peanut buttah cups!

This is a super simple recipe for one of my favorite candies of all time! I made these for valentines day for my special someone in a heart shaped silicone ice cube tray, but you can make them in whatever you want, I recommend the little paper baking cups to get a more traditional feel!

you will need: double boiler or something similar, you need to melt the chocolate slowly so it doesn't burn! the microwave won't cut it dummy!
paper or foil baking cups, any size you want.
a heat proof rubber spatula to mix up your chocolate
a small spoon to ensure chocolate gets in all the right places
an electric mixer would be super swell but you can use arm power too!

ingredients:
one 12 oz bag chocolate chips
1c creamy peanut butter (i like skippy)
1c confectioners sugar

Directions:

pour chocolate chips into double boiler and let them melt, stir it up every couple of minutes to make sure they melt evenly.

in a medium bowl combine peanut butter and powdered sugar until well mixed! I use a hand mixer but I'm sure your arm will do just fine. This will be super thick and clumpy!

set out your little baking cups so they are ready to go, the yield of this recipe is very dependent on how thick you make your chocolate. Line the bottom and sides of the baking cups put in the freezer to harden, this will make it so when you put the peanut butter in it doesn't escape the chocolate later! That sneaky peanut butter is always trying to escape! that little goober rascal!

once your cups are hardened slightly pull them out and put a dollop of peanut butter in each one, then use the rest of your melted chocolate to cover the tops and place in freezer again to harden. After a few minute these babies will be ready to go and making your roommates mouth water! These are so easy even non vegans might be swayed from ever buying them in the store again! (a girl can dream!)

If you make these in silicone ice cube trays to get cool holiday shapes make sure you freeze them a little longer cause those buggers are a hassle to get out and will break if the chocolate is not thick enough or cold enough!

ENJOY!

I scream, you scream!

Hello again. I have recently jumped head first into the world of home made ice cream. First of all, it has a much wider array of flavors than what you can find at the store, if you can dream it, you can do it! Secondly, holy crap it tastes so much better than anything I have ever bought in a store! Its mind blowing-ly good! Its fresh and creamy and frozen and wonderful! Thirdly, you can add oreos or sprinkles or chocolate chips to ANY flavor of ice cream you want. I am in love!

On Thursday night my best friend Tessa and I made Almond ice cream and pistachio ice cream, BOTH of them turned out amazing but she made off with all the pistachio so here is the recipe for the almond one. I got it out of this cookbook... (errr freezebook? how about recipe book) called the Vegan Scoop.

Almond Ice Cream.

You will need:

1 c. almond milk (divided)
2 tbsp. arrowroot powder (this stuff is super expensive at your local health food store or super cheap online in bulk!)
2 c. soy creamer (this usually comes in 1 pint packages = perfect)
3/4 c. sugar
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
1 tbsp. almond extract
3/4 c/ roasted chopped almonds (i put mine in the blender after i roasted them to make a mix of chunks and almond dust to give my ice cream a nice consistency!)

In a small bowl combine 1/4 c. almond milk and your arrowroot powder to make what they like to call "arrowroot cream" set that aside until you're ready for it. You think you're ready for it now? Nope, you're not.

In a small sauce pan, combine the rest of the almond milk, the soy creamer and the sugar, mix well and bring to a boil, and then remove from heat and add the "arrowroot cream" and your extracts. Put mixture into the fridge for several hours to cool, or if you are an impatient sweet maniac like me, in the freezer. Make sure to check it every hour or so to make sure it doesn't turn into a popsicle! When it's nice and cold you're ready!

Freeze according to your ice cream maker's instructions! If you are using a machine, leave the almond nuggets to the side until your ice cream is thoroughly churned and almost done, if you're using some sort of salt and ice technique mix them in whenever you feel good about it. Make sure you don't clog up any mechanisms or whatever. I dunno how cavemen make ice cream, I just know how I do, and its the laziest way possible.

Congratulations! You now have about 1 quart of tasty ice cream to get all over your chubby little face! All of your friends are jealous! Remember to share! HOORAY!

Okay so I have horribly, horribly, neglected my blog this past year, and I promise to be better, I promise! I moved a lot, and got a lot of funky gizmos that bake for me and made me lazy... I also just got an electric ice cream maker which I can also see making me terribly lazy and fat in the near future! BUT, I do love to cook still I think I have just been stuck making other people's recipes and not being creative. I still love you food. I promise to treat you right this year. more recipes, coming soon.

HAPPY EASTER!!

I am not so good at frosting, but you get the gist. I like the one in the middle, he's a CYCLOPS!
(I totally did that on purpose!)

ice cream cake: the tutorial

Ice cream cakes are hard to make, I discovered this when my friend Ashley made one and I watched her frustration as it melted and got all wonky and didn't stay frozen. This made me want to make my own ice cream cake, and it also helped me be prepared for all of the wonky crap I might have to deal with. I made this cake for my friend Jess's birthday and I wanted to post all the cool pictures I took to help you the reader, make your own perfect un-wonky ice cream cakes! I promise to post a cake recipe soon but until then I recommend you pick up "vegan cupcakes take over the world" which is where I get all my cake recipes from.



I used a spring form pan for the ice cream, this makes it easier to pop the ice cream out in one piece without it breaking in half of getting all melty. I coated the bottom in wax paper and actually clamped it in there so the sides wouldn't be all wrinkly ice cream looking.



Use two pints of your favorite vegan ice cream, Jess likes strawberry so I used the only strawberry ice cream I could find. You would think strawberry ice cream would be a staple in vegan ice cream world since it is so important in non vegan ice cream world but no, I never see it anywhere. Its kinda effed up.



Mash that shit down and put wax paper on it and squish it all flat through the wax paper with your fingers so it hits the sides and you know is as flat as possible. Put it in the freezer! This needs to freeze overnight for maximum strong cake mode.


Now that that's out of the way you have time to make the cake!! Dig up your favorite cake recipe and bake it, then put it in the freezer for a few hours to make sure that its cool!! Make sure the cake is completely cold before trying to combine it with the ice cream layer because a warm cake will make the ice cream melt!



I separated my cakes with a layer of wax paper for maximum freezer storage. Don't stack them without a dividing layer cause they will get stuck together. Use some plastic wrap or wax paper, aluminum will stick to the frozen cake and so will paper. Don't be a dummy!! SCIENCE!!


Ice cream layer!!!!


GIANT ICE CREAM SANDWICH!!! (if you hate frosting eat it like this!! ) This is the part where you freak out and panic and try to rush! OH GOD HURRY FROST IT BEFORE IT MELTS!!


Strawberry butter cream frosting! I made this with real strawberries, that pink is all natural. I would post the recipe but unfortunately its not a stable frosting in non ice cream cake situations and gets all separatey and I don't want to do that to you guys, it was hard to deal with it. Also it was a disgusting mess when it got warm!!


I cut up strawberries and put them on top, oohh la la only the best for my Jess. She was stoked. Life is beautiful, and so is this ice cream cake. BOO YAH! Okay now you make one and send me pictures (and save me a piece!!)

Abuelita frosting

This is a bit of a variation on a theme. I have always felt that birthdays are a day for celebrating, what better way to celebrate with a cake? Honestly, in my opinion, a birthday without cake is a piss poor birthday. Since I live my life by this celebratory kredo I always tend to be the one making the cakes. I am a big fan of a vanilla cake, but sometimes I get a little crazy with the frosting. I like trying new things. One time I made vanilla frosting with TANG drink mix in it, it was pretty awesome and had little orange flavor bursts! YUM. This time I decided to take the new cinnamon extract out for a whirl, in the fashion of my favorite regional hot chocolate "abuelita"




Ingredients:
1/4 cup margarine
1/4 cup shortening
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2 1/2 cups confectioners sugar
3 Tbsp "milk"
approximately 3 dashes of ground cinnamon (i shook the thing thrice)
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon extract.



Beat together the margarine and shortening until smooth, add cocoa powder and beat until well mixed. Add in powdered sugar 1/2 cup at a time separated by dashes of "milk" to keep the party going. Once the sugar is completely mixed in and smooth add the cinnamon extract to spice things up a little and beat the heck out of that to make sure its well dispersed.



Spread this stuff all over your cakes, cupcakes or whatever you want. My roommate put my leftover frosting on some waffles this morning, it was a little weird but so is he. If you want to do it too that makes it less weird.

Yummy Banana French Toast

mmmm whippy!

Being a vegan, you gotta get pretty creative to revamp recipes that normally use eggs. I most frequently use bananas but have also used ground flax, apple sauce and this weird cool powder called ener-g egg replacer I get at my local natural foods store.

Anyway this was made for me by my (idk bff) Rich. He always makes me delicious food and I love him forever for it (along with many other valid reasons) it was kind of a "thrown together" type of deal so I re-made it today with more of a recipe feel.

Ingredients:
1 banana
1 cup "milk"
1/4 cup flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp corn starch (for thickening!)
1 tsp vanilla extract
6 Slices of bread

Toppings:
Whatever you want really. I recommend confectioners sugar, margarine and agave nectar. Also the old standby maple syrup. Chocolate sauce, peanut butter, jam... I could go on for days! Yum!

Directions:
Break out that blender or food processor and mix all ingredients (minus the bread duh) together until smooth! Put the mixture in a flat bottomed bowl (big enough to lay the bread flat in!)
Get a medium sized pan and use a little margarine to coat the pan.



On medium low heat warm up your pan, I always work with an already warm pan so my food cooks evenly! Lay a slice o' bread in the batter bowl and coat both sides, don't let it sit too long, no one likes soggy toast. Put it in the pan and let it cook maybe 2 minutes on each side, I don't know how well your stove works so you better just check it. The toast is done when its a toasty light brown!

see the burnt looking one? I did that when I was taking pictures for you fine people DOH!

Top with a slab of margarine, a sprinkling of powdered sugar and some agave or maple syrup! Okay now bring me my breakfast in bed! Enjoy!!