Banana Maple Bread

I wasn't sure what to do when I woke up extremely early this Saturday morning when I didn't have pastry school at 8am, so what did I do? I got in the kitchen and baked. First I prepared custard cups for creme caramel to be finished later that day. Then, feeling once again inspired by Love Veggies and Yoga's simple/healthy/vegan/gluten free/delicious recipes, I made a tiny batch of banana maple muffins. They were insanely delicious with strong maple flavor and a nice chewy texture. I love this recipe because all you need is a fork and a large bowl to mix the ingredients in- barely any mess! All of the ingredients can be found at Trader Joe's too.

With just one over-ripe banana, this recipe makes four muffins. You could easily multiple the ingredients by three, and get a dozen muffins.

A few days later I multiplied this recipe by SIX (I had to get rid of six bananas, ok!?) and it was still delicious. I tried swapping crunchy peanut butter for the almond butter and next time I will stick with almond butter, the flavor profile matched the other ingredient's flavors better.


The best is when you get a little pocket of maple syrup in the muffin, yummm.

Banana Maple Muffins
vegan, gluten free

Ingredients (to make 4 muffins):

• 2 tbsp ground flax seeds
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 tbsp pure maple syrup
• 1 medium over-ripe banana, mashed
• 1/3 cup unsalted raw almond butter
• 1/3 cup almond flour (or 3/4 cup all purpose flour and 1/4 cup whole wheat flour)
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 350F. Mix flax seeds through banana in a medium bowl until well combined. In another bowl mix together the flour(s) through salt. Mix the dry ingredients in to wets until well combined. Pour the batter in to lined muffin tins. Bake for about 18-24 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle of a muffin comes out clean.

Raw Peanut Butter Power Cookies

More raw power cookies! The 'power' is for all the good-for-you stuff that goes in them. Raw cookies are also appealing because they are just so easy to make on a work night, then you have a healthy snack throughout the week. And, if you work at a San Francisco Bay Area tech start-up, chances are your co-workers will be foodies and not be scarred to try something labeled, 'vegan', or 'gluten-free', or 'healthy' and 'cookie' in the same sentence.

 Raw Vegan Gluten Free Peanut Butter Cookies

2/3 C natural peanut butter (chunky or smooth)
1 C almond flour
1/4 C ground flax seed
1/4 C unsweetened shredded coconut (first, toast it lightly in the oven to bring out more flavor)
2 tbsp agave nectar
1 tbsp pure maple syrup
1 tbsp vanilla paste
White chocolate chips to top (premium quality- crappy white chocolate chips may contain hydrogenated and sometimes animal fat, always check the label...)

Mix it all together and shape into cookies.

Vegan Banana Buttercream Frosting

It's been a year since we celebrated my roommates birth with an epic white chocolate banana birthday cake. This year she once again asked for something baked with banana and for the first time I actually had no over-ripe bananas!

Improvising, I tried to incorporate (vegan) banana buttercream filling into (vegan) chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting on top. Adding real banana, or any fruit to buttercream frosting causes it to separate and loose its texture, but it still worked for the filling and no one else seemed to notice ;)

For fun I added a (vegan) hand-rolled Belgium chocolate truffle on top of the peanut butter frosting.

My favorite flavor combination was actually the one cupcake that was dipped in chocolate ganache because I ran out of peanut butter frosting. It reminded me of a Hostess Cupcake but with a fresh, natural, banana, (and better) filling. It looked just like one and had the same texture without the weird sugar film you get in your mouth after eating Hostess products.

These cakes looked totally awesome, but I didn't take pictures except for this crappy one I took with my 3g phone. With this cupcake, I threw everything on it: banana buttercream filling, peanut butter frosting, a tiny chocolate truffle, then all dipped in chocolate ganache... tasty but messy looking.

Gina's (http://ginaespo.blogspot.com/) photo!

I realized I should have taken a picture of the Hostess look-a-like once I had eaten ½ of it, but I really didn’t want to stop to grab the camera. 

I plan to experiment with the banana frosting a couple more times- First with folding finely mashed banana in at the end and then possibly try heating up mashed banana, letting it cool and then folding it in at the end. Once I do all this, I'll update the blog.

Vegan Banana Cupcakes with Fluffy Peanut Butter Frosting

It seems I am working my way through Isa and Terry's Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, similarly to how Julie cooked her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking (here is the archived Julie/Julia Project blog), but this is a much smaller task and more enjoyable- I don't have to worry about lobster murder, or even any animal products at all :)

cooling

After one bite my roommate says, "never make banana bread again, just these cupcakes."

I love that this process is happening organically. This past weekend I had no intention of baking but I  ran into the recurring problem of over-ripe bananas in the kitchen and felt the recurring compulsion to make something out of them rather then toss the. So I turned to the book and loosely followed their recipe for Banana Cupcakes. Here it is:

Vegan Banana Cupcakes

Ingredients

• 2 over-ripe bananas (3/4 cup)
• 1 1/4 C flour
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 C granulated sugar
• 1/3 C canola oil
• 2/3 C unsweetened plain soy, almond or rice milk
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp almond extract
• 1/4 C chopped chocolate

Preheat oven to 350F and line cupcake pan with liners

Mash bananas until their are no chunks. Sift flour, baking soda, powder, salt and sugar into a large bowl and mix.  In a medium bowl, whisk together the oil, milk, vanilla, almond extract and bananas. Create a well in the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.

Fill cupcake tins 2/3 full. Sprinkle some chocolate pieces into each cupcake and swirl it gently into the batter with 2-3 stirs. Bake for 20-22 minutes until a knife/toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Vegan Peanut Butter Frosting

Ingredients

• 3/4 C Crisco butter flavor shortening
• 2/3 C peanut butter (whatever type you prefer)
• 3 tsp vanilla extract
• 2-2 1/2 C confectioner's sugar
• 3-4 tbsp soy, almond, rice milk or soy creamer

With an electric hand-held mixer, cream the shortening until smooth. Add the peanut butter and vanilla and beat until very smooth (2-3 minutes). Beat in sugar. As the mixture begins to stiffen, add in the milk a tiny bit at a time. Beat until frosting is light in color and super fluffy (around 5 minutes). Make sure cupcakes are cool and frost away!

Vegan Raspberry Chip Cookies

They taste just like regular cookies!

These are an amazing alternative to chocolate chip cookies. This recipe was so good that I am going to experiment with other types of cookies with this recipe as the base (like oatmeal raisin, sugar cookies, etc.)

oops, I ate one

Vegan Raspberry Chip Cookies

• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 2/3 cup canola oil
• 1/4 cup unsweetened, plain soy milk
• 1 tbsp tapioca flour
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract

• 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 cups chocolate chip
• 3/4 cups raspberry "tidbits" (or any flavor chips, nuts, dried fruit, etc. you like) 

The only thing that isn't great about this recipe is the dough- it's oily and strange, I recommend waiting until they're baked ;)

Super Vegan Pancakes

Dear Gina, I turned your pancakes vegan, I hope you're OK with that...

If this makes you uncomfortable, please find comfort in knowing that they rocked- wish you where here to eat them with me!

Vegan Pancakes

(with banana, wheat germ & ground flax seed)

• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 3 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tbsp wheat germ
• 1 tbsp flax seed meal
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 1/2 cups unsweetened, plain soy milk
• 3 tbsp melted margarine (earth balance)
• 1-2 very ripe bananas, thinly sliced into disks

Mix everything except for the banana slices together. Once well-mixed, stir in the banana. Scoop the batter onto a hot, margarined pan/skillet.

If you want thinner pancakes, add more soy milk and maybe a tbsp of canola oil.

Vegan Cherry Bourbon Brownie Cupcakes

Last weekend I made vegan brownies, or what I thought where going to be vegan brownies. It turned out to be more like a loaf of chocolate bread. ... Pretty disappointing.

A week later, after gathering all of the ingredients I was finally ready to make Isa and Terry's Brooklyn Brownie cupcakes, hoping to get my vegan brownie.  But first I had to pick up black cherry preserves, whiskey (a bit unusual I was out of this one) and soy yogurt (harder to find in my area of SF then I thought).

I wish you could smell this! (Melted Ghirardelli chocolate, cherry bourbon wet ingredients and chocolatey dry ingredients)

The batter tasted kind of like whiskey :)

The cupcakes were moist and sweet and the hints of cherry and whiskey were a flavorful surprise nestled in the middle of the cupcake. But still not at resembling the amazing cakey/fudgy texture of my uber chocolatey brownies. The next challenge is to take my recipe and turn it vegan while trying to keep the brownie's texture- Can it be done?!

Vegan Banana Bread

I just turned my mom's banana bread recipe vegan! It didn't rise as much as the regular recipe but the flavor and texture are on point.

iPhone 3G :/

Vegan Banana Bread

 
Preheat oven to 350. Margarine and flour a 9 x 5 x 3 inch pan.

1 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 salt

1/4 cup margarine (earth balance is good)
1/2 cup sugar

3 very ripe bananas, pureed
8 tsp unsweetened, plain soy milk

Sift the flour with the baking soda and salt.

Cream the margarine and gradually add the sugar. Add the bananas and blend thouroughly.

Slowely and alternetly fold in the flour mixture and milk mixture, beginning and ending with dry ingredients. Blend well after each addition. Pour into pan and bake for about an hour until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Vegan Chocolate Vanilla Marble Cupcakes

Second vegan cupcakes of the week! (from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World) This time I made the Chocolate and Vanilla Marble Cupcakes with vegan buttercream frosting and they were killer!

I discovered that vegan buttercream frosting is more delicious than regular buttercream frosting, hands down.

 

 

Going Vegan

(I'm not really going vegan.) But, vegan baking has always been something I wanted to get into. So I finally bought Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World (check out their website!)  and dove in. Vegan baked goods can still have terrific flavor and the only noticeable difference is slight, and it is in the texture- usually a tiny bit denser/chewier.

Baking vegan means you need to replace the eggs and butter with some type of fat and liquid. Often for the fat canola oil is used. Canola is a healthier oil and has a neutral flavor, but Sunflower, safflower or vegetable oil can work too. Margarine and/or shortening are often used too. The liquid used is usually soy milk (or rice milk).

Substituting ingredients in vegan recipes, actually makes the process much simpler. You don't have to worry about having enough eggs or your butter getting to soft. And for the most part, the ingredients you use are common and may already be laying around your kitchen.

I am drawn to cupcake recipes that call for beer, because beer is delicious, but also adds a  complexity to the flavor that makes a chocolate cupcake just that much better. The first recipe I tried out of the book was Chocolate Stout Cupcakes made with a crumb topping.

Chocolate Stout Cupcakes

Ingredients for crumb coating:

1/4 C flour
1/4 C Dutch-processed cocoa powder
1/4 C granulated sugar
2 tbsp canola oil

In a small bowl, mix together the cocoa, sugar and flour.  Slowly drizzle the oil in, constantly tossing the mixture with a fork. Crumbs will start to form. Continue to toss and stir the crumbs with your fingers for about 30 seconds. You should end up with mostly big crumbs (1/4" diameter) and maybe some loose flour too.

Ingredients for cupcakes:

3/4 C soy milk

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

1 C + 2 tbsp flour

1/3 C Dutch-processed cocoa powder

1/4 tsp salt

1.4 C stout

3/4 C sugar

1/3 C canola oil

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract/paste

Preheat oven to 350 and line cupcake tins with paper liners.

Whisk together the soy milk and vinegar in a large bowl. In a separate bowl sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add stout, sugar, oil, and vanilla to soy milk mixture and beat until foamy. Add dry ingredients to wet in two batches and beat for about 2 minutes.

Pour batter into lined cupcake tins, filled 3/4 full. Sprinkle the tops with the crumb topping. make sure the crumbs rest on top of the batter and don't sink in. 

Bake 20-22 minutes. The authors recommend going to veganconnection/com/veganbeer.htm if you're concerned your stout isn't vegan.

Sorry no pictures, they were eaten to fast...What vegan recipe should I try next?