April 9, 2016 by Marios

Vegan Chocolate Banana Muffins

Our friend Lisa visited us from Florida last weekend. She’s my formerly omnivore friend who became vegan and broke my heart (though, of course, I still love her to death). We have been friends since our college days and we hung out over the weekend with yet another college friend, Brad, who lives in NY with his partner Denny. Even though we’ve known each other for 23 years, we still never run out of things to talk about. On Saturday, we took the train to the New York Botanic Gardens to see the cherry trees but we were a little too early. The majority of them were still bare, though a few were in full bloom, resplendent in pink and white flowers. We walked around, took pictures and then hopped in a cab to go back to our apartment for Mai Tais and dinner.

With everyone’s help in the kitchen, I prepared a full vegan meal that ended up being very satisfying, even for the non-vegans among us. I started us off with crispy broccoli in black vinegar and then served a sweet potato, kohlrabi, and peanut stew, topped with some Korean gochujang paste and crushed peanuts. We finished with freshly baked vegan chocolate chip cookies. I tried the recipe from Ovenly for the first time and though we ended up eating two cookies each, I will just say that I will stick with my favorite non-vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe in the future.

But the real hit was breakfast. I saw this recipe for vegan chocolate banana muffins many months ago on Chocolate & Zucchini and saved it for Lisa’s next visit. I finally made them last Friday and we ate them throughout the weekend. I can’t believe I’m going to say this about a vegan baked good, but these muffins are amazing! They are just dense enough that they feel substantial and not cake-y, but they are delightfully moist and tender. The flavor is pure banana and chocolate, along with some deeper notes from the coconut sugar that I added to the recipe. And the turbinado sugar on top adds a playful crunch to each bite. Altogether, they are really irresistible.

Vegan Chocolate Banana Muffins – Adapted from Chocolate & Zucchini

Ingredients:

130 grams (1 cup) all-purpose flour
130 grams (1 cup) rice flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
50 grams (1/4 cup) white sugar
100 grams (1/2 cup) coconut sugar
150 grams (5 1/3 ounces) good-quality bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
3 very ripe bananas, (about 350 grams or 3/4 pound without the skin)
60 ml (1/4 cup) vegetable oil
60 ml (1/4 cup) virgin and unrefined coconut oil
2 tablespoons brandy or cognac (substitute with apple juice if you do not want to use alcohol)
1/4 teaspoon cider vinegar
1 tablespoon turbinado sugar for topping

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350°F and line a 12-muffin muffin pan with muffin liners (or lightly grease and flour the muffin pan).

In a medium bowl, combine the flours, baking soda, salt, sugars, and chopped chocolate. Stir well to combine. Set aside. In a second medium bowl, use a fork to mash the bananas with the oils, brandy/cognac, and vinegar until thoroughly combined.

Add the wet ingredients into the dry ones and use a spatula to mix together until no trace of flour remains, without overmixing.

Scoop into the muffin molds, and sprinkle the tops with the turbinado sugar. Bake for 30 minutes, until the tops are nicely browned. Let cool on a rack before serving.

December 5, 2015 by Marios

Dairy-Free Coconut Passion Fruit Pound Cake

The first time I flew in an airplane, I was a teenager. My parents, my sister and I flew to Athens to visit our relatives. I was so excited to finally fly. I don’t remember much from the flight but I do remember that it was a very turbulent approach to the Athens airport. In my excitement, being a teenager on his first flight, I didn’t care. I kept turning to my dad who was sitting next to me trying to show him all the things I could see from my window seat but he was still as a statue, gripping the arm rests, trying hard not to throw up.

Before that first flight with my family to Athens, I had always loved going to the airport to pick up aunts and uncles visiting us from abroad. It seemed like such a magical place of people appearing, literally, out of thin air. I loved the chimes sound that preceded every announcement and the constant hum of people moving about. My love of airports continued for a while. The second time in my life that I boarded a plane, it was to travel to Philadelphia to begin my life in the U.S., a life that gave me many trips all over the world. For many years, I loved the different airports I got to visit. It wasn’t until much later, especially after 9/11, when airports became synonymous with stress, worry and unhappy crowds for me.

I remember talking with my mom one day after that first family flight to Athens. We were remembering all the things we did on our trip and we were reliving them by retelling them. “This is why I love the idea of traveling,” she said. “Because it means I get to see things I’ve never seen before and eat food I’ve never tasted before.” That last part always stayed with me and still makes me excited about traveling. It meant tasting fresh coconut for the first time in my life. Or curiously slicing into my first ripe passion fruit, wondering if it has gone bad, all wrinkly and hard as leather, and greeted with a bright yellow liquid interior studded with seeds, perfuming the air with its intoxicating scent.
Dairy-Free Coconut and Passion Fruit Pound Cake

Ingredients:

2/3 cup virgin & unrefined coconut oil
1 1/3 cups sugar
3 eggs and 1 egg yolk
2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
2/3 cups of passion fruit pulp

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350º F. Lightly grease an 8 1/2″ x 4 1/2″ loaf pan and line with parchment paper leaving extra paper overhanging over both long sides.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

In a mixer with the paddle attachment, add the coconut oil and mix for 10 seconds at medium speed. While mixer is running, add sugar and mix for another 2 minutes, stopping half way to scrape the sides of the bowl. Add the eggs and yolk and continue mixing until combined, about 10-15 seconds more.

Add half of the flour mixture and mix until just combined. Add passion fruit pulp and mix a few seconds more to incorporate. Add remainder of flour mixture and mix until just combined (do not overmix).

Scrape batter in prepared pan and bake in preheated oven for 70-75 minutes, until a cake tester inserted in the middle comes out mostly clean.

Place pan on rack and let cool for 15 minutes before removing cake from pan and letting it cool completely on the rack before slicing and serving.

February 15, 2014 by Marios

Gluten-free, Dairy-free Chocolate Orange Cake

This is what my cookbooks look like. Whenever I buy a new one I go through it and mark any recipe that looks like something I’d want to try. I like to use these nifty Post-it bookmarks that are clear where they attach to the page so that they don’t cover anything. As you can see from the photo (and this is only a small sample of the cookbooks I have), I end up with a lot of recipes that I want to try out. And this doesn’t include recipes from magazines and blogs, which I collect using the fantastic Paprika recipe manager app.

To make a long story short, I really shouldn’t be adding to my collection of recipes to try. But the other day I was reading a newspaper from back home online, when at the bottom of the page I noticed the title of a recipe: Incredibly Light Chocolate Orange Cake (without Flour). I was intrigued. Chocolate and orange are one of my favorite flavor combinations (here’s looking at you, irresistible orangettes!). A quick look at the ingredient list revealed ground almonds as the substitute for flour and boiled, whole oranges as the substitute for butter. I was beyond intrigued. I had to try it.

The result was actually very interesting. A moist cake with a distinct chocolate taste but redolent with aromas of orange. I say aromas because the presence of orange in this cake goes beyond what you would get if you used only orange juice. Since it incorporates the entire fruit, you get the sweet and tangy flavor of the orange segments, the mellow bitterness of the pith, and the sharp taste of the orange oil from the rind. All together, it creates a not-too-sweet cake that begs for another bite, if only to decipher the complex combination of tastes hitting your tongue at the same time.

I know this post seems to come a day late, given that yesterday was Valentine’s day. But Steve and I don’t really do much on Valentine’s day, a day we feel ambivalent about. Back in my single days, I used to hold a dinner party for all my single friends, making beef bourguignon and a chocolate torte, all of us toasting to our singledom, in defiance of this silly holiday that taunted us.

Now that I think about it, given the bitter and sweet flavor combinations of this cake, it would perhaps make a perfect Valentine’s day cake, for both those in celebration of the day and those who don’t like it.

Gluten-free, Dairy-free Chocolate Orange Cake – Translated and slightly adapted from Phileleftheros

Ingredients:

2 small oranges, preferably organic/unsprayed (about 12 oz / 345 g)
2 tablespoons orange liqueur, like Grand Marnier
1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ cup unsweetened cocoa (2 oz / 55 g)
1 ¼ cups sugar (7 ¾ oz / 250 g)
2 cups ground almonds (7 oz / 200 g)
pinch of salt
6 large eggs

Directions:

Preheat the oven at 350º F (180º C). Lightly grease the bottom and sides of a springform 8″ (20 cm) cake pan. Cover the bottom of the pan with parchment paper.

Wash the oranges and place them in a medium-sized pot. Cover them with cold water and heat over medium-high heat until they come to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and let simmer for about 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Drain oranges and let cool. (Oranges can be boiled up to two days in advance and kept in the fridge)

Roughly chop the oranges, remove any pits, and place in the bowl of a food processor. Add liqueur and process until no pieces of orange are left. The mixture should be a relatively smooth pulp with small pieces of rind (it doesn’t have to become completely smooth). Add the baking powder, baking soda, cocoa, sugar, almonds, and a pinch of salt. Process until combined.

Add eggs one at a time, processing until each egg is combined. Pour mixture in prepared pan and bake for about 60 minutes, until a cake tester inserted in the middle comes out clean. Immediately run a sharp knife around the edge of the pan and place the pan on a cooling rack. Let cake cool completely in the pan.

April 27, 2013 by Marios

Quick Dairy-Free Coconut Saffron Ice Cream

Last week, I cooked a three course dinner that was both gluten-free and dairy-free because one of our friends who joined us is allergic to both. Given those constraints, I started thinking about what to make for this dinner a few weeks in advance. I quickly realized that cooking gluten-free and dairy-free is manageable for savory dishes but when you get to dessert, it becomes a serious challenge.

A challenge I absolutely loved (Top Chef here I come!). Once I decided on the appetizer (pea soup) and the main dish (roast chicken with potatoes and carrots), I started to go over my recipes for desserts. I didn’t want to go the easy way by making a fruit sorbet and call it a day. I wanted to make a dessert that screamed gluten and dairy but without having either of them.

So I chose to make bread pudding, served with ice cream. Yep, I went there.

For the bread pudding, I used my go-to recipe (which I’ll share soon) and substituted regular bread for gluten-free croutons that I bought. I also replaced whole milk with coconut milk. The end result was delicious. The ice cream, however, was more of a challenge. I decided to stick with the coconut theme and I found a recipe by David Lebovitz for a quick coconut saffron ice cream that seemed promising. However, it used heavy cream. So, I decided to replace heavy cream with cream of coconut, which is really coconut milk with lots of sugar and a few thickeners (different types of gum) that turn it into a thick, sweet concoction that’s the basic ingredient in Pina Coladas.

So, I opened a can of coconut milk and a can of cream of coconut, dumped them in a pot, and heated them gently until all the solids melted and it became a smooth liquid. I added a pinch of salt and a bigger pinch of saffron, heated it a little longer to let the saffron steep, chilled it in the fridge, and froze it in my ice cream maker.

I was skeptical on what the final product would be like, especially in terms of consistency. I expected a solid block on ice when I took it out of the freezer the next day. I was amazed when it turned out to be a beautiful, creamy ice cream that you could scoop with a spoon. The saffron had given it a golden yellow color that intensified the illusion that this ice cream was made with actual cream and egg yolks.

The final verdict on the whole dessert? Let’s just say that not a crumb of bread pudding or drop of ice cream was left over in everyone’s bowls.

Quick Dairy-Free Coconut Saffron Ice Cream

If you don’t have saffron, or if you don’t like it, you can omit it. Though I haven’t tried them, other options for additions are lime zest, chopped dried pineapple or ginger, or chocolate pieces. For all of these alternative options, add them to the ice cream right when it’s finished being churned in the ice cream maker.

1 15oz can of coconut milk, unsweetened
1 15oz can of cream of coconut (such as Goya or Coco Lopez)
pinch of salt
hefty pinch of saffron threads (about half a teaspoon)

In a medium saucepan, combine the coconut milk and the cream of coconut. The cream of coconut is usually separated in the can, with the solid cream on top and the liquid syrup in the bottom. Add the entire contents of the can to the saucepan.

Heat gently over medium heat, stirring frequently until the cream of coconut solids melt and everything becomes a smooth liquid.

Add the salt and saffron and continue to heat gently for 2-3 minutes. The longer you steep the saffron, the deeper the saffron taste of your ice cream will be.

Remove from heat and chill in the refrigerator. Once the mixture is chilled, freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.