happy and sweet holidays, charlotte!
YOUR MASTERPIECES WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS!
You always cook the sweetest and good-tasting songs for us, so this time we gathered some of our best sweets recipes for you!
All of them are vegan except those marked with ** (and we hope you can easily veganize them!)
Brunkager («Brown cakes»)
Nanna (Nanna&Nora) – Denmark
Date rolls (Dattelröllchen)**
Mermaid – GERMANY
170 g dried dates
125 g flaked almonds (don’t know if the term is right – I mean thin slices of almonds)
30 g fine oats
40 g crème fraîche (I think you can veganise it with any vegan alternative that you prefer. Maybe oat yoghurt. Should be not too liquid though.)
1/2 teaspoons cinnamon (or less – according to taste)
2 tablespoons rose water (or more – according to taste)
orange zest of half an orange (organic)
1 teaspoon lemon juice
Sugar to cover the rolls
Remove the stones from the dates and chip them in small pieces (the dates, not the stones 😛 )
Put the chipped dates, the almonds, the oats, the crème fraîche alternative, the cinnamon and the rose water into a bowl.
Add the orange zest and the lemon juice.
Mix it gently with a fork.
Now it gets exciting: take a small tablespoon from the dough and form it to a roll with your hands. It should have the size of a little finger, maybe a bit shorter and a bit thicker.
Roll the rolls (pun intended) in sugar and place them on a baking tray.
Bake them at 180°C for 12-15 minutes (my oven takes 20 minutes or more… They should be a little bit brown)
Enjoy!
Recipe: Patrik Jaros – Weihnachtsbäckerei – Die besten Rezepte für Plätzchen, Stollen und mehr, page 74.
Pic: kochstern.de
PANELLETS
JESSICA – CATALONIA
250 g almonds
240 g potato (can also be sweet potato, but then add a bit less of sugar)
200 g of white sugar
Optional, for decoration:
100 g of pine nuts
1. Blanch almonds, then grind in food processor until almonds are a fine dust.
2. Peel the potatoes, cut into quarters and boil them until cooked. Drain water and mash with a fork.
3. Mix and stir the ground almonds powder, the potatoes and the sugar.
4. Take a level tablespoon of the dough and make it a ball using two spoons or the hands.
5A: Decoration 1: Add one almond to the top of each ball
5B: Decoration 2: Put the pine nuts in a glass and put one ball in. Move and shake the glass until the ball is covered in pine nuts. Repeat with each ball.
6. Put in the oven at 180ºC for 15 minutes or until the almond/nuts start turning a bit brown
Panellets are actually typical for Halloween / All Saints, but I love them so much we eat them also until Christmas 😛
Apple Marzipan Cookies
Matt on Fire – Germany
Chocolate marquesa – cold biscuit cake **
NIVI – VENEZUELA
400 g of tea biscuits
300 g cooking chocolate
1 tsp of vainilla extract
1 lt of oat milk (900ml for the miz and 100 to dilute the corn starch)
200 ml oat milk mixed
1 tbps of chocolate powder
2 tbsp of corn starch
120 g of sugar
80 g of vegan butter
4 egg yolks (or vegan equivalent)
Chocolate chips to decorate (optional)
Mix the chocolate and butter on a pan at medium-low temperature over the hob until they are both completely melted. Put aside to cool.
On another pan at medium-low temperature, mix 900ml of oat milk, vanilla extract and sugar and mix together. When it starts boiling add the vegan egg yoks, melted chocolate and continue to mix until getting a thick and creamy texture. Leave aside to cool down.
Mix the chocolate and 200g of oat milk.
Dip the bicuits on the chocolate milk and lay them on the base of a springform cake tin. Pour the chocolate milk over the biscuits. Continue to build layers of biscuits and chocolate (you will have 4 to 5 layers depending on on the cake tin).Decorate with chocolate chips and put in the fridge for 4 to 5 hours until it’s set (I tend to leave overnight).
Once refrigeration time has passed, take out of spring form tin and serve.
Translation from https://elmundoenrecetas.com/receta/receta-de-marquesa-de-chocolate
Dream bits
Matt on Fire – Germany
For approx. 80 dream bits:
400 g wheat flour, type 405
100 g almonds, ground
250 g soy yoghurt
1 packet vanilla sugar
150 g sugar
1 pinch of salt
125 g icing sugar
250 g cold margarine
Mix the flour with the almonds in a mixing bowl. Then add the sugar and vanilla sugar as well as the salt and mix everything well.
Then fold in the soy yoghurt, add the margarine in flakes and knead all the ingredients into a smooth dough using a hand mixer with dough hooks.
Shape the dough into a ball, wrap in cling film and place in the fridge for at least 2 hours.
Preheat the oven to 170 °C top/bottom heat in good time and line two baking trays with baking paper.
Then sprinkle a work surface with flour, take the dough out of the fridge and roll it in portions into sausages about 3-4 cm thick. Cut them into pieces about 1 cm wide and place them on the baking trays.
Finally, place the baking trays one after the other on the middle shelf of the hot oven and bake the bits for about 15 minutes each. Then remove and leave to cool slightly.
Meanwhile, sift the icing sugar into a shallow bowl. Carefully add the biscuits in batches, toss gently and then leave to cool completely on a sheet of baking paper.
The almonds for the dough can also be replaced by ground hazelnuts. Spices such as cinnamon, aniseed, cloves and cardamom give the dream bits a Christmas touch. But a little organic lemon or orange zest also goes well with them.
To prevent the dream bits from melting, either chill one of the baking trays lined with biscuits or take only as much dough from the fridge as is needed for one baking tray and process the second half only when the first baking tray is already in the oven.
The biscuits are not yet very firm when they come out of the oven. Therefore, let them cool lukewarm before tossing them in the icing sugar.
Because of the soy yoghurt, the dream bits do not keep for long and should be eaten within a week.
Coconut Peanut Mochi (Lo Mai Chi)
Nellie – china
Dough:
– Vegetable oil
– 1 1/2 cups sweet rice flour (190g)
– 1/4 cup cornstarch (35g)
– 1/4 cup caster sugar (60g)
– 1 ½ cups coconut milk (350g)
– 2 tablespoons coconut oil (melted)
Filling:
– 1/2 cup roasted peanuts (finely chopped)
– 1/2 cup coconut flakes (coarsely chopped)
– 3 tablespoons sugar
– 1 tablespoon melted coconut oil (optional)
Other:
– A large piece of wax paper(about 18×18”, optional)
– 1 cup coconut flakes (coarsely chopped)
– 16 small paper cupcake cups
1. Brush a square 11” x 11” flat-bottomed cake pan with some vegetable oil to prevent sticking, and set aside. The 11” X 11” cake pan yields the perfect thickness of dough for this recipe. Other sized pans will also work, but you will need to roll out the dough a bit when assembling the mochi. Prepare your steamer with water and bring to a boil.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the sweet rice flour, cornstarch, caster sugar, coconut milk, and melted coconut oil until smooth. Transfer the mixture to the prepared cake pan, and gently tap on a table to distribute it evenly. Once the water in the steamer is boiling, steam the dough mixture for 15 minutes over high heat. Let it cool completely.
3. While the dough is cooling, make the filling by combining the chopped peanuts, coconut flakes, sugar and 1 tablespoon coconut oil. Set it aside.
4. Once the dough cools, transfer it onto a large piece of wax paper (or a clean smooth counter top lightly greased) and cut it into 16 equal squares. Take a piece of dough, add about 1 tablespoon of filling in the center, and close the dough around the filling, pinching it closed. Roll in the coconut flakes to coat. Place in a paper cupcake cup, and repeat until all the mochi are assembled.
I picked this recipe for a few reasons. I loved that this was a vegan recipe! These treats remind me of snowballs, hence my holiday association 🙂 I ate these a lot as a child and I have such fond memories of them! Unfortunately, my mom’s beloved recipe is lost, so I turned to the Woks of Life (creator of this recipe). They are amazing at what they do and I recommend anything from them.
Ginger Biscuits
Matt on Fire – Germany
120 g vegetable margarine
200 g sugar
60 ml vegetable milk alternative
1 tablespoon vanilla custard powder
270 grams wheat flour
8 grams baking powder
8 grams baking soda optional
1 pinch ground cloves
3 teaspoons ground ginger (adjust according to your taste)
For the decoration (optional):
50 grams dark chocolate
golden decoration powder
Preheat the oven to 180°C top/bottom heat.
Cream the margarine with a mixer until fluffy.
Add the sugar, vanilla custard powder and vegetable drink to the margarine and mix well.
Mix the wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda, cloves and ginger and add to the liquid ingredients. Mix everything together with a hand mixer (*not* with the dough hook) to form a crumble-like mixture.
We used 3 tsp of the ginger powder. You can adjust the amount according to your taste. The biscuits lose some of their spiciness during baking.
Fold the «ginger crumble» into a smooth mass with a pastry spatula. The dough should now have a slightly sticky consistency.
Form balls of 20g each with your hands and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Make sure you leave enough space between the balls as they will melt into their typical biscuit shape during baking. We recommend baking no more than 10 ginger biscuits per baking tray. You don’t need to flatten the dough balls, the heat in the oven will do that for you.
Bake the ginger biscuits for about 12 minutes on the middle shelf at 180°C top / bottom heat.
Take the cookies out of the oven – they are still very soft – and let them cool completely. The ginger biscuits will collapse a little again as they cool, but they will remain wonderfully fluffy.
For the decoration (optional)
Melt the chocolate in a bain-marie and dip one side of the ginger biscuits into the melted chocolate.
Let the chocolate dry a little and then sprinkle the golden decoration powder on top.
To add some texture, we used a toothpick to draw a pattern in the still warm chocolate on the ginger biscuit.
Let the chocolate cool completely.
choco, cookie & nuts nougat looking like a fuet (catalan cold meat) **
JESSICA – CATALONIA
150 g dark chocolate
150 g butter
100 g cookies (normal, not chocolate cookies)
100 g pistachios
100 g hazelnut
Icing sugar for decoration
1. Melt the chocolate and butter and mix it very well in a bowl.
2. Add the cookies and the hazelnuts (smashed in little pieces), and the pistachios (can be whole). Mix it.
3. Put it into the freezer for 10 minutes.
4. Put the mix on a plastic film and wrap it to make it look like a (thick) ‘sausage’.
5. Let it rest in the fridge for minimum 4h.
6. Sprink icing sugar all around it.
This recipe is from this catalan»cook influencer», specialized in desserts. Here’s a link to it, her looks so good!
https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cme9-kbj22W/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Apple Cinnamon Buns
Matt on Fire – Germany
Add the warm oat drink and the liquid coconut oil and mix to a dough. Knead the dough for a few minutes.
Grate the apples.
Mix the cinnamon, ground hazelnuts and coconut blossom sugar with the grated apple.
Turn out the dough on a floured surface into a rectangle about 8 mm thick.
Spread the filling evenly over the dough.
Roll up the dough lengthwise and cut into 12-15 pieces.
Arrange the cinnamon buns in a flower pattern (see photo) in a round springform pan lined with baking paper.
Place the springform pan in a cold oven. Leave the cinnamon buns to rise in the oven at 50º Celsius for 20 minutes.
After 20 minutes, set the oven to 180º Celsius and bake for 25 minutes.
Optionally, brush with a little agave syrup (diluted with water) to give the cinnamon buns a nice shine.
If you like juicy buns, you can also just grate one more apple and use it for the filling.
Jackfruit Cookies
Matt on Fire – Germany
Recipe for approx. 50 vegan jackfruit biscuits:
1 bag of ripe dried jackfruit
460 g wheat flour
80 g ground hazelnuts
100 g icing sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 pinch of pepper
250 g room temperature margarine
5 tbsp oat milk
Icing sugar for dusting
To make your biscuits really good, you need to take a night’s notice, as the dried jackfruit is best left to soak in a bowl of water overnight in the fridge. Alternatively, if you don’t have time for that, you can soak it in hot water for an hour.
While your dried jackfruit is still soaking, take all the dry ingredients and mix them together in a bowl. Next, add margarine and oat milk. Knead everything thoroughly until you get a smooth dough. Wrap it in cling film or a beeswax cloth and put it in the fridge for 1 hour.
Put some flour on a work surface, grab a rolling pin or an empty glass bottle, sprinkle some flour over here too and roll out your dough to a little less than half a centimetre thick. To make sure the dough doesn’t stick to your roll at all, you can simply place the beeswax cloth or cling film between the roll and the dough. You can then simply pull it off later and nothing will stick.
Stars, hearts, circles – you can cut out whatever you like. Maybe make sure that half of your biscuits have a hole in the middle or are smaller than the other half, so that we can make nice double-decker biscuits later.
Now bake the biscuits in a preheated oven at 180°C for 10-12 minutes. Let them cool down well afterwards.
In the meantime, drain the soaked jackfruit, puree it and put half a teaspoon of the mixture on the bottom of each of your baked biscuits. Press the top of a biscuit without jackfruit directly onto the biscuit. Keep doing this until you have used up all the biscuits.
Finally, sprinkle with icing sugar.
SUGAR BROWNED POTATOES
jessica (through Eivør) – denmark/faroe islands
For 4 people:
600 g of baby potatoes
100 g of granulated sugar
Boil the potatoes in lightly salted water.
Drain the potatoes and transfer to an ice water bath.
Peel the skins off the potatoes and let cool completely before browning.
Heat the sugar in a large pan with a bit of water. Let the sugar melt and turn light brown without stirring.
When the sugar is melted and golden, add the cooled potatoes.
Caramelise the potatoes over medium heat for about 10 minutes. While cooking, gently stir the potatoes so that they are browned on all sides. Do not stir them around too much.
Serve as a side dish or as a snack.
Marzipan Spice Cookies
Matt on Fire – Germany
175 g blanched almonds (ground)
100 g raw cane sugar
5 tbsp apple-mango puree
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 pinch nutmeg
1 pinch of salt
1 heaped tbsp spelt flour
5 pitted dates
2 tbsp sunflower seeds
100 g marzipan
5 tbsp icing sugar
Fresh lemon juice
In a bowl, mix the ground almonds with the sugar, apple-mango pulp and spices. Spread the dough evenly on a baking tray lined with baking paper and bake for about 25 minutes at 160 degrees. The dough should still be soft after baking. Then return it to your bowl and let it cool.
When the dough is lukewarm, add the flour, the dates and the sunflower seeds and knead well.
Use your hands to shape the dough into balls about the size of a walnut. Press a small hollow into the dough and add a hazelnut-sized amount of marzipan. Close the hollow and flatten the balls slightly with the palms of your hands. Place the biscuits on a baking tray lined with baking paper and bake at 160 degrees for about 15 minutes.
Leave the biscuits to cool on a rack after baking. In a small bowl, mix the icing sugar with a few squirts of fresh lemon juice to make a icing. Pour the icing into a piping bag and decorate the biscuits with patterns of your choice.
spice cake
Matt on Fire – Germany
Ingredients for a baking pan 25 x 37 cm:
For the dough:
500 g wheat or spelt flour
185 g sugar
1 ½ pinches of salt
2 packets of baking soda (10 g)
1 ½ tbsp gingerbread spice
1 ½ tbsp cinnamon
14 g baking cocoa
500 ml of oat milk or normal milk
70 g of plum jam or your favourite jam
For decorating:
200 grams of plum jam or your favourite jam
200 grams of dark chocolate coating
Sprinkles to taste
Preheat the oven to 200°C top and bottom heat. Grease the baking pan and dust with flour, or line with baking paper. You can also bake the cake on a baking tray, but then it will be quite flat.
Put all the dry ingredients for the dough into a bowl. Whisk the milk with the plum puree and add to the mixture. Mix everything together just briefly until you have a homogeneous dough. If you mix the dough too long, the cake may become tough and rubbery.
Pour the cake dough into the pan and bake for around 25 minutes, depending on the height. While still warm, spread with plenty of smoothly stirred plum jam. Pour the melted chocolate coating on top and spread with a baking brush. Spread sprinkles on the warm chocolate if you wish. Leave to cool and set. Best enjoyed fresh.
Note: Commercially available chocolate coating is often not vegan.
enjoy!!