Berlin Food Guide: Eat Like A Hobbit And You Shall Be Rewardedby Randi / September 16, 2014
Berlin is the home of Europe’s first all-vegan grocery store, Veganz, and it is definitely a must on any vegan’s to-do list. While it is chock full of really fun, and some hard-to-find, products, the stock is not necessarily rare or unique. But, the fact that you don’t have to check labels on anything makes this the fun stop it is. Also, all your favorite junk foods are in the same place!
Look at all of these plane snacks!!
Berliners are fortunate enough to have this vegan mecca, but guess what – there are two of them! There’s one store in Friedrichshain, of course, because that is Germany’s East Village for veganism, and one in Prenzlauer Berg. The stores are roughly the same. We actually went back and forth between the two a few times, especially when one didn’t have the soft-serve delivered yet. (I mean what???) But yes, you read right! Both Veganz stores house a cafe called Goodies, which sells cafe food, including bagel sandwiches, pastries, cookies, and vegan soft-serve ice cream! The soft-serve comes from a powder mix, like all addictive drugs, and sometimes it takes all day for that powder to be delivered, apparently, but it’s definitely worth trying because VEGAN SOFT-SERVE! It wasn’t very delicious by any stretch of the imagination, but come on, you can’t pass up trying vegan soft-serve.
Veganz has the most fantastic array of fun convenience foods, from vegan gummies of all sorts (including coke bottles!) to giant pink bags of Manner (which of course I bought and ate real fast). The store also has the greatest round up of daily essentials in the fridge and freezer, which definitely were hard to pass by as a visitor. If you are considering moving to Berlin, I would say that the opportunity to actually purchase these perishable items should put another check in the pro column. They have the European cheeses! Those are the good kinds, so they say! Look at all of that cruelty-free goodness!
Okay, so here is what I bought. Well, here is what made it home. Not everything I bought made it home. It’s like the perfect stop for all of your plane snacks.
As aforementioned, the giant pink bag of Manner is a must-buy. Manner is the greatest wafer cookie treat in the entire world if you don’t know. They sell it all over America in shitty little convenience stores, but it all contains milk in the USA. Ughhh! It makes no sense when the same product changes formula in different countries. Anyway, this one is obviously vegan, so stock up. Oh my lord Manner is the best.
Continuing from the left: That red/coconut Bonbarr was okay, but those purple/nougat Bonbarrs are REVOLTING. Oh my god, do not buy them. They taste like unsweetened baking chocolate that you left unwrapped in a dusty old pantry for so many years that all the current inhabitants of the house with said pantry don’t remember who you are. Don’t buy it.
That Oskri cashew-coconut-cereal bar was really yummy! I’ve loved all Oskri products that I’ve tried, but watch out when you find them in the wild because I think some have honey.
The Vivani black cherry bar is banging, though nothing can beat those cheap Cella chocolate covered cherries for me. But this was great.
Those biona cool cola bottles are just alright. The flavor is spot-on but the gumminess is lacking. It’s more like a soft candy that you’ll just bite through and be like whaat, where’s the gumminess? They sell them at As Nature Intended in London, FYI.
If you’ve never had Primal Strips, you need to go find them right now because they are a godsend for traveling vegans! My friend beanerschnitzel introduced me to them, and I am so grateful because they are amazing! They are soy, seitan, or mushroom-based (depending on the flavor) protein strips that are softer than traditional jerky and much more delicious (and much less disgusting in theory than dried meat). The Thai Peanut is my absolute favorite flavor; it is one of the seitan ones and has the perfect amount of spice and peanuttiness.
That White Chocolate Dairy-Free bar, whose brand name I can no longer make out, is great for baking and was pretty okay for regular eating, but who eats plain white chocolate anyway?
The Moo-free Caramelized Hazelnut Nibs bar is my favorite thing out of the whole gosh darn stash. This chocolate bar was one of the best I’ve ever had! It was just the perfect chocolate depth and the perfect nibby stuff on top. You can’t beat caramelized hazelnuts, so yeah, get a lot of these.
That Chocolate Donut Pastry near the top? That’s from the selection of refrigerated yummies that Veganz sells and it was REMARKABLE. It was like a hard donut that had a creamy filling and a crunchy cookie-like base inside all of that chocolate coating. I want another one very soon.
Baby food pouches are always welcome buys for me, and this apple banana one was yummy. I do prefer my travel baby food with a mix of veggies and fruit, but Veganz only had fruit.
Okay, the Stroopwaffels. These carmelly syruppy waffle cookies are ridiculously good! Oh my goodness I don’t know how to describe them. They are soft but not crumbly, more like softly glued together or something fantastic. And the sweetness isn’t just sugary, it’s like deep and caramelly and beautiful. These are amazing. Except the picture on the wrapper is misleading, because it looks like there are 10 or so cookies inside but there are only 6, so you are going along eating all these amazing cookies and thinking you have so many more before you will have eaten half the package, but then the whole thing is gone.
Amore Mio’s Chocolate Hazelnut treat thing was okay, a little unsubstantial and airy but good.
Fruit leather – no surprises there.
The Giant Gallon Bag of German Fruit Gummies was another of my favorites! Again, the lack of gelatin makes for a very interesting chewiness, in that your bite goes right through a little too easily. But, these tasted great and they are still vegan gummies so yay buy a gallon, why not!
The Nirwana Noir chocolate bar was very interesting. It’s a semisweet chocolate with a nut truffle filling, and as amazing as that sounds, I was surprised that I wanted it to be a little sweeter. Still, definitely worth trying.
That Naturata Stracciatella Kirsch white chocolate bar has the greatest concept and name, definitely, but like all white chocolate bases it was a little lacking in depth. The chocolate cherry bits were really yummy!
So that is Veganz! I hope this helps you decide what to buy. When it doubt, buy it all.
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“Challenge Accepted”: Vegan Chocolate Rugelach (Ohh Yeahhh)
Welcome back to the “Challenge Accepted” series! Today, we are making vegan rugelach, a traditional Jewish pastry in which a triangle of dough is wrapped around a filling. My food guru Elli challenged me to make them, and because she is the wise expert on all good food in Philly, we listen to her.
In our discussion of the amazing treat, Elli warned that any decent rugelach must contain cream cheese in the dough. A quick internet search will prove that most people claiming to make authentic rugelach have no idea what they are talking about (i.e., no cream cheese in the dough). (They are probs the ones who don’t know how to say the ‘ch’ sound at the end of the word. #goy). Elli also said that, if making chocolate rugelach (which of course I was going to do; screw fruit filling unless it’s for hamentashen), wrapping the dough around a pile of chocolate chips is cheating. Hell no was I going to cheat, so we are using the same chocolate-cinnamon filling from our delicious babka experience. It adds a bit of work, but it is absolutely worth it. In fact, the extra work from using that filling actually makes the wrapping part easier: The filling is a big square to be laid right on top of the dough, so I rolled the dough into logs instead of wrapping 30 individual crescent rolls. I know, I know, after all the “I’m not going to cheat!” mumbo jumbo, you’re probably like, “Omigod you are so cheating with the wrapping!” Hush your face and go make some rugelach.
As you’ve probably learned, I do not like sharing recipes that have hard-to-find ingredients or that use ready-made things. For chrissakes, I made Cheesy Blasters from scratch. But this was my first attempt at rugelach, so I used ready-made vegan cream cheese. Now that I have some experience, I’ll work on a homemade substitute to use next time so those of you without access to vegan cream cheese can make these.. For those of you who can find vegan cream cheese, definitely buy a tub and use it all in this recipe! It’s worth it!
As you’ve probably learned, I do not like sharing recipes that have hard-to-find ingredients or that use ready-made things. For chrissakes, I made Cheesy Blasters from scratch. But this was my first attempt at rugelach, so I used ready-made vegan cream cheese. Now that I have some experience, I’ll work on a homemade substitute to use next time so those of you without access to vegan cream cheese can make these.. For those of you who can find vegan cream cheese, definitely buy a tub and use it all in this recipe! It’s worth it!
VEGAN CHOCOLATE-CINNAMON RUGELACH
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INGREDIENTS:
For the DOUGH:
For the FILLING:
DIRECTIONS:
While the dough is in the fridge:
Assembly:
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See: Step 2 (dollops) 
I still don’t think I know how to use a pastry cutter properly 
I was out of plastic wrap so I used a big ziplock bag. Also look at my adorable London Underground tea towel! I set it up so the photo highlights my station. 
I rolled it into several logs. You can too! 
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These came out SO well! I can’t wait to experiment with the basics more. They are really rich so you can’t eat the whole batch, which is good. They were much easier to make than I made it seem, I’m sure. Give it a shot and let me know how it goes!
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
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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.
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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.)
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INGREDIENTS:
Dough:
Filling:
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DIRECTIONS:
Filling:
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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?
