Tag: Cocoa Powder

Vegan Dark Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting

I made these Vegan Dark Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting for a lovely vegan bride-to-be for her bridal shower this weekend. I’m not going to lie, I was going to do a test run of these, and if I didn’t like them, she was getting normal egg-filled, buttercream-topped cupcakes. But. These are good. Really really good.

So when I did my test run, I passed them around to friends and family and conveniently left the word “vegan” out of the description until after they tasted the cupcakes. My “test subjects” didn’t seem too upset with my experiment, many went for seconds!

These cupcakes use dark chocolate (versus milk chocolate), and have no eggs, butter, or milk. And they are still super fluffy and moist. The best part, most of the ingredients are probably either in your pantry or really easy to find!

Ingredients (makes 2 dozen) adapted from the Curvy Carrot:

Dark Chocolate Cupcakes:

  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 1 tablespoon cream of tartar
  • 2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 3/4 cup dark chocolate cocoa powder
  • 2 oz vegan dark chocolate, finely chopped
  • 3/4 cup sunflower oil
  • 1 1/4 cups vanilla almond milk
  • 3/4 cup cinnamon applesauce
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 1 tablespoon cider vinegar

Peanut Butter Frosting:

  • 1 cup creamy peanut butter
  • 1/2 cup vegan margarine
  • 2 cups powdered sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 3 tablespoons vanilla almond milk

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Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie

Happy Pi Day! As a Mathlete alum, Pi Day has always been a part of my nerdy math world.  And what better way to celebrate than to make a pie?

I have some other pie recipes on here, but I have had a hankering for peanut butter lately, so I am celebrating this year with a Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie.  This is a FoodNetwork.com recipe but I decided to make my own crust (you are more than welcome to just buy one – use a 9-inch pie crust).

Ingredients:

Pie Crust:

  • 1 package oreos
  • 4 tablespoons butter, melted

Hot Fudge Sauce:

  • 1/3 cup heavy cream
  • 1/4 cup light brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup light corn syrup
  • 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1/8 teaspoon table salt
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 3.5 ounces milk chocolate, finely chopped

Peanut Butter Pie:

  • 8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
  • 3/4 cup confectioners’ sugar, plus 2 tablespoons, divided
  • 3/4 cup creamy peanut butter, at room temperature
  • 1 cup heavy whipping cream
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • Chopped peanuts, optional
  • Whipped cream, optional
  • Crushed cookies, optional

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Marble Peanut Butter & Dark Chocolate Cookies

This time of year, I love finding recipes that incorporate candy bars. I tend to have an influx of candy in my house so I might as well use it to make awesome baked goods right? I received a couple of Equal Exchange Candy Bars recently and couldn’t stop snacking on them!
Equal Exchange is the nation’s leading Fair Trade brand of coffee, chocolate and tea. They recently launched a new line of organic, fairly traded candy bars with flavors including milk chocolate peanut butter, milk chocolate crisp with puffed rice and quinoa, and dark chocolate fruit and nut with raisins and almonds.
The milk chocolate crisp lives up to its name, the puffed rice and quinoa added a nice crunch to the milk chocolate. The dark chocolate fruit and nut is the perfect mix of chocolately goodness, nuts, and fruit. The website describes it perfectly as trail mix in candy bar form.  My favorite of the three though was the milk chocolate peanut butter bar a perfect and classic combination for a reason! I decided to use the chocolate peanut butter bars in a cookie but wanted to find a cookie that sort of resembled the chocolate bar itself.
I adapted this cookie recipe for Marble Peanut Butter & Dark Chocolate Cookies from a Bakergirl recipe for Marbled Peanut Butter & Chocolate Snickers cookies.
Ingredients:
Peanut Butter Dough
  • 2 cups creamy peanut butter
  • 2 cups granulated sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup mini chocolate chips

Chocolate Dough

  • 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 3/4 cup brown sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/4 cup cocoa powder
  • 2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 2 Equal Exchange Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter bars
  • 3/4 cup peanut butter chips
Photo courtesy of Equal Exchange

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“Irish Potatoes”

I am Irish, on my father’s side. So, more appropriately, I’m Irish American (among other things). Even more specifically, I am Irish Philadelphian. (Yes, I may have made that phrase up. But there are a bunch of us so I think the phrase should exist.)

Now I’m sure you were very interested in what my heritage is, but there is a reason I’m telling you this. Philadelphia has this… candy? dessert? … we will go with “treat”… called an Irish Potato.

It’s cream cheese, powdered sugar, vanilla extract, and coconut rolled into a little ball and coated in cinnamon. So it ends up looking kind of like a potato, hence the name.

A super cute potato, that is

I’m under the impression this treat is essentially a Philadelphia-only thing. Friends from New York and D.C. both look at me like I’m crazy when I bring these up. But they are delicious and an integral part of every St. Patrick’s Day for me, so I needed to share them!

 

Ingredients:
  • 4 tablespoons butter, softened
  • 4 ounces cream cheese, softened
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 3 cups powdered sugar
  • 2 cups sweetened coconut, lightly packed
  • 1 teaspoon cocoa powder (optional)
  • 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon cinnamon
Continue reading “Irish Potatoes”
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