Rice Cereal Marshmallow Treats

This is how I make them:

2 bags of Dandies Marshmallows
1 box of puffed rice cereal
1 stick of Earth Balance
1-2 tb of Nielsen-Massey vanilla bean paste
Cooking spray

Spray your container/Disney with cooking spray. Melt the Earth Balance buttery stick in a soup pot over a medium flame.  When just melted, add the vanilla and stir.  Now the marshmallows!!! And stir, stir, stir!!  When they are as melted as possible, without being burned, add the cereal, turn off the flame, and fold the heck out of it to make sure all the rice is covered in mallow goodness. Scoop into your container(s) and pat until even.  Chill, cut, and serve.

Cocoa PB Puff Cereal Treats

Ooey-gooey deliciousness!!

3/4-1 stick of Earth Balance

1 box of Whole Foods cocoa peanut butter puffs cereal

2 bags of Dandies marshmallows (the minis melt faster)

1/4 C Sunspire chocolate chips

2-4 heaping tb of PB & Co Smooth Operator (or chunky would work well too)

Spray a casserole dish with cooking spray and pour cereal out into a gigantic bowl, sprinkling chocolate chips on top. Melt margarine in a sauce pot, then add mallows, stirring constantly. When the mallow margarine mix is melted, pour over the cereal/chocolate chip mix. Quickly melt the PB in the same pot, stirring constantly, then pour over the mallow mix.  Fold everything together until the fragrance of PB and chocolate make you nutty. Put the mix into the casserole dish and pat it down. Chill until set, turn out onto a cutting board, and slice into bars. You can put it back into your casserole dish, arrange the bars on a platter, or wrap each bar in parchment.  Warning:  your hands will get chocolatey and your mouth will be happy.

Cherry Cheesecakes

Dessert time!!

You need a graham cracker crust, store bought or homemade, pie size or minis; 1-2 tubs of Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese; pantry items; and cherry pie filling, canned or homemade.

Let the cream cheese warm up while you preheat your oven to 350 degrees and gather your other ingredients.  Whisk the cream cheese with 1-2 tb of vanilla extract, 1 tsp lemon oil, 1 tsp lemon juice, 1/4-1/2 C sugar, 1 tb pastry flour, 1-2 tb soy/rice/almond milk, and 1-2 tsp oil until smooth.  Taste and add more sugar/vanilla/lemon as needed.  Spoon into your pie crust, top with cherry pie filling (or whatever fruit you like, blueberry works well too) and bake for 25-30 minutes.  Since you're topping with the fruit filling, you don't need a water bath, unless it's really dry where you live.  Chill for a few hours and serve.

Pumkin Pie

I love pie and at this time of year, pumpkin pie starts calling my name.  Spork Foods shared a great recipe for a pumpkin cheesecake in the LA Times a while back so I've been using it ever since.  They also have a great cookbook; I bought one from Amazon.  So pie and coffee made with Torani SF syrup to save on calories made a great breakfast that day.  I tweaked this recipe by using a graham cracker pie shell and I added some maple syrup to the top while it cooled. Next time I'll use maple sugar, the pie is very soft when it's hot so the syrup made little holes on the top.

**Note:  Allspice, nutmeg, and Ceylon cinnamon have been reported as tolerable to some IC people. Also, Daiya cream cheese is soy-free and allergy friendly.

Chia Pudding--From Bust Magazine

This month's issue of Bust Magazine featured quite a few recipes, one of which was a recipe for Chia Pudding.  I've been wanting to try Chia seeds, and I had a single serving from June's +Vegan Cuts box, so I went to +Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, bought a bag of +Bob's Red Mill Chia Seeds and a half gallon of +Silk Vanilla Almond Milk and to the kitchen I went.  I used the recipes proportion of ingredients and had a sauce pot going before I realized this was a no cook recipe.  I let the mixture chill in the refrigerator overnight and I had a tapioca like pudding that tasted sweet without being over-sweetened like real tapioca pudding.

The second time (this week) that I made the Chia Pudding, I did cook it.  I also doubled the recipe, substituted 1/2 C of the almond milk with Creole coffee made in the cafetera, added 1/4 C each Torani SF French Vanilla and SF Brown Sugar Cinnamon syrups, and a few tb of powdered cinnamon.  After bringing to a boil while stirring constantly, the pudding was well on its way to thickening.  It cooled on the stove for about 20 minutes and I packed it in two reusable  containers, because I'm sharing with my comadre, and they are cooling now in the fridge.

I think if this was made with plain unsweetened and low-fat almond milk, or soy/coconut/rice milk, it would be very suitable for a diabetic diet.  I sat down with a notebook and calculator and did some math; please fix any errors I made, I'm notoriously bad at counting.  Also, I rounded numbers a bit since 4.6666667 would be really hard to measure at home, at least for me.

The original recipe calls for 1 1/2 C milk substitute and 1/4 C chia seeds.  Since I used Vanilla Almond Milk, this is based on the nutritional content for that milk.  Most of the fat comes from the chia seeds, but it's good fat.  Most of the carbs come from the soy milk, but in a reasonable portion it's still only one starch exchange.

Totals for 14 oz of cooked pudding

21.75 g Fat
44 g Carbs (24 g Sugar and 20 g Fiber)
13.5 g Protein

Totals for a 4.5 oz serving (between 1/2 and 2/3 C cooked pudding)

7.25 g Fat
14.5 g Carbs (8 g Sugar and 6.5 g Fiber)
4.5 g Protein

Halloween Cookies!!

I love making cookies for any occasion, but Halloween is especially fun. I have a huge box of assorted cookie cutters so I make them in different shapes and sizes.

For these cookies I made last year, I used Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix and followed the instructions for roll-out dough.  Using Betty Crocker is questionable for some vegans, so if you have any info on the source of the ingredients, or have a fool proof roll out cookie dough recipe, I'd appreciate the feedback. For Christmas I use the low-fat gingerbread recipe from my copy of The Joy of Cooking and veganize it. 

The icing is basic buttercream:  2 sticks Earth Balance, 1 lb. powdered sugar, a tb. Silk Vanilla, vanilla-adjust quantities for consistency-whip and chill.  I put the icing into bowls and tinted it with food coloring drops. I used mini tubes of writing icing for detail, but you could thin some buttercream and use it from a piping bag. 

Happy Halloween :D

Cupcakes---Again and Always

I love cupcakes so I'm gonna keep making them as long as you all will eat them.  And it seems to me that since I've learned a little about cake decorating that you like them even more.  So thank you +Wilton for teaching me to make my cupcakes both tasty and pretty.

Boy Cake (Bourbon and maple flavored cake with vegan bacon frosting):

Wedding Cake (Vanilla cake injected with strawberry preserves, topped with vanilla buttercream):

Chocolate Stout Fudge Frosted Cake

I put beer in my cake batter.  Then I put some in the buttercream.  It's good beer and it made good cake. And I used my new +Wilton  1M frosting tip to get a more traditional cupcake look, and to cover the cake in stars.

For the chocolate cake, I substituted the eggs (2 eggs=1/2 to 3/4 C liquid) with very good English stout and baked according to the directions on the box.  I made buttercream with 3 sticks of Earth Balance buttery sticks, 1/4 cup of cocoa powder, 3 cups of powdered sugar, and a bag of chocolate chips (melted with a Tb of the butter and 1/4 C of the stout).  I added more stout for texture while mixing.

The buttercream has a very subtle fermented aftertaste, like when you hit foam at the bottom of a pint.  The cake on its own has a similar taste, but more from the top of the pint, when it's still cold.  Together they work well--chocolatey cake with sweet creamy frosting and a hint of the pub.

You should definitely try this at home.

Thank you +Wilton fo your iPad app.  The tutorial was very helpful.

Jelly Filled Cupcakes (Vegan)

Vanilla cake from mix, Bonne Maman Four Berry preserves, lemon buttercream flavored with lemon oil.

I love this mini bundt pan from +Wilton , It's my current favorite.

Coconut Lime Cupcakes (vegan)

I used some of my favorite baking products in this rich, but refreshing  tropical inspired cupcake.

+Wilton mini bundt cake pan; +Wilton buttercream recipe made with Earth Balance Buttery Sticks, Silk Vanilla, coconut flakes and McCormick coconut extract, and Arrowhead Mills Organic Yellow Cake Mix.

Chocolate Chile Cupcakes (vegan)

A favorite from Yummy Cupcakes in Burbank, but since they haven't been making them lately I made my own.  I used my regular recipe for making vegan chocolate cupcakes, but I added ancho chile powder to the batter.  The buttercream is a variation on +Wilton 's recipe.

Something for Diabetics (not vegan)

This past few months I've been making amazing bite sized cupcakes, but mom is on a diet right now too. So I broke out a classic +KraftRecipes recipe. Use sugar free versions of Jello and Cool Whip, and skip the crust to cut more carbs. I like to decorate with small pieces of fresh fruit or frozen berries.

http://www.kraftrecipes.com/recipes/cool-n-easy-pie-53370.aspx