Monthly Archives: June 2019

Fruit and Seed Granola with White Chocolate Bits

Fruit and Seed Granola with White Chocolate Bits

Fruit and Seed Granola with White Chocolate Bits

This post started out with me making dark chocolate. It was from a recipe that took homemade chocolate and crumbled it into fruity granola for a trail mix. Well, that disaster turned into something resembling chocolate leather. Also, upon analyzing the recipe further, I decided I didn’t like the ratios of the ingredients. So after another recipe search, I decided I might as well make my own granola. That had to be much easier than making chocolate. With more hunting I found a promising recipe for white chocolate. Those two put together made this creation – Fruit and Seed Granola with White Chocolate Bits.

Both of the recipes were vegan and did not require high altitude adjustments, so that simplified things. The granola was part of a smoothie bowl, but I made just the granola. Then I modified it by reducing the amount of pumpkin seeds so I could add some hemp seeds. You can use any seeds here, and even any dried fruit. Pick your favorite fruit or seed – the possibilities are endless. The white chocolate was originally the base of a rice crispy bar, but I made the chocolate by itself and put it in smaller molds.

Fruit and Seed Granola with White Chocolate Bits adapted from recipes on Go Dairy Free

for the White Chocolate
1 ounce (scant 1/4 cup) raw, unsalted cashews
1/4 cup + 1/2 TBS powdered sugar
Pinch fine sea salt
2 ounces Navitas Organics cacao butter
1/4 tsp + 1/8 tsp vanilla bean paste

for the Granola
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 cups old fashioned rolled oats
1 cup sliced almonds
1/4 cup raw pumpkin seeds
3 TBS hemp seeds
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
1 cup dried tart cherries, roughly chopped

To make the white chocolate, place cashews, sugar, and salt in a mini food processor and process into a fine powder (about 30 seconds). Place cacao butter in a double boiler and whisk until just melted. Whisk vanilla bean paste into the melted cacao butter. Remove from heat and whisk in the cashew-sugar mixture until smooth.

Place a mold on a small tray and pour the mixture into it. Place mold in the refrigerator for 1 to 2 hours to set up. When solid, remove the white chocolate from the mold and break or cut into small bits. Set aside.

To make the granola, preheat the oven to 325F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a bowl, whisk together maple syrup, olive oil, and vanilla. In a separate bowl, stir together oats, almonds, pumpkin seeds, hemp seeds, salt, and cinnamon. Add wet mixture to dry mixture and stir to evenly coat.

Spread granola onto prepared baking sheet in an even layer. Bake for 45 minutes, or until golden brown, stirring every 15 minutes. Watch carefully in last 15 minutes as it may burn. Let granola cool completely. Stir in dried cherries and bits of white chocolate. Store in an airtight container at room temperature.

Until next time, happy baking!

How to Stop Your Cookies From Spreading

Spread Cookies image courtesy of crypto on flickr.com

Spread Cookies image courtesy of crypto on flickr.com

Here in the Decadent Vegan Baker’s kitchen I have whipped up my fair share of cookies. I always want them to look good for pictures, and for bragging rights, so I did some research on how to avoid the dreaded cookie spread. You know — when the cookies turn into unsightly blobs or, worse yet, fuse into each other. Here is what I found out …

A tip I got many years ago was to be sure to cool baking sheets down before placing the next batch of raw dough on them. That’s easy enough to do in the winter as I just prop them on the wall near an outside door. In the summer I have to wait patiently while the sheets cool off, but that time can be well spent engaged in the next piece of advice.

My second item of advice is to place the dough in the fridge prior to baking the cookies. “Chilling the dough solidifies the fat in the dough, meaning that it will melt more slowly under the heat of the oven and result in taller, thicker cookies,” say the chefs at Food52. Dough that is too warm can make cookies that look like flat blobs.

On the King Arthur Flour website they recommend two things for attaining the perfect cookie: lowering the baking temperature while also extending the baking time. For a recipe that called for cookies baked at 350°F for 14 minutes, they “dropped the temperature to 300°F, and extended the baking time: 22 minutes for chewy, 30 minutes for crisp.” They explained that “the fat in cookies is a big part of their structure, prior to baking…Once those cookies hit the oven, though, the fat starts to soften and melt. And the hotter the oven, the more quickly it melts. If the oven’s hot enough, the fat melts before the cookies set. And since their flour/liquid matrix hasn’t yet had a chance to harden, the cookies spread.”

A final trick offered by Food52 is that “when a recipe calls for room temperature butter, you should be able to make a small indentation easily with your finger without the area sinking under its weight. If the butter is too cold, you’ll have to do more mixing to get it to properly incorporate.” Unincorporated butter leads to airy dough that leads to cookies that fall in the oven, and that leads to the ugly blob.

If you find that you have tried all of my recommendations and still produce unsightly cookies, do not worry. Send the cookies to my house and my husband will dispose of them properly … for dessert.

Blueberry Banana Breakfast Cookies

Blueberry Banana Breakfast Cookies

Blueberry Banana Breakfast Cookies

Sometimes I need breakfast (or a snack) on the run, but I don’t want it overly sweet. These breakfast cookies are a good way to satisfy your hunger without getting a huge sugar rush. Almond flour is the base so they don’t offer a blood sugar spike while also making the cookie gluten-free. Translating recipes to gluten-free is difficult at high altitudes so I prefer not to. But if I stumble upon a creation that is naturally without gluten, like this one, then it is a bonus.

To make the recipe vegan, I omitted the egg and incorporated baking soda. I also created a version of a flax egg with the flax in the recipe to help replace the egg and to add moisture needed in the dryness at high altitude. Enjoy this healthy snack.

Blueberry Banana Breakfast Cookies based on Blueberry Almond Breakfast Cookies

1 TBS ground flaxseed
3 TBS warm water
1 banana, mashed
1 tsp vanilla extract
1.5 cups almond flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup fresh blueberries

Preheat oven to 350 F. In a small bowl, whisk flaxseed into the warm water and set aside for 10 minutes. In a medium bowl, whisk together banana, vanilla, and flaxseed mixture. Add almond flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt, and stir until combined. Gently fold in blueberries.
Spoon 12 rounded mounds onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for 20 to 22 minutes. Move pan to a wire rack to allow cookies to cool.

Until next time, happy baking!