Banoffee Pie

This. Is. Amazing. And incredibly decadent! I think this may be a new favorite for desserts that are sweetened only with fruit. There is a little sweetener in the crust, but honestly I'm not sure it needs to be there. A little applesauce would probably do just as well. 

I wanted to make this for a matter of weeks, maybe even months, and was slowly gathering the ingredients and gumption for it. I ended up making my own almond butter, since it doesn't call for much, and that works just great. It's a bit tricky because you have to make this at a time when your bananas are ripe, and for those who know me, that is an extremely narrow window. I left off the chocolate shavings and didn't think it missed anything special. It probably just looks nice. 

Just writing this makes my mouth water for some more of this pie, but alas it was gone a verrrry short time after its genesis. I won't say how short, and I won't say how much of it Kendall ate. I'll just say that a sleep-deprived mom battling a cute baby who struggles with naps all day might be driven to eat an unnatural amount of comfort food now and then. 

Banoffee Pie

From Oh She Glows

Crust:

1/2 C almonds

2 C rolled oats

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 C coconut oil, melted

2 T maple syrup, honey, or agave (or applesauce?)

1 1/2 T water, or as needed

Caramel Toffee:

1 1/2 C pitted Medjool dates

3 T smooth almond butter

1 tsp lemon juice

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp vanilla

Filling:

2 cans full-fat coconut milk, chilled overnight

Raw caramel toffee (from above)

3 large ripe bananas, sliced into thick coins

2 squares dark chocolate, shaved (optional--I didn't do this)

1. Place cans of coconut milk in the fridge upside down overnight. 

2. Preheat oven to 375. Lightly grease the base of an 8-10 in. tart pan, pie pan, or springform pan. 

3. Add almonds to a food processor and process until the texture of coarse sand. Now add oats, cinnamon, salt, and process until the same texture is achieved. Add oil, maple syrup, and water, then process until mixture comes together and no dry flour remains. The dough should stick together when pressed between your fingers. Add some more water as needed. 

4. Press dough in an even layer around the base and up the sides (partially) of your pan. Poke the base with a fork about 15 times. 

5. Bake crust uncovered, 12-14 min until lightly golden. Remove and cool. 

6. Make the raw caramel toffee by adding all ingredients to a food processor and pulsing until combined and smooth. You'll need to scrape the sides fairly often. (soak your dates if you have really firm dates. Mine never are)

7. Open chilled coconut milk and carefully scoop off the cream, discarding the remaining water (or using in a smoothie later, which I did and it was TASTY!). Add the cream to a bowl and beat with electric beaters until smooth and fluffy. 

8. When crust has cooled, spread all of the toffee onto the base until it is covered. Slice all of the bananas and place half of them on top of the caramel, lightly pressing down. 

9. Spread all of the whipped coconut cream on top of the banana slices. Spread evenly and place the remaining banana slices on top of that in a circular pattern. Garnish with shaved chocolate if you like. 

10. She says to serve this immediately, but if your coconut whipped cream didn't whip up that well it might stiffen up a bit more if you put it in the fridge for a while. It's tasty whether or not it stiffens up :) 

Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream Cake

So basically my cousin Steph has been my saving grace when it comes to awesome sugar-free desserts. Not only sugar-free, but whole foods, plant-based. Seriously, she's awesome! She just sent me a whole list of awesome recipes from this great blog, and I really enjoyed trying this one out today.

Mine doesn't look quite so pretty as the one on the website, but I did halve the recipe so I made it in a bread pan. Turns out this was wise because I ate half the pan in like an hour. I was skyping with my parents when I tried the first bite, and after a bit my mom exclaimed, "so when are you sending us the recipe? You're on like your third or fourth piece!!" Uh... Sometimes I forget that just because nobody is home doesn't mean people can't see when my animal instincts kick in. 

Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream Cake

This Rawsome Vegan Life

Crust:
1 cup dates
1/2 cup hemp seeds
1/3 cup whole flax seeds
3 T cacao powder

Filling:

3 frozen bananas
1 C dates
2 C cashews (I soaked mine beforehand)
2 T coconut oil
1 1/4 cups water or vegan milk, as needed
1/4 cup cacao powder
2 T nut butter (whatever kind you like, I used peanut butter of course)

Optional:
Raw chocolate sauce
Favorite nut butter

To make the crust: pulse the hemp and flax seeds and cacao in your food processor until they become a rough flour, then add the dates and process until it all gets sticky. Press into the bottom and up the sides of a spring form pan. Put in the fridge.

To make the filling: blend all the ingredients until smooth, adding water or vegan milk as needed to make it creamy. Spread evenly into your crust, occasionally swirling in nut butter and chocolate sauce if you're using them. Put in the freezer overnight or until frozen solid, and let it thaw a little bit before serving, so it's nice and creamy. Enjoy!

Chocolate Ice Cream Torte

It's hard to go in to detail about the way my life has changed in a culinary sense over the last month. Hopefully the ensuing blog entries will describe it--I just can't blog as fast as I can bake! :) It's been a wonderful month, to say the least. For all you sugar-free, gluten-free, dairy-free people out there, this one is for you. It straight up tastes like fudge. I can't stop eating it. 

 A word to the poor college student with no food processor--you can get by. But you will have ripped biceps by the end. Let's just say I earned my fourth slice of this pie. 

 It comes out quite thick and could potentially be eaten with just a little refrigeration or a couple hours of freezing. Then it's more like pudding pie. You could eat this without the crust and it would make a very nice pudding. 

 But I think it's best to let it freeze overnight, or at least for several hours.

You could use the crust from the lemon bars (see on my blog). That would be even better, I think.

No-Bake Chocolate Coconut Ice Cream Torte

Oh She Glows

Crust:

1 C whole almonds

1.5 C rolled oats

10 medjool dates

1/4-1/2 tsp salt

1/4 C coconut oil

1. Grease a 10-inch springform cake pan with coconut oil very well. Set aside (I used a brownie pan, 8x8, and it was just fine).

2. In a food processor, process the crust ingredients together until crumbly and sticky. Should be a bit coarser than sand. I used a hand chopper... Press the mixture into the prepared cake pan, evenly and firm.

Torte:

22-24 medjool dates, pitted

One can full fat coconut milk

4 T unsweetened cocoa powder

2 T natural nut butter (I used almond)

1 tsp vanilla

2 T cornstarch or arrowroot powder

2 T agave or other liquid sweetener (I used honey but I honestly don't think it needed it)

1/2 tsp salt

Fresh strawberries or berries for garnish, if desired (I didn't but I'll bet it would be good!)

1. Blend all torte ingredients except agave, salt, and berries. Process until super smooth. Add the agave and salt to taste. Adjust sweetness if necessary. Pour this mixture into the prepared crust and smooth out.

2. Carefully place torte in the freezer (uncovered is ok) for several hours, or overnight until firm. When it's ready, slice and garnish with berries and serve immediately. It melts fast! I don't think letting it sit will be any problem, as you will have eaten the whole pan within ten minutes.

Sugar-Free Applesauce Cake

With the recent passing of my birthday, you knew a post like this was coming! But unlike last year, I was much better prepared. And I didn't sit around sulking, either. Which apparently I did last year. :)

This cake was AMAZING! If I do say so myself. Nothing beats the apple cake mom made last year, but this was a close second. And even my roommates were going on and on about it so you know it was good. :) I will forever be grateful for my doctor who gave me this cookbook!

 This was also momentous because it was my first time baking in my new apartment. :) It was an adventure indeed, and called for some interesting adjustments to the recipe. But I thought it still turned out very well!

 First of all, "cold-pressed oil" does not actually mean that it's cold. I don't know why but I somehow assumed that it meant it was hard oil, like coconut oil. A word to the wise--if you have to microwave oil to mix it into something, it is going to harden again. Especially if that something is frozen. haha. So I googled it too late and "cold-pressed oil" is actually just basically healthy oil like olive and sunflower. It's a reference to how it was retrieved and from what. 

 We didn't have a cheese-grater (at least not that I knew about yet...) so I got to exercise my little knife and see just how thin it could chop! It actually turned out fine. 

 Also, our only 9x13 pan was being occupied by the red velvet cake my awesome roommates made for me the day before, so I experimented and used a bundt pan. It turned out SO well--much better than I expected. I had to google stuff about length of time to cook it, but I just added on time in 5-minute increments until it looked done. I maybe ended up adding 15-20 min to the time and it might have been a bit long. It came out of the pan like a dream and I just greased it with shortening and dusted with flour. 

 Since I was using a bundt pan, I didn't need so many apples to decorate the top with. I think I only used one, but just do whatever you want. 

 They say to decorate the top in an "attractive pattern", whatever that means... haha. Luckily bundt pans don't leave much for the imagination, because I'm not sure what I would've done in a 9x13. The cake is SUPER good. Being in a bundt it's a bit dense and can tend towards dry if you don't have ice cream, but it's pretty darn good considering how sugar-free it is! 

Applesauce Cake

Desserts to Lower Your Fat Thermostat

1/4 C cold-pressed oil

1 1/2 C frozen unsweetened apple juice concentrate, thawed

3 lg egg whites

1/2 C unsweetened applesauce

1 tsp vanilla

2 2/12 C whole wheat flour

1 C quick-cooking rolled oats

3/4 tsp baking soda

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 C raisins

1 C apple, peeled, cored, and grated (1 large apple)

1. Preheat oven to 375. Spray 9x13 pan, or 2 9" cake pans, or 1 large bundt pan. If you're going to remove the cake from the pan, line with parchment paper (unless it's a bundt).

2. Beat together oil, apple juice concentrate, and egg whites. Add applesauce and vanilla; combine well.

3. Mix together flour, oats, soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and nutmeg; add to the liquid mixture and beat (I beat it quite a bit until it was almost foamy and light. I think this helped the cake not be too dense). Add raisins and grated apple; stir until blended.

4. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake for 25-30 min (add 15-20 min for a bundt, or until top is brown and a knife comes out clean) or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Top with apple topping if desired (it is desired).

Apple Topping

1 T margarine or butter

3 C apples, peeled, cored, and sliced 1/4-in thick

1/2 C frozen unsweetened apple juice concentrate, thawed

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1. Melt margarine in skillet over moderate heat. Add apples and apple juice concentrate; sprinkle cinnamon over top of apples.

2. Cook and stir occasionally until apples are tender and syrupy. Cool.

3. Remove apples only and place them on top of the cake in an attractive pattern. Carefully spoon syrup over the top of the apples, evenly distributing it over the top of the cake.