I’ve been doing a lot of daydreaming about sweets lately. It starts off innocently enough. When desire strikes, instead of heading to the kitchen to rummage for chocolate, I make a cup of tea & roam the internet looking at delicious vegan treats. (Vegan Etsy team members bakesalery & SweetVConfections are two recent drool-worthy favorites.) I invariably turn up at the confections section of Cosmos Vegan Shoppe which in turn inspires me to go see what brilliant vegan marshmallow* purveyors Sweet & Sara have been up to. Harmless fun.
Until… I cease with the casual observer act and start seriously envisioning how I might make the treats myownself. I’m not much of a baker or candy-maker, so I’m generally at a very low risk for trying these sorts of things. But today, I had some time on my hands & needed to distract myself from worrying about a big presentation on Thursday. Thus, vegan peanut butter s’mores pies were born.
I discovered that I still had a pack of Angel Food vegan marshmallow mix from an ancient Cosmo’s order. I had purchased two kits & when the first attempt yielded an extremely sticky kitchen & gummed-up hand mixer, I hid the second pack. Catching sight of the expiration date persuaded me to go ahead and make them today. (8 Sept edit: if you like the looks of these, don’t hesitate to order a kit (or 2) directly from Angel Food. Even coming from New Zealand, shipping is very reasonable & quick. And proprietress Alice is a truly lovely person to deal with! For those in the Richmond area, I’ll be doing a demonstration with Earlham Animal Advocates United soon, so stay tuned!)
And you know what? It wasn’t bad at all! I didn’t make a tragic mess or ruin any kitchen appliances. The first time I neglected mise en place, which turns out to be pretty important for some of the recipe’s rapid steps. (Mise en place: setting out, measuring & prepping all ingredients in their proper amounts ahead of time.)
A couple hours later, I made the lightly-flavored cookie base. I used Isa’s recipe for Graham Crackers with some very minor modifications. Furthermore, instead of rolling them out, scoring, and stabbing like real graham crackers, I used a glass to cut them into perfect little circles.
After the marshmallows had some time to cure, I turned them out of the pan:
And used a glass to make cut-outs.
I set one large marshmallow circle on each cookie.
Because the marshmallows set slightly irregularly, I smeared the peanut butter (mmmm vegan Smart Balance Rich Roast chunky) on the uneven side and then gently pressed it into the cookie, smooth side up. Like this:
Ah, that’s better.
All done!
I set all of the marshmallow towers on a drying rack so that when I dressed the completed creatures with chocolate it could just drip through onto the plastic wrap underneath it, rather than pooling.
On that note, I melted a bag of vegan chocolate with one tablespoon of vegan shortening in a makeshift double-boiler (metal pan over medium-sized pot of boiling water):
Using a large spoon I ladelled about two tablespoons of melted chocolate over each tower & used the spoon’s concavity to smooth out the edges & ensure even application.
Cross-section of the completely cooled treat…
…and my new best friend. Vegan peanut butter s’mores pies forever!
*Vegan marshmallows?! Why yes! That stuff most folks freak out over at campfires and in Rice Krispie treats is NOT suitable for vegetarians (& many people who follow religious dietary laws). Marshmallows are made with gelatin, a protein produced by partial hydrolysis of collagen extracted from the boiled bones, connective tissues, organs and some intestines of animals such as domesticated cattle, pigs, and horses. The natural molecular bonds between individual collagen strands are broken down into a form that rearranges more easily. Gelatin melts to a liquid when heated and solidifies when cooled again. Together with water, it forms a semi-solid colloid gel. Thanks, Wikipedia–ugh. I’ll stick with my vegan marshmallows, which use agar-agar (a sea plant) to set (available locally at Nature’s Nook.)
more...
