St. Martin, Weckmänner and Martinsgans (Sweetbreadguys and my very own vegan goose)

This post is dedicated to one of my alltime favourit german celebrations: "St. Martin".
First I have to say, that St. Martin is a catholic holiday and it seems to be a very german holiday, which is very popular were I live.
The story of Martin of Tours goes back to the fourth centuary. He first was a roman soldier and then changed his life and became a bishop but this is not the important part of the story.
The most important thing is, that he shared food with poor people and cut his coat into two halfes to share it with a homeless man.
At St.Martin the kinds walk trough the streets with selfmade laterns and sing special songs.
When the singing is over, they walk from house to house sing other songs and get sweets, fruits, nuts and baked goods like the kids do on halloween in the USA.
One of these baked goods is called "Weckmann" or "Martinsmann", which is a sweet and yeasted dough shaped like a man.
I wanted to bake a vegan version for my son that turned out a bit dry but still was delicious because of the icing and the roasted almonds on top.
At sunday a wanted to prepare the traditional lunch for the next sunday after St. Martin, wich is a goose with some festive side dishes.
My attmep on a fake goose was a giant yuba fake chicken style roast stuffed with homemade seitan, dried plums saked in wihte wine, a sliced apple and some pieces of raosted chestnuts. As side dishes I made selfamde potato dumplings for the very first time in my life and some blanched and fried brussel sprouts.
The dumplings and brussel sprouts turned out nice but the yuba-roast was a fail because I used a differnt kind of yuba which was soft without soaking but came out hard and kind of inedieable.
The stuffing was still nice. It's just equal amounts of pealed and sliced apples, dried plums soaked in wihte wine and roasted chestnuts. Maybe you want to try this istead of a breadstuffing for your christmas dinner.
Here's the recipe for the "Weckmänner".

Weckmänner

(makes two monster ones or 4 normal guys)

Ingredients:

500 g of wheat flour

250 ml of soy milk or any non diary milk plus some soymilk for brushing before baking

125 g of magarine

150 g of sugar

1 cube of fresh yeast

a pinch of salt

a few raisins for the eyes

1 cup of confectioners sugar

1-2 tablespoons of lemon juice or water

aprox. one cup of thinly sliced roasted almonds.

1. Mix flour, sugar, magarine, salt, soymilk and yeast and knead until you've good a nice dough.

2. Let it sit for about 1 -2 hours.

3. Shape it like little humans and stick some raisins into the face for the eyes and brush with a little soymilk.

4. Bake at 180° C for about half an hour.

5. Let it cool. Make an icing by combining th confetioners sugar and lemon juice or water and cover the cooled guys. Sprinkel with the roaste almonds.

6. Wait until the icing is solid and enjoy.


Homemade Potato Dumplings

Ingredients:

8 big and starchy potatoes

some salt

a pinch of nutmeg

3/4 of potato flour or potato starch

2 tablespoons of chickpea flour

1. Cook half of the potatoes until they are done ( that's 30 minutes counted form the point where you put the heat on, 20 minutes from the point when the water is boiling.

2. Peal the cooked and the remaining ram potatoes and grate them vary finely.

3. Mix in the flours, some salt and the nutmeg and mix well.

4. Form about 8 -10 fist siced dumplings.

5. Bring a big pot of salted water to a boil, reduce heat to medium and simmer the dumplings for about 25 minutes. (The water should never be boiling because the dumplings whould fall apart.)

6. Strain the dumplings and you're done.