Vedge Restaurant, Philadelphia: The World's Greatestby Randi / September 4, 2013
Related Posts
Veganizing “Friends”: It’s Pronounced ‘Nes-LAY Too-LOUSuh’
COOOOOKIES!
Oh, I KNOW you know this one! It’s “The One With Phoebe’s Cookies”!! We’ve got everyone exactly in their element: Phoebe being silly and a bit ignorant, Monica absolutely obsessing over getting something perfect, Ross making everything about him (remember “IT’S BATCH 16! BATCH 16 PEOPLE! GET OUT OF THE WAY!”). This episode also has a fantastic Joey & Rachel storyline on Joey’s new boat*, and one of my favorite cold opens EVER. But back to the most important issue – cookies! So, Phoebe’s grandmother had the best chocolate chip cookie recipe, and Monica wants it as her engagement present, so she can one day be the mother who makes the best chocolate chip cookies:
Monica: Hey, I know I what I want!
Chandler: What we want honey.
Monica: No, you don’t want this. I want to have your grandmother’s cookie recipe.
Phoebe: You mean the chocolate chip cookie recipe?
Monica: Uh-huh, yeah.
Phoebe: You mean the one that my grandmother made me swear on her deathbed that I would never let out of our family?
Chandler: Dying people say the craziest things.
Monica: I wanted it for years! I was gonna make cookies for my children.
Phoebe: Break my heart—Oh, all right.
BUT SACRE BLEU!!! Phoebe lost the recipe in the fire*!! She does, however, have a few cookies frozen that were made from that recipe. Monica, the amazing chef she is, is determined to reverse-engineer the recipe from the few finished cookies. She spends dayyyys working and reworking various methods of CCC construction, with dozens of batches both good and, like Batch 16, terrible! And then…and then…and gentlemen, and then…this happens:
All this time, this miraculous recipe was the one ON THE BACK OF THE BAG OF NESTLE TOLL HOUSE CHOCOLATE CHIPS!!!! (It warrants all caps.) My anger on Monica’s behalf is only lessened by the subtitles in the above video. (I love subtitles; I don’t know why.) To honor our dear Friends, we’re going to make the famous Nestle Toll House chocolate chip recipe found on the back of the chips! And we’re going to veganize it! Since I don’t buy NTH chips (do they even make any that are vegan?) I found the recipe online here. It’s pretty easy to veganize – vegan butter for the butter, and egg subs (I chose flax eggs) for the eggs! Let’s see if they are really the best. Do you think they could actually be better than Dreena’s Homestyle Chocolate Chip Cookie? Or Isa’s, or Kelly Peloza’s? SUSPENSE.
|
VEGANIZED NESTLE TOLL HOUSE COOKIE RECIPE
INGREDIENTS:
DIRECTIONS:
Finished ball
|
Making the flax egg
Man alive that’s a lot of butter!
Creaming the butter and sugars
|
So wow, these puffed up like whoa! I think from the egg! Can you believe, the vegan version of the Nestle Toll House cookies are TOO EGGY! They were of course really good, and I particularly enjoyed how slightly salty they were. If you like your cookies puffy and almost cakey, you will love these!! I prefer mine a bit crunchier, so if I made them again, I would cut the egg in half at least. Also, wow they use a lot of butter for my tastes. Wow! So, they are really good, but I don’t think they are better than the above-mentioned 3 stars of vegan chocolate chip cookies. It’s too bad these other recipes didn’t exist 10 or so years ago, because Monica would have flipped out over them and avoided all of these dramazz. Oh well! If cakey and buttery is your thing, go make these yummy cookies!
Editor’s edit: These may be the only cookies that are 100x better hours after baking than they are straight out of the oven! So good, actually! Go make them!
Congratulations on reaching the end of VeganMoFo, for all of my fellow participants! Don’t worry, I will still be Veganizing “Friends” recipes – just not everyday! And if you have any requests, please let me know in the comments.
Giveaway Trivia: Last Chance!!!
Giveaway Trivia: Last Chance!!!
- What was the name of Joey’s boat?
- When out on the water, who does Joey yell at and call a jackass?
- What caused the fire in Phoebe’s apartment?
- In Chandler’s hilarious side-plot, what happens when he plays racquetball with Monica & Ross’s dad?
Celebrate Good(?) Times Come On: Babka for Yom Kippur
My piece!
Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, is the most sacred and important of all the Jewish holidays. You fast from sundown to sundown (so, a day) and pray, repent, atone, and hope that your past sins are forgiven. And then, if you are like 99% of Jews, you and your relatives break the fast with a smoked fish and lox platter from the local Jewish deli. So, to recap what we’ve learned the past few weeks, Rosh Hashanah:apples::Yom Kippur:bagels.
The bagel part is fine, but the huge platter of fish, not so much. I’ll usually make a hummus or two to add to the mix, and some kind of dessert. This year, I decided to up my game in the dessert area and finally make a recipe I’ve literally had saved for 3 years – VeganDad’s chocolate cinnamon babka. I mean, you don’t get any more Jewish than babka. Why haven’t I made this until now, I wondered? Everyone loves a babka! And chocolate and cinnamon combines the best types. Remember when Jerry & Elaine lost the famous chocolate babka?
The bagel part is fine, but the huge platter of fish, not so much. I’ll usually make a hummus or two to add to the mix, and some kind of dessert. This year, I decided to up my game in the dessert area and finally make a recipe I’ve literally had saved for 3 years – VeganDad’s chocolate cinnamon babka. I mean, you don’t get any more Jewish than babka. Why haven’t I made this until now, I wondered? Everyone loves a babka! And chocolate and cinnamon combines the best types. Remember when Jerry & Elaine lost the famous chocolate babka?
Poor customers of that bakery, having to choose between chocolate and cinnamon. As Joey Tribbiani, my usual source of inspiration, would say, “Put those hands together!”* Let’s do it!
Yeahh this yeast is jumping now!
Then I creamed sugar and Earth Balance (which I didn’t really measure; I just spooned it 6 times and figured it was close to 6 tablespoons), added yogurt, vanilla, the yeast, and then the flour. So, the recipe calls for 15 oz. of flour, which is basically 2 cups, right? I had to use nearly 5 cups and it was still sticky. With only 15 oz., it was pretty liquidy. Maybe I did something wrong, we’ll see. This is all very dramatic.
Then I kneaded kneaded kneeeeaded, ‘cleaned’ the mixing bowl, oiled it, and dropped the ball o’ dough in there. It says to let it sit, covered, for 2 hours, but I was out for 4. I returned to find it puffing nicely in the bowl. 
The best stuff on earth
So, next you roll this up length-wise, as tightly as you can. This is where I not only had trouble but didn’t read the instructions properly. I rolled pretty well (it’s a lot of dough here), but then you are supposed to cut it in half length-wise. Like, exposing chocolate. I cut it in half width-wise, creating two little stumpy arms. Oh well, it’ll taste the same (if you close your eyes*) no matter how you do it.
My stumpy twist
|
I strayed from the recipe somewhat, as I am wont to do, so I’ll splain what I did. I started by warming up some almond milk and adding the yeast. (The recipe calls for 2T of instant yeast, but I had only the packets that are like 2 1/4 t or something. Whatever…we’ll see what happens.) But it didn’t get foamy! I was freaking out. Was it because I used almond milk instead of soy, as the directions said? Was it because my milk was unsweetened? Ahhh! Being somewhat yeast-fearing, I threw it out and started again. This time, I used warm water instead. I have only ever testfoamed yeast + water + sugar, so I stuck with what I know, and it properly Hulked out.
Punch punch punch!
Next, I made the filling. You melt chocolate, margarine, and cinnamon together, then spread it on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet and stick it in the fridge till firm. Once it is firm, roll out your dough into a big rectangle, like 2 feet long, a foot and a 1/2 wide, something like that, then place the chocolate layer right on top, in as many pieces as it takes.
Chocolate layer on top of the rolled-out dough
Rolling with the homies
So, because I did it wrong, my roll was short & stout like a teapot. But I kind of preferred it this way. Can you imagine how long it would have been the right way? And this way is more fun to pull apart.
|
So, once you twist it, you let it sit and rise again for like 1.5 hours. I knowww. It’s probably worth it though. Important yeasting action happening. You probably want real directions, huh? (I’ll use what I did.)
|
INGREDIENTS:
Dough:
Filling:
|
DIRECTIONS:
Filling:
|
ASSEMBLY:
Roll out your dough into a rectangle, about 2′ x 1.5′. Place the chocolate layer right on top of the dough, finagling to cover the whole square. Then, tightly roll the dough lengthwise. Then, cut it in half lengthwise – so the chocolate insides are exposed. And then twist the two halves together. Let this twist sit for 1.5 hours on a parchment-covered baking sheet. Then, bake for 25 minutes at 350°.
Yes, I am recommending that you cut it lengthwise, and not stumpily like I did. My outside browned really nicely, but it was still nearly raw inside. So, that’s the whole point of the long skinny cut – easier baking. I mean, when my version puffed up into a freaking cube, I knew the inside couldn’t be cooked.
Roll out your dough into a rectangle, about 2′ x 1.5′. Place the chocolate layer right on top of the dough, finagling to cover the whole square. Then, tightly roll the dough lengthwise. Then, cut it in half lengthwise – so the chocolate insides are exposed. And then twist the two halves together. Let this twist sit for 1.5 hours on a parchment-covered baking sheet. Then, bake for 25 minutes at 350°.
Yes, I am recommending that you cut it lengthwise, and not stumpily like I did. My outside browned really nicely, but it was still nearly raw inside. So, that’s the whole point of the long skinny cut – easier baking. I mean, when my version puffed up into a freaking cube, I knew the inside couldn’t be cooked.
That’s a huge bitch
It’s pretty great looking though. And yeah, it is DELICIOUS. I definitely recommend making it. But you’ll have an easier time if you cut it long-ways, and not how I did. I mean, this thing is never going to be done cooking. It is bigger than me. But it’s yummy!
*Remember, guess the source/comment on the things that are starred and you will be entered into my big MoFo giveaway! Details tomorrow!
From this post: What was Joey referring to when he said ‘Put those hands together’? And what is the source of the lyrics above the stumpy twist picture?
