Homemade Vegan PB & Choc Protein Bars

Yes, I am still alive! I’m just in ultra-hermit mode, so while I still spend a lot of my time indulging my various hobbies, I just don’t bother sharing the results. Which is selfish! But these bars have proved delicious and popular, so here is the recipe; it’s too good not to share.

(These are technically gluten-free, but contain oats, so it depends on whether you can personally handle oats. Otherwise, substitute rice/quinoa flakes.)

Vegan PB & Choc Protein Bars
Original Recipe, Makes 16 large bars

Ingredients

– 14 medjool dates
– 1 1/4 C puffed rice (or a combination of puffed rice, buckwheat and quinoa)
– 1/2 C quick oats
– 1/2 C rolled oats
– 1/3 C raw cacao powder
– 1 C vegan protein powder
– 1/2 C peanut butter (smooth or crunchy, it’s up to you!)
– 1/2 C rice malt syrup or honey

– Optional; 1 TBSP maca powder, 1-3 TBSPs vegan calcium powder

Method

1. Remove the pits from the dates and dice them. Place in a bowl and cover with warm water for 10-15 minutes until soft

2. Drain dates and transfer them to a blender/food processor, and pulse until it forms a thick paste

3. In a large mixing bowl, combine puffed rice, oats, cacao powder and protein powder

4. In a small saucepan combine the peanut butter and honey/rice syrup over a low heat, stirring constantly, until it goes soft and starts to bubble

5. Add the date paste and peanut butter/honey mixture to the dry ingredients, and mix until combined – it’s easiest to wet your hands and knead it through

6. Press the mixture into a 9 inch/ 23 cm square tin lined with baking paper. Press it in VERY firmly

7. Refrigerate for 1-2 hours, until solid. Cut into 16 squares or smaller. Store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to two weeks.

Nutritional Info:
(For 16 squares, per square)
250 Kcal
15g Protein calcium powder

Gingerdead House for Xmas 2014

I’m baaaa-aaaack! It’s not like I haven’t been creating things, I just haven’t really felt like sharing them. But I’ve decided that that is just too great a loss for the Internet, so here we are with a zombie-themed gingerbread house/people!

This was my first-ever attempt at making a gingerbread house, by the way. I’m pretty damn satisfied with the results! And the recipe for the gingerbread itself came from The Vegan Cookie Connoisseur, one of my FAVE cook books!

Collage of all four sides:

And then the gingerdead people/zombies themselves!

Tah dah! Questions? Comments?

Blenders, Dehydrators and Raw Foodism – Oh My!

While I will never be 100% raw vegan, I often look for ways to incorporate more whole plant foods into my diet, and in interesting forms; enter raw food. However, my lack of equipment prevented me from ever delving into the world of “gourmet” raw food (i.e. not just plain whole fruits and veggies).

Buuuuut… I got my tax back, and am now the very proud owner of a dehydrator, courtesy of eBay (and yes, I am always this awkward in photographs);

And, because I am apparently several years slow on the uptake, I worked out that the bottom of my blender IS removable, it’s just difficult to do so. So now I know how to easily access and clean it, I’ve been using it far more often. By the combined powers of blender + dehydrator, I’ve been having a great time experimenting in raw foods;

1. Kale chips (recipe from Ani Phyo’s ‘Raw Food Basics’), which are now my favourite food;

2. Flax crackers, from the same book;

3. Raw chocolate mousse (from an Internet recipe);

I’ve also created my own recipe for some AMAZING raw cookies, so stay tuned for pictures and the recipe!

Food pr0n: The Vegan Baking Extravaganza (Part 11)

Welcome to part 11 of the ongoing series of posts on the various foodstuffs I like to create in my spare time. Once again, this post is a mixture of actual “baking” and other methods of food production – notably, my love for banana icecream.

Block uncheese (from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook);

For taste, I’d rate it 10/10, but the texture is nowhere near solid. It’s more like a delicious cashew-based patè. More experimentation from this cookbook is needed.

Pasta bolognaise with TVP ‘meatballs’ (this was the first time I’d used the larger-sized TVP chunks, and I think I needed to soak them a little longer than the finer TVP ‘mince’), topped with nutritional yeast;

Strawberry-banana-choc-chip icecream; it’s a variation on my banana “ice cream” recipe, using vanilla soymilk, strawberry essence (I’d use fresh strawberries, but was out at the time) and agave nectar.

Some random sprinkle-mad sugar cookies; dinosaurs, butterflies and cupcakes, oh my!

Stay tuned for the next sugar-loaded installment of the Vegan Baking Extravaganza!

Food pr0n: the Vegan Baking Extravaganza (Part 10)

Apologies for the slight delay in posting, this week just got away from me.

Welcome to part 10 of the deliciously decadent Vegan Baking Extravaganza! This week features a slightly wider variety of foodstuffs, as I’ve been somewhat more adventurous in my vegan concoctions of late.

Caramel popcorn (from the recipe in Lickin’ the Beaters 2). Apologies for the rather dark photograph.

Chocolate crackles made with Reeses Pieces cereal, which is way too sweet to be eaten as cereal. Combine melted copha (vegetable shortening) with cocoa, mix in cereal, and pour into patty cases/silicon moulds.

Smores Bars pre-oven (recipe is from one of my cookbooks, can’t remember which one right now – basically it’s just a biscuit base, covered with marshmallow and chopped dark chocolate).

Smores Bars post-oven.

And our final items aren’t baked, but they are made by me, so hey, close enough! I’ve been getting into banana “ice cream” (frozen banana pieces chucked in the blender with soymilk, agave nectar, vanilla essence (optional), cocoa (optional)) lately, making both “plain” and chocolate flavoured, both with chocolate chips. I also used one of the new VitaSoy breakfast drinks – delicious and enriched with calcium, B12, fibre, etc. I highly recommend it.

“Plain” banana choc chip ice cream.

Chocolate choc chip ice cream.

And thus conclused the 10th installment of this series, which will be going for more than 10 installments, apparently! Tune in next time for my attempts to make “cheese”, chocolate mousse cups, and more!

Food pr0n: the Vegan Baking Extravaganza (Part 9)

Welcome to part 9 of the ongoing “baking is mostly what I do in my spare time” series! As a side note, the multiple shots of things isn’t cheating – I have plenty of material, I just like to indulge the “food pr0n” aspect of these posts. Assuming I get to photograph the goodies before they’re all eaten. 😛

Homemade gluten-free wholemeal bread (Orgran brand, I think). It was delicious, and not as dense as gluten free baked goods tend to be. On the downside, it was a bit crumbly (maybe baking longer would help? Or adding xantham gum or the like?) so it wouldn’t be ideal for sandwiches. But covered in Nuttlex and vegan “honey” (rice malt – deliiiiiiiicious) it makes a great simple and not too sweet dessert.

Chocolate brownies (from the recipe in Vegan Planet, with added white chocolate chips) with chocolate ‘buttercream’ icing. For the icing, just beat together vegan butter, icing sugar, cocoa powder and vanilla essence to taste/until smooth. Add soy milk to get desired consistency.

At back: my classic choc chip cookie recipe. At front; thumbprint cookies (plain and chocolate cookie dough, basically) using white chocolate peanut butter on the chocolate ones, and dark chocolate peanut butter on the plain ones. Not so pretty, but very delicious.

And that’s it for this installment. Join me next time for goodies like homemade nougat, chocolate crackles and baked S’mores bars!

Food pr0n: the Vegan Baking Extravaganza (Part 8)

Welcome back to yet another installment of the Vegan Baking Extravaganza! In this edition, we see the product of my investing in a $20 mini-donut maker, which totally justifies my spending money on something that isn’t technically a necessity. Though once you have one, you understand that it really is something that you need. 😛

Here’s the “sprinkling station”, which only partially reveals my obsessive love of sprinkles (they didn’t all fit on the stove top…).

The completed, delicious, colourful product.

And, just for something different (and to demonstrate my undying devotion to all things chocolate), quadruple chocolate cookies:

They’re my standard triple chocolate cookie recipe, and then I coated the bottoms with melted dark chocolate using a silicon pastry brush. So easy, and adds an extra dimension of both deliciousness and structural integrity to your cookies!

Baked marzipan – basically, you just roll chunks of marzipan into balls, flatten them on a greased tray/silicon mat, and bake at 180 celsius for 10-15 minutes. Watch them fairly closely – when they brown and bubble around the edges, they’re ready. Simple, yet addictive.

Banana-banana (i.e. plain, unadulterated banana) cookies from ‘The Vegan Cookie Connoisseur’. Soft, chewy and delicious, it’s a great recipe that really emphasises the more subtle flavours of these cookies.

Food pr0n: the Vegan Baking Extravaganza (Part 7)

Welcome back to part 7 in the ongoing series of pictures of delicious foodstuffs. In any case, I do plenty of baking to provide subject matter for this series; it’s my anti-boredom device. My delicious, delicious anti-boredom device. 😀

Here’s a creation of my own invention, of which I am very proud:

I baked a layer of marzipan (in my rectangular silicon moulds, which I love), then melted a layer of vegan marshmallows (I picked up a couple of bags of Dandies a while back, and can’t recommend them highly enough). I then topped it off with a layer of melted dark chocolate. Very rich, and very good.

My original recipe for classic chocolate chip cookies – FINALLY ONLINE HERE.

Various soft-centred dark chocolates (strawberry, cherry, pineapple, peppermint, raspberry, orange). Check out the adorable dinosaurs!

Food pr0n: the Vegan Baking Extravaganza (Part 6)

With this installment, we return to our regular schedule of delicious vegan baked goods. Of course, these aren’t everything I’ve made – strangely enough, some goodies don’t last long enough to be photographed! Here are the ones that I snapped pictures of before they were snapped up.

Chocolate brownies with white chocolate chips (based on the recipe in Vegan Planet), with chocolate “fudge icing”. Basically, just beat together vegan butter, vanilla extract, Dutch-processed cocoa and a tonne of icing sugar until you get the consistency you want.

Above brownies, en masse.

White chocolate skeletons (moulds from the ever-fantastic eBay), which I was planning on inserting into the brownies, buuuuut… we ended up just eating them as is. 😛

Chocolate coated Oreos! The ones at the front are chocolate-cream Oreos coated in Sweet Williams “milk” chocolate. The ones at the back are special edition “ice-cream” Oreos, coated in Sweet Williams white chocolate (which is a little lumpy because it got a little burned… whoops!).

So remember, dear readers… never overestimate how long it takes white chocolate to melt!

Food pr0n: the Vegan Baking Extravaganza (Part 5 – Sweets Special)

Welcome to part 5 of the Vegan Baking Extravaganza, otherwise known as “I bake obsessively for recreation and relaxation”. 😀 In this special installment, I’ll be sharing pictures of the various SWEETS AND CHOCOLATES of which I’ve made vegan versions lately. The following is proof that being vegan doesn’t mean you have to miss out on any of your old favourite foods – minus the cruelty!

The Australian classic, chocolate freckles. They’re super easy to make – I just poured melted chocolate into the bottoms of my silicon muffin moulds, added vegan sprinkles, and left them to set. Tah dah!

Cookies and cream chocolate bars. Melt vegan white chocolate (I use Sweet Williams brand) carefully – it burns very easily! Mix in crushed Oreos (it’s even more delicious if you just crush the whole biscuit, “cream” and all), pour into moulds, and put in fridge to set.

I’ve gotten pretty good at making my own soft-centre chocolates. I’m particularly partial to strawberry and pineapple. Like Cadbury Snack bars, but without all the nasty additives and unnecessary animal products!

And finally, possibly my proudest chocolatiering creation, white chocolates with white chocolate peanut butter centres… in the shape and colour of Lego blocks:

Bought the moulds on eBay, in a pack with Lego men moulds – stay tuned to see the chocolate Lego men in the near future!