Tag Archives: recipes

BRAAAIIIINS! This is vegan Halloween!

25 Friday Oct 2013

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I’m back home and back in the playful kitchen! Back with BRAINS with pumpkin pie filling and nougat filling!

What could be better than a seasonal treat right now? The leaves are falling, it’s getting colder… and very soon, it’s Halloween! You just have to mention Halloween and immediately, the song “This is Halloween” is stuck in my head. Anyway, I like the song, so no problem here!

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I’ve never been found of Halloween until I’ve been to the US, dressed up and watched the movie (Nightmare before Christmas!). And I never liked zombies until lego came up with lego zombies. And those are still the only zombies I like.

So, here they are.

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BRAINS!

(For vegans: GRAINS! Okay, that’s an old one…)

 

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Oh, I really love those pictures, so you’ll get a lot of them today!

Okay, you’ll also get the recipe.

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BRAINS with Pumpkin Pie Filling and Nougat

  • 100g / 3,5 oz vegan white chocolate
  • Pumpkin Pie Filling (use your favorite recipe or this one. I recommend using a little less liquid than you’d use for an actual pumpkin pie)
  • 50g / 2 oz nougat
  • 2 Tbs vegan cream (I used soyatoo soy whip)
  • Brain Freeze ice cube mold (or another scary mold)

Melt white chocolate.
Put it in your mold, so that the brains are all covered in chocolate. This is the hollow chocolate body. Put in the refrigerator and let it harden.
Melt nougat and mix with vegan cream.
Fill some brains with nougat, some with pumpkin pie filling. Seal the brains with another layer of white chocolate and put it the fridge until the chocolate is hard. Enjoy!

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Pumpkin Pie Filling (my favorite…)2013-10-24 Halloween_5Nougat filling (for all those poor people who don’t like pumpkin! This is not your season, I’m sorry!)

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Of course, you could make them any shape you want to, not just brains ;) 2013-10-24 Halloween_8

 

 

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Brainfood!!! Mango-Energie Bar

26 Friday Jul 2013

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So… I’m writing my exams right now. And learning really, really makes me hungry. It’s almost like I feel how my brain burns all that calories! But as storebought raw fruit bars are quite expansive, I usually make my own. The possibilities are endless, almost any combination of dried fruit and nuts will work.

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And this one was really delicious, so even though this recipe was not meant for the blog in first place, after tasting the first bar I decided to share them with you!

RAW Mango Energie Bars

  • 1 cup dates
  • 1 /2 cup dried (soft) apples
  • 1/4 cup dried mango, chopped
  • 1/2 cup walnuts
  • 2 Tbsp golden flaxseed
  • 1/2 cup (raw) oats

Coarsely grind the walnuts and oats in your blender or food processor. Set aside. Mix dates, apples and mango in your blender or food processor until they stick together. (I use my blender. If you pulse, it works pretty well!) Add ground oat-nut mixture and flaxseed and mix until you have a formable dough. Form bars (or balls or whatever you want! ;) ) with your hands. Enjoy!

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My little friends agreed that they’d make a great for a bike tour, too. =D
And as this was meant to be brainfood for me, I just had to add walnuts. First of all, they look like little brains. And secondly, I have a persian friend who always tells me to eat a lot of walnuts when I’m writing my exams. And with all the omega 3 fatty acids, which are good for your brain, you can’t go wrong with walnuts.

But the most important fact about this bar: It’s unbelievable fruity thanks to the mangos! Yummy!

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Mandarine Yogurt Cake – Hell yeah it’s summer!

12 Friday Jul 2013

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Wow – it’s been a while since the last post! I promise to improve! ;)

But, well, summer has finally arrived in Germany! And guess what – with summer being here right now, my exam period is starting… what a great timing. Sitting inside and studying while the weather is absolutely awesome is hard for me.

However, this is not about my exams, this is about food! Yummy, delicious, vegan food! And so… there’s nothing better in summer than a no-bake cake. A refreshing, delicious, cool, no bake cake. So, that’s exactly what I made. I remembered the Vanilla-Mandarine-Pudding cake that my grandma used to make when I was still very little. Inspired by that awesome food combination, I thought of a light, cool and vegan summer version of this cake. Here it is.

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Trust me, it is delicious! An unexpected discovery with this cake was the crust, which I just whipped up pretty spontaneously, not knowing that it would taste SO great! I had some left-over dough from the crust and I just formed it into little balls and snacked on them – so yummy!

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Yogurt-Mandarine Vanilla Cake
Ø about 18cm / 7 inches

For the crust 

  • one cup muesli (just regular muesli, nothing fancy and NO granola)
  • 2 tbsp almond butter
  • 2-4 tbsp agave syrup
  • 2 tbsp flax seed
  • pinch of salt (optional)

For the filling

  • 1 can mandarines (ca. 300g / 10.5 ounces)
  • 650g vanilla soy yogurt
  • 2 packages agartine (german product) OR two tsp agar agar powder

For the crust: Put the muesli, almond butter flax and agave in your blender or food processor. Mix until it sticks together, adding more agave if it’s too dry and more muesli if it’s too sticky. Press the mixture into a round pan lined with baking paper.

For the filling: Pour the can (fruit + juice!) in a pot and stir in agar agar. Bring it to a boil  for about 2 minutes. Pour the vanilla yogurt into a bowl and mix in the mandarine mixture, using a whisk. You want some of the little mandarine segments to separate, that’s what makes the cake great in my opinion. Pour the mixture into the spring pan, let it cool down completely. Store into your refrigerator.

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“Hey… you forgot to say something!!!”
– Oh, yeah, sure… well, you don’t have to use store bought vanilla yogurt. Actually, it’s quite easy to make your own! Just scratch out the inside of one vanilla bean and add sweetener to taste. You can create a yellow color by either using curcuma or saffron.

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Thanks for reminding me! ;)

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RAW Strawberry Rhubarb Popsicles

16 Sunday Jun 2013

Posted by in Playful food and photos

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It’s getting warm! Summer is almost here – even where I live!

And that means… it’s time for ice cream! Oh, I have so many ice cream ideas, I’m really glad that we finally have the right temperatures for ice cream and popsicles!
Actually, rhubarb is a spring vegetable. Yeah, that’s right, it’s a vegetable, not a fruit. And a pretty healthy one, too. If this was a health blog, I could tell you a lot about it’s benefits, like the high amounts of dietary fiber, it’s vitamin B, A and K content, antioxidants and calcium. But this is just a playful blog, so you don’t even have to let people know that they are eating a healthy treat…

… cause nobody will notice. They taste that good!

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Strawberry Rhubarb Popsicles

  • 2 cups strawberries
  • 1 small stalk rhubarb
  • 3 tbsp almond or coconut milk
  • optional: 1/2 cup xylit (or regular sugar) for the sweet tooth… *

Mix all the ingredients in your blender. Fill in popsicle forms and freeze for about 6h or overnight.
Enjoy!

* NOTE: If you add sugar/xylit or not depends on your own sweet tooth and on the sweetness of your strawberries which varies a lot! When you try the mixture, it should be slightly over sweetened, because the frozen mixture always tastes slightly less sweet.

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And you have to hurry up to make this treat – rhubarb season is almost over!!! It usually lasts until the end of june.

Popsicle

“Snowflake” Cookies

26 Sunday May 2013

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Yes, I made snowflake cookies. Or at least, that’s what I chose to call them. I do know it’s May. Or, it’s supposed to be May. I’m not sure if the weather right here in Germany knows that it’s May. There was night frost in some areas this week! Kind of crazy…

Schneekekse_1

Okay, I will stop complaining. We’ll be on vacation the next two weeks. I decided to make some cookies as a little supply and as a present for the person with whom we’re staying. As they are snowflake cookies, they’ll remind us of the cold that we espace…

And just to give you some facts: They’re whole wheat, or at least, they can be. They can be made using either xylit, regular white sugar or whole cane sugar. Whole cane sugar yields a malty, caramel like flavor which I really like.
And of course, you don’t have to use the same kind of nuts I used. Actually, you could also use just hazelnuts or just walnuts or you use almonds… it’s up to you!

Schneekekse_3
That’s a big cookie for a tiny Lego girl, if you ask me…

Snowflake Cookies
yields about 60 cookies, whole wheat and can be sugar-free

  • 200g / 1 2/3 cups whole wheat flour (or whole wheat pastry)
  • 120g / 3/4 cup ground nuts (I used half hazelnuts and half walnuts)
  • 100g / 1/2 cup cold margarine (earth balance / alsan)
  • 100g / 1/2 cup sugar (whole cane, white or xylit)
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract or 2 packages bourbon vanilla sugar
  • 1 tbsp cold water
  • pinch of salt
  • optional: confectioners’ sugar for decoration OR powdered xylit

Mix all the ingredients, using either your hands or a food processor. I think using your hands is much more fun and better for taste testing the dough… ;)
The dough is supposed to be smooth and it shouldn’t stick to your hands. Add some more flour if it’s too sticky, add a little more cold water if it’s too crumbly.
Form a roll and cut of slices, about 0,5 cm thick. Put on a baking tray, lined with baking paper. Bake for about 12-15 minutes at 350 F / 180 C. Decorate with confectioners’ sugar while still warm! Enjoy and hope for better weather!
Note: you can easily make powdered sugar from xylit in your food processor or blender. Just put 2 cups in your blender and mix, that’s it. It’s a great sugar-free alternative for decorating cookies and other desserts.

Schneekekse_2
No problem… since she has a fancy Lego phone, she’s just calling a friend…

2013-05-26 Schneekekse_4So they can enjoy that cookie together!

I’ll see you in two weeks. Hope all the “snowflakes” are gone when we’ll get back!

RAW Strawberry Cream Dream Pie

10 Friday May 2013

Posted by in Playful food and photos

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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! ;)

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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!

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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!

Strawberry Dream Cream Pie_7I did one version with banana slices at the button, one with strawberries and one with cream only. I loved them all.

Strawberry Dream Cream Pie_4My 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!!!

Strawberry Dream Cream Pie_5I 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! ;)

RAW Carrot Cake with Mango-Creamcheese Frosting

13 Saturday Apr 2013

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The best raw cake I’ve ever tasted.

Raw Vegan Carrot Cake Piece

 

And I’ve made and tasted quite a few by know.
As they usually consist of dried fruit and nuts, they tend to be quite dense and sometimes, they make you feel kind of heavy.

This one is different. It’s still a raw cake, it’s still not an exact copy of the original (anyway, if I want to taste a baked carrot cake, I’ll just bake one!). But it is not as dense and heavy as most raw cakes out there! It’s easier on the stomach and tastes great – what else could you wish for!

Another thing I love about this cake: The frosting is without cashews. Cashew-free frosting!!! I like cashews, that’s not it. But I like to change up things every once in a while.

 

Raw Carrot Cake_3

 

There you go – the princess is cutting the cake!

RAW Carrot Cake 

For the cake: 

  • 1 large carrot
  • 3/4 cup buckwheat flour
  • 1/2 cup dates
  • 1/2 cup dried pineapple or apricots
  • 1/4 cup coconut shreds
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • optional: 1/4 teaspoon cardamom
  • optional: dash of ground gloves, nutmeg, allspice and salt

For the frosting: 

  • 1/4 cup coconut butter
  • about 4 big pieces dried mango (of course, the amount depends on the size of your mango pieces. If the flavor is not intense enough, blend in more mango!)
  • 1/8 tsp ground vanilla
  • 1 tsp coconut oil
  • 1 tsp lemon juice
  • water as needed (start with 1/4 cup)
  • optional: dash of salt

For the cake: cut carrots into small chunks. Then throw all ingredients, including the carrots, in your food processor or high speed blender and pulse until it sticks together. Use your hands to for a round cake! You could also use a spring pan or tartlet pans, too. However, I kept it simple and just formed small, round cakes by hand.

For the frosting: Blend all the ingredients in you high speed blender until smooth, adding just enough water to create a smooth and creamy (and delicious!) frosting.

Assembly: That’s totally up to you! You could make a two layer cake, like I did. Put frosting on the first cake base, add the second one and cover the whole cake with frosting. You could also use your icing bag.

Raw carrot cake

 

“naked” carrot cakes with just a little mango creamcheese icing. Honestly, that icing is divine…

Raw Vegan Carrot Cake

Oh, of course, a princess always gets what she wants. Here’s her piece of the cake!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bunny Cake

30 Saturday Mar 2013

Posted by in Playful food and photos

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A fun last minute idea for Easter. And for people who like bunnies. Or Alice in Wonderland. Or both (me, me, me! ).

Bunny Cake

Actually, it’s really rather a very simple idea. I used my to-go Chocolate Cake recipe with this, cause it never fails and it’s been tested at so many birthday parties… But you could use your favorite recipe just as well.

I’m really in love with this idea. However, I’m not sure whether we’ll ever be able to cut this cake… it’s just too cute!

bunnies

 

Look, the bunny already made friends at our house…

The “fur” is made from shredded coconut. I used a simple royal icing to make it stick. I guess a cream icing would look better cause it really covers the chocolate cake and you’d have a white base for the coconut, so no brown cake shines through. However… the way I did it, it tasted better. We just don’t like to much heavy and sugary icing on our cake… so this is a good compromise! I just used a thin layer of icing for the bow.

Bunny Cake 

Fail-proof easy chocolate cake (two ø 20cm / 8 inch pans or one bigger pan)

  • 200g (1 1/2 cups) all purpose flour
  • 200g (1 2/3 cups) whole wheat flour
  • 1 package baking powder (about 4 tsp)
  • 45g (4 tbsp) cocoa powder (unsweetened)
  • 250g (1 cup) sugar
  • pinch of salt
  • 200ml (3/4 cup) canola oil
  • 300ml (1 1/4 cup) water

Decoration

  • 125g (1 cup) icing sugar
  • 1 tsp corn starch
  • 3-4 tsp water
  • shredded coconut
  • pink food colors (I used Wilton)
  • blue icing (or any other color, could use this recipe made with blue food color)
  • black icing (again, you can use the recipe liked above or use your favorite one)
  • little pink sugar hearts for the nose (or pink icing)

For the cake: Place all the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix. Add water and oil and stir until combined. Pour into two greased, round baking pans and bake for about 30 min (180 C / 360 F)

Let the cake cool down before you cut it like this:

cut it

 

Decoration: Mix shredded coconut (just one or two hands!) with pink food colors. If you’re using Wilton gel colors, like I did, add a tiny little bit of water for even coloring). Mix icing sugar, corn starch and water until smooth. Apply this icing to the “face” and “ears”. Decorate the middle of the ears with pink shredded coconut, the face and the rest of the ears with white shredded coconut.

Cover the bow with colored icing of your choice. I used a chocolate button for the middle of the bow.
Use sugar hearts or pink icing as a nose and draw the face with black icing.

That’s it!

Note: You could also use 400g whole wheat or 400 all purpose flour. I tried both, it still works and tastes good! However, the recipe tastes best when you use some whole wheat flour (even if you’re not concerned about it’s health benefits and so on). Cocoa and whole wheat flour yields a really nice and rich flavor!

bunny

 

Bunny, grinning like a Cheshire Cat ;)

I love it when simple things actually look good. And if you’re a little more skilled and patient than I am (and it’s really nor hard to be more patient then me!) it could look even better!

chicken

 

But for now: Happy Easter!

Cute Easter Lamb

20 Wednesday Mar 2013

Posted by in Playful food and photos

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Today’s the first day of spring! Yay!

However, it’s cold and it’s raining  here… well, that’s just one more reason to do some baking! There’s no sweeter way to heat up the house!

Easter Lamb

My little, chubby Easter lamb.
Baking an Easter lamb used to be a tradition at our house when I was little. We used to have a special pan for the Easter Lamb.
Now I wanted to revive that tradition the vegan way. Without a special pan. If you have very limited shelf space in your kitchen, you think twice before buying another tool, especially those that are used just once a year! No, there had to be another way of baking an Easter Lamb.

Easter

And Easter Eggs. Easter Eggs are so much better when they are made of dough or chocolate!

I used a very traditional combination: Yeast dough, streusel topping and A LOT of sugar icing! I also formed some easter eggs and a little Easter cookie, as I had some dough left. (You could also form one big Easter Lamb… but I usually like to have more and smaller pieces!)

Easter Lamb 

For the lamb:

  • 350g (3 cups) all purpose flour 
  • 50g (1/4 cup) sugar
  • 1 package vanilla sugar OR 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 250 ml (1 cup) room temperatured almond milk (or any other kind of plant based milk)
  • 3 tbsp Oil
  • 1 package active dry yeast
  • 1 pinch of salt
  • soy creamer (for coating)

For the streusel:

  • 75g (2/3 cup) all purpose flour
  • 40g (1/4 cup) sugar
  • 40g (3 tbsp) margarine
  • pinch of salt

Decoration:

  • icing sugar
  • water
  • melted chocolate

For the yeast dough, mix all the dry ingredients. Add milk and oil and either knead with your hands (that’s the way I do it) or with a kitchen machine. Add more milk or flour if needed to create a smooth, non-sticking dough. Shape dough into a bowl, place in a large bowl, cover with a towel and set aside for about 40 min.

When the dough has doubled it’s volume, form little balls (Ø about 3 cm / 1 inch) from about 3/4 of the dough. Brush the balls with soy creamer and form the body by placing them in the desired shape on a baking sheet. From the rest of the dough, form legs and head. Brush with soy creamer and add to the body.

Brush legs and head with soy creamer.

For the streusel: Combine all ingredients with you hands or a kitchen machine. Top the lambs body with a “streusel fur”.

Bake for about 30 – 40 min (360 F / 180 C).

Decorate the cooled lamb with sugar icing and chocolate.

Easter Bunny

Easter lamb and bunny! I do like bunnies. I should bake a bunny, too…

easter bunny

More sweet stuff!

lamb or bunny

This was supposed to be a lamb’s head. Looking at it now… it could also be a bunny, right? Oh well, it’s the inner values (the taste!) that counts, right?

cute lamb

Yummy. It’s just as good as “Streuseltaler” from any German bakery. And it’s cute.

Are there any special easter traditions at your house?
As this was an early Easter Lamb, I guess I’ll have to do another one for Easter…

RAW Mango Cheesecake

05 Tuesday Mar 2013

Posted by in Playful food and photos

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Deutsche Version / German version

Okay, I am kind of proud of this one. I just recently got into raw “baking”. I’m not a raw foodist, as you can see on this blog, but I love play around with raw food preparation! For me, it’s a really creative approach that offers so many new possibilities and new flavors! Some of them are worth sharing…

Like this one.

mango cheesecake

RAW Mango Cheesecake. It does not only look delicious, it really is! Don’t compare raw cakes to baked treats. They are not an imitation – they are different, a whole new thing. See them as an alternative or as a very tasty addition to your diet!
Raw cakes are usually quite rich – you might want to cut smaller pieces than you’d do with a regular cake.

RAW Mango Cheesecake

RAW Mango Cheesecake

 Ø about 20cm / 8 inch

For the crust:

  • 3/4 cup (about 100g) pitted dates
  • about 1/2 -3/4 cup nuts or seeds (I used sesame seeds and almonds)
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • Pinch of salt

For the filling:

  • 3/4 cup (100g) cashews 
  • 4-5 pieces dried mango (my pieces more rather big, use more if your pieces are rather small)
  • 4 tbsp coconut butter
  • 1/2 cup (about 50g) xylit (or sweetener to taste)
  • 1/4 tsp powdered vanilla
  • pinch of salt
  • 1/2 – 3/4 (about 125ml)  cup water

Crust: Either grease your pan with coconut oil or like it with baking paper. Put nuts / seeds in a food processor and mix until coarsely ground. Add the other ingredients and mix until combined. (Add more dates of the dough is to dry and add more nuts if it’s too moist. It’s hard to give exact amounts here cause it all depends on the moisture of your dates!) Put the dough in a baking pan (Ø about 20cm / 8 inch), form the crust.

Filling: Put all the ingredients in a blender and mix! You might want to soak the cashews before blending of your blender is not that strong. Add more water if needed. Pour the cream into the prepared crust. Lick off the spatulas and spoons you used. (This step is essential. DON’T skip ;) ) Put in the refrigerator over night or until the cream firms up.

raw mango cheesecake

Yummy! When a friend taste-tested the cake, he was like “Wow… this is really… cheesy. It’s like cheesecake…”
Even though I’d definitelly not say that this is a one to one cheesecake alternative,… the cashews definitelly yield a cheese flavor. And the mango coconut combo fits the cake really well. Even though I almost had the whole cake for myself, it did not last long until it was gone… hey, I am writing exams. I need brain food! And it seems like the little guy in the pic (no, he was not the test-taster) feels the same about this cake.

raw mango cheesecake

You can freeze the leftovers, too. You might also find the frozen cake easier to cut (even though I had no problems cutting the cake when I left it in the refrigerator over night). Freezing the cake is especial great, when you are making a raw cake for just one or two people. You can eat the frozen cake straight from the fridge… I promise, it’s the best ice-cream cake I ever had!