Chewy Sunflower Seed Butter Cookies

As the temperature in Arizona increases so do the requests for baked goods from my customers. It is this strange dynamic that baffles me every summer. I had an adventurous couple approach me with a request for homemade Cliff bars and trail mix cookies for their hike into the Grand Canyon. I made them delicious raw food bars with millet, sunflower butter, goji berries and almonds. I also baked some yummy oatmeal trail mix cookies with golden raisins, cranberries, agave and pecans. This got me craving yummy and healthy baked goods to get me through these hot summer bike rides.

Since I had a few ingredients left over from the trail mix cookies and bars, I tossed everything into my Kitchen Aid mixer and the result was these tasty, lightly sweetened, chewy cookies.



Ingredients:

2 Cups Whole Wheat flour
1/2 Cup Quick Cook Oats
1 tsp. Baking Powder
1 tsp. Ground Cinnamon
1/4 tsp. Salt
1/2 Cup Sunflower Seed Butter
1/3 Cup Brown Rice Syrup
3 Medium sized bananas
2 T. Raw Sunflower Seeds

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees and grease two cookie sheets

Mix flour, oats, baking powder, cinnamon and salt in a bowl and set aside. Mash bananas then mix with sunflower seed butter and brown rice syrup until fully mixed. Slowly add dry ingredients until fully incorporated, be careful not to over mix, you don't want the cookies too chewy.

Using an ice cream scoop or large spoon scoop dough and roll into 1 inch sized balls. Gently pat down and flatten dough on to cookie sheets and sprinkle with sunflower seeds. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until the bottoms of cookies are a golden brown. Let cool for five minutes before removing from cookie sheets. Makes 18-22 cookies.

I put my cookies in the refrigerator for a cool snack on a hot summer day. Since they are made with fresh bananas, keeping the cookies chilled in an air tight container will keep them fresher longer.


Enjoy!

Chocolate Banana Brownie Cupcakes

Sometimes life is full of really tough decisions. These decisions can be so challenging that they can bring one to tears, horribly large mascara smearing tears. Recently I was faced with an extremely difficult choice to make, should I eat brownies or should I eat cupcakes? To some of you out there this seems like a very silly thing to have vexing me to tears but if you happen to be a sugarholic like I am, then you completely understand my dilemma. Oh how I love the fugdy gooieness of brownies, and the soft fluffiness of cupcakes (not to mention the frosting, oh heavenly delight) that when forced to choose between either my head just about explodes. That is how I decided on brownie cupcakes, complete with chewy crust, fluffy cake and even melty ganache for gooey goodness. I think these little ladies will have to make an appearance this weekend at Coffee, Cookies and Crafts seeing as how they are too good not to share with the world. Yum!

Chocolate Banana Brownie Cupcakes

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. sea salt
2 bananas, the riper the better
1 cup soymilk, or almond works well in this too
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup canola oil
1/3 cup melted baking chocolate
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. chocolate extract

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and either line or grease your cupcake pan. This recipe makes 15 cupcakes, or 12 pretty large cupcakes. So you may have to use two pans or prepare for huge cupcake goodness!
In a bowl combine flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt and set aside. Melt baking chocolate either in double boiler or microwave (I never use a microwave, but I understand the convenience of using one, just make sure you don't microwave too long, because the chocolate can burn). Mash the bananas really well, or toss in a blender to create a thick banana goo. In a mixer combine bananas, soymilk, sugar, canola oil, vanilla extract and chocolate extract. Then add in melted chocolate until well mixed in, then slowly add your flour mixture. You will end up with a thick and dark brown, almost black batter. Pour the batter into your cupcake tins and bake for 22-25 minutes.




Buttercream frosting

1/2 cup Earth Balance
1/2 cup vegetable shortening (I use Spectrum Organics)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. chocolate extract
4 T. soymilk
3-3 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Using room temperature Earth Balance cream together with shortening. Slowly add in powdered sugar, then add in extracts and soymilk. If mixture is too thick add more soymilk one tablespoon at a time, and if too thin add more powdered sugar. I don't really measure this stuff so really just use your best judgement on the soymilk/powdered sugar factor.

Chocolate Ganache

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup soymilk
2-3 T. agave

Heat soymilk until warm, but not boiling then pour over chocolate chips and mix well with a small spatula, then add in agave. You should have a thick syrup. Place in refrigerator to cool, or I usually just let it cool on my counter top until it is room temperature.

Once cupcakes have cooled frost the cupcakes with one layer or buttercream frosting, drizzle on chocolate ganache and then put more buttercream on top. So friggen good!! You may have to put the cupcakes in the refrigerator for a couple of minutes just to make sure ganache doesn't melt down the sides and so it is solid enough to add more buttercream on top. Let the cake eating commence!

Post 51 Pancakes

Good morning all of you dewy eyed children. Today is a weekend day and I have it off! Brilliant! This never happens, normally I wake up at four A.M. every weekend and get ready for work, by get ready I mean drag my butt all across the house nearly knocking anything in my way over, putting my shoes on the wrong feet and forgetting something of importance every time I leave for work. My brain is inoperable until around six A.M. so morning time equals clumsy time for me. Today I was relieved when I got to sleep in until 5:45 (yep, that is sleeping IN) and I got out of bed well rested and ravenous.



I decided to make a cheerful breakfast and having been inspired by a random photo on Tumblr I made rainbow pancakes. I am still beaming from their happiness in a round doughy disc. The recipe is the basic pancake recipe from VWAV but with an added banana, 1/2 cup all-purpose flour, 1/2 cup white whole wheat flour and 1/4 cup coconut flour. Yum!

here I go...


so fun to eat!


nom nom nom


oh so good,


going,


going,


gone!

Live Chocolate Mousse

As I mentioned yesterday it is heating up here in the desert and the thought of turning on the oven to bring sweet treats to my grumbling tummy is not a pleasant one. Sometimes I imagine my famine filled face passing out as the oven heat waves leave me light headed. From there I fall gracefully into a heap on the kitchen floor and my dessert, my master prize, burns to a blackened mess all the while I dream of butterflies. I will awaken to the smell of burning delicacies and cry my weak heart out as I find my pie, my chocolate cake, my sweet tray of cookies have become inedible. Though this has never happened, I fear it. I have haunting nightmares of burned sweets.

But I will not fear, there is hope that lies outside of the soul scorching oven, it is called...the refrigerator!

Okay, enough of the drama, yesterday I mad a delicious chocolate mousse out of avocados. It sounds crazy but it is not only a healthy treat but an amazingly tasty treat! The recipe is adapted from a simple recipe from the Vegetarian Times magazine.



1 1/2 avocados
1 banana
5 medium strawberries
1/4 cup raw cacao powder (you can use cocoa if you like)
1/4 cup raw agave nectar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
Additional fruit to top the mousse with (optional)

Toss all ingredients into a food processor or blender, mix until smooth and refrigerate for at least one hour. Enjoy!

Cakes and Funerals

This last week has been both a creative and fun cooking extravaganza and also has been a week filled with sadness. A friend and mentor of mine passed away on Monday and had left me devastated, but today having gone to her funeral I have found peace and I have said goodbye to as her son put it, "The body that was just a carrier for her amazing spirit." She was a teacher, a mentor and a great figurehead in her community. Her inspiration will stay with me always. I also had to say goodbye to a hero of mine Howard Zinn a pioneer in his time and a man that shaped my future in being proactive in the world around me. He led me to be a free thinker and a bit of a rebel, but a rebel with a cause. Then there was JD Salinger the creator of my favorite fictional character Seymour Glass. He is the reason I devour books the same way I devour cupcakes. Through all of the tears and sadness I feel lucky. I am so very lucky to have known Mrs. Nach, to have read Zinn and Salinger. I am lucky I was given the opportunity to have these brilliant people inspire and shape my future. To these three I say thank you and you will be in my heart and mind forever.

And then there was cake...
In the middle of this emotional soul retching I was also given the opportunity from my beautiful and very much alive friend Julia to come up with some desserts for a week long yoga training class. I made desserts for three of the five nights, they consisted of a banana custard with a plantain rum sauce, gluten free pistachio cupcakes and a gluten free German chocolate cake with an agave fudge frosting (recipe from 500 Vegan recipes, sans gluten of course). It was a great way to divert my mind from all things grim and to embrace my love of baking.

All of the desserts were filled with robust flavor and most of all, love. It may sound silly but every ounce of my food is filled with a piece of my soul. My good thoughts and good intentions go into every cookie, cake or biscuit. I could feed the world with my sadness and my many joys. Food is so personal and such an expression of one's self that to eat a simple truffle or scone would be like shaking someones hand or giving them a hug, and sometimes like reading a page from their diary. All of you bakers out there know exactly what I mean.

And I will end on that note. Have a happy Friday, hug someone you love, hug a stranger, make friends and remember to say cheers because we never know what tomorrow will hold.


Gluten Free German Chocolate Cake


Banana Custard with Plantain Rum Sauce