RAW Chocolate Raspberry Cake

I tried out this recipe for a RAW Chocolate Raspberry Cake a couple of weeks ago. It came from a cookbook I got at the library, Ani's Raw Food Desserts, which was really great because the recipes used really simple ingredients and rarely required more than a blender or food processor to make. This cake used walnuts and dates as well as cocoa and carob for the "cake" and the cake icing was avocado based! Again, I love avocados, and I'll eat them in just about any way, but despite having a creamy avocado-like texture, the taste was rich and chocolate-y! Actually, the whole thing was a bit rich, but Russell and I suffered and ate it anyways! If I made it again, I would try a combo of nuts, maybe cashews and walnuts? And I would blend things up a bit finer for a less chunky texture. Soaking the dates (that's where the cake's sweetness comes from) before pureeing would help with the texture too. Yumm, Chocolate and Raspberries!

It's that baking time of year. . .

I got a bit of a baking urge over the holiday time. One weekend we made chocolate chip cookies (not from scratch, actually). They were quite delicious though regardless!















And another weekend I made pumpkin cranberry bread. We had a beautiful huge pumpkin that someone gave us and I was trying to find ways to use it all. We already had made pumpkin soup, so I found a new bread recipe to try. I made it with gluten-free flours (because I like to experiment) and all of my substitutions are in bold, below). Although it turned out a little moister than I'd like, Russell said it was really great when sliced and toasted. I'd also like to work on a way to use less brown sugar, though the bread did not taste too sweet, I'd prefer another kind of sweetener. I adapted an exisiting recipe to make this one:


Vegan Pumpkin Cranberry Bread

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour ***SUB: Bob’s Redmill G-F Biscuit and Baking mix, which has baking pwdr. and baking soda, so omit these in the recipe if using G-F mix

2 cups packed dark brown sugar

1 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 cups pumpkin puree

1/2 cup vegetable oil *** SUB: equal parts coconut oil and applesauce

1/3 cup coconut milk

1/3 cup flaked coconut

1/2 cup chopped walnuts ***used 1/2 c. dried cranberries in place of nuts.

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour loaf pan.

2. Spread walnuts in a single layer on an ungreased baking sheet. Toast in the preheated oven for 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Set aside to cool.

3. In a large bowl, stir together the flour, brown sugar, baking soda and powder (if using), salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Add the pumpkin puree, oil, and coconut milk, and mix until all of the flour is absorbed. Fold in the flaked coconut and toasted walnuts or cranberries. Pour into prepared pan.

4. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes in the preheated oven or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from oven, and cover loaves tightly with foil. Allow to steam for 10 minutes. Remove foil, and turn out onto a cooling rack. Tent loosely with the foil, and allow to cool completely.

Cooky Cookies

This weekend we went to the seasonal garage sale at the Buddhist Mission in town. It is fun to browse all the treasures (and old kimonos!) and find things such as these "Cooky Cutters" for just 25 cents. Great packaging!







Anyways, we decided to try them out and made Halloween (in December) themed ginger cookies.




















We had a lot of fun decorating them with icing. . . though (admittedly) we both could use a little practice with a pastry bag. We turned a couple of the broomstick shaped cookies into flying V guitars.














Russell's owls and bats turned out pretty well too.

no-bake cookies

This is the second batch of these no-bake thumbprint cookies that I have made, (not to be confused with the baked thumbprint cookies posted earlier, though they are similar). These are pretty easy and quite delicious. They taste hearty, like a good oatmeal cookie, yet are also satisfying with the sweetness of the fruit center. I made this batch with apricot preserves and also a few with huckleberry jam.

Here's the recipe (loosely):
1/2 cup pitted dates
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
1/3 cup almond butter
1/3 cup tahini
1/4 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
~ 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
~ 1/2 cup 100% all-fruit preserves, such as apricot
*you will need wax paper or parchment paper to cover the tray/plate so the cookies don't stick.

Cover the dates in hot water for about 15 minutes to soak.
In the meantime, put oats in food processor and pulse until a coarse ground.
Do the same to coconut, unless you have the fine shredded coconut.
Transfer oats and coconut into bowl and mix in cinnamon, salt and then almond butter and tahini.
Once cooled, puree dates with about half the soak water until smooth (I use a food processor but a blender might work).
Now add date puree and mix until combined.
Roll dough into balls and flatten onto a wax paper or parchment paper cover tray (they stick otherwise).
Push your thumb down in middle, making an indentation for the fruit preserves/jam. Spoon out jam into the middle of each cookie and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Pizza again!

Our latest pizza was spinach, red pepper, olive and garlic with a red sauce on homemade gluten-free crust. Actually, the crust has pumpkin (grown from our garden) and fresh rosemary in it! It made a pretty tasty crusty crust. Also, a yummy tahini cheese on top.

Pizza!

Gluten-free veggie pizza we made tonight. We bought the crust pre-made this time because we were tired (we do usually try to make our crusts from scratch). We added fresh basil, mushrooms, onion, garlic, chard, olives and edible Borage and Marigold flowers and a little goat cheese. Colorful and tasty!

Banana Chia Muffins

Gluten-free Banana Muffins with chia seeds that I made last month. A successful adaptation/combination of two separate recipes. Very tasty with some coconut oil drizzled on top.