Nope, no filling recipe at this time - just freeze these and use them in ice cream sandwiches for now, unless you have some other thing you want to stuff these sandwiches with. Perhaps peanut butter? Almond butter?
Ok, now for a very weird recipe post. The idea here is to teach you almost all the food prep tips I know in one recipe, part by part. A notepad for equations will likely be useful.
THE BALANCING ACT
It seems that the main key in baking is to start with approximately 2 1/2 Cups of milled ingredients, where the majority is either white, whole wheat, wheat or some other grain based flour (corn, rice...). For most of my recipes, I'm tending to use about 1 C water to 1/4 C oil. I sometimes substitute about 1/4 of the water with honey in some recipes, and that acts as a good catalyst for the oil and water. A little vanilla isn't usually included in those measurements if used. Normally I don't include the 1 Tbsp of Baking Powder in the dry measurements either. This combination of dry to wet ingredients is what I am learning to refer to as "0" or "base." I've made brownies this way, as well as crackers, cookies, and dumplings.
DB/WB
This recipe will be "dry base 0" for the dry ingredients (or "DB 0"), totaling 2 1/2 C, but "wet base minus 1/4 Cup" or "WB - 1/4 C". I'm giving in to a temptation I've been facing for weeks, and will be simply referring to this balancing ratio between dry and wet ingredients today and in the future. Heh - deal with it.
So then, "DB 0" and "WB - 1/4 C". The neat thing is, you can interchange any dry ingredient for another, and the same is true for the wet ingredients. This allows for uniformity in texture but also for you, the cook, the ability to ad-lib where you feel like it. Use milk if you aren't vegan. Or eggs! (1 average chicken egg = 1/4 liquid, as a standard rule of thumb in cooking. Also, if you use eggs, you'll probably want to replace any protein isolate used with regular flour). Want brownies with more oats than brawn? Go for it - substitute some oats for some flour - just make sure all dry ingredients add up to 2 1/2 Cups.
SEPARATE DRY FROM WET
MIX THEM SEPARATELY FIRST
ADD WET MIX TO DRY MIX
Ok, for the recipe. This is just what I did. You can do what you want. See how nice that is? So then, from the top (oh, here's a tip - work from your most necessary and smallest-amount ingredients backwards, and then use the last ingredient on your list to "fill in" whatever remains of the total amount you're measuring out - either for dry or wet ingredients). Ok, another tip - it's best to measure them all out into separate bowls (or a bowl for the dry and a cup for the wet). And do my great grandma a favor, and work on your dry ingredients first. Do me a favor and write your recipe ingredient lists starting with your dry ingredients and then moving on to your wet ingredients. Thanks.
INVENT YOUR OWN RECIPES
That's right - you're going to come to realize that a certain now ancient cook-book collection gathering dust in your grandma's kitchen library isn't your family god after all. You can make your own recipes. Just break my mother's heart and DON'T eat your mistakes once you've realized how bad they really are. It's alright to throw out 50 cents worth of ingredients total and start again - but only after you know for sure what you did wrong to begin with. This'll save you about 100 lbs of body-fat. *In forward sight, smacks your hand hard* Get that spoon you're lickin' outta your mouth right now! You know I'm talking to you. NOW.
I promised a recipe.
Oh, before I forget.
SECRET CODE
C = Cup
T = Tbsp
tsp. = teaspoon
pkt = packet
c8 = 8 oz can
j12 = 12 oz jar
and the rest I'll make up as I go along, haha.
PREPARATION
Turn your oven on to 400 degrees, get a large bowl and a measuring cup, two spoons (or at least one), some wax paper, some plastic wrap, a prepared cookie sheet, and a rolling pin. Cookie cutters are optional, but having a flat plastic pot strainer will likely be useful.
DRY INGREDIENTS
1/2 C Cocoa
1/2 C Sugar
1/2 C Soy Protein Isolate
1 C White Flour
1 T Baking Powder
1 T Baking Soda (huge mistake, won't do that again, will probably just use more Baking Powder in the future)
1/8 tsp. salt
WET INGREDIENTS
3/4 C water
1/4 C oil
THE CHEF'S CATALYTIC CONVERTER
Here's a fun tip: since I'm not using honey in this recipe, what I like to do is take about 3 T of the already thoroughly mixed dry ingredients and add them to the wet ingredients as a sort of catalyst. It actually works quite well.
LONG LOST PREPARATION TIPS
Now, make a crater in the middle of what's left of the mixed dry ingredients, and with a spoon in one hand and the cup with the now brown liquid in it in the other hand, pour the liquid into the dry ingredient bowl while stirring the dry ingredients with the spoon. This takes some real skill when you're first learning, but over time, it's almost as if magnets are holding the bowl down while you pour and stir - that's how good you'll get if you do this enough. Don't let the excess dry ingredients intimidate you - just keep stirring until they're all worked in. A good way to get them worked in is to "cut" into the forming dough while stirring it, pretty much from the beginning. Another thing to remember is to start at the side of the bowl with your spoon, dig the spoon under all the batter, and scoop it downward until you get to the center of the bowl, before bringing the spoon back up. This method is also great for dealing with pans full to the brim with stir-fry, or whatever.
Once all the dry ingredients are worked in, the dough will have a damp, light-weight feeling to it, and will still be in sort of crumbly chunks - it won't be in one uniform ball or anything. That's very ok.
LANDSCAPE VS. PORTRAIT
PAN PREPARATION
On a counter or pull-out cutting board, lay down a sheet of wax paper, about the length of the prepared cookie sheet you'll be baking on, in a "landscape" (left to right) position (as apposed to "Portrait" or "top to bottom" position) in front of you. PS. Prepared = any method of oiling up the cookie sheet. Some people use pan spray, others use shortening and flour, while still others use corn meal (not my fav, unless it's for pizza). Others forgo all fat/carbs and choose to protect their precious cookware (see rant below) and use foil or wax paper instead to coat their pans.
OVERLAPPING
Dump all of the dough in one general heap in the middle of the wax paper. No crumb left behind! All must give it up to feed the chocolate monster! Don't touch the dough. Tear off 2 long pieces of plastic wrap, each an inch or two longer than the wax paper. Place the bottom edge of one piece of plastic wrap about 1" closer to you than the horizontal "middle" (approximate middle) of the heap of dough, then lay it down as "flat" as possible over the "top half" of the dough. Place the top of the other sheet of plastic wrap about 1" further from you than the same horizontal imaginary middle line in the heap of dough, so that about 2" total overlap, and lay the rest of the plastic as flat as possible, down towards you, and then make sure that 2" overlap is securely sealed shut through surface tension (or use tape if you have to). Now pat the dough into a real heap, and then pat it down ward and away from the center, but don't work too hard at this.
In the future, I'll be referring to that last part, about the plastic wrap, as simply "overlapping the plastic wrap" or "covering the dough with overlapped plastic wrap." Here's a teaser: in the future, I may also mention "basing the dough with overlapped plastic wrap." In a sense, we've already based the dough with wax paper.
BROKEN EDGES
Now, simply put, use the rolling pin to create one giant dough rectangle that's just slightly smaller than the wax paper. If need be, break off the excess and use it to fill the "holes" in the dough, and keep on rolling. DON'T try to "repair" the dough by matching every edge perfectly though. Just put the excess just inside the broken edge, on top of the already rolled dough, and roll it in. No edge will be perfect, nor does it need to be right now.
IT'S ONLY COOKWARE
BUY CHEAP/LINE IT
GET WOODEN SPOONS
Once the dough rectangle is relatively formed, and about 1/4" to 1/3" thick, pull off the plastic wrap. Now, there's a great debate about this next series of steps. I'm going to make this really easy: buy cheap cookie sheets at GoodWill or some other second hand store, line them with foil or wax paper if you must, and get a damned set of wooden COOKING ONLY, THANKS spoons for your spotless baby pots, but for God's sake, STOP scraping nails on the chalkboard about hurting your poor precious cookware! So serious. Please, just stop whining. It's COOKWARE for cryin' out loud. You make an investment, great or small, and then demand of yourself that you keep the same damned stuff for 60+ years. Do you seriously think that in 60+ years you're even going to be able to see well enough (or think well enough) to even care what your cookware looks like? Didn't think so. So shet thy mouth and commence to cookin'. Thankie.
Oh yes, sorry, out of cook's experience there.
FLIPPING THE DOUGH
So then, this is the fun part. Place your cookie sheet (or the foil/wax paper first, then the cookie sheet) on top of the dough, and then put your left hand on top of the cookie sheet's bottom (now facing upwards) in the center. With your right palm (btw, in the future, I'll refer to this as "flipping the dough") facing upward, slide your right hand under the whole thing - prepared cookie sheet, dough, and base wax paper too, until your right hand pretty much meets your left in the center, with just those few layers between the two. Now, take a quick second to breath, mentally picture this (if you've never done this before) and in one quick, fluid, 3d rounded motion (think professional cook - just not too flamboyant), flip the whole thing over, so that now the wax paper base is on top, the dough is under it, and the prepared cookie sheet is under that, bottom side down. You may need to take a moment to reposition everything so the dough rests completely flat and in position on the cookie sheet.
THE PLASTIC POT STRAINER
You'll likely notice that you have too much dough on the sides closest to you and furthest from you. Use what you want, be it a paring knife (if your cookie sheet was cheap) or the plastic pot strainer's flat scraper, to cut off the excess and leave about 1/2" space between the dough and the cookie sheet's edge. Bake it separately, freeze it, or whatever - it's yours, have fun with it. It's all good if it has no dairy or eggs (yes, there's a difference) in it - it won't hurt you (other than for calories) if you eat it raw (might taste a little strange, because of the Baking Powder though). If there are any "holes" still in the dough, now's the time to fix those up with this excess. That pot strainer works wonders for creating all the outside edges with some good uniformity (see comments in next paragraph).
Now, the real reason I wanted you to have a plastic pot strainer for this. It's the best thing I've seen yet for cutting the dough nicely into ice cream sandwich worthy oreos *coughs, just not rounded ones, heh*. Thing is, this is best done in the pan (not outside it, hence my snarkiness about the cost of those precious pans). Which means there's an edge to the pan. The flat part of the pot strainer I linked over to works perfectly for this - the handle is higher than the edges of the most commonly owned cookie sheets (particularly those that are from the 80s or before that - ask grandma if she's got an extra if yours is newer with a higher edge). Resist the temptation to use a pizza cutter - it won't get the edges. Also, knives, I think, are too thin for this. Anyway, this definitely works for me - find what works for you!
CHANGE OVEN TEMPERATURES
Turn the oven to 350 degrees and pop the cookie sheet in for 20 minutes.
Now, I've been experimenting lately with turning the oven up too high for a few short minutes and then turning the whole thing off. Works good for a lot of things - but not for this recipe. Rather, leave the oven turned on, just at 350 degrees, for 20 minutes. Otherwise, these oreoesque crackers don't really get done right. Remember to set your timer!
WHAT TO DO WITH THESE SILLY THINGS!
These will easily separate from your pan with a frying spatula (pan-cake turner). They may still be somewhat "connected" in some places, but easily break apart at the now baked in seams. Allow them to cool and then put in plastic baggies (don't over stuff the baggies). Freeze them if using for ice cream sandwiches or storing for long term use. Otherwise, keep them out of the fridge - I swear, it'll possess them! Kidding. But the excess moisture is no joke. It's just not worth it. Unless they're too hard (over baked, for instance). Then doing just that, refrigerating them, is one of the two great answers in the Universe. The other is, of course, 5 to 10 sec in the microwave, on their own plate and covered in plastic wrap.
As I said, I don't personally have a good filling for these. Yet. I've done some Googling and found someone else's very good sounding vegan recipes - I haven't had the chance yet to try them, but they look alright to me. The filling recipes are actually linked to towards the bottom of that page. I'm just so impressed with the vegan cake recipe that I wanted to show you that too.
In the meantime, I'm just using So Delicious Chocolate Velvet frozen desert as my filler, after having frozen the sandwich top/bottom crackers. Heh - gotta love all those lovely flavonoids! Bwah-hah-hah!!!!!!!!
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