Cooking With Hanzipan

Jessie was going back to school today and she’s been wanting a pan of brownies so I decided to make some this morning to send with her. I wanted to do something that wasn’t the usual brownie because there’s something about them that I’m pretty ambivalent about until, that is, I found this vegan recipe on Bread & Honey. I was intrigued by this idea of heating flour and water in a pan until it turned into a paste. How is that not intriguing in a mad scientist sort of way? These turned out amazingly gooey and tasty right out of the oven. I think they’ve made me a convert to the brownie cause. Next it’ll be fudge. I really don’t like fudge which is sad because, like brownies, they are chocolaty and chewy and tasty.

The Best Vegan Brownies Ever
Recipe courtesy of Bread & Honey:
Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup water
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup vegetable or canola oil
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 11 x 17″ or 9 x 13″ pan.
Boil water and 1/2 cup of the flour in a saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly, until it reaches the consistency of a gluey paste. Remove from heat and let cool.
Mix sugars, salt, vanilla, cocoa and oil. Then add the rest of the flour-water mixture and mix well. Add the remaining 1 1/2 cups of flour and baking powder, mix well, and then stir in the chocolate chips and nuts (if you’re using them). The end mixture will be rather thick.
Spread the mixture into your baking pan. Bake for 20-25 minutes. These are much better when completely cooled.

Oh Bread & Honey, you are the source of all things delicious. Today I made a half batch of their Country Crust bread. I’ve made it before and it was wonderful THEN. Now it’s downright amazing because I’ve gotten it turn out golden and puffy TWICE. It’s a record. I like that you can (in theory) stick the dough in the fridge for up to four days… so I could do all the work one day and reap all of the benefits several days later. That’s my kind of style!

A few glamour shots. This load deserves it.

Can a loaf of bread pose for a camera? I think so.

Now, for the good part!

Country Crust Bread
From Bread & Honey

Ingredients:
2 packages active dry yeast
2 cups warm water (105 to 115 degrees)
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon salt
2 eggs
1/4 cup oil
6 to 6 1/2 cups bread flour
soft butter or margarine

Directions:
Dissolve yeast in warm water. Stir in sugar, salt, eggs, oil, and 3 cups of the flour. Beat until smooth. Mix in enough remaining flour to make dough easy to handle. Turn dough onto lightly floured board; knead until smooth and elastic, 8 to 10 minutes. Place in a greased bowl; turn greased side up. (At this point, dough can be refrigerated for 3 to 4 days.) Cover; let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour (Dough is ready if impression remains.)

Punch down dough; divide in half. Roll each half into a rectangle, 18×9 inches. Roll up, beginning at short side. With side of hand, press each end to seal. Fold ends under loaf. Place seam side down in greased loaf pan. Brush loaves with a little oil. Let rise until doubled, about another hour.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Place loaves on lower oven rack so that the tops of the pans are in the center of the oven. Pans should not touch each other or sides of oven. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until deep golden brown and loaves sound hollow when tapped. Remove from pans. Brush loaves with butter; cool on wire rack.

Makes two loaves.

Bread & Honey has a recipe for Austrian Jam Cookies that I wanted to try and I’m oh so glad I did. These cookies combine some warm almondy, vanilla flavor with lava hot jam when you pull them out of the oven and pop them directly into your mouth. That almond flavor makes my mouth water just thinking about it.

There are two things I like about this recipe: 1. that it’s written with a vegan alternative, even though I didn’t use it… and 2. that the dough didn’t need to be refrigerated and it was really REALLY easy to make. I’m going to make my comments on the recipe in italics, the parenthesied bits were already there from the ladies over at Bread & Honey.

Austrian Jam Cookies
from Bread & Honey

1 cup margarine or butter
1 cup granulated sugar
2 1/2 cups flour
2 eggs or egg replacer “eggs”
2 tsps vanilla extract (or almond extract, or both) I did 1.25 tsps vanilla + .75 tsps almond… yes I eyeballed it.
jam (or filling of your choice) I used strawberry preserves from trusty Trader Joes
slivered almonds (optional) I rolled them in almond meal

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
In a large bowl, preferably with an electric mixer, beat margarine or butter, sugar, eggs, and extract(s) until smooth and creamy. Sift flour in 1 cup at a time. Roll dough into balls. Roll in slivered almonds (optional). Place on cookie sheet and thumbprint each cookie. Scoop jam into dented center (I find it best to use a small kid’s spoon for this).
Bake for 12-14 minutes (I baked them for 15, it took a long time for those bottoms to even HINT at getting golden), until bottoms are golden. Remove from cookie sheet after a few minutes to cool.

These are by far my favorite cookies. They’re Sparkled Ginger Cookies from Bread & Honey. I think I’ve made ten batches in the last two months they’re so good!

I’ve only made two changes to the recipe. 1.) I don’t use that large grain sugar. I don’t like all that extra crunch. 2.) I only bake them for 9 minutes. They’re perfect at nine and they harden just slightly around the edges as they cool with a nice squishy center. I definitely let them cool on the pan for a while before I move them to a rack… it makes a big difference. Between these and the pumpkin scones from the same site our winter days are much tastier!