Tag Archives: Donuts

Vegan MoFo 2017 Day 7: Dessert!

Posted by Banana Curl Vegan Girl in Unicorn, Vegan MoFo 2017 and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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As the first week begins to come to a close, I, Fluffy the Vegan Unicorn want to remind you that there’s no need to shame yourself or others for indulging in vegan desserts.

In fact, I had Laura whip up this drawing so you could see a sampling of my favorite desserts and my favorite types of vegan sugar you can use in them.

And here are some more of my favorite desserts not listed on the pyramid:

Marshmallows

Chocolate

Marzipan

Cotton candy

Bubblegum

Gelatin-free gummy candy

Fudge

Frosting

Macarons

Pie

Pastry

Aquafaba meringues

Tell me, what is your favorite vegan, unicorn worthy dessert?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vegan MoFo 2017 Day 2: Eating Treats Without Guilt

Posted by Banana Curl Vegan Girl in Uncategorized, Unicorn, Vegan MoFo 2017 and tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

Hi, it’s Fluffy here!

I want to talk to you today about something two concepts that never need to go together: food & guilt. Sadly, people often DO put them together.

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To avoid my salty unicorn tears from flowing, here is my take on the matter:

Vegan food, after all, is about eating with compassion and making a conscious effort to reduce suffering through our food choices. So, as long as you are doing the best you can to achieve this goal, there really is no need for guilt! (If you’re not vegan and are experiencing feelings of guilt because you’re becoming aware of the suffering that occurs from your food choices, there are plenty of supportive vegans who would love to help you make the transition! For example, my pal Laura, the owner of this blog, is a Vegan Outreach Mentor and also has her own site, veg-edu-ables.com that you might want to check out.)

I see a lot of people associate guilt and shame with supposed “bad” vegan foods as opposed to “healthy” vegan foods. There is no such thing as “good” and/or “bad” food. Vegan food is vegan food. Want to eat a delicious sugary vegan donut? Go ahead! Enjoy it. Savor each melt-in-your-mouth morsel. Think to yourself, well, that was magical! I deserved that experience! I am happy I ate that. Want to eat a salad? As long as you don’t feel with every bite that you live a joyless, hopeless, sad and tasteless existence, that’s okay too!

When we shame or guilt trip ourselves or others for eating certain foods it creates unhealthy problems with food, or our bodies, minds, and spirits. As long as you are eating a balanced diet that does not consist of around the clock cookies and nothing but cookies and turning into a cookie monster, you’ll be okay. In fact, you’ll enjoy life a little bit more when you allow yourself to have fun, enjoy, and savor all the delicious vegan treats that are exploding onto the shelves of grocery stores, in vegan bakeries, restaurants, cookbooks, blogs, Instagrams, and beyond. I know I do!

Tomorrow we’ll be talking about shame and guilt as it relates to people’s bodies, which goes together with this topic.

**If you feel like you have a real problem with guilt and food, or feel like you may have some seriously disordered eating habits, I encourage you to find a vegan-friendly registered dietician and/or a psychologist who specializes in disordered eating. It won’t be easy but you can recover. Fluffy loves you and wants to see you healthy, happy, and successful.

 

 

 

My vegan donuts

Posted by Banana Curl Vegan Girl in Baked Goods, Breakfast, Chloe's Kitchen/Chloe Coscarelli, Donuts, Other Vegan Food Blogs, Recipes, Vegan Junk Food and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I’ve been all forlorn because there are now two places in my city that have vegan donut options, but I am essentially too broke to buy them. Everyone I know that’s vegan seems to be posting them on social media, and it made me want donuts SO BAD.

So, I made up my mind to make some of my own.

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I used this recipe for the donuts but substituted the shortening for coconut oil (using 1 1/2 tbsp).

I fried them up, choosing to make them without holes because I thought I might add a filling inside. I used Chloe Coscarelli’s recipe for chocolate ganache as a topping.

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On half of them, I applied some vegan sprinkles from Sweetapolita’s shop.

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On the other half, I used Chloe’s filling frosting in the recipe above (made with half coconut oil and half veggie shortening I’m trying to use up), and separated it into three bowls, colored it with my natural food colorings (red, yellow, green), and then got super frustrated trying to use this icing bag contraption I bought that’s supposed to make it easier to pipe out multiple colors at the same time. I don’t think it was that easy, but it did come out very nice.

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I think next time it’d be better if I fill the insides with the frosting and don’t color it. It got really melty on top because it’s summer and I ended up refrigerating them.

BUT THEY ARE SO GOOD! They helped me wake up early this morning because I knew they were waiting for me, and I was able to get a ton of humane education work done because I was up so unusually early. 🙂

 

Strawberry Frosted Baked Donuts

Posted by Banana Curl Vegan Girl in Baked Donuts, Baked Goods, Comfort foods, Donuts, New England, Original Recipes, Recipes, Veganized Recipes and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

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Growing up as a kid in New England, I had a soft spot for Dunkin Donuts’ strawberry frosted donuts. Since they are not vegan, I can no longer eat them. But when I started experimenting with making frostings out of fruit-based syrups, I knew making something similar would be possible.

These donuts are quite cake-like, almost with a spongy texture. I still like them though. The frosting, however is wonderful. My mom said it is even better than the one at Dunkin Donuts. It is a bit different, however. But still quite good.

Recipe:

Makes 6 donuts in a single donut pan

Ingredients:

For the donuts:

  • 3/4 cup unbleached all purpose flour
  • 1/4 cup organic evaporated cane juice
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • generous dash of ground nutmeg
  • 1/3 cup plus 1 tbsp almond milk
  • 1 tsp lemon juice
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 2 tbsp applesauce
  • 2 tbsp vegetable oil

For the strawberry syrup:

  • 1/2 cup strawberries
  • juice of 1/2 lemon
  • 1/2 cup organic evaporated cane juice

For the frosting:

  • 1 tbsp Earth Balance margarine stick
  • 1 tbsp organic non-hydrogenated vegetable shortening
  • 1 cup organic powdered sugar
  • 1/4 cup strawberry syrup

Directions:

For the donuts:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
  2. In a mixing bowl, stir the flour, evaporated cane juice, baking powder, and nutmeg.
  3. In a separate small bowl or measuring cup, mix together the remaining donut ingredients.
  4. Pour into the dry ingredients and stir together until combined.
  5. Spray the donut pan with oil if your pan is not a non-stick pan.
  6. Spoon batter into the donut pan.
  7. Cook for 12-15 minutes or longer, until the donuts become slightly gold. Check after 12 minutes and gauge from there.
  8. Take out of the oven and let cool 10 minutes.
  9. Place onto a cooling rack. You may need to take a butter knife and gently ease them out.

To make the syrup:

  1. Combine ingredients in a small saucepan.
  2. Stir continuously with a wooden spoon over low heat until thick and hot.
  3. Strain into a bowl. Allow to cool.
  4. You will have extra leftover after making the frosting which you can use on all sorts of delicious things.

To make the frosting:

  1. Cream together the Earth Balance and shortening with an electric handheld or stand mixer.
  2. Add in the powdered sugar. It will remain clumpy.
  3. Fold in the syrup, it will become soft and fluffy.

To make the donuts (time to make the donuts!!):

  1. Spread frosting around the tops of the donuts.
  2. Decorate with vegan sprinkles on top, if desired.
  3. Eat!!

Laura’s first ever original recipe: Baked “Honey” and Lavender Donuts!

Posted by Banana Curl Vegan Girl in Baked Donuts, Baked Goods, Donuts, Lavender, Neko the Cat, Original Recipes and tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Wow, so just yesterday I debuted this blog on the internet, and it’s already motivating me and inspiring my cooking in amazing ways!

I was in the mall after school and decided to purchase a donut pan and some lavender extract, two things that have been in my amazon wishlist for awhile, but haven’t bought yet because of my need for instant gratification…so there they were in my shopping bag, and my mind was going wild with different things I could do with both items together.

These donuts were born from the initial brainstorm:

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Baked “Honey” and Lavender Glazed Donuts!

I’ve never created my own recipe until now…I had to do lots of research on a basic donut recipe and then veganized it and tweaked that a bit…I wanted my donuts to have a lavender like color, but did not want to use artificial colors, so I added some smushed up blueberries to give it the color. I am not a fan of the taste of blueberries except for the occasional good muffin, but these I can barely taste the blueberries in, which is fine by me. The glaze was really tasty in my opinion, but I might try to find a more icing type of frosting to make next time because I think it’ll look nicer. My family who tried them also said the amount of lavender I put in the glaze was a bit overpowering, so I changed the recipe a bit.

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A cartoon I drew of my cat, Neko!

My cat Neko is a kindred scent spirit to me apparently, and shares my love of all things lavender. While the kitchen was scented with it’s essence, his nose was working hard trying to find the source of the smell, and he just hung out on the kitchen counter for a while looking quite relaxed.

Before I get to the recipe for these babies, I want to also share a review of what I use for the “honey.” It’s kind of awesome, because I don’t really like agave (I think it’s too much like high fructose syrup). It’s called Bee Free Honee and I think more vegans should try it! It’s made of apples and I can’t believe how close it comes to the taste of real honey from my memory of it. I give it:

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Okay, okay, here’s the recipe:

Baked “Honey” and Lavender Donuts

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time to make the donuts!

Makes 6 donuts

Ingredients:

1 flax egg (1 tbsp flaxmeal and 3 tbsp water, whisked–let sit for a bit)

1/2 tbsp apple cider vinegar

1/2 Cup Vanilla Almond Milk (sweetened or unsweetened is fine, I used sweetened)

1/2 cup blueberries

2 tbsp bee free honee or agave (or even maple syrup)

2 tbsp unsweetened applesauce

1/4 cup vegan sugar

1 tsp lavender extract (I got mine at Sur La Table…you can probably get it at any good specialty cooking store or even Amazon where I originally saw it. This is the brand I bought there)

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp baking soda

1 1/3 cup unbleached all-purpose white flour

Glaze:

2 tbsp almond milk

a couple drops (if possible) of lavender extract

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup organic powdered sugar

Dried lavender flowers or vegan sprinkles, for garnish

Instructions:

  1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
  2. Make flax egg, whisk, and set aside in a small bowl.
  3. In a measuring cup, pour the apple cider vinegar, and then fill up with the almond milk. Whisk and then set aside 5-10 minutes. This creates a vegan buttermilk substitute!
  4. Mash blueberries with a potato masher in a bowl, or roughly in a food processor or blender. You don’t want them to be too liquid, but enough so they’re smooth and no longer resemble berries.
  5. In a small mixing bowl, add flax egg, almond milk/apple cider vinegar mixture, “honey,” apple sauce, sugar, and lavender extract. Stir until combined.
  6. Mix baking soda, baking powder, and flour together in a large mixing bowl.
  7. Stir the powders and flour until combined and then add the wet ingredients into the bowl.
  8. Fold in the blueberries.
  9. Spray donut pan with cooking spray.
  10. Spoon donut batter into pan cavities.
  11. Put into the oven. Make sure you have the pan on top of a regular cookie sheet in case there’s any spill over for any reason!
  12. Bake in oven for 10-12 minutes. You want them to be somewhat of a golden color.
  13. Remove from oven and cool for 5 minutes.
  14. Place on a cooling rack to completely cool.

To make the glaze: 

  1. Heat almond milk with extracts in a small saucepan on low heat until warm, whisking occasionally so it doesn’t scorch.
  2. Slowly add powdered sugar and whisk until smooth.
  3. Dip donuts into glaze.
  4. Quickly add vegan sprinkles or dried lavender flowers before glaze sets!
  5. Om nom nom on them!

Some extra tips:

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blueberries

These are how my blueberries looked before I folded them in.

If you try the recipe, let me know how it goes! You can always contact me or comment about troubleshooting anything or getting some ideas how to tweak something (though I don’t guarantee they’ll work perfectly all the time). And if you make them for someone or something, or whatever, be sure to tell people where you found the recipe and about my blog 🙂 !!!