BitterSweet

I don’t know where the whole tradition of giving your teacher an apple as a sign of respect and dedication to absorbing the lessons one might recieve, but it has still managed to carry over into modern times, slightly twisted in my case. The school year is winding down, meaning a number of things, the top two for me being: 1) FINAL EXAMS ARE COMING UP OH SHIT I’M GOING TO FAIL, and 2) I need to find a way to thank those who put up with my daily nonsense in their classrooms. A decent amount of time still spans between now and my school’s imminent summer release - June 27, can you believe it?! - But my mother also works in the school system, and happens to get out earlier than me! As a gift of appreciation to her side of the whole ‘learning equasion’, I wanted to bake her something nice to bring in for a thank-you-for-not-killing-the-kids breakfast for her diligent coworkers. Trust me, it’s been a long year, and this is the least I could do.

Although I had been starting to get skeptical about the apples available at the grocery store recently, I happen to pick up a particularly flavorful bunch just two days ago. What luck! They’re pretty much out of season now, but come on, when have you ever seen a market not stock apples these days? Doesn’t mean they’ll taste any better than soggy cardboard though.

Anyway, I knew I wanted to make something sort of like coffee cake, but there didn’t seem to be anything that was quite right. Idly flipping through In the Garden of Vegan while waiting for a pot of water to boil, I almost instantly turned to the page bearing a recipe for apple streusel muffins. It was clearly a sign - They were meant to be!

As I spooned them out into their little paper cups, I worried that there might not be enough struesel to top them all, but my concern was groundless; There was more than enough, and each one got a generous helping. Oh, and I might add that the recipe claims to make 6 muffins, but they must have made them as big as your head! I got an even dozen in medium muffin pans, and each one baked up with a lovely, full top.

It’s also worth mentioning that since the ingredients simply list the sugar as “dry sweetener,” I decided to play around with it a bit and use regular white sugar in the muffin base, but then brown sugar for the topping. I really love the dark, rounded taste of brown sugar, so I usually try to use atleast half when it doesn’t specify in the recipe. In addition, I had no oat bran flour, so I simply substituted whole wheat. Other than that, I pretty much followed the instructions to the letter.

Let me tell you, those hard working teachers are finally in for a treat that is perhaps a bit less healthy than that traditional apple, but undoubtedly far more appealing.

…Bar.

What, you actually thought I meant an intimate encounter with the male species? Ha, then you must not know me very well. I think that the entire gender has made a secret pact to avoid being in my presences for extended amounts of time at all costs… But that’s another story.

Ages ago, I saw a post made by BunnyFoot about reproducing granola bars that were more similar in format to Larabars or Nectar Bars. I stored away this inspiration for a rainy day, and I don’t think the weather could have been any better suited as we seem to be caught in a two-week long gray period. Besides my uncontrollable curiousity, I was also encouraged to attempt this recipe as a new way to save a bit of money. It can be depressingly expensive to simply eat healthfully, let alone vegan. I tend to go through more granola bars per week than is economically sound, but… I can’t help it! Seriously, it’s not just that they’re so darned tasty, but due to the fact that I spend so much time away from home, whether I’m tied up at school or involved with plans afterwards, I need relatively dense and portable sources of nutrients to keep my energy up.

What I really love about these is that there’s no added sugars or fats, yet they’re still so sweet and delicious. It makes me feel a lot better to know that my food isn’t just pumped full of chemicals and preservatives to make it seem healthier, but that it just naturally is. Why screw with that? All it needs is a little spice to make the full flavor profile of the dates come alive.

I didn’t think it would make much sense to mix these up one bar at a time, so I kept the ratios the same and took it from there. …Except that it came out so dry, I soon found myself with a completely different formula. As a result, I’m guessing that my version would be more moist and perhaps delicate in regard to travel, but even if they end up smushed at the bottom of my bag, it’s some damn good tasting smush, so who cares!

Spiced Date Bars

-1/2 Cup Date Puree
-3/4 Cup Rolled Oats
-1/3 Cup Unsweetened Applesauce
-1 Teaspoon Cinnamon
-1/4 Teaspoon Ginger
-Dash Nutmeg

Begin by pitting your dates (If they aren’t already) and whizzing them around in the food processor until it resembles a paste. You don’t need to take it that far if you don’t want to - Leaving it chunkier adds texture. I liked it with a combination of larger bits and puree mixed together. Just make sure that you measure this after mashing it up, because it will be very different from the measurements of whole dates.

Stir together all of the ingredients until fully combined. You may want to fiddle with the exact amounts, depending on how moist you would like your bars and since my measurments weren’t so precise. Too dry? More applesauce. Too wet? More oats. You get the idea.

Scoop out a handful of the mixture and roll into a log, which you can then carefully shape into a long rectangle. Wrap in plastic wrap, and store in the refridgerator. I threw mine in the freezer because I didn’t want to wait for them to set up before chowing down, and I’ve found that if I throw them into my bag frozen, they’ll be thawed and still refreshingly cool by the time lunch rolls around!

The number of bars your get obviously depends on the size you make them, but in case you’re still curious, I was able to form 6 lovely bars from my mixture. Also, if you don’t have the patience or time to form them into nice little rectangles, you could always just roll them in your palm and flatten the sphere to make more of a “breakfast cookie.”

Don’t make lemon biscotti. Come on now, why would I do something as logical as that? Life’s always going to be giving you lemons, so why should I busy myself trying to use them all up, when I don’t even want life’s god damn lemons?? Erm… So the recipe I decided to mutliate this time from VegWeb was originally a lemon biscotti, but… Well… To be perfectly frank? I only chose it because I couldn’t find anything else, and it had good ratings. I wanted something crunchy and nutty, and although I had never made biscotti before, what was to stop me from multilating yet another innocent cookie?

To make a long story short, as you can see, it all worked out in the end, but not without its fun little dramas along the way. Oh, and I appoligize for this terrible shot; The plate was a really busy birthday-themed confetti extravaganza, and all the other pictures I took of the finished product were blurry. Just my luck, huh?

Okay, so I first made the obvious substitution of almond extract for the lemon juice, and near the end I added in about 1/2 cup of toasted sliced almonds. While I was mixing the dough, however, it just seemed so dry… Now I know it’s a dry dough by nature, but we’re talking wet sand here. Maybe I had a brain fart when it came to adding in margarine… Like using 1/4 cup instead of 1/4 pound… That’s probably it, because I’m too lazy to think about measurements in weight most of the time. So I ended up pouring in nearly 1/4 cup of additional oil… Yikes! It came together nicely though, so I still was optimistic.

I dumped out the contents of the mixer and formed a very lovely little biscotti loaf ontop of my floured baking sheet. This was my favorite part - it had such a smooth, creamy complexion, studded with dark and toasty almonds… Mmm! If only I could have served it raw!

…But that would have been a bit too weird, even for me. So into heat it went… And remained, for an extra 10 - 20 minutes. For some reason, it took its precious time baking and took nearly twice as long in the end as I had thought I would have to sacrifice to watch it.

Still in brick-form, it waited to be sliced. As you can see, the flour around it seems to have absorbed some of the extra oils that seeped out as it cooked… Worried that it was going to be underbaked, I continued to nuke the biscotti after slicing, turning, and turning yet again. The cookies then ended up rather large, so I cut those in half after they were completely cooled [And crispy!]

To make them more fun to dip into a cup of coffee or tea, I topped them with a thin zig-zag of plain confectioner’s sugar glaze, and upped the sweetness a touch. My mother seemed to enjoy them, but I was a bit unimpressed. The whole concept of biscotti is really interesting to me, so I will undoubtedly try a different method in the future… Maybe I should have just gone with lemon!