Vegan Peanut Butter Filled Chocolate Cupcakes

This is the third thing I'm making for my clinic director for the SFF auction lot she won. I hate long introductions to recipe posts because nobody really gives a fuck about all this, but for those who may be curious where these come from, they were inspired by Reese's cups and a recipe I got from Nicole herself, actually, for creme-filled chocolate orange cupcakes. When I first got the idea, I thought about doing peanut butter cake balls hidden inside chocolate cupcakes (like the polka dots in this cake). The difference in texture you get from a cream filling is much better though. Also I forgot to take a picture because I'm the worst, so just pretend there's one here. Maybe I'll upload an artist's rendition later. Anyway, without further ado...

I took a picture of some of the remaining cupcakes on Friday.

Vegan Peanut Butter Filled Chocolate Cupcakes

Prep time:
Cook time: 20 minutes
Total time:
Makes: 2 dozen

What you need:

Chocolate cupcakes

Peanut butter frosting

Chocolate ganache

Chocolate peanut topping

Make everything. Once the cupcakes are completely cool, fill each cupcake with peanut butter frosting using a pastry bag with a narrow tip. Or, use a paring knife to cut an inverted cone out of the top middle of each cupcake, spoon some frosting inside the cupcakes, then gently but firmly replace the cone tops onto the cupcakes. This technique is courtesy of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. Spread the chocolate ganache evenly over each cupcake and sprinkle with the chocolate peanut topping.

Chocolate Cupcakes

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups white flour

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup cocoa powder

2 cups sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 1/4 cups coffee

1 cup canola oil

2 tsps vanilla

Preheat oven to 350° and line two 12-cup cupcake pans with paper liners.

In a large bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and

salt.

In a separate bowl, whisk together coffee, canola oil, and vanilla. Pour wet ingredients into dry mixture and whisk until thoroughly combined.

Divide the batter evenly among the prepared cupcake liners. Bake for about 17 to 20

minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Remove from oven and allow to cool on a wire rack.

Peanut Butter Frosting

Ingredients:

1/4 cup margarine, softened

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter

1 1/2 tsps vanilla extract

1 1/4 cups powdered sugar

1 tbsp almond milk, plus a little extra

Put everything except the almond milk into a bowl. Mix with an electric mixer until combined. Add one tablespoon of almond milk and mix, then continue to add milk until you reach a fluffy consistency.

Chocolate Ganache

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/4 cup almond milk

1 1/2 tbsp coconut oil at room temperature

Using a double boiler or microwave, melt the chocolate chips in a medium bowl with the almond milk. Whisk in the coconut oil until smooth.

Chocolate Peanut Topping

Ingredients:

1 cup chocolate chips

1 cup roasted peanuts (I use honey roasted, but use whatever you want)

Combine both ingredients in a food processor. Pulse until the pieces are chopped pretty finely and well mixed together.

Vegan Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

These are the second thing from the SFF lot my clinic director won. They're basically just normal chocolate chip cookies; like the banana chocolate chocolate chip cookies from before I just replaced the egg with something flavorful. I did also add some spices to enhance the pumpkinness of it all.

My photography skills aren't the best, haha.

Vegan Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Prep: 15 min

Cook: 12 min

Makes: 5 dozen

Adapted from: http://www.verybestbaking.com/recipes/18476/Original-NESTL%C3%89-TOLL-HOUSE-Chocolate-Chip-Cookies/detail.aspx

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups all-purpose white flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ginger

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp cloves

1 cup (2 sticks) margarine, softened

3/4 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup pumpkin puree

2 1/2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375° F.

Combine flours, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat margarine, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add pumpkin puree and beat well. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in chocolate chips. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets. The dough will be sticky, but that's ok.

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Vegan Lemon Sugar Cookies

Ha, I just realized I haven't updated this thing in over a year. Well, you might remember from this post that the law school has an auction every year to support people working in public interest jobs their 1L summer. I auctioned off my baking again this year, and my amazeballs tax clinic director Nicole won them...for $91, which is over thrice what they went for last year. So I'm baking her a lot. There are two things though: she's vegan, and I'm trying to add more whole wheat flour to my baking, which means fiddling with recipes that I'm formalizing here so I can remember them (and pin them to access elsewhere).

Vegan Lemon Sugar Cookies

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes
Makes: About 4 1/2 dozen

Adapted from http://vegetarian.about.com/od/vegancookierecipes/r/lemoncookie.htm

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups white flour

3/4 cups whole wheat flour

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

2/3 cup sugar + 1/4 cup

1 cup vegan unsalted margarine, pre-softened

1/3 cup lemon zest

1/4 cup silken tofu

1/2 cup lemon juice, preferably fresh

1 tsp vanilla

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt in a medium sized bowl.

In a separate large bowl, beat together the 2/3 cup sugar, vegan margarine and lemon zest until smooth and fluffy. Add the tofu and lemon juice, and whip until well mixed.

Add the flour mixture to the margarine mixture and stir until well combined.

Form dough into one-inch balls, and roll into the 1/4 cup sugar until well coated. Flatten slightly, and bake for 8-10 minutes, until lightly golden brown.

Vegan Banana Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

Hi Internet, I didn't forget you. Finals just knocked any desire to write further right out of me. There will probably be another post tomorrow for New Year's, so that I have my resolutions/goals all written down to know how I failed a year from now. First though, cookies.

I lied. First for real, lemme tell you about SFF. Student Funded Fellowships are the way some first year students here at Michigan Law fund their summer jobs, if they're working at a public interest place. The org decides which students get the money based on factors like interest and how their summer job will fit into their future career, but of course they can only give out as much money as they have. They raise money throughout the school year in various ways: soliciting donations, when people shop on Amazon using this link, and the SFF Auction.

The auction is a lot of fun; each year they ply us with free booze and auction off donated items to people who have money. Professors and deans dance on tables (they get the free booze too), the admitted students there get an awesome view of the school, etc. There's also a silent auction, and that's where the cookies come in. Since I have a kitchen this year, I'll be donating an offer of baked goods. I figure I'll get more takers if I can advertise vegan baking as well as gluten-free. The problem is I've never done that. The big trick is replacing the eggs, so I turned to the great Google to see what I could do.

Apparently banana is a great replacement for eggs, as long as you don't mind the flavor of banana. Being rather fond of the combination of chocolate & banana, I decided to break out my my favorite cookie recipe. Aside from being delicious, these cookies are very easily adaptable for whatever chocolatey cookie I want. The cookies turned out fantastically, and I've given the adapted recipe below. It's halved because nobody else is back in Ann Arbor yet, and there's no way I'm eating four dozen cookies on my own. Also, if you just want the banana taste you can of course use regular butter and not check if your chocolate chips are vegan.

Vegan Banana Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies
Yield: 2 dozen
Prep time: 15 minutes
Baking time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:
1/2 cup softened margarine (I used Fleischmann's soybean-based margarine, but any vegan version will do)
1/4 cup banana (about 1/2 banana, depending on the size of the fruit)
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup all purpose flour (or 1 cup gluten free flour + 1/4 tsp xanthan gum if your gf flour doesn't have it)
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (make sure these are vegan--check for milk products)

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Line your baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. In a medium-sized bowl, blend margarine, sugar, banana, and vanilla together until fluffy. In a separate bowl, sift together the dry ingredients. Mix the dry ingredients in with the wet ones until well blended. Stir in the chocolate chips.
3. Drop the batter by rounded teaspoons onto the cookie sheets. Bake for 8-10 minutes until just set. Cool in the pan for a few minutes, then finish cooling on a wire rack.

Felicitations in Anticipation of a Generic Winter Holiday

It's been a while since I've been excited about Christmas. I imagine it's partly due to being a horrible godless monster and partly due to losing the excitement of receiving presents under a tree as I've grown older. These days the joy comes mostly from the fact that Christmas means the semester's over.

This year...I'm still not really excited about Christmas. I am, however, excited about something Christmas related. I'm a member of the forums over at Something Awful, and this year I'm participating in a forums-based Secret Santa. That's right: I get to bake for the Internet!



Well, at least my original plan was just to bake for my Santee. Then he had to go and have two small children, one of whom is a baby. She probably can't have cookies. Luckily, I live in a college town, with easy access to Michigan-branded stuffed animals.



Then it turned out his wife is a law student, and as a fellow law student I have to encourage her to forget she learned everything first semester 1L. Luckily mini-bottles make this much easier. They all ended up individually wrapped and labeled as live bees, because of the buzz.

I'm most worried about the cookies, though. I'm trying out two new recipes, which I'm liking so far. They are these oatmeal white chocolate chip & these old German honey cookies. However, it's kind of nerve-wracking to be baking for complete strangers who may or may not like what I send them. Am I that confident in my baking abilities? (The answer is yes, but that may change after they get them.) I'm excited to be inflicting my baking on someone new, especially with new recipes.

I'm also kind of excited to see what my Santa will send me. I've been told it's on the way, so we'll see.

Banana Nut Bread

So, way back in August I decided I wanted to make some banana bread. As I recall, it was the very first thing I baked in my new place. I was thinking then that I wanted to start a baking blog (which I never really did), so I took some pictures.



Ooh, ingredients. I can't find the recipe I think I used now, but this one from SASEIGEL on allrecipes looks about right.

The bread was pretty simple to make, since I had everything on hand. Never remembering to eat the bananas I buy turned out for the best. The trickiest bit was figuring out how to chop the pecans. I don't have a food processor, I didn't have a rolling pin at the time, and most of my stuff was in boxes. Luckily the constitution saved the day:


The finished product was so good. It reminded me of these mini banana nut loaves my mom used to buy when she was a lifeguard at the lake during the summer, as a snack for those of us who accompanied her. I think they were Little Debbie? Mine was better though.



Unfortunately I haven't taken pictures of anything else I've baked this semester. I want to try to make a gingerbread house over the break though. If I do, I'll be sure to post it!