baked vegan wholewheat parsley & mint donuts w blood orange/plum brandy glaze

another one from 'the "who kidnapped Rob?" cookbook.'

Adapted from Sarah Owens. I changed the recipe to whole wheat (basically because I wanted to use up some of what I have in my cabinet.) I subbed in violife faux-butter, soy milk, and a flax seed faux-egg for the animal equivalents.

Results:

a fun experiment, but --

with, essentially, an entire bunch of parsley and an entire bunch of mint in the mix, I expected these to almost blow the roof of my mouth off. But, oddly, the flavor is muted mixed veggie, as if I had used old kale instead of knock-your-socks-off herbs. Could it be the 'looks fresh but really isn't' produce from Whole Foods? Or does it need a ton more mint, or some other more aromatic herbs?
the vegan substitutions worked fine, texturally, but, honestly, they lack the expected umami. I'd like not to use animal fats & proteins, but I still need to understand how to make up for the 'mmmmmm-deficit.'
they would have been so so so much better fried instead of baked -- the crispy (and, yes, oily) exterior would have brought a texture/flavor contrast that would have helped make these more irresistible. As someone said to me this morning: everything's bad for you, it's bad to breathe the air in New York, so why not fry?
the glaze could have leaned a bit more into the flavors. Perhaps I should have reduced it on the stove or used a slightly more intense variety of citrus -- meyer lemon, maybe -- and a jolt more brandy.

Rob

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ROFLMFAO 😂You definitely should write a book with that title!

I love peppermint! Was that peppermint?

And glad to see two doughnuts posts in a week. More doughnut posts, please!

You might want to try toasted soybean flour and powdered coconut milk, Rob. I feel they are quite a game changer, especially in cake baking

And I'm genuinely happy for you diversifying your baking repertoire! Keep them coming!

Jay

thanks Jay! Yes to more donuts! I eagerly await the styling 'baked by Jay' take on the humble fried dough treat.

Rob

PS-- I get the soy flour idea, but why add powdered coconut milk. Couldn't I just use the canned or vacpac'd stuff from the store?

PPS -- looked like peppermint but it was just labeled mint

Loving all the things that come out of your kitchen Bor, how exotic this all sounds.

Not sure if whole-wheat is the best flour for it though, but I guess you knew that and just went for it anyway which is a testament to your baking skills that you could still pull something good off.

I did misread the sentence and thought you'd substituted all of the vegan ingredients with the animal equivalents to be dafka.

Hope you enjoyed them very much with your coffee substitute.

-Noj

Let's collaborate on a cookbook that turns all vegan recipes into full-on paleo caveman concoctions🤣
Coffee is fruit juice -- and once I realized that it made it so much easier to consume too much of it.
Years ago, I worked the counter in the Cupcake Cafe at 39th & 9th in NYC, which, despite the name, actually specialized in cakes and 2 styles of whole wheat donuts -- ww-orange & ww-oat. Both were terrific -- the orange were memorably crunchy & light -- but it was long before my baking days & I never got the recipe.

Bor

innovative doughnuts there Rob.

I know it can be difficult to lock in certain flavours sometimes, flavours being mostly volatiles, we bake them away in the oven.

Dried herbs might be a better choice, otherwise doing some kind of infusion in the days prior might help lock in those flavour compounds.

Mint, blood orange and brandy - could be the makings of new cocktail!

Happy experi-baking!

thanks, Michael. In addition to the volatile flavors dissipating in the heat, chlorophyll's trademark color fades as well. Thanks for the idea of doing an infusion.

And, a big yea! to the non-traditional mint julep. The idea almost makes me regret that I've mostly sworn off hard liquor.

Rob