Maple Strawberry Muffins and Flourless Cashew Butter Cookies

I'm giving a lunchtime presentation at work tomorrow on a topic that most colleagues probably don't really care about, so I thought I'd lure them there with baked goods. I didn't want to make more brownies or cupcakes, so I though muffins would be nice. But I wanted a twist and remembered the random fresh strawberries in my fridge. Maple Strawberry Muffins seemed perfect though not healthy by any means. I then caved and thought about a cookie and knew I wanted a nut butter cookie. Thus, the Cashew Butter Cookie was born.

Maple Strawberry Muffins

The recipe I used is very close to this Vegan Blueberry Muffin recipe I found online.

Ingredients

2 cups flour, I used half wheat and half white
1/3 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup soy milk
1/4 cup margarine
Egg replacer for one egg, I used 1 TB ground flax mixed with 3 TB water
1 tsp acidic fruit juice, I used some pineapple juice but lemon/orange/lime will do
2 TB real maple syrup
1 cup fresh or frozen strawberries

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and lightly grease a muffin pan. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add the soy milk, margarine, egg replacer, maple and pineapple juice and stir until mixed. Add the strawberries.

Spoon the batter in to the muffin pan, filling each cup about 2/3 full. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until muffins are golden brown.

The muffins are a little messy because I cut up the strawberries, but they were pleasant.

Flourless Cashew Butter Cookies

I found this recipe for Flourless Nut Butter and Whatever You Want Cookies on vegweb and decided it seemed intruiging and ridiculously easy.

Ingredients

1 cup of cashew butter
3/4 white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 TB ground flax seed mixed with 3 TB water
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Dark chocolate morsels to top cookies

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Mix everything until well combined.

Cover dough and refrigerate for about 30 minutes.

Form 1 tablespoon dough balls for each cookie. Arrange on an ungreased baking sheet, spacing 2 inches apart. Press down slightly with a fork to make criss cross typical of peanut butter cookies. Top with chocolate.

Bake cookies until puffed, golden on bottom and still soft to touch in center, about 12 minutes. Cool on sheets 5 minutes. Transfer to racks; cool completely.

The cookie dough was amazing! I had no idea how much they were going to spread out, however, so I evidently smushed them too flat :( That or the recipe should have called for baking powder, not soda. I'm debating throwing them out, but I'm sure someone at work will eat them...

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I'd been promising my brother and his wife the whole weekend that we'd make cookies, and we got just drunk enough last night for that to come true. I didn't have chocolate chips, just (non vegan) butterscotch chips and pecans. I'm pretty sure we would have eaten it no matter what I put in.

I found this recipe for Amazing Chocolate Chip Cookies on vegweb and used it since I actually had all of the ingredients. I've used Enola in baking the past few times, mostly because I want to get it out of my pantry, and I've become the accidental food chemist. Through several baking attempts and random mental notes, I realized that Enola makes baked goods very crispy and not expand. A long time ago I made the best white chocolate peppermint cookies a few different times because they were so great, but they turned out different each time because, as it turns out, I used Enola once and another oil another time. So these chocolate chip cookies I made ended up like some of the others I've made with Enola- they don't expand and get unusually crispy. But not necessarily in a bad way, it's just different. And we were drunk so it really didn't matter.

Ingredients
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup canola oil
1/4 cup applesauce (or 1 egg substitute)
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup of some kind of chips, chocolate or whatever you prefer
1/2 cup nuts

Preheat oven to 375. Mix first 5 ingredients together. Mix flour, salt & baking soda in separate bowl, then add to the first bowl. Mix in your chocolate chips/nuts and drop on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for about 8-10 minutes.

You can't really go wrong with cookies.

Christmas Recap

Since my grandmother is still recovering from her April cancer diagnosis and subsequent treatment, I spent Christmas in Georgia with her and my parents. To ease my mom's constant burden of being her caregiver, I thought I'd cook dinner. Little did I realize, however, that I'd have no access to internet or cell phone because I was back in 1955 rural Georgia. Let's just say my improvisational skills were really tested.

I settled on:
Stuffed acorn squash- I cooked barley and lentils in some veggie broth and added some cranberries, cilantro, and hot Mexican-style chili powder, then stuffed it into the squash. The colors were delightful and very Christmas-like
Pecan stuffing- I made stuffing with a little extra margarine for flavor and some pecans since my grandmother has a pecan orchard and they were fresh off the trees
Sweet potatoes- I added roasted garlic, chives, and margarine to some boiled (w/skins) sweet ptoatoes
Sauteed spinach with caramalized onions
Beer bread

I also wanted to make some gingerbread cookies, but alas, no blog access for the recipe, and I didn't want to buy molasses because I knew no one else would ever use it and it would just get tossed. So I searched my computer and found this recipe for Chocolate Chip Walnut Pumpkin Cookies that I luckily had saved. I omitted the eggs, forgot the baking soda, subbed unsweetened apple sauce for the oil, used pecans instead of walnuts, and added a cup of cranberries. I think it had too much chocolate (blasphemy!) and I'd probably leave it out altogether if I was going to make it again.

I ate these damn things left and right as if I was going to die if my stomach wasn't completely full with cookies. Every 10 minutes I'd scarf down 2 more to the point where I wanted to vomit. Yet I kept eating...

Gingerbread Cookies

Although LBD sent me her gingerbread cookie recipe (thanks!), I'd already found one from the Post Punk Kitchen that I already actually had all of the ingredients for in my kitchen (except for cloves, which I won't buy because they seem ridiculously expensive).

I've never made gingerbread anything before so this seemed a little daunting. But it turned out easy and absolutely delicious. I also thought I'd ice some of them for no real reason. I did a little digging about found this easy Gingerbread Vegan Icing recipe from the Vegan Lunch Box. I made 2 batches of icing since I cooked half the dough the day I made it and then the other half a day later. For the first batch I used a good amount of vanilla and regular soy milk, and the second included less vanilla and soy nog. I liked the first better, but it was a little runnier.

No style points, but the taste makes up for my inabilitiy to prettify things.

Valentine's Treat

For Valentine's Day I decided I had to make something heart-shaped and tasty. I rummaged through the kitchen and, surprise, surprise, had about 4 ingredients to work with. Fine.

I began my recipe search looking for a recipe for egg-free fortune cookies, all because the Vegan Lunch Box mentioned them. However, her link sends you to a company that sells them, not a nice recipe for me to follow. After another hour of scouring the internet, I found another vegan fortue cookie recipe, but, *sigh*, I had no Enrg egg replacer, which I'm scared of quite frankly. Boo.

Then I decided I wanted some type of not-too-sweet cookie that I would apply chocolate frosting to (the frosting from last week's cupcakes, sans tea) and make into sandwiches. My search began and ended at vegweb.com, my favorite recipe place. I found this recipe for shortbread cookies...but CRAP, I had no egg replacer. That's ok, we'll use applesauce. So I followed the recipe but added 1/2 cup of applesauce instead of fake egg. And the cookies came out lovely and shaped, mostly, like hearts. But since I love me a good challenge and always seem to be doing something to make life a little harder on myself, I accidentally broke my heart-shaped cookie cutter. No worries, I pulled through with about 26 delightful cookies.

So I followed the same frosting recipe from my cupcakes, only making 1/3 of the recipe. It came out fantastic and I put it in the fridge to cool it down some while the cookies cooled. Then I slathered it on the bottom of one cookie and attached another. Perfect!

I thought they tasted alright, but I eat anything. An independent taste tester said they were yummy, so we'll go with that, though I suspect he was just trying to be nice.

Some thoughts for next time I make them: I'd like to add some orange peel to the cookies for a little ooopmh. Or, I have some Godiva liquers that I got for Christmas and have no clue how to use, so I'd like to add them to the frosting. Some addition of strawberry would be nice, maybe pureed in the frosting? Instead of sandwiches, I may stick a thumbprint in each and fill with something tasty...like the last bit of my pumpkin butter from Trader Joe's. The possiblities really are endless.

Sorry, no pictures :(