Zizi's Adventures - Real Food, Real Stories

Cocoa, Chocolate, Walnut Cookies

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Note: I was so happy to find out that my blog was nominated as the Best Healthy Cooking Blog category for this year’s The Kitchn Homie Awards. If you agree the nomination, a vote or two would be great & much appreciated (voting ends March 2nd, 2012 at 11:59pm EST). Thank you so much! 


So my blog is nominated as healthy cooking blog and I’m posting a cookie recipe. 🙂 But! There is only 1/2 cup cane sugar in 32 yummie cookies. This is sweet enough for me. I think we can call them healty cocoa, chocolate, walnut cookies. 
There’s peanut butter and 70% cocoa content chocolate chunks in the batter. Yum and gulp. It’s best to eat them when they are lukewarm. We shouldn’t be ashamed to have two or three at once.
Or four.
If noone sees us, maybe five.
  
Cocoa, Chocolate, Walnut Cookies
(Recipe inspired by Bakerella)
Ingredients (makes about 32 cookies)

– 1 cup white spelt flour, sifted
– 1/2 cup whole wheat spelt flour, sifted
– 1/2 cup cocoa (unsweetend), sifted
– 1 teaspoon baking soda
– 1/2 teaspoon salt
– 1/2 cup butter, softened
– 1/2 cup cane sugar
– 1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
– 1 teaspoon vanilla
– 2 organic eggs
– 100 g dark chocolate (70% cocoa content), roughly chopped
– walnut, chopped

Method

Preheat the oven to 170C (350F). Line the baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

In a bowl mix together the dry ingredients: flours, cocoa, baking soda and salt. In another bowl cream butter with cane sugar, then stir in peanut butter and mix until fluffy and light (you can also taste it, it’s so yummie :)).  Add vanilla, eggs and mix until combined. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix until combined. Stir in the chocolate and the walnut.

Take two teaspoons of the dough, form a ball and place on the prepared baking sheet. Flatten the ball slightly, then repeat with the remaining dough. Bake for 10-15 minutes at 170C (350F).

Vegan Applesauce Cookies

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I posted my last cookie recipe on the blog last August. It’s high time to share a new one. I baked so many vegan cookeis during Christmas time but I didn’t have time to take photos of them. I’ll bake them again (because it’s always great to have homemade cookies at home in case of emergency, isn’t it?). 
I found this recipe on Julie’s blog. I veganized the recipe and I omited raisins. I don’t like them in cakes and cookies. These comforting cookies are great for breakfast but also go well with your afternoon tea, coffee or hot chocolate. 

Vegan Applesauce Cookies

Ingredients (makes about 40 cookies)

– 120 g coconut oil
– 120 g dark cane sugar
– 250 g apple sauce, unsweetend
– 150 g white spelt flour
– 150 g whole wheat spelt flour
– 1 teaspoon aluminium free baking powder
– 1 teaspoon baking soda
– 1 teaspoon cinnamon
– 90 g walnuts, chopped

Method

Preheat the oven to 170C (350F). Line the baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

In a bowl mix together coconut oil with cane sugar and apple sauce. Mix until smooth then set aside. In another bowl mix together flours, baking soda, baking powder and cinnamon. Add the wet ingredients to the dry + walnut combining just until mixed. Take two teaspoons of the dough, form a ball and place on the prepared baking sheet. Flatten the ball slightly, then repeat with the remaining dough. Bake for 12-15 minutes at 170-180C (350F) until the cookies are golden brown.

Mini Dorayaki – Japanese Pancakes with Adzuki Beans Paste

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Adzuki bean widely grown throughout East Asia and the Himalayas for its small (approximately 5 mm) bean. Sweetened azuki bean paste is used in a variety of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean sweets. Whether used in bread or pastry fillings, sweet soups, pancakes, or ice cream, the essential adzuki bean is usually highlighted as the main flavor. Its assertiveness is best complemented with neutral ingredients but it is also common to add flavoring to the bean paste, such as chestnut. I don’t know if it is true but it is also said that an adzuki-flavored Pepsi product was released in Japan a couple of years ago. That’s interesting!

Make these pancakes on a lazy weekend when you have nothing else to do just staying in bed late, reading a good book, drinking a nice cup of hot tea and watching a great movie. These are my favourite programs to relax the hectic weekdays.

How do you relax?

Mini Dorayaki – Japanese Pancakes with Adzuki Beans Paste

Ingredients

For the pancake
– 1 and 1/4 cups white spelt flour, sifted
– 1/4 cup cold water
– 2 organic eggs

– 1/4 cup cane sugar
– 2 tablespoons honey
– 1 tablespoon sunflower oil plus 1 tablespoon for oiling pan
– 1 tablespoon mirin
– 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

For the adzuki beans paste
– 1 cup adzuki beans
– 3/4 cup cane sugar

Method

Soak the beans in three times their volume of cold water for a night before cooking. Drain, then put them in a pot of cold water again with the sugar; bring them gently to a boil and cook them until tender (45 minutes). Drain and mash the beans with fork or in a blender. If you have leftover, it freezes well.
Break eggs in a bowl and add sugar, honey, sunflower oil and mirin. With a whisk, beat the mixture by hand until light and fluffy. In a separate bowl, sift together all dry ingredients. Add dry into wet in batches, whisking in between. Once all combined, slowly add just enough water to form a smooth batter. Heat a pan over medium heat, add small amount of oil and spread with a piece of kitchen paper. Turn heat to low, pour enough batter to make a 9cm pancake then cover immediately with a lid and bake until small bubbles form on the surface and the bottom is nice and brown. Turn the pancake over and cook the other side. Repeat process to make about 36 pancakes(18 dorayaki). Fill one side of the pancake with azuki bean paste and sandwich with another pancake.

Vegetarian Christmas – Pumpkin Pie

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I was going to write a series about vegetarian Christmas but because I was very busy I didn’t have time to translate all my Hungarian blog posts into English. I’ve got tasty ideas for a vegetarian Christmas with festive vegetarian/vegan recipes like a delicious nut roast, different side dishes and yum desserts. So next year if you look for ideas for a sensational spread on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and throughout the festive season, remember to come back and visit my blog for these recipes.

The filling recipe is from Shauna. This is a pumpkin pie made and baked from scratch with love. From a real pumpkin. In Hungary you can’t buy canned pumpkin puree, we don’t have it. If you want to make something from pumpkin puree you have to make it. If you haven’t tried it, it’s the time you should. This pie is very filling and nutritious.

Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients

For the crust
– 200 g white spelt flour
– 50 g oat flour
– 170 g unsalted butter, chilled, cut into small (2-3 cm / 1-inch) cubes
– 4 tablespoons cold water
– 2 teaspoons cane powder sugar
– 1/2 teaspoon salt

For the filling
– 2 cups roasted, pureed pumpkin
– 1 cup ricotta
– 1/2 cup cream
– 2 organic or free range eggs
– 1/3 cup cane sugar
– 2 tablespoons maply syrup
– 1 vanilla bean, split and seeded
– 1 teaspoon cinnamon
– 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
– 1/4 teaspoon fresh ground ginger

Method

To make the crust, in a bowl mix together the flours, powder sugar and salt. Add the cubed butter and mix until the butter pieces are broken up and about the size of small peas. Add cold water and mix until the dough comes together. Form the dough into a ball, wrap in a clingfilm and let it rest in the fridge for at least 30-40 minutes. Preheat the oven to 180C (350F). After resting the dough, roll out  the pastry on a floured surface to cover your pie dish (diameter: 29-30 cm) and prick holes with a fork all over the pastry (this helps the steam escape and prevents the crust from bubbling up). Line the pie crust with parchment paper, then fill with dried peas, lentils, beans or other pulses, or with ceramic or metal “baking beans” (also called pastry weights or pie weights) so that it will keep its shape when baking. Bake at 180C (350F) for about 15 minutes until it gets golden brown. Set aside.
Roast pumpkin halves at 180-200C for 45-60 minutes. Let cool and scoop out 2 cups flesh.
To make the filling, in a bowl beat the eggs until fluffy, then add cane sugar, maple syrup, vanilla, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, ricotta and cream. Continue blending until the mixture is smooth. Spoon the filling into the crust. Bake at 180C (350F) for 15 minutes, then lower the temperature to 170C (338F) and bake for another 30-40 minutes (until you can insert a toothpick into the center of the filling and have it come out clean). If the crust starts growing too brown, put some foil around the edges of the pie and continue baking. Set aside and allow the pie to cool before serving.

Vegan Coconut Oat Pancakes with Date Syrup, Coconut Chips and Clementine

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I love cozy Sunday mornings especially at winter times. Who doesn’t? If I have time I always make pancakes. I love pancake and it’s exciting for me to test new flours and new flavours. 
There are two new (for me) ingredients in this recipe: coconut flour and date syrup. Do you know any of them? 


Coconut flour is a gluten-free alternative to wheat that is rich in dietary fiber, which helps support your digestion, immune system and heart health. The flour is fiber from the coconut meat after most of the oil has been extracted. It can be added to standard wheat-based recipes to add extra fiber, by substituting 10-30% of the grain-based flour with coconut flour. It can also be excellent addition to shakes and smoothies where fiber and protein are needed. Since organic coconut flour contains natural sugar from the coconut meat, baked goods need less sugar added. 
Date syrup is an alternative sweetener, a thick, dark brown, very sweet syrup extracted from dates. It is used widely in the Middle Eastern countries. Date is a food of high nutritional value. It provides natural sugar in the form of glucose and fructose. It’s good to know that a 100 gram portion of fresh dates is a source of vitamin C and supplies 230 kcal (960 kJ) of energy.

Vegan Coconut Oat Pancakes with Date Syrup, Coconut Chips and Clementine

Ingredients (makes 8-10 pancakes)

– 1 cup white spelt flour
– 1/4 cup oat flour
– 1/4 cup coconut flour
– 2 tablespoons aluminium free baking powder
– 1 cup oat milk or almond milk
– 1 tablespoon date syrup
– 2 tablespoons coconut oil + for cooking
– 1 vanilla bean, split and seeded
– pinch of salt
– unsweetend coconut chips
– clementines

Method

In a bowl mix together the dry ingredients: flours, baking powder, salt. In another separate bowl mix together oatmilk, coconut oil, vanilla and date syrup. Give each mixture a stir then add the wet to the dry combining just until mixed. Set aside for 5 minutes to allow the batter to rise. Prepare a non-stick pan with 1 teaspoon oil on medium heat. Spoon batter into pan, forming a pancake. Cook until lightly brown on the bottom. Turn and brown the other side. Serve with clementines, coconut chips and more date syrup if you want.