CBYJ: #veganblogger

20:00

Vegan Oreo Muffins

Hello Everyone!

We are having a lot of baking sales in school and as a true blooded vegan I am only baking vegan things. It always has the same effect, people seem suspicious and ask if they will grow greens if they spend their money on something vegan. In the end they always come back either buying seconds or telling me it was awesome.

The last time I baked, I prepared Oreo Muffins and of course I am going to share the recipe with you in hope you will give it a try as well as they are worth it.

Ingredients for the Sponge:

245ml soya milk
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
150g granulated sugar
75g rapeseed oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp chocolate extract
140g plain flour
35g cocoa powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
10 oreo cookies – chopped coarsely

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180C and line a muffin pan with cases
Whisk together the soya milk and vinegar in a large bowl, and set aside for a few minutes to curdle
Add the sugar, oil, vanilla extract and chocolate extract to the soya milk mixture and beat until foamy
In a seperate bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt
Add in two batches to wet ingredients and beat until smooth
Stir in the crushed oreo biscuits
Pour into the liners filling three-quarters of the way
Bake for 18-20 minutes until a toothpick inserted comes out clean
Transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely

My crushed oreos and lined muffin sheet before I turned the oven on.

Measuring everything like a professional.

Left: This is about how you mixture should look like after you mix all your wet ingredients together.

Right: This is the outcome after mixing the flour well together and adding the cookies.

Left: just before they head in the oven

Right: The "clean" toothpick after 20 minutes. They are ready now.

I let them cool down a couple of minutes before I took them out and....

.... took this photo. To make everyone looking at them hungry. :)

This is what I ended up with again and I think it looks just beautiful. Very tasteful indeed and I couldn't resist and had one!

I also looked up a frosting recipe for you if you want to make cupcakes so there you go:

FROSTING:

1/2 cup (1 stick) vegan butter, softened
2 1/2 - 3 cups powdered sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
Splash non-dairy milk

Wipe clean your mixing bowl and add softened butter. Beat until light and fluffy. Then add vanilla and mix once more.
Add powdered sugar 1/2 cup at a time and continue mixing until thick and creamy. Drizzle in a little non-dairy milk to thin. You want this frosting to be very thick so it will hold its shape once on the cupcakes.
Once cooled, frost cupcakes and top with sprinkles. Serve immediately. Store leftovers covered at room temperature or refrigerated.

I hope you liked it and that you will try it out. If you do so please send me photos as I am curious!

Until next time!

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Cashew Spinach Sauce and Sweet Potato Noodles

Hello Everyone!

This week I stepped a little bit out of my comfort zone and cooked for the very first time sweet potato noodles and made a very creamy thick cashew spinach sauce. I got the recipe from this link here but changed it up again a little bit for my needs.

I started with my cashew sauce first, putting the soaked cashew nuts in my smoothie maker and mixed it with the water which went really well.

This step I made differently. To make the sauce really creamy I the spinach in the smoothie maker as well and mixed it in the cashew sauce. this made the sauce itself very smoothly and thick.

Afterwards, I went on to cook my sweet potato noodles that I spiraled beforehand. I had them in a pan, frying then tender and crisp for about 7 minutes.

Last but not least I mixed the noodles with the sauce and this came out. A thick, creamy heaven- like meal.

INGREDIENTS

1 cup cashews
¾ cup water (more for soaking)
½ teaspoon salt
1 clove garlic
1 tablespoon oil
4 large sweet potatoes, spiralized
2 cups baby spinach
a handful of fresh basil leaves, chives, or other herbs
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil for drizzling

INSTRUCTIONS

Cover the cashews with water in a bowl and soak for 2 hours or so.
Drain and rinse thoroughly. Place in a food processor or blender (I got better texture with the blender) and add the ¾ cup water, salt, and garlic. Puree until very smooth.
Heat the oil in a large skillet over high heat. Add the sweet potatoes; toss in the pan for 6-7 minutes with tongs until tender-crisp. Remove from heat and toss in the spinach - it should wilt pretty quickly.
Add half of the herbs and half of the sauce to the pan and toss to combine. Add water if the mixture is too sticky. Season generously with salt and pepper, drizzle with olive oil, and top with the remaining fresh herbs.

NOTES

This recipe makes MORE than enough sauce - enough for at least 6 or 8 servings, if not more. I left the amounts that way because it seemed silly to make the sauce with only about ½ cup of cashews - it wouldn't even really be enough to get going around in the blender, and I promise you'll be able to find ways to use the remaining sauce. It's extremely versatile.

The biggest thing that affects how many servings you'll get in this recipe is the size of the sweet potatoes. Keep in mind that they will cook down a bit and one large sweet potato can be sometimes twice as big as a small sweet potato. Just use common sense in terms of serving size and sauce-to-noodles ratios! :)

Also, this recipe is sort of a comforting, neutral starting point for those of us who need tons of flavor in everything - so add whatever herbs or flavors you want to the sauce if you want to give it more of a punch. I love the idea of

adding chipotles or sriracha, bacon, roasted garlic, caramelized onion... the list could go on...

In the end I have to say that the meal was very delicious but only something I can eat from time to time. Not like most of my other recipes that we have on a daily basis. But it was very good in taste, as my taste buts got something different to taste and filling as well as healthy. A real little energy boost which made the recipe itself wonderful.

I hope you will try it out!