I think a few of you may remember my failed vegan brownies earlier this year. They were a mess, more like chocolate banana soup than anything else. Well, I've come back from that miserable flop as a champion of vegan brownies, no longer sheepishly slinking into excuses about how difficult it is to make them fudgy and dense, but boastfully claiming to have made top-tier brownies that would make any anti-vegan confection connosieur swoon with delight upon tasting a single morsel. Oh yes, these are very good brownies, indeed. They are even better served over this incredibly smooth and creamy coconut milk ice cream.
Recipe below!
Coconut Milk Ice Cream
Ingredients:
2 15-oz cans coconut milk (not lite)
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
Directions:
Mix together coconut milk, sugar and vanilla extract. Cover and refrigerate overnight, then make according to your ice cream machine's instructions.
Brownies
Ingredients:
1/3 cup flour
2/3 cup water
1 pound tofu
1 cup chocolate chips
1 stick vegan butter
2 cups sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1 cup chopped walnuts
coarse sea salt for sprinkling
Directions:
In a blender, blend 1/3 cup flour, water, and tofu until smooth. Pour into a large pan and set aside.
In a medium pan, melt together chocolate chips and vegan butter over medium low heat, stirring almost constantly to keep the chocolate from burning. Add the sugar and vanilla extract, and stir until everything has melted together.
Meanwhile, heat the tofu mixture over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Once it starts to bubble, turn the heat off and stir in the chocolate mixture.
In a large bowl, sift together cocoa powder, flour, salt and baking soda. Add the tofu and chocolate mixture to the dry ingredients and mix together. Stir in walnuts.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Spread mixture onto a well greased 9x13 pan. Sprinkle generously with coarse sea salt. Bake for about 35 minutes, or until a fork inserted into the middle of the pan comes out cleanly.
Serve with coconut ice cream!
I was recently invited to a gluten-free potluck to celebrate a friend's birthday. Now, I've expressed my trepidation when it comes to gluten-free baking before, and since I'm known amongst my friends as a fantastic baker, the pressure was really on (probably just inside my own head)! And while I do like challenges, I also had been wanting to try a gluten-free recipe from Cafe Fernando for such a long time, so I took the easy way out and made this cake.
Mine did not turn out nearly as well as his did, though! I was in a rush to get this done in time for the potluck, so instead of letting it cool all the way, I just popped it in the freezer for about 10 minutes and then tried to get it out of the pan. Well, it wasn't cool enough and just came apart on the cooling rack, a ruin of crumbs and a prime indicator of my procrastination.
I was furious with myself! How could I have waited until the very last minute to start making this cake, especially when I didn't have much experience making gluten-free things, and trying a recipe for the first time! But my ingenuity almost completely offsets my procrastination, and I quickly threw the crumbs into a souffle dish, pressed them down so they would stick together, and poured the chocolate lacquer over the top of this, then let it firm up in the freezer for about 20 minutes. This way no one could tell it looked miserable, but still tasted just as delicious!
And I also did not get a picture of my final cake, because I apparently am just the worst food blogger alive! Haha! Recipe can be found at the link above.
What you see above is my pan soaking in water to try and get the sticky, glued-on chocolate mess off of my pan from my first vegan brownie attempt.
Lately I've been in the mood for gooey, fudgey, super-rich brownies. I had always been under the impression that good vegan brownies would be hard to make, and alas, they are. Unless you like cake-like brownies, in which case, that's no problem. But dense, fudgey brownies are very hard to do without eggs.
I tried to adapt this recipe by replacing the eggs with an over-ripe banana and doubling the flour to get some extra gluten in there. What I ended up with was a delicious goop of buttery chocolate which, while it was quite edible, was not brownies.
Now that I've actually tried to make vegan brownies (instead of just telling people how hard it is to do), I think I will continue to try to make it happen. I can't see how the mess-ups couldn't be delicious!
This is a sincere apology for slacking. I've had it on my to-do list for about two weeks now to make a new blog post, and my boyfriend has even been dropping not-so-subtle hints to let me know that desserts are lacking in this house. Well, I've finally done it, and I made it extravagant so as not to disappoint!
This was my first full weekend off in months, so I took the time to do some fun stuff and a lot of laying around doing nothing. I barely squeezed this cake out in time for the sun to be out on Sunday evening (I try to take pictures during daylight hours to make the lighting better), and even the finished product picture was taken towards the end of dusk. I was just reveling in laziness, a luxury I haven't been able to afford for the last two months.
I unfortunately will not be attending the Haile Plantation farmers market anymore. To anyone who reads this and also goes there, I'm sorry :( For those of you who supported me, I truly appreciate it and hope you will continue to read and/or come see me downtown on Wednesdays. For those of you who are just readers, this is good news for you since my weekends will be free from now on and I can spend that time making posts!
This cake is really, really good when it's fresh, as the chocolate chips are still a bit melty. Recipe below!
Ingredients:
3 cups flour
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup vegan butter
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 cup almond milk
1 12-oz bag mini vegan chocolate chips
1/2 cup butter
1 lb. powdered sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 Tbsp almond milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Sift flour, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl.
In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar until fluffy. Add vanilla extract and apple cider vinegar and mix until combined. Add almond milk and flour mixture and beat until a uniform batter forms. Stir in chocolate chips.
Pour batter evenly between three 9-inch round greased cake tins. Bake for about 20 to 25 minutes (this was very variable for me as I used two different kinds of cake tins, and two only took about 20 minutes, whereas the other one took a little over 25, so keep an eye on them!) or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of each cake pan comes out cleanly.
Let cool on the counter for about 10 minutes. Then flip out of the pan onto a cooling rack and let cool completely.
Meanwhile, in another bowl, beat butter, powdered sugar, cocoa powder, almond milk, and vanilla extract until smooth.
Once the cakes are cooled completely, lay one on a flat serving surface, then cover with a thin layer of frosting with an icing spatula. Apply the second layer and repeat, then the top layer and repeat. Then cover the sides of the cake with frosting as well. Then cut and serve!
This week has been ridiculous. From getting sick in the middle of the week, making me unable to go to the downtown market, to only selling $20 worth of stuff on Saturday morning, which doesn't even cover half of my fixed costs per market, I felt as though I was having the worst week ever. I was exhausted, I was working overtime, I had to blow my nose every five minutes, and I must say, I was bitter. Sometimes doing the markets seems like a waste of time and unappreciated effort. I'm sure no one knows how much effort goes into producing such a modest table of products (except for my business partner and possibly my boyfriend, who sees how exhausted I am every day). If nothing else, I have gained a much greater appreciation for people who successfully hold down two jobs. 
Now, none of that was written to solicit pity or sympathy, nor was it to guilt anyone. This blog serves to be a personal journal of my journey through this phase of my culinary life, and the above was just me venting. Because as hard and tiring and stressful and sometimes disappointing as it all is, it's something that pushes me to do better, perfect an art I've just begun to explore, and grow as a person. Which is why instead of taking a nap and being lazy today after work, I made good use of a very ripe avocado in the fridge.
Avocado mousse is the best thing to happen to avocados since guacamole! It may sound strange, but when you think about it, it's really not. A plain avocado doesn't have an overwhelming taste, so it is more like a blank canvas with which you can paint with flavors. On top of that, the smooth, fatty, and rich texture is perfect for a decadent dessert. 
This is not a vegan recipe, but can easily be made vegan by just omitting the egg whites. It won't be as fluffy or light in color as my pictures, and will have more of the consistency of a pudding, but will still be outrageously rich and delicious. Honestly the only reason I used the egg whites was because I made custard-style ice cream the other night, which required five egg yolks, and I didn't want the whites to go to waste. Also, as an aside, custard-style ice cream is the shit, and I don't know how I lived my life for 24 years without ever having it!
Recipe below!Ingredients:
1 ripe avocado, de-pitted and peeled
6 oz chocolate
2 tsp brandy
5 egg whites
Directions:
In a medium bowl, mash avocado until smooth. If you're really weird about chunks, then you should use a food processor to get it really smooth. Melt chocolate over low heat on the stove, stirring constantly to prevent burning. Mix in with mashed avocado, then stir in brandy.In a large bowl, beat egg whites with electric mixer until soft peaks form. Then, using a spatula, fold in chocolate and avocado mixture just until incorporated. Try to keep your stirring to a minimum since you want to keep as much air in the egg whites as possible.Refrigerate for about an hour and then enjoy!
I'll admit that I had time to come up with a recipe and make something delectable for you to read about today, but I chose not to. Two reasons: As I'm typing this, I'm finishing up the last of the blackberry frozen yogurt (bypassing some leftover banana ice cream in the freezer), and gave away about half of my Mayan chocolate almonds. What I'm trying to say is that I have too many desserts just laying around for me to make yet another one.The second reason is that I wanted to show off what I've done today, and what will be sold at the farmers' market tomorrow afternoon.
This is a vanilla cupcake with strawberry frosting. I used real strawberries (of course!) to make a syrup, then added that to my frosting to give it a cute pink color and a very faint strawberry taste.
This is my chocolate duo!
This one has the strawberry frosting on top.
For these, I had some fresh raspberries left over from a special order, so I dropped one into the center of each batter-filled cupcake liner and baked it in, then sifted powdered sugar on top. I almost tried to mess one up so I could eat one!
This is a strawberry orange cream tart. Very impromptu kitchen experiment, so I'm not sure how it will go over, but this crust is to die for!
And this is my best seller, the chocolate coconut tart. Only five ingredients in the whole thing, yet so, so, so good!
And these are my special order donuts! I have one or two loyal customers who special order these every week :) They're a pain in the butt to make, but are totally worth the effort.
All products are 100% vegan and natural! Wish me luck for tomorrow, and hope to see some of you out there!
When I first started this blog, I had every intention of getting into gluten-free baking as well as vegan. I somehow wandered too far over to the vegan side and now I have no desire to do gluten-free. I mean, let's face it; it's intimidating! There's about a billion types of non-wheat flours out there, all of which are extremely pricey, and the proportions of flours to binders (also equally expensive) blows my mind.
I'm starting to realize, however, that gluten-free is the newest diet craze, and that while vegan is unique, it's not as niche of a market as it was five years ago. Just yesterday, while at a farmers market, I was asked if any of my stuff was gluten-free by about four people! My lame answer was that I was working on a vegan and gluten-free recipe (even though that's a total lie!).
So I've been racking my brain to make something that's gluten-free, vegan, salable at a farmers market, AND somewhat inexpensive and easy to make. This is my first attempt, which I think is pretty good. I'll need to come up with a few more experiments before I start providing the masses with gluten-free goodies, though. If you have any suggestions or references on gluten-free, please leave them in the comments! Thanks!
Recipe below!!
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup raw whole almonds 1 Tbsp chili powder 1/4 tsp cayenne 1/4 tsp nutmeg 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1/4 tsp black pepper 1 1/2 tsp salt 2 Tbsp olive oil 6 oz. chocolate
Directions:
Mix spices together in a medium bowl. Add olive oil and almonds. Stir until the almonds are coated. Pour into a baking sheet and bake at 350 for about 10 to 15 minutes, or until fragrant.
Let cool completely on the counter. Once cool, spread out on a sheet of wax paper.
In a small sauce pan, melt the chocolate over low heat, stirring constantly to keep the chocolate from burning. Drizzle over the cooled almonds, then sprinkle coarse sea salt over the top, if desired. Enjoy!
Yes, you heard right. Vegan ice cream smushed between two vegan cookies. I thought I would resume my regular posting with something outrageously awesome. You're about to get even more excited, because these aren't just vanilla ice cream with chocolate chip cookie sandwiches. This is three of the best flavors of all time put together into one dessert.
Check it: Banana ice cream with peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. It's a trifecta/love triangle/orgy of wonderful flavors! Also extremely easy to make!
You don't even need an ice cream maker to make this ice cream (although it speeds the process up just a tiny bit). All you need is a blender and a freezer. I'm at a loss for what to write, because I think these speak for themselves.
Recipe below!
Ingredients:
6 very ripe bananas
1 tsp agave nectar
1/2 cup vegan butter
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 cup flour
6 oz. chocolate chips
Directions:
If using an ice cream maker: Peel all the bananas. Place in a bowl and mash until a somewhat smooth paste is formed. Refrigerate for about an hour. Then put in ice cream maker along with agave nectar and let it do its thing. Freeze when it's done.
If not using an ice cream maker: Peel the bananas and then break into four pieces each. Freeze thoroughly. Once frozen, put in a blender with about 1/4 cup almond milk and agave nectar. Blend until smooth, then store in freezer.
To make cookies: Cream butter, peanut butter, and sugars together until smooth. Add the vanilla extract and apple cider vinegar and mix in. In a small bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Add dry mixture to wet mixture. Stir together, then stir in chocolate chips. Drop by Tablespoon-full onto an ungreased baking sheet, then flatten out with your hand. Bake at 325 for about 11 to 12 minutes. Let cool completely.
Once the cookies are completely cool, scoop about 1/4 cup of ice cream onto the flat side of one of the cookies, then slap another one on top. Store in the freezer in an airtight container.
While at work today, I came up with an idea of making pomegranate cupcakes. In my head, they looked something like the above; a dark, rich pomegranate cake topped with a light vanilla frosting. As you will come to find out, this is not what I ended up with. The end product from this kitchen adventure turned out to be this: 
Yeah, I know. It looks like dog dookie in a really awesome vintage souffle bowl. But it's actually my version of bread pudding: vegan chocolate bread pudding. Now, how did I go from a light and fruity cupcake to a rich, heavy, chocolate dessert? Well, I will tell you.My first mistake was to think that the wonderful color of pomegranate juice would translate in the cupcake batter. When I mixed it in, instead of turning the batter into this awesome magenta color like I thought it would, it turned kind of gray-ish brown. I'm still not even sure why/how that happened.
The second mistake I made was to think I could substitute all the liquid in my cupcake recipe that's usually almond milk for Pom juice. Well, I'm not a chemist, but I now know that something in the almond milk has a binding effect on the batter, and without it, it turns out looking like this:
Now, being the eternal optimist that I am, I thought that even if they weren't that pretty, that maybe if they tasted good enough I could convince you, the reader, that this was the perfect dessert to make, so long as you weren't giving them out to dinner guests and feeling your self-esteem crumble along with the cupcakes in their hands. But when I tasted them, there was nothing special about them. Not a terrible taste by any means, but it was plain Jane. 
Either the crumbling or the plain taste alone I could have put up with, but since the two of them were holding hands and sticking their tongues out at me together, I had to come up with something totally different. I lost no time.
I crumbled all the cupcakes into my souffle bowl (not that hard of a task!), but then was stuck on what I should add to the crumbled mess. That is, I was stuck until I thought of what makes EVERYTHING better....chocolate! So I quickly got to work making a liquidy chocolate sauce that would firm up in the oven just enough.
This called for some egg replacer, which as an aside, I want to know when the heck this packaging was designed, 1974? I bought this not that long ago, but every time I look at it, I am transported to the '70s. Which is not a bad thing.
I ended up with this delicious, molten, sticky, chocolatey, warm, gooey mess. Not the prettiest thing in the world, but a seriously good comfort food! Recipe below.
Ingredients:
2 cups flour
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup vegan butter
1 cup sugar
4 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup Pom juice
1 cup almond milk
1/2 cup vegan butter
5 oz. semi-sweet chocolate
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
3 tsp egg replacer
2 tsp vanilla extract
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
In a small bowl, sift together flour, salt, and baking soda.
In a medium bowl, combine sugar, vegan butter, apple cider vinegar, and vanilla extract until smooth. Add the flour mixture and combine until well incorporated. Stir in the Pom juice until the batter looks somewhat uniform.
Pour into a greased muffin tin and bake for about 19 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of each cupcake comes out clean.
Let cool in the tin, then, using a spoon, scoop out and put into a casserole dish and crumble finely with the spoon. Set aside.
Meanwhile, in a heavy-bottomed sauce pan, combine almond milk, vegan butter, chocolate and apple cider vinegar. Heat over low heat, stirring often to prevent the chocolate from burning. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk together 3 tsp of egg replacer with 4 Tbsp of water.
Once the chocolate and almond milk mixture has melted completely and is combined, stir in the egg replacer mixture and vanilla extract. Whisk well. You will start to feel it gelling fairly soon after you add this.
Pour over crumbled cupcakes and stir to cover all the crumbles with the chocolate mixture. Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes. Let cool and enjoy immediately.
Up until now, there haven't been any ridiculously extravagant or super rich desserts on here, so you might not have known that I am a lover of over-the-top rich desserts. Well, the secret is out, and this is the cake that outed me.
My best friend is leaving for Texas tomorrow for an undetermined amount of time, so for this reason I decided I was going to make a cake. I may or may not have instigated a going away party for the sole purpose of making said cake, but that is another matter entirely.
It was a wondrous night full of fantastic flavors, including but not limited to hot cider, a block of cheese the size of my head, snickerdoodle cookies, homemade Greek yogurt dip, and of course, this cake.
For how crazy it looks, it didn't take much time to prepare. And if you like desserts that look pristine, I wouldn't recommend this one. Because it is so rich, i skipped icing it for fear of overdoing it, and just poured melted chocolate all over the top and let it run down the sides. This proved to be a success, albeit a messy one.
Recipe below!
Ingredients:
2 cups flour
1 cup cocoa powder
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup vegan butter
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla
2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 cup almond milk
About 16 ounces coconut cream (not milk)
1/4 cup sugar
1 pint strawberries, quartered length-wise
3 1/2 ounces dark chocolate
2 Tbsp vegan butter
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a medium sized mixing bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar until smooth. Add the vanilla, apple cider vinegar, and almond milk. Mix until combined.
Add the flour mixture and stir (or use an electric mixer) to combine until the batter is smooth.
Pour equally into three very greased 9-inch cake tins. Smooth batter out so it is evenly distributed over each pan. Bake for about 22 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out of the center of each cake tin cleanly.
Let cool on a cooling rack in the cake tins for about 20 minutes. Then flip cake tin upside down and let cake fall out onto a smooth surface. You may need to bang the bottom of the pan (which is now the top since it's upside down) to get the cake to come out without crumbling.
Let cool completely.
Meanwhile, in a medium sized mixing bowl, pour coconut cream and sugar together. Beat with an electric mixer on a medium speed until soft peaks begin to form, about five minutes. Store in refrigerator, covered, until you're ready to assemble the cake.
Then, in a heavy-bottomed sauce pan, combine chocolate, cut into small pieces, and the butter. Melt together over low heat, stirring constantly to keep the chocolate from melting. If you have never melted chocolate on the stove top before, you may want to use a double boiler, since burning chocolate is so easy to do, and is also irreversible. (You can tell chocolate is burnt if it starts to look grainy instead of smooth.) Let this mixture cool to room temperature.
To assemble the cake, lay the first layer of cake on the platter you will be serving the cake from. Make sure it has a flat bottom big enough to lay the cake on entirely, and some room around the sides for rogue chocolate and coconut cream to slide onto. Then spread on about half of the coconut cream. Bring it right up to the edges of the cake. Then take half the strawberries and arrange so they cover the cream one layer thick. Try to keep them fairly level since your next cake layer will be balanced on them. Place the second cake layer on top of the strawberries and repeat.
Once the strawberries are on the second layer of coconut cream, place the last layer of the cake on the very top, then top with any remaining coconut cream. Then spoon the chocolate sauce onto the top and let it slide over the sides. If there's excess chocolate on your platter, spoon it up and pour it back on top.
Ta-da! Your cake is ready and probably looks delicious. Enjoy it with friends!
This is all that was left after the brunch potluck I made these for...and this one got snatched up at my house soon after! I got this recipe from Vegetarian Times. It's a pretty good one, although I have some adjustments in method. If you want to add sprinkles to yours like I did, i found that one bottle of sprinkles did the trick. These ones are peppermint flavored, which was a nice little surprise (I didn't even know they were flavored until I tried a mess-up one!).
The link to the recipe is here. I doubled the recipe and still only got two dozen doughnuts out of it, instead of three dozen. But maybe I made mine too big? Not sure. Also, I doubled the glaze recipe too, but there was no need. I had LOTS of left-over glaze, and I laid it on pretty thick. I also didn't heat the glaze before-hand, just mixed it in a bowl and added a Tablespoon of extra soy milk to make it thinner, which worked out fine. I would suggest that you let the doughnuts cool completely before you glaze them, as they firm up considerably after cooling, making it easier for them to hold together when you dunk in the glaze.
Hope you enjoy these! They were quite a treat.
I know what you're thinking...beets in cupcakes? But trust me, it's delicious. I first came across the idea of combining beets and chocolate in an issue of Vegetarian Times. The original recipe was for chocolate beet brownies, which I made with one of my friends who is obsessed with beets, and they were delicious.
I made these yesterday, in a rush, with an already messy kitchen. I abhor cooking under these conditions, but I was making them for a greater purpose other than for the sake of the blog. One of my dear friends was celebrating a birthday by potluck last night.
As an aside, I treat pot lucks like competitions, and I always try to have the tastiest/prettiest/most unique thing there. I am fairly neurotic, I know. This contributed to the reason I chose these cupcakes for her birthday potluck.
Also, making an actual birthday cake was out of the question. Everyone's afraid to make the first move on a cake at potlucks. So cupcakes it was.
This dear friend of mine also doesn't have a very big sweet tooth, so these really were the perfect choice. The actual cupcake part is not very sweet; the beets give it a subtle earthy flavor that complements the chocolate. The icing provides most of the sweetness, and contrasts, yet complements, the flavor of the cake.
Here are the ingredients you will need. After I had already taken this picture and began the baking process, I realized I forgot to add the salt to this picture, so you will need that too. And if you're short on time, you can used canned beats instead of fresh.
So pretty!
I am a messy cupcake pan filler! The batter comes out looking like a crazy burnt sienna color because of the beets, but they look more chocolatey once they bake.
When these come out of the oven, they are extremely fragile and hard to get out of the tin. I became despondent as I was failing at getting them out of the tin and onto the cooling rack until I got a crazy idea in my head. I put the cooling rack over the tin and then flipped it over, like you would a cake from a cake pan. GENIUS. They came out easy as....pie? Then I just flipped them over by hand after they had cooled and solidified.
I had this great idea for the frosting that didn't work out at all. I saw a flourless chocolate beet cupcake on ming makes cupcakes (number 31) where I fell in love with the fuchsia streak going through the topping, so I tried to replicate this in my own frosting. Little did I realize that the yellow color of the vegan butter would make the beet juice turn into this Eastery pastel color. Oh well.
They were a hit at the potluck, and hopefully you'll like them too! Recipe below.
Ingredients:
For cupcakes:
1 1/2 cup flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla
2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 cup pureed beets
1/2 cup almond milk (or soy milk)
For frosting: ***
1/2 cup plus 2 Tbsp Earth Balance vegan butter at room temperature
2 cups powdered sugar
2 Tbsp beet juice
Directions:
If using fresh beets, quarter two large raw beets and drop carefully into boiling water. Let boil for about 30 minutes, or until tender. Drain, reserving two Tablespoons of the pink liquid, peel, and puree. Set aside.
If using canned beats, drain 15-ounce can of beets, reserving two Tablespoons of the pink liquid, and puree. Set aside.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
In a medium-sized bowl, sift flour, cocoa powder, salt, and baking soda together. Set aside.
In a large bowl, mix shortening and sugar together. Add the vanilla, apple cider vinegar, and beets. Stir together.
Mix in flour mixture until smooth, and then add the almond milk. Mix until smooth.
Pour into a greased muffin tin until each compartment is about 2/3 full. Bake for 22 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the middle of each cupcake. Cool on drying rack.
To make icing, combine vegan butter, powdered sugar, and beet juice. Mix until smooth.
***For the icing, since I was in a hurry, I didn't take the time to use exact measurements on it. This was the best I could estimate. If the frosting seems soupy and doesn't hold its shape, add more powdered sugar by the quarter cup until desired consistency is reached. If it's too stiff, then add more beet juice by the teaspoon until desired consistency is reached.
Once the cakes are COMPLETELY cooled, frost each cupcake. With the above icing recipe, I had JUST enough to put one layer of frosting on each cupcake, so if you like to be liberal with your frosting, just double the recipe above.
Hope you enjoy this! Questions and comments are always appreciated.
I'm not sure I know anyone who can resist a chocolate chip cookie coming right out of the oven. There are so many variations to them, and everyone has their own tastes. There's chewy, crunchy, sparse chocolate, mostly chocolate, thin, thick, with nuts and without. The list could go on.
These cookies are of the chewy variety, and since I like a little more texture than just the chips, but am not a huge fan of nuts in cookies, I add oatmeal. This is a very adaptable recipe for all types of cookie fans, and I'll let you know where you can vary the ingredients to suit your cookie tastes.
Here's the ingredients that I used.
I like to use butter-flavored vegetable shortening rather than vegan butters because this makes the cookies stay softer over time. I also make sure the banana has a lot of brown spots so the flavor is sweeter and it's easier to mash up. When all the ingredients are mixed together, it looks a little like this:
Then line them up in a row...
And wait for the first batch to be done so you can put the other batch in...
And they come out looking gorgeous!
And as an aside, I have a slight obsession with owl trinkets. They're all over my house, and I like to show them off, so most of my baked goods will be featured alongside an owl just for kicks. The recipe for these cookies, along with variations, is below. Enjoy!
Vegan Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies:
Ingredients:
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) vegetable shortening
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 very ripe banana
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chips
- 1 1/2 cups old fashioned oats
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a medium-sized bowl, sift flour, salt, and baking soda together. Set aside.
In a large bowl, combine shortening, brown sugar, sugar, banana and vanilla. Beat with an electric mixer or a fork until smooth.
Pour half of the flour mixture into the sugar mixture. Mix until combined. Pour the remaining half of the flour mixture into the sugar mixture and mix until combined. Mix in chocolate chips and oatmeal.
Place by rounded Tablespoons onto ungreased baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes, or until very lightly browned. These cookies don't spread out a lot, so be sure not to overcook them waiting for them to flatten.
Variations:
If you like your cookies to be crunchy instead of chewy, then substitute a vegan butter for the shortening (such as Earth Balance) and the brown sugar with plain sugar. If you use Earth Balance, you should cut the salt down to 1/2 a teaspoon since their butter is pre-salted. When you lay them out onto the baking sheet, then press them down so they are flat. This way, they will be thinner when you take them out and eating them won't feel oppressive.
If you like less chocolate, or would like to add nuts, then either use only one cup chocolate chips, or use one cup chocolate chips and one cup nuts.
If you would like a healthier version of these cookies, you can substitute dried fruit (such as raisins or dried cranberries or dried blueberries) for the chocolate chips. Use the same amount.
I hope you enjoy this recipe! It's one i come back to over and over again. Comments and questions are always appreciated.
