Apple Cinnamon Cake Buddies!

My roommate and I have had some frozen concentrate apple juice in our freezer for a while. I'm not a big fan of apple juice so we were discussing one night what we could use it for. I suggested putting it in a cake of some sort. We decided oatmeal cake would be best and in further talking thought maybe putting apple slices in it would be good too. I discussed it with my mom and another friend as well and between everyone I formed something that turned out pretty awesome and much better then I had expected!

This was not a vegan recipe as I didn't really have time to figure out and test different things to use as an egg substitute. The next batch I think I'm going to just try and use applesauce in place of the eggs and see how it goes.

For the batter:

1 1/4c apple juice concentrate
1c quick oats
Mix together and set aside

beat
1/2c butter(I used vegan margarine)
1c white sugar
1c brown sugar
add:
2tsp vanilla
2eggs

add oat/apple juice mixture.

after that is mixed well add
1 1/2c flour
1tsp baking soda or powder (whichever is fine)
1/2tsp cinnamon
1/4tsp nutmeg

Pour in to lined cupcake sheets.

For the apples in the center I made 'apple pie' apples. I cut up my apple in smallish pieces, lightly coated them in flour... added some brown sugar, cinnamon, vanilla, a little melted butter and mixed together.



Put a single slice in the center of each cupcake. Bake at 350 for 40min or until done. I would check on them sooner then that.

Pecan Topping:
mix together
3TBS melted butter
1/2c brown sugar
approx 1/2c chopped pecans
touch of cinnamon

After your your cupcake/muffins come out of the oven top them with the pecan mixture. Let cool and serve!

I have a few friends that don't like nuts so for those I just topped them with the same mixture minus the pecans.

Vegan Pancakes!

What?! A new post? Yes! Finally I have managed to do some original cooking in the kitchen. It wasn't much, but it was original none the less, so yay for that!

I have tried vegan pancakes a few times, they seem to be hit and miss. Today was a hit and I thought I would share. :)

I looked at a few simple recipes and decided to combine a few and make my own based on how my basic non vegan recipe looks.

Vegan Pancakes

1c flour
2tbs baking powder
1/2tsp salt
2 tbs sugar

1c soy milk
2tbs vegetable oil
1tbs vanilla
1 egg replacer (mixed before adding)

Mix all your dry ingredients together then add your liquids. Whisk together until smooth... Cook and enjoy!

The batter seemed a little thick, but they puffed up quite nicely and turned out really well. :)

Margarita.... cupcakes? need some help

So I have a pregnant friend who is very much missing being able to drink margarita's.... There has been a request to make sure to have virgin ones at her baby shower in a few months. :) That should be easy enough to do.

We are having a get together on Sunday though and I've been thinking of maybe making margarita cupcakes... My thought was just to substitute margarita mix for water and make a margarita cream cheese frosting.....

Seems like that won't be much different then the lime cupcakes I made a few months ago though....

Any suggestions on how to make them taste more like a margarita without actually using any alcohol in them??

Cookies!!

I have been beyond awful at blogging the last few months. Truth is I haven't been doing much experimenting in the kitchen. I'm not really living somewhere that makes it easy for me to cook and bake whenever I want to. I have however recently fallen in love with a vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe.

I asked my wonderful twitter buddies for baking suggestions a while back and had a friend suggest a recipe from Veg Web. Happy Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies is the recipe she told me about. I for years have used pretty much only one recipe for chocolate chip cookies, and I think I will forever use this one now. :)

I altered it only slightly. For the 1c raw sugar, I used 1/2c white sugar and 1/2c brown sugar and made sure to use vegetable oil instead of canola oil. Also decided to add the cinnamon to them. Turns out that cinnamon is a must when it comes to chocolate chip cookies!! Oh! And I used a little less then a cup of chocolate chips.

Try them out, they rocked!! Logan devoured at least 10 cookies in the couple hours he was here that night and took home almost all the rest of them.



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On a slightly different note... I have been inspired by a friend and want to try out vegan caramel.... If anyone has any helpful hints, recipes or anything else that might be helpful in making it please let me know. :)

Brownies & Black beans?!

For over a year my dear friend Jordan has been telling me that when making boxed brownies the easiest thing to substitute for eggs is.... black beans?! At first I thought he was crazy, but the more I've talked to him about baking and had my hits and misses on experimenting with egg replacements the more I thought he was probably not wrong.... Back in May he was kind enough to make me some amazing vegan brownies using black beans! They were AWESOME!! With that being said.... I've still been a bit hesitant to try it myself for no other reason then, I tend to fail lately at baking in the kitchen.

Today, bored and not having much want to do anything at all, I decided that I would try out this theory of his.... I had a pre-packaged bag of brownie mix that my old roommate left when moving out.... Don't like eggs or have any desire to use them.... Figured I'd try it out....

I pureed the best I could a can of black beans and mixed them in with the rest of the ingredients....

I am a convert........ Black beans will forever be used when making boxed brownies instead of eggs!! Try it out!! It sounds crazy, but really.... you can't even tell they are there!

Lactose Intolerant...

So something I've learned recently.... If you eat pretty much no dairy for 3+ months then decide to randomly eat it again, you get really really sick! If I eat something like cake, or chocolate that has eggs or milk in it I seem to be okay because there isn't a lot in it, but any kind of cheese or ice cream.... in any amounts.... I get sooo soo sick.

Turns out I've made myself lactose intolerant.....

I spent a couple days at my brothers and my sister-in-law made a cheesecake type thing and I knew it would probably make me sick, but didn't want to be rude so decided to try it anyway... Spent all of last night and most of today sick because of it.....

This has been happening for the last couple weeks.... I bought cheese for the first time in a few months.... told my roommate she could have it after the first night I had it home.

I guess now I have an excuse to not eat it other then I choose not to.... My brother really doesn't like this me going veggie thing at all... I'm not sure why, it's not like it affects him in anyway.

Anyway.... That is my news for today...... Once you decide to stop, stick with it, the sickness that comes along after is all kinds of not fun.

failing in the kitchen....

I have been having the worst luck baking anything for over a month now. I had some peanut butter cookies turn out just fine and a couple tarts work, but the pie I made, a cake, and now a second batch of cupcakes.... Not work... The pie was fine, just needed to bake longer but it was so late I just decided to not care and take it out... The cake needed another 7min or so in the oven too, but I'm having a hard time getting used to this vegan baking thing and thought it was done. Tasted okay though...

These cupcakes though........ I am soooo full of fail!! I tried to recreate the epic mocha cupcakes but used different milk because I didn't have any of the coffee milk at the time an I don' know what happened but they did not turn out well.

Today trying to edit the mocha recipe just a bit to just make regular chocolate cupcakes instead... I used vanilla soymilk instead of the coffee and didn't add in the extra coffee.... Oh and I used all shortening instead of half butter, half shortening.... Should those small changes really make THAT big of a difference??? In regular baking, no it wouldn't matter and that should be fine, but for whatever reason you take out the egg factor and try and make a slight change and it just doesn't work as well.... WHY???

I have friends that make perfect vegan cupcakes every time, they try out new recipes and they work... I'm seriously feeling extremely discouraged when it comes to baking?!

I've been baking my entire life, I've always been really good at it... it's in my blood, but now.. After more then a month and a ton of wasted ingredients later... I'm about ready to throw in the towel and only make cookies and tarts forever....... Which is fail because cookies are my least favorite thing to bake, but people LOVE them....

On a brighter note... When it comes to cooking dinner and non dessert foods I seem to be doing just fine... So yay for that.... :)

I think it might be time to break down and find a cookbook to start using.... Not something I'm used to, but I can't keep wasting so much money on ingredients for things that don't turn out, and really I need to expand on dinner foods too........... *sigh*

Okay.... done for today.... cupcakes need to come out of the oven... Hopefully I can make them work so I don't have to make more tonight.