Blueberry Coffee Cake with vegan options

I wanted a coffee cake recipe that was easy to convert to vegan options. Hint: Rule #1 Pick a recipe with one or two eggs.  I also wanted the recipe to include berries, but I wasn't picky about the type.  I  perused my cookbooks first, and I found exactly what I was looking for in The Creative Breakfast by Ellen Klavan.

The recipe is in a chapter called Sweet Treats. Klavan says, "There are times--like when your Aunt Matilda is spending the night or your child is headed off to summer camp, or someone in the family needs cheering up or congratulating when a bowl of skim milk and muesli just don't strike the right note." Maybe because the book was published in 1998, but today we don't need excuses like Aunt Mildred to eat cake, do we? And we don't need to feel guilty for thinking we do.

Enjoy, I say. Maybe I'm a sucker for the hedonistic advice from my Cooking Assistant.  He never feels guilty about indulging in anything. 

With this recipe, you can souce ingredients locally. I used Nash's local flour for this recipe.  I keep Nash's flour in my freezer and use it up within a few months. 

The picture of pastry flour below is from Dunbar Farms in Southern Oregon. Check your own farmers' market for local flour.

Choose your own berries to accompany this cake.  

Below are strawberries, black raspberries and raspberries.  I like the idea of serving red, white and blue on patriotic holidays.

We don't have blueberries yet in the Northwest, and though it's preferable to have fresh berries, you can also use frozen berries. The only problem with frozen blueberries is, as the berries defrost, the cell walls break allowing the blue color to seep into the batter.  Sometimes you can toss berries in frozen and the bleeding won't happen. I wasn't very lucky with that technique. 

The batter was blue before I put it in the pan. But don't let that discourage you; it still tastes fabulous.

My Cooking Assistant loves the berries.  He can be very naughty in the garden, picking all the berries for himself.  We thought it was cute when we taught him how to pick berries. 

It could be dangerous teaching your dog to pick berries.

This cake is not very sweet so eat it for breakfast if you like.  Or serve it with berries and coconut sorbet after dinner.  This recipe isn't altered much from the original recipe. To switch it to a vegan recipe is easy with only one egg, butter and milk to replace.

Blueberry Coffeecake

(Makes one 7-by 9-inch cake)

Topping 

1/4 cup butter or Earth Balance buttery sticks, softened

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 cup toasted chopped walnuts or pecans

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/4 cup butter or Earth Balance buttery sticks

1/4 cup sugar

1 egg or flaxseed egg replacer for one egg

1/2 cup milk (almond, coconut, hemp, or soy)

2 cups fresh blueberries

1. Preheat oven to 375F.  Butter or grease a 7-by 9-inch baking dish.  With a fork, combine the butter, brown sugar, flour, and cinnamon, mashing until mixture is creamy. Stir in nuts and set aside.

2. Sift the pastry flour and baking powder together.  In another bowl combine the butter and sugar, blending until smooth.  Stir in egg or egg-replacer.  Add the flour alternating with the milk and stir just until smooth. Mixture will be quite thick. Gently mix in the blueberries. 

3. Spread in the prepared baking pan and bake for 1 hour.  Test with a toothpick before removing from the pan.  Cool before cutting.  Serve with strawberries and coconut sorbet.

Cranapple Walnut Cake

This picture was taken about 7 or 8 years ago at the U-District Farmers' Market. This is what the cranberry harvest for farmers' markets looked like the first few seasons farmers started bringing these local treasures to the market.

The tables have more berries now and the price is higher these days. It isn't easy to grow cranberries. They grow on bushes that need bogs, and with all that water, cranberries are susceptible to fungus. 

Chemical fungicides aren't allowed for organic cranberries, so growing them is more challengine. You might say it's an act of love.  One farm Starvation Alley is doing just that. They are the first certified organic cranberry grower in Washington state. And they sell berries in the U-district market. Check out their story, then support their farm.

For this recipe, apples help balance the sweet tones with the tart cranberries in Cranapple Walnut Cake, a recipe I found in Mollie Katzen's Heart of the Plate. 

Someone isn't interested unless we're testing actual recipes.

Of course the third ingredient that grabbed my attention was walnuts, another northwest treasure.  I happen to have a significant amount of my walnuts from Grouse Mountain Farm. Once you've eaten the best walnuts, you'll never want the store bought variety again.  I'm hoping this box of local walnuts will last through the winter.  I may have to hide them.

Nash's flour is available and it's worth the extra cost.  How many people can say they've ever really had fresh flour?  Just a ferry ride away in Sequim, Washington, Nash's organic farm has been grinding out flour for eight years now.

Recipe adaptation

I started with Molly Katzen's recipe and I made a few alterations along the way. I increased the flour measurement because Nash's flour has less gluten and seems to have more moisture.  I used darker brown sugar, so the recipe turned out significantly darker than the photo in the book that appears to have been made with very light colored sugar.

I could have used less sugar, but I wasn't sure because the cranberries were very tart and the Granny Smith apples were also tart.  Also I cut down on the amount of apples and I chopped as opposed to slicing them.  I find with Nash's flour, pastries don't always hold together as well, but the flavor makes up for that minor problem.

Cranapple Walnut Cake

(Makes one 9 by 13-inch cake or about 10 servings)

1 3/4 cups brown sugar

1/2 cup canola or grapeseed oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 large eggs, beaten, or flax-seed egg replacer for 2 eggs

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour (if using fresh local flour use 2 1/4 cups)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon cloves

1 large apple, peeled and core removed, chopped (about 1 1/2 cups)

1 1/2 cups cranberries, fresh or frozen

3/4 cup toasted walnuts

1. Preheat oven to 350F.  Lightly oil a 13 by 9-inch baking dish.

2. Beat together eggs, brown sugar, oil and vanilla.

3. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves, in a separate bowl. Combine wet and dry ingredients, adding the fruit and nuts.  Mixture will be quite thick.  Spread in the prepared baking pan.  

4. Bake for 45 minutes or until lightly browned on top.  Test with toothpick before removing from the oven.  Allow to cool on cooling rack before slicing.  Top with whipped topping, coconut sorbet or ice cream.

Pear Clafouti

It's all pears and apples at the markets now. I wanted a pear clafouti--can this pass for breakfast fare?  Or is it a dessert?  I think I'd eat it any time it came out of the oven.

Use any kind of pear you want. 

The original recipe listed Bartlett; I like Bosc, and these Seckel pears are a good choice too. Also don't limit yourself to four pears.  Use as many as you want to cover the bottom of the pan.

This recipe came from my book.  Check out my book for more recipes like this one.

This  recipe in my cookbook came from Jenette Herman of Cliffside Orchards. It's like custard. I didn't quite have enough pears to crowd the bottom but the wonderful custard between the pears is to die for.

Seriously, I don't mind giving up bread things for a few weeks if I could have more of these treats.

In my book three eggs is a bit much to replace without losing texture, so I checked to see how vegans handled clafouti. Most used silken tofu as an egg-replacement like this vegan cherry clafouti. 

Pear Clafouti
(Serves 4)

4 ripe Bartlett pears, or 6 to 8 Seckel pears, cut in half
3 eggs, beaten, or 6 ounces silken tofu, blended
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup whole wheat pastry flour
3/4 cup milk, soy or almond milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon brandy
Salt
Powdered sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350F.  Oil or butter a 9-inch round cake pan.  Lay pears cut side down.

2. Combine the eggs or tofu and sugar using a mixer in a large bowl.  Beat until foamy and thick. Add flour and mix until a soft batter forms, then stir in milk, vanilla extract, and brandy, if desired.  Sprinkle with a pinch of salt.  Pour mixture over the pears and bake until browned on top, about 30 minutes.

Recipe from The Northwest Vegetarian Cookbook, by Debra Daniels-Zeller.

Here is what it looks like with berries added:

Oh those berries. . . 

Maple Sweet Potato Bread

This week I'm sharing a fabulous vegan bread recipe. You can use pumpkin instead of sweet potatoes in this recipe if you want. That's what I did.  So maybe I should have called it Maple Sweet Potato or Pumpkin Bread. 

I got this recipe from the library.  I check out two books.  One was Gweneth Paltrow's It's all Good, and the other was Skinny Bitch Bakery by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin.  I liked Skinny Bitch better.  It was vegan and much more useful.  Parts of the Paltrow book didn't quite make sense, and there were so many photos of the Gweneth, if you're not totally star stuck and in love with Paltrow, this cookbook would not make sense as book you'd want to keep. And the headers for the recipes. . . Maybe some people don't think this is a skill, but it is.

The recipe I picked for the week a version of a recipe in Skinny Bitch Bakery. The book's recipe uses an egg-replacer, but I've made pumpkin bread so often without any eggs or replacers, I skipped it and it worked.

Pumpkin is in season right now.  If you don't like it, it's time to learn how to love it. Winter squash is filled with nutrients, and farmers grow a lot of squash in the Northwest.

Sweet potatoes are a newer crop for Northwest farmers.  Ten years ago, you couldn't find one local sweet potato at the market. Now a few farmers bring them and the price is similar to what you would pay for organic sweet potatoes at a natural foods store.

If you don't have fresh, use one can of pumpkin or sweet potato puree.

You can buy local whole-wheat pastry flour, but if you don't have any, use the flour you have in your pantry.

You can use most any squash besides pumpkin, except for summer or spaghetti squash. Puree it in the blender before stirring it into the mix.

If you use sweet potatoes, try making sweet potato chews for your cooking assistant with leftovers.

You can bake a Sugar Pie pumpkin whole.  Poke some holes in it with a fork and stick it in a 350F oven for about an hour.  Remove from oven, let it cool.  Remove stem and seeds before scraping pumpkin away from the skin. 

Walnuts are in at the market!  I'm put in my request, have you?

Maple Sweet Potato or Pumpkin Bread

(Makes 1 8-inch loaf)

This bread isn't too sweet so it's perfect for breakfast. The dough should be very thick when you put it in the pan for baking.

1 1/2 cups cooked sweet potato or pumpkin or 1 15-ounce can pumpkin puree

1/4 cup maple syrup

2 tablespoons canola oil

1 1/4 cups whole wheat pastry or unbleached white flour

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup oat flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon allspice

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 cup dried currants

1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

1. Preheat oven to 350F.  Lightly oil an 8-inch loaf pan.  Combine sweet potato, maple syrup, and canola oil. Whisk until well blended.

2. Combine flour, sugar, oat flour, baking soda, powder, cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg.  Combine wet and dry ingredients, then stir in currants and walnuts. 

3. Bake 55 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Apple Pecan Muffins

If you really want to know, I'm a lazy baker, and the lazy baker recycled this recipe.  If you look at it and say "Hey what happened to the pictures?" I apparently hit the limit on my pictures for Blogger and Google said, "You can buy more space." Somebody is always trying to sell me something and honestly I often resent it, so instead, I cut photos here and there.  So if they are missing from a past post, this is the reason. I blame my inner cheapskate.

Speaking of cutting back, for the muffins this week, I cut back on the sugar, added a bit more flour and changed the spices.  Presto!  Now I have a muffin recipe instead of a cake recipe.

If you like a recipe, find ways to reuse it.  Like this recipe last week, this is an old trusted recipe.

This cake is a great way to use up apples and we have lots to choose from in the Northwest.  Apple season is just getting going and new varieties appear every week.

If you like apples, it can be way too easy to buy too many.

As I was shopping I thought about getting a poem written by one of the poets who types poems at the market.  

The sign says: "Your Topic, Your Price."  The cheap card tables and no frills look--I love it but I wonder how they'll do come winter.

Trip, a market poet

I wanted a poem about dogs. More specifically Basset hounds.

I couldn't pick just one dog since I've lived with eight hounds and I have loved them all. I asked Trip to write a poem about basset hounds because--well, if you're reading this blog, you probably know why.

This is my poem:

I like this poem enough to frame it. 

I'm thinking of getting one about a certain pit bull named Coco.  

You might say Coco is my granddog.

She's a food gazer too.

For this recipe, use any apples you want.  

Don't forget the nuts.  The recipe lists pecans, but use walnuts if you have them.

My favorite part is the crispy top.  

Apple-Pecan Muffins

(Makes 12 muffins)

I used Cox Pippin apples for these muffins, but you can use any variety you like.  These muffins are delicate with lots of baked apples and a crisp exterior.  Enjoy them for breakfast or as an afternoon snack.  You can substitute cinnamon for the cardamom.

1 teaspoon cardamom

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon soda

1 1/4 cups flour (unbleached or hard wheat works better than whole wheat pastry flour)

1 egg or egg replacer*

1/4 cup canola oil

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 cups washed, diced sweet-tart apples (no need to peel)

1/2 cup toasted chopped pecans

1. Oil 12 muffin tins. Preheat oven to 350F.  Sift together cardamom, baking powder, soda and flour.  Set aside.

2. Whisk egg or egg replacer until frothy.  Add oil, then brown sugar and apples, making sure all apples are coated with egg and brown sugar mixture.  Stir flour mixture and pecans into the apple mixture.  Spoon into muffin tins.

3. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Allow to cool.  Then run a knife around the edges to loosen and gently tip out onto a cooling rack.

Anytime is a good time for these apple muffins.