Bread Pudding, Cupcakes and Cookies

Here are a few favorite desserts made within the past few months, all packed into one delicious post.

Banana Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding from Veganomicon. I made this to take to a brunch and became a fan of bread pudding for the first time in my life.

Chocolate Cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. I opted for a sprinkle of powdered sugar instead of frosting.

Vanilla cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World topped with strawberry jam, a strawberry, and a drizzle of powdered sugar icing (powdered sugar and oat milk).

Dark Chocolate Chunk Marzipan Cookies from the blog 'seitan is my motor'. 

Anniversary Dinner!

John and I celebrated our 2 year wedding anniversary with this lovely dinner. I did most of the prep work the day before (Sunday) so I could have it on the table at a decent dinner time (Monday). The meal included:

Cashew Nut Loaf stuffed with Garlic and Mushrooms
Silky Chickpea Gravy
Butternut Coconut Rice
Green Beans with Truffle Oil and Sea Salt
Lemon Macadamia Nut Cupcakes with Lemon Buttercream Frosting

So, the loaf is excellent. My mother-in-law made if for Christmas dinner last year and John specifically requested it for this meal. Instead of making a stuffing (an option in the recipe), there is a layer of sauteed garlic and mushrooms in the middle (assembly process shown below). I have always shied away from nut loafs because of a previous, bad experience. Fortunately, this one has turned me back on to the concept.

I used a combo of almonds, pecans, and cashews. For the bread crumbs, I used a combo of panko and crushed spelt crackers (I didn't realize that I didn't have enough crumbs until it was too late to go buy more! But, it worked out very well.)

The gravy is rich and thick and salty and sage-flavored. It went nicely with the loaf.

I do not have a link to the Butternut Coconut Rice, which is a complete shame because it was the highlight of the meal! I am not a huge fan of rice, but I will make this recipe any and every time I can find a butternut squash at the grocery store! It is a combo of garlic and ginger along with sesame oil, shallot, lime, red pepper flakes, and topped off with creamy coconut milk. We also sprinkled toasted coconut on top. It is addictive stuff! And even better, the recipe is from Appetite for Reduction.

The green beans were sauteed in a touch of truffle oil and sea salt.

And finally, the dessert! I bought new cupcake liners (silicon) and was really excited to try them out. They worked very nicely, left no paper waste, released the cupcakes very easily and in perfect shape, and were easy to clean.

The recipe is from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. The cupcakes are tangy and fruity while the macadamia nuts are crunchy and delicious! I did substitute almond meal for the macadamia nut meal and, in the frosting, coconut oil instead of shortening.

We also had Tofutti Strawberry flavored icecream. Unfortunately, we were very disappointed. The flavor was so bad we are considering writing the company. John even suggested that we somehow got a 'bad batch' because of how awful it tastes. It is reminds me of some horrible chemical strawberry flavoring. It is organic and I am usually not disappointed with the brand (LOVE the icecream sandwiches). But, in this case, we will never buy this product again!  

Vegan MoFo: J is for Jelly Donut Cupcake

I had such high hopes for this recipe, but I was sadly disappointed. First, as you can see in the picture, my jelly did not "sink to the center" of the cupcakes. Second, I was not impressed with the flavor of strawberry jelly I bought. And third, although the cupcake was really delicious, I just didn't taste jelly donut.

At any rate, here is the recipe.

My lovely husband did comment that even my worst cupcake is delicious. :-)

Here is a picture before they were baked.

Vegan MoFo: D is for Devil's Food Cupcakes

 Today is John's birthday so I used my letter d to make him birthday cupcakes. I followed this recipe but did not make the filling part. I made cream cheese frosting from this recipe.

We are leaving tomorrow for Hamburg, Germany to spend a long weekend shopping and relaxing with friends and then we will see Jamie Lidell perform Monday night! So, I will have to pick back up with my alphabet postings when I return.

Cupcakes

I have never been to the office John works in, and he asked me to come visit this week so I am going in for lunch today. I thought it would be fun to bring cupcakes (plus, he asked me to!) and my Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World cookbook has been feeling neglected lately. So, I made the Hazelnut Cupcakes with Mocha Hazelnut Mouse Filling and they turned out delicious. The ganache on top is made with Ricemilk chocolate!
Here is a picture featuring the inside mocha deliciousness.



And, Vanilla Cookies and Cream Cupcakes. They consisted of this vanilla cupcake recipe, plus 10 crushed up oreo cookies mixed into the batter. The frosting is Vegan Fluffy Buttercream Frosting with 5 crushed up oreos mixed in and half an oreo on top. Yum!

Chocolate Cupcakes with Coconut Pecan Fudge Frosting

John and I recently returned from a trip to Paris for Christmas. While traveling home, we stopped for a layover in Zurich. John was completely obsessed with buying a chocolate bar there. Swiss chocolate, blah, blah! I was not really into it, so I declined to buy one for myself. He never ate his, we got home, and he returned to work leaving me home alone with said chocolate bar. Needless to say, he caught me only because I left the wrapper on the counter. So, to make up for this candy bar robbery, I made him a delicious dessert. This cupcake recipe is the most amazing ever. The frosting is heaven on earth. And, served with soy vanilla bean ice cream, I can think of (or taste) nothing more divine!

Chocolate Mint Cupccakes

Favorite cupcakes ever!!! It all started with a trip to my favorite grocery store here in Portland, Food Fight. I noticed they had these really cute pastel M&M like candies. They are called Whizzers Chocolate Beans. I remembered seeing them on top of a mint flavored cupcake in my cookbook Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. The mission began to put these cute little candies to use. The one problem I came upon was the green food coloring that was called for. I did not want to buy regular food coloring because I have found many different sources that identify disgusting animal ingredients and/or chemicals used to create the coloring. I wanted a vegetable based source but let me tell you, this was not as easy as I was hoping! Thanks to google, I ended up finding a company called India Tree that makes vegetable based food coloring. I called every grocery/kitchen store in the area and no one had the product! I was just about to give up when I decided to take a trip to Whole Foods and search their shelves myself. On my way, I passed a fancy kitchen store, Sur La Table, and decided to check. Sure enough, they had exactly what I was looking for! Three colors come in the set and they mix together to make a variety of other colors. Now, I have to be honest about one ingredient, glycerin. The yellow and blue contain this ingredient. My assumption is that the glycerin is vegetable based considering the whole concept of the coloring is vegetables! But, I have not done any research into the actual origin of the glycerin. Therefore, I can't say for sure if it is vegan! But, I feel 100% confident that even if it isn't vegetable based glycerin, it is better for me that the chemicals in regular green food coloring.
So, I finally had the ingredients I needed and decided to make these delicious cupcakes for John and his co-workers, otherwise I would have eaten all 12 of them myself! The cupcake is the Basic Chocolate Cupcake recipe but includes 1 teaspoon of mint extract added to the wet ingredients. The recipe for the mint icing is on page 73 of the cookbook, if the link doesn't take you directly to that page. The chocolate on top is the same Rich Ganache I used on my 4th of July cupcakes. Again, these cupcakes are irresistible. I highly recommend having somewhere to take them or others to give them away to or you will probably devour them all yourself!

Chocolate Creme Filled Cupcakes

These also went to the 4th of July BBQ. I worked for almost an hour at a cute icing flower for the top of them, but failed miserably! So, I settled for red sprinkles. The chocolate cupcake recipe is so good, moist, and basically never fails. It is from the Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World cookbook. I put a filling in the cupcakes that consisted of a stick of Earth Balance vegan shortening, a tub of Ricemellow Creme (be careful! This stuff is addicting), powdered sugar, and a little vanilla and salt. These ingredients got tossed into the food processor and mixed. I then squirted them into the cupcakes until they started to break apart. I have since purchased a better device for filling that will hopefully prevent so much cracking of the cupcakes. The frosting is from the same cookbook and is called Rich Chocolate Ganache Topping. It is ridiculously good. Boil 1/4 cup almond milk, remove from heat. Add 4 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped, and 2 tablespoons pure maple syrup. Mix until chocolate is melted. Set aside at room temp until ready to use.

Peanut Butter Cupcakes

We have a birthday party to go to tomorrow night so I decided to make Peanut Butter Cupcakes to bring. The recipe came from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. I made a few changes. Instead of soy milk, I used Almond and instead of canola oil, I used safflower. I also substituted dark molasses for maple syrup.

Carrot Cuppies w/Candied Walnuts

This is the same recipe I used for the carrot cake a few posts back. The only change I made was letting the batter sit for about 15 minutes before pouring it into the baking cups. It allowed the oil to soak in and the carrots to soften more. The recipe made about 2 dozen cupcakes but left a lot of leftover frosting! The cupcakes are so moist, they started to pull away from the paper as soon as I took them out of the pan to cool.
I added candied walnuts to the top. My friend Ariel gave me this recipe.
1 cup walnuts
4 tablespoons Earth Balance Butter
a splash of vanilla
a sprinkle of salt
1/2 cup brown sugar

Mix and bake for about 10 minutes at 350.