Chocolate Zucchini Bread!

I came across this recipe for zucchini bread with chocolate when I was still super excited about harvesting an abundance of squash from my own garden. Once I accepted that I won't have any home-grown zucchini of my own (*sigh*), I was ready to find another way to make this delicious bread. Bought a big, healthy zucchini from a Grow Pittsburgh stand this weekend, and made this recipe that very day. :)

The result is a moist, chocolatey bread that is more like cake. The zucchini seemingly melted away into the cake, and with the chocolate chips added little, random pockets of gooey goodness. YUM!























I veganized the recipe and changed a few things, but click on the title to follow the link to the original instructions. I also doubled the recipe with good results.


Chocolate Zucchini Bread

Ingredients

1 1/2 c Shredded Zucchini

1 c Whole Wheat Pastry Flour

1/2 c Cocoa Powder

1 tsp Baking Soda

1/4 tsp Baking Powder

pinch of salt

1/2 tsp Ground Cinnamon

1/2 c Canola Oil (I used half applesauce to reduce the fat content. Use 1/3 c applesauce to replace all oil.)

1/2 c Sugar (For a less sweet bread, use 1/4c sugar here.)

1/2 c Packed Brown Sugar

Vegan substitute for 2-Eggs (I used Ener-G Egg Replacer.)

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

1/2 c Chocolate Chips























Directions

In large bowl, use a mixer to combine oil/applesauce, sugars and vanilla. Add egg replacer and shredded zucchini. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder, salt, cinnamon, baking soda and baking powder. (I used a regular, fine metal kitchen strainer, as my sifter broke.) Slowly add dry ingredients to wet. Beat until combined. Stir in chocolate chips.

Scrape batter into a greased 9x5x3 loaf pan, OR a loaf pan lined with parchment paper (my preference). Bake at 350 degrees for 50-65 minutes, or until sharp knife inserted into center comes out clean.

Eat it up, yum! :P

Baking Out Loud: Sweet, Puffy Vegan Donut Deliciousness

Fabulous, wonderful, delicious DONUTS! Better yet, they're VEGAN! Woot! Until recently I hadn't had a donut (which I adore) since going vegan over eleven years ago. My mom lives less than a block from a donut shop, and when I visit I can smell the sweet, warm, glazey goodness every morning and night. The urge to seek and consume is a hard one to fight! So imagine my utter excitement when a recent Vegetarian Times issue had a VEGAN DONUT feature! Yay!

I read through the magazine and made myself be patient until I got to the article, and it was worth the difficult wait. The piece featured several luscious-sounding donut recipes, all but one of which they suggested cooking in a donut baking pan. I'd never seen one, but I took the article's recommendation and found one online to buy right away (I'm such a sucker). Anyway, I chose the "French Toast" donut recipe, and was not disappointed. The results were heavenly, puffy, cinnamon-sugary rings of delish.


My review of the baking pan? It makes making donuts a complete breeze! The texture of the donuts ends up being more dense than that of fried donuts, but still awesome and still craving-satisfactory. It's suggested to fill the pan's individual donut cups, which look like little bundt pans, only partly full. I suggest filling them to the brim or a bit higher, as they don't seem to rise much. I ordered the larger of two pan sizes- the other was a mini- but the large are still not very big. I will order the mini at some point 'cause I can't resist the cuteness of teeny donuts.

Gotta share the recipe! :) Here' goes... Enjoy!



French Toast Doughnuts
from Veg Times Sept 2009 issue

(Makes 18 mini doughnuts or 6-8 large)

INGREDIENTS
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
2/3 cup plain soymilk
4 Tbs. nonhydrogenated vegan margarine
1/2 tsp. apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 tsp. egg replacer,such as Ener-G
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Maple Glaze
2 Tbs. plain soymilk
2 Tbs. maple syrup
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
1/8 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Cinnamon Sugar
2 Tbs. sugar
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

DIRECTIONS

1. To make Doughnuts: Preheat oven to 350°F. Coat doughnut pan with cooking spray.

2. Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg in large bowl.

3. Combine soymilk, margarine, and vinegar in saucepan, and heat over low heat until margarine is melted. Cool. Whisk egg replacer with 2 Tbs. water in small bowl; whisk this mixture and vanilla extract into soymilk mixture. Stir soymilk mixture into flour mixture.

4. Fill each doughnut mold half full with batter. Bake 12 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in doughnut comes out clean. Unmold doughnuts on wire rack to cool, and repeat with remaining batter.

5. To make Maple Glaze: Combine soymilk, maple syrup, sugar, and salt in saucepan, and bring to a simmer, whisking constantly. Remove from heat, and cool 5 to 10 minutes, or until thickened. Stir in vanilla extract.

6. To make Cinnamon Sugar: Whisk together sugar and cinnamon in small bowl.

7. Dip each doughnut into Maple Glaze and sprinkle with Cinnamon Sugar. Let glaze set before serving.

Baking Out Loud- The Best Vegan Oatmeal Raisin Cookies Ever

These are the best vegan oatmeal cookies I have tried! I have tried a lot of recipes, but this one yielded, hands down, the tastiest one with the best texture. So yummy! :) I came across it on VegWeb, but as I can no longer seem to find it there, I can't credit the author (so sorry). I have a tendency to add variations or make changes while I am writing a recipe down, so who knows what it looked like before that. ;)


I suggest making them the first time exactly like the recipe if you can, then next time trying any variations. A number of times I have substituted applesauce for half of the butter, but the cookies end up not spreading correctly and have turned out very crumbly, breaking apart easily. Using just a little less butter has turned out well, though. There are probably other fat replacements that would lead to better results (banana or tofu?)

Cinnamon is one thing I would add to this recipe- I have put in up to a full teaspoon and ended up with excellent flavor. Adding some semi-sweet chocolate chips or a small handful of nuts is a tasty variation, too! Enjoy!


Vegan Oatmeal Raisin Cookies (makes 2 dozen)

Oven to 350 F

1/2c non-dairy margarine (NOT melted)
1/2c firmly-packed brown sugar
1/4c granulated sugar
1 1/2 t Egg Replacer mixed with 2 T water
1/2 t vanilla
3/4c whole wheat flour
1/2 t baking soda
1/8 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1 1/2c rolled oats
1/2c raisins

1) Cream butter with both sugars in a mixing bowl.

2) Add vanilla and Egg Replacer mixture.

3) Add rest of ingredients slowly to avoid overload in mixer.

4) Add a dash of non-dairy milk, if necessary. Batter will be very thick and sticky, but not dry.

5) Bake 10-12 minutes, and allow to cool a few minutes on cookie sheet.

6) Transfer cookies to wire rack to finish cooling.

Baking Out Loud: Vegan Coconut Banana Bread!

The folks at Turtle Mountain (So Delicious) posted on Twitter about this awesome vegan banana bread recipe that incorporates their new Coconut Milk Beverage. I couldn't wait to try it, as I adore coconut... A few days ago I made it for the second time, and it is just as delish as the first batch!

I tweaked the recipe a little here- the original recipe doesn't call for the dried coconut. I also subsituted extra banana for the butter called for in the original to reduce fat and calories. I used medium-large bananas the first time I baked it, and waited until they were so ripe they had started to soften. The second time around I used small bananas that a were a little less ripe. I prefer the larger, riper ones! The end result is SO moist and flavorful- the coconut adds a whole new dimension to traditional banana bread. The chocolate chips make it even more incredible. It's even more amazing the next day!

I think the lite version of any canned coconut milk (as it's closer to the texture of the Coconut Milk Beverage than the full-fat) would work just as well as the So Delicious in the recipe, which, by the way, I do not recommend plain. I'm also not a fan of it in cereal, but the extra creaminess and more complex flavor makes it perfect for baking. I have been using it in everything from pancakes to cupcakes. Very versatile. :)

Enjoy!


Chocolate Chip Banana Bread with Coconut

1 cup turbinado sugar
2 medium-large, very ripe bananas, mashed
½ cup So Delicious Coconut Milk Beverage, Original flavor
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon coconut extract
3 teaspoons Ener-G Egg Replacer mixed with 4 tablespoons warm water
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup unbleached white flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1/2c dried, unsweetened coconut
¼ cup dark chocolate chips



Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a loaf pan with a little Earth Balance or non-stick spray, and set aside.

In a large bowl cream together sugar and bananas just enough to incorporate them together. Add coconut milk, vanilla extract, coconut extract, and Ener-G egg replacer mixture, and blend together.

In a separate bowl mix together flours, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients, and continue to mix together, scraping down sides of the bowl. Stir in dried coconut and chocolate chips. When the ingredients are mixed together, fill the greased loaf pan, and place in oven for 1 hour, until top is golden brown and knife comes clean from the center. The banana bread will get dark on top but will stay moist inside.

Let cool for 30 minutes and cut and serve.

Eating Out Loud: Vegan Pizza!

Pizza made at home is a weekly staple in our house... :) Our favorite: "white" pizza crust (homemade or storebought) brushed with olive oil and garlic; vegan cheeze (Follow Your Heart's Vegan Gourmet Mozzarella is my fave vegan cheese for pizza) for me and mozz (dairy) for T; sometimes fresh basil; thin slices of Roma tomatoes; long slivers of roasted red peppers; a small handful of pin nuts; and liberal sprinklings of dried oregano, basil, and garlic to finish it off. Never fails to hit the spot!

This particular evening, we added broccoli to use up what was in the fridge. Figured out I am not a fan of broccoli on pizza after all... won't do again. Now if only I could get my cheeze to melt fully before T's mozz burns... :/

I'm in a treasury!

Thanks so much to fellow EtsyVeg teamie, Rebecca of KneeDeepOriginals, for including my "Old Pine" ACEO in this fab treasury! :D

Baking Out Loud: The Vegan Cupcake Chronicles

I made these yummy vegan cupcakes for my partner's birthday- chocolate cake with coconut icing! Sooo moist and tasty...

I never made a cupcake in my life, vegan or otherwise, until we had a cupcake shop boom here in Pittsburgh, with several touting vegan options. Of course I sought them out, always on the search for another fabulous vegan dessert. They actually left alot to be desired, which made me want to try to make a better one myself! And so I stumbled upon Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World (thanks, Isa!), a sweet little cookbook filled with endless recipes for tempting little cups of moist and flavorful cakey delight. :P

The recipe I used for these cupcakes is actually an off-shoot of Vegan Cupcake's "Basic Chocolate Cupcake", a variation I found on yum, yum kidcupcake's blog! The results? The same delectable taste, but with a deeper, richer flavor and texture... So good! The secret ingredient? Sour cream!

Instead of the coconut frosting used in yum, yum's recipe, I used Vegan Cupcake's Vegan Buttercream Icing recipe, but substituted 1 tsp of coconut extract for the vanilla and So Delicious's new Coconut Milk Beverage for the soymilk. I also added a cup of shredded, unsweetened coconut. I was really feeling all gourmet-chef-like when making these for some reason, and I decided to add a few of the ingredients using fancy, bartender like estimation rather than measuring. BIG MISTAKE! I ended up with way too much liquid, therefore had to add lots more sugar, therefore had to add more shortening and soy butter to balance things out, WHICH made the frosting overly fatty and very prone to melting at anywhere near room temperature. So, quite a mess... but VERY TASTY, both alone and on top of the chocolate cupcakes!

It was a huge challenge, but I was able to save some for the actual birthday celebration! Bottom line? Happy tastebuds and joyful tummies for both me and my partner. Yay! :)