Vegan Banana Oatmeal Cookies with Chocolate Chips

While on the phone with my sister the other day, she told me about this wonderful concoction that she made for breakfast.  Into her regular oatmeal, she mixed some banana and chocolate chips.  I suddenly got very quiet on my end of the phone.  After a few seconds, I proclaimed, "I can make that into a cookie!"  

The recipe has very little sugar or fat.  It is mostly held together with the bananas which keep the cookies quite moist.

Ingredients

3 mashed bananas (approximately 1 ¼ cup)

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 tablespoons water

1/4 cup shortening (Crisco)

1/4 cup light brown sugar

1/4 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1 1/2 cup rolled oats (old fashioned or quick oats)

1 cup vegan chocolate chips

 

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Combine the mashed bananas, vanilla, and water.  Incorporate the shortening to the banana mixture.
3. Slowly incorporate the flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon until blended. 
4. Stir in the oats, followed by chocolate chips.
5. Rest the mixture for about 10 minutes to allow the rolled oats to soften.  If you are using quick oats, you can skip this step.
6. Drop by rounded tablespoons onto greased cookie sheets. Bake for 12-14 minutes.

 Makes approximately 18 medium-sized cookies.

Vegan Spiced Chocolate Brownies

3 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons milled flax seed
1 ¼ cups sugar
1/3 cup coconut oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

½ cup espresso or strong coffee
 ½ cup vegan chocolate chips

1 cup all-purpose flour

¾ cup wheat flour
¼ teaspoon baking soda
½ cup cocoa powder
½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper

½ tsp pumpkin pie spice

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and line an 8”x8” cake pan with greased parchment paper.

In a large bowl, combine the milled flax seed and water and allow it to rest for 10 minutes.

To the flax seed mixture, add the sugar, coconut oil, and vanilla.  I used a spoon to combine all of my ingredients.  The batter gets a little thick so it was easier to use a spoon than a mixer.

Combine the hot espresso and the chocolate chips in order to melt the chocolate chips.  Add the espresso/chocolate chip mixture to the wet ingredients.  Melting the chocolate chips in this way makes the brownies extra fudgy.  

Sift together the cocoa powder, spices, baking soda, salt, and flour.  Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients.  The mixture will be quite thick.

Spoon out the batter into the lined baking cake pan.

Bake for 25-28 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  (Since it is vegan, you can underbake them just slightly to make the brownies a little more moist)

Vegan Chocolate-Orange Frosting Recipe

I came up with this recipe to frost my Vegan Swedish Fish Cupcakes, and it was surprisingly easy to make.  I had only ever made cream cheese frostings before and always assumed that chocolate frosting would be a pain to make.  That's why they have such great tubs of it at the grocery store, right?  I was horribly mistaken and will probably never buy another tub of chocolate icing again.

I used this recipe from Hershey's as my inspiration, but ended up tweaking it quite a bit because I'm apparently incapable of just following a recipe without "improving" on it.  Still, it turned out lovely and tastes a bit like a Terry's Chocolate Orange.

Ingredients

1/2 cup vegan margarine
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup rice milk (or an appropriate analogue)
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon pure orange extract

Melt the margarine. Stir in the cocoa. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, while beating. 

If the frosting is still thick, add a few more drops of rice milk. Stir in vanilla and orange extract.

Makes about 1 ½ cups of frosting.

Vegan Swedish Fish Cupcake Recipe

They said it couldn't be done, but I did it.  I made vegan cupcakes with Swedish Fish*, and they are absolutely delicious. 

There's a lot going on in these cupcakes, but it all works.  I created an orange cupcake base for my cupcake because I thought it might nicely accent the ummm.... cherry flavor?  Are they cherry?  I just don't know, but I thought red flavor would go well with orange.  This basic vegan cupcake recipe is the one upon which I was built.  My recipe is much different, but I like to give credit to those who came up with the original ratios.

If you don't have coconut oil, you can substitute it with canola or vegetable oil.  Ditto if you don't have rice milk.  It can also be replaced with an appropriate analogue if necessary

Ingredients  

1/2 cup coconut oil, warmed until liquid

2/3 cup demerara sugar (or raw sugar)

1 tablespoon cider vinegar

1 ½ cups rice milk (warmed to room temperature)

1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1 teaspoon pure orange extract

zest of one orange

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup of small Swedish Fish

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and line a muffin pan with 12 paper baking cups.

Beat together the coconut oil and sugar.

Mix in the rice milk and cider vinegar. Add the orange and vanilla extracts.

Add the orange zest, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Mix until well combined.

Slowly incorporate the flour taking care not to over mix.

With a spatula or spoon, stir in the Swedish Fish.

Portion out the batter into the pre-lined muffin pan. They don't rise a lot, so I filled the cups almost to the top.

Bake for 15-20 minutes.

Makes 12 cupcakes.

I iced my cupcakes with this Vegan Orange-Chocolate Frosting.

* Swedish Fish are vegan.  PETA says so.