The Smiling Onion

Vegetarian and Gluten-free Cooking

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Chocolate Hazelnut Cake for Rosh Hashanah

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After a week of weather in the 90s, temperatures have suddenly plummeted, especially in Massachusetts. We’ve been plunged into autumn, just in time for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Incredibly, even though it falls so early this year, we’ll still be able to do our Rosh Hashanah tradition – apple picking! Though it felt like summer just three days ago or so, orchards have apples and it’s not too hot to pick ’em!

Lower temperatures also make baking start to sound appealing again. It’s traditional to eat sweet things on Rosh Hashanah, for a sweet new year, a sentiment that fuels the infamous apples and honey tradition. In years past, I’ve played with the apples and honey riff in my baking, but this year, I thought it might be nice to post something with chocolate. Because, as my dad reminded me recently, chocolate is appropriate for everything.

Granted, the cake itself actually does not contain any chocolate at all – it’s made of ground hazelnuts, brewed coffee, lots of butter, and sour cream. And it’s delicious. But the chocolate ganache that covers it is such an integral part of this cake that this is very much a chocolate hazelnut cake. I hope you enjoy it, and here’s to a sweet new year!

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Double Chocolate Buckwheat Zucchini Muffins

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“Ping!” goes the toaster oven. And faster than a speeding bullet, I’m in the kitchen. The aroma of chocolaty goodness is making my mouth water, and I can hardly wait to chow down on my last double chocolate buckwheat zucchini muffin. (I’ve been keeping a bag of them in the freezer for easy access but haven’t allowed myself to finish them off before posting the recipe. Sidenote: Yes – these freeze!) As I bite into the muffin, my face lights up. It’s tender, chocolatey, cakey, deliciousness. Hard to believe this type of decadence can be achieved with gluten-free whole grains and zucchini! I pat myself on the back for having the willpower to save this one – they are pretty hard to resist  – and am then immediately annoyed that I chose to save just one, rather than two. Or three. With these muffins, it’s hard to stop.

While I’ve been sitting on this recipe for a while, the appearance of zucchini at the Greenmarket signaled that it was time to share. After all, while zucchini is one of my favorites (if you’re put off by the texture, try cooking it this way) the sheer surplus of it during the summer months means it’s a good idea to have some zucchini bread recipes on hand. I mean, it’s possible to get sick of eating zucchini, but almost unheard of to get sick of double chocolate muffins or zucchini spice cake. (Btw, while I decided to post this recipe as muffins, you can also make a sinfully delicious loaf of zucchini bread by baking the batter in a silicone loaf pan – see notes below. Plus you’ll still have enough batter left over for 3 muffins!)

Aside from giving you a reason to stay excited about zucchini in the months to come, these muffins have other benefits too. They are made with whole-grains like sorghum and buckwheat, you can freeze ’em for easy snacking, and they don’t contain too much sugar. The only real downside to making these muffins – and this is based on a sample size of 1 – is the risk of getting that Do you know the muffin man? song stuck in your head. I mitigated this unfortunate side effect by stuffing my face with muffins. It seemed to work!

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Vegan Salty Oat Cookies

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If you’ve been following my blog for a while, there’s a chance that the title of this post sounds familiar to you. I do, in fact, already have a salty oat cookie recipe – created way back in May of last year – that has since become a staple of mine. It’s so quick and easy to whip up a batch, and said batch is so satisfying to munch on, that I find myself making these sweet and salty confections to bring to all manner of occasions, from game nights to family events. But it’s always been my intention to eventually post a vegan version, since I had a hunch these could taste just as good without the butter and egg. And in fact, I’ve known that hunch to be correct ever since November, when I buckled down and perfected these vegan salty oat cookies as part of our Thanksgiving menu. So it’s high time to share the love!

The secret to veganizing the recipe? Freshly ground chia seed (pre-ground didn’t gel as well and yielded crumbly cookies while flax meal made them take on a too-healthy taste that wasn’t cookie appropriate), coconut oil, and toasted hazelnuts. Other than those minor changes, this recipe is pretty similar to the original. Every time I make either version, I’m convinced I like it better than the other, so I really can’t say for sure which one I prefer. But toasted hazelnuts do have a special place in my heart – and tummy – and definitely lend these cookies a buttery quality that makes it very hard to tell that they are, in fact, vegan.

So if you’re looking for a scrumptious, coffeeshop-like cookie that’s both vegan and gluten-free, look no further! (Especially if you are also a fan of oats, peanut butter, and chocolate chips.)

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Turmeric-Ginger Hot Chocolate

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As a morning person, I’m generally refreshed and energized as soon as I open my eyes – ready to tackle whatever the day has in store for me. I do my best work in the morning, and I don’t need coffee or anything else to wake me up. (Afternoons and evenings are an entirely different story, of course.) When I woke up this morning, though, something was off.

I had gotten plenty of sleep, but felt tired and grumpy. I had to leave my apartment early to make it in time for student teaching but couldn’t bring myself to rush. And it felt like a layer of fog covered everything I heard, said, or did. When I arrived at the school where I was student teaching, I was amused to see that the class’s word of the day was “lethargic.” Yup.

Things declined from there. I went to the grocery store to buy zucchini, and they were out. I bought a water bottle that turned out to be unnecessary, and it made my bag uncomfortably heavy. The app I use to display my bus pass kept bugging out, and when I tried to uninstall and reinstall, my connection died after the uninstall. (Of course the bus arrived as soon as this happened!) In short, I was beginning to think I was the new protagonist of the childhood classic Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.  

Luckily, when things go wrong or I’m feeling downright irritable (which I was by this point), I know what to do: eat chocolate. Or in this case, drink chocolate. Generally, ingesting chocolate one way or another (has anyone tried a syringe?) is a pretty solid mood lifter. And I’m happy to say it did the trick today.

Of course, don’t wait until you have a bad day to make this epic hot chocolate. It’s thick, creamy, rich, and comforting, with subtle warming notes from the turmeric-ginger combo. And I do mean subtle: the main flavor here is dark chocolate, but I melt it into a mix of coconut cream, almond milk, and ginger-turmeric tonic for a truly special cup. Whether you feel like you’re on top of the world, at the bottom of a dumpster, or somewhere in between, this hot chocolate is guaranteed to lift your spirits.

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Cruncher-Nutty Chanukah Cookies

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Happy Chanukah, everyone! By now, I hope you are all up to your ears in latkes, dreidel, and menorahs – if you celebrate the holiday, of course. I actually haven’t had any latkes yet, which is probably a Chanukah record, but that will change this weekend. (Can’t wait!) If you, however, are like me on past years — feeling compelled to make latkes on that fourth Chanukah dinner engagement but already well past sick of them — may I suggest my carrot-ginger latkes with green-apple sour cream to spice things up a bit? You won’t be disappointed!

But, in the words of Woody Guthrie, that’s not what I came to tell you about. I came to talk about these cookies! I’m calling them “cruncher-nutty” because they are delightfully crunchy (sometimes hard to find in a gluten-free cookie) and also pleasantly nutty and buttery (though there is no butter in this recipe). They are Chanukah cookies for four reasons:

*They are made with oil – potentially an 8-day supply of it (Jk). Side note: This has the added benefit of making them dairy-free! 

*They are made with Macadamia nuts, which are etymologically related to the Maccabees (Jk). Side note: This has the added benefit of making them quite delicious!  

*You can use a cookie cutter to cut them into many Chanukah-related shapes – driedels, menorahs, etc. Side note: This has the added benefit of making them fun to prepare!

*They are also yummy spread with jam, a la sufganiyot, or – especially if you make circle cookies – as cookie sandwiches with jam in the middle. Side note: This has the added benefit of, well, JAM! 

So…ready to make some cruncher-nutty Chanukah cookies? Let’s do it!

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Easy Chocolate-Teff Pudding (Vegan & Low-Fodmap)

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Chocolate pudding has to be one of the all-time best comfort foods. Especially the type that comes in the little individual cups at the grocery store. While I never ate the really commercial kind, I have been known to buy the Zen brand  (made with almond milk) on occasion, and it sure does hit the spot. It’s not where I go when I want something super rich or decadent, but rather a nice, comforting reminder of childhood.

I’ve also made my own dairy-free pudding on occasion, since it’s not too difficult to make and I get to eat a lot more than what comes in the tiny little cup. However, the recipe I usually use calls for egg yolks to thicken the custard, and I wanted a completely vegan version. I also wanted something that was super quick and easy to make, which means I shouldn’t have to separate any eggs or labor over the stove while it thickens.

Enter teff flour, a high-protein gluten-free flour that should definitely be a pantry staple. (For more teff flour recipes, check out my maple-teff muffins, savory waffles, or pumped-up jam bites).  How did I come up with using teff flour in chocolate pudding? Well, I recently added sorghum flour porridge to my breakfast rotation, which is made by whisking a sorghum flour paste into boiling water until thick. Out of sorghum one morning, I discovered it’s just as good – if not better – made with teff. In fact, since teff has a chocolatey-flavor anyway, I ended up throwing in some cocoa powder and cinnamon to spice things up and the flavor was surprisingly close to chocolate pudding. And it thickened so quickly.

My curiosity was piqued. While this teff-chocolate breakfast pudding was more teffy than chocolatey – and far too grainy to be a sub for my imitation Zen brand pudding – perhaps one could use teff flour to thicken an actual chocolate pudding. In case you haven’t guessed already, one definitely can! And there are some definite advantages:

Advantages of using teff flour in chocolate pudding:

  • More protein, which is always good when you’re eating sugar
  • Thickens in minutes
  • No starch
  • Nutty flavor that pairs well with chocolate
  • You can let the pudding simmer/boil without worrying about ruination (NOT true if you use eggs to thicken)

Advantages of this recipe:

  • All of the above, plus:
  • Vegan, gluten-free, and Low-FODMAP (it’s difficult to find desserts that are all of these things)

Oh, and don’t worry about the coconut milk: there is absolutely no detectable coconut flavor to this pudding.

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Zucchini Spice Cake with Vanilla-Nutmeg Frosting

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It started with a gigantic zucchini, surreptitiously hidden amongst many ordinary-sized zucchinis in my mother’s garden. Once it emerged, we were left wondering how something so enormous could successfully remain in hiding for so long. Was something supernatural at play? Not wanting to take any chances, my mother not-so-surreptitiously unloaded the mysterious monster onto me, where it not so much sat as embodied all of the remaining space in my fridge with its girth.

When life – or family, in this case – hands you a gigantic zucchini suspected of  having supernatural powers, breaking it down becomes somewhat of an urgent matter. So I made zucchini bread. And it was awesome. Enjoyed warm, right out of the oven, it was even supernaturally-awesome. Airy, delicately spiced, buttery….so it was true! There was loveliness inside even the scariest monsters.

Once refrigerated, the bread took on a denser, cakier texture and it occurred to me that it might function as a delicious layer cake. (I happen to like my cakes on the denser side, provided there is some light and fluffy frosting accompanying the layers!) So, enter this zucchini-spice cake, which is composed of two zucchini bread layers separated and surrounded by a vanilla-nutmeg cream cheese frosting that you won’t be able to stop eating. If you can, I’d be worried that this recipe unknowingly transmitted some supernatural  zucchini powers to you, dear eater! And what a pickle we’d be in then.

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Kiwi-Papaya Sherbert

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What do you do with four very ripe kiwis, some basil, and an ice-cream machine that’s anxious to be used before autumn descends? Make sorbet! Well, actually, since I couldn’t resist adding in some sweetened condensed coconut milk for a creamier texture, this is actually a sherbert. (In case you’re rusty on your ice-cream classifications, when you add a little fat to sorbet, it becomes sherbert.)

Whatever it’s called, it’s incredibly difficult to stop eating. This sherbert is bright and fruity, but it also has a wonderful, melt-in-your-mouth creamy texture, thanks to the sweetened condensed coconut milk and a little bit of gin. The savory hint of basil goes perfectly with the sweet, tartness of the kiwis, the papaya adds some body, and the lime gives it just the right amount of pop. In fact, it’s a very good thing this sherbert recipe only yields a couple servings because, if left in the freezer, I definitely don’t think it would be safe from eager spoons. (I’m exercising quite a bit of will power now, in fact, trying to finish this post before devouring the couple spoonfuls I have left. If there is some sort of record for the highest number of glances at one’s freezer in a single hour, I’ve definitely broken it today.)

So, in the interest of not making this post too long (and limiting the amount of time I have to wait until I can finish off the sherbert), let’s get to the recipe.

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Imitation Horchata

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Horchata is a delicious, creamy beverage that originates in Valencia and is popular in many parts of Latin America. The version I’m familiar with is served in Mexican restaurants and usually made from rice, but this “imitation” version uses boxed almond milk for simplicity’s sake. In fact, I almost didn’t want to post this recipe, since it’s laughably easy! However, I realized that if I was making it all the time, maybe others would want to do the same – especially since drinking something cold, sweet, and creamy on a summer day just can’t be beat. Boy does it hit the spot! So I decided to share.

All you need is some unsweetened almond milk, maple syrup, and a light sprinkle of spices. Mix it all together and it tastes like…well…horchata! So easy!

This drink is a perfect afternoon pick-me-up, especially if you’ve been out in the sun all day. It’s also fantastic as a dessert craving quencher or the sweet ending to a spicy meal. You’ll be amazed how something so easy can taste so delicious.

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Bourbon-Sour Cream Ice Cream for the 4th of July!

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You may have noticed that I tend to put whiskey in my holiday blog posts – at least once a year.  There’s this year’s Irish Whiskey Banana Bread (St. Patty’s Day), last year’s Cinnamon-Sugar Sandwich Cookies with Chocolate-Whiskey Cream (Valentine’s Day), and my whiskey-glazed Apples & Honey Cake from Rosh Hashanah 2015…er…5776 (Jewish calendar). In any case, I’m beginning to realize I may have a whiskey dessert problem.

But what a wonderful problem it is! Bourbon lends itself perfectly to ice cream. In fact, no matter what flavor I decided to create, it probably would have included at least 1 tablespoon of the stuff since adding alcohol to homemade ice cream helps make it creamy and prevent iciness. (So does arrowroot starch, incidentally, which you’ll also find in this recipe!) And the caramel notes of the bourbon with the tanginess of the sour cream – it really can’t be described in words.

In addition to tasting divine, this ice cream recipe is also lactose-free, low fodmap, egg-free, coconut-free, soy-free, and nut-free! Interestingly, I haven’t been able to find a lactose-free ice cream recipe that doesn’t use coconut milk or nut milk, and really wanted one, since coconut can tend to taste quite coconuty and nut milk doesn’t quite have the proper texture to yield a creamy result. This probably has something to do with the fact that traditional ice cream is made from a blend of heavy cream and milk, and, while there is plenty of lactose-free milk on the market, I don’t think there is any heavy cream. There is, however, lactose-free half and half and lactose-free sour cream. I had a hunch that thickening the half and half slightly with some arrowroot starch (which also prevents an icy ice cream texture) and then blending it with the sour cream might be a winning combo –  and I’m happy to say I was right!

This ice cream is the perfect balance of creamy, rich, tangy, and sweet. Whether you’ve never had sour cream ice cream before, or you’re already a convert, you really must try it! So plug in that ice cream maker, grab yourself a bowl, and get ready for some fireworks.

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