Chocolate Chip Cookies!

I made chocolate chip cookies!! They were super good and I think I ate just like 4 right in a row. I put them in the refrigerator and they kind of stuck together and then crumbled. But one thing I’ve learned is that a cookie is good no matter what state it’s in. These are actually the first vegan chocolate chip cookies I’ve made. I had attempted it, and was convinced that without egg to bind it was just impossible. Guess I proved myself wrong.

Recipe
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup pure maple syrup (I used vanilla maple syrup, yum)
1/4 cup canola oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
non-dairy chocolate chips…as many as your heart desires.

1. Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees.
2. Combine all the dry ingredients, then add the wet ingredients.
3. Stir until just combined.
4. Use a spoon or your hand to place the batter on a baking sheet.
5. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown. Let them cool for 10 minutes.

Enjoy!

Bake Me Up LA

If you’re in the LA area you should come on by!

I’m hopefully going to start baking again, so maybe I’ll have a couple new posts in the near future!

Raspberry Cake Bites

Baking has kind of been an experiment for me this past week because I’ve been baking out of a convection oven. It’s the first time I’ve used one to bake, but so far it’s going pretty good. I’ll convert my recipes for regular ovens, since I figure that’s what most people use, but if anyone wants the temperature and time for a convection oven, just let me know. These little bites are like a coffee cake, but a little less sweet. I was going to go for blueberries but I have limited supplies in my new apartment, so raspberries it was. I tried to cut down on some fat by substituting some applesauce, which is something I like to do often.

Recipe
1/2 cup sugar
1 T oil
1/3 cup applesauce
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/3 cup flour
dash of salt
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 cup soy milk
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 cup raspberries

For topping
3 T sugar
3 T flour
1 T oil
1 tsp cinnamon

1. Spray a 9″ cake pan or a square brownie pan, and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix the sugar, oil and applesauce.
3. Combine the soy milk and apple cider vinegar, stir, and let sit.
4. Then add in the vanilla, flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and combine.
5. Add the soy milk mixture and combine well, then fold in the raspberries.
6. Pour into your pan, and then in separate bowl combine the topping ingredients and sprinkle over the top.
7. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Cream Cheese Brownies

Word to the wise, never trust T-Mobile when they say you will get a $100 rebate on your phone. They are a bunch of jerks (that probably don’t pay their taxes) who like to steal money from people. Luckily I have a persistent dad, who doesn’t mind yelling at people. So while he yells, I decide to make brownies. I was really hoping these would turn out edible, because it was just a recipe I made up at the last minute. The four people that tried them had more than one, so I figure I’m safe.

Recipe
2/3 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
6 oz (half a bag) of semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 T oil
2 T vegan butter
1 1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup soy milk
8 oz. Tofutti cream cheese

1. Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.
2. Combine flour, salt and baking powder then set aside.
3. Melt the chocolate, then stir 1 cup sugar, 1 tsp of vanilla, butter, oil and soy milk. Add this to your dry ingredients. It should be slightly runny, if it’s too stiff just add a bit more soy milk.
4. Beat the cream cheese with the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar, and 1 tsp of vanilla.
5. Pour the brownie mix into an 8×8 square pan, and then pour the cream cheese mixture on top. Take a knife and swirl the two together with the tip.
6. Bake for 50-60 minutes, or until a toothpick is inserted in the middle and comes out clean.

It doesn’t matter how much or how little you swirl, it all depends on how you want your brownies to look. I didn’t swirl much, which is why the cream cheese was more concentrated on the top. It browned a little while in the oven, which didn’t affect the taste at all, just the look.

I made these a second time and forgot the butter. So the bottom of the brownie was basically chocolate and caramelized sugar. It was good, but just not chewy like a brownie is supposed to be. Everyone really liked it that way, they said it tasted like those chocolate suckers you get from See’s candy. But please, just don’t forget the butter!

Heart Sugar Cookies

I wasn’t planning on making anything for Valentine’s Day…but I did. I had cute cookie cutters that I forgot I bought, so I had to. I still haven’t found the perfect sugar cookie icing, but this one was good enough. I really love that frosting that you get on those sugar cookies at the grocery store. You know those kind with the thick frosting piled on? Soo good, but soo bad for you.

Recipe
1/4 cup butter
2/3 cup sugar
1 T corn starch
1/3 cup soy milk
1 1/2 cup flour (I had to add a tiny bit more, they were a bit sticky when rolled out)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
food coloring

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
2. Cream the butter and the sugar until well combined.
3. Add the rest of the ingredients and combine. Add food coloring if you want these to be a different color.
4. Place bowl in the fridge and let it chill for an hour. I’m impatient so I usually stick it in the freezer.
5. Roll out the dough, and cut into desired shapes.
6. Bake for 8-10 minutes.

For the icing
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2-3 tsp soy milk
2 tsp corn syrup
food coloring

I usually add the soy last, very slowly, because I hate frosting that is too runny. Let the cookies cool, and then dip face down into the frosting. Let the cookies chill in the fridge overnight to let the frosting harden.

These were nice and fluffy, real yummy. I’ve kept them in a bag on the counter and they’ve stayed real nice and fluffy. Hope everyone had a good Valentine’s Day

Almond Cupcakes

Last week was my supervisor’s birthday, so I had to bake her something. She’s super awesome and I’m sad that I’ll be leaving that job in three weeks. I just made the basic cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, but used almond extract in place of the vanilla. It wasn’t an experiment or anything like that, I was just simply out of vanilla. But I would definitely do it again, because it tasted so good. I also discovered licorice extract in the back of the cupboard, although it wasn’t called licorice extract…it had some weird name, so I decided to smell it. I was pretty stoked, I love licorice. I have no idea what I will use it for, but I’m sure I’ll find something one of these days.

These cupcakes were supposed to be turquoise because that’s her favorite color, but of course I forgot until I had poured all the cupcakes into the liners. So I just put a drop of coloring in each one and swirled it a bit. It looked pretty cool, but got covered with frosting, so no one really even knew.

To try and make up for the coloring failure, I decided to make a blue/white swirled frosting. It’s really easy and people get super impressed with it. Just make your buttercream frosting, divide it into two bowls and dye one a color. I use a Wilton Dessert Decorator, it makes life ten times easier. So you just pack some white frosting in there, then blue, and keep alternating. Then when you go to frost, you have a mix of blue and white coming out, creating the swirl! Your effect looks something like this.

I’d love to get some more Wilton tips, I only have a few right now. That’s my favorite part of baking, nothing beats frosting a cake. Totally random, but if anyone knows of a bakery that needs someone to work in the Hollywood/Burbank area…you should totally let me know. I need a job.

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

When I was in high school they used to sell these GIANT poppy seed muffins and they were my favorite thing ever. They were nice and moist and basically the best thing ever. I wasn’t vegan in high school and haven’t had a poppy seed muffin since…so I decided to try it out. I used this silicon pan my mom bought me, and it worked perfectly without muffin liners, no sticking. I was explaining to my mom that it was really a perfect strategy, because when you use the muffin liners, you get a bunch of muffin sticking to the liner. But without them, you obviously have no sticking, and get maximum muffin yummyness. Crazy, huh?

Little coneheads!

Recipe
2 cups flour
2/3 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
4 tbsp poppy seeds
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup soy milk
1/4 cup canola oil
2 tsp lemon extract (or 4 tbsp fresh squeezed lemon)
2 tsp almond or vanilla extract

1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
2. In a large bowl mix flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, poppy seeds and salt. If you would like to add more poppy seeds, feel free to add more.
3. Add wet ingredients, and stir until mixed.
4. Pour into a muffin tin and bake for 12 minutes.

This makes 12 regular sized muffins. I added a little extra lemon because I wanted a really lemony taste, so just take a little taste of the batter before you cook it to see if it’s the flavor you like.

Baked Soft Pretzels

These have become a staple around my house, my dad eats them like they’re going out of style. I keep asking what he’s going to do when I move out next month, he doesn’t like to talk about that. They’re really easy to make, most of the time is just spent waiting for the dough to rise. They’re good with some mustard, or just by themselves. But they’re best if you eat them in 2-3 days, which won’t be hard.

It’s not the best of pictures, but you get the idea.

Recipe
2-3 cups of flour (add until the dough isn’t too sticky, not too much though)
2 1/4 tsp yeast
1 cup lukewarm water
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp vegan butter
coarse salt for sprinkling on pretzels

1. Proof your yeast and add the sugar in the lukewarm water, let it sit for 5 minutes.
2. Combine the flour and salt, then add the yeast mixture. Stir to combine as much as you can, and then dump out the dough and start kneading.
3. Knead for about 5 minutes, until the dough is smooth. Then place it in an oiled bowl and place a towel over the top. Let it sit for about an hour.
4. Come back and punch down the dough, just pow, fist meets dough.
5. Divide the dough into 7-8 equal pieces. Roll them into fairly thick, chunky logs about 3 inches long.
6. Place them on a pan and cover with a towel. Let them sit for 20 minutes.
7. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
8. The dough should be easier to work with now, roll them out to about double in size. Then cover and let sit again for 15 minutes.
9. Now roll the dough into a 10-12 inch rope and shape into pretzels. Mine look more like bows, but feel free to do whatever shape your heart desires.
10. Melt the butter and use a pastry brush to spread over the tops of each pretzels, and sprinkle it with coarse salt.
11. Bake for about 10 minutes, or until golden brown.

I wish I had a better picture, but we eat these so fast, they’re basically gone in a day or two. Hope you like ‘em.

I love carbs.

I usually don’t eat too much fattening stuff, but in it’s place I will consume lots of carbs. I love carbs, bread, potatoes, pasta, whatever. Today at work I was sitting there thinking about what I was going to eat for dinner. I do this a lot, because my job is data entry, which isn’t the most exciting thing in the world. So I decided I wanted to make a Boca burger and fries, but I had no buns. I can’t spend anymore money until my next credit card statement…so buying buns was out. I figured they would be easy enough to make, which was kind of true. The process was kind of odd so if you want to try it out, it might vary a bit from my recipe.

Bun Recipe
1 cup soy milk
2 T canola oil
2 T sugar
1/4 cup warm water
2 1/4 tsp yeast
1 tsp salt
2-3 cups flour

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees for ten minutes and then turn off. This is to get the oven just a tad bit warm for a future step.
2. Dissolve the yeast in warm water, stir, and let sit for 5 minutes.
3. Combine milk, oil, sugar and yeast. Mix well, add salt and gradually add the flour until the dough isn’t too sticky. Make sure not to add too much flour, or else your buns will be too dense.
4. Knead the dough for 5 minutes and then place in a bowl, cover with a towel and let it rise for about 20 minutes.
5. Divide into 8 equal pieces (mine only made 7, but I like big buns…) and form them into the shape you want and place about 2 inches apart.
6. Cover with a towel and place in the warm oven for about 20 minutes. I left my oven open just a bit, so it didn’t get too warm.
7. Remove the buns and preheat the oven to 400 degrees. I sprayed a little oil on the top and put sesame seeds on, but that’s optional.
8. Bake for 8 minutes, or until the tops are golden brown.

Baked Fries

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Peel a large potato, and cut in half lengthwise. Then cut the halves in half lengthwise again (confusing huh?) It doesn’t really matter how you cut it, just as long as you get little wedges.
3. Spray with oil. I have this little thing called a Misto, which is really cool. You fill it with oil and then it sprays a little amount out. I then sprinkle them with a local spice mix. It’s basically just garlic, chili peppers, onions and parsley.
4. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes, remove and flip over and bake for another 15 minutes.

I was too lazy to make my own burger, Boca never fails me.

Berry Oat Bars

I really wanted something sweet, but not something that would be too fattening. I’ve been wanting to experiment with an oat bar recipe, so I started with the one on Fat Free Vegan. She made hers with blueberrys, but we had a frozen bag of mixed berries that we need to use up. They aren’t too sweet, but they cured my sweet tooth.

Recipe
2 cups berries (I use blueberries, raspberries and blackberries)
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup cranberry juice
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons cornstarch mixed with juice to form a smooth mixture

3 cups oatmeal
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 ounces unsweetened applesauce
6 tablespoons sugar
6 tablespoons (3/8 cup) water
1 teaspoon vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees and spray an 8×8 pan with oil.
2. Combine berries, sugar and juice in a saucepan. Bring mixture to a boil, then add vanilla, and cornstarch. Stir until it thickens, then remove from heat.
3. Put 1.5 cups of oats in a blender and grind into a fine powder. Pour into a mixing bowl and add remaining oats, cinnamon, salt and baking powder. Stir, then add sugar, water, apple sauce and vanilla and stir.
4. Divide the batter in half, spread one half into the pan and smooth to cover the bottom. Spoon all of the berry mix over the batter. Then cover with the rest of the batter.
5. Bake for 30 minutes, let cool and then cut into squares.

I’m trying to post more regularly, sorry for the lapse. I’ve got some recipes I want to try out anyways.