Vegan vs. Paleo Birthday Edition (The results and a plot twist)

As I said in my last post there would be a Paleo vs. Vegan bake-off. So here's the bad news, there was not a cake recipe in the Paleo cookbook like I thought. But here's the really good news, there was scones! And who doesn't love scones! So the cake-off turned to a scone-off. Definitely not a bad trade.

Scone Recipe 1 (Apple Cinnamon) from Nom Nom Paleo:

Ingredients-      

• 3 cups blanched almond flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 4 tablespoons butter, as cold as possible (preferably frozen), cut into small pieces
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 large eggs
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 small Granny Smith or Fuji apple, peeled, cored, and cut into thin tiles

 

Preparation-

 

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F with the rack in the middle position, and line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. In a large bowl, combine the almond flour, baking soda, and fine sea salt. Use your hands or a pastry cutter to work the pieces of cold butter into the dry ingredients until a crumbly mixture is produced. Then, mix the cinnamon into the almond flour mixture.

3. In a separate bowl, thoroughly whisk together the eggs, apple cider vinegar, and honey.

4. Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients, and pour the egg mixture into it.

5. Gently mix with a spatula until a wet, chunky dough forms, and then throw in the apple. Combine the ingredients with your hands, and form a ball of dough.

6. On a sheet of parchment paper or a nonstick surface, gently flatten the ball with your hand. The round of dough should be about 3/4 inch thick. Using a pastry cutter or a sharp knife, cut the dough into 6 equal-sized wedges, and arrange them on the parchment-lined baking sheet.

7. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, rotating the tray halfway through. The scones are ready when they're golden brown, and an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Transfer the scones onto a wire rack to cool slightly before serving.

 

Top left is step 4, bottom left is step 5, and right is step 6 before it was cut.

 

Twenty two minutes later and....

 

Tada!

Okay, now for the vegan side of things. Luckily both recipes call for a 350 degrees oven, so that part was all set to go.

Scone Recipe 2 (Banana Date) from Veganomigon:

Ingredients-

8 ounces of dates
1 T all-purpose flour
3-4 overripe, mashed bananas (About 1 cup)
2 T ground flax seed
1/3 cup soy milk or rice milk
1/4 cup brown rice syrup (in a pinch, you could also use 1/4 cup sugar)
2 1/4 cups white whole wheat flour, or 1 cup white and 1 1/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour (I did the later)
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. salt
Optional: 1/2 cup walnuts (I didn't have any so I opted out)


Instructions-

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.  Mash the bananas using a fork or a pastry blender.  Chop the dates (watch out for the pits, I used pre-pitted), and mix in a small bowl with 1 T flour to prevent the dates from sticking together.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flax seed with the soy or rice milk.  Then, add in the mashed banana and the brown rice syrup.   Set aside.  In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and nutmeg.  Mix the flour mixture with the banana mixture, don't over stir.  Then, fold in the dates and walnuts.

Oil a 1/2 cup measuring cup.  Get out a large cookie sheet.  You can either spray or grease the cookie sheet to prevent sticking.  Scoop out dough using the measuring cup onto the cookie sheet, leaving around 3 inches between scones.

Bake the scones for about 30 minutes.  Because ovens differ, check on the scones after about 20 minutes.  They should be browned on the outside. Mine burnt a little bit on the bottom because I didn't check them, so just be careful.

Top left is the wet ingredients, below are the dry. The right shows the dates covered in flour.

Wait, wait, wait and...

Yum! (They look a bit like chocolate chip cookies, ya?)

 

And now for the competition part. After dinner I gave half of each to my dad, obviously he didn't know which was which, and asked for a final verdict.

And the winner is....drumroll

 

....PALEO.

I'm not exactly surprised, my dad does love his butter. I must say though, I agree with his verdict.

 

Happy Birthday Dad!

 

Extra: Through doing the grocery shopping in addition to the baking for these delicious treats, I was really struck with the economic aspect. We have talked a lot about the class difference that is a large part of all alternative eating lifestyles, but wow, it is intense. I had to go to at least three stores to get everything I needed, like ground flax seed, brown rice syrup and grass-fed butter (SO hard to find). Eating like this is most certainly a luxury and this made me realize how big the gap is between affordability and quality food. Eek. Let's work on that.