freshly grated nutmeg | smilingfrog.ca

Always on the lookout for egg-free, dairy free recipes, I came accross this one http://www.chow.com/recipes/10794 and decided to give it a try. WOW! Delicious! So chocolatey and fudgy!!!

Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes

(adapted from Vegan Cupcakes Take over the World ) 

1. Preheat oven to 350°F and line a muffin pan with liners ( I made mini ones!) 

2. Whisk together the soy milk and vinegar in a large bowl, and set aside for a few minutes to curdle. Add the sugar, oil, and vanilla extract to the soy milk mixture and beat until foamy.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add in two batches to wet ingredients and beat until smooth and no large lumps remain.

3.Pour into liners, filling 3/4 of the way. Bake 18-20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool completely.

And cupcakes need frosting of course! I adapted my vanilla buttercream recipe to create an espresso  flavored buttercream

Espresso Buttercream Icing

•  1 cup butter (at room temperature)
• 3 cups icing sugar
• 2 tsp freshly brewed espresso (or strong coffee) I used freshly roasted and brewed Costa Rican espresso.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine butter and sugar. Add espresso/coffee. Continue beating until smooth and creamy.

The recipe makes enough to ice 48 mini cupcakes or 24 regular size. The icing can be stored in the fridge in an airtight container, but allow it to sit at room temperature before using for the best consistency.

At the request of my art school classmates, I’m posting my recipe for Snickerdoodles! Okay, some people look at me funny when I say this, but this is actually what these cookies are called….Snickerdoodles (aka cinnamon sugar cookies). Either way, they’re delicious, and remind me of  childhood recess snacks.

Snickerdoodles

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup butter
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 egg (or in my case, 1 egg replacer)
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
• 1/4 tsp baking soda

For rolling…

• 2 Tbsp sugar
• 2 tsp cinnamon

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat butter to soften, add sugar and beat until soft. Add egg/egg replacer and vanilla and whip well, until soft and fluffy.

2. In another bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. Add 2/3 of the dry ingredients to the whipped butter mixture and whip until combined. Add in the remaining flour and mix by hand. 

3. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill 1 hour.

4. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F and line a baking sheet with parchment.

5. Roll dough into one inch balls, then roll them in cinnamon sugar mixture before placing them on the prepared sheet.  Once you have placed the cookies on the sheet, flatten them a bit with a fork.

6. Bake for 10 minutes for a nice soft chewy cookie. Transfer to a cooling rack. Makes about 18 cookies.

Sorry no pic These disappeared too fast!

In the last week or so, I’ve tried a couple of different chocolate chip cookie recipes. One chewy oatmeal chocolate chip cookie, and one soft chocolate chip cookie. A few months ago I was watching the food network (as usual) and caught Bobby Flay’s Throwdown against Lavain Bakery’s chocolate chip cookies. I found some copycat recipes online and tried my own. I made a few changes I wouldn’t say they’re a copycat recipe but I like how thick these cookies turn out- staying soft in the middle with a crisp outer shell. I also don’t think nuts belong in chocolate chip cookies. But that may be just me. From making these I learned that by adding an extra tablespoon of flour and using cold butter and egg, the cookies stay thick and don’t spread! (I’m still kinda learning Here is the recipe I used.

Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter (cold)
• 1/3 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg, cold
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1-3/4 cup + 1 Tbsp. flour (I used Robin Hood Nutri-Blend)
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
•  1/4 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips (Callebaut!!!)

1. Preheat oven to 350. Line a baking sheet with parchment. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine butter with sugars on low speed until just combined (don’t overmix!).

2. Add egg and vanilla and continue to mix on low until incorporated.

3. In a separate bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg and salt.

4. Add dry ingredients to wet, mix on low speed until blended

5. Add chocolate chips, mixing for another 30 seconds. Drop by spoonfulls onto prepared baking sheet.

6. Bake for 10-11 minutes or until just golden brown at edges.

And the second variety….

Chewy Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
(from the Frog Commissary Cookbook)

• 1 cup butter, room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2  eggs
• 2 tbsp milk
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 1/2 cups oats (rolled or quick cooking)
• 1 cup chocolate chips (Callebaut!!!)

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine butter with sugars on low speed until just combined (don’t overmix!).

2. Add egg and vanilla and continue to mix on low until incorporated.

3. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

4. Add dry ingredients and beat on low until just combined. Stir in oats and chocolate chips by hand.

5. Drop by spoonfuls onto prepared baking sheet. Bake for 10-11 minutes or until just golden brown around the edges.

Sorry no pics! These were enjoyed faster than I thought!

Here is a pic of the next batch….recipe to folllow!

Carrot cake is my favorite dessert of all time….especially Dufflet Carrot Cake…moist but not oily, and full of carrots, spices, coconut, nuts and pinapple,topped with cream cheese icing! For Valentines day, I succeeded at making a fantastic replica of my fave Dufflet Carrot Cake! Dufflet uses all natural ingredients, which I love. Insead of 4 “real” eggs I had to use 2 egg replacers to prevent spending Valentines day with a very sick fiance. Anyways, here is my recipe.

My version of Dufflet Carrot Cake

1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease 2 9-inch circular cake pans

2. In the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, beat together the butter and sugar until light. Add eggs/egg replacer one at a time and beat until smooth, scraping down the bowl as needed.

3. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking power, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg

4. In another bowl, combine carrots, pinapple, coconut and pecans and add to butter/sugar mixture. Mix.

5. Stir in dry ingredients until just combined. Do not overmix.

6. Divide into the two prepared pans and bake 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

7. Let cool a few minutes before removing from pans onto a cooling rack. Let cool completely before icing.

8.  Once cool, Turn one half upside down. To ice,  Spread a layer of frosting on top and place the other half on top, flat side up. Ice the rest of the cake. I used this cream cheese icing recipe from Canadian Living:

• 1 pkg (8 oz/250 g) cream cheese softened 
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup icing sugar

In bowl, beat cream cheese with butter until smooth. Beat in vanilla. Beat in icing sugar, one-third at a time, until smooth.

After my last sub-par cream cheese icing experiment, I was determined to create perfect buttercream icing. I wanted something very vanilla-y, not too sweet, and with enough texture to make frosted swirls on top on my mini vanilla cupcakes. After some searching and testing here is what I came up with…

Vanilla Buttercream Icing

1 cup butter

3 cups icing sugar

1-2 Tbsp milk

2 1/2  tsp vanilla

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine butter and sugar. Add vanilla and enough milk to make the icing a spreadable consistency. Continue beating until smooth and creamy.

The recipe makes enough to ice 48 mini cupcakes or 24 regular size. The icing can be stored in the fridge in an airtight container, but allow it to sit at room temperature before using for the best consistency.

Nice and vanilla-y to go along with my vanilla cupcakes. I followed the recipe for the cupcakes pretty much word for word from my fave cookbook so I won’t post it here. These reminded me of the Va-Va-Vanilla cupcakes from Crave Cupcakes in Calgary!!

Pictures to come!

Before Christmas, I bought the December issue of Bon Appetite and wanted the try the recipe for Chocolate Almond Tassies. Baked goods with Amaretto? Yes please! So, I finally got around to trying out this recipe. 

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Chocolate-Almond-Tassies-350833

And here are some pics!

Pictured on the plates that I painted at Fire Escape in Calgary

Carrot Cake is probably my most fave dessert ever. I also like mini things.

Here is my mini carrot cupcake pictured with one of my many frogs.

I’m not actually vegan, but you’ll notice that I do use a lot of vegan recipes, only because of Josh’s egg allergy and because I can’t have dairy. Oh well, it forces me to be creative and try new things. I got the recipe from this site.

http://happyherbivore.com/2008/05/the-famous-carrot-cake-cupcakes/

They were fabulous! Of course carrot cake requires cream cheese icing. I actually wasn’t too happy with how the icing turned out. It was super tasty, but lacking in texture, so I won’t post the recipe. New mission=finding a good cream cheese icing!

I’m always on the lookout for recipes for cookies that feel more like a healthy snack than a dessert. My other criteria for a good cookie involve chewiness with lots of texture. I found this recipe http://havecakewilltravel.com/2007/03/10/chocolate-chip-oatmeal-cookies/ and modifed it a bit to make these!    Soooooooo goooooooood!! 

Here is the recipe!

Almond Butter Oatmeal Cookies

• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup quick-cooking oats
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• pinch sea salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 cup dark chopped dried apricots
• 1/4 cup chopped dates
• 1/4 cup dark chocolate chips
• 3 Tbsp natural almond butter
• 1 Tbsp vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 3 Tbsp soymilk
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 400 F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper

2. Whisk together flour, oats, salt, baking soda, cinnamon. Add dried fruit and chocolate

3. In a separate bowl, whisk together almond butter, oil, vanilla, brown sugar and milk.

4. Combine wet and dry ingredients. Mix well. Scoop by spoonfulls onto prepared baking sheet. Flatten slightly with a fork as these don’t spread much during baking. Bake for 7 minutes or until golden brown on top.

My inspiration for baking this weekend came from a trip to the St. Lawrence Market on Saturday. I picked up some fresh veggies, fresh organic spelt flour pasta, fresh chicken sausage, a HUGE pomegranate, AND fruit for baking; BLACKBERRIES and BLUEBERRIES! (They were on sale and looked uber fresh and tasty!) I also gawked at all of the baked goods

When I got home I decided to make Blackberry Turnovers.  New challenge=cream cheese pastry! I also learned that things turn out better on the fancy Williams-Sonoma pizza baking sheet compared to other cheap cookie sheet I have. Next weekend a trip to Williams-Sonoma to purchase a proper baking sheet like the one I miss oh so much from when I lived in Calgary, will be required!

Anyways, here is the recipe!

Blackberry Turnovers Adapted from The Art and Soul of Baking by Cindy Mushet

For the cream cheese pie dough…

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 Tbsp sugar
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup cold, unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
• 1 package cream cheese, cut into small pieces

For the blackberry filling…

• 1 pint (6 ounces) blackberries
• 2 Tbsp sugar
• 2 Tbsp flour
• 2 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

1. Make the blackberry filling. Scatter the blackberries on a cookie sheet and pick out moldy, unwanted berries. Do not wash them or they will get MUSHY!! Transfer to a bowl and combine with sugar, flour and lemon juice. Set aside. 

2. Make the cream cheese pie dough. Combine flour, sugar and salt in a bowl. Add butter pieces and crumble into dry ingredients until the mixture looks like bread crumbs. Add the cream cheese and mix until rough clumps of dough form.

3. Turn the rough dough onto a work surface and knead gentry a few times so that it sticks together. Form and flatten dough into a 7 inch square (about 3/4 inch thick) and wrap in plastic. Chill for 30 minutes.

4. Place the dough onto a lightly floured surface and roll out the square of dough until it is an 1/8 inch thick, 15 inch square. Cut the square into 9 equal 5-inch squares.

5. Preheat oven to 375 F. Line baking sheet with parchment

6. Make the turnovers! Lay all of the squares out and divide berry filling evenly in the middle of each. For each turnover, brush a border of milk onto the edges of the dough. This will “glue” them together. Fold the dough in half diagonally and press the edges with a fork to seal them. Transfer to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and chill for 20 minutes before baking.

7. Sprinkle the tops with sugar, then use the tip of a knife to cut a few slits in the top of each turnover to allow steam to escape during baking. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. 

My blackberry turnover with Josh’s Blackberry

I also made blueberry banana muffins with the blueberries! Sorry no picture this time

I make muffins a lot. Mostly because they seem to disappear so fast. After I got home from yoga this evening I decided to make these pumpkin muffins. EEP! I realized I was out of cinnamon! So…..instead of using just cinnamon I created a  new spice mix to use in my recipe. These turned out really well and I would definitely make them again!

Pumpkin Spice Muffins

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup margarine or butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 cup canned pure pumpkin
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp allspice
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2/3 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup raisins or dried cranberries

1. Preheat oven to 400 F. Beat butter and sugar for a minute, then add egg, pumpkin and vanilla and beat until well blended. 

2. In another bowl, combine flour, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, ginger, nutmeg, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Add 1/3 of the dry mixture to the pumpkin mixture, beating until just combined. Add half the buttermilk, then add another one third flour, the remaining buttermilk and remaining flour along with the dried fruit. Pour batter into 12 lined muffin tins and bake for 20 minutes.