Scraps and Snippets ~ Wacky Cupcakes

End of Vegan Mofo. I would love to tell you I have a four course gourmet spread for you. But. Since I've spent the last few hours engaged in overshared, overdramatized activities below, I'm not cooking for ya. Trader Joe's to my rescue, and a recipe I created a few months ago and promptly forgot about to save the final day of Vegan Mofo. 

My Monday afternoon activities: 

Changing the cat box. Not that this isn't a regular thing. But sometimes I wonder whom owns whom, Feral lets me know in loud protests when he's hungry, when his litter is not conducive to his comfort and when it's time to go to bed. And I basically do as instructed. 

Forgetting and then PAYING for in blood, sweat and tears, my online password to my stupid cell carrier because I want to make a temporary change. Yeah.  Two hours later, with breaks for crashing my head against the wall, I've gotten pretty much nowhere. Now I somehow have two user accounts though. 

Wacky Surprise Cupcakes or Cake - this isn’t an overly sweet cake, more grown up in taste, but as decadent as you want to make it.

Preheat oven to 350

Makes 12 cupcakes or one 8 x 8 pan. Either line the cupcake pan with paper liners or lightly grease the 8 x 8.

In a medium bowl mix the following:

1 ½ Cup flour (I used whole wheat pastry flour which gives whole grain but light texture)

¾ Cup sugar (This is less than other recipes. If you want a sweeter cake increase it to 1 cup.)

⅓ Cup cocoa

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

Mix this all together with a fork or spoon. Then make a well in the middle.

Pour in:

1 Cup warm water

⅓ Cup oil (I used melted coconut oil - you don’t want it solid)

1 TBSP apple cider vinegar

1 teaspoon vanilla

Stir well.

Pour into the pan or equally into cupcake wrappers, approximately 2/3’s full.

Set the pan aside.

Make filling: (use vegan ingredients)

2 ounces cream cheese

3 TBSP powdered sugar

2 TBSP chocolate chips

Stir sugar and cream cheese together until blended. Add chocolate chips.

Spoon spoonfuls (about a teaspoon each) into the middle of each cupcake or in 12 blobs on top of the cake in the middle of the slices you’ll be cutting.

If you are going to want to frost the cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, keep the cheese and sugar and vanilla out and use the bowl when you are done with the filling.  (When your cupcakes/cake are in the oven mix 4 ounces cream cheese, 1 to 1 ½ cups powdered sugar and a ½ teaspoon of vanilla together until you reach the desired consistency. Put it aside for use when the cupcakes/cake cools. )

Place the cupcakes in  the oven and bake for 20ish minutes. You want a knife poked into the cake to come out clean. If you hit the goo, it won’t look clean. The cake tops also lose the glossy shine.

When the cupcakes/cake are/is cooled you can frost them. Either use a vegan cream cheese frosting. (Above). Or make a lovely chocolate ganache.

Heat:

3 TBSPs of non-dairy milk in a small saucepan. Watch the milk you want it nice and warm, but not scorched. I used vanilla flavored almond milk, so feel free to use flavored milk, or creamer of choice. A mocha ganache would be tasty. When the milk is warm remove it from the heat and add...

¼ cup of vegan chocolate chips

Stir until the heat from the milk completely melts the chocolate and turns it into a velvety delicious chocolate dream.

Spoon the mixture over the cake and spread it with the spoon so the entire cupcake (or most) is covered in glossy chocolate.

If using the cream cheese frosting, spread it over the cupcakes or cake. If you want to go for overkill deliciousness, you can use the cream cheese frosting and make the ganache and drizzle it over the frosting. If you do that place them in the refrigerator so the warmth doesn’t melt the frosting.

Scraps and Snippets ~ Double Cookie Caramel Apple Tart

Double Cookie Caramel Apple Tart

Crust:

2 1/2 Cups flour (plus 1 additional TBSP for sprinkling over crust
1 TBSP baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 Cup sugar
1/2 Cup applesauce
3 TBSP coconut oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

5 crushed Golden Oreos or Jo-Jos (additional 4 for topping)

Mix ingredients, wet first, then dry and combine completely. Add crushed cookies and mix again.

Press dough (you will have some leftover dough. This is really no problem. Eat it. Bake cookies. Make a top crust if you desire. Mix it in with the cookies and pecans for the topping.) Press a medium thick layer in the bottom and up the sides of a pie plate. Mine was a decorative 9 inch. Sprinkle extra TBSP of flour over the bottom of the crust. 

Set this aside and preheat oven to 350. 

Filling:

1 Cup of applesauce

1 Can of apple pie filling or two fresh apples sliced. 

3 TBSP brown sugar 

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Dump into crust. 

Bake for 32 ish minutes. The crust should be golden, mostly cooked through (stick a knife in it if so desired) and the filling should be caramelly and thickening). 

Remove from oven. 

Topping: 

1/2 /Cup chopped or broken pecans

1 TBSP brown sugar

4 crushed Golden Oreos or Jo-Jos

Heat pecans in a pan until they grow fragrant and hot. Toss in brown sugar and stir until it melts and the pecans are coated. Dump pecans over pie filling and follow with crushed cookies. Return to oven and bake an additional 10 minutes. 

Let cool before serving. Unless you don't care if the slices are pretty. And if you plan to serve with ice cream, no body is going to care what it looks like. 

Scraps and Snippets ~ Butterfinger Fudge

 I hesitate to even attempt vegan candy since Cara of Forks and Beans is the queen. But. A few months ago I had a friend tell me about homemade butterfingers that is seriously 1 bag of candy corn and 1 18 ounce container of peanut butter melted in the microwave for 1 minute. She said she found the recipe on Pinterest and that it was so easy and so delish. I, of course, want this in the worst way. However, classic candy corn in not vegan. And vegan candy corn is not cheap and I'm not sure it would work out the same way. 

So. Cara made some delicious looking crunchy honeycomb somesuch candy. And even though I didn't have some of the ingredients on hand and wasn't confident enough to trial and error a whole batch, I did experiment. So thanks for the recipe Cara...and I hope you don't mind that I made it my own and came up with something very close to vegan butterfinger insides. Flaky and chewy, peanut buttery and sweet. And anything covered in chocolate, well, nuff said, right? 

2 1/2 TBSP Earth Balance

2 1/2 TBSP brown rice syrup

1/3 Cup sugar (vegan)

1 1/2 TBSP water

1 tsp baking soda 

1/3 Cup peanut butter

Grease a bread pan.

Put Earth Balance, brown rice syrup, sugar and water in a small saucepan. Heat and when the sugar dissolves increase heat and bring to hopping boil, stirring constantly for 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Add baking soda and stir. Let sit for 3 or so minutes. Then add the peanut butter and stir. And pour the mixture into the bread pan. 

NOTE: The goal is to get this to a crack stage. Two friends have tried the same recipe and gotten different results, one got toffee, the other got gooey caramel…still amazing tasting, but different. Go with a medium heat to boiling and get it to a rolling boil adjusting the flame as needed. Use a candy thermometer or water test if unsure. The baking soda puffs this up making air pockets, the peanut butter combines and softens the end result so you get layers like in a real deal butterfinger. 

Chocolate Topping
1/3 Cup vegan chocolate chips

1 TBSP peanut butter

Melt peanut butter in the same saucepan. Add chocolate chips and stir. When they are all melted, pour over butterfinger layer. Refrigerate for about 20 minutes. Cut and put back into the fridge until they set up. They are kind of fragile, so store in the fridge.

Scraps and Snippets ~ Worth Waiting For Burrito Bake

Burrito Bake

7 x 11 or 8 x 11 pan. 

1 can young jackfruit drained

1/2 Cup quinoa

1/2 TBSP chili pepper

1/2 TBSP garlic powder

1/2 TBSP cumin

1 Cup vegetable broth

Simmer until the liquid is absorbed and the jack fruit is mostly shreddable. 

Preheat oven to 350.

4 ounces of salsa

6 to 8 ounces of vegetable broth (I went with 8 and the texture is pretty amazing but very moist, not runny though)

1/2 Cup shredded Daiya or cashew cream based cheese sauce

1 Cup shredded zucchini

2 large tortillas

Pour 1/3 of the salsa on the bottom of the pan. Layer one ripped-to-fit tortilla over that. Place 1/2 the shredded zucchini on the tortilla, 1/2 the jackfruit mixture over that, another 1/3 of the salsa topped by the other ripped to fit tortilla. Layer the rest of the zucchini, jackfruit, cheese or cheese sauce, and top with remainder of salsa. Then pour water/broth evenly over the whole thing and shimmy it a bit. 

Bake for 40 minutes. Let sit 10 minutes. Serve with chopped tomatoes, more salsa, avocado slices, guacamole, more cheese sauce, veg sour cream, chopped lettuce, chiles, chopped black olives. Add beans to the layers if you'd like or more chopped veggies. 

I'd have done more with it, but I'm still holding out on the grocery store trip. But simplicity rocks in this case. I'd have added vegan sour cream to the jackfruit and mixed in the salsa, more cheese, etc. But this really tastes great as is. It's a keeper.  

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Vegan Mofo No Recipe Here, Folks, Just Keep On Moving On...

Oops. This Vegan Mofo post should include a recipe. But, here's the deal. I'm painting my upstairs. And I am sorely in need of a trip to the grocery store. And I cooked over the weekend. A lot. But most of what I cooked was testing recipes from a new-to-be-published cookbook, so I can't post any of those. I could, I suppose, but the authors just might have an issue with that. Plus we have leftovers, so we aren't feeling any pressure to throw together anything creative just to get by. I guess this is proof that you can live quite well on vegan food, even if the vegan food in the house is limited. Let's call it a test to prove, that indeed, there is enough nutrition in veggies, legumes, beans, whole grains, nuts and seeds to survive quite nicely.  So now I owe you three recipes. Oh my. 

Scraps and Snippets ~ Cheezeburger Pizza

Cooked and with black sesame seeds.

Pizza Crust:  Use your favorite. If you don't have a recipe or favorite crust here's an idea. 

3 teaspoons yeast
1 Cup warm water 
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 TBSP olive oil
2+ Cups flour (I used whole wheat pastry flour) 

Dissolve yeast in 1/4 cup of warm water in medium mixing bowl. Add sugar (to feed the yeast). Stir and let this sit for 5 minutes, it should foam). Add the oil, salt and the rest of the water. Add 2 cups of flour and stir into a soft dough. Dump onto a floured surface and cover with flour. Knead dough adding flour as needed (a TBSP at a time) until the dough becomes elastic and smooth.

Place dough into a greased bowl and cover with a towel and let rise for about 30 minutes. 

In the meantime prep the toppings: Preheat oven to 450 or as directed by your pizza crust recipe/instructions. 

Use your favorite meat substitute for hamburger (approx 1 cup or two burgers broken into pieces). If you need recipes here are a few of our favorites. 

Ready for the oven. 

1/3 Cup organic ketchup
1 and 1/2 TBSP mustard
3 TBSP dill pickle relish or  equivalent dill pickles chopped
1/2 Cup small dice onion
2 TBSP sesame seeds (I used black, maybe not quite as appetizing when you look at it). 
Additionally, 1/2 to 1 Cup, shredded "cheddar cheese", Daiya, etc. or use 1/4 Cup cashew cheese sauce like I did (I don't have my own recipe, I was actually testing one for an upcoming cookbook so I can't give the details.)

Mix the mustard and ketchup together and use as your pizza sauce. Spread your meat substitute, pickles and onion over the sauce. Pour or sprinkle your cheese over that and top with sesame seeds. 

Bake for approx 20 minutes. 

Feel free to add diced tomatoes, lettuce, more ketchup and mustard as toppings before serving. 

Makes one decent sized pizza, serves 3-4 people. 

Scraps and Snippets ~ Mexican Potato Skins

Yesterday I shared Deviled Potatoes. Those were so much fun I went ahead and veganized one of our other favorite appetizer/fun meals.

Preheat to 350

Wash and remove eyes from 4 medium potatoes. I used red and I left the skin on, but you could peel them.

Pierce the potatoes and place in a covered baker. (It's important to cover them, the potatoes need to stay moist.) Bake for 30 minutes, test for tenderness. When tender remove from oven and let cool.

When the potatoes are cool, cut the potatoes in half longwise and scoop out most of the potato flesh from the middle of each of the potatoes and add the scoop to the mixture in the food processor. 

Additionally you need:

1 avocado (peeled and seeded, obviously. :  )

1 small onion chunked

3 TBSP salsa

2 cloves garlic

Add these to the potato in the food processor and process until smooth. 

Place the potato shells back in the oven, under the broiler and allow them to crisp and brown.

Scoop the filling into the potato wells/holes, heaping it up a bit. Then, load em up. Vegan cheese, avocado slices, tomatoes, salsa, green onions. cilantro, coconut or tempeh bacon bits.