Magic Peanut Butter Kisses

So... I have celiac disease. My life has been blissfully more comfortable since giving up the gluten (and the withdrawals were awful!) and I've had to relearn everything about baking. I'm still learning. But these cookies were a pretty good success for a night at home on New Year's Eve, reminiscent of the very non vegan peanut butter kiss cookies with the Hershey candy. This recipe closely follows Elana's Pantry's peanut butter cookie recipe.

Ingredients:

2 cups almond flour*
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup creamy peanut butter
Pinch salt, if unsalted PB
1/4 cup agave
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 tsp molasses
4 tbsp coconut oil
1 tbsp vanilla (I used Cook's cookie vanilla)

About 1/4 cup sugar for coating uncooked cookies (I used half turbinado and half vanilla sugar).
About 24 bite sized pieces of chocolate.

*I used Bob's Red Mill blanched almond flour. In the past I had some random almond meal (from Trader Joe's?), and it was ground almonds with the skins on them, which made for kind of a gritty, bitter final product in everything I made. Blanched almonds have their skins removed, so the resulting flour is softer, sweeter, and a little more flexible in baked goods, I'm finding. I'm really impressed. I just wish it was cheaper.

Directions:

Mix ingredients well (I used a stand mixer for about 2 minutes), adding a little more almond flour if too sticky to handle. Scoop tablespoonfuls into sugar and roll to coat. Flatten slightly on parchment covered cookie sheets, and bake at 350f for 8-10 minutes, until browned. Press chocolate chunk into each cookie and allow to cool on baking sheet for 5-10 minutes before transferring to cooling racks.

chocolate mint bundt cake

chocolate mint bundt cake
Originally uploaded by broken dolly

tasty and delicious!

ingredients:

1 1/2 cups soymilk
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
4 generous tbsp cocoa powder
2 cups flour

directions:

preheat oven to 350f and grease a bundt pan. mix wet ingredients, sift in dry. mix well. bake 37-40min, until a toothpick comes out clean.


for the icing:

melt 12 oz. vegan chocolate chips in a double boiler, add 1/4 cup soymilk and 1 tbsp peppermint extract. allow cake and icing to come to room temperature before frosting. cake is moist, so take care not to break up the cake.

store cake covered in fridge to keep the ganache/icing from melting.

brownies

this was an attempt at rescuing a broken recipe a friend tried to use. i had a sweet tooth and it was a good excuse to attempt vegan brownies. pre-vegan days, i was not a cake brownie fan, but preferred them fudgey and gooey and practically oozing into your mouth from your hands. i'm still hoping to find that someday in a vegan treat, but in the meantime, these aren't too bad. they're cakey but extremely moist. they'd probably do well drizzled with a raspberry or strawberry sauce, peanut butter frosting, or turned into a cake or torte. however, in the interest of simplicity at 2am, i just sprinkled a little powdered sugar on top and left them on the counter as a treat for my hard-working fiance when he gets home.

ingredients:

1/2 a 12oz aseptic package tofu (about 1 cup)
1/2 cup soymilk
1/3 cup canola oil
2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups sugar
2/3 cup cocoa powder
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder

directions:

preheat oven to 350f. grease an 8x8 pan and dust the bottom with cocoa.

in a blender, puree the tofu with the soymilk until smooth. if you have a really great blender, throw in all the other ingredients and go to town. if your blender isn't that brave, scrape out the tofu mixture into a large mixing bowl, add the other ingredients, and mix well. it'll be pretty thick. pour into the prepared pan and bake for 30-35 minutes. a toothpick inserted will not come out clean, but it'll be obvious when the center isn't batter any longer.

cool on a wire rack, and remove from pan before cutting, or cut away. i actually don't seem to own an 8x8 brownie pan that's sufficient for brownies, so i used one of my good cake rounds, and wasn't going to carve it up with a knife-- hence the wire rack. you do what makes you happy :)

alm-ella

this is my almondy version of the popular chocolate hazelnut spread. another photo-less post, simply because, well, i'm lazy. and you can imagine what a bowl of melty chocolate looks like. i will say that my only complaint about how this recipe turned out was that the almonds did not turn to a paste or almond butter consistency like i wanted it to, but i am not sure if that's the fault (or nature) of the almonds, or my failing food processor, because it was making some terrible noises!

this was my test recipe for a "how stuff works" project for my teaching physical science class. if it came out more like that commercial spread, i'd likely have used it, but it was kind of gritty. tasty, but gritty. so i'll just make hummus for my physics class. :)


ingredients:

1 cup skinned almonds
1 1/2 tsp almond extract
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup confectioners sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
10 tbsp almond oil

directions:

grind up the almonds in a food processor until pasty (or at least powdery). add the extracts, sugar, and cocoa, and about half the oil, and puree until pasty and chocolatey. use a spatula to scrape the sides occasionally. add the rest of the oil a little at a time (you may not need to add it all), until you've reached a consistency you like.

serve with graham crackers! i'm sure this would also be great warmed as a fondue for fruits and pound cake and other delicious things.

chocolate pudding!

this was pretty quick, and pretty tasty. it set up really thick after few hours in the fridge, so i suspect decreasing the cooking time would make it thinner, if that's your preference.

ingredients:
2 cups soymilk
1/2 cup sugar
3 tbsp cornstarch (i packed it in pretty well, more thickening)
1/3 cup cocoa
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract

directions:whisk everything but the extracts in a medium saucepan and heat on medium until the mixture starts to bubble. it'll thicken quick, so take it off the heat. add extracts.

ladle into ramekins or dessert dishes, or beaker mugs, as you see fit... makes 4 1/2-cup servings, but i only got 3, because of how much the pudding stuck to the saucepan and ladle and whatnot.

we're all pudding lovers, so next time i'm doubling the recipe.

variations: i think this may work really well and faster with chocolate soymilk vs. plain, and omit the cocoa, but that'll have to be tested another day. this came out like a dark chocolate taste, and wasn't terribly sweet. i'm sure splenda could be used instead of sugar, for a lower calorie recipe (and even try unsweetened soymilk, with increased powdered sweetener). chocolate extract may add to the choco flavor goodness.

also: perhaps vanilla soymilk, more vanilla extract (or vanilla beans!), and a little extra cornstarch for a vanilla variety.

the possibilities are endless and i LOVE pudding!

original recipe slightly modified from "Vegan With A Vengeance" by Isa Chandra Moskowitz.

pumpkin cheesecake cups

ingredients (for the crust):

1 1/2 cup graham cracker crumbs
4 tbsp margarine, melted
2 tbsp sugar

ingredients (for the cheesecake):

1 cup (8 oz) vegan cream cheese
1 pkg tofu in aseptic container (like mori-nu)
1/4 cup agave nectar
1/4 cup sugar
2 tbsp cornstarch
1 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
4 tbsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg

directions:

preheat oven to 350F. line cupcake pan with liners of your choice.

for the crust:

mix crust ingredients together until blended, and put about 1/8 cup in the bottom of each cupcake liner, and press down the crust with another cupcake liner, or bottom of a shot glass, or something similar.

for the cheesecake:

in a blender or food processor, mix the first 7 cheesecake ingredients, through the vanilla, until extremely smooth and creamy. put about 2 tbsp of this mixture in the bottom of each cheesecake wrapper. it's okay if it's not completely level, because the end result won't be level either.

to the remaining mixture, add the rest of the ingredients, and blend until extremely smooth. divide mixture among the cupcakes (about 1/2 cup per cupcake liner), and leave the mixture heaping in the middle. (it will flatten when baking.)

bake for 30-35 minutes, until tops look set (slightly drier than how they started). allow to cool (preferably on wire rack) and then transfer to the refrigerator. they're edible after a few hours (3 or 4) but they get positively amazing after setting overnight in the fridge.

modified from the fat free vegan blog.