I'm in Love with the Cocoa

One of my favorite things about being a vegan is the pure, unadulterated joy that comes from discovering things that are accidentally vegan. Oreos, Bac'n Bits, and today's Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Frosting are all excellent example - and believe it or not, the latter is much tastier and less chemically than the first two combined!

My mom found the recipe for this dairy-free, egg-free chocolate cake years ago in the Moosewood Cookbook, before anyone in the house was even vegetarian, and it's remained a family favorite. The cake is super light and fluffy, thanks to the chemical reaction between baking soda and apple cider vinegar, and has an incredibly rich, deep flavor that adults and kids will both love. And the recipe is incredibly simple - I can almost guarantee you already have all the ingredients in your pantry.

The frosting is a new addition that comes from Oh She Glows, and only has two ingredients. Two! It's a little time-consuming since you have to chill the coconut cream and the melted frosted before you can actually spread on your cake, but it also keeps well in the fridge so go ahead and make a batch ahead of time, then spread all over anything and everything.

Take a gander at the photos below, and click through for the recipes above - you won't be disappointed!

No bowl necessary. 

Baking soda vinegar swirls.  

Coconut cream and chocolate chips. Heaven.  

This was at 6:30am. I did not plan ahead.  

Worth it. 

My Muffin Top

I'm not sure I want to know what kind of Google searches are going to lead people to this post (fun fact, more than one poor soul has ended up here as a result of searching for "Pokemon eating sweets"), but I don't care - the more people know about today's Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins, the better!

I dunno, do I really need to sell you on muffins with chocolate in them? Vegan muffins and quick breads often end up unpleasantly gummy for some reason - any chemists here to clarify why this is so? - but these little treats are a happy exception. The insides are soft and fluffy, the tops are crunchy and sweet, and all the potassium and vitamins in the bananas cancels out the fact that you're eating chocolate for breakfast. Pro tip: I highly recommend eating these muffins warm for maximum chocolatey gooeyness.

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
adapted from Doron Peterson’s Sticky Fingers’ Sweets

Makes 16 muffins

¼ cup coconut oil
½ cup sugar
3 ripe bananas
½ tsp vanilla
¾ cup soymilk
2 ¼  cups flour
1 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
¼  tsp salt
½ tsp cinnamon
¼  tsp allspice
¼  tsp nutmeg
¾ cup chocolate chips

Preheat your oven to 350 F and pop paper liners into a muffin tin. You can also use a little bit of Earth Balance or coconut oil to grease the pan instead. In a medium bowl, cream together the coconut oil and sugar until it's super smoothly - this should only take a few minutes. In another bowl, mash the shit of your bananas. They should look like something a toddler might smear in her hair while you try to give her a snack.

Pre-smooshing. 

Add the bananas and the vanilla to your sugar mixture and stir until evenly incorporated. Then add the soy milk and slowly stir until everything is blended up really well. In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salta, cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg. Dump this into the wet batter and carefully stir together to avoid a spicy cloud of flour from settling all over your kitchen. Don't overstir here! Just mix until there aren't any patches of flour or weird banana clumps visible in the concoction.

Bliss. 

Finally, the most important step - toss in the chocolate chips and stir the batter a couple of final times, stopping as soon as all the nuggets are mixed into the batter. Use a big spoon to drop the batter into the prepared muffin cups.

Taste-test liberally. 

You can fill them up almost to the top, and be sure to monitor for appropriate chocolate chip distribution. Pop the muffin tin in the oven for about 30 minutes, until a toothpick stuck into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Enjoy!

This Shit is Bananas

B-A-N-A-N-A-S! I spent the weekend moving into a lovely new apartment in Southwest DC and have had little access to a functioning kitchen, and so this week I'm sharing a super quick but incredibly tasty recipe: Chocolate-Covered Bananas.

Have you guys ever heard of a little store called Trader Joe's? No? Well, this fine establishment carries a wide variety of delicious snacks and sweet treats, including an out-of-this-world version of this dessert called Go Bananas. Oh Joe. The chocolate is perfectly crunchy and smooth, and the fruit inside is really soft and not overly banana-y.  My only complaint is that are only like, 20 pieces in a box, which is just unreasonable given how addicting these little banana bites are.

Luckily, Susan at The View from Great Island came up with a really easy recipe that allows you to recreate the Trader Joe's magic right in the privacy of your very own kitchen, where no one has to know exactly how many chocolatey bananas you scarf down. But they're technically fruit, right? Delicious and nutritious.

Enjoy the photos below, then click on over to The View from Great Island and make these bad boys for yourself!

Oh Fudge

Among the many popular misconceptions about vegans - we're all anemic, we don't get enough protein, we'll defriend you on Facebook if you eat a burger in our presence - my favorite is the idea that vegans are all health nuts who subsist on quinoa salads and raw kale. Not so! And as proof, I offer you Exhibit A: Peanut Butter Fudge.

Ohhh this fudge. I can't remember the last time I made something so rich and decadent. I can normally put away sweets like nobody's business, but even I couldn't handle more than a single square at a time. The coconut cream is the key here - it'll make your fudge super smooth and thick, and has the added bonus of smelling incredible when you melt it together with the chocolate, vanilla, and cinnamon. 

This recipe is a little bit time-consuming, but really easy - all you need is a heavy saucepan, a bowl, and some patience! If peanut butter isn't your thing, try adding chopped nuts to your fudge, or maybe even subbing out the vanilla with strong coffee for a hint of espresso flavor. 

Peanut Butter Fudge

(chocolate fudge adapted from Cassidy's Cravable Creations; peanut butter topping adapted from Minimalist Baker)

Makes one 8x8 pan

For the chocolate fudge:

½ cup coconut cream (to make this, stick a can of full fat coconut milk in the fridge for at least an hour)

¼ cup maple syrup

16 ounces semi-sweet chocolate

2 tablespoon coconut oil 

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon cinnamon

 ¼ teaspoon salt

For the peanut butter topping:

3/4 cup creamy peanut butter (the natural kind is best!)

 ¼ cup powdered sugar

2 tablespoons  coconut oil

½  cup coconut cream

¼ tablespoons maple syrup

Line an 8x8 pan with aluminum foil and set aside. This is my favorite part: crack open your can of cold coconut milk and you'll see that it's surprisingly solid. That's the cream! Carefully scoop it off - don't get too rowdy or you'll end up breaking through to the liquid on the bottom, which we don't need for this recipe. 

Dump all of the ingredients for the chocolate fudge into a heavy saucepan over low heat and slowwwwwly melt everything together, stirring all the while. I'm usually all for turning that flame up to speed things along (perhaps why I set off the fire alarm so often), but be patient here or you'll end up burnt chocolate and that's just a damn shame. 

Just look at that silky deliciousness

When the mixture is smooth and silky and delicious, pour it into the prepared pan and pop it into your freezer for an hour. While you wait for the chocolate to set, you can get started on the peanut butter half of this beautiful relationship!

Taste test liberally

You don't even need a pot for this step - just scoop all the ingredients for the peanut butter topping into a bowl and stir it up really well. Work those forearms! This mixture will be a lot thicker than the chocolatey mess, but you should still be able to easily pour it over the frozen fudge. 

A match made in heaven 

Now pop that all back into the freezer for another hour and dance around in anticipation for the magical dessert you're about to eat. Once the peanut butter topping has set, slice your fudge into 1-inch squares and enjoy! Store your leftovers in the fridge to keep them from getting too gooey, but I recommend serving at room temperature to get that soft, fudgy texture that we all know and love. 

The Other Kind of "Magic" Brownie

Sometimes I feel like being vegan is an exercise in seeing what kind of weird shit you can sneak into seemingly normal dishes without anyone calling you out on it. This week the answer is beans! Beans are almost always the answer, actually, but today we're specifically talking about black beans in the form of rich, chocolatey brownies that will knock your socks off.

I've been hearing mythical stories about black bean brownies for ages, but I had never actually tried one, much less made a batch myself. When a couple of neighborhood friends invited me to potluck brunch this weekend, I spent an unreasonably long time trying to figure out what to bring. Kiran and Hannah routinely churn out beautiful and delicious dishes for various get-togethers, so I was inspired to step up my game and try something new. And holy crap, I'm so glad I did!

You wouldn't think black beans would do well in dessert form, but you would be so sadly mistaken. I'm not going to pretend to understand the food magic that allows this to happen, but somehow the end result of this recipe is an incredibly thick, chocolatey batch of brownies that A) do not actually taste like beans, and B) will disappear in seconds once you serve them. Plus, the recipe has a grand total of 5 steps and you probably have all the ingredients in your pantry already! So go ahead, gather your beans and make yourself some brownies.

Black Bean Brownies
(slightly adapted from Lauren Goslin's Oatmeal With a Fork)

Makes 20 two-bite brownies.

1 can of black beans, rinsed thoroughly and drained
½ cup cocoa powder
½ cup oats
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ cup sugar
½ cup maple syrup
¼ cup coconut oil (you can also use vegetable or canola oil - whatever you have on hand is fine!)
2 teaspoons vanilla

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and grease an 8 x 8 inch baking dish with a bit of vegetable oil. Throw all your ingredients into a blender or food processor and liquefy that shit. Your batter should be just a little bit runnier than frosting; you can add more oats if it's too thin, or a tablespoon of water if it's too thick.

Blender full of beans. 

Pour the batter into your pan and bake for 20 minutes. To see if the brownies are done, stab them with a toothpick or knife - it should come out clean.

Raw...

The one and only downside of this brownies is that you can't just inhale them when they're still hot - since they're super fudgy, they need to cool before you cut them or you'll end up with a chocolatey mess. Once the pan is cool enough to handle, stick it in the fridge for about an hour.

...baked! You can tell I got a little overenthusiastic with the stabbing. 

Now, you can totally call it quits at this point and you'll be the happy owner of a big batch of incredible brownies. I was feeling fancy, though, so I decided to add some flair! I combined powdered sugar (2 cups), coconut milk (¼ cup), vanilla (1 teaspoon), and flaked coconut (1 cup) in a small bowl and mixed everything until I had a smooth, thick frosting. Then I spread that coconutty goodness evenly over my brownies, cut them into little rectangles, and decorated each one with an almond. Voila! Almond Joy black bean brownies.

Hey Puddin'

How do you guys feel about tofu? If you're less than enthusiastic, lemme change your mind. Even my staunchly omnivorous dad has stopped picking the tofu cubes out of his curry, so I feel pretty confident in my ability to sway you on this one. I get the feeling that you're still skeptical, though, so I'm going to throw in a wild card: tofu AND chocolate. I know this all sounds a little too crazy, but bear with me and pretty soon you'll be feasting on vegan chocolate pudding that will completely blow your mind. 

I try to keep all the recipes on here relatively straightforward and stress-free, but this chocolate pudding is especially foolproof. The only caveat is that you need some kind of mixing apparatus - blender, food processor, immersion blender, Slap Chop, whatever. Just kidding, don't use a Slap Chop, but do take 3 minutes to watch the infomercial because that shit cracks me up.

You'll also need silken tofu for this recipe. This type of tofu hasn't been pressed, so it's super delicate and ideal for making things like vegan custard, pumpkin pie filling, and pudding. Make sure your tofu is silken, because you and your blender will both end up sincerely hating me if you try to puree up chocolate and regular firm tofu.

Today's ridiculously simple dessert comes to you courtesy of my college roommate Kristy, who not only sent me this recipe, but also took me out to an amazing vegan restaurant when I was in New York a few weeks ago, thereby forever cementing her status as my favorite Croatian on the planet. Živjeli!

Vegan Chocolate Pudding
(adapted from Aida Mollenkamp's Pairs Well With Food)


Serves 4

6 ounces semi-sweet or dark chocolate
1 pound silken tofu (this sounds like a lot, but I promise it's not!)
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
½ cup maple syrup
1 tablespoon vanilla
a pinch of salt

The goods.

Melt your chocolate. Ideally this should be done using a double-boiler, but I'm a heathen and just used a saucepan. Keep the heat super low and stir constantly so that your chocolate doesn't burn. Set aside and let cool for a few minutes while you gather your other ingredients.

Before...

...after!

Once your chocolate has cooled enough that it doesn't burn your fingers when you sneak a taste, throw everything into a blender or food processor. Puree until smooth - you may need to scrape down the sides a couple of times to catch any errant tofu clumps. If you're using an immersion blender like I did, you can just blend everything in the pot that you used to melt your chocolate.

Super appetizing. 

Keep mixing!

Pour your pudding into a Tupperware or into individual bowls, then leave it in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes to set. Seriously, that's it. You can top your pudding with mint leaves or a dash of cinnamon to make it fancy, then serve to your guests and enjoy the looks on their faces when you tell them that they're eating tofu for dessert.

BUT, if you are absolutely 100% opposed to tofu in your pudding, Autostraddle (my favorite queer website) has an avocado alternative that may tickle your fancy.