RAW Strawberry Cream Dream Pie

10 Friday May 2013

Posted by Playful and Hungry in Playful food and photos

Tags

almond, banana, cake, dessert, food photography, healthy food, lego, pie, raw, recipes, strawberries, strawberry, tarte, vegan, vegetarian, vita-mix

Click here for German version! / Deutsche Version
Time for another RAW dessert!

After trying to make homemade granola yesterday, I am convinced that I’m much more gifted at making raw food desserts and meals or baked muffins and cake and… actually anything. Anything that’s not granola.

Everything turned out great – the rhubarb muffins (yummy!), the caramelized green asparagus (double yummy!)… but the granola, the one thing I was most excited about, just didn’t turn out the way I imagined it. So much for granola.

I like muffins and raw desserts better, anyway! ;)

There is our beauty. I guess the name says it all…!

I especially like the new kind of dough i tried this time. It’s based on banana instead of dates!

Strawberry Cream Dream Pie
yields about three tartlets

For the dough:

one banana
one part oat flour
one part ground almonds
optional: sliced banana or strawberries
optional: pinch of salt

For the cream:

about 10 medium sized strawberries
6 tablespoons coconut butter
5-8 dates (depending on your sweet tooth)
pinch of vanilla or 1 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of salt
1 tbsp lemon juice
optional: 1/2 tsp psyllium
coconut oil for greasing the pan

For the dough puree the banana in a mixer (or with a hand blender). Stir in oat flour and ground almonds, until you have a smooth dough. Grease three tartlet pans with coconut oil and line the pans with dough. Put in the refrigerator.
For the cream, mix all the ingredients in a high speed blender until smooth. Put sliced banana or strawberries on the dough. Pour the cream into the prepared pans and chill in the refrigerator over night (NO need to freeze!).

You can freeze the tartlets, of course. But you don’t have to! The slice I cut (you see it in the pic above) was beautiful even though the cake was not frozen!

I did one version with banana slices at the button, one with strawberries and one with cream only. I loved them all.

My little friend likes the strawberry slices version best. I guess we might get some trouble. He doesn’t know yet that I just don’t share strawberries! They are my favorite fruit!!!

I actually used two tartlet pans and one miniature spring pan, same size as the tartlet pans. I love small pies, they are so cute! You can have a pie on your own!
Of course, you could also make one big pie or tarte.

Oh, and by the way… that miniature pan is from a toy store. Yup. Toy stores are great. You can buy lego AND miniature kitchen tools! Support your local toy store! ;)

Caramel Cheesecake – Fairytale come true

17 Sunday Feb 2013

Posted by Playful and Hungry in Playful food and photos

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

baking, banana, cake, caramel, cashews, cheesecake, dessert, food, food photography, healthy, lego, playful, recipes, vegan, vegetarian, vita-mix, whole cane sugar

Sweet times on Playful and Hungry!

I always thought, a cake can’t taste like cheesecake if it’s made from tofu. I was proven wrong. It took some trials and experimenting – but the result was a delicious AND healthy, vegan cheesecake. It’s high in protein and you don’t have to feel bad about eating it for breakfast. Or Dinner. Or lunch…

It’s might not be 1 : 1 like a sugar-loaded, non vegan cheesecake. But the consistence is perfect and it tastes just as good as any cheesecake I’ve ever tried! Give it a chance!

Using Whole Cane Sugar yields the wonderful caramel flavor! If you want a caramel cheesecake, don’t replace it! If you don’t care so much about the caramel flavor, you could also replace it with stevia or xylit or any other sweetener.

So… once upon a time, there was a little fairy. And what do fairies do all day? Exactly! They sparkle, twinkle, flutter around and eat cake. Today, it just had to be a cheesecake. Voila.

So she got out her pink plate…, well, no. She just did some magic and conjured it up.

Pling! One wink with her wand, and she had a whole plate full of cream…

Time to have some Caramel Cheesecake!

Caramel Cheesecake
Inspired by this recipe, Ø about 20cm / 8 inch

1 package (350-400g) firm tofu
1/2 cup (70g) cashews
1/4 cup (60ml) almond milk
1 tbs vinegar
3 tbs lemon juice
1 ripe banana (can be omitted . use slightly more sweetener)
6 tbsp soy yogurt
1/4 cup stevia (or more whole cane sugar – which also means more caramel ;) )
3/4 cup (100g) Whole Cane Sugar (add more if you like it sweeter!!!)
1/2 tsp powdered vanilla or 1 tsp vanilla extract

Put all the ingredients in your high speed blender or food processor and mix! Pour into a slightly greased backing pan and bake for about 45 minutes (350 F / 200 C).
Allow the cake to cool down before cutting it!

Oh, by the way… you can be looking forward to a RAW vegan Mango Cheesecake. Just saying… ;)

Greeting from Fairy Land!

Very Berry Vanilla Yogurt Cake

30 Thursday Aug 2012

Posted by Playful and Hungry in Playful food and photos

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

baking, banana, birthday cake, cake, cake decoration, dessert, food, food photography, fruit, healthy, healthy food, lego, recipes, strawberries, strawberry, vegan, yogurt

Finally: The cake from the header. Yes, I know, you had to wait quite a while for this. And some people have asked me about it. Well… here it is!

Don’t worry, he got his peace of the cake!
It was my birthday cake this year. I wanted a summery light and refreshing cake. A cake that doesn’t make you feel yucky after one peace. As it was summer, it was obvious that there had to be a lot of fruit in this cake!

So, that was all I knew before I made the cake: A lot of fruit, some yogurt and a vanilla cream. Yes, I can work with that. The result: Very Berry Vanilla Yogurt Cake.
Creativity can be so yummy!

Very Berry Vanilla Yogurt Cake

3oog / 1 1/4 cups / 10,5 ounces soy yogurt (I recommend to weight the yogurt)
200g / about 1 1/4 cups / 7 ounces mixed frozen or fresh berries (I recommend to weight it)
dry sweetener to taste
2 tsp agar agar powder or 2 tbsp agar agar flakes
1 vanilla pudding mix (like Dr Oetker organic vanilla pudding. For Germany: Ruf Vanilla pudding)
1 cup soy creamer (Germany: Alpro Cuisine) or canned coconut milk
1 cup soy milk
1,5 cups vegan graham cracker crumbs (or any other vegan cookie. “Zwieback” works, too)
3-4 Tsp melted Earth Balance / Alsan

Mix Graham crackers and Earth Balance in a bowl. Use your fingers to press the mixture evenly into the buttom of your plate.
Now prepare the Vanilla Cream: Prepare the Vanilla pudding according to the instructions, but use half a cup of creamer (or coconut milk) and half a cup of soy milk. Pour the pudding on top of the crust and let it cool down in the refrigerator.
Time to prepare the yogurt layer! Blend the mixed berries. Put the blended berries in a pot and boil them up with the agar agar (don’t forget to stir a lot!). Finally, mix the yogurt and the warm berry mixture in a bowl. Add sweetener to taste (you cold either use stevia, xylit, cane or coconut sugar. Don’t use liquid sweetener cause the yogurt might get thick if you do) Pour the yogurt berry mixture in your pan on top of the vanilla cream. Let the cake cool down in the refrigerator (it takes about 6 hours for the agar agar be completely thick. Don’t remove the cake from the pan before completely cooled down.)
Once the cake is firm and cooled down, you can remove it from the pan and decorate it! Be creative! (Remember: Being creative can be really yummy!)

I think my little friends have discovered something in my kitchen…

And here’s a piece of the cake with both it’s layers.

Just to give you an idea what it looked like!
You can use any kind of yogurt and any kind of milk you want. However, I’d recommend to weight the yogurt and the berries. Weighting the ingredients is more exact and will yield to the best results when using agar agar.

Have you ever made a vegan yogurt cake? (Or: Have you ever made a yogurt cake in the first place?) You should! It’s fun and it’s delicious!

Banana Cookie Dough Blizzard

26 Sunday Aug 2012

Posted by Playful and Hungry in Playful food and photos

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

banana, blizzard, cookie dough, dessert, food, food photography, food porn, fruit, healthy, healthy food, lego, milkshake, raw, recipes, vegan, vegetarian, vita-mix

Do I have to say more?

You can’t imagine how excited I was when I thought about my own twist on the traditional blizzard. Big chunks of cookie dough. A creamy base made from frozen bananas and even more cookie dough. Heaven.

I’ve had some trouble to explain to my not American friends what a blizzard actually is though! Might have been the hardest part of making my own blizzard (you see, making your own blizzard is really easy!). I started to describe it as something like a milkshake with big chunks of something, like cookie dough! The consistence is somewhere between soft serve and milkshake. It’s a little to thick for a milkshake and the cookie dough chunks are a little too big for a milkshake. It is a… well, a blizzard! (That was the point where I just gave my friend a blizzard for test tasting. He liked it.)

It’s that good. I had it for breakfast…

Banana Cookie Dough Blizzard
2-3 servings

3-4 frozen bananas, very ripe
about 2 tbsp Almond milk
1/2 batch cookie dough

Put the frozen bananas in your blender or food processor. Process bananas, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl if necessary. (When you make this in a vita-mix, use the tamper). Finally, add some cookie dough and process until combined. (I used about 6 cookie dough balls. It depends on the size of your cookie dough balls though. Use as many as you like!). You should have a soft serve type consistency when done. If think the mixture is still to think, add some almond milk and process again. Pour the blizzard into a glass and stir in your desired amount of crumbled cookie dough. Crumble some cookie dough on top, too! Serve your homemade blizzard with a spoon.

I never thought making my own blizzard could be that easy!

All the cookie dough goodness!

On a personal note: I created a facebook page for this blog and I’d be glad if you like it! =)

All lovin’ no oven!

23 Thursday Aug 2012

Posted by Playful and Hungry in Playful food and photos

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

banana, banana sandwiches, cookie dough, dessert, food, food photography, fruit, healthy food, lego, raw, recipes, vegan, vegetarian, vita-mix

Who doesn’t love cookie dough? I mean, seriously! I never quite understood why some people actually bake cookie dough! As I didn’t grow up with cookie dough treats, I’ve told you about my excitement when found out about cookie dough ice cream before…

And isn’t cookie dough the most playful food ever? You make any shape from dough, using your hands or cookie cutters and eating half of the dough while doing so…

Yes, you can do really exciting, creative shapes… or you can just form balls like I did. Yummy, rich, buttery cookie dough balls. Not your average cookie dough though! This is a healthier, almost raw version! But as delicious.

RAW Cookie dough

2/3 cup cashews
1/3 cup rolled oats
2 tbsp agave
1 tbsp whole cane sugar (for the typical cookie dough flavor. Can be replaced by brown cane sugar or more agave)
dash natural vanilla powder or a piece of a vanilla bean
optional: chocolate chips

Put all the ingredients (except chocolate chips) in a heavy duty blender (use the tamper) or a food processor and mix. Once all the ingredients are combined, you can either add chocolate chips by hand or put them in your blender / food processor and mix for a few more seconds.
Form the cookie dough into any shape you like. Don’t forget test tasting!

Want something more special? What about cookie dough banana sandwiches?

Trust me, it’s a perfect combination.

It’s delicious. Take care. You might have to share. Maybe double the batch? You could also dip either the cookie dough balls or the sandwiches in chocolate! (I wasn’t feeling like chocolate though. Plain cookie dough is as good as the chocolate ship version though!)
And stash some bananas away! There will be a new twist on banana ice cream later this week…

Little Helper’s Milkshake

15 Sunday Jul 2012

Posted by Playful and Hungry in Playful food and photos

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

banana, cake batter, cooking, food photography, fruit, healthy, healthy food, healty eating, lego, little helper, milkshake, playful, recipes, vegan

Tastes like cake batter…

These days, I have to study for my exams… it’s a never-ending story! By now, my head is spinning… You simply can’t reach a point where you’re done. You can always learn more. However.

Milkshakes help. They help with many things. When your head is spinning – milkshakes help!

Especially my Little Helper Milkshake! Look at that little guy! He’s a little bit shy, hiding behind the glass.

Sprinkles just make everything so colorful.

So here’s what you need for the

Little Helper’s Milkshake
one large serving or two medium servings, in case you’re willing to share

a very ripe banana (unfrozen or frozen. The shake will be more “icecream-like” if you use frozen)
1 1/4 cup soy milk (300 ml)
3-4 Tsp. rolled oats
sweetener to taste, such as stevia, agave syrup, marple syrup… or sprinkles!
1 tsp vanilla extrakt and for a cake batter flavor some butter extrakt
optional: sprinkles and soyatoo or any other vegan whip

Put everything in a blender. Mix! Before serving, stir in a few sprinkles… and serve with vegan whip and some sprinkles on top. Voilà.

One more picture… showing the whole scenery. Macbook, papers… and even more piles of papers which are not in the pic.

And just to let you know what I’m going through. Learning in this house really isn’t easy. That guy wants to keep me from learning, too! He won’t succeed though. Hey, he’s a dwarf, after all!