When I was little, my mom made these chocolate chip meringue cookies for holidays and my birthday treat at school. I love mint and chocolate combined and the light, airy texture of meringue is the perfect vessel for it!
I posted these a few months ago in the Vegan Meringue Facebook group, but finally decided to post the recipe!
I’m writing this post to help the wonderful people in the vegan meringue Facebook group. All of my experience with making vegan macarons has been with the recipes created by Charis at Floral Frosting. If you need anymore help or information about making macarons, she posted a great video here. I’m going to attempt to outline my method, which varies a bit from Charis’s and then give a few pointers on how to avoid some common problems. This is not meant to be a complete guide to vegan macarons, just my experiences!! Also, remember no matter how they turn out, they’re still delicious!
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I’ve been making macarons obsessively for the past few weeks. Thanks to Charis at Floral Frosting and the amazing vegan meringue group on Facebook, aquafaba has taken over my refrigerator.
My poor coworkers have had to eat dozens of my experiments, but I get the feeling they don’t really mind. Since today is Memorial Day in the US, I thought I’d make something red and white to be festive. These would be perfect around Christmas time or at a fourth of July party!
If the directions aren’t clear enough, Charis just posted a video on her blog that makes it easier to visualize the process!
When Ken and I first started dating, we took a trip to a blueberry farm in Illinois. We spent hours picking (and mostly eating) berries, until I got tired and lost our group. I ended up trying to call him multiple times from a stranger’s cell phone and surprisingly there’s very little cell reception on a blueberry farm in the middle of nowhere. After waiting awkwardly on a bench for an hour, we finally found each other, and we left that farm with a cooler full of blueberries. Most were frozen and eventually made their way into loaves of banana bread, but some turned into these excellent muffins.
I made a huge batch of these to freeze before having my baby, so feel free to do the same. You can even substitute chocolate chips for the blueberries and pretend like it’s a healthy breakfast. I promise not to tell.
We always buy bananas at the beginning of the week for packed lunches, so inevitably at the end of the week we have a few very ripe bananas leftover. Because of this, I’ve been baking this banana bread almost every week for months. We always have a loaf on the counter to snack on after dinner or with coffee. The recipe is originally by Isa at Post Punk Kitchen, and it’s become our favorite. I love adding chocolate chips, blueberries, or topping it with struesel topping.
A trick I’ve learned recently is that if your bananas are not quite banana bread ripe, but too ripe for normal eating, you can toss them in a 350°F oven until they are black and mushy.
If you love your family, make this bread. I promise they will love you back.
Ingredients:
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cups white sugar
• 1/2 cup coconut oil
• 3 very ripe bananas, mashed well
• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 cup vanilla almond milk, mixed with 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
Directions:
1. Cream together the coconut oil and sugars. Add bananas, almond milk, and vanilla.
2. Mix in flour, baking soda, salt and spices.
3. Pour batter into greased 8×4 pan. Bake for an hour to an hour 10 minutes at 350 ˚ F.
We received a package on the front porch today…Ilyana was very intrigued by the labels on the side, I was quite curious to see what was inside. I’m currently waiting on another package, so it could have been either one. I won a contest on the Hampton Creek facebook page, so they were sending me a jar of cookie dough to try, but I’m also waiting on a hoodie from their “justashelfie” promotion. I’ve talked about Hampton Creek in my recent posts, so if you need to catch up, please look back to the mayonnaise cake and chipotle chickpea salad.
It’s cookie dough! It was packaged in a cold pack and I could feel how chilled it was when I opened the box.
She was just as excited as I was.
I love their simple packaging-good food doesn’t always need excessive labels.
Mayonnaise cake seems like something someone who was hoarding for the apocalypse would invent while trying to use up their food stash. It definitely tastes better than you would expect most post apocalyptic meals to taste, especially since it’s full of chocolate.
I made this for my husband’s birthday, and didn’t tell him there was mayonnaise in it until he finished his piece. This recipe definitely beats out my old chocolate cake recipe; I have to thank Hampton Creek for the original. I’ve posted it below if you’re too lazy to click the link, but I didn’t make any changes beyond pan size and it came out perfect.
If you haven’t tried Just Mayo yet, you need to leave your house and go buy some right now. There’s even a $2.50 coupon on their website, so you’re basically getting it for free. This stuff is better than regular egg based mayonnaise and way more sustainable. I’ve tried it on sandwiches, in chickpea salad, with sambal on sushi, and straight off the spoon. Granted, I tend to get over enthusiastic about new products, but Hampton Creek is a really great company and worth a try, even if you’re not vegan.
If I had to choose between pie and cake, I would usually pick pie. Unless there’s cheesecake involved, then the question isn’t even fair. However, making a pie takes time, patience, and a rolling pin. I only have one of those and it’s stored high enough above my sink that I can’t reach it unless I really need it.
Crisps and crumbles are an easy alternative. If anyone happens to know the difference between the two, I’d be happy to hear it. I accidentally bought a few bruised apples, so I thought making a crisp would be a good way to use them. This recipe makes about 9 large servings, but you can double it to fit a 9×13 pan.
Avocados and Ales 