Dessert First
Home Grown Tomatoes is a weekly Vegan/Vegetarian column written by Giovanina Bucci
If this virtual medley of desserts doesn't satisfy your sweet tooth, then I don't know what will...except, of course, for a big, huge (real) piece of chocolate cake oozing with some sort of creamy frosting...damn, that does sound good:) Anyway, my wonderful roommate, Renee, and I had a little house warming party this weekend. Instead of going the typical appetizer and snack route, we decided to head down the dessert path. Great decision, by the way. I totally recommend this for so many reasons. First of all, you get out of feeding people their 'dinner'. Secondly, you can make things well in advance. Thirdly, it's really damn fun to pick some sort of color theme and just go for it. Not to mention, you are inevitably left with the leftovers - which isn't half bad considering all of the chocolate, peanut butter, and sugar that's involved. And finally, you don't have to worry about serving the goods hot - it's as easy as removing tinfoil when your guests arrive.
We set up this fun table and served dessert drinks like white russians (to bring out the inner Labowski), coconut rum and hot cocoa, hot tea, coffee...you get the idea.
The menu for the evening consisted of:
Butterscotch Blondies with Banana and Honey
Root Beer Float Cupcakes
No Bake Cookies
Peanut butter Cookies
Fresh Pineapple and Kiwi Fruit Platter with Mint from the herb garden
Homemade Chocolates (which are ridiculously easy!)
Butterscotch Blondies
recipe adapted from My Sweet Vegan
These are Uh-mazing!
1/4 C. Earth Balance
1 1/2 C. Dark Brown Sugar
1 1/2 Tsp. Vanilla Extract or Maple Syrup
6 oz. Plain Coconut Milk Yogurt
2 C. Unbleached Flour
2 Tsp. Baking Powder
Melt Earth Balance and pour over brown sugar mixing thoroughly. Add in remaining wet ingredients and stir until mixed well. In a separate bowl combine the flour and baking powder and slowly add it to your wet mixture, making sure to not overmix! I topped with fresh sliced banana and drizzled some honey. Bake in an 8 x 8 greased baking pan or a pie tin in at 350 degree F. oven for about 25 or 30 minutes. The edges should end up being a bit browned and the center moist, chewy and gooey.
No Bake Cookies
And yes, they are just as easy as they sound!
2 C. Sugar
1/2 C. Earth Balance
1/2 C. Almond Milk
3 C. Oats
1/2 C. Peanut butter
1 Tsp. Vanilla
4 Tbls. Coca
Mix and bring the first three ingredients to a boil for about a minute. In another bowl, mix the remaining ingredients together. Once sugar, milk and butter are removed from stove, mix together thoroughly with other ingredients. Spoon out cookie sized portions on to a sheet of tinfoil and let cool. Talk about great for a humid summer day, you don't even have to turn on the oven!
Root Beer Float Cupcakes
recipe adapted from My Sweet Vegan
These are such a hit every time that I make them. I think the main selling point is that they're a little different and quite honestly, they're like biting into a bit of your childhood. The only thing that I did differently from the original recipe is the Ganache. I just double boiled semi-sweet chocolate and drizzled the top of the cupcakes. You'll see in the original recipe that she uses chocolate, milk and maple syrup.
For the 'homemade' chocolates, I used Baker's semi-sweet chocolate and double boiled it. Once melted I spooned into a fun little candy mold from Michael's and let it stand. Eventually, you'll have some impressive little chocolates that you can take full responsibility for making!
I made plain chocolate ones, chocolate butterscotch, and dark/white chocolate ones - not all vegan of course, but delicious (from what I'm told) nonetheless.
As far as the peanut butter cookies... well, my friends, if you didn't know this little life-saving recipe before then you're in for a treat. These little numbers aren't vegan, but they smell freaking delicious and they only involve three ingredients. Yes. You heard me correctly. Three. Ingredients. Thanks to my fabulous friend, Kate, for turning me on to this recipe!
Peanut butter Cookies
1 C. Peanut butter
1 C. Sugar
1 Egg
Amen. Mix and bake at 350 degrees F. until just tender. Chewy is good. Real good here:)
And there you have it, darlings. Buy yourself some pretty flowers for the middle of the table and get some good, cheesy napkins that say something about 'good friends and good food' and you've got yourself a party. Now go get your sweet on.
Enjoy!
-Giovanina
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