chocolate

My Favorite Easy Vegan Dessert Recipes

April 12, 2019 by Katherine Baker Leave a Comment

Hello everyone! It’s Thursday night and he fire alarm just went off which meant me + Millie got to hang out with all of our building neighbors in our pajamas while the fire people cleared up the situation. Anyways, thanks to our 10:00pm adventure, I am now fully of energy and in the mood to whip up an easy vegan dessert recipe! I’ve been working on a couple new ones, but while I’m working out all the kinks, I thought I’d share a roundup of my favorite easy vegan dessert recipes from this blog. I hope you enjoy!

…and if you’re hungry for more, check out my ebook, 40 Easy Vegan Desserts, from way back in the day! #shamelessselfpromo

Vegan Levain Bakery-Style Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies

Lucious as can be! Make these beauties with this delicious recipe.

Sunflower Seed Butter Salted Caramel Date Truffles

Probably my all-time favorite easy no-bake snack or sweet treat. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…something about sun butter and date paste together is so magical. Recipe is here.

Vegan Samoas (Caramel DeLite Style) Girl Scout Cookies

These beauties are a take on the original and are made with date caramel. Give them a whirl!

Giant No-Bake Peanut Butter Cup

No explanation needed. Find the details here.

Homemade Vegan LoftHouse Style Frosted Cookies

So fluffy and soft and pretty! Cookie + frosting recipe here.

Vegan Nutella-Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

…honestly, need I say more? These things are insane(ly delicious). Get the recipe here.

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Easy Vegan Pancake Mix Cookies

March 10, 2019 by Katherine Baker Leave a Comment

I absolutely adore pancakes. Light, fluffy, and wholesome, there’s nothing more I love than a quick-to-cook warm carb to brighten my morning and serve as a vehicle for nut butters and maple syrup. To me, pancakes make a day feel special. I often make a large batch on a weekend day, pop them in the freezer, and then microwave them on busy weekday mornings for a much anticipated moment of happiness. Pancakes just brighten my day and my mood.

For this very reason, I most often keep pancake mix on hand. While I like to bake from scratch, I have found select pancake mixes are affordable, delicious, convenient, and made with ingredients I would use at home (Bob’s Red Mill Organic multi-grain mix is one of my favorites, and I also love their Buckwheat variety).

In the past year or so, I’ve been intrigued to test the flexibility of a pancake mix; that is, I’ve been enjoying experimenting with using pancake mix as a base for non-pancake items. Muffins, Oatmeal Almond Butter Blueberry Breakfast Cookies, these Vegan Pancake Mix Cookies, even quick breads – I’ve realized the sky is the limit with pancake mix, as long as you’re comfortable with your final product maintaining a mild pancakey flavor.

Enter these Vegan Pancake Mix Cookies. Using pancake mix as a base, these cookies come together in mere minutes, and result in wholesome, fluffy, puffy dreamy cookies.

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Vegan Dark Chocolate-Dipped Homemade HobNobs

January 13, 2019 by Katherine Baker Leave a Comment

Do you ever just randomly get the urge to bake something British in the middle of a Saturday afternoon? Because same. I’m not sure if Mary Berry was whispering in my ear as I was sleeping last night, or what (okay, more likely that I saw a pile of HobNobs in the clearance section at Sendiks the other day), but for some reason, I had quite the hankering to make some homemade dark-chocolate dipped homemade hob nobs this weekend.

After chanting “On your mark, get set, Bake!” to myself, I got to the kitchen and made my British bake-off homemade Hobnob dreams come true.

Now what is a HobNob, you may ask? ‘HobNobs‘ are a brand of commercial biscuits popular in the UK (and according to Wikipedia, parts of Ireland).

They’re simple, salty-sweet, crispy cookies that are similar to digestive biscuits, but are visibly studded with oats, making for a rustic-looking round cookie.

The best way I can think to describe the flavor of a Hobnob to someone who has not yet experienced their glory is as follows: imagine a salty and more-textured-than-usual, oat-studded circular graham cracker. That’s kind of what you get when you eat a Hobnob. And they are nothing short of glorious.

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Easy Vegan Peanut Butter Blossoms

December 24, 2018 by Katherine Baker 4 Comments

Lol it’s been a month since I last blogged. What can I say, other than sorry? Even though you probably didn’t even notice or care I didn’t post for a month, it bothered me. I just was under so much stress from the hardest semester of school of my entire academic career/finishing my applications and finals and my two jobs I just kind of drafted like, 9 different posts, got anxious they weren’t good enough, and didn’t publish them. Reminder to self: don’t let the obsession with being perfect prevent you from being good. Moving on. It’s Vegan Peanut Butter Blossom time.

^That was the worst transition ever. And why did I keep it in the first paragraph? Because according to SEO crap I have engrained into my brain, the search term should be in the first paragraph. So there it is. Here it is again in the second paragraph: easy Vegan Peanut Butter Blossoms.

Wow, this post is officially all over the place, and we’re only to the third paragraph! But such is life. I’m just pumped to be back home in Wisconsin, with ample time and creative energy to devote to creative pursuits, including this blog.

I also am very stoked to have a new camera. The upgrade was years overdue, but being a chronic student doesn’t leave much wiggle room for big purchases.

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Vegan Chocolate Sheet Cake with Chocolate Buttercream (And How to Veganize A Non-Vegan Cake Recipe)

September 8, 2018 by Katherine Baker 2 Comments

Do you ever just feel the need to eat deliciously rich, Bruce Bogtrotter-worthy chocolate cake? Because I do. That’s where this Vegan Chocolate Cake with Vegan Chocolate Buttercream comes in.

One thing a lot people don’t realize about vegan baking is that it’s actually quite easy to veganize a lot of “conventional” recipes with a few simple swaps.

Non-dairy milk for regular milk, vegan butter in place of butter, and an egg replacement (1/4 cup applesauce or canned pumpkin, 1 tablespoon chia seed or ground flax + 3 tablespoons of water, or 1/4 cup silk tofu, to name a few) for the egg, whipped aquafaba for egg whites, etc, and viola! You’ve veganized your desired “conventional” baked good.

Now, it may take a couple of attempts to figure out which replacements you like best, and/or which ones work best for your old favorite “conventional” recipes, but it’s truly not as scary as it sounds, and experimenting in the kitchen, though it can lead to some epic fails, can also lead to exciting new and wonderful creations of your own.

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Peanut Butter Chocolate Pretzel Bites

August 12, 2018 by Katherine Baker 3 Comments

I love a salty sweet treat. And these peanut butter chocolate pretzel bites are the epitome of a salty, sweet crunchy creamy dream snack.

Bonus: they couldn’t be similar to make. If you can make cereal, you can probably make these delightful nibbly desserts.

All you need is pretzels, peanut (or your other favorite nut) butter, chocolate chips, and some salt. And the only fancy equipment you need a microwave, microwave-safe bowl, and a refrigerator or freezer. Now let’s get into it.

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Giant Vegan Peanut Butter Cup

December 29, 2017 by Katherine Baker 3 Comments

I have ALWAYS wanted to make one of these. Ever since I saw the half pounders at Target around the holidays, the urge to create my own ginormous peanut butter cup has festered deep inside me.

Yesterday, I scratched that long-time itch on my baking bucket list by making a real life giant peanut butter cup.

I made it for a friend’s bday (hey Sarah, if you’re reading). I also made these Vegan Salty Chocolate Chunk cookies. I was honestly sort of insistent on the whole thing.

Sometimes people are like “oh, you don’t have to bake me anything,” and I’m like “Please just let me I live for excuses to bake.”

So here we are. I halved the recipe below and put it in a mini pie dish since Sarah is leaving to go back to China tomorrow.

I am sad to see Sarah off. I have a lot of friends (well, not really but let’s pretend) from all different stages of life but there is just something about those friends you did stupid shit with in basements and backseats of mini-vans high school.

The filling is more than ordinary peanut butter. Since true Reece’s have more of a frosting-like filling, I tried to channel my inner candy maker and copy it. You can totally just fill it with regular peanut butter if you’d like. That works too.

This broke coming out of the pan (hence the broken pics; do me a favor and pretend it’s artsy, okay? thanks). So grease that puppy good and allow it to come to room temp before trying to remove from the pan.

Without further adieu…I give to you…

Giant Vegan Peanut Butter Cup

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Chill Time: 20-30 minutes
Servings: 10-12 people

Ingredients:

18 ounces dark chocolate or non-dairy chocolate chips (I used Trader Joe’s)
1 tablespoon coconut oil (optional)
1 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup non-dairy butter, softened
1-1 1/2 cups powder sugar
sea salt (optional)

Method:

Grease a pie dish. Set aside
Combine peanut butter and non-dairy butter and whisk together (or use an electric mixer) until smooth. Melting the non-dairy butter may help. Using a hand whisk or electric mixer (preferred) whip in powdered sugar. Use as much or as little as desired until a frosting-like consistency is achieved. If you want it looser, use less powdered sugar. If you want it thicker, use more.
Melt chocolate in a microwave safe bowl in 30 second increments until melted, stirring between each increment. When melted, stir in the coconut oil.
Pour a layer of melted chocolate in the pie dish.
Layer peanut butter frosting in the center of the pie dish. Spread.
Pour remaining chocolate over the peanut butter layer.
Place in the freezer to set, at least 20 minutes. Allow to adjust to room temperature slightly before cutting.

Vegan Salted Caramel Date Truffles

September 4, 2017 by Katherine Baker 9 Comments

Hey there! I’m really excited to share with you my first attempt ever at a hands-only video. I decided to revamp/revisit one of my old favorite recipes from my ebook, with a slightly modified recipe, new photos (the old ones were meh), and a brand new video!

Now I should disclaimer this by saying I KNOW I’m new to video and that I have improvements to make. But, I thought I’d give it a whirl. Only up from here, right?

These are easy to prepare, no-bake, and free of all major allergens. And they got that delicious salty/sweet thang going on that I so enjoy. I hope you make them and enjoy them too! I am ob.sessed.

Vegan Salted Caramel Date Truffles

Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 0 minutes, but need at least 1 hour to freeze
Servings: 6-8 truffles

Ingredients:

8 ounces pitted dried dates
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup sunflower seed butter, plus an additional 3-4 tablespoons (divided)
1 cup dark chocolate or dairy-free chocolate chips
sea salt
hot water

Method:

Soak dried pitted dates in hot water for at least 10 minutes, until softened.
Drain dates. Transfer to a food processor. Add vanilla. Process until smooth.
Transfer date mixture to a bowl. Add 1/4 cup sunflower seed butter. Mix well.
Roll dough into balls and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
Freeze for 20 minutes.
Add an additional dollop of sunflower seed butter.
Freeze for 20 minutes.
Melt chocolate in 30-60 second increments in the microwave until melted. This should take about 90 seconds total.
Dip each dough ball into melted chocolate and return to baking sheet. You may also use a spoon to cover the ball.
Freeze for 20 minutes.
Enjoy. Store in the refrigerator or freezer in an airtight container or bag.

3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Chocolate Cheerio Bars

March 2, 2017 by Katherine Baker 6 Comments

Hello! It me. I bring to you another dessert recipe from Wisconsin since my flight to NYC was canceled this morning due to the wind! Blah. I suppose this means even more time to experiment with dessert recipes since I will no longer have the opportunity to stuff myself with Van Leeuwen vegan ice cream this weekend (my absolute fav).

Now I will preface this recipe by acknowledging that I’m aware I did not break any culinary boundaries in creating these. And that’s fine. But these bars are beauties because they’re super duper easy and super duper delicious. They’re also vegan and gluten-free, if you’re into that kinda thing.

They’re also highly addictive. My mom ate like 3/4th of the tray in one sitting. We are definitely related. Chocolate is a food group, according to us.

So a lil history on these bars: they came about because as a constantly-on-a-budget TJs fanatic, I am always looking up ways to create cheap after-dinner sweet snacks. In grad school I starting buying bags of chocolate chips for $1.99 (yup, TJ’s chocolate chips are vegan) and boxes of TJ’s Joe’s O’s (which are the Trader Joe’s equivalent of Cheerios) also for $1.99. I would mix chocolate chips and Joe’s Os in a wee little bowl and nibble on the mixture while studying.

The mix is a bit sweet, a bit carby, chocolatey, and crunchy. It’s highly satisfying, easy-to-prepare, and cheap as can be! It really stretches out a bag of chocolate chips, and has the added bonus that Joe’s O’s are decently not-too-shabby-for-you, making it a snack that’s easy to eat every night without feeling icky.

ingredients-vegan-3-ingredient-peanut-butter-chocolate-cheerio-bars

Then one day last month, I was making puppy chow for my sister when she was in town, and I ventured to the grocery store to get a box of Chex. And then I got home and saw my Cheerios and I was like…I wonder if….!

And so this month, I tried it. I basically used the puppy chow idea (melted chocolate + pb) with Cheerios in place of Chex, but pressed them into a pan instead of coating them with powdered sugar.

The result is a crunchy, easy peasy snack that satisfies any crunchy chocolate peanut butter craving. They’re just damn good and damn delicious.

Anyways, without further audieu, I present to you…

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 0 minutes, but at least 20 for refrigeration
Total Time: ~30 minutes
Servings: 12 bars

Ingredients:

4 cups plain Cheerios or Joe’s Os

1 cup chocolate chips

1/2 cup peanut butter

sea salt (optional)

Method:

Grease a 12″x12″ inch pan.

In a large microwave safe bowl, heat chocolate chips in the microwave in 30 second increments until almost melted (roughly 90 seconds – 3minutes). When chips are almost melted, add peanut butter and microwave an additional 30-60 seconds, until chips are fully melted and peanut butter is melty.

Stir chocolate peanut butter mixture. Add cereal. Toss to coat cereal in chocolate mixture.

Press into prepared pan.

Place bars into the

Slice and enjoy.

Chocolate Covered Plantain Chips

May 13, 2015 by Katherine Baker Leave a Comment

You know what the best section is at Trader Joe’s?

Okay that’s a faulty question. Because there is way too much good stuff at Trader Joe’s to pick a favorite product, let alone a favorite section. One time my manager asked me what my favorite products were “right now,”, which I thought was a better question than asking me what my “favorite products” were because that list would be overwhelming. Right now in this 30 second increment of my life I can say that my favorite section is the candy section. In particular, anything that starts with the three magic words, “Dark Chocolate Covered…”

Yes, all those magical tiny rectangular boxes are full of the bestest things covered in the bestest chocolate. When I’m not eating Gone Bananas by the box, I also love the Dark Chocolate Covered Almonds with Sea Salt and Turbinado Sugar (which inspired this recipe), and the Dark Chocolate Lover’s Bar. Holy balls is their chocolate good.

Another recent favorite Trader Joe’s combination of mine is the epic duo of the Spicy Chunky Guacamole with the Roasted Plantain Chips. A co-worker (hi, SG!) informed me of this dynamic marriage of salty/sweet/crunchy/smooth/spicy and I have been hooked since the first bite. It is love.

I went a little overboard last time I purchased Plantain Chips and bought three bags forgetting that I had two at home. Which left me with five bags of plantain chips. So what’s a girl to do? Dip ’em in Dark Chocolate, of course, and combine my love of Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate with by dipping their other products in the stuff and calling it bliss.

So that’s just what I did. I dipped me some crunchy, salty, carby plantain chips in dark chocolate. It’s kind of like chocolate covered banana chips, but better in my humble opinion, because you also get the salty element from the roasted plantain chip. And you know I’m utterly in love with anything salty/sweet.

These are very simple to make and require only a few minutes and 2-3 ingredients depending on your level of fussiness when it comes to them staying not-melty at room temperature (a tablespoon of coconut oil should help you avoid any melty chocolate!) but they work perfectly without it.

I urge you to make these and please know that summer is coming as is a bit less stress and more sanity which means lots more tasty treats and a really exciting baby project coming to your internet waves soon. Until then, please view Millie with an emoji banana.

Yes, I thought this SnapChat was so funny I sent it to myself so I could open it later and lol at my own terrible humor. Yes I do that and yes I’m aware that’s perhaps not normal. But like this guy says, stay weird stay different. (Also yes, I am stalking Columbia’s instagram lately…and yes there might be a very exciting reason !) #staytuned #stayclassy #eatchocolatecoveredplantainchips [side note, you can totally tell which photos have “wet” chocolate, pre-setting, and which ones have “set” chocolate. total color change. goooooey] Prep Time: 5 minutes Cooling Time: 20 minutes Level: Easy Ingredients:

1 1/4 cup plantain chips (I used Trader Joe’s)
3/4 cup chopped dark chocolate or dark chocolate chips (I used Trader Joe’s 72% Dark Chocolate Pound Plus bar)
1 tablespoon coconut oil (optional, but will help prevent meltiness if left out at room temperature)

Directions: 1. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside. In a microwave safe bowl, warm chocolate until melted. Use 30 second microwave increments, and stir after each increment until chocolate has melted. This should take about 60-90 seconds total. Stir in coconut oil until smooth and melted into chocolate. 2. Dip each plantain chip on each side into melted chocolate. Place each on parchment lined baking sheet. Repeat with chips until you run out of chocolate. 3. Place baking sheet full of plantain chips in the freezer to set, at least 20 minutes. Store in an airtight container (preferably in the refrigerator) for up to two weeks. Enjoy 🙂

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chocolate

My Favorite Easy Vegan Dessert Recipes

Vegan Levain Bakery-Style Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies

Sunflower Seed Butter Salted Caramel Date Truffles

Vegan Samoas (Caramel DeLite Style) Girl Scout Cookies

Giant No-Bake Peanut Butter Cup

Homemade Vegan LoftHouse Style Frosted Cookies

Vegan Nutella-Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

Easy Vegan Pancake Mix Cookies

Vegan Dark Chocolate-Dipped Homemade HobNobs

Easy Vegan Peanut Butter Blossoms

Vegan Chocolate Sheet Cake with Chocolate Buttercream (And How to Veganize A Non-Vegan Cake Recipe)

Peanut Butter Chocolate Pretzel Bites

Giant Vegan Peanut Butter Cup

Giant Vegan Peanut Butter Cup

Ingredients:

Method:

Vegan Salted Caramel Date Truffles

Vegan Salted Caramel Date Truffles

Ingredients:

Method:

3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Chocolate Cheerio Bars

Ingredients:

Method:

Chocolate Covered Plantain Chips

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Giant Vegan Peanut Butter Cup

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Method:

Vegan Salted Caramel Date Truffles

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