Christmas Gift Box

I love any excuse to make gift boxes full of yummy vegan treats, and the hol­i­days are my favorite. These gift boxes include cin­na­mon rolls, rice crispy treats, and Christ­mas cup­cakes (just fluffy white cake with pink pep­per­mint frost­ing). The cin­na­mon roll recipe is straight from Vegan Yum Yum. If you’ve never made cin­na­mon rolls before, I would head straight to her site for the step by step process. She even has a great video show­ing how to knead the dough and the best way to cut the slices. The recipe makes 12 nor­mal size rolls, but I cut huge slices and made 8 jumbo rolls instead. I’d like to make minis one day soon with dif­fer­ent fill­ings such as choco­late and espresso, so keep an eye out for that!  Happy holidays!

Cin­na­mon Rolls

INGREDIENTS

Yeast Mix­ture

• 4 tea­spoons active dry yeast (a lit­tle less than 2 packets)
• 1 tea­spoon sugar
• 1 cup warm water, between 100º and 110º F

Dough

• 1 cup soymilk
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2/3 cup non­hy­dro­genated margarine
• 2 tea­spoons salt
• 2 Ener-g Egg Replacer Eggs, pre­pared, optional
• yeast mix­ture, from above
• 6 cups all pur­pose flour, more for kneading

Dough Fill­ing

• ½ non­hy­dro­genated mar­garine, melted
• 1 ½  cups sugar
• 3 table­spoons cinnamon

PREPARATION

Com­bine yeast mix­ture and set aside to proof.

From the dough ingre­di­ents, com­bine the soymilk, sugar, earth bal­ance, salt, and ener-g eggs in a small sauce pan. Heat until earth bal­ance is melted and all the ingre­di­ents are well com­bined, but do not let the mix­ture get too hot. You should be able to put a fin­ger in it with­out burn­ing yourself.

The yeast should now be nice and foamy (proofed). Com­bine it with the warmed liq­uid you just made; make sure it’s not too hot, or you will kill your yeast.

Place 4 cups of all pur­pose flour in a large bowl. Add the warmed wet ingredients.

Beat the bat­ter well with a wooden spoon. The dough will be very wet and liq­uid, much more like a bat­ter than a dough.

Add 2 more cups of flour and mix in par­tially. It’ll look like a wreck. That’s fine! Turn out the dough onto a large table/kneading sur­face, scrap­ing out every­thing in the bowl.

Begin knead­ing, gen­tly at first. It’s going to take about 8 min­utes to get the dough where it needs to be. Add more flour only if the dough starts stick­ing to the table and there is no more dry flour to be worked into the dough. You want the dough to end up smooth and elas­tic, and slightly tacky, but not sticky. You should be able to knead it on a bare table with­out it sticking.

Once the dough is ready, place it in an oiled bowl, cov­ered with oiled plas­tic wrap, to rise for 90 min­utes in a warm spot. If you’re lack­ing a warm spot, turn your oven on low for 1 minute, then turn it off and place the dough in the oven to rise with the door closed.

ASSEMBLY

Once the dough has risen com­pletely, it’ll leave a lit­tle dent when you poke it. If it springs back, it needs more time.

Turn the dough out onto a floured sur­face and press it down. You want it press or roll it out into a 1 x 20 inch rec­tan­gle. You can use a roller if you want, but it’s not necessary.

Pour the 1/2 cup of melted earth bal­ance on the dough. Brush it so the dough is cov­ered com­pletely. It’s okay if it pools in some locations.

Mix together the cin­na­mon and sugar from the dough fill­ing above. Sprin­kle it evenly over the dough.

Pre­pare a large bak­ing dish, like a lasagna dish, by pour­ing in the melted earth bal­ance from the pan sauce ingre­di­ents above. Brush the sides of the pan so they are greased.

Add the sugar, spread­ing evenly over the bot­tom of pan. The pan is now ready for the buns.

Roll and cut the buns.

Cover the buns and let rise for 45 min­utes if you will be bak­ing these imme­di­ately. If bak­ing the next day, cover the buns and let rise in the refrig­er­a­tor overnight. Bake in the morn­ing with no need for more ris­ing. If mak­ing the buns for a date in the future, cover the buns and freeze imme­di­ately. The day before you are ready to use them, defrost in the refrig­er­a­tor overnight, then let warm up on the counter the next morn­ing for an hour. In any case, when ready to bake, fol­low the direc­tions below.

Pre­heat the oven to 350º F. Bake for 25–30 min­utes, or until golden brown and bub­bly. Let cool for a few minutes.

FROSTING

• ¼ cup non­hy­dro­genated margarine
• 1/3 cup vegan cream cheese
• 1 tea­spoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup pow­dered sugar

Beat the cream cheese and mar­garine together until well-combined and fluffy. Add the sugar and beat for about 3 more min­utes. Add the vanilla and beat until fluffy. Spread or pipe over warm cin­na­mon rolls.

Rice Crispy Treats

INGREDIENTS

• 1 tub of Ricemel­low Cream
• 3 table­spoons vegan butter
• 1 tea­spoon vanilla extract
• 1 tea­spoon arrow root pow­der mixed in a very small amount of cold water
• 5 — 6 cups crisped rice cereal

PREPARATION

In a large pot melt the mar­garine over medium/med-high heat.  Once the mar­garine is melted, whisk in the arrow root pow­der mixture.

Add the whole tub of ricemel­low cream.  On low heat, stir con­tin­u­ously until creamy.

Add vanilla and mix well.

Add cereal one cup at a time until rice cereal is evenly coated and clumps together.

ASSEMBLY

Spread in a pan lined in plas­tic wrap.  Cover the top in plas­tic wrap and mash down so the cereal is tightly packed. Let cool.  Cut into squares and decorate!

Christ­mas Cupcakes

INGREDIENTS

Cup­cake Batter:

• 1 table­spoon apple cider vinegar
• 1 ½ cups plain soy milk
• 2  cup flour plus 1 tablespoon
• 2 tea­spoons bak­ing powder
• ½ tea­spoons bak­ing soda
• ½ tea­spoon salt
• 1 cup sugar plus 2 tablespoons
• ½ cup oil
• 1 ½ tea­spoons vanilla extract

PREPARATION

Cup­cake Batter:

Place the apple cider vine­gar in the bot­tom of a liq­uid mea­sur­ing cup and fill the cup with soy milk to equal 1 ½ cups. Stir well and set aside to curdle.

Mix together the flour, sugar, bak­ing pow­der, bak­ing soda, and salt. Mix the oil and vanilla into the soy milk mix­ture. Add the wet to the dry ingre­di­ents and beat until smooth.

ASSEMBLY

Pre­heat oven to 350 degrees.  Line a muf­fin pan with paper cup­cake liners.

Fill cup­cake lin­ers approx­i­mately 2/3 of the way full with cup­cake batter.

Bake for 18–22 min­utes. Let cool before frosting.

Makes 18 cupcakes.

FROSTING

• 1 8oz con­tainer vegan cream cheese
• ½ cup non­hy­dro­genated margarine
• 1 tea­spoon pep­per­mint extract
• 2–4 drops red food coloring
• 4  cups con­fec­tion­ers’ sugar

Beat the cream cheese and mar­garine together until well-combined and fluffy. Add the sugar and beat for about 3 more min­utes. Add the pep­per­mint extract and food col­or­ing and beat until fluffy. Gar­nish with crushed candy canes and enjoy!