White Chocolate Cherry Smoothie...

I don’t know about you but I’ve been addicted to cherries lately. I probably buy a few pounds per week and every morning I eat a bowl of them for breakfast. I’ve always loved cherries, but this summer they seem to be particularly ripe and delicious, and I just can’t get enough. I’ve also been really addicted to peanut butter lately, and I’ve had a strange craving for white chocolate which got me thinking this week that I might like combining all three of these things in one way or another.

This morning after a little bit of deliberation I decided to try mixing them together in a smoothie. It was either that or a dessert and I just didn’t feel like baking today. As it happens though this smoothie is like a dessert in a glass, super yummy, and decadent! Actually - as weird as it sounds this smoothie tastes a little bit like Christmas - probably the nutmeg. Anyway it came as a big surprise to me because I didn’t have any real idea of what the end result would be. I can honestly say it far exceeded my expectations, and if you like decadent dessert like smoothies definitely give this one a try!

White Chocolate Cherry Smoothie 

1 1/4 C Vanilla Almond Milk
1/3 C Vegan White Chocolate Chips
1/3 C Frozen Cherries
½ Frozen Banana
** 2 Tbsp Peanut Butter & Co’s White Chocolate Wonderful Peanut Butter
1 ½ tsp Vanilla Extract
1 tsp Maca Powder
1 tsp Lucuma Powder
½ tsp Mucuna Powder
1/8 tsp Ground Nutmeg
1/8 tsp Ground Cinnamon
4-6 Ice Cubes

- Place the vegan white chocolate in a small saucepan over medium heat. After about a minute the chocolate should begin to melt, add in a 1/4 cup of the almond milk and stir the two together until the white chocolate has melted fully.

- Remove the saucepan from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract.

- Combine the white chocolate mixture with the cherries, banana, peanut butter, maca, lucuma, mucuna, nutmeg, cinnamon, remaining almond milk and ice cubes in a highspeed blender. Blend on high for 90 seconds or until the mixture is smooth.

- Pour into a glass and garnish with a dash of nutmeg and a few dried cranberries or cherries for a festive feel. Enjoy!

*** Note - I don’t know if there’s any real substitute for Peanut Butter & Co’s White Chocolate Peanut butter, but you could just use regular peanut butter and add in more vegan white chocolate to compensate. Also you can use fresh cherries rather then frozen if you prefer, but then you may want to use more ice to get the same consistency.*** 

Irish Tea Time Seed Cake...

When it comes to traditional Irish baking the only thing I ever seem to hear about in North America is Irish Soda Bread. Now I love Irish Soda Bread as much ad the next person but there’s way more to Irish baking then just that! So forget all your Soda bread recipes today and make this delicious tea cake instead. Seed cake as it’s known utilizes one ingredient that I would never have thought ot put into a sweet dessert, caraway. In fact I rarely use Caraway anyway even though I like it, it just never seems to feature in anything I make, so I was particularly interested to see how this cake would turn out.

Seed Cake is apparently a long standing feature of Irish baking and is - or was - particularly common in rural and farming communities. It’s perfect for tea time because it’s packed with flavor, yet it’s light, moist and only mildly sweet. Though you could also serve It for a light dessert perhaps alongside a scoop of vanilla coconut milk ice cream. However you decide to serve it, you must give this cake a try, trust me when I say that the caraway lends a really magical element to the cakes complexity. In fact I enjoyed the flavor combination so much I think I just might use caraway in my baking more often.

Irish Tea Time Seed Cake 

1 C Unbleached All Purpose Flour
1 C Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
½ C Earth Balance slightly melted
½ C Raw Sugar + ½ Tbsp
2 Tbsp Ground Flax Seed - Mixed with 6 heaping Tbsp Water until frothy
1 tsp Baking Powder
2 tsp Ground Caraway + 1 tsp
1 tsp Ground Cinnamon + ½  tsp
1/4 tsp Ground Nutmeg + 1/4 tsp
3 Tbsp - 1/4 C Unsweetened Almond Milk (Depending on consistency)

- Preheat the Oven to 350'F

- In a large bowl mix the flour, baking powder, and spiced together.

- In a separate bowl cream the Earth Balance and sugar using an electric hand mixer on high-speed. Once creamed beat in the flax seed/water mixture.

- Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients. Pour the wet into the dry and mix with a wooden spoon until thoroughly combined.

- Add three Tbsp of Almond Milk to make a smooth consistent batter. It shouldn’t be wet, but it shouldn’t be too dry either. If it looks a little stiff add additional almond milk up to 1/4 C.

- Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan or small cake pan. Then evenly sprinkle ½ Tbsp of sugar, along with 1 tsp of caraway, ½ tsp of cinnamon , and 1/4 tsp nutmeg over the top.

- Place in the oven and bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out dry and the top is a nice golden color.

- Enjoy with tea in the afternoon or as a dessert after an Irish inspired dinner!

*** Note - Traditionally Seed Cakes contain whole Caraway seeds, both in the cake and on top of the cake. I however did not have whole Caraway seeds just ground. If you do have whole Caraway seeds or would prefer to make it with them use roughly 1 Tbsp of Whole Seeds in the cake with another ½ Tbsp of seeds sprinkled over top. Or more or less depending on how you feel about Caraway.***

Christmas Eggnog Cheesecake in a Cinnamon Graham Cracker Crust...

I think it’s absolutely shameful that I haven’t posted since the 20th, but you know how crazy it gets with the holidays. Between Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, My Husband’s Birthday and now New Years I haven’t had much time - nor quite frankly much energy - to get my shit together and do a big holiday recap post. One is coming I promise, just not tonight, and maybe not even tomorrow night, but it’s on it’s way.

We had a lovely holiday, and I hope you did as well. I cooked like a demon for days, making entirely too much food, and eating way more then I should have. However as I told my husband, my twin brother E and my good friend N that the mark of a successful holiday is that you eat and drink as much as you like, and as long as you fit into your pants the next day you’ve won. Which I definitely did, though honestly next year I think I’m doing Christmas low-key and simple. Some sort of crock pot dish and a salad, that’s it.

But now onto what this post is really about. Before going vegan I used to love egg nog. Some of you might remember my Vegan Nog review from last year? Anyway, I bought a carton at the end of November and thoroughly enjoyed it, and one day while drinking it I decided that I absolutely needed to make a nog cheesecake for Christmas. Somehow I convinced myself that Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without one and so I tried to find a good recipe. Can you believe that out of the nearly 100 cook books I own not a single one of them had a nog cheesecake recipe? What a disappointment, but instead of getting upset about it I hit up Google looking for a recipe. However I struck out again when Google only popped up like 4 Nog Cheesecake recipes that were vegan. Every other recipe that popped up was some re-posted and tweaked version of one of the original four recipes. The reason I didn’t like any of those recipes was because they were either too complicated or either two simple. I know, you’re probably thinking I’m complicated but I really wanted a good nog cheesecake that was sweet, rich, and tasted like nog, and many of the recipes only had you using ½ cup of Nog. Not nearly enough in my opinion. So after some careful consideration I decided to throw caution to the wind and try and come up with my own delicious nog cheesecake recipe.

I think I hit it bag on. This is exactly what I wanted, and tasted so good. Exactly how I had it pictured in my mind. Now fair word of warning, there is absolutely nothing healthy or low fat about this cheesecake but it is fantastic! And for one or two days a year you can certainly indulge a little. The cake is definitely omnivore approved, and even my husband who never used to like cheesecake and never liked nog - doesn’t even particularly care for Vegan nog - thought it was phenomenal. So make it and enjoy!

Now I hope you all have a Happy New Year, and I’ll see you back here in 2013. I hope to be a little more active on the blog next year.

Christmas Eggnog Cheesecake in a Cinnamon Graham Cracker Crust 

16oz Silken Tofu
2 8oz Containers Vegan Cream Cheese
1 C Sugar
1 C So Delicious Coconut Milk Nog (or Favorite non-dairy eggnog)
2 Tbsp Lemon Juice
6 Tbsp Dark Rum
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
3/4 tsp Ground Nutmeg
1/2 tsp Ground Cinnamon
6 Tbsp Cornstarch
Pinch of Sea Salt

Crust 

!0-14oz Cinnamon Flavored Graham Crackers
1-2 Tbsp Vanilla Almond Milk
1-2 Tbsp Melted Coconut Oil
Pinch of Sea Salt
Extra cinnamon if desired.

Preheat Oven to 350'F

- Pulse Graham crackers to a fine meal in a food processor. Then add in the wet ingredients  salt and extra cinnamon and pulse a few times until the mixture is moist and cohesive.

- Grease a 9 inch round cake pan and press crust into the bottom.

- Bake at 350'F for 10 minutes and remove from the oven to cool.

- To make the filling combine all ingredients into a food processor and process until completely smooth. Taste for flavor and adjust ingredients to taste as needed.

- Pour mixture into the cooled Graham crust and place into the oven. Bake at 350'F for 55-75 minutes. Checking often after the 50 minute mark to make sure the cake doesn’t burn or brown. You want it to cook, but stay as close to white as possible. When you pull the cake out it will still be wobbly in the middle that’s okay.

- Leave the cake out and let cool at room temperature for 1 hour. Then place in the fridge uncovered and let cool completely 2-3 hours. Then cover and keep in the fridge until ready to serve.

- Enjoy topped with a caramel rum sauce, or vegan whipped cream!

PS: Sorry for the lack of pictures but I had something of a mishap Christmas Eve night. I brought this cheesecake to my Husband’s aunts house, and like usual my arms were full of different dishes. As I tried to balance the dishes in my arms while reaching out to open the door to let myself into the house I dropped the cake! Lucky for me it landed right side up and so the only damage was a big ripple through the surface that occurred when the cake hit the pavement. To make the prettiest picture I could I sliced a piece of relatively unharmed cake out and took a picture of it alone on a plate. Voila! Still tasted great, even if it ended up looking a bit ugly.