It%u2019s not too late to get in a little end of the year baking. It is actually the perfect time to bake. All the holiday hub bub is still going on so there is usually still people all around still willing and able to eat your offerings (if you were so inclined to share), the days just feel more slow and of need of warmth and lovely smells. Plus we need something to do while while waiting for New Years, because we are just all sitting around waiting for that ball to drop, right? HAHAHA. No.
Anyway, I have been wanting to make some version of a boiled clementine cake for a while now. I love that fact the the whole clementine goes into the cake, that there is no peeling or zesting or juicing. It is just boil the clems for a little while to get the bitterness out and you are good to go. And it doesn%u2019t hurt that right now is citrus season so I have a humngo bowl of clementines, plus a shit load of other oranges and other citrus to go through so the thought of tossing a good few clementines into a cake, well it was just what needed to be done.
And the family is coming over to eat and trash my house so I needed another dessert besides the half eaten ice cream cake left in the freezer from Camereon%u2019s birthday/Christmas. So I baked that they will eat. And there we go. Win win.
Now to the clementine cake.
The stuff. Flour, baking powder and soda, salt, sugar, oil, cinnamon, vinegar, clementines, and powdered sugar.
First you need to boil the clementines. Big pot, fill with water, place clems inside, bring to a boil, then simmer for 2 hours. Seems like a long time but just do it while you are making and drinking coffee or doing laundry or whatever. You don%u2019t need to keep an eye on them, other then to check that the water hasn%u2019t evaporated, and it smells so nice.
After the 2 hours are up, remove clementines from water and let cool enough to handle. Cut in half. If there are giant seeds, remove them.
Place the clementines into blender and blend until silky smooth.
Now the other stuff. Flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and soda, and cinnamon. All into big bowl.
Whisk together until incorporated then add in the clementine puree, the oil, and the vinegar. Whisk together until it becomes a uniform batter.
Scoop batter into a very well greased bundt cake pan and bake, 50-60 minutes, until tester comes out clean.
The big revel%u2026. And it went perfect! Now time to let this sucker cool a bit on a wire rack.
While the cake is cooling, make a simple glaze. Just powdered sugar and fresh (not boiled) clementine juice. Mixed unit glaze consistency.
Once the cake is pretty much cooled, pour on the glaze.
And now it is cake time.
-C
Makes one bundt cake
2 1/4 cups all pupose flour
1 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon vinegar
1/2 cup any neutral oil
1 teaspoon cinnamon
6 clementines (you need 2 cups pureed)
For the glaze
1 cup powdered sugar
1 clementine
To start, place 6 clementines into large pot and fill with water. Place on stove and bring water to a rapid boil then reduce heat and continue to simmer clementines for about 2 hours.
Once clementines are cooked, cut in half and check and discard any large seeds. Place the clementines into a blended and blend until smooth. Should have about 2 cups puree. If you are short on volume, add water to make up the difference.
Preheat oven to 350
Grab a large bowl. Dump the flour, baking powder and soda, salt, cinnamon, and sugar and whisk together until completely incorporated. Now add in the clementine puree along with the oil and the vinegar. Mix until completely incorporated. Scoop batter into a well greased burnt pan (at least 10 cup capacity) then place into oven on middle rack and bake for 50-60 minutes until a tester (or a fork) stuck in to the deepest part of the cake comes out clean.
Once baked, remove cake from oven and allow to cool for a few minutes in pan, then flip the cake out of pan, gently of course, and hope you greased it well enough for it to just pop out. Once removed from pan, allow to cool on a wire rack.
While cake is cooling, make the glaze. Powered sugar into a bowl along with the juice of a clementine. Mix together. If the glaze is to thick, add more juice (or water), to thin, a little more powdered sugar until you reach your desired consistency (pourable but not runny is good) and once cake is cooled, pour glaze all over.
And then eat cake.
I love December, basically because it is a month long excuse to always be baking cookies. And listen to Christmas music. And have a lovely big ass tree in the house covered in lights and dried fruit. Plus snow if we are really lucky. December. It%u2019s a good month.
And we are getting to that time when now most of us have serious cookie making on the brain. I bet if you ask 5 people what they are planning on doing in the next few days leading up to Christmas, at least 3 of them will tell you they are making cookies because really, that is what you should be doing. That is if you like to bake. If not, then by all means, skip cookie baking.
Now what cookies to bake? Well you got to have chocolate chip, and peanut butter. Plus some no bakes and sugar cookies, but also, I think, some type of gingerbread.
These cookies are the gingerbread something. I added cardamon because I think cardamom is delicious and think everyone will think so too, And lemon because lemon goes with cardamom and ginger and lemon cardamon ginger just has a nice ring to it. Then crinkle because I didn%u2019t really want to roll out dough and cut out shapes (I was being lazy), but I wanted pretty and I am really Into the crinkle look.
These cookies were a huge hit. Not crispy like a snap, but not cakey or overly soft. A nice chew and deep in flavor. The mr was basically smuggling these cookies all day before I had a chance to really hide them and he is not a typical gingerbread lover but he told me that these cookies might just be the best cookies he has ever had. So yeah, I guess this is now my new winner gingerbread cookie recipe.
And no joke, these are probably the best smelling cookies I have ever made. I wanted to bottle up the smell and wear it on me like a teenage boy wears a new bottle of axe. Seriously, I kept sniffing my sweater all day long just to get a good hit of the smell. So good!
Now to the cookies!
The stuff. In one bowl there is flour, salt, and baking soda and powder. The other bowl is brown sugar and molasses. There there is a couple flax eggs, some oil, a lemon for it%u2019s zest, and spices of ginger, cardamon, cinnamon, and black pepper. Also powdered sugar to roll and crinkle these cookies.
Wet stuff. Sugar, molasses, flax eggs, and oil. Mix until combined.
Dry stuff. Flour, baking soda and powder, salt, and the spices. Add in the lemon zest too and whisk to combine.
Wet into dry. Grab a wooden spoon and mix until a cohesive dough forms. And yes you can give up the spoon after a minute and use your hands to complete the mixing%u2026 I did.
After dough is mixed and uniform, pop the bowl into the fridge for a little while to give he dough some time to rest. Half an hour is good and you could even leave it for a day if you wanted to, just cover it if you do.
And when the dough has had it%u2019s time, scoop, roll into balls, ans roll around and completely coat in powdered sugar.
Sugars balls of dough. Now pop them into the oven.
TA DA! Baked and all crinkly.
Let the cookies cool on a wire rack because that%u2019s how all cookie cool. And smell that delicious oh so lovely smell. It really is amazing, no?
Then onto a serving plate and now you have cookies for your mouth face.
Happiest happys of all the days to come! Now go eat cookies!
-C
makes around 2 dozen cookies
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon ground ginger
3/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon pepper
zest of a lemon (about 2 teaspoons)
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup molasses
2/3 cup neutral oil (I used canola)
2 flax eggs (6 tablespoon warm water mixed with 2 tablespoon ground flax seed)
1/2 -3/4 cup powdered sugar
To start, grab a bowl and mix together the brown sugar, molasses, oil, and flax seed eggs until completely combines. In another large bowl, whisk together the flour, all the spices (ginger, cardamon, cinnamon,and pepper), baking powder and soda, and salt. Pour the wet mixture into the bowl with the dry and mix together until a cohesive dough forms. Place dough in fridge for about a 1/2 hour to up to a day to let dough rest for a bit. If you are going to keep in the fridge for a while, just cover it up.
When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 and measure out powdered sugar into a bowl
Remove dough from fridge and using a scoop or just eyeballing it, scoop about 2 tablespoons worth of dough. With each scoop, roll the dough into a ball and place into the bowl of the powdered sugar and roll around unit completely coated. Place ball on a baking sheet, giving it a little pat down, NOT squishing it down, just a little indent. And don%u2019t overcrowd balls, give them a little space.
When your baking sheet full, place Into hot oven and bake for 12-13 minutes or until the cookies have puffed and flattened out a bit, are golden brown on the bottoms, and the tops are all crinkly and lovely. Once cooked all the way, remove from oven and transfer cookies onto a wire rack to cool.
Then eat a warm one. Heck, eat 2 warm ones, then do what you will with the rest.
Store cooled cookies in an air tight container at room temp for 3-4 days. They can also be frozen for long term storage but why do you need to store your cookies? Jest eat them.
Peaches are here. YAY!!! Peaches are for sure one of those fleeting fruits, one that once in season, you need to eat as many fresh as you can because once they are out of season, they are not good. Not good at all. And me being me, I see peaches, I buy a shit load, and now I have a fridge drawer full. Not complaining in the slightest, but peaches cannot sit around all summer waiting to be eaten. So if you are going to buy a shit load, know what you are going to do with them all.
My peaches, well they haven%u2019t had to wait long. I have been eating at least a peach a day and%u2026 I made these bars with a few. Sharing my peaches, thats what I do. HA.
These almond peach shortbread bars. Fantastic A+ on all fronts. Easy to make, not a whole heck of a lot of ingredients, make the house smell amazing, and really kick off the peach, summer vibe thing that goes on around here.
‘%u201cMillions of peaches, peaches for me. Millions of Peaches, peaches for free%u201d %ud83c%udfb6 (Peaches by The Presidents of the United States of America. If you have%u2019t head the song, look it up. I don%u2019t think I can even look at a peach without hearing the song in my head.)
Now to the peach almond shortbread bars!
The stuff. Peaches, almonds, vegan butter, brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, salt, and baking powder.
Easy peasy. Almonds go in to food processor first. Blend and pulse for a minute or two until they turn into a medium fine almond meal. (Don%u2019t over blend or you will end up with almond butter.) When almonds are ground, add in the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and sugar. Pulse until combined. Then add in the butter in chunks and pulse until dough just starts to come together.
Half the dough goes into a 9×9 baking pan. Smooshed evenly all over the bottom poke it with a fork. Then it just needs to go into the oven to bake. 15-18 minutes or so, just until it starts to brown a bit.
Peaches need to be cut so cut them up. !/2 inch thick slices, after the pits be removed of course.
Blinded baked bottom. Looks good yeah? Let it cool for a few minutes and then it gets peaches. Three rows, all over lapping and nestled together.
The top gets the remaining half of dough and is now it%u2019s ready for the oven. Another 40-ish minutes or so to really seal the deal.
Taken from the oven when golden brown, cooled, cut up, and placed on a pretty plate because pretty is nice.
I am pretty sure you figured out what to do next%u2026. EAT IT!
-C
makes a 9×9 pan which can be cut Into the sizes of your choice
1 cup vegan butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 cup cup all purpose flour
1 cups raw almonds
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3 large firm peaches
1 heaping teaspoon cinnamon
Preheat oven 350
Place almonds into a food processor and pulse and blend until a fine meal has formed. It should take only a minute or two and stop half way and scrape the edges and sides do the almonds don%u2019t start to form a paste. Add in the flour, salt, baking powder, cinnamon,and sugar and pulse until combined. Add in the vegan butter in a few chunks and pulse until the mixture turns into a crumbly dough. Stop pulsing and dump mixture into big bowl.
Take half of the mixture and place into a 9×9 baking pan. Evenly distribute and press the dough into the bottom. Take a fork and poke the dough all over then place the pan in the oven. Bake for 15-17 minutes or until the dough just starts to lighly brown. Remove from oven.
While the bottom crust is cooling off for a few minutes, slice peaches into 1/2 inch slices. Obviously make sure to remove pit.
Now take your half baked crust and layer peaches evenly on top. It is easies to start at the top, make three rows across and then layer the peaches down (like in the picture above). Once peaches are layered, grab the remaining half of dough and evenly distribute on top. Place back into oven and bake for another 40-45 minutes or until the crumble on top is a nice deep golden brown.
Remove from oven, let coo completely (or as completely as you can) cut into pieces, and then you eat it.
Left over pieces should be placed in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days. They freeze well individually wrapped too.
blind back for about 15 minutes of until the crust is starting to brown around the edges
bake for another 30 minutes
I have a bag of coconut flour that I need to use up so I have made coconut snack cake a few times the past couple weeks. Once with orange instead of lime. Once I added chocolate chips. This time I stepped it up made a little glaze action, toasted a little coconut for some extra coconutiness and took these here pictures and wrote down the recipe. Just. For. You.
Not that I don%u2019t know already that my snack cake creation is good, but I guess it was just super A+++. I threw this one together right before the mr and I headed down to PA to hang with my dad. As soon as he (and sister and nephews) started in on it, well the responses were more then average. My dad even snuck a piece off and hid it for later. They really, really, really were into it. Wanted me to make another right then and there. Normally I would but my dad doesn%u2019t keep coconut flour on hand and I don%u2019t make it a habit to travel with any myself. (I might have to change that.) Next time he will know to stock the coconut flour.
I didn%u2019t realize my people were such coconut people. Good thing for them that I like coconut people. As a matter of fact, I consider myself a coconut person. And coconut is not code for awesome, but I am that too. HA
Anyway enough about me. Coconut snack cake is what you want to know about. It is soft and dense. Moist, not overly sweet. Lots of lime and coconut flavor and is just perfect for snack time. Eat it with a fork on a plate with coffee or tea or grab an piece and eat it walking down the street while thinking about green leaves and warmer weather. Or wherever and whenever. If you make it then it%u2019s up to you when and where you eat it. That only seems fair.
Now to the snack cake of your coconut lime dreams.
The stuff. Gonna need all purpose flour, coconut flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, a couple flax eggs, some warmed coconut oil, plant milk, brown sugar, vanilla extra, apple sider vinegar, a couple lime, some powdered sugar, and some lightly toasted shredded coconut.
Grab a big bowl. Add in the brown sugar, flax eggs, warmed coconut oil, apple cider vinegar, and vanilla. Mix it all up until evenly incorporated.
Dump in the flours, baking soda and powder, and salt. Zest in lime, squeeze in lime juice and start to mix. Add in the milk as you are mixing.
Cake batter mixed and done. Now to bake it.
Dump the cake batter into a well greased baking pan and level it off with a spoon or spatula.
Now it%u2019s oven time to bake into a great and well cake.
A cake out of the oven, great and well. Golden brown and smells of all the goodness that a coconut cake could possible smell.
While cake is cooling, which it should be now, make the glaze. Powdered sugar, lime zest, and lime juice. Mix until it%u2019s glazy.
Pour the glaze all over cooled cake.
Don%u2019t forget the shredded coconut. Get it on before the glaze starts to set.
And then it%u2019s just the matter of cutting cake%u2026%u2026.
You know once you cut it, that means snack time right? Coconut lime snack cake for all of your coconut time, lime time, hungry snack time needs.
Keep it good.
-C
Makes a 9×9 cake
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup coconut flour
3/4 packed cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup coconut oil (warmed to liquid)
1 1/4 cup plant milk (I used almond)
2 flax eggs (2 tablespoons ground flax seeds with 1/2 cup warm water)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
A lime
For the glaze
3/4 cup powdered sugar
a lime
1/4 cup or so toasted shredded coconut to sprinkle on top (optional)
Preheat oven to 350
In a large bowl, mix together the bbrown sugar, flax eggs, warmed coconut oil, vanilla, and apple cider vinegar until completely incorporated. Next dump in the flour, coconut flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder. Zest the lime into bowl. Start mixing, adding in the juice of the lime and the plant milk. Mix it all together until completely incorporated.
Dump mixture into a well greases 9×9 baking pan and level off with a spoon or spatula. Place into oven and bake for 30-35 minutes or until golden brown and a tester stuck into the middle of cake comes out clean.
Once baked, remove from oven, let cool in pan for a few minutes then carefully remove cake from pan and let cool on a wire rack.
While cake is cooling, make the glaze. Just zest other lime into powered sugar then add the juice (or as much juice as you needed) of the lime until a pourable glaze forms. If your lime is not particularly juicy enough and the glaze is still really thin, just add a splash of water to thin out as needed.
And when cake is completely cooled, pour glaze all over cake and cover with toasted coconut flakes.
Now cut. And eat.
Store left over cake in a air tight container for 3-4 days. Individual pieces freeze well for all your future snacking needs.
I have very strong feelings for heart shaped baked goods. I think that everything, all year round, should be heart shaped. How lovely would that be? It would be ever so lovely, or I would think so anyway. And yes, ok, I was thinking about Valentines Day when I made these cupcakes but don%u2019t let that be the only reason you make a cupcake, cake, or any other baked good into the shape of a heart or pink for that matter.. Hearts are just so sweet and cute and dare I say cuddly? (Can you cuddle baked goods? Let me know if you have and do. We should talk about that). And pink is just a fantastic color, especially when it is the color of the flavor. Purple-y pink equals a taste like berry so all just makes sense.
Anyways. Cupcakes. Made with nutty almond meal to taste all nutty, frosted with blackberry and clementine frosting which is a pairing that all party and non party people will love. A down right deeelightful combination that will, no matter your circumstance in life, make you smile. Because lets get this clear, these cupcakes might look all lovey dovey and Valentines Day-e and are very much a perfect Valentines Day treat, but also can be an everyday, run of the milll, straight up any day, all day cupcakes. Valentines Day does not own the heart or pink.
These cupcakes are for you to love and you don%u2019t need to worry if they love you back. That would be weird.
Slightly off topic thought. How awesome would it be if someone made a cute little teddy bear that when you squeezed it it would scream %u201cWHAT THE HELL! GET OFF ME!%u201d Hahahaha. That would be amazing.
To the cupcakes!
The stuff. Flour, almond meal, baking soda, baking powder, salt, sugar, soy milk, oil, vanilla extract, and apple cider vinegar. Also some blackberry jam, powdered sugar, some vegan butter, and a clementine.
In a big bowl, whisk together the granulated sugar, flour, almond meal, salt, baking powder, and baking soda.
Add in the oil, vanilla, milk, and apple cider vinegar. Mix until fully incorporated.
And that is some mixed batter.
Scoop the batter into well greased muffin tins. I used to different shapes and sizes because I wanted too. You can do the same, just be aware different sizes will cook at different times.
And into the hot oven they go.
Baked, popped out of the tins, and cooling to cool.
Frosting time. Butter, clementine zest, and jam mixed together makes for the prettiest color.
Add in the powdered sugar and juice of the clementine and beat with a beater.
Pretty pink frosting. All natural.
And now that the cupcakes are cooled (you must wait until they are completely cooled) get them frosted.
And of course, adding sprinkles will only make them that much better.
And now you got the cupcakes which makes it cupcake time.
Look at that smile. Thats a smile just for cupcakes, not at all because I told him too.
Happy happy.
-C
Makes 12-16 cupcakes (depending on size)
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup almond meal
1/3 cup neutral oil
1 1/4 cup almond milk
3/4 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla or almond extract
For the frosting
3 tablespoons blackberry jam or preserves with or without seeds
2- 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
4 tablespoon vegan butter
1 clementine (zest and some juice)
Preheat oven to 350.
In a large bowl whisk together the flours, salt, baking soda and powder and sugar until fully combines. In a separate bowl mix together the oil, milk, vinegar, and vanilla. Pour into the dry and mix, by hand, until full incorporated. Scoop batter into well greased muffin tins (heart or other shape up to you) and place into oven for 13-18 minutes (shorter time for smaller cupcakes, longer for larger sized) or until lightly browned and a tester stuck into a cake comes out clean. Pull from oven when done and pop from tin. Place on a wire rack to cool.
While cakes are cooling, make frosting. Beat together the butter, zest of the clementine, and jam. Add in the sugar and the juice and beat until fully incorporated. If the consistency is to thin, add a little more sugar, to thick, more clementine juice or if out of juice, a splash of milk.
Once cupcakes are full cooled, frost, add sprinkle if you would like, and then the only thing left to do is eat them.
Eat cupcakes, store left overs in an air tight container in the fridge for up to a week.
This treat is a long time coming, like almost a years time%u2026Let me explain.%u00a0
One of the littles had requested a dessert of some type of almond pear situation for his birthday%u2026..last year. Of course I said yes, no problem, for your birthday, you got it. But I never got it. I actually completely forgot. Then a few months later, I remebemered, felt like a big D-bag and told %u00a0myself I still had to make something for the guy%u2026 and I forgot again.%u00a0Next time I remembered, I had just bought a bunch of pears and that was it. Make the kid something you bitch (is what I told myself) but heres the thing, I figured he forgot too and those pears were mighty tasty.(I know I am horrible)%u00a0
So just last week I was at the store, meandering through the produce, and noticed that local pears were on sale. This was it.%u00a0I knew it had to be done. I bought a large quantity (enough to bake with and eat) and got to making that little his birthday treat request. I went with bars.. nothing to sweet, nothing to crazy, lot and lots of almond and pear flavors. Perfect for breakfast or an afternoon snack, and made even better by the fact that they were made for him, and it isn’t even his birthday.
So I made them, and brought them to his house, waited for him to get off the bus from school, and handed him his long awaited pear almond treat. He was so happy, it made me feel like shit.(I so should have made him something a year ago)%u00a0%u00a0But oh well,%u00a0%u00a0he got them right? And this way is much more a surprise then if I had actually made them when I said that I would. An unexpected, not your birthday, birthday treat!
Right here guys%u2026Still the Best Aunt EVER!
The stuff. Alond flour, oat flour, baking soda ,salt, earth balance and a little honey. We also need some rolled oaths almond butter and almonds. And of course we need pears, with a little corn starch and a smidge of cinnamon.
Nice ripe pears get thinly sliced, seeds and stems removed.
Tossed into a bowl with the starch and cinnamon and set aside.%u00a0
The oat and almond flour gets mixed together with the salt and the baking soda, then mix together with the earth balance and honey until it turns into a dough.( I used my hands to mix it together%u2026it worked better then a fork)
Break off about a 1/4 of the dough and stick back in bowl. Take the rest and evenly press into the bottom of a 9×9 baking pan.
Take the remaing dough and mix in the almonds, oats, and almond butter to form the crumble.
Dump the pears on the crust, making sure the are level and pretty evenly layered.
And crumble the crumble on top.
Give it a little press to compact the crumble and into the oven it goes!
When all browned and crispy and nice, remove from oven and let cool. Cut into squares and go for it.
Look at that, so much goodness.Go ME!%u00a0
Happy Wednesday people!
-C
For the crust and crumble
1 1/2 cup oat flour
1 1/2 cup almond %u00a0flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup honey
1/2 cup earth balance (can use butter)
1/4 cup almond butter
1/2 cup oats
1/4 cup almonds
For the pear filling
4-5 ripe pears
2 tablespoons corn or arrowroot starch
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Preheat oven to 350
In a large bowl, mix together the almond and oat flour, baking soda, and salt. Add in the earth balance and honey and mix together until a dough forms (I find using my hands to work swell). Roll dough into a blob and tear about 1/4 of the dough away and set back into bowl. Press the remaining dough into he bottom of a 9X9 inch baking pan. With the remaining dough, mix the rolled oats, the almond butter and the chopped almonds and set aside again.
Now slice up your pears %u00a0into 1/4 inch thick slices (remove seeds and stems)%u00a0and toss into a bowl with the cinnamon and starch. Take pears and layer ontop of the crust, trying to keep the pears evenly distributed. And dump and distribute the crumble topping all over the pears. Gie the whole thing a few pats to compress the crumble a bit.
Stick into the oven and bake for about 45 minutes, or until the crumble topping is all nice and brown and crispy.%u00a0
Remove from the oven, let cool and cut into squares.%u00a0
Great as breakfast lunch snack or dinner. Eat with you hands and lick crumbs off plate.%u00a0
Don’t let the fact that these rich, fudgy, soft, oh so yummy brownies that %u00a0have beans in them scare you away, it just means that you can eat more, you know, like half a pan, and not think twice about it. (I think that is perfectly acceptable)%u00a0And the carob. Well one of the things I always do for my birthday is to buy a new ingredient of some sort that I wouldn’t normally buy because it’s either too expensive or is hard to find. Carob is neither too expensive or hard to find, but I couldn’t find the really expensive stuff that I was looking for so I grabbed a bag of carob powder. %u00a0If you have never tried carob, it’s a must. It’s kind of like chocolate, but more fruity, sweet, not bitter, and caffeine free, while still %u00a0containing %u00a0all the good health benefits as chocolate. %u00a0It’s really good%u2026..you will like it. (You can use cocoa instead, but then you are going to miss out on the awesomeness of carob and be left with a plain old normal black bean brownie)
I was also thinking that these would make for a fantastic Super Bowl party snack, you know, brownies and protein.. Sounds like a football type of food right. ( I know nothing of football, but I do know about food parties%u2026.brownies are good for food parties)%u00a0
Anyways, super fast, super simple, super easy. Make these and feel awesome. %u00a0And maybe don’t tell people that you made them with beans, they don’t need to know, all they will think is that they are eating something good. %u00a0
One bowl. Beans, oil, oats, baking powder carob and vanilla.%u00a0I used an emulsion blender but a blender or a food processor does the same%u2026..blend together until fully incorporated, smooth and creamy with little speckles of oats. It’s so simple and barely a mess to be made.
Into a greases pan and %u00a0into the oven for 25- 30 minutes%u2026. Out of the oven when a toothpick comes out clean
Let cool for at least 10 minutes (ok, maybe 5) and cut into squares of %u00a0any size you like.
Stacked on parchment%u2026.oh so pretty
Ready to go%u2026.. To share or to hoard.%u00a0
Excellent for so many reasons. They are tasty, gluten-free,%u00a0vegan, full of proteins and when consumed, make people happy. My little nephew who is so so picky and doesn’t like anything even really liked these so right there I knew this recipes was a winner. %u00a0
Enjoy your brownies!%u00a0
-C
2 cups cooked black beans (1 can)
3/4 carob powder
1/2 cup sugar%u00a0
3/4 cup gluten-free quick oats or rolled oats
1/2 cup coconut oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking power
Preheat oven to 375
Place all ingredients in either a food processor, blender, or a large bowl for a hand blender and blend together until %u00a0stuff is fully incorporated and smooth. Transfer into a well greases 9×9 baking pan and stick in over for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick %u00a0stuck in the middle comes out clean.%u00a0
Let cool for some %u00a0minutes, cut into squares and serve!
THE LOVELY CRAZY
December 29, 2019 by maximios • Blog
It%u2019s not too late to get in a little end of the year baking. It is actually the perfect time to bake. All the holiday hub bub is still going on so there is usually still people all around still willing and able to eat your offerings (if you were so inclined to share), the days just feel more slow and of need of warmth and lovely smells. Plus we need something to do while while waiting for New Years, because we are just all sitting around waiting for that ball to drop, right? HAHAHA. No.
Anyway, I have been wanting to make some version of a boiled clementine cake for a while now. I love that fact the the whole clementine goes into the cake, that there is no peeling or zesting or juicing. It is just boil the clems for a little while to get the bitterness out and you are good to go. And it doesn%u2019t hurt that right now is citrus season so I have a humngo bowl of clementines, plus a shit load of other oranges and other citrus to go through so the thought of tossing a good few clementines into a cake, well it was just what needed to be done.
And the family is coming over to eat and trash my house so I needed another dessert besides the half eaten ice cream cake left in the freezer from Camereon%u2019s birthday/Christmas. So I baked that they will eat. And there we go. Win win.
Now to the clementine cake.
The stuff. Flour, baking powder and soda, salt, sugar, oil, cinnamon, vinegar, clementines, and powdered sugar.
First you need to boil the clementines. Big pot, fill with water, place clems inside, bring to a boil, then simmer for 2 hours. Seems like a long time but just do it while you are making and drinking coffee or doing laundry or whatever. You don%u2019t need to keep an eye on them, other then to check that the water hasn%u2019t evaporated, and it smells so nice.
After the 2 hours are up, remove clementines from water and let cool enough to handle. Cut in half. If there are giant seeds, remove them.
Place the clementines into blender and blend until silky smooth.
Now the other stuff. Flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and soda, and cinnamon. All into big bowl.
Whisk together until incorporated then add in the clementine puree, the oil, and the vinegar. Whisk together until it becomes a uniform batter.
Scoop batter into a very well greased bundt cake pan and bake, 50-60 minutes, until tester comes out clean.
The big revel%u2026. And it went perfect! Now time to let this sucker cool a bit on a wire rack.
While the cake is cooling, make a simple glaze. Just powdered sugar and fresh (not boiled) clementine juice. Mixed unit glaze consistency.
Once the cake is pretty much cooled, pour on the glaze.
And now it is cake time.
-C
Makes one bundt cake
2 1/4 cups all pupose flour
1 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon vinegar
1/2 cup any neutral oil
1 teaspoon cinnamon
6 clementines (you need 2 cups pureed)
For the glaze
1 cup powdered sugar
1 clementine
To start, place 6 clementines into large pot and fill with water. Place on stove and bring water to a rapid boil then reduce heat and continue to simmer clementines for about 2 hours.
Once clementines are cooked, cut in half and check and discard any large seeds. Place the clementines into a blended and blend until smooth. Should have about 2 cups puree. If you are short on volume, add water to make up the difference.
Preheat oven to 350
Grab a large bowl. Dump the flour, baking powder and soda, salt, cinnamon, and sugar and whisk together until completely incorporated. Now add in the clementine puree along with the oil and the vinegar. Mix until completely incorporated. Scoop batter into a well greased burnt pan (at least 10 cup capacity) then place into oven on middle rack and bake for 50-60 minutes until a tester (or a fork) stuck in to the deepest part of the cake comes out clean.
Once baked, remove cake from oven and allow to cool for a few minutes in pan, then flip the cake out of pan, gently of course, and hope you greased it well enough for it to just pop out. Once removed from pan, allow to cool on a wire rack.
While cake is cooling, make the glaze. Powered sugar into a bowl along with the juice of a clementine. Mix together. If the glaze is to thick, add more juice (or water), to thin, a little more powdered sugar until you reach your desired consistency (pourable but not runny is good) and once cake is cooled, pour glaze all over.
And then eat cake.
I love December, basically because it is a month long excuse to always be baking cookies. And listen to Christmas music. And have a lovely big ass tree in the house covered in lights and dried fruit. Plus snow if we are really lucky. December. It%u2019s a good month.
And we are getting to that time when now most of us have serious cookie making on the brain. I bet if you ask 5 people what they are planning on doing in the next few days leading up to Christmas, at least 3 of them will tell you they are making cookies because really, that is what you should be doing. That is if you like to bake. If not, then by all means, skip cookie baking.
Now what cookies to bake? Well you got to have chocolate chip, and peanut butter. Plus some no bakes and sugar cookies, but also, I think, some type of gingerbread.
These cookies are the gingerbread something. I added cardamon because I think cardamom is delicious and think everyone will think so too, And lemon because lemon goes with cardamom and ginger and lemon cardamon ginger just has a nice ring to it. Then crinkle because I didn%u2019t really want to roll out dough and cut out shapes (I was being lazy), but I wanted pretty and I am really Into the crinkle look.
These cookies were a huge hit. Not crispy like a snap, but not cakey or overly soft. A nice chew and deep in flavor. The mr was basically smuggling these cookies all day before I had a chance to really hide them and he is not a typical gingerbread lover but he told me that these cookies might just be the best cookies he has ever had. So yeah, I guess this is now my new winner gingerbread cookie recipe.
And no joke, these are probably the best smelling cookies I have ever made. I wanted to bottle up the smell and wear it on me like a teenage boy wears a new bottle of axe. Seriously, I kept sniffing my sweater all day long just to get a good hit of the smell. So good!
Now to the cookies!
The stuff. In one bowl there is flour, salt, and baking soda and powder. The other bowl is brown sugar and molasses. There there is a couple flax eggs, some oil, a lemon for it%u2019s zest, and spices of ginger, cardamon, cinnamon, and black pepper. Also powdered sugar to roll and crinkle these cookies.
Wet stuff. Sugar, molasses, flax eggs, and oil. Mix until combined.
Dry stuff. Flour, baking soda and powder, salt, and the spices. Add in the lemon zest too and whisk to combine.
Wet into dry. Grab a wooden spoon and mix until a cohesive dough forms. And yes you can give up the spoon after a minute and use your hands to complete the mixing%u2026 I did.
After dough is mixed and uniform, pop the bowl into the fridge for a little while to give he dough some time to rest. Half an hour is good and you could even leave it for a day if you wanted to, just cover it if you do.
And when the dough has had it%u2019s time, scoop, roll into balls, ans roll around and completely coat in powdered sugar.
Sugars balls of dough. Now pop them into the oven.
TA DA! Baked and all crinkly.
Let the cookies cool on a wire rack because that%u2019s how all cookie cool. And smell that delicious oh so lovely smell. It really is amazing, no?
Then onto a serving plate and now you have cookies for your mouth face.
Happiest happys of all the days to come! Now go eat cookies!
-C
makes around 2 dozen cookies
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon ground ginger
3/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon pepper
zest of a lemon (about 2 teaspoons)
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup molasses
2/3 cup neutral oil (I used canola)
2 flax eggs (6 tablespoon warm water mixed with 2 tablespoon ground flax seed)
1/2 -3/4 cup powdered sugar
To start, grab a bowl and mix together the brown sugar, molasses, oil, and flax seed eggs until completely combines. In another large bowl, whisk together the flour, all the spices (ginger, cardamon, cinnamon,and pepper), baking powder and soda, and salt. Pour the wet mixture into the bowl with the dry and mix together until a cohesive dough forms. Place dough in fridge for about a 1/2 hour to up to a day to let dough rest for a bit. If you are going to keep in the fridge for a while, just cover it up.
When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 and measure out powdered sugar into a bowl
Remove dough from fridge and using a scoop or just eyeballing it, scoop about 2 tablespoons worth of dough. With each scoop, roll the dough into a ball and place into the bowl of the powdered sugar and roll around unit completely coated. Place ball on a baking sheet, giving it a little pat down, NOT squishing it down, just a little indent. And don%u2019t overcrowd balls, give them a little space.
When your baking sheet full, place Into hot oven and bake for 12-13 minutes or until the cookies have puffed and flattened out a bit, are golden brown on the bottoms, and the tops are all crinkly and lovely. Once cooked all the way, remove from oven and transfer cookies onto a wire rack to cool.
Then eat a warm one. Heck, eat 2 warm ones, then do what you will with the rest.
Store cooled cookies in an air tight container at room temp for 3-4 days. They can also be frozen for long term storage but why do you need to store your cookies? Jest eat them.
Peaches are here. YAY!!! Peaches are for sure one of those fleeting fruits, one that once in season, you need to eat as many fresh as you can because once they are out of season, they are not good. Not good at all. And me being me, I see peaches, I buy a shit load, and now I have a fridge drawer full. Not complaining in the slightest, but peaches cannot sit around all summer waiting to be eaten. So if you are going to buy a shit load, know what you are going to do with them all.
My peaches, well they haven%u2019t had to wait long. I have been eating at least a peach a day and%u2026 I made these bars with a few. Sharing my peaches, thats what I do. HA.
These almond peach shortbread bars. Fantastic A+ on all fronts. Easy to make, not a whole heck of a lot of ingredients, make the house smell amazing, and really kick off the peach, summer vibe thing that goes on around here.
‘%u201cMillions of peaches, peaches for me. Millions of Peaches, peaches for free%u201d %ud83c%udfb6 (Peaches by The Presidents of the United States of America. If you have%u2019t head the song, look it up. I don%u2019t think I can even look at a peach without hearing the song in my head.)
Now to the peach almond shortbread bars!
The stuff. Peaches, almonds, vegan butter, brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, salt, and baking powder.
Easy peasy. Almonds go in to food processor first. Blend and pulse for a minute or two until they turn into a medium fine almond meal. (Don%u2019t over blend or you will end up with almond butter.) When almonds are ground, add in the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and sugar. Pulse until combined. Then add in the butter in chunks and pulse until dough just starts to come together.
Half the dough goes into a 9×9 baking pan. Smooshed evenly all over the bottom poke it with a fork. Then it just needs to go into the oven to bake. 15-18 minutes or so, just until it starts to brown a bit.
Peaches need to be cut so cut them up. !/2 inch thick slices, after the pits be removed of course.
Blinded baked bottom. Looks good yeah? Let it cool for a few minutes and then it gets peaches. Three rows, all over lapping and nestled together.
The top gets the remaining half of dough and is now it%u2019s ready for the oven. Another 40-ish minutes or so to really seal the deal.
Taken from the oven when golden brown, cooled, cut up, and placed on a pretty plate because pretty is nice.
I am pretty sure you figured out what to do next%u2026. EAT IT!
-C
makes a 9×9 pan which can be cut Into the sizes of your choice
1 cup vegan butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 cup cup all purpose flour
1 cups raw almonds
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3 large firm peaches
1 heaping teaspoon cinnamon
Preheat oven 350
Place almonds into a food processor and pulse and blend until a fine meal has formed. It should take only a minute or two and stop half way and scrape the edges and sides do the almonds don%u2019t start to form a paste. Add in the flour, salt, baking powder, cinnamon,and sugar and pulse until combined. Add in the vegan butter in a few chunks and pulse until the mixture turns into a crumbly dough. Stop pulsing and dump mixture into big bowl.
Take half of the mixture and place into a 9×9 baking pan. Evenly distribute and press the dough into the bottom. Take a fork and poke the dough all over then place the pan in the oven. Bake for 15-17 minutes or until the dough just starts to lighly brown. Remove from oven.
While the bottom crust is cooling off for a few minutes, slice peaches into 1/2 inch slices. Obviously make sure to remove pit.
Now take your half baked crust and layer peaches evenly on top. It is easies to start at the top, make three rows across and then layer the peaches down (like in the picture above). Once peaches are layered, grab the remaining half of dough and evenly distribute on top. Place back into oven and bake for another 40-45 minutes or until the crumble on top is a nice deep golden brown.
Remove from oven, let coo completely (or as completely as you can) cut into pieces, and then you eat it.
Left over pieces should be placed in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days. They freeze well individually wrapped too.
blind back for about 15 minutes of until the crust is starting to brown around the edges
bake for another 30 minutes
I have a bag of coconut flour that I need to use up so I have made coconut snack cake a few times the past couple weeks. Once with orange instead of lime. Once I added chocolate chips. This time I stepped it up made a little glaze action, toasted a little coconut for some extra coconutiness and took these here pictures and wrote down the recipe. Just. For. You.
Not that I don%u2019t know already that my snack cake creation is good, but I guess it was just super A+++. I threw this one together right before the mr and I headed down to PA to hang with my dad. As soon as he (and sister and nephews) started in on it, well the responses were more then average. My dad even snuck a piece off and hid it for later. They really, really, really were into it. Wanted me to make another right then and there. Normally I would but my dad doesn%u2019t keep coconut flour on hand and I don%u2019t make it a habit to travel with any myself. (I might have to change that.) Next time he will know to stock the coconut flour.
I didn%u2019t realize my people were such coconut people. Good thing for them that I like coconut people. As a matter of fact, I consider myself a coconut person. And coconut is not code for awesome, but I am that too. HA
Anyway enough about me. Coconut snack cake is what you want to know about. It is soft and dense. Moist, not overly sweet. Lots of lime and coconut flavor and is just perfect for snack time. Eat it with a fork on a plate with coffee or tea or grab an piece and eat it walking down the street while thinking about green leaves and warmer weather. Or wherever and whenever. If you make it then it%u2019s up to you when and where you eat it. That only seems fair.
Now to the snack cake of your coconut lime dreams.
The stuff. Gonna need all purpose flour, coconut flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, a couple flax eggs, some warmed coconut oil, plant milk, brown sugar, vanilla extra, apple sider vinegar, a couple lime, some powdered sugar, and some lightly toasted shredded coconut.
Grab a big bowl. Add in the brown sugar, flax eggs, warmed coconut oil, apple cider vinegar, and vanilla. Mix it all up until evenly incorporated.
Dump in the flours, baking soda and powder, and salt. Zest in lime, squeeze in lime juice and start to mix. Add in the milk as you are mixing.
Cake batter mixed and done. Now to bake it.
Dump the cake batter into a well greased baking pan and level it off with a spoon or spatula.
Now it%u2019s oven time to bake into a great and well cake.
A cake out of the oven, great and well. Golden brown and smells of all the goodness that a coconut cake could possible smell.
While cake is cooling, which it should be now, make the glaze. Powdered sugar, lime zest, and lime juice. Mix until it%u2019s glazy.
Pour the glaze all over cooled cake.
Don%u2019t forget the shredded coconut. Get it on before the glaze starts to set.
And then it%u2019s just the matter of cutting cake%u2026%u2026.
You know once you cut it, that means snack time right? Coconut lime snack cake for all of your coconut time, lime time, hungry snack time needs.
Keep it good.
-C
Makes a 9×9 cake
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup coconut flour
3/4 packed cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup coconut oil (warmed to liquid)
1 1/4 cup plant milk (I used almond)
2 flax eggs (2 tablespoons ground flax seeds with 1/2 cup warm water)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
A lime
For the glaze
3/4 cup powdered sugar
a lime
1/4 cup or so toasted shredded coconut to sprinkle on top (optional)
Preheat oven to 350
In a large bowl, mix together the bbrown sugar, flax eggs, warmed coconut oil, vanilla, and apple cider vinegar until completely incorporated. Next dump in the flour, coconut flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder. Zest the lime into bowl. Start mixing, adding in the juice of the lime and the plant milk. Mix it all together until completely incorporated.
Dump mixture into a well greases 9×9 baking pan and level off with a spoon or spatula. Place into oven and bake for 30-35 minutes or until golden brown and a tester stuck into the middle of cake comes out clean.
Once baked, remove from oven, let cool in pan for a few minutes then carefully remove cake from pan and let cool on a wire rack.
While cake is cooling, make the glaze. Just zest other lime into powered sugar then add the juice (or as much juice as you needed) of the lime until a pourable glaze forms. If your lime is not particularly juicy enough and the glaze is still really thin, just add a splash of water to thin out as needed.
And when cake is completely cooled, pour glaze all over cake and cover with toasted coconut flakes.
Now cut. And eat.
Store left over cake in a air tight container for 3-4 days. Individual pieces freeze well for all your future snacking needs.
I have very strong feelings for heart shaped baked goods. I think that everything, all year round, should be heart shaped. How lovely would that be? It would be ever so lovely, or I would think so anyway. And yes, ok, I was thinking about Valentines Day when I made these cupcakes but don%u2019t let that be the only reason you make a cupcake, cake, or any other baked good into the shape of a heart or pink for that matter.. Hearts are just so sweet and cute and dare I say cuddly? (Can you cuddle baked goods? Let me know if you have and do. We should talk about that). And pink is just a fantastic color, especially when it is the color of the flavor. Purple-y pink equals a taste like berry so all just makes sense.
Anyways. Cupcakes. Made with nutty almond meal to taste all nutty, frosted with blackberry and clementine frosting which is a pairing that all party and non party people will love. A down right deeelightful combination that will, no matter your circumstance in life, make you smile. Because lets get this clear, these cupcakes might look all lovey dovey and Valentines Day-e and are very much a perfect Valentines Day treat, but also can be an everyday, run of the milll, straight up any day, all day cupcakes. Valentines Day does not own the heart or pink.
These cupcakes are for you to love and you don%u2019t need to worry if they love you back. That would be weird.
Slightly off topic thought. How awesome would it be if someone made a cute little teddy bear that when you squeezed it it would scream %u201cWHAT THE HELL! GET OFF ME!%u201d Hahahaha. That would be amazing.
To the cupcakes!
The stuff. Flour, almond meal, baking soda, baking powder, salt, sugar, soy milk, oil, vanilla extract, and apple cider vinegar. Also some blackberry jam, powdered sugar, some vegan butter, and a clementine.
In a big bowl, whisk together the granulated sugar, flour, almond meal, salt, baking powder, and baking soda.
Add in the oil, vanilla, milk, and apple cider vinegar. Mix until fully incorporated.
And that is some mixed batter.
Scoop the batter into well greased muffin tins. I used to different shapes and sizes because I wanted too. You can do the same, just be aware different sizes will cook at different times.
And into the hot oven they go.
Baked, popped out of the tins, and cooling to cool.
Frosting time. Butter, clementine zest, and jam mixed together makes for the prettiest color.
Add in the powdered sugar and juice of the clementine and beat with a beater.
Pretty pink frosting. All natural.
And now that the cupcakes are cooled (you must wait until they are completely cooled) get them frosted.
And of course, adding sprinkles will only make them that much better.
And now you got the cupcakes which makes it cupcake time.
Look at that smile. Thats a smile just for cupcakes, not at all because I told him too.
Happy happy.
-C
Makes 12-16 cupcakes (depending on size)
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup almond meal
1/3 cup neutral oil
1 1/4 cup almond milk
3/4 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla or almond extract
For the frosting
3 tablespoons blackberry jam or preserves with or without seeds
2- 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
4 tablespoon vegan butter
1 clementine (zest and some juice)
Preheat oven to 350.
In a large bowl whisk together the flours, salt, baking soda and powder and sugar until fully combines. In a separate bowl mix together the oil, milk, vinegar, and vanilla. Pour into the dry and mix, by hand, until full incorporated. Scoop batter into well greased muffin tins (heart or other shape up to you) and place into oven for 13-18 minutes (shorter time for smaller cupcakes, longer for larger sized) or until lightly browned and a tester stuck into a cake comes out clean. Pull from oven when done and pop from tin. Place on a wire rack to cool.
While cakes are cooling, make frosting. Beat together the butter, zest of the clementine, and jam. Add in the sugar and the juice and beat until fully incorporated. If the consistency is to thin, add a little more sugar, to thick, more clementine juice or if out of juice, a splash of milk.
Once cupcakes are full cooled, frost, add sprinkle if you would like, and then the only thing left to do is eat them.
Eat cupcakes, store left overs in an air tight container in the fridge for up to a week.
This treat is a long time coming, like almost a years time%u2026Let me explain.%u00a0
One of the littles had requested a dessert of some type of almond pear situation for his birthday%u2026..last year. Of course I said yes, no problem, for your birthday, you got it. But I never got it. I actually completely forgot. Then a few months later, I remebemered, felt like a big D-bag and told %u00a0myself I still had to make something for the guy%u2026 and I forgot again.%u00a0Next time I remembered, I had just bought a bunch of pears and that was it. Make the kid something you bitch (is what I told myself) but heres the thing, I figured he forgot too and those pears were mighty tasty.(I know I am horrible)%u00a0
So just last week I was at the store, meandering through the produce, and noticed that local pears were on sale. This was it.%u00a0I knew it had to be done. I bought a large quantity (enough to bake with and eat) and got to making that little his birthday treat request. I went with bars.. nothing to sweet, nothing to crazy, lot and lots of almond and pear flavors. Perfect for breakfast or an afternoon snack, and made even better by the fact that they were made for him, and it isn’t even his birthday.
So I made them, and brought them to his house, waited for him to get off the bus from school, and handed him his long awaited pear almond treat. He was so happy, it made me feel like shit.(I so should have made him something a year ago)%u00a0%u00a0But oh well,%u00a0%u00a0he got them right? And this way is much more a surprise then if I had actually made them when I said that I would. An unexpected, not your birthday, birthday treat!
Right here guys%u2026Still the Best Aunt EVER!
The stuff. Alond flour, oat flour, baking soda ,salt, earth balance and a little honey. We also need some rolled oaths almond butter and almonds. And of course we need pears, with a little corn starch and a smidge of cinnamon.
Nice ripe pears get thinly sliced, seeds and stems removed.
Tossed into a bowl with the starch and cinnamon and set aside.%u00a0
The oat and almond flour gets mixed together with the salt and the baking soda, then mix together with the earth balance and honey until it turns into a dough.( I used my hands to mix it together%u2026it worked better then a fork)
Break off about a 1/4 of the dough and stick back in bowl. Take the rest and evenly press into the bottom of a 9×9 baking pan.
Take the remaing dough and mix in the almonds, oats, and almond butter to form the crumble.
Dump the pears on the crust, making sure the are level and pretty evenly layered.
And crumble the crumble on top.
Give it a little press to compact the crumble and into the oven it goes!
When all browned and crispy and nice, remove from oven and let cool. Cut into squares and go for it.
Look at that, so much goodness.Go ME!%u00a0
Happy Wednesday people!
-C
For the crust and crumble
For the pear filling
Preheat oven to 350
In a large bowl, mix together the almond and oat flour, baking soda, and salt. Add in the earth balance and honey and mix together until a dough forms (I find using my hands to work swell). Roll dough into a blob and tear about 1/4 of the dough away and set back into bowl. Press the remaining dough into he bottom of a 9X9 inch baking pan. With the remaining dough, mix the rolled oats, the almond butter and the chopped almonds and set aside again.
Now slice up your pears %u00a0into 1/4 inch thick slices (remove seeds and stems)%u00a0and toss into a bowl with the cinnamon and starch. Take pears and layer ontop of the crust, trying to keep the pears evenly distributed. And dump and distribute the crumble topping all over the pears. Gie the whole thing a few pats to compress the crumble a bit.
Stick into the oven and bake for about 45 minutes, or until the crumble topping is all nice and brown and crispy.%u00a0
Remove from the oven, let cool and cut into squares.%u00a0
Great as breakfast lunch snack or dinner. Eat with you hands and lick crumbs off plate.%u00a0
Don’t let the fact that these rich, fudgy, soft, oh so yummy brownies that %u00a0have beans in them scare you away, it just means that you can eat more, you know, like half a pan, and not think twice about it. (I think that is perfectly acceptable)%u00a0And the carob. Well one of the things I always do for my birthday is to buy a new ingredient of some sort that I wouldn’t normally buy because it’s either too expensive or is hard to find. Carob is neither too expensive or hard to find, but I couldn’t find the really expensive stuff that I was looking for so I grabbed a bag of carob powder. %u00a0If you have never tried carob, it’s a must. It’s kind of like chocolate, but more fruity, sweet, not bitter, and caffeine free, while still %u00a0containing %u00a0all the good health benefits as chocolate. %u00a0It’s really good%u2026..you will like it. (You can use cocoa instead, but then you are going to miss out on the awesomeness of carob and be left with a plain old normal black bean brownie)
I was also thinking that these would make for a fantastic Super Bowl party snack, you know, brownies and protein.. Sounds like a football type of food right. ( I know nothing of football, but I do know about food parties%u2026.brownies are good for food parties)%u00a0
Anyways, super fast, super simple, super easy. Make these and feel awesome. %u00a0And maybe don’t tell people that you made them with beans, they don’t need to know, all they will think is that they are eating something good. %u00a0
One bowl. Beans, oil, oats, baking powder carob and vanilla.%u00a0I used an emulsion blender but a blender or a food processor does the same%u2026..blend together until fully incorporated, smooth and creamy with little speckles of oats. It’s so simple and barely a mess to be made.
Into a greases pan and %u00a0into the oven for 25- 30 minutes%u2026. Out of the oven when a toothpick comes out clean
Let cool for at least 10 minutes (ok, maybe 5) and cut into squares of %u00a0any size you like.
Stacked on parchment%u2026.oh so pretty
Ready to go%u2026.. To share or to hoard.%u00a0
Excellent for so many reasons. They are tasty, gluten-free,%u00a0vegan, full of proteins and when consumed, make people happy. My little nephew who is so so picky and doesn’t like anything even really liked these so right there I knew this recipes was a winner. %u00a0
Enjoy your brownies!%u00a0
-C
Preheat oven to 375
Place all ingredients in either a food processor, blender, or a large bowl for a hand blender and blend together until %u00a0stuff is fully incorporated and smooth. Transfer into a well greases 9×9 baking pan and stick in over for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick %u00a0stuck in the middle comes out clean.%u00a0
Let cool for some %u00a0minutes, cut into squares and serve!