Triple-Chocolate-Cheesecake

Triple-Chocolate-Cheesecake (or as my grandma calls them, “Chocolate Adventures”)

Guess what time it is!!!!!!

Chocolate time!

There is never not a good time for some chocolate,

So thus, it is always chocolate time…

That is my daily dose of wisdom,

Bask in it

Let it sink in your soul…

Feel enlightened?

Now you are ready to make some vegan-chocolate-cheesecake

Let’s begin

First things first, strain your tofu, because it is one slimy sucker and if you fail to get it anything less than mostly dry, it will turn your whole creation into a big pile of yuck!

Now, if you are cool and hip enough to have a tofu strainer, by all means, use it!

I, however, am not cool enough to have something so awesome (though I am very seriously contemplating asking my boyfriend to get me one for Christmas) so instead, I used a homemade press/strainer/contraption thing, and it worked fairly well.

I used a plate, with the tofu on top, a bight thick pad of paper towels covering that, a small cookie sheet with 2-3 really heavy books

 You may want to change out the paper towels from time to time, and also switch which side of the tofu is up/down

Squish!

But you definitely want to do this first, because the longer you can dry up your tofu, the better.

Ugh, it looks so gross!

Moving on…

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees

And then you're going to take these beauties

Put 3 cups of granola in a food processor (I had to grind up one cup at a time, because we have a tiny processor)

Melt ½ cup of Earth Balance and then add it, along with 2 tsp of sugar and 1 tbs of cacao powder to the granola and mix

And if its really really crumbly, add a teensy-weensy-insy-bintsy-of water so that its more crust like. Keep adding water until you think it’s right… but don’t add too much

Then, grease whatever pan(s) you are using (you can use a regular 8” spring form pan, or you can be like me and use 6 mini tart pans with cool removable bottoms) and press the crust into the pans. I used a handful and a half (haha, I’m so professional and accurate in the kitchen) and make sure the curst is even on the bottom and pressed up against the side a bit.

Then, pop em in the oven for about 6-10 minutes, until you can start smelling the yummy-granola goodness

Then, melt some chocolate (I used about a cup of Ghirardelli semi-sweet… but you could definitely use more) and spread it across the bottom of the crust.

I sprinkled some crushed almonds on top of the chocolate, but you don’t have too… I’m just kind of crazy and impulsive

They look good enough to eat already!

And I think you could stop now and eat them like that… like a cookie!

But that wouldn’t be very much fun, so let’s press on!

Now that your tofu is all drained,

Crumble it a bit and stick it in a blender and whiz it as much as you can. It will be difficult to get it very smooth since that’s the only thing in the blender, but don’t despair! It will be alright in just a moment more

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew

Now, one by one add these to the tofu, blending after each addition

You want to blend it each time to make sure you whiz it as much as possible so that there are no nasty chunks of nastyness

1 c. chocolate milk (almond, soy, rice, etc)

-whiz-

½ c. unsweetened cocoa powder

-whiz-

½ c. sugar

-whiz-

Splash of vanilla

-whiz-

Whole package of Toffuti Better Than Cream Cheese

-whiz-

1 carton of vanilla yogurt (soy, coconut, etc)

-whiz-

-whiz-

-whiz whiz-

Make sure it all looks good and mixed in,

Then pour it into your pans so that it’s all nice and evenly distributed

And then, if you want, you can decorate them now, before you even bake them, by drawing designs with chocolate syrup

Put them in the oven, and bake for about 20 minutes (mini-pans) and about 30-60 minutes for a regular pan.

They are done when the top seems solid, the sides being more solid then the middle

Take out and leave it on the counter/stove and let them cool for about and hour,

Then wrap them up and put in the fridge to chill for at least 6 hours (but I like to give mine at least 12-24 hours… the longer they chill, they better they will be)

Pick Your Poison 

COOKIES!

Choco-Choco-Choco-Chip Cooooookies!

Can you tell that I’m excited about chocolate chip cookies?

I have made so many batches of these in my lifetime, it’s rather ridiculous. I make them for my grandma’s birthday every year, I make them probably about five times every year at random times… mhmm, I have made these so often, I pretty much have the recipe memorized. But of course, now the recipe is different, because I made them animal friendly :)

So let’s begin the love fest!

Preheat oven to 375

Stir together these

2  1/2  C. Whole wheat flower (if you can, use whole wheat pastry flour; I have yet to get my hands on any, unfortunately)

2 C. All purpose flour

1tsp. salt

2 tsp. baking soda

Set aside and cream these until well… creamy

2 C. softened Earth Balance

2  1/2 C. sugar

2  1/2 C. packed brown sugar

Then, mix together your eggsis

4 tbs. ground flaxseeds whisked with 6 tbs. of water until gelatiney (made that word up…)

Then add these slowly/one at a time/in increments to your creamed sugary-butter

2 capfuls of vanilla

Your eggs

(oh I how love my flaxseed eggs!)

Slowly add your flour mixture

Then add these beauties

2 whole bags of Ghirardelli Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips (these are the only vegan chips, so be careful!)

Roll into little balls and place on greased cookie sheet. You might want to press down on them slightly, since they won’t spread out much, if at all on their own.

They are cute in their little ball shapes though

Too cute to eat… almost

Then bake for about 10-12 minutes, until golden brown. But be careful not to over bake! They are rather inedible if baked too long, blech!

Pour yourself a tall glass of milk (almond, hemp, rice, soy, coconut, etc) and enjoy!

First Post/ Cinnamon Rolls!

First post, awesome!

I am rather adventurous when it comes to trying new recipes, and I often dive head first into something challenging. Case in point; I have never made a “regular cheesecake” but the first vegan recipe I tried was in fact an amazing chocolate cheesecake (I plan to make it again soon, and will post it then) and it turned out fantastic.

So today’s recipe is another example of how daring and reckless I can be…. Cinnamon Rolls! (yuuuuum) I’ve never made “regular” cinnamon rolls, but whatever.

So here we go, let’s dive on in!

Firstly, I have to say that I scoured the internet for the yummiest sounding recipe; I particularly wanted one that promised to be as close to Cinnabons as possible (because those things are amazing.)

I also watched tons and tons of videos on how to knead dough, and roll up the dough, and cut the dough… etc, this was a thoroughly researched venture.

Anywho, here’s the recipe, modified as I made it, but I’ll put the original link at the end of this post. 

Yeast Mixture
4 tsp Active Dry Yeast (a little less than 2 packets)
1 tsp Sugar
1 Cup Water, 110º F

Dough
1 Cup Almond milk
2/3 Cup Sugar
2/3 Cup Earth Balance Margarine
2 tsp Salt
Yeast Mixture, from above
6 Cups All Purpose Flour, more for kneading

Dough Filling
1/2 Cup Earth Balance Margarine, melted

1 Cup of Apple Butter
3 Cups of melted brown sugar
Cinnamon for sprinkling on top

(pay no heed to the nutmeg and vanilla in this picture; I thought they would be playing, but they ended up just sitting on the side lines)

Pan Sauce
*I’ll address this later on in the post*

Cream Cheese Frosting 
1/2 Cup Earth Balance
1/2 Cup Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese
2 tsp Vanilla Extract
2 Cup Powdered Sugar

(no picture because at this point I was in a hurry to get the darned things in my mouth!)

Combine yeast mixture and set aside to proof (this was by far the most pleasant beginning to any baking adventure… the yeast smelled like fresh bread, and I do love me some fresh bread)

Combine the dough ingredients (except the flour  and yeast) in a sauce pan and heat until the Earth Balance has all melted, and everything is happily combined. Make sure its not too hot though; test it by putting your finger in it, if you don’t yelp with pain, it’s good to go.

Then, add your proofed yeast and mix gently.

Place 4 cups of all purpose flour in a large bowl. Add the warmed wet ingredients.

Beat the batter well with a spoon, or use a mixer. The dough should look more like a batter at this point.

Add 2 more cups of flour and mix in partially.

Dump everything out onto a large work surface and begin kneading (slower at first, you’ll be doing this for about 8-10 more minutes, so pace yourself.)

Whilst kneading, only add more flower if the dough begins to stick to you and/or the surface. Mine was terribly sticky so I had to add quite a bit more flour, and even after that it was rather sticky (next time I’ll keep kneading till its keeps its hand to itself!)

In the end, you want the dough to be tacky, not sticky, and elastic. It should not stick to your work surface.

Once you’re done kneading, place the dough in an oiled bowl and cover with oiled seran wrap.

Then let it hang out in a warm spot for around 90 minutes (mine went for about 2 hours… I think the lack of flower may be to blame, cus it kept sticking to my fingers when I poked it.)

*If you have an unusually cold house, or something else like that, you can turn your oven on lowlowlow for 1 minute, turn it off, and place the bowled dough in there to rise. Just be sure to let everyone around you know that the oven is off limits until further notice*

You will know the dough is done rising when it leaves a dent(s) when you poke it. If it springs back (or sticks to you, it needs more time.)

As you can see, I got a little carried away :)

 Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and press it down. You want it press/roll it out into aprox. 15 x 20 inch rectangle.

Spread your filling evenly over the dough, go to the corners and sides, every little section needs some looooove.

Prepare the largest baking dish you have (I used a 9x13 and it only held 6 rolls… so, the bigger the better) by melting 1/2 cup of earth balance and ½ cup of sugar in the same bowl/dish you had the filling in (this gives the added yumminess of whatever filling was still stuck to the bowl. However, I found the pan sauce to be a tad bit much and think next time I’ll just spray it and sprinkle it with cinnamon and sugar… this is what I did for the small pan I had to have to fit the rest of the rolls in.)

Roll up the dough, starting at one of the short sides, roll it up tight!

Let it rest on its seam, then with either a bit of sewing thread/unflavored floss or a knife of your choice, cut the roll into 12 equal pieces and place in your pan(s).

Normal ones with pan sauce

The extras with the cinnamon-sugar sprinkled on top

Cover the buns and let rise for 45 minutes if you will be baking these immediately. If baking the next day, cover the buns and let rise in the refrigerator overnight. Bake in the morning with no need for more rising. If making the buns for a date in the future, cover the buns and freeze immediately. The day before you are ready to use them, defrost in the refrigerator overnight, then let warm up on the counter the next morning for an hour.

When ready to bake, do the following:

Preheat the oven to 350º F

Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until golden brown.

Stir together the frosting ingredients.

Don’t heat or add liquid,

Just keep whisking

Just keep whisking

Until there are no lumps

I put the frosting on the rolls as soon as they came out of the oven.

Let cool and eat up!

Alright, so here is what I thought of the end product.

The rolls in the bigger pan were good, but the pan sauce was definitely not needed; you could also definitely taste the appleyness, and it reminded me of an apple fritter. If you like apple fritters, then go for it, and maybe even added finely chopped apples to the filling. If apple isn’t your favorite, then I would go for a traditional filling (1/2 cup earth balance melted, poured on top, then cinnamon-sugar sprinkled evenly on top.)

The second pan with the leftover rolls was my favorite; somehow they seemed to bake different, and the dough was more tender and gooey. Likewise, I didn’t use pan sauce, I just sprayed the pan all over, sprinkled cinnamon-sugar on the bottom and sides, and then the rest of the cinnamon-sugar on the rolls before baking. These tasted the most like traditional cinnamon rolls, and a lot like cinnabons. One important thing to note is that a lot of the filling melted down into the bottom of the pan, but in this case it wasn’t as overbearing, since there wasn’t pan sauce flooding it already.

In regards to the glaze, I was happily surprised by how “real” it tasted.

I tired a teeny-weeny bit of the cream cheese before mixing it all together and I have to be honest, I thought to myself “ehhh, is this really going to work?”

But it did, and it was gloriously delicious!

If you have a morning to kill, and don’t mind baking baking baking, make these :)

They are so good!

*Here’s the original recipe; she has a video of the kneading,rolling,and cutting process that is really helpful*

http://veganyumyum.com/2009/05/perfect-cinnamon-buns/

Happy Baking