Baked goods

Vegan chocolate-dipped coconut macarons

~ Hanta ~ Leave a comment

My son is now 3 years old. The other night, he told me he wanted to make some treats with me. Everyday he comes up with a new word and that was the first time I heard him say “treats”. So I asked him to elaborate what kind of treats. He said: “We should make some delicious treats for Christmas”. That was clear. It is not Christmas yet, but this mama will not refuse an invitation to make some goodies to eat.

I recently just bought a boat load of shredded coconut, so I thought we could make coconut macarons. And since chocolate always make things better, we decided that chocolate dipped macarons would make the ideal treat.IMG_2128

I was pleasantly surprised at how this recipe turned out. It is sweet from the maple surup but not excessively and the dark chocolate brings just the right amount of sweetness with a tinge of bitterness.
The hardest part of this recipe is to wait for it to cool down and the chocolate to set before eating it. My son and I may or may have not eaten a few as soon as we dipped them in chocolate, I shall not tell. I’ll just say that this was indeed a treat.

Vegan Chocolate-dipped Coconut Macarons
3 cups of shredded unsweetened coconutIMG_2142
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1/4 cup melted coconut oil
1/3 cup chocolate chips

Heat the oven at 350°F.
Put the shredded coconut in a food processor or a high speed blender. Blend until you get a soft and doughy consistency. Add in the vanilla and maple syrup and blend some more. Transfer it to a bowl for ease of scooping.
Spoon out the coconut into balls onto an oiled baking sheet. I used a half tablespoon measuring spoon to make little bitesizes macarons with the coconut, but if you have a small icecream scoop, it would work as well. gently brush the coconut with melted coconut oil.
Bake for 8-10min until the bottom and edges are light brown. Cool on the baking sheet.
While the macarons are cooling, melt the chocolate chips in the microwave for 1-1.5min until melted.IMG_2165
Carefully dip the bottom of the cooled macarons in the melted chocolate, they are somewhat fragile and can easily crumble under your fingers. Drizzle some of the melted chocolate on the macarons. Cool on a sheet of parchment paper until the chocolate solidifies again (if you can wait that long). Store in an airtight container.

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Vegan zucchini brownies

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I have not baked in a while (mmm… like a whole week) and was missing it. I was craving brownies but was debating whether to find a vegan recipe or just make something a bit less guilty that everyone could enjoy, or both.

I love to bake with zucchini. It blends in smoothly with the sweet flavors and adds a soft texture to the recipe. And as the parent of a toddler, I always appreciate any way to hide a vegetable in a recipe. Here, I blended the zucchini and it was pretty runny, so I added some whole grain oat flour to thicken the consistency. We do like the dark chocolate flavor in the house, and I used dark chocolate chips with unsweetened cocoa powder. The dark chocolate married beautifully with the honey flavor.
These brownies are rather soft right out from the oven and could make a great hot and cold dessert with some ice cream. But once it cools the crust hardens a bit while the inside is soft and is great with some tea or a glass of sweet dessert wine.

Vegan zucchini brownies

Wet ingredients
1 1/2 cup of zucchini puree in a blender (from  3 medium zucchini) IMG_6361
1/2 cup sunflower seed butter
1/3 cup raw honey
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1 tablespoon flaxmeal (ground flax seeds) + 3 tablespoon water

Dry ingredients
2/3 cup oatmeal flour
3/4 cup chocolate chips
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder

Heat up the oven to 350°F.IMG_6344
Mix the flaxmeal with the water and let sit for 5 minutes until it has a gelatinous consistency. In a bowl thoughtfully mix the wet ingredients until it is smooth. In a separate bowl, mix all the dry ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix carefully.

Line a baking pan with parchment paper and pour in the brownie mix and spread it out evenly. Bake for 35-45 min at 350°F.

 

 

 

 

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

~ Hanta ~ 3 Comments

Some days, one just needs a picker-upper. Today is one of these days. Nothing really dramatic or crazy happened, just that it has been a long IMG_5840week already. And to top it off my babysitter did not show today when I had planned to go down to the office. So I thought, okay let’s enjoy the afternoon and head down to the beach then! So we went, only to be caught by a fast arriving storm, which turned the sky from a clear blue to black in 10min. We run home, well, I ran , pushing the little man in the stroller, but we still got wet. Anyway, today is one of those days when chocolate chips need to be put to good use.

The chocolate chips I use here are the mini kind and they are allergen-free. Since we are on a dairy-free, egg-free and nuts-free diet, this is my go-to ingredient for anything that calls for chocolate. We also just eat them as is and they are delicious.

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Oatmeal chocolate chips cookie

Wet ingredients
1/3 cup sunflower seed butter
2tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup dairy-free milk (I use a mix of coconut milk and flax milk)
1 tsp of vanilla extract

Dry ingredients
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Heat the oven at 425°C. Whisk the wet ingredients together in a large bowl until smooth. Mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix with a wooden spoon.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Spoon the cookie dough onto the parchment paper with a tablespoon. Unlike regular cookies, these cookies do not spread out and will stay the size as you have spooned them, so there is no need to space them too faIMG_5833r apart.
Bake in the oven at 425°C for 8min.

Cool the cookies on a rack. Enjoy!
The cookie dough can also be frozen on the cookie sheet (already in cookie form). When frozen, transfer to a Ziploc bag. They can be baked at a later time when in need of an emergency cookie.

Gluten free vegan zucchini muffins

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We don’t usually have problems making our son eat vegetables. If he is hungry enough, he will devour anything you give him. In fact, amongst his favorite foods are broccoli and cauliflower. He will ask for them, and when he eats them, he will sigh of contentment and say :”It’s delicious!”. We also just recently discovered that he loves baby portabello mushrooms.

Although we are blessed with a kid that eats vegetables, I know it can be a struggle for parents of picky kids to get them to eat vegetables. So “hiding” them  in other dishes is a  common strategy use in order to get some in their diet.

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Blended zucchini puree

I adapted this recipe from a pumpkin cupcake recipe in “Decadent gluten-free vegan baking” written by Cara Reed. Instead of the pumpkin puree she used in the recipe, I used the same quantity of a zucchini puree. I chopped two medium zucchini, skin and all, into cubes and blended it until it was reduced to a puree consistency.

I reduced the amount of sugar and added  flaxmeal, which is used as an egg substitute in vegan recipes. The result is light and fluffy, perfect to eat at breakfast or snack time for the little picky eaters.

Zucchini muffins

Makes 12 muffins

DRYIMG_4584
2 cups of All-purpose gluten free flour (I use Bob’s Red Mill Gluten free all purpose baking flour)
1 cup sugar
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp xantham gum
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt

WET INGREDIENTS
3/4 cup of zucchini puree
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup hot water
1/2 cup non-dairy milk
2TBsp flax meal plus 6TBsp water- thickened for 5 min
1Tbsp apple cider vinegar (or lemon juice)

Preheat the oven at 350°F. Line a muffin pan or lightly grease it.

In a large bowl, mix all the dry ingredients together. In a separate bowl, mix the wet ingredients thouroughly.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix with a spatula until the batter is just combined. Scoop the batter in the cupcake pan. Bake for 18-22 min until knife comes out smooth when inserted.

Allow to cool a couple of minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack.