Tag Archives: frosting

It’s Virtual Vegan Potluck Time!!

1 Nov

I am so so so excited for this you guys. The first time Annie over at An Unrefined Vegan hosted one, I was like, I gotta get in on that. But I ended up being to lazy and never signed up. This time, I was not about to not participate.

I whipped up an awesome dessert to share with you guys today, but first, some introductions! I love the idea of this potluck, because I am hoping on finding about a bazilion fun new blogs to read. Some of you are probably new to my little corner of the blog world, so let me introduce myself. I’m Liz. You can read more about me here. But that’s not important. I want to introduce you to my plus 1 for this potluck. (Potlucks have plus one’s, right? He’s really cute. I promise.)

This is my new kitty, Balto.

I told you he was cute. Sometimes he likes to pretend he’s a book and hang out on the bookshelf.

Anyway, now onto the food! (Making new friends is fun, but food is the best part of a potluck, amiright?)

I’m pretty proud of this recipe, it’s my first official try at from scratch gluten-free baking since I was told I was gluten intolerant. And it’s delicious and vegan! What more could you ask for? (Answer: harsher punishments for parole violators, Stan. And world peace. That’s what more you could ask for. maybe?)

Donuts! Delicious fluffy pumpkin donuts with fudgey chocolate frosting, and fall sprinkles!

But before we dig right in, can we get off track for a moment? I’m sure a lot of you have Vitamix blenders. I’ve had one for a while now. But I have never used the “dry” blender attachment until this recipe. And criminy you guys, why didn’t anyone tell me it worked that well? I wanted to whip up some quinoa flour for this recipe, and I was almost a little annoyed because I had to get the blender out, and then I was going to have to wash it. I think it took me longer to get the thing out than it did to actually grind the quinoa into flour.

Amazing.

Nooooowwww time for the recipe. I promise! This recipe is adapted from the Vanilla gluten freedom cupcakes from this amazing book. The frosting was as well!

Baked Pumpkin Donuts with Fudgy Chocolate Frosting
Makes 12 delicious donuts

For the donuts:
1 cup full fat coconut milk
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
3/4 cup sugar
2 t vanilla extract
1/4 cup tapioca flour
2 T ground flax seed
1/3 cup almond meal
1/2 cup white rice flour
1/2 cup quinoa flour
1t baking powder
1/2t baking soda
1/4t salt
1/2t pumpkin pie spice

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Grease your donut pan. (Mine is nonstick, but I grease it anyway.)

In a mixing bowl, combined the coconut milk, pumpkin, sugar, and vanilla. Mix until combined. Add the tapioca flour and flax seed, and stir it up.

Add the almond meal, white rice flour, quinoa flour, baking powder, soda, salt, and pumpkin pie spice. Mix the crap out of it. For like 2 minutes. Or thee. It’s your call. (Let’s say 2 1/2?)

Fill your donut pan about 3/4 full. They don’t raise an awful lot, but you don’t want them splooging out of the pan or anything. Then you’d have funky donuts. But I promise you, they’d still taste good.

Bake these for about 15 minutes, until they bounce back when you poke them. (Or, just BAKE THEM UNTIL THEY’RE DONE. That’s what my chefs in culinary school always told me. It drove me crazy.)

When you take them out of the oven, let them cool in the pan for about 5 minutes. Then, remove them, and let them cool completely on a wire rack.

Now it’s time for the best part, the frosting!

Fudgy Chocolate Frosting

2T vegan butter substitute (I use Earth Balance sticks)
1/4 cup agave syrup
1t vanilla extract
3T cocoa powder
1/4 cup soy milk powder
3T coconut milk
Optional- a pinch of ginger

Whip the futter (That’s what we call vegan butter, or “fake butter” over here at A Tablespoon of Liz) with the agave and vanilla until it’s combined and there are no awkward chunks of futter hanging around.

Add the cocoa powder, and once it is mixed in add the soy milk powder and ginger. Then beat it, beat it, and beat it. until it gets lighter in color and fluffy. As you do this you’ll want to add the coconut milk, one tablespoon at a time.

Then bam, all you have to do is frost your donuts! And before you know it, there will only be a few bites left because your family will have eaten them all.

Bother.

Thank you all so so so much for stopping by for a bite! Continue the party by going forward or backward to see who else joined the potluck!!

   

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One Year Blogaversary

23 Jan

Will all of this gallbladder drama and me being sick so much (Which is pretty odd for me, to be honest) I’ve completely forgotten that my blog is one year old!!

That’s right folks, A Tablespoon of Liz has reached it’s first birthday!

I remember when I first started, I had just a couple of readers and commenters, and now it’s grown so much, I really can’t thank all of you enough!

So, in proper blogaversary fashion, I’m going to share with you some of my favorite recipe posts from the past year.

Peanut Butter Banana Cupcakes 
These are really quite marvelous… Banana cupcakes with peanut butter cream cheese frosting… the frosting is really my favorite. It’s really dense and rich, but not overly sweet because I didn’t use as much sugar as normal frosting recipes. (Oh, and they’re vegan!)

 Hazelnut Burgers
These are so good… and so filling! The texture of these is amazing, they’re chewy, it’s like you almost need a knife to cut through the, which is awesome, because there’s not a lot of vegan food you need a steak knife for!

 Magic Vegan Brownies 
These, as I stated in the actual post, are better than the box. I remember being so excited when I finally tasted these, as it’s so hard to make things that taste better than the box mix these days. They’ve got those things down to a science, that’s for sure. But these brownies are rich, and fudgey, and decadent,  you won’t be buying the box mixes anymore!

Peanut Butter Banana Bites
These are the perfect snack. No joke. Just pop one, or eighteen in your mouth, and you’ll be all set. And never forget- there’s always money in the banana stand.

Corn Salsa
This is my aunt’s recipe, and even though she makes it better than I do, it’s still amazing. I love how chunky it is, and it’s got crazy amounts of flavor. with avocados, black beans, corn, lime juice, and everything else, this is the perfect dip. And it’s so colorful!

 Strawberry Shortcake Cookies
This is one of the most popular recipes on my blog, and I have to admit, these little cookies are very near and dear to my heart. They’re just so cute, and scream spring and tea party to me. If there was an award for most adorable cookie, I just can’t help but think that these ones would win. They’re vegan, and they taste just like strawberry shortcake, but you don’t have to bother with making all those different components and whipping up the cream.

So, there you go, a montage of some of my favorite recipes from the past year. Man, I can’t believe it’s been a year already, time really flies.

I really hope that I start feeling better soon (for good!) and that I can catch up on homework and work and everything so I can really focus on blogging. I’ve really come to love it, and it’s terrible, but I think the last time I baked something was right before Christmas. : ( I’ve still got Christmas cookies in the freezer that need to be decorated, so you can see how far behind I am. But I promise soon I’ll be back in action, just wait!

And thank you all once again for reading and leaving comments, it really means the world to me! 

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Christmas Cookies and Grilled Cheese

14 Dec

Hey everyone! Thank you so much for all the awesome reviews on my SunButter Balls from yesterday! They are amaaaazing. I actually made another batch since I posted yesterday… I mean, it only makes 10!

Since I was so busy last week posting all about Kombucha, I feel like I haven’t been able to tell you all what I’ve been up to the past week or so!

The first big thing is that I’ve finally got a date set for my gallbladder surgery! It’s officially coming out on the 28th! I can’t waitttttt!

I spent a whole bunch of time making different roll out cookies (sugar, chocolate, and hazelnut) and decorating them! So far, I’ve decorated the snowflake ones. Having too many cookies/different shapes/colors overwhelms me, so I like to do just a few colors/shapes at a time.

I really want to work on my cookie decorating skills, especially with royal icing. I think these ones turned out pretty good!

And since it’s been colder out, I’ve been in love with soup and grilled cheese! (Amy’s chicken-less chicken noodle soup and daiya pepperjack cheese)

yum yum yum yum yum.

There’s also this hot mess of a plate….

Celery with hummus, refried beans, a salad, and Almond “Feta Cheese” spread on crackers. It’s sooooo good! I wouldn’t say it tastes just like feta, but it’s definitely reminiscent of cheese!

Another awesome recipe I made this past week is Sour Cream and Onion Kale Chips from Jesse Eats Avocado.

Let me just say, these are so so good! They taste just like sour cream and onion! When I mixed up the cashew mixture and tasted it, I paused for a minute, and I said out loud to myself, “This is what real sour cream tastes like”

This was also the first time I made kale chips, and I wasn’t disappointed at all! They’re definitly going to become a staple in my diet now!

Also, this came yesterday, I feel like Christmas came early!

I can’t wait to try all of these and maybe use a few in some recipes, so stay tuned!

What have you been up to lately? Do you like making and decorating Christmas cookies? What’s your favorite nut butter? 

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Rainbow Cake

11 Oct

Thank you all so much for your comments on yesterday’s post!

My mom came home the other day and asked if I would make something for her to take to work tomorrow, as it’s her coworker’s birthday. She said that her coworker loved ‘white cake’.

My nose turned up a little. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love white cake just as much as the next person, but it can just be so boring sometimes. It’s not even a color, like yellow cake. It’s just white.

So, I got a little creative. I dyed that shit. It’s still white cake. Well, in flavor at least.

I’ve seen a lot of pictures of those rainbow cakes around the internet, and I’ve been wanting to make one soooo badly. Here was my chance! I’m normally not a huge fan of ingesting copious amounts of food dye, but this just looked like so much fun.

I split the cake mix (I used a box mix… it always seems like white cake is best from a box…) into 6 equal portions and dyed each one red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. I baked them (2 at a time.. it took ages!) at 350 degrees for about 12-14 minutes. I didn’t want to bake them too long, because then they start to brown and the colors get all funky.

I whipped up some buttercream frosting and started staking.

So many pretty colors! By the time I was done frosting, it looked like this:

I didn’t want to make the decorate too colorful or too much, as the inside of the cake was pretty busy. I wish I had a cross section of the cake cut open for you, but I didn’t want my mom to have to take a cake with a piece missing to work. : /

Overall, it turned out really great, and I’m excited to know what her coworker thinks of it! It was tons of fun to make, even though it took a while.

Have you ever had rainbow cake? Is there one thing you’ve been wanting to make for a while?

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S’more Cupcakes Please!

21 Jun

Howdy Ya’ll!

A while ago I told you how I made the cupcakes for my cousin’s son’s first birthday party. We’ll I’ve finally gotten around to writing a post about one of the recipes! (well… mostly for the frosting.. I’m so lazy!)

I wrote a post a loooong time ago about the World’s Greatest Chocolate Cupcake…. But I have to say, this might just top it. My other cousin, and her husband both raved about this cupcake! Even my mom who isn’t a huge chocolate/chocolate person said it was one of the best cupcakes she’s ever eaten.

It’s actually kind of odd that everyone said that, as I used a chocolate cake recipe from one of my favorite books, Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.

Then, we hollowed out the inside of the cupcake and filled it with marshmallow fluff. (Fun Fact: Most fluff if not all is vegetarian, but I know that smuckers is actually vegan!)

Then we topped it with this uuuhhhh-mazing (I know, I use this word waaay too much) Chocolate fudgey frosting, and decorated it with graham cracker and marshmallow, that my cousin’s husband painstakingly toasted individually with a blowtorch.

(Note: I know marshmallows aren’t vegetarian. But my cousin and her husband weren’t, at least at the time we planned the cupcakes, vegetarians. And we weren’t in close proximity to a store that sold vegan sh’mallows. Hence why there are real marshmallows on the cupcakes.)

Chocolate Fudge Frosting

3/4 Cups Butter (Or futter, which is fake butter, to make it vegan)

3/4 Cups Shortening

6 Cups Powdered Sugar

1 1/2 cups Cocoa Powder

4-6 Tablespoons Milk

Beat the butter and shortening in a mixer until the consistencies are similar and mixed thoroughly. Slowly add the powdered sugar, and then the cocoa. Add the milk, one tablespoon at a time until you reach the desired consistency.

This frosting is a dreaaaaam to frost with, But it can take over the cake, depending on what kind of cake you use!

So that’s it! I’m hoping to one day post the recipe for the Banana Split Cupcakes, but there’s a lot to them (3 layers of different cupcake batter!) So we’ll see when I get around to it!

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A Chocolate Father’s Day

20 Jun

Hey everyone! I hope all of you had fun celebrating Father’s Day! I know I sure did. My dad is a really hard person to shop for, so on Father’s day I make him his favorite- Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. This year I used a recipe from Martha Stewart (And it was aaahhhh-mazing!)

The cake itself was really moist and chocolatey… but the frosting was my favorite part! Lots of cream and lots of chocolate! Unfortunately though, I had no clue how to make it dairy-free/vegan. : ( I really need to take some time to play around with different milk/cream substitutes and see which make the best/smoothest/thickest ganaches. If anyone has any idea’s, I’d greatly appreciate it!

This frosting was also a dream to frost- It was so thick and wasn’t melty at all.

I’m also getting better (at least I think so…) at photo taking. At least I’m spending more time on it. Usually I just snap a quick photo (often with my phone…) but now I’m getting out my camera, making sure the background isn’t too busy, and even taking things outside to get pics in the natural light! I’m also going crazy with piknik… I just love simple colored borders I guess.

You can get the recipe for Martha’s Moist Devil’s Food Cake here, and Her amazing Mrs. Milman’s Chocolate Frosting here. I highly suggest you try it!

Even little Pennjamin wanted a piece! (He even managed to get a few fingers full of frosting while we were taking this photo….)

And for one final photo.. Here’s a picture of me and the man himself- my dad! Now he can’t say I never got him anything!

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The World’s Greatest Chocolate Cupcakes

1 Mar

… or chocolate peppermint cupcake I should say. And it’s vegan to boot. ; )


 I got the base cupcake and frosting recipe from my favorite, Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World. The frosting is a chocolate mousse- and it contains- get this, tofu! I made some of these for one of my mom’s church events, and all those tofu/vegan wary people thought they were to die for, and were shocked they were vegan!

Vegan Chocolate Peppermint Cupcakes:
Makes 12 cupcakes

Ingredients:
1 cup  soy milk
1 teaspoon vinegar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup canola oil2 teaspoons peppermint extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, and prepare your muffin tin with liners.

Mix together the soy milk and vinegar, let curdle for several minutes.  Once curdled, add the oil, sugar, and peppermint extract and beat until foamy.

Add all the dry ingredients in two additions, and beat until there are no large lumps in the batter.

Dish out into the cupcake liners, and bake about 20 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool before frosting.

Amazing Chocolate Mousse Frosting

Ingredients:
1 (12.3oz) package of firm silken tofu
1/4 cup plain soy milk
2 tablespoons agave syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (you could use peppermint, but I didn’t want the peppermint to overpower the cupcakes)
12 oz. semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:
Melt the chocolate. Let cool for about 5 minutes.

Add the tofu, soy milk, agave, and vanilla to the blender and blend until smooth. Add the chocolate, and blend until incorporated.

Refrigerate for about an hour, until firm.

Pipe onto cupcakes, and sprinkle with crushed up candy canes if desired. It’s the perfect holiday treat. I do realize, the holidays are over : / Guess you’ll have to save this one for next year. Although, It is a great way to use up those leftover candy canes. I know my grocery store has carts full of them at the checkout that they give away for free once Christmas is over.

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(Vegan) Peanut Butter Banana Cupcakes

10 Feb

This is a post from my old blog, which was very short lived, but I wanted to share it on this one because this is one of my favorite recipes.  And the dairy and eggs aren’t even missed!

Banana Cupcakes

1 cup soy milk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons cornstarch
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup canola oil
3/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 banana, mushed up

Directions:
Mix together soy milk and vinegar, and let curdle. Once curdled, add oil, sugar, vanilla, and banana, mix about 3 minutes.

Add the dry ingredients, and mix until just incorporated. Fill 12 cupcake liners with the batter, and bake at 350 degrees F for about 18 minutes.

Chocolate Ganache

1/2 cup bittersweet chocolate
1/4 cup soy milk
Directions:
Simmer soy milk on stove. If chocolate  isn’t already in small pieces, chop up so it melts quicker.

Remove the simmering milk from the stove, and pour over chopped chocolate. Let sit for about 4 minutes, then whisk until smooth. If there are still chunks of chocolate, microwave for 15 second intervals stirring in between until all is melted.

Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Frosting:

8 oz. dairy-free cream cheese (I use the tofutti brand, It’s the only kind they carry in my grocery store)
2 tablespoons margarine or dairy-free butter substitute
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
1 cup powdered sugar

Directions:
Beat cream cheese, margarine, and peanut butter until smooth and fluffy. Add powdered sugar, and beat until all the ingredients are incorporated.

How To assemble the cupcake:

Directions:
Using a paring knife or melon baller, cut/scoop a small hole out of the top of the cupcake, and pipe or spoon a dollop of ganache. You can cover this with a slice of banana, a thin piece of the cake you cut out, or just leave it open.

Pipe frosting on top. I used a lot of frosting on these, the frosting only uses about one cup of powdered sugar (while a lot of recipes use close to 4!) So it’s not overly sweet. If you do want to make it sweeter however, feel free to add as much sugar as you like.

To decorate, I just drizzled some of the extra ganache on top. The cupcake on the far right has a pulled sugar garnish, that I made at school and brought back with me. You could also pipe on some peanut butter or sprinkle some chopped peanuts on top as well.

 

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Birthday on the Farm!

29 Jan

Hey ya’ll! Sorry for the lack in posting lately, but I’ve been busy! Today was my best friend from high school’s son’s birthday party and I helped her with the cake. He just turned two, and he loves cows, and anything John Deere. (I guess that’s what you get for growing up in the North Dakotan countryside!)

We decided to just use boxed cake mix, as we figured the decorating would take a while. I also made just basic wilton buttercream frosting. Not my personal favorite, but little kids love the stuff as it’s full of sugar.

Here’s a picture of the finished cake:


The barn is made completely out of cake as well, so it got a little difficult, I was afraid it was going to collapse before the party started! Thankfully, it stayed upright.


Here it is at another angle. We bought some tractor and animal toys to decorate it with. I figured I could pipe the animals out of frosting, but they would be small, or make them out of fondant, But my friend wasn’t a huge fan of fondant and she wanted something on the cake he could play with later. These toys were perfect!

We also made the birthday boy (Tylan) his own little cake he could just rip apart, and that’s exactly what he did. I didn’t get a photo of the aftermath, but here’s one before he got his hands on it:


I’m sad the photos are a little blurry, I only had my phone on me, and these were the only one’s I got. : (

Also if you haven’t yet, let me remind you to mosie on over to Alisa Cooks an amazing dairy free blog, and vote for your favorite ZenSoy recipe in the contest! (Like my chocolate banana brownies with coconut butter, for example! haha)

Photo courtesy of ZenSoy.com


ZenSoy makes some delicious soy milks and puddings. They’re kind of hard to find in my neck of the woods, but I shopped around a bit and found some. Also on their website they sell cappuccino flavored soy milk which I’m dying to try but I can’t find any near me. : /

So that’s what I’ve been up to lately, and hopefully I’ll be back later this week with some deliciousness! I’ve got a few dessert recipes I want to try out this week so It should be good!

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