Tag Archives: dark chocolate

Dark chocolate, mango and cashew biscotti

17 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by in cookies, dessert, italian, kids, kids lunchbox ideas, party bites, vegan, Vegetarian

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cashew and chocolate biscotti
Well it happened. I invented my first vegan baked-goods recipe. Now these turned out fine, real fine, but I’m not sure they hold up to my idea of biscotti. Biscotti should be hard crunchy cookies that withstand a dunking in coffee. Their brittleness should instill faith that they will last forever in the pantry. (Why else did Romans take biscotti with them on their long road trips?) My biscotti tasted delicious and smelled amazing but they were a tad moist in the middle. I am still learning if this is due to their veganness, their state of being vegan. Too much coconut oil? No egg to help with binding? Something to work out in the future…

No one minded. In fact I had to fight off several guerrilla raids on my kitchen in order to take some photos. Many biscotti were lost in battle.

Ingredients
Makes about 20 mid-size biscotti
1/2 cup coconut oil
3/4 cup sugar
2 tbs smooth nut butter
1/4 cup to 1/2 cup soy (or almond) milk
1 3/4 cup white wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
3 pieces dried mango, chopped finely
1/2 cup to 3/4 cup coconut cashews (or plain cashews)
1/3 cup vegan dark chocolate, chopped. Please, only quality chocolate. No Hershey’s or Nestle.

1. Melt the coconut oil and mix it with the sugar, nut butter and 1/4 cup (to start) of soy or almond milk.
2. Mix in the dry ingredients and add a little more soy milk, couple drops at a time, if needed. You’re looking for this to be the consistency of play-doh. But edible!
3. Knead in the nuts and chocolate. I used Trader Joe’s coconut cashews. They are scrummy! But plain cashews would work too.
4. Mold the dough into one large, flattened log if you want big biscotti or two smaller flattened logs. I prefer a smaller cookie myself.
biscotti dough
5. Bake on a tray lined with baking parchment at 325F for about 30-40 minutes or until it is looking golden and toasted and pretty firm to the touch. The smell of that coconut oil is heavenly.
first bake
6. Take out the biscotti logs and let cool. Slice diagonally into biscotti-size cookies. If the cookie log is a little soft and crumbly (as mine was) cut very carefully and err a bit on the thick side.
7. Place the biscotti back in the baking tray. Turn the oven down to 275F and cook for another 10 minutes.
8. Get that coffee going! These are yummy!

DSC_0085

Dark chocolate done two, yes, two ways!

15 Sunday Sep 2013

Posted by in comfort food, dessert, kids, kids lunchbox ideas

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banana bread, brownies

Are you like me? Do you ever wake up somewhat refreshed on a Sunday morning, snuggled under the duvet, thinking about all the things you want/need to get done (such as clean, fix, paint, wash, fold, shop) and then spend like two hours drinking coffee and looking at pinterest on your iphone while your kids play video games?

Well, anyway, that’s what I did this morning. But it was soooo nice. To do… nothing. And then, as there was just the slightest crisp to the air I decided to drink a third cup of coffee and bake. I had two sticks of butter, half a tub of mascarpone, old bananas and a butt-load of dark chocolate.

First up, this recipe for dark chocolate and mascarpone brownies I found on theKitchn. They are good, if a little more like a cake then a brownie. I had no cocoa powder left so I added in extra dark chocolate (4 oz instead of 3 oz), as well as some ground almonds so perhaps that altered the texture. The kids la la loved them! Oh yeah, and I skipped the ganache part. I just can’t put frosting on brownies, even if it’s homemade ganache. It’s like putting frosting on fudge.

While the brownies were baking, I tackled some dark chocolate banana cake. This was the first time I made banana cake without a recipe, so in a way, it’s my own recipe. Also, I had no butter left so I had to improvise. This came out moist, fluffy and purrrfect for an early Autumn day.

Dark chocolate, almond and olive oil banana cake

3/4 cup greek yogurt
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
3 bananas or 2 large bananas
1 1/2 cups whole wheat or white wheat flour
1/2 cup ground almonds or almond meal
1 tsp baking soda
2 tbs honey
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 to 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
chopped dark chocolate to taste

1. Mix all the wet ingredients together
2. Mix all the dry ingredients together and incorporate. Start with 1 cup of wheat flour and add in the other 1/2 cup if necessary. The batter should be like a cake batter, not thick like a banana bread batter.
3. Pour into a bread tin or a cake tin lined with parchment paper.
3. Bake on the middle oven rack for 40 min to an hour on 325/350 F oven. Prick with a fork and when it comes away dry, it is ready.

banana bread, brownies