Baked French Toast

So, this is my go-to brunch/breakfast meal to serve when I have friends over for play dates.  It is awesome, versatile and easy.  Both kids and adults love it. It's a new staple in my house.  Thought some of you might like to give it a try. It is a great choice for feeding omnivore friends!

Easy Vegan Baked French Toast

Serves 4-6.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Butter a 9x13 baking dish (it will also fit in smaller but deeper baking dishes, use what you think will hold the bread covered with the custard, you may need to increase the baking time if you use a smaller dish).

Slice a loaf of one-day old bread (even two or three days old is totally fine) or a large baguette and arrange in your buttered baking dish.  The best bread makes the best French toast. 

In a small bowl, whisk together:

2 tsp Ener-G Egg Replacer and 2 ½ tablespoons of water. Set aside.

In your food processor, combine all of the following ingredients:

1 package Silken tofu (the aseptic box kind) I use Mori-Nu, the firm or light kind.

2 tsp. Vanilla extract (Penzey’s if you’ve got it)

½ tsp Almond extract (ditto Penzey’s again)

½ cup Maple syrup (you can use ¼ cup if you want it less sweet)

1 tsp Cinnamon (I use Vietnamese cinnamon from Penzey’s)

¼ tsp Salt (regular table salt)

2 tablespoons oil (I use organic sunflower oil, you can use canola, or any other kind of oil that you’d like, or you can leave it out, no biggie)

For an awesome banana version: Add two very ripe bananas to this mix.  I highly recommend this version. For other versions, see below!

Blend it all up! Once it is totally smooth, add the egg replacer mixture and blend it some more.  Then, add 1 cup (more or less) of almond milk (you can use soy or any other kind of milk here, but I love almond).  Add the almond milk until your mixture is the consistency of pourable custard. One cup of almond milk makes a pretty thick custard.  If you have very tough bread and need more liquid, use more almond milk so your bread has more liquid to absorb. Give it a final few pulses to combine thoroughly.  Taste it and adjust if you see fit J

Pour the custard over the bread that is waiting in your prepared pan.  You can let it sit and absorb for a while or bake it right away.  If your bread is very hard, I’d let it sit at least 30-60 minutes to allow the bread to absorb the mixture.

Top with small pats of butter (I use Earth Balance), sprinkle with sugar (I use organic sugar), and bake for about 30 minutes, or until the custard is set and the edges of the bread start to brown. Let sit five minutes before slicing (if you can wait!). Enjoy with fresh fruit, veggie sausages, whatever you like with your French toast! This doesn’t need more syrup or butter added to it upon serving, but go for it if you want to!

Other great variations:

Nutty Version: Add raw walnuts or pecans (halves or chopped pieces) on top prior to baking.  The nuts will toast in the oven!

Fruity Version: Add berries or whatever fruit you like to the layered bread before you pour the custard in.  Strawberries, blueberries, even more sliced banana, I can’t think of anything that wouldn’t work here.  

Chocolate Version: Stir ½ to 1 cup (or more if you like!) of chocolate chips into the custard right before you pour it over the bread. Add ½ tsp of chocolate extract to the other extracts to give it an extra chocolately punch.  Or add orange extract for a chocolate-orange version. YUM.

Let me know if you give it a try.  I am in love with this recipe. 

Have a great weekend!

<3 Dawn

 It is SO good, I can never get a good picture of it! Anyway, you get the idea.

Awesome Vegan Gingerbread

Stock Your Pantry, Episode Four: The Joys of Silken Tofu, continued!

The aseptic, silken tofu in a box is just about the perfect pantry item.  You can use it for so many things and it lasts forever in your pantry (like 8 months!).  And it is CHEAP, like $1.79 at Wegmans for a box of Firm Silken Mori-Nu. It is a very versatile egg replacer, as you have seen once already!  Now we will use it to replace eggs in a traditional holiday treat, gingerbread!  I love Nigella's version, which I made last year just before going vegan.  I wanted it this year, and decided to veganize it.  It worked out perfectly and I wanted to share it with you. 

Nigella’s Sticky Gingerbread, Dawn’s Vegan Version:

Makes 20 squares.

1 stick plus 3 tablespoons non-dairy butter (Earth Balance is the best for baking)

¾ cup dark corn syrup (Karo)----I used 2/4 cup Karo and ¼ cup Light Agave

¾ cup Molasses

2/3 cup packed organic, soft dark brown sugar (I used Trader Joe’s Organic)

2 teaspoons finely grated fresh ginger----I used organic chopped ginger in the jar

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon plus about 1/3 tsp baking soda, dissolved in 2 tablespoons warm water

1 cup organic, unflavored soy milk (vanilla would be ok, too)

2 tofu “eggs,” beaten to mix.  Use 4 oz (1/2 cup) firm silken tofu, blended.

2 cups King Arthur’s White Whole Wheat flour (much better nutrition and taste than all-purpose flour).

Nigella calls for using a 12x8x2 pan (who has this??) and if you happen to have it, go ahead and use 350 as your oven temp.  Anyway, I was using a 9x9 cake pan, so I used 360 degree oven due to changing the size of the pan.  Line your baking pan with parchment paper.  If you don’t have parchment, you can use Aluminum foil, but be sure to grease it well with butter.  This is very sticky gingerbread!

Process tofu in a food processor or blender until smooth.  You could do this by hand with a fork or a tiny wisk o’doom, too.  Put your dry baking soda in a little mixing bowl and put the water in a microwavable coffee cup or whatever (do not combine yet).

In a saucepan, combine butter through cloves.  Prep your flour, the only truly dry ingredient in this recipe!  Measure the flour and sift it into a large bowl. Now, melt the ingredients (butter through cloves) over a low to medium heat. Heat the water slightly and make your baking soda mixture.

Take butter mixture off the heat, and add the soy milk, tofu and dissolved baking soda in its water.

Pour in the liquid ingredients into the bowl with the flour, beating until well mixed.  Make sure all the flour gets wet and incorporated.  It will be a very liquid batter, so don’t worry.  This is part of what makes it sticky later.

Pour it into the prepared pan and bake for about 60 minutes (45-60 if you use the larger pan) until risen and firm on top.  Try not to overcook, as it is nicer a little stickier, and anyway will carry on cooking as it cools.

Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let the gingerbread cool in the pan before cutting into 20 squares or however you wish to slice it.  Dust w/ confectioner’s sugar or leave plain (I love how Christmassy it looks with the confectioner’s sugar):

Make ahead tip: Make the gingerbread up to 2 weeks ahead, wrap loosely in parchment paper and store in an airtight container.  Cut into squares as required.

Freeze ahead tip: Make the gingerbread, wrap in parchment paper and a layer of aluminum foil then freeze for up to 3 months.  Thaw at room temperature for 3-4 hours and cut into squares.

Happy Holidays!

Matzo Balls from the Mix!

Stock Your Pantry, Episode Three (yeah, I was kidding in the last post):

We are lazier than our parents.  Thusly, if we find a really great, amazing mix for Matzo Ball Soup (and the Matzo Balls) then we are very happy and just use that.  Or at least I do, since I don't have a Jewish momma to catch me not making it from scratch :-)  Not that I wouldn't make it from scratch.  Sometimes, I'm just looking for a time-saving recipe, and this fits the bill nicely.

The Manischewitz Matzo Ball & Soup Mix is one of the most amazing dry goods you can keep in your pantry.  If you like it, get a few boxes of the "Matzo Ball & Soup Mix" and check the box to make sure it isn't just the soup mix, or you won't get the awesome matzo meal pack, so make sure to check.

As far as I can tell from the ingredients, it is vegan and Kosher and Pareve, so, excellent.  However, the instructions tell you to use two eggs to make the matzo balls, we are going to sub the eggs with the same aseptic tofu that we used in the Triple Orange Bread Pudding.  Get a  few boxes of that aseptic tofu, especially the "firm" kind.  It is one of the most amazing, very long lasting, pantry ingredients to have on hand at all times. 

I decided to make this today because my little guy has a nasty, runny cold and he LOVES this soup.  Here are the ingredients:

Easy, Vegan Matzo Ball Soup

One box of Manischewitz Matzo Ball & Soup Mix (Did I mention this already? Surprise, surprise, they carry it at Wegmans and every other store I have ever shopped at, so many of you should be able to find it).
10 cups water
1, 12oz box of Firm Silken Tofu (I buy the Mori-Nu brand, they have it at Wegmans!!)
2-3 tablespoons of good olive oil (I am using Trader Joe's President's Reserve right now, $6 for a liter!)
3 carrots (or two if you aren't obsessed with carrots like my family is)
1/2 cup frozen peas

Other possible additions:
1/2 cup frozen corn (not my thing, but my hubby + kid like this)
1/2 cup rice or pasta (precooked and added at the end so it doesn't suck up all your delish soup)

Alrighty, we are going to modify the package directions a bit, but not much. 

The Soup:
Put the 10 cups of water plus packet #2 (the soup mix) into a medium or large stock pot just to get that out of the way.  Don't turn it on just yet.

Make the matzo ball mix: 
Unleash your aseptic tofu and regard its beauty.

Crumble roughly 3/4 of the tofu into your food processor with the olive oil and pulse until creamy, like this:

Save the other quarter (or even a bit less) of the tofu and just cube it to put into the soup at the end when you add the peas, kinda like miso soup style.  Now, put the processed tofu into a bowl and combine it with package #1 (the matzo ball mix), and mix it with a fork, to get about this consistency: 

Cover and put in your fridge for about 30 minutes. You could probably leave it in there up to overnight and it would probably be fine.

In the meantime, peel and chop your carrots, add them to the cold soup.  Now, check your email, your facebook page, and change the opera music to Dido and Aeneas.  Or kill about 15 minutes some other way.  Now, turn on the soup.  Bring it to a boil and add the peas and the cubed tofu wait again another minute or two to come back to a boil (the peas are frozen, so they cool off the water).  By the time the soup is boiling, your matzo ball mix should be cold.

Add the matzo balls to the soup (the fun part!!).  Get your handy medium oxo scoop (1 1/2 tablespoons) and scoop the mix flat against the scoop, then into your hand.  Round the blob of mix into a nice ball and THEN drop it into the soup.  If you just plop it into the soup, the ball will start to disintegrate and break up (I did this with the first two, so that's why my broth has bits of broken up balls in it, all the other balls stayed together nicely).   It makes about 10 or so balls.  It is getting just a little funny to me to keep writing about balls, but ok...Plop them all in then cover tightly and turn heat down to a simmer for 20 minutes. 

And here is a nice bowl with three balls:

Ok, ok, I'll stop.  Anyhoo, Wha-la!  Easy Vegan Matzo Ball Soup.  Happy Holidays!