September 17, 2023 – Vegan Butters

Sunday, September 17, 2023
VBC Meeting #127: Vegan Butters
Host of the month: South Lakes Park
Location: Denton, TX

With temperatures in North Texas finally getting below the century mark, we met up at South Lakes Park in Denton to eat foods made with a vegan butter ingredient. Some of us went with veganized butter, while others opted for nut butters.

This is what we made:

Lauren: Peanut Butter Chocolate Pie

Lauren adapted and veganized a recipe from the Texas Co-op Power magazine for Frozen Peanut Butter Banana Pie by Jan Box, though she left out the banana aspect. She made a crust from 24 chocolate flavored Oreos that she turned into crumbs with a food processor and added about 1 1/2 tablespoons of melted coconut oil to for creating a texture that could be pressed into a 9″ spring form pan. She made a chocolate ganache by heating 3/4 cup coconut cream on the stove then pouring it over a matching ratio of dark chocolate chunks and stirring until smooth. For the pie filling she blended 1 cup of peanut butter with an 8 ounce package of Miyoko’s Creamery Plant Milk Cream Cheese and 1 1/4 cup powdered sugar. She then folded in approximately 12 ounces of vegan non-dairy whipped topping. Over the crust she layered some of the ganache, then peanut butter filling, more ganache, the rest of the filling, then a layer of non-dairy whipped topping. She drizzled more ganache on top and let the pie freeze overnight.

Drew: Butter Tofu

For the tofu part of the butter tofu, Drew coated cubes of tofu in cornstarch and oil before baking them for a long time. He sautéed onion, vegan butter, garlic, ginger, curry powder, coriander, garam masala, tomato paste, coconut milk, and salt. Then added the tofu.

Mehgann: Treat Tray

For her vegan butters, Mehgann made a selection of treats involving nut butters.

Her array included:

• Ants on a Log made up of peanut butter and raisins on celery.
• Energy Balls consisting of flaxseed meal, almond butter, maple syrup, oats, and dark chocolate formed into balls and rolled in cocoa powder.
• Dates stuffed with a caramel espresso peanut butter.
• Banana Sushi featuring frozen bananas coated in almond butter with one rolled in toasted coconut, one in macadamia nuts, and one in dark chocolate then sliced.

Kori: The Best Bread

Kori, not having a long history of making fresh loaves of bread, made her recently favorited bread recipe served alongside a bowl of margarine. To make the bread dough, she mixed and kneaded 6 cups of flour, warm water, yeast, sugar, and oil in her Kitchen Aid mixer. After letting the dough rise until doubled in size, she split it into two balls to form two loaves that rested for another hour. She baked the loaves at 375° for about 30 minutes.

Slynn: Almond Butter Banana Breakfast Bars

Though the recipe called these breakfast bars, Slynn thought this almond butter and banana baked good was pretty much a version of banana bread. For the batter, she mixed spelt flour, oats, flaxseed meal, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, salt, mashed bananas, almond butter, apple sauce, and maple syrup.

Billy: Chik Patty Kiev

Billy wanted to make something like a vegan Chicken Kiev, so he cooked frozen chik’n patties in a frying pan then split them open and stuffed them with a buttery mixture containing dried parsley, thyme, garlic, onion powder, salt, and Miyoko’s Creamery vegan butter.

We also enjoyed the company of Neva’s kitties, Aurora and Furora.