Marvellous Mango Muffins

The problem with having many hobbies is that inevitably, one hobby starts to suffer at the hands of another. Case in point: my last post was AGES ago. Though I have been cooking and concocting, I’ve been spending most of my non-cooking time on my new Etsy site: Mademoiselle Gustave. But after I made these muffins this morning I had to take the time to share the recipe. They’re easy, quick and lovely for a Sunday morning. I’d suggest Annie Lennox’s Diva album for this batch; it’s a perfect blend of slow, swaying melodies and bouncy, sing-into-your-stirring-spoon tunes. Get to it!

Mango marvelosity. Definition: the state of discovering that you love fresh mangoes after thinking that you hated them for years. Wonders will never cease.

Ingredients:

• 1.5 cups organic sugar cane
• 1/2 cups EarthBalance butter
• 2 tsp egg replacer, mixed with 4 tbsp warm water
• 4 tsp lemon juice (equivalent to 1 lemon, zested and juiced)
• 3 cups flour (all-purpose cut with some whole wheat or 1.5 cups coconut flour + 1.5 cups sorghum flour for you fabulous gluten-free folks)
• 1 fresh mango, cut into little bits (if you don’t have a mango, 3/4 cups of chopped strawberries or blueberries will do just fine)
• 2.5 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1.5 cups almond, coconut or soy milk

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line or lightly oil 12 extra large muffin tins (or probably 24 regular muffin tins). In a large bowl, cream together the sugar, butter, egg replacer and lemon juice. Add the flour, baking powder, sea salt and milk. Stir to combine, then add the bits of mango. Try not to over-mix it lest it becomes gummy. Spoon into the muffin tins and bake for about 20-35 minutes (depending on the size of your muffin tins), or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let them cool in the tins, then feast!

Citrus Curd Tart

I recently survived a birthday by eating a ridiculous amount of food at my favourite vegan haunt, ZenKitchen. I started the meal with sesame-crusted, flash-fried mushrooms, followed by a butternut squash risotto with roasted seasonal veggies. The pièce de résistance was dessert – a heavenly lemon curd tart, dotted with a raspberry coulis. It was out of this world. So much so that I’ve been obsessing about my dream tart for weeks. I finally decided to do some Googling and some tweaking, and came up with the following recipe. Hope you like it!

I wish I had some fresh berries to sprinkle on top, but this is what happens when you get the idea to whip up a pie on a Sunday night when you haven't gone grocery shopping in a couple of days!

Ingredients:

• 1 + 1/4 cup fresh citrus juice (6 lemons and 2 small oranges – feel free to play with the ratio or maybe even add more exotic citrus like limes, meyer lemons, grapefruit or blood oranges. Just be aware that they each have pretty unique flavour profiles.)
• 1/2 cup cold water
• 1 + 3/4 cup organic cane sugar (the more lemons you use, the more sugar you need to compensate… just keep that in mind)
• 5 tbsp cornstarch
• zest of the above lemons and oranges
• 2 tbsp Earth Balance butter
• 6 tbsp almond or soy milk, cooked for about 1.5 minutes in the microwave (or otherwise simmered) with 5 cardamom pods (make sure you strain the pods out before using the milk!)
• 2 cups ginger or graham cookie crumbs (about 20 or so crackers)
• 1/4 to 1/3 cup Earth Balance butter, depending on how oily your cookies are

Wash your citrus, then zest it (it’s a lot easier to get the zest off before you cut and juice a lemon, trust me). Make sure you only pass over one area once, because you don’t want to get the bitter white pith that lies under the yummy zest/skin.

These are the best tools for citrus-work: an orange/lemon juicer, a mini-sieve, a zester and a sink. Employed together, they’ll extract every drop of juice (juicer), every bit of yummy zest (zester), will let you get rid of any pesky pips that sneak into your juice (mini-sieve) and will prevent the juice from finding its way into every crack and crevice in your kitchen (sink).

A citrus user's best friends: hand juicer (for both lemons, limes and oranges), a mini-sieve, and a zester.

Whisk together the lemon juice, water, sugar and cornstarch in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring all the while. Once boiling, let it sit for a minute without stirring, then add the remaining ingredients (up to but not including the cookie crumbs!) and resume stirring. Cook for 2-3 minutes, then set into an ice bath (or pour into a bowl and stick in the fridge if you’re not in a hurry).

While you’re letting the curd cool, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and make the crust by pulsing the cookies and butter together in a food processor. Press the crumbs into a 9-inch pie pan (metal measuring cups are terrific for getting an even surface on the bottom as well on the sides). Toss the shell into the freezer for about 15 minutes to set, then bake for about 12 minutes or until the sides are lightly browned and the bottom isn’t quite set (it’ll set as it cools).

Pour the curd into the shell and refrigerate for at least 3 hours before serving (even better overnight). If you want to get fancy, serve with a drizzle of cardamom-infused strawberry or raspberry coulis: boil 1-2 cups berries in a small saucepan with just enough water to break them down and make a sauce, then add about 1 tbsp of your favourite sugar product (sugar cane, agave, honey, etc.), a couple of cardamom pods and a tsp of vanilla; boil until soft, then remove the pods and blend until smooth. You’ll be the toast of the town (or dinner), I guarantee it.

Duke of Earl Cupcakes

It’s not so far-fetched to pair up Earl Grey tea and cupcakes, but you don’t normally see them blended together! These cupcakes are exotic and delicious. This recipe was adapted from an article I saw in the newspaper, which showcased Auntie Loo’s treats, a new vegan bakery in Ottawa. You can bet I’ll be making my way there ASAP to satisfy my sweet tooth. I figured if Auntie Loo gave out her recipe for a couple of newspapers, then she wouldn’t mind me nabbing it, tweaking it and posting it here, right Auntie Loo? I have to admit that I switched to my favourite frosting because I’m addicted to it. Of course, you’ll need to listen to Duke of Earl, by Gene Chandler.

One of my all-time favorite desserts. Thanks Auntie Loo!

Gather up the following ingredients:

• 1 cup organic sugar
• 1 cup unbleached white flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 tbsp Earl Grey tea (or the contents of 4 tea bags; grind in a spice mill until fine and powdery – don’t inhale!)
• 1 cup water
• 1/3 cup sunflower oil
• 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice (or half a lemon, juiced, but zest the lemon first for the frosting!)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Line 12 muffin tins with paper liners (or oil the tins, but liners are great). Combine all dry ingredients together. Add all the wet ingredients except for the lemon juice and stir it until just combined. Then add the lemon juice and stir until the mixture is light and frothy. Pour the batter into each cup then toss them into the oven for 20-25 minutes. Once a toothpick comes out clean, let them cool and then remove them from the tins. Make sure they’re completely cool before icing them with Lemon Buttercream Frosting.

Lemon Buttercream Frosting

This recipe takes less than 5 minutes and is BEYOND delicious, especially when spread over Duke of Earl cupcakes.

Haul out your food processor and toss in:

• 1/2 cup EarthBalance veggie butter
• 2 cups icing sugar
• 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice (which is half a lemon, squeezed)
• 1 tbsp soy milk (or any non-dairy milk really)
  
• pinch of salt
• zest from 1 lemon

Once it’s blended into silky-smoothness, pop it in the fridge until the muffins or cake are cool enough to ice.

Scrumptious Scones

Scone recipes are noticeably absent from most vegan cookbooks, and I’m not altogether sure why.  Do vegans not like scones?  Doubtful — I’m a vegan, and I adore them! But I suppose I can’t exactly call that reliable evidence, since I am but one lil’ vegan in a growing sea of vegans. In any case, here’s my favorite recipe for cranberry-lemon scones. It’ll make about 12 small scones if you divide the dough into 2 discs (see below). Based on my experience, they disappear very quickly.

Delectable to the last crumb... This version was made with raisins as well as cranberries. Yep, I'm that risqué.

So for this recipe I was listening to Stand By Me by Marvin Gaye. A total classic that’ll get you swayin’ and singin’ along in no time.

• 1 cup unbleached white flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 2 tbsp organic sugar cane
  
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup wheat germ
• 1/2 cup vegan “butter” — my absolute favorite is EarthBalance’s… I could almost eat it with a spoon. Almost.
• 1/3 cup soy milk
• 1 tsp egg replacer mixed into 2 tbsp warm water (I tend to use Kingsmill egg replacer, which is mostly potato starch. But there are lots of different things you can use as egg replacers depending on what you’re making.)
• 3 tsp lemon juice
• 1 cup dried cranberries — you can also use diced apricots, pineapple, raisins, mango, papaya, etc…. or fresh fruit, but then I’d half the amount otherwise you’ll get some mighty soggy scones

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F, and mix the first 6 dry ingredients together. Once they are well mixed, cut in the butter with a fork or, better yet, a dough blender. These are nifty hand-held obliterators of butter or shortening, with their 5-6 metal slats evenly spaced in a loop under the handle. They make short of work cutting butter into dry ingredients, and I recommend getting your hands on one if you do any amount of baking. But I digress…

Cut the butter into the dry ingredients until the chunks are roughly pea-sized. Now it’s time to add the wet ingredients. Work your way down the list until you’ve got everything in and well mixed. It’ll look pretty dry and flaky until you get in there with your hands and start kneading (wash your hands first!). Knead the dough until you can get it into a ball.

Now you have a choice: either create 1 big ball, or divide the dough in half and make 2 balls of dough. Squish these balls into discs, and play around with them so that they’re about an inch thick (yes I’m Canadian and I’m supposed to use the metric system, but somehow I turned into this hybrid who uses inches, pounds and meters, which is confusing to say the least). Place your disc(s) on a baking sheet and score them like you would cut a pie, though only halfway through the dough. This will make it easier to divide up your scones, and will ensure they’ll cook evenly. Pop them in the oven for 13-15 minutes depending on whether you made 1 or 2 discs, or until they turn golden on top. Serve with a bit of butter or jam — but really they’re so good you should just love them the way they are.  Tuck in and enjoy!