very Scottish rolly buns

...because they have oatmeal and brambles. Blackberries for those of you not lucky enough to live here.

Step one: Get on your bike. Remember to pack a tupperware container or three in your bag.
Step two: Bike to a bramble patch and pick as many brambles as you can. Remember that the brambles taste better if you have to climb over a fence to get them.
Step three: return home happy and triumphant with purple hands
Step four: make these rolly buns


Dough dry ingredients:
1:1:1 (approx) mix of oat flour, whole wheat flour and chickpea flour
pinch salt
sprinkle of brown sugar
(generous) dash cardamom
(stingy) half dash of cinnamon
a goodly amount of quick yeast

Dough wet ingredients:
okara
warm water
drops of almond essence
dribble maple syrup

Roll out the dough and then spread a mix of brambles and peaches tossed in arrowroot over it. The peaches are optional. I bought some dud peaches that were too cottony to eat, but just fine to cook with. Using them up like this (and as baked peaches stuffed with brambles and candied ginger) helped numb the pain of having substandard peaches mocking me from the fruit bowl. Now, back to the buns: Roll it up! Cut into buns! Let rise overnight. Bake the next morning and have the Best Fall Breakfast Ever.

I really didn't measure anything for these, so consider recreating the buns in this post to be an invitation to break free from the tyranny of the measuring cups!

blueberry almond rolly buns

It is cold and windy and raining and thoroughly demoralizing out there. So I present you with comforting yet quasi-springlike rolly buns for Sunday morning breakfast, hot out of the oven.

I'm beginning to love xgfx baking. You see, there are soooo many flavours and textures of flour out there to explore. It's wonderful fun, and I'm stunned that I didn't start in on it sooner. Even if/when I return to using wheat and other glutin-y flours, I'll certainly be bringing more different flours in on a regular basis. I made two *giant* buns today instead of the normal four smallish ones, because we were very very hungry.

the latest:

equal parts
3/4c millet flour
1/2c brown rice flour
1/2c arrowroot flour
1/4c soy flour
1/4c carob powder mix

1 tsp xantham gum
1 heaping tbs flax meal
pinch salt
pinch nutmeg
quick yeast

enough warm water to make dough with 2 tbs dark agave and 1 tsp vanilla extract dissolved in it (start with a cup - you can always add more)

The method is now like making cinnamon buns. Just roll the dough out gently on a well-millet-floured surface into a rectangle, and then and cover the rectangle with a layer of filling, and then 1/2 cup of dried blueberries, then roll the whole thing up and slice it into either two ginormous or four reasonably small buns. Put those in either an oiled and floured pan, or a silicone baking pan (I use a silicone pan).

Filling:
1 heaping c. almond pulp leftover from making almond milk
1 tsp agave
pinch nutmeg
pinch salt
1/2 tsp almond extract

Let rise overnight in a cool place, like my kitchen, or the fridge in a normal-temperature kitchen. The next morning, heat oven up to 250C with a metal pan of water in it. Turn the heat down to 200C (but don't wait for it to cool), and put the buns in. Bake for 40 mins (if you've made two giant buns), or 25-30mins (if you made 4 smallish buns).

pop! pop! poppyseeds!

I make rolly buns most weekends. Why? Because I love the form of cinnamon buns, but don't much like eating a giant roll of buttery (or vegan equivalent thereof) sugar to start my day, either in terms of taste or in terms of the inevitable sugar crash an hour later. But what could be better than a bun with the spread rolled in? These are bread, not pastry. Mmmmmm... homemade bread. What could be sillier, prettier, and more decadent coming out of the oven on Saturday morning (and then re-heated, all toasty and crisp on Sunday)?

For 4 buns

Dough:
The night before, mix together
2.5 cups spelt flour
0.5 cups soy flour
tbs wheat gluten
pinch salt
a sprinkle of cardamom
1 tsp quick yeast
1 tbs lemon zest

Stir in about 3/4 cup warm water (add a bit more if you need to, but start with that)- you want a slightly wet but not sticky dough. Don't bother kneading it. Form the dough into a loose ball in the bowl and let it sit there while you prep the filling.

Filling:
also the night before, mix this all together into a paste:
1/2 -1 cups black poppy seeds, ground (I use a vitamix dry jug)
3/4 cup almond pulp (leftover from making almond milk, or just use almond meal + a few tbs of nondairy milk)
a few drops stevia or a few tbs brown sugar
1 tbs brown rice syrup (agave is too runny for this)
the rest of the zest from that lemon above. Or the zest from a whole new lemon, depending on how much you love lemony goodness. I used a whole new lemon.
optional cardaomom or cinnamon. I use cardamom.
1/2 tsp almond extract
pinch o salt

Now, roll out your dough on a generously floured surface. Spread with the filling. Roll up, place in an oiled and floured pan (or a floured silicone pan - which is what I use), cover, and leave to rise overnight in the fridge if you live somewhere warm, or on the counter if your kitchen isn't much warmer than the inside of your fridge at night. I use the counter.

The next morning, remove the buns from the fridge (or gaze at them lovingly on the counter), and preheat your oven to *damn hot* with a metal glass of water in there. When it's heated, drop the heat to 200C, pop the buns in, and let them bake for 20 mins. After 20 mins, remove, brush with soy or almond milk spiked with a little sweetness, and eat them.

Poppyseed rollybun music: Jane Birkin. Arabesque.

comforting rolly buns

These taste like ovaltine. Just the thing in winter.

Now, repeat after me: carob is yummy. It it not a chocolate substitute, but it is yummerific in it's own right. Just let it be carob, okay? The salt in the filling makes this taste a little like ovaltine and caramel apples. Breakfast win.

2c malthouse bread flour (or just use whole spelt). Also works great with half and half spelt and barley four.
pinch salt
1/4 cup fine polenta
1/2 cup teff flour
tbs gluten powder
2 tbs carob powder
2 small apples, grated
1 tbs quick yeast

2 tbs barley malt syrup in 1/2 cup hot water + 1/2 cup soymilk

Mix dry ingredients. Mix wet into dry, and add more flour until you have a wet, but not sticky, dough. Let rise 1hr. Dump onto a floured surface and roll out (how thick is up to you, but I roll it out to about the thickness of my fingers). drizzle about 2-3 tbs of malt syrup over it, sprinkle a tiny pinch of salt and another 1-3 tbs of carob over that, and then top everything with 2 more chopped up apples. The moisture from the malt syrup and the apples will turn the carob powder into paste, worry not. Roll up. Cut into 4 - 6 buns and place them in the pan that you will cook them in. I find it best to schmear the pan lightly with coconut oil and then sprinkle that with cornmeal so that the buns don't weld themselves to it overnight. Let rise overnight in the fridge.

In the morning: take the buns out of the fridge and preheat the oven to 225C for 30 mins, preferably with a pan of water in there. It seems to work best if you preheat the oven with the fan assist, but then turn it off just before putting the buns in. Pop the buns in the oven and bake 40-60 mins (this will depend on size of buns and if there is any space between them... I like mine to squish up against each other, so it's basically the same as baking a loaf of bread, so it takes almost an hour. If the buns are well-separated, it takes more like 40 mins). Remove from oven and brush with soymilk. Cool briefly before eating.

persimmon rolly buns

I impulse bought many persimmons. I couldn't help it. They were perfectly ripe, and calling out to me, and really, really cheap. Soooo... persimmon rolls, anyone? On the weekends when I am home (or sometimes even when I'm at other people's houses and they don't mind me taking over the kitchen), I make rolly buns for breakfast. I have a made-up (and deeply silly) song that I sing while I make them. Every week is different (both the song and the buns), and I usually just make 'em up (both the song and the buns) as I go along. Anything, really: green tea, almond, red bean, pear, aniseed-fig, pumpkin, chestnut, date, olives and herbs, smoked tofu... nothing is safe from my rolly-bun plots and schemes. This week, it's persimmon. And because I love y'all, I actually wrote down the recipe as I went along.

I love persimmons, but I don't usually like persimmon bread. These fruits are so sweet and delicate, it seems overwhelming to add sugar to them, and then weigh them down with piles of oil. These buns are light and chewy, and the cherries make things interesting without falling into the realm of sticky-sweetness. You can easily substitute coffee for the tea, if you've only got coffee on hand. In that case, I'd recommend using cinnamon, or even a sprinkle of grated chocolate, in place of the rosewater. You could also add grated apple to the buns... just spread it on the dough along with the cherries if you want.

dry:
2 1/2 ww spelt flour
3/4 c chickpea flour (or soy flour)
1 tbs gluten powder
1 tsp ground cardamom
2 tbs assam tea leaves
1 tbs instant yeast
pinch salt

wet:
pulp from 5 very ripe persimmons (big ones)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

rolly:
rosewater
1 cup dried sour cherries (or 1/2c dried cherries and 1/2c walnut pieces)
soy or almond milk

Mix together dry ingredients. Add wet ingredient. Stir until you have a dough but don't bother kneading it. This will be a wet dough, and look more like a quickbread than a yeasted bread at this point. Cover with a clean dishcloth and leave to rise in a cool place overnight. For those of you who live in countries where it's actually warm, or have discovered the wonder of central heating and insulation, you may want to put the dough in the fridge.

The next morning, dump out your dough on a heavily floured surface. Knead briefly to incorporate enough flour that the dough holds together. This will be anywhere from 1/2 to 1.5 cups of extra flour. Roll into a rectangle. Mine was smaller than a standard rectangular cookie sheet, but just. I usually roll my dough out on a silicone baking mat, which saves me having to wash the countertop afterwards. Plus, then I know that to make 4-6 buns, I need a square of dough that just barely fits on the mat. See? Easy peasy. The important thing is that the dough should be about as thick as your thumb. Brush with rosewater and then sprinkle with cherries (the rectangle of dough, not yourself, unless you have extra rosewater and cherries). Roll up the dough so that you end up with the shorter, fatter cylinder rather than the longer, skinnier one (though you could always make tiny buns by ignoring me here). You can either make 4 ginormous buns, or 6 normal size ones, depending on where you stand on eating baked goods that are larger than your head. Personally, I find that eating anything larger than my head is a bad idea. Place rolly buns in a greased pan that you have then sprinkled with cornmeal (or flour), brush with soy or almond milk, and let sit for 30-40 minutes. During this time, preheat your oven to damn hot (250C). When the oven is hot, put a metal cup of water in there, and then your buns. Disarm the fan assist if you have one. Learn from my mistakes (and burnt rolly buns). Bake at high heat for 10 mins, then drop the heat to 180C, and bake for another 25-35 minutes (depending on the size of your buns). When you take the buns out of the oven, brush them again with milk spiked with a bit of rosewater. Let cool for a few minutes, and then gently extract them from the pan. These are a real treat if you eat them still warm, and hold up well to toasting the next day.

singing: the rolly bun song. You'll just have to make up your own when you cook them. Go on. You know you want to.

scavenged pumpkin buns

I really hate it when people waste food. This week at work, there were three perfectly good uncarved pumpkins that were going to get thrown out after being used as decoration for a Halloween party. This made me angry. What sort of people are we that we use food as disposable decorations? So I took one of the pumpkins home and made these buns, and also some pumpkin ravioli. Note that this is the kind of pumkin that you usually carve up for jack o lanterns, so it's not very sweet or tasty. I also used an apple from a big batch of them that I picked a few weeks ago that was well past it's prime, and wasn't very sweet. If you use a sugar pumpkin for these, cut down the sugar and spices. These are rather heavily spiced because the pumpkin mainly provides moisture and a bit of a pumpkiny taste, but there's no point trying to let an anemic pumpkin "shine through". You'd need a sweet winter squash or sugar pumpkin for that. If you don't use quick yeast, proof yours in some water and sugar beforehand and omit the hot water from the pumkin/apple mixture.

These aren't cinnamon buns in the cakey sense. I like to eat them for breakfast, where I don't want a sugar rush, or to feel weighed down afterwards. These are more of a bread, and would even go nicely with soup, especially one with north african spices. Mmmmmmm..... maybe I'll try that for dinner.

dry mix:
2 cups ww spelt flour
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cardamom
1 tsp nutmeg
dash black pepper
pinch salt
1 tbs quick yeast

blend together:
1/2 rescued (medium size) pumpkin, cut into slices and roasted until it begins to caramelize
1 apple, picked from an abandoned tree
2 tbs of okara or soy yogurt or ground almonds or almond butter. Pick one.
You should end up with a scant 1.5 cups of puree altogether. Reduce the water if you have more, or if your puree is very wet. Mine was the consistancey of very thick apple sauce.

mix into pumkin/apple
1/2 cup very hot water.

Add wet ingredients to dry, mix with a spoon, and then liberally dust a counter with either a cup more spelt flour or a cup of some other random flour (I used rice flour). I also liberally dusted myself with flour, but that's optional. Knead until the dough comes together, adding more flour if you need to.

For the filling (basically a sweet lemony creamy thing):
1 batch okara or 1 cup ground almonds
agave nectar to taste
generous squeeze lemon juice
1 tbs sweet white miso

Roll out dough into a square. Spread with filling. Sprinkle with raisins. Roll up and cut into 6-8 buns and place them in a pan that is lined with paper that you have sprinkled with cornmeal. Let rise overnight in a cool place, or for an hour in a warm place. Preheat oven to damn hot (250C) with a pan of water in it. Bake at 250C for 10 mins, drop temp to about 200, and bake another 5 mins. Take out and brush with a mix of soy milk, agave and cinnamon. Bake for another 5 mins. Take out and brush again. Let cool for about 20 mins. Eat!

Warm and comforting music: Nighbook.

rosey datey breakfasty buns

Yup. The title pretty much explains it. These are sweeter than bread, but not as sweet as cinnamon buns or cake. This recipe serves 2 hungry people, or 4 not-so-hungry people, or could conceivably make 6 itsy-bitsy snack-size buns for a lovely afternoon tea, if you're into such things.

1c whole wheat flour
1/2 c. soy flour (I bet chickpea flour would also work, but I'm not promising anything)
1/2 tsp vanilla salt (a bottle of sea salt in which you have cleverly placed a ground up vanilla bean several weeks ago)
2 tbs maple sugar
1 tbs quick yeast

Mix all this together, then mix up your wet ingredients

about 3/4 c. warm water
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract

Pour wet ingredients into dry and mix. Adjust water/flour ratio. Knead for about 5 mins. Roll out into a rectangle, and brush with rosewater, then sprinkle with about 1/2 tsp cinnamon and 1 tsp cardamom. Sprinkle with 1/2 c. chopped dates and 1/3 c. pistachios. Roll up as you wish, either making 2 really fat rolled buns or 4-6 smaller buns. Cut into buns. I made 2 giant ones, and the reason for wanting a giant bun will be clear shortly. Sprinkle your baking pan with cornmeal, and place the buns in it. Allow the buns to rise for about an hour (I went for a run in the foggy Sunday morning and Sweetums puttered around the house).

Heat up your oven to *damn hot*. Mine goes to 250C, so that's what I used. Brush buns with soy milk spiked with a little rosewater. For the love of sweet Jeebus, if you have a fan assist, turn it off at this point! Bake for 10 mins, checking that they don't burn. Brush again with soy milk, and drop the heat to 200C. Bake for another 10-15 mins. Remove from oven. Brush again. Decrease baking times by about for smaller buns. Serve with fresh fruit and bitter chocolate dipping sauce (good quality unsweetened cocoa dissolved in the leftover soy milk/rosewater that you were brushing the buns with).

Buckwheat-pear pancakes

These are substantial without being heavy, and are actually...dare I say it... fluffy. A perfect post-run brunch on a Sunday. This makes 9 small (ie, one hungry-person brunch size serving = 3 pancakes + fruit salad) or 3 huge, plate-sized (1 pancake = 1 serving) pancakes. I don't see the point in eating medium-size pancakes, but I won't stop you if that's your thing. I suspect it'd make about 6 of those.


-1.5 c buckwheat flour
-1/2 c ww spelt or wheat flour
-1/2 c muesli base (ie, rolled oats, rolled rye, flaked rice...whatever, so long as it's not "puffed" anything... just use plain rolled oats if that's what you have)
-1/2 cup soy flour (if you dont' have this, sub in more of the buckwheat or wheat, and use soy milk instead of water in the wet ingredients, but the soy flour + water works much, much much better)
-1/2 tsp guar or xanthan gum
-1/2 tsp salt
-1 tsp sugar
-1 tsp cardamom
-1 tbs baking power.

Mix dry ingredients. Add enough water to form a thick batter (2-3 cups, depending on your flours, your muesli base, etc.). Now, go take a shower and let the batter sit for about 15 mins.

Stir in
1 decent sized handfull chopped walnuts (uh... 1/3-1/2 cup)
2 smallish chopped pears (this is a perfect way to use bruised, overripe, or just plain sub-par pears)

Heat up a nonstick pan or griddle. I find the pancakes work best if you heat up the pan, then drop the heat to medium-low (I have a gas stove, which lets you change temp quickly), spray the pan with oil (these taste best if you use olive oil) and then cook them covered. To know when pancakes are ready to flip, look at them, when the top looks bubbly, they're ready to flip. Try to flip them only once, and don't fiddle with them while they're cooking, dammit. For those of you with non-vegan pancake experience, vegan pancakes (at least mine) cook a bit longer than omni pancakes, and on slightly lower heat, and do best if they're cooked covered. I've spent years figuring this out. Have fun reaping the rewards of my pancake experiments. Keep the cooked pancakes on a plate in a warm oven while you do the next batch. Cold pancakes, while wonderful as leftovers, are a bit of a disappointment in non-leftovers.

Serve with cinnamon coffee, fruit salad and maple syrup or apple/pear sauce or soy yogurt...surely you can make your own decision here.

omelettes

Omelettes! Who doesn't like these. Really. The possibilities are endless in terms of fillings. Vegan omelettes are typically made only of tofu. I like tofu, but find an entire plate of it a bit... much. Also, adding chickpeas (even in the form of flour) to anything is a good move in my books.

A note on omnisubs. I don't bother trying to imitate what an eggy omelette would taste like. I don't know that I'd remember anyways. I try to create something that is yum in it's own right, and that vaguely fills the same category as the omnifood for which I named it. And if I were naming this accurately, I'd call it "better than eggs". In so many ways.

For 4 people worth of basic omelette:

1 c chickpea flour (gram flour)
water to form a batter (about 1.5 cups)
1/2 tsp salt (black salt works best)
1/2 c arrowroot
splash vegan worcestershire sauce
4 tbs white miso
tarragon to taste (I used about a tsp)
1 tsp baking powder

mix all this together to a thin batter and let stand 30 mins.

puree in 1 block silken tofu. This will be a pretty thick batter, about the consistency of pudding. It should *just* be at the point where you need a spoon to help it spread around the pan.

just before cooking stir in
1 tbs apple cider vinegar

To cook. Spray a pan with olive oil. Let pan get nice and hot, and then pour in your omelette. Drop the heat to medium-low and cover. Cook until cooked through. You can add fillings as the omelette is cooking. Here I've added some brocolli and olives and vegan cheese (I'm not a big fan of commercial fake cheezes, but I do like me some of the stuff from the Uncheese Cookbook. You could also use my bloo pate.

Here's another combo that I made but didn't take a photo of (which makes something akin to a spanish tortilla). Mix these into the batter before cooking: cooked cubed potatoes, onions, tomatoes, olives, steamed chopped and drained greens, dash of smoked paprika, chopped jalopenos.

red bean swirly buns

Life has been stressful lately. Bordering on insane, really. Consequently, I've been making food that's relatively easy in that it doesn't take much time, but that's really colourful and pretty and comforting. And what could be more comforting than warm homemade bread?

These don't take long to make. Only a few minutes to put them together the night before, assuming you have some red bean paste lying around (which we all should have, really), and the next morning they only take about 20 mins to bake. Mmmmmmmm.

Green tea red bean swirly buns. Apparently I just can't get enough of the Suessian-looking breads lately. A special but not sicky-sweet weekend breakfast. Bread part: whole wheat flour, a little bit of sugar (maybe a tbs for these 6 ginormous buns), yeast, salt, matcha, okara mixed with some water and almond extract. Mix, knead, roll into a giant rectangle. Cover with red bean paste (you can see this in the first picture), which is just aduki beans mashed with sugar and a smidge of salt... I like this not too sweet, so I make my own, but you can buy it ready-made if you want. Roll up like cinnamon buns and let rise overnight (second picture). The next morning, bake 5 mins at 220C, then 15 min at 180C, take 'em out of the oven, top with almond icing (soy or almond milk, icing sugar, almond extract) and devour (third picture, where you can see that I accidentally started devouring before remembering to take a photo).

Note: these aren't cake, or even remotely cinnamon bun like in texture. They're not very sweet (unless you drown them in icing), but they are very filling. They're dense and quite moist and yummy, and (without the icing) would go perfectly well with soup or a salad (I might have had one with miso soup for dinner later in the weekend). In fact, I suspect that these buns are what would happen if german-japanese baking ever happens.

A quick note on my obsessive use of okara in baked goods: I use it because I have it lying around. You can pretty much always sub in soy yogurt, or blended tofu. Or, if you want, soured soy milk (add lemon juice to soy milk until it curdles). You can also use ground almonds in water to make a yogurt-consistency paste, if you're so inclined.Note that these will make your baking slightly denser than the okara will, so you may want to step up the sugar (yeast food) and yeast. In this recipe, I have an okara-free version of the dough here, which just uses soy milk, and which makes a less cakey bread.

A quick note on the quick note: A good trick to make vegan baked goods rise more is to add a bit of baking soda (like half a tsp) to the dry ingredients, and then 2tbs of vinegar to the wet. Don't use this trick with yeasted breads, only with stuff you're putting in the oven soon after you mix wet and dry ingredients