Power Cookies Truly Vegan

Friday, 5th of December

Are you searching for inspiration? I am always , and I look for it in the internet, in my cookbooks on the menus of all the restaurants and through the windows of creative food stores and caterers.

Do you know that we cannot just see something and not be influenced by it? When it comes to food, that is only partially true because we do not gain weight as long as we just admire it and I am so thankful it does not end up on the hips for all the cookbooks and magazines I read all the time. But when it comes to movies, let alone the news, we feel strong emotions looking at the pictures. They can lift us up, or pull us down, they can motivate us and manipulate us and we have so little control over it. 

Looking at food however like the photos of this recipe, shall make you happy and lift you up and eating them will give you power as well. Gluten-free and free of guilt.

Another recipe by my friend Claudia !

You Need

Chocolate chips homemade:

120 gr/ 1 cup cashews, soaked for two hours
60gr/ 1/2 cup maple sirup
60gr/ 1/2 cup Cocoa powder
1 tsp Vanilla-powder
pinch of salt

Mix all the above ingredients except the cocoa powder. Add the sifted Cocoapowder and mix until smooth. Squeeze small drops with the help of an icing bag on a parchment paper and let dry at maximum 42° in a dehydrator. They are really worth the effort, much better than the bought version with milk and sugar and chewy, yes chewy! I love them and would eat it any time on its own as a treat!

If you are not allergic you can use the store bought ones look at the label to make sure you get those without sugar.

Cookies:

300gr / 2 1/2 cups fine cashew flour
210gr / 1 3/4 cups Gluten-free oatmeal flour
60gr / 1/2 cup maple sirup
1 tbsp coconut flower sugar
1 tbsp vanilla powder
1/2 tbsp sea salt
1 cup of the above chocolate chips, you can also use real raw cocoa nips, then add a little more sweetness

Mix all except the chips they must be added last and form cookies of your preferred size, mine are 5 cm in diameter and let them dry in the dyhadrator for 1/2 a day/over night if you like them on the chewy side.

View fullsize

Vanillekipferl -Traditional Austrian Christmas Cookies

View fullsize

The stage is set at the Steiereck

Some sights are better than anything else. Watching a magician pull out a white rabbit from his top hat is a well known one and still we cannot understand where the rabbit came from.
I've been an adult for a long time now, but I still love illusions and each time I watch the quick hands of a magician, I try to figure out how they could trick me so easily and turn a simple trick into a miracle. It is a game of the mind and takes long hours of practice. That's how I feel about the process of Vanillekipferl, a traditional Austrian christmas cookie. They're incredibly delicate, but have to be quickly dusted in powdered vanilla sugar.

View fullsize

Vanillekipferl can be made with almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts or a mix of any of them. After they are baked, before they cool off all together, you should roll them in vanilla sugar. The tool is an artist's brush and this is a cart full of icing sugar.

First the cookies are dropped into the icing sugar then they are hidden completely and the brush will find it again and recover it.

View fullsize

On a warm plate the Vanillekipferl are served and the whole trick is not an illusion but a sensation. Serving is a devotion. Telling a story so your imagination comes to life is a gift. 

The Steirereck tells a sweet story by serving Vanillekipferl bathed in a cart full of icing sugar.

Trace the tracks 

Garlic Confit – Tamed and Sweet

Confit is to deep frying what Barbecue is to grilling - a slow low heat affair to preserve taste and minerals, vitamins, keeping bacteria away.

You often read in my recipes that I do not use fresh garlic, I have a glass of garlic, something like a confit that has been heated and preserved with salt and olive oil and keeps in the fridge for a long time. When I looked at our recipes I felt kind of bad that I let you wait for so long for something as delicious as this. Some people cannot eat garlic at all but this one they can and will enjoy.

Peel your garlic and collect them in an oven proof dish. Preheat the oven to 99°C.

Ok! I know I peeled 2 kg of fresh French garlic for my post but you might get really annoyed at peeling so much garlic, teary eyed and with sticky fingers, and lots of dry garlic paper sticking to them if your garlic is older than mine. I found this neat trick on Saveur and you should check it out, it's a bit courageous, but it seems to work best and is really quick: How to peel garlic in less than 10 seconds. You can also put all your cloves into boiling water for 20 seconds back into ice cold water to stop the cooking process and when the dry skin has softened, the ends cut off the garlic will slip out of its skin easily. I like the other version, its more fun!
Pour the olive oil over it and add the spices and the thyme sprigs.
Set the dish in the oven for 2 hours up to 2 1/2 hours. When done the garlic should have a pale golden color and be soft and tender, the oil only bubbling a little then you can remove the dish carefully, the hot oil is very dangerous, so please be careful! - and set it somewhere safe to cool a bit. Fill your prepared clean jars with the help of a ladle, close them and cool them quickly to help the preservation. 

You can leave all the spices in the oil with the garlic, it looks pretty I even added more red pepper and if you spilled some hot oil it is best to wash the glasses on the outside under running hot water.

The garlic infused oil is delicious over salad or a tender boiled fish and the garlic can be spread on a bread as well as used in all other recipes. Your breath will be fine - promise!

For your jars I recommend adding a fresh sprig of thyme and extra red pepper maybe a fresh small chili will look nice as well. Those make great gifts, I gave one jar to my neighbor and she was a but suspicious in the beginning but today she said she is already addicted to it!

You Need:

1,3 kg of peeled garlic cloves
1 liter of olive oil
2 tsp of salt
1tbsp juniper (Wachholder)
3 tbsp red pepper
2 tsp of madagascan pepper, or black pepper
5 bay leaves
8-10 sprigs of fresh thyme

How to use it?

I would use it instead of fresh garlic, and if the recipe calls for 1 clove of garlic you can use 3-4 from the garlic in your jar: Salad dressing, pasta, on toasted bread with avocado or tomato, in your mayonnaise and endless more possibilities. It will keep fresh in the fridge for a month, if you use a clean spoon each time, but I bet it will be gone in a few days!

Please bring the confit back to room temperature before you serve it, as the oil can harden up in the fridge.

Sunday Snapshot 2. Advent

Second candle on the Advent Wreath and we are excited to announce 9 months of doubledippingblog !!!!

9 months of fun and joy and many mistakes and many happy moments - most of them from your feedback! Thank you all for supporting us and spending your precious time with us. Sophie and I know how much that means that you choose to read our blog on a busy day. There are many blogs to choose from and you choose to come along with us on our journey through the foodie world and the lifestyle we love. 

You are amazing and Sophie and I want to say it out loud:

Thank YOU !

It is a challenge to post every day and we will reduce it a bit from now on. 

Stay tuned we will still keep inspiring and sharing.

doubledipping  is our passion!