Cinnamon Banana Coffee Cake

When I have bananas that are getting quite ripe, I almost always make the Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins. But, this time I wanted to switch it up. I designed a coffee cake recipe that is to die for. It's moist, sweet, and delicious!

Ingredients:

3 very ripe bananas
2 cups sifted whole wheat flour (sift flour before measuring)
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup sugar plus 1/2 cup
1/2 cup vegan butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
Egg replacer (equivalent to 2 eggs)
1 tablespoon cinnamon

What to do:

Preheat Oven to 325 degrees fareinheit.
In a small bowl mash bananas well with a fork.
In a medium bowl mix together sifted flour and baking soda.
In a large bowl cream together butter and 3/4 cup sugar for about 1 minute. Add in mashed bananas, then vanilla.
Slowly add in the flour mixture. Then add in egg replacer.
Mix until incorporated.
In a seperate bowl mix together 1/2 cup of sugar and cinnamon. Leave just about 1 tablespoon out.
In a greased bundt pan add half of the cake batter. Then pour the sugar-cinnamon mix evenly over the cake batter. Add the remaining cake batter on top of that.
Bake for about 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Cut the edges of the cake and flip over onto a plate. Sprinkle the remaining cinnamon-sugar mix on the top.

Babycakes!

Hello! So, one of my best friends works at the well-known Vegan bakery called, Babycakes. She works at the LA location as a baker. She always gets to bring home leftover yummy treats. The other night she made a pit-stop to my place! I got to try some of the donuts, which were delicious. The flavors ranged from banana chocolate, to coffee, and a lemon coconut. She also delighted me with Babycakes "cakeballs." They're little balls made up of left over cakes and then drizzled with different kinds of icing. This isn't even the beginning of what Babycakes has to offer! If you're ever in LA or NY, you must go get some sweet treats! My all-time favorite is the cookie sandwich and I don't even like cookie sandwiches.

 

Here are the addresses:

NEW YORK CITY, NY 
248 Broome Street (Btwn Orchard & Ludlow)
New York City, NY 10002

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES, CA
130 East 6th Street
(between S. Main Street and S. Los Angeles Street)
Los Angeles, CA 90014

Coconut Caramel Cookies with Dark Chocolate

It's Girl Scout Cookie season. I love love love Girl Scout Cookies. Unfortunately, they are not vegan. So, I decided I was going to take a jab at my favorite cookies, the Caramel DeLites! I made up this recipe and it did not turn out exactly Caramel DeLites. But, they are still really good! The cookies came out much larger than I expected, so if you want smaller cookies, make them really small, they'll grow in the oven. Also, making caramel is tricky. Most recipes use corn syrup, I opted out. Caramel can burn quickly and your supposed to have a candy thermometer. (Which I didn't have.) I cooked it until it was the consistency I wanted about 7 minutes. Anyways, good luck!


Ingredients:

For the cookies-
2-1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup vegan butter
1 1/2 cups sugar or brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
egg replacer equivalent of 2 eggs
2 tablespoons almond milk or any non-dairy milk

For the Caramel-
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup shredded coconut

Dark Chocolate Layer-
1 cup dark chocolate chips

What to do:


Preheat oven to 375 degrees farehnheit


Cookies-
In a small bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt.
In a large bowl, cream together butter, sugar, and vanilla.
Beat in Egg Replacer, then slowly mix in flour mixture.
Add in non-dairy milk 
On a greased cookie sheet, roll out cookies into balls, and then flatten them into a cookie shape.
Bake for about 10 minutes.

Caramel-
In a medium saucepan, melt the butter. Once the butter is melted, stir in the sugar and vanilla. Stir about 1 minute and then add in the almond milk. Consistently stir the caramel or it will burn. Stir about 7 minutes. It will boil a lot. (Don't worry about that.) Once the caramel is a little thicker than maple syrup, turn off the heat and stir in coconut. Pour the Caramel over the cookies. If it is too thick to pour add in more milk. DO NOT TOUCH the caramel, it is VERY HOT, even if it doesn't seem like it.
Let the caramel cook and harden for about 20 minutes.

Dark Chocolate-
Over a double broiler melt the dark chocolate. Dip the bottom of the cookies in the melted chocolate and lay the cookies down with chocolate side up until hardened.
Once the cookies have cooled, they're ready to eat!

Update!

Hey there! I've updated a recent recipe. I changed the Vegan Creamy Pasta to a Gluten Free Vegan Mac and Cheese. I finally got the "cheesy" texture and taste down! Check it out.

Denver's Watercourse Foods

          Early in December I headed east to visit my sister in Denver, Colorado. I heard that Denver had many vegetarian/vegan friendly restaurants. Although I wasn't there long enough to try many, I found one delicious place called Watercourse Foods. It's a pretty popular place. It's a fully vegetarian restaurant and very vegan friendly. My sister and I trekked through the cold Denver air to get there, without much luck, and a wrong 17th Avenue (not 17th St. apparentely,) we made it! We were starved. I was overwhelmed with so many vegan options, I couldn't figure out what to pick. My sister on the other hand, was skeptical of everything on the menu. I finally decided on a wrap called, the "Dona Lee." I couldn't resist crunchy seitan and vegan ranch dressing all in one wrap! To help complete the dish, I got a side of their delicious french fries! I was so starved by the time the food came, that I forgot to take a picture of the food! So, now all I can do is describe it. It was delicious! My sister got a side of onion rings, and although onion rings aren't my favorite, theirs were oddly fluffy and yummy! Once we were done, we asked for the dessert menu. But no, they didn't have one. They brought out a platter of their desserts, to make it completely irrestable. My sister and I decided to share a "ho-ho cupcake" (no picture, yet again.) It was like a vegan version of a Hostess Ding-Dong. But bigger and cruelty free. I loved the food so much, I decided to take home a sweet potato cinnamon roll for breakfast! It was equally as yummy.
          Besides the food, I really liked the atmosphere. It was a loud, busy, yet spacious restaurant. We got to sit by a big window and look out at "upper old-town" Denver. The art on the walls was interesting, kind of a reversal thing going on, rabbits were taking over the humans type feel. I will be going back there sometime in the future, and I will TRY to remember to take a picture.