Danish Braid v.2 – Rhubarb-Coconut-Pistachio and Almond

I still had the rest of that Danish dough in the freezer from the end of April, and I knew I had to use it soon. I was planning on making a nut-cream filling, but then I went to the farmer’s market and picked up some rhubarb, and it was practically hollering at me to use it in the Danish braid. And when rhubarb hollers at you, you gotta do what it says.

So I made two smaller braids with the rest of my dough, one was the (maybe) more-traditional almond cream with tosca-style almond topping, and the other was rhubarb-coconut (with a hint of orange) and pistachio topping.

Almond Cream Filling (only slightly altered from the Macadamia Crème recipe in Vegan with a Vengeance)

½ cup blanched, roasted almonds
scant ¼ cup almond milk
¼ cup powdered sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon almond extract
½ cup canola oil
1 teaspoon arrowroot

Grind the almonds in a food processor until as finely ground as possible. Add the almond milk and blend to form a thick paste. Add the sugar and extracts, and blend again. While continuing to blend, add the oil in a thin stream. Then add the arrowroot, and blend again. Transfer to a container and refrigerate until cold.


Rhubarb Coconut Filling

1 1/2 cups rhubarb, chopped
1/8 cup water
¼ cup cane sugar (or less if you want a more breakfast-like Danish braid)
juice and zest of ½ an orange
1/3 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1 teaspoon arrowroot

Combine the rhubarb, water, sugar, and orange in a small saucepan. Simmer for 5-10 minutes, until the rhubarb can easily be mashed with a fork. Mash the rhubarb, add the coconut and cook for a minute or so. Add the arrowroot, mix it all together and remove from heat. Let cool, transfer to a container and then refrigerate until cold.

After letting the dough thaw in the fridge for a couple of days, I rolled it out to ¼ inch thickness and split it into two rectangles. I then followed the rest of my directions for making the Danish braid. The only thing different that I did was to add a topping. I used the Tosca Topping from Tofu for Two’s Tosca Cupcakes (will I ever tire of that blog? not any time soon) for the almond braid, and I followed the same directions, substituting chopped pistachios for the slivered almonds, for the rhubarb-coconut pistachio braid. After rotating the pan in the oven and turning down the oven heat, I pulled the braids out and spooned on the toppings, then put them bake in the oven until they were done (it took about the same length of time as it did for the larger braid). That was it! Not too much work for something so delicious.


Unfortunately the rhubarb-coconut pistachio braid opened up after I put the topping on. Maybe the weight was too much for it to handle? Oh well, it still tasted damn good.

And no, I don’t eat portions the size of the ones you see at the top! I’ve decided to bring half of both of them to the people at work tomorrow, so I won’t eat them all myself (and I’ll freeze some, too).

Happy 1st of June!

Cinq-Cinquièmes à la Pistache Végétalienne

When the weather gets warm and sunny, I want to go to Europe. It’s a curse or something. The first big trip I ever took was to Spain – it was with my school after first year, it was May, and we toured around like mad, spending no more than three days in each city, for three weeks straight. Not sure that I’d do that again, but I digress. We’d get up early every day, eat breakfast at our hotel (usually coffee with hot milk and some sort of pastry – I wasn’t a vegan back then) and then off into the city we were, to look at museums and buildings. Something about the sun (it was sunny every single day) and the morning breeze, and the activity of big cities like Barcelona and Madrid… I am reminded of it every year around this time and I want to go traveling.

Unfortunately I have not the means to go traveling this year, so I like to indulge in my nostalgia and make European-style food (in my mind, at least) instead. Not just Spanish, either - this one’s French. When I was making it, I thought of that scene in Amélie where she’s making her plum cake and realizes she’s out of yeast. I love that movie. Now I want to make plum cake, too.

So I found this recipe online, and adapted it a bit:

Cinq-Cinquièmes à la Pistache Végétalienne

Ingredients:

Egg replacer to replace 3 eggs (I used the powdered kind)
¾ cup earth balance margarine
¾ cup dark cane sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon rosewater
½ teaspoon cardamom
1 1/3 cup flour (I bet spelt would work well, in which case you’d need an extra 2 tablespoons)
1 1/3 cup raw pistachios, roasted and chopped
1 ½ teaspoon baking powder

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 9-inch round cake pan and set aside.

With a hand-blender, mix the margarine and sugar until creamy. Add the egg replacer slowly, and then the vanilla and rosewater, mixing well. In a medium-large mixing bowl, combine the flour, pistachios, baking powder and cardamom. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix well. Pour into the cake pan (don’t worry if the batter seems too thick – it’s supposed to be) and smooth out the top.

Bake for about 25 minutes, until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

This isn’t the healthiest cake ever, but it was pretty yummy – light and fluffy, and the cardamom/rosewater addition was quite nice. Next time I’ll play with using spelt flour and reducing the amount of sugar/margarine. And maybe I’ll try soy yogurt instead of the egg replacer, we’ll see.

On a side note: I really wish someone would write a French vegan cookbook. Maybe someone already has and I don’t know about it – if so, please tell me!