Noel Nutballs

In the Hoch family, Noel Nutballs are a Christmas tradition. When I quizzed my mother on the origins of this delicacy, she began to reminisce about collecting bushels of English Walnuts with her dad each Saturday morning. Apparently their tree was particularly fruitful and my grandmother, a young woman shaped by the Great Depression, was determined to find a use for the bountiful walnut crop. With the yearly debut of autumn, my mother (better known as "Tude") and my grandfather would don in dark cotton gloves to protect their hands from the pungent staining resin that would leak from the cracked hulls of these tasty nuts, and go foraging in the back yard. My great-grandfather Goodwin, who lived with my mother and her family, took on the task of shelling the walnuts and my grandmother created this little recipe to showcase the fruit of his labors.

Sometime after my grandmother died, my mother lost her sacred family recipe. She breathlessly called my aunt who (praise be) had a copy. When I moved south with my little family, I lost my copy during the move and made the same sort of call home to my mother. This Thanksgiving, having traveled home, I was amused to hear a frantic phone message from the very same aunt who had supplied the copy all those years ago. She had lost her copy. Being half Hoch, I knew I was going to have to veganize this lovely cookie; a rich shortbread cookie, chock full of crunchy rich walnuts, and liberally doused in powdered sugar. Enjoy!

1 cup butter flavored Crisco

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon almond

1 teaspoon salt

2 1/2 cups flour

3/4 chopped walnuts

Cream the first five ingredients. Mix in the flour. Stir in the walnuts. The mixture will be very crumbly and slightly moist. If the mixture will not form balls when molded by hand, add another teaspoon of vanilla or almond. Roll into 1 inch balls. Bake at 400. Check at 8 mins. The cookies should be lightly browned on the bottoms but the rest of the cookie appears white. Cool slightly and roll in powdered sugar while still warm until completely covered. Roll in powdered sugar a second time.

Sylvia's Chocolate Chip Cookies

This latest post is dedicated to my baby, Sylvia. For the past several months, Sylvia has struggled with upset stomach, cramping, bloating, and "digestional distress" (insert: mad scrambling for an empty bucket). I have been suspecting for months, that my precocious five year old had perhaps inherited my allergy to all that is dairy and delicious. After weeks of scribbling food consumed in a pocket calendar and a nasty tussle with a lab tech for a blood sample, the verdict is in: allergic. Now I suppose some would say that Sylvia is a lucky little girl to have a mama with the experience to help her navigate her new diet. That is small comfort to a little girl addicted to smoked gouda, donuts, chocolate, and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. So here is to you, Sylvia. I promise to fill your life with delectable cakes, crusty bread, fluffy pancakes, and chewy cookies. And I promise, you won't know the difference.

So in honor of Sylvia, the chewy goodness of chocolate chip cookies.

1 1/4 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup Crisco Butter Flavor All-Vegetable Shortening

1 tbsp SO Delicious Unsweetened Coconut Milk

1 tbsp vanilla extract

1 tsp almond extract

1/4 cup Nasoya Silken Tofu

1 3/4 cup flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

Heat oven to 375

Cream the brown sugar, Crisco, coconut milk, extracts, and tofu.

Add salt and baking soda and mix well with creamed ingredients.

Beat in the flour and stir in the chocolate chips.

Form into balls and bake 8-9 minutes.

Cool slightly before removing from cookie sheets.

Grandpa's Banana Cake

This afternoon, I stumbled upon a pile of overly ripe bananas already beginning to issue a siren song to all fruit flies within a five mile radius. As I pondered the integrity of the banana peels (would they make it to the garbage can intact?), I had a flashback to my grandparents' kitchen. My grandpa had an extreme "liking" for banana cake. My grandma had a taste for overly ripe bananas. The scenario would play out something like this. My grandpa would hide some bananas, hoping against all hopes, that they would last long enough to rot into acceptable banana cake material. Just about the time they were approaching banana cake nirvana, my grandma would find his stash and snatch them back from the brink of certain "cake-hood". And round and round it went; grandpa hiding the bananas and grandma eating them. When we all were fortunate enough to reap the rewards of grandpa's crafty banana stashing, he would bake the most divine banana cake ever.

This afternoon, I decided it was time to remake grandpa's recipe into something I could eat again. With lots of help from my kids (see the bits of mashed banana in my hair), we recreated a family favorite.

1/2 cup Crisco Butter Flavor All-Vegetable Shortening
1 1/2 cups sugar

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

1/4 cup SO Delicious Unsweetened Coconut Milk

1 tsp white vinegar

2 cups flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp vanilla

2 mashed bananas

Combine vinegar with coconut milk and set aside.

Cream Crisco, sugar applesauce, and vanilla.

Mix in salt and baking soda, distributing thoroughly.

Add mashed bananas and vinegar/coconut milk mixture and stir.

Stir in the flour until completely combined.

Bake at 350 in a well greased pan; 30 mins for a 9 x 13; 40 mins for a Bundt.

Invert immediately and cool.

This cake is delicious warm from the oven, cooled, with powdered sugar or a glaze. Cream cheese frosting (vegan cream cheese, of course) is also a decadent addition to this dense, moist cake.

Ruth's Cherry Pudding

Ruth was the vivacious mother of three, grandmother of ten, my grandma. She was a teacher, an avid reader, a phenomenal baker. The following recipe is adapted from my childhood memories of summer baking sessions, sans air-conditioning, with grandma.

The term "pudding" is something of a misnomer. This dessert is not a creamy, custard-like concoction, but a light, moist cake laced with luscious fruit. This recipe is incredibly versatile and I will include several variations.

1 cup sugar (DIVIDED)

8 T Crisco Butter Flavor All-Vegetable Shortening (DIVIDED)

1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

1/2 cup SO Delicious Unsweetened Coconut Milk

2 t baking powder

1 cup flour

1 t vanilla extract

1/2 t almond extract

1 quart (4 cups) cherries

Heat the oven to 375 and grease a large, oven safe bowl.

Cream 1/2 cup sugar with 6 T Crisco in the greased bowl.

Add applesauce, coconut milk, vanilla and almond extracts and mix thoroughly.

Mix in the baking powder and distribute throughout the batter before adding flour.

In a sauce pan heat 1 quart cherries, 2 T Crisco, and 1/2 cup sugar until it reaches a slow boil.

Stir for five minutes and then pour the boiling mixture over the batter.

The cake will bake up through the fruit but remain moist.

Bake for 45-55 mins.

Notes for variations:

If fresh or frozen cherries are used, follow the fruit instruction above.

If the fruit is canned and already in a syrup based juice, omit the sugar and merely heat the fruit and Crisco.

Peaches are perfect for this recipe as well. Fresh peaches are incredible in this dessert, but canned peaches substitute well. With fresh peaches, I slice the fruit, toss it with the 1/2 cup sugar, and allow it to sit for an hour. I then add the melted Crisco in addition to upping the almond extract to 1 t.

Tonight, I used a mixture of frozen blackberries, blueberries, raspberries and cherries (see the picture) and the "pudding" would have made my grandma smile.

Sugar cookies

In our family, sugar cookies are relegated to the Christmas season. It IS July and the heat index has been hovering round about 105 degrees. Now you are probably asking yourself, "what is she doing, baking Christmas cookies in this heat?" My friends, I was celebrating Christmas in July with my two stir crazed offspring. On went the oven. Down plunged the lever on the air conditioning unit. As we watched the Wiggles jiggle through their Yuletide DVD, we rolled, cut, sprinkled, and burned our fingers through several dozen of these tasty little bites. I made the dough the night before to allow for the ingredients to cool properly.

1/4 cup Nasoya Soft Tofu

2 T SO Delicious Unsweetened Coconut Milk

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 t almond extract

1 t vanilla

1/8-1/4 t salt (according to your taste)

1 t baking powder

2/3 cup Crisco Butter Flavor All-Vegetable Shortening

2 cups flour

Whip the tofu, coconut milk, sugar, almond and vanilla extracts together until smooth.

Mix salt and baking powder into the creamed mixture until even distributed.

Cut and stir in the flour until a stiff dough is formed.

Chill for several hours. The more chilled the dough is, the easier it is to handle when rolling it out and cutting it.

Roll out on floured surface and cut into desired shapes.

Bake at 375 for 8 minutes on un-greased cookie sheets.

Feather-light pancakes

Yes, yes....I know that pancakes are technically not dessert. But fluffy, tender, feather-light pancakes, drizzled with real maple syrup, rival the best desserts. With that in mind, meet the vegan pancake. My first attempts resulted in flat, tough, bitter-tasting chewiness. In the past I had whipped egg whites to fold in gently. When the eggs had to go, I used homemade whipped cream or fresh buttermilk to give my pancakes the lift and lightness that are the earmarks the best of pancakes. Suddenly, I was dairy-less as well. It was during this time I perfected my ability to hit a garbage can across the kitchen with a deft flip of a spatula. The following recipe can be tweaked. I found coconut milk gave the richest taste with the lightest texture. I didn't care for the soy milk results and found the rice milk to be a little lacking in fullness of flavor. I also started with a baking mix, primarily for convenience sake.

1 cup Heart Smart Bisquick mix

2/3 cup SO Delicious Unsweetened Coconut Milk

1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

1 tsp vanilla

a dash of salt

1/2 cup fruit (I used blackberries) - I add the fruit to the pancake once it has been poured in the pan

Preheat a non-stick skillet in a low heat setting (I used "3" on my electric range). Add 1 tsp of earth balance soy free natural buttery spread to the skillet. When the pan is hot enough to make water droplets spatter, you are ready to begin.

Mix the Bisquick, Coconut Milk, applesauce, salt, and vanilla.

Pour batter into the hot skillet.

Press fruit into the top of the pancake immediately after pouring the batter.

Wait until the pancake begins to bubble and the edges of the pancake begin to look solid.

Flip.

Some things I discovered through trial and error....if the pancake is burning before the edges are becoming firm, the heat is too high. Cooking the pancake slowly allows both sides to brown nicely, ensures the middle is cooked, and permit the maximum opportunity for the pancake to rise. Rushing it causes flat, tough, bitter pancakes. Mixing the fruit in with the batter can cause a huge mess and result in clumps of uncooked fruit. Once the pancake has been flipped, gently tap on the center with a finger to feel and hear if the pancake is cooked through.

Why vegan?

My journey for tasty vegan desserts began, not with an attack of conscience, but an allergy diagnosis. Two years ago, I sat in my doctor's office sipping one of those luscious, dairy laden iced coffee drinks. The doctor strode in and, with a smile said, "You might not want to finish that". I am allergic to casein, the protein which composes all that is dairy and delicious. I went home and wept. I am a 34 year old mom of two little ones, with a passion for baking and a fetish for gourmet cheeses that would keep Whole Foods in business. I have a fairly severe allergy to eggs but had managed to tweak my recipes to exclude them. Subtracting milk products from the equation, led to an entirely different set of problems. My hope is, that by sharing solutions as I find them, greater awareness will be created for alternative diets, be they diets of choice and conscience, or diets of necessity.