over the rhubarb, letting the excess drain into the pan or bowl below. Let sit for 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix half of the honey run-off with the arrowroot or cornstarch, and whisk continually over medium heat. (Warning!: when this thickens, it happens really quickly, so don't stop whisking or else you'll get a congealed mess!) Once honey mixture has thickened, add the other half of the honey run-off, whisk to combine, and remove from heat.

Combine rhubarb, strawberries, flour, cinnamon, cardamom, and honey mixture in a bowl. Gently mix to coat with the spices and sauce. Turn the pie filling into pie crust and place top crust on top. Seal the edges with a fork, and be sure to slash the top so that steam can escape. Bake one hour, until crust is lightly golden.

After your pie is cool enough to handle, it should probably be refrigerated so that the filling can set completely. (But I couldn't wait that long.)

***

Epilogue

Pie crust is tricky. The butter, water, and rolling surfaces need to be cold enough to avoid melting the butter. Space, deft hands, and patience are required and apparently I'm lacking in one of those things. I have friends who make fantastic pie crust from scratch. Buttery and flaky -- amazing. And even though they've generously shared those recipes with me, my crusts are still a work in progress. So while I perfect the art of homemade pie crusts, frozen ones are great substitutes in a pinch.

One of the two pie crusts was cracked pretty badly when I took it out of the freezer, but unfortunately no amount of water and gentle re-rolling would put it back together. My top crust looked like Franken-pie:

I guess I'm sharing this because its okay if your crust isn't perfectly smooth or latticed evenly all the time (I repeat that to myself a lot). What is important is the fact that there is PIE. Pie with an amazingly delicious filling. Pie that is buttery, sweet, tart, local, and seasonal -- disfigured as it may look.

I think I'll go have another piece...

Thyme to Experiment: Royal Bundt Cake

You may or may not have heard of a little wedding ceremony that took place last Friday, April 29th? A handsome prince married a beautiful commoner? Lots of fancy hats? And while I'm something of an anglophile, I wasn't about to give up a couple extra hours of sleep to watch the royal wedding. Luckily my place of employment was happy to indulge me, and at a more reasonable hour.

So the more pressing matter became, what to bake? I wanted something light, springy, and fit for a royal wedding. I also had 3 big lemons I wanted to use up, and so I settled on some sort of lemon cake.

One of the herbs growing voraciously in my container garden is thyme, and after checking with the internet to make sure my lemon/thyme paring wasn't totally ridiculous, I decided it was perfectly British (don't ask me why).  With those things set the next thing to figure out was where to put the thyme, in the cake, in the glaze or in both?! (You can see, I spend a lot of time thinking about things before even getting into the kitchen!) When I posed the question to my favorite gentlemen cake tester he told me it was thyme to experiment (adorable) although I spent more time experimenting with lighting and presentation in mini photo-shoots than I did with the actual recipe.


You see, I love the light, moist texture of the vanilla cake in Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, so I usually stick with that as my base making a few substitutions for personal tastes, and experiment with extracts and mix-ins.  Things get a little tricky when it comes to total flavor overhauls or my favorite pastime -- baking with alcohol. But this was relatively easy. And so without further ado, I present:

Lemon Thyme Bundt (fit for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge)

For the Cake:
2 c. almond milk
2 tsp. clear vinegar
2/3 c. vegetable oil
1 1/2 c. granulated sugar
3 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp. lemon extract
1-2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1 heaping tbsp. fresh thyme leaves, roughly chopped
zest of one lemon

2 1/2 c. flour
4 tbsp. corn starch
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
3/4 - 1 tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 350, and butter or spray your bundt pan. Combine the almond milk and the vinegar, and allow to sit about 2-3 minutes so it can curdle. Pour the curdled milk mixture into a big bowl and add all the other wet ingredients, oil through lemon juice. With a whisk or a hand mixer, beat until combined and foamy. 

Add all the dry ingredients to your wet mixture and stir, carefully at first, and then more vigorously until everything is combined and the batter is relatively lump-free (a bunch of little lumps are okay).

Stir in your thyme and lemon zest, and then pour the batter into your bundt pan. Bake for 35 minutes before checking on your cake. Depending on your oven, you may need another 5-10 minutes. Once you insert a butter knife and it comes out clean, remove from oven and cool on a rack for 10-15 minutes before removing from the pan.  While the cake cools, make the glaze.

For the Glaze:
1 c. confectioners sugar
fresh lemon juice from 2 lemons (about 1/4 c.)
zest of 2 lemons
2 tsp. chopped fresh thyme
1 tsp. earth balance butter

Whisk all the ingredients except for the earth balance together. Once everything is blended, add the butter and pop the whole bowl into the microwave for 30 seconds, so that the butter gets melty. This will help the glaze solidify a bit once it cools.  Let the glaze get to room temperature before spooning over your cake.

Put on your Sunday hat, fancy fascinator or ascot and pour yourself a cup of tea before slicing. Enjoy!