Fair Weather Vegan

Glazed Holiday Bundt Cake

This was my family's go-to holiday cake even before we found the foolproof recipe.  It comes, of all places, from a Hershey's cookbook and makes a moist, flavorful base for a deep chocolate glaze.  If you want to be true to the authentic Mama Louie spirit, carry a carton of whipping cream and a mixer to wherever you take the cake, so that fresh whipped cream may be served.  

Cake

• 2 cups sugar
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup cocoa
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup buttermilk or sour milk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup hot coffee

1. Pre-heat oven to 350
2. Grease and flour bundt pan
3. Stir together dry ingredients in large bowl
4. Add wet ingredients
5. Beat on medium speed for about two minutes (makes a very thin batter)
6. Pour into bundt pan
7. Bake 30-35 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. 
8. Cool 10 minutes, then move to rack.
9. Cool completely.  Pour glaze (recipe follows) over top.

Glaze

• In small saucepan bring 1/4 cup sugar and 1/4 cup water to a rolling boil.  Stir until sugar is dissolved, then remove from heat.  Immediately add 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips.  Whisk until chips are melted and mixture is smooth.  Cool until slightly thickened.  Makes about 2/3 cup glaze. 

Today! Cupcakes in Justin Herman Plaza!

There's already ice skating there, so it's the perfect experience!  The Sprinkles truck will be parked from 11-1, and apparently last time there was some sort of run-in with the Kara's people, so be ready to benefit from a cupcake turf war. 

Pumpkin Ice Cream, Etc

I have been attempting to read Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, an exercise in frustration that I will report on another day, but it has made me more aware of seasonal food changes.  Not that I do anything about them, per se, but there was pumpkin ice cream on the shelf and I picked it right up. 

Because I generally eat non-dairy ice creams Double Rainbow Perfectly Pumpkin was the first of the San Francisco company's flavors I've tried.  It's super-premium, which means a minimum of air whipped in, and also hekshered OU, and gluten free.  Oh, and did I mention it's really good?  Extremely impressive (although at this moment I'm considering what BiRite would do with pumpkin ice cream and nothing could compare to that), natural tasting, fairly subtle pumpkin flavoring and a light, creamy texture.  Following it with Mudslinger's Chocococo does not reflect well on that brand.  If you click on the link, you'll see a charming flash opening in which a contemptuous little girl insists "I hate wussy ice cream."  And in truth, Mudslingers has tried too damn hard to pretend it's not making a dairy-free product.  They're supposed to taste different, as Coconut Bliss has brilliantly demonstrated, but Maggie Mudd's has tried to make regular ice cream out of coconut and what emerges is a heavy, gooey article that doesn't have the refreshing quality of either milk or coconut milk (they create something called coconut cream as a base by gumming it up).  The chocolate flavor is deep and intense, but the experience of eating it is just not that fabulous.  They do make a variety with whiskey and fudge, however, so I'm not giving up hope for them yet. 

What do you eat with ice cream?  Why cookies of course (and a big glass of ice water because the Mudslingers is going to make you hella thirsty)!  But not these cookies, specifically the wheat-free, dairy-free versions.  I don't know that I've ever had a bad Newman's Own product, but these come close.  I blame the wheat-free aspect.  They're not even gluten-free with all that, so why waste the time?  Anyhow, they've still got the quality Newman chocolate, but they're also dry and have a seriously bitter aftertaste.  At least they're hekshered (OU dairy, presumably because of the equipment being used to make dairy products).  But there are a lot of alternatives to try before you end up here. 

The Best Food News You'll Hear All Year

Chocolate milk may have similar anti-inflammatory powers to those of red wine. 

TJs Giveth, And TJs Taketh Away

Although we all know intellectually that Trader Joe's introduces and retires products without warning, you never think it will happen to you.  "X is so great," you say to yourself, "how could they possibly get rid of it?"  And yet, one morning you get up looking forward to your banana chocolate-chip muffin, and they are just gone. 

More Tasty Non-Dairy Ice Cream

The real surprise is that I have a Post-Punk Kitchen recipe I've been testing and will be ready to write about tomorrow, but in the meantime, have some coconut-milk ice cream.

Larry and Luna's Coconut Bliss is now hekshered parve with the heart-K.  It's also still vegan, gluten-free, and sweetened with agave nectar.  I found the chocolate hazelnut fudge flavor to be less aggressively coconut-y than prior flavors I've tried, with an extra crunch from the nuts and a strong chocolate flavor complemented by the more subtle hazelnut, which creates a drier sensation on the palate similar to some of their other products.  I suspect this is their homage to nocciola, the traditional gelato.  

Turtle Mountain's Purely Decadent coconut milk mint chip, by contrast, is very icy like a sorbet.  It shares all of the positive production attributes listed above  The mint flavor is quite refreshing and tastes natural.  I am a bit taken aback by the ingredient list, which includes beet sugar to make the (Dutch) chocolate used for the chips, chicory, and carob (the root of all evil), and yet when I was eating it I thought it was delicious, so perhaps I shouldn't have revealed this to you before you tried it. 

It's interesting to me how these non-dairy products, and also something like Soy/Rice/Hemp Dream, use words in their names to emphasize the idyll you will presumably enjoy if you eat them.  It's almost like they're trying to convince skeptics that the stuff will taste good ;) 

Marich Triple Chocolate Toffee

My 'choose the least expensive item on the shelf' strategy pays off yet again.  The company is frankly a wee bit creepy, at least based on its website.  Headquartered in Hollister, it only produces candies that are round, and that includes a line called Trufflz! (reminds me of Dooce and the way she's taken to writing "shingles!" with jazz hands) and one called Scookies, which are ball-shaped bits of cookie dipped in chocolate.  In other words, product naming is not the strong suit.  Marich also kind of overdoes it with the flavor combinations, as this particular candy consists of toffee, a layer of milk chocolate, a layer of of dark chocolate, and a layer of "marbled" dark and white chocolate.  But it is, in the final analysis,  pretty tasty.  You'd expect a toffee to be crunchy, but these are pillowy to the bite with the toffee coming only at the finish, and hints of almond.  I couldn't figure out why the first thought that came to my mind was that they tasted more like baked good than like candy, until I remembered that for awhile some big company was putting out chocolate-covered cookie dough that looked like malted-milk balls, and with all the different types of chocolate cushioning the toffee these candies had a bit of the same texture.  None of the chocolate flavors could come out clearly, but they all melded into a sweet mish-mosh, so if you're not a purist and you're a toffee fan these give good value for the money, plus they're hekshered dairy.  At least you're not paying for something with a name like 'trufflz!' 

The Holy Grail

It's not just that Zingerman's is chock full of the best food, from their own breads and cheeses to $150 imported balsamic vinegar (yes, it exists).  The most amazing thing about the deli is that clearly its application process requires you to bring documentation that you are among the ten most pleasant, patient people on earth, otherwise you won't be hired.  If, in the midst of the utter chaos of a line around the block trying to reach the sandwiches, and tributaries breaking through the floodwaters trying to get to the cheese counter and the bread stand, you can treat every customer as if she were the only person in the shop, you are a Zingerman's employee.  The one knock on its family of stores is that it worships the pig, and very few of its products are kosher.  The Roadhouse does serve kosher, hand-dipped corndogs that are next on my list of things to try in Ann Arbor. 

Items at or from Zingerman's that are highly recommended, thus far:

Chocolate chunk sourdough bread
Pumpernickel (try it with the whitefish salad)
Gelato (the dulce de leche rivals the texture of Birite ice cream, and the dark chocolate is better than Ciao Bella)
Piquillo pimento peppers 
any kind of pastry, also brownies 
Papa Louie claims that the corned beef rivals that of Shapiro's, previous holder of the world's best deli title

If you can't make it to Michigan, the mail order catalogue is a decent substitute. 

Dark Chocolate Versions of Conventional Candy

Yea or nay?  Reese's is coming out with a dark version of the peanut butter cup.   There are already dark varieties of things like Mounds.  Clearly the big companies are trying to tap into the growing sophistication of the average American's chocolate preference (witness Hershey's Cacao Reserve line, etc).  But given that in the average mass-produce bar the dark chocolate is of the same quality as the milk, will it make a difference?  In the bars I've tried it does soften the taste of some of the more aggressively sweet offerings, and sometimes changes the flavor enough to make a candy you've eaten 17,000 times since childhood interesting, but there are also bars for which you wonder whether it makes a difference at all.  Thoughts? 

More Ice Cream Than You Can Shake A Stick At

I haven't been eating at anywhere particularly blogworthy lately, but I have been eating what for me is an inordinate amount of frozen dairy.  My usual view of iced treats is that the closer it is to drinkable form, the more I like it.  But I've also made two trips to Greyhouse for gelato (latest flavor: mint dark chocolate), and even ventured inside a Coldstone.  Coldstone's ice cream by itself doesn't taste like much because they bank so heavily on the mix-ins.  Some new flavors which may be at your local store are pretty decent, however.  Chocolate cake batter has a light, aerated look and does taste strangely like it came from the mixing bowl.  Butterscotch Jell-o pudding is something that couldn't possibly go wrong.  Candy mix-ins still tend to overwhelm the vagueries of the flavors themselves, but that's why people go there, right?  It certainly can't be for the humiliating singing ritual that the employees are forced into.