Last Wednesday morning was super awesome for my family; I made blueberry muffins (okay, that was only awesome for Papa) and cinnamon rolls. There were the first plant-based cinnamon rolls I have made, and they turned out fantastic. I used the basic Bread Beckers dough (made with white whole wheat flour), filled the rolls with their ooey gooey filling (sucanat + Earth Balance + cinnamon), and iced them with a frosting made with leftover Daiya cream cheese + Earth Balance + powdered (in my Vitamix) white sugar (the last of the sucanat went into the filling) + vanilla extract.
Papa and T were both very surprised that these were made with 100% whole grain flour, but white whole wheat is very mild and freshly milled flour is even sweeter because there is zero rancidity. I used a fine setting on the mill as well, but didn't sift out any bran or germ (why would I do that?).
For the muffins, I have been using ground flax and water in place of eggs, and it works really well. I still have some Ener-G egg replacer but I will save that for lighter baked goods since the flax is healthier and cheaper. I ground einkorn flour for the muffins since I don't have any soft wheat berries and einkorn is low in gluten anyway.
I also started a loaf of sandwich bread in the Zo. The order of things was:
1) Grind flour for cinnamon roll dough
2) Start cinnamon roll dough in Zo
3) Mix flax egg replacer (it needs a few minutes to gel up and and get egg-like)
4 Grind flour for muffins
5) Mix muffin batter, fill tin, and bake
6) Make ooey gooey filling
7) Shape cinnamon rolls
8) Set cinnamon rolls to rise
9) Remove muffins from oven and set to cool
10) Grind flour for sandwich bread
11) Put all ingredients for sandwich bread in bread pan, start Zo
12) Bake cinnamon rolls
13) Make icing for cinnamon rolls
14) Remove cinnamon rolls from oven and ice
It took about 90 minutes start to finish, not including the rest of the time it took to bake the sandwich bread in the Zo. I was doing dishes all throughout, whenever I had a few minutes free.
I don't really want to bake using the oven everyday, so batch baking works well for me. I think that I should double batch the muffins; hungry teens can go through a single batch in one day if allowed to. If I had used my mixer instead of the Zo for a double batch of the bread dough I could have made a pan of cinnamon rolls and a batch of hamburger or hot dog rolls (although we eat plant based so those would be for veggie burgers or veggie dogs/sausages). Since the Assistent can manage a triple batch of basic dough I could also have made dinner rolls, a loaf of cinnamon bread for french toast, or even doughnuts. (Oh my, I don't think I will even tell them that I can make raised doughnuts with this dough - I'll just surprise them sometime when I don't mind standing over a pan of hot oil to fry them.)
The batch of cinnamon rolls cost breakdown is approximately as follows:
Dough: $2.30
Filling: $2.25 (sucanat and Earth Balance aren't cheap)
Icing: $3.45 (I wouldn't make it this way again though, unless I was having company. I'd use a simpler, less expensive icing/glaze, probably just powdered sucanat and almond milk which would cost about $1)
$8.00 for 12 big cinnamon rolls is a great price, however, especially since they were made with 100% whole wheat flour and sucanat. The icing was reminiscent of a Cinnabon icing, super thick and rich. 75¢ for a cinnamon roll really is a bargain, and they'll cost even less with a simpler icing (and less of it).
It makes me think, however, that bakery cinnamon rolls must be a big rip off, as my friends tell me that white flour and white sugar are cheap, and bakeries get wholesale prices.
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