Vegan Strawberry Shaped Strawberry Cake Filled with Chopped Strawberry’s and Chocolate Ganache!

Vegan Strawberry Shaped Strawberry Cake filled with Chopped Strawberry’s and Chocolate Ganache!!!!

Sounds pretty good huh??? WRONG!!!!

IT”S AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And I’m not just saying that because I made it. It’s the complete truth.

Now my niece turned 10 last Thursday and order her cake weeks ago…like 6 weeks ago, an by ordered I mean she asked me to make her a cake.

So of course any reason for me to make cake is a yes answer. I asked her what she wanted and without hesitation she said a strawberry cake with strawberry icing in the shape of a strawberry (can you tell she likes strawberry’s?).

So I started looking at pictures trying to get an idea of how to make it (I’m mean it’s not all that hard of a shape which was good cause it’s the first shaped cake I have made.) The hardest part was trying to find a strawberry cake that I liked the taste of. I tried 2 different ones and they were good but not strawberry enough. I mean it’s a strawberry shaped cake…it has to taste just like a strawberry. So the weekend before I had to make the cake I was making  Banana Cinnamon Muffins from the cookbook Skinny Bitch: Ultimate Everyday Cookbook  by Kim Barnouin (which will be another post soon) and they came out awesome. So I was flipping through the book and saw she has a recipe for strawberry cupcakes. Since my hubby and I liked the muffins so much I decide to give it a go and make the strawberry cupcakes as the cake. I changed the recipe a little bit but all in all I’m very happy with the way it came out!

Vegan Strawberry Shaped Strawberry Cake Filled with Chopped Strawberry’s and Chocolate Ganache.

Cake:

3 Batches- Strawberry Cupcake Recipe from Skinny Bitch: Ultimate Everyday Cookbook  by Kim Barnouin . (Each recipe makes 4 cups of batter and each pan hold 6 cups of batter. So you need 1 1/2 recipes per pan)( I changed the extracts because I wanted a really strawberry cake so I use Strawberry Extract in replace of the vanilla and  Vanilla Extract in replace of the almond).

2 – 10x 10 square pans (now I only had one pan so I made 1 1/2 batch batter and baked it then let it cool for 20 minutes. Cleaned the pan and make sure it was all cool again and then did the other 1 1/2 batch batter and baked that.)

Wax paper

Shorting or non stick spray or cake release from Wilton

Red Food Coloring

 Ganache:

1/2 Bag – Vegan Chocolate Chips

2 – 3 Tablespoons – Vegetable Shortening

Other Items needed:

1 Cup – Chopped Strawberry for filling (More or less to taste)

2 Cans – Strawberry Frosting

Red Food Coloring

Black Food Coloring

Green Food Coloring

Fondant (you need a very little bit of this to make the seeds and leaves)

• Preheat oven per recipe directions
• Grease pans(bottom and sides) and place wax paper on the bottom of the pan (this helps the cake come out easier) then grease wax paper
• Prepare the batter according to the directions( I used 2 tsp strawberry extract and 1 tsp vanilla extract per recipe but you can do whatever you’d like) and add some red food coloring to make a deeper red color. Pour 6 cups batter into the pan and make sure the batter is level and to all sides and corners. Bake according to directions
• Remove from oven and cool 20 minutes. Remove from pan, place on wire rack to cool completely. (Once cool completely I placed mine in the fridge overnight)

• Once completely cooled trim down the top of the cakes to be level (if not already) then stack cakes on top of each other and cut into strawberry shape. ( I tape 2 pieces of paper together and measured out 10 x 10. Then I drew my strawberry shape and cut it out. I then placed the cut out shape on the cake to follow as I cut.)

• Now you need to get your frosting ready. Take frosting and mix in some red food coloring till the shade you want. Place in piping bag (this just make it easier to add the frosting to the cake)
• Take the top layer of cake off and pipe frosting on top of the bottom layer (just around the edges to hold in your ganache and strawberry’s.
• Now to make the ganache. Take the chocolate chips and place in the microwave safe cup or dish and add the shortening. Microwave on high for 30 seconds then stir. Continue that until the chips are melted. ( Now I only used 1 tablespoon of shortening and once I put the cake in the fridge for about an hour  the ganache was hard again. So I say use 2-3 tablespoons and that should work)
• Allow the ganache to cool a little and then place onto the bottom cake in between the frosting you just piped.
• Add chopped strawberry’s to the top of the ganache.
• Place top cake layer on top of the ganache and strawberry’s. Press down slightly.
• Now crumb coat the whole cake with frosting. ( Crumb coat is when you put a light layer of frosting over the whole cake to help with crumbs. It holds the crumbs in so you don’t have crumbs thought out your frosted cake.) Once crumb coated place in fridge for a little bit to harden the frosting.
• While your waiting for your frosting to get a little hard you can work on your fondant pieces. Just take a little chunk of fondant and add green food coloring with a toothpick. Kneed until the color is blended good. Now roll out to the thickness you want and cut out your leaves. Put your leaves to the side and take another little piece of fondant and add black food coloring with a toothpick to make the seeds. Kneed until the color is blended good. Now roll into a long skinny piece and use scissors or a knife to cut little chunks off, place to the side.
• Take cake out of fridge and finish icing.
• Once finished icing add the leaves and seeds.
• Enjoy.

S’more Black Bean Browine Pie

Okay I know your reading the title going BLACK BEAN BROWNIE….ICK!!!!! Because I thought the same thing when my sister-in-law told me about black bean brownies but I had to try them because it’s so weird I had to know if it worked, and to my surprise it was good. Really good! They are a bit heavier and more dense than normally brownies but when I don’t feel like measuring a bunch of things to make homemade brownies this is perfect.

Here’s what you need

1 – Keelber Pre-Made Pie Crust  (or homemade)

1 Box – Brownie mix (your choice but I like the darker or double fudge because it has a richer flavor)

1 Can  – Black beans

1 Bag – Dandies Marshmallows. Now Sweet and Sara and dandies both make vegan marshmallows but if you can’t find them near you, you can always use Ricemellow or Hershey Marshmallow topping(by the ice cream section normally), there both vegan as well.

1. Pre-Heat Oven to 350
2. Rinse black beans while still in can
3. Add water to beans in can to just cover them
4. Puree black beans and water
5. Mix brownie mix and pureed beans together. I stir if 50 times like the brownie box says.
6. Pour mixture into pie crust (I filled my crust about 3/4 way and put the rest of the brownie batter into little pans to cook)
7. Cook for about 25-30 minutes until tooth pick in the center comes out clean
8. Put marshmallows to marshmallow topping onto cooked brownies and place back in oven under broiler for a couple of minutes till they brown a little.
9. Enjoy!

Now if you don’t want to make the black bean brownie you could use any brownie recipe you like. It will still be great trust me, anything with graham crackers, marshmallows and chocolate is GOOD!!!

Cone cupcakes

This may be a day late but I just had to post this since they came out so cute looking.

 Mini Easter Basket Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes

 

Now I know it sounds like a mouth full but it’s not hard to make at all.

What you need:

1 Box – Mini Ice Cream Cones (they come 42 in a box)

1 1/2 –  Cake-Batter Doughnuts recipe from Chocolate Covered Katie (she has some of the best stuff on her site). I used vegan butter instead of oil and I add sprinkles to my batter.

1/4 Cup Coconut Flakes or shreds (optional, I did some with and some without but I prefered with).

1 Can – Pillsbury Funfetti Vanilla Frosting (Funfetti version just has sprinkles which you don’t really need unless you gonna use them for the batter but I like saving them for other things)

Jelly Beans

Green Food Coloring

How do you create this amazing mini cone of cuteness you ask…well here’s how.

1. Place the mini cones into a mini cupcake pan ( I had to use 1 mini cupcake pan and an 8×8 square pan but you can use whatever will hold them good)
2. Make batter
3. Fill the cones with batter about 1/2 – 2/3 full. I used a medium ice cream scooper and one scoop worked great.
4. Place cones with batter into oven at 350 for about 15-20 minutes, until tooth pick in center comes out clean.
5. Place on cooling rake. They don’t take long to cool at all which was nice.
6. Put a few drops  of food coloring into frosting and stir good.  Once mixed good you can frost them any way you want. I went with a grass tip I had with my decorating tools.
7. Add some food coloring to your coconut and mix good. Once mixed good place on top of frosting. Kind mush it slighty to get it to stick into the frosting. (Now if you don’t like coconut or don’t want to use it just skip to the next step)
8. Add jelly beans…once again kinda mush them into the frosting/coconut.
9. Enjoy!

This is best served the same day because the cones get a little less crunchy but there still good the next day (believe me I had 2 today already at work :))

As you can see I had some left over batter ( I made 2 batches but 1 1/2 like I put in the recipe will be plenty) so I made some regular size easter basket cupcakes as well.

Oh and you can do this for anything really…just leave out the jelly beans and add something else, like a cherry to look like a real ice cream cone. Or you can pipe the icing high and dip it in chocolate to make a chocolate dipped ice cream cone!!!  So many possibilities  not a big enough stomach!

Vegan Banana Cream Pie (With Oreo’s)

One of my favorite pies is Banana Cream Pie made with vanilla wafers. On our shopping quest for all the ingredients we couldn’t find any  vegan ones! Sadly I thought I would just have to make it without them :(.  Then my husband’s brilliant idea was “why don’t you use the Golden Oreo’s?”. Not a bad idea but I thought it would be to sweet because of the cream in the Oreo’s. So he tells me to take the cream out(he will eat that don’t worry) and just use the cookies. So I did and it was amazing. My favorite version yet. So here’s the recipe so you can taste test it as well and let us know.

Vegan Banana Cream Pie (with Oreo’s)

Ingredients

1 – Pre-made Graham Cracker Crust (I used Keebler Ready Crust, it doesn’t have any honey, but you can use any or make  your own).

1 – Banana Pudding (I used Dr. Oetker Organics. Their Banana, vanilla, butterscotch and coconut are vegan. Chocolate is not, per email from company). You can always use the vanilla pudding as well but the banana taste better to us.

10-13 – Golden Oreo’s, with the cream taken out

2 – 2 1/2 –  Large Banana’s

1 – Healthy Topping Whipped Cream by Mimic Cream (http://www.mimiccreme.com/healthy.html)

Splash or 2 – Vanilla (optional)

Directions

1. Make pudding and chill overnight or several hours. Make sure to cover your pudding in plastic wrap so it doesn’t get a hard film. Also, put your box of healthy topping in the fridge. It says minimum or 30 minutes prior to use but I feel it works best for me when its been in the fridge several hours.
2. Slice banana’s. Make sure not to thick but not to thin.
3. Crush the Oreo’s into small chunks. I just crushed them in my hand but you can use anything to make them the size you like.
4. Make whipped topping. I whip my for 3 minutes and I added a little vanilla. I like it with or without vanilla but my husband likes vanilla added.
5. You do not need to bake the pie crust if you buy the one that’s pre-made no bake, but you can if you’d like.  Now layer banana’s in a single layer on bottom of crust.
6. Mix pudding so it’s all mixed together and gets creamy again. Spoon half the pudding on top of the banana’s.
7. Layer remaining banana’s on top of pudding.
8. Layer crushed Oreo’s on top of banana’s.

9.   Spoon rest of pudding on top of Oreo’s.

10.   Cover with as much whipped topping as you’d like. I used about 1/2  of the whipped topping. The remaining can stay in your fridge for up to 2 weeks.

11.   Place pie in fridge for 3-4 hours to chill. (if you can’t wait you can eat it right away but the flavors will blend better together if you chill it first)

12.   Slice and enjoy!!!