Dessert! or "Why My Pants Don't Fit"

I decided this week that my vegan post would be devoted to some good old fashioned food porn. That's right folks--food porn. I'm talking lick your screen yummy looking cupcakes, pies, etc...

Some might say that baking is my all consuming hobby--I like to think that work, breathing, or social activities detract from my real life's work: desserts.

My favorite recipes as of lately are:
-a killer (and messy) lemon cake--you can easily add raspberries to create a vegan breakfast danish
-double chocolate cupcakes (see pictures below)--these are based on a recipe that I blatantly stole from VwV.
and finally, the old fail safe: chocolate mousse pie.
-Whenever I make chocolate mousse pie (or before I was allergic, peanut butter cup pie), I think of the ridiculous out of the way trips that Georgia and I used to take to Grandma's Pie Shop--I think it was out in NY some where. If you don't remember G, just put it off to prolonged sugar exposure.

And with that, on to the pictures (culled of course from other internet sources).

Pics followed by a quick PB mousse recipe and maybe chocolate cupcakes too...









RECIPES:
Are you drooling just yet?

Cupcakes--this recipe consists basically of the cake part of Isa Chandra Moskowitz's NYTimes featured "fauxstess" cupcakes:

1 cup unbleached all purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3 (heaping) Tablespoons dutch processed powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup vanilla almond milk (any non dairy will do but i love the way am works in this)
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cups pure maple syrup (none of that Mrs. Butterworth's garbage)
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla


Preheat oven to 350, line 12 muffin tins with cupcake liners, spray the liners with canola cooking spray.

In a medium sized mixing bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powders, baking powder, baking soda and salt. (I don't have a sifter-i toss everything in and whisk it for a minute)

In a large mixing bowl combine all the wet ingredients-again, I go low tech--grab your whisk/big fork/etc and go nuts.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet in 2 batches, mixing as you go. Beat for about a minute more.

Use a wet ice cream scoop (I use my 1/4 cup measuring cup) to fill the cupcake liner about 3/4 of the way full. Bake for about 20 minutes, until a tooth pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Transfer to a cooling rack.

At this point you can do several things: sprinkle with confectionars sugar, frost, drizzle with icing...My favorite presentation is to make a pink icing (i use cherry juice for coloring) and i put a dot of icing on the cupcake and a cherry on top.

PB Mousse Pie (currently working on a pb alternative for this baby).

1 bag dark vegan chocolate chips
1/4-1/2 cup all natural peanut butter (trust me you don't want the salt and extra sugar from Jif etc...)
1 package silken tofu
1 pre-prepped/baked pie crust (I buy parbaked whole wheat crust, sprinkle with cinnamon and bake).

Melt the chocolate chips in a glass bowl set atop a pot of boiling water (or a double boiler), use a rubber spatula to stir while you're doing this. As the chips melt toss in your pb and stir (PB is a matter of taste so do a bit at a time and taste test).

Drain the silken tofu and toss into a blender--pour your all melted choco-pb mixture in and start blending. Go until you have a nice creamy mixture. Pour into prepped (and cooled) pie crust and toss in the fridge. I like to add a coating of cinnamon to the top but it's not necessary--you can likely eat this after 20 minutes, but i leave for at least two hours. This was my old roommate Gianpaolo's absolute favorite--I think of him whenever I send the recipe around.

Happy eating!!

Alli