Vegan Pineapple Upside Down Cakelets

It occurred to me that the organic canned pineapple rings would fit into the bottoms of a shallow, wider muffin tin I own, so I decided to make VEGAN PINEAPPLE UPSIDE DOWN CAKELETS. There were only eight holes in the tin, so I got a small bread tin ready for any extra. It turns out there were ten slices in the can, which fit into the two tins just right.

This recipe is usually made in a rectangular glass dish, but it can easily be made in any baking dish. It would probably even work in narrow-bottomed muffin tins, with the pineapple rings curved. One son asked why I didn’t make them more often, so I think they liked them.

Tapioca Pudding Is a Comfort Food

TAPIOCA PUDDING is one of those desserts you either have a fond memory of — maybe your grandmother always made it for you — or you find disgusting. It is smooth, but then what’s the deal with all those little balls in it? And yet there is a lovely sweet blandness to it. It could well be one of your comfort foods. Tapioca comes from the manioc or cassava plant, native to South America, and a staple there and in Africa, where the pearls are called Boba. It is considered a very digestible form of carbohydrate.

I served a batch of tapioca pudding to some dinner guests, and one has since requested the recipe. It was a light, pleasant end to the meal. Really, I pretty much just followed the recipe on the box of Let’s Do Organic small pearl tapioca. I used their options down at the bottom of the recipe, and I left one ingredient out (shredded coconut). It’s a pretty easy recipe. If you serve it in little fluted pudding cups, it will seem more special.

Ingredients

2 cups — water

3 Tblsp. — Tapioca pearls, small pearl variety

2 Tblsp. — sugar

Sprinkle of salt

2/3 cup — light coconut milk (reduced fat organic version)

A banana — sliced, with a little lemon on it to keep it from browning

In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, boil the water before adding the tapioca pearls. Use a fork or whisk when pouring them in, to help keep them from bunching together. Let the tapioca cook for about fifteen minutes until it is looking more translucent, the mixture now seeming a little thicker and cloudy-looking. 

 

Add in the coconut milk, sugar, and salt. Stir it together and let it cook an additional ten to fifteen minutes. Place a few slices of bananas in each cup and pour the pudding over them. Let the cups sit until they are just warm, and then refrigerate until cooled.

Alternately, you could refrigerate the tapioca pudding in one mixing bowl or the pan itself. Mix it all together before dolloping servings into small glasses or bowls. If you have some Soyatoo whipped cream, that would be fun to squirt on top.

Tapioca pudding can be made with some other kind of milk, like rice or soy, but the coconut gives it a little extra flavor. If you added some vanilla, that would help too.

Vegan Pumpkin Pie and Walnut Cream

 

VEGAN PUMPKIN PIE is appropriate for Halloween, and is certainly necessary later on in November for Thanksgiving. I've made this vegan version for years, and nobody complains it isn't as good as other pumpkin pies. I'd like to think it is better. 

 

A lot of vegan pumpkin pies utilize tofu, but this one doesn't. If you have a soy allergy, you could substitute a rice or nut milk for the soy milk. You could use a can of pumpkin, but I like to cook up some squash or pumpkin for a fresher taste.

It is called vegan pumpkin pie, but for many years I've made this pie with buttercup squash, a squat, green-skinned, orange-fleshed squash with a rich flavor. However, one of my sons thinks he doesn't like squash, but he will eat vegan pumpkin pie (a much friendlier name), and another son insists pumpkin pie should be made with pumpkin.

So this year we bought an organic pie pumpkin, which is smaller and sweeter than the big ones. Today I washed it and cut it horizontally through the middle, discarded the seeds (somewhat guiltily because they can be roasted and eaten, but I don't like them much), and then placed the two halves cut side down on a cookie sheet to bake for an hour at 350F degrees. 

 

When I took it out of the oven it had been sitting for an hour in there without the heat on, and the skin peeled away easily. What was left were two perfect orange halves that looked like they had been molded in a special pan. I thought they looked like they should be served that way with something interesting filling the center, but I will leave that for someone else to do.

Creamy Crunchy Vegan Layer Dessert

If you don't feel like pie and you don't feel like cake, maybe you'd like some

CREAMY CRUNCHY VEGAN LAYER DESSERT? It's got raspberries, chocolate, vanilla, and that crunchy layer, so there's a lot to love.

Ingredients

Crunchy Layer

4 cups — puffed cereal

1 cup — whole wheat pastry flour

1 cup — sunflower oil

½ cup — agave syrup

1 tsp. — vanilla

(or use a graham cracker crust)

Chocolate Layer

2 bars — dark chocolate

Pudding Layer

3 cups — soy milk

½ cup — organic sugar

1/3 cup — organic cornstarch (arrowroot powder makes a less pleasing pudding)

¼ tsp. — salt

1 Tblsp. — vanilla

Raspberry Layer

1 package — frozen raspberries or 2 cups fresh

¼ cup — sugar

1/8 cup — cornstarch or arrowroot powder

It's Lovely Bread Pudding Again

When you've got some stale bread or bread ends stashed in the freezer for the future, a good use of it is to make BREAD PUDDING. We had some last night for dessert, but it is also a yummy snack on a cold day.

Ingredients
4-6 cups — stale bread, broken into pieces
1 quart — soy milk
1/2 cup — raisins
1/2 cup — sunflower oil
1/3 cup — Sucanat
1 1/2 teaspoons — cinnamon
1 teaspoon — vanilla
Drizzles of — oil and maple syrup or sugar

Cherry Mousse Tarts

It's President's Day, and I wanted to make a cherry pie again (see last year's recipe), but my buying club out-of-stocked my frozen cherries today. When I stopped by the co-op, they didn't have any fresh, frozen, or canned. All they had was organic Tart Cherry Juice, so I bought some of that and while driving home tried to think how to use it to make a pie. Something gelled with agar flakes, also known as kanten, a seaweed product? Or a pudding made with arrowroot powder or organic cornstarch?

I decided in the end to make CHERRY MOUSSE by using both. I made eight little pie tarts and two big glasses of mousse.

Nutcracker Sweets

I asked my sister Cynthia if I could include her NUTCRACKER SWEETS in this blog, and she said that was fine. She had gotten the recipe from the mother of a friend of her daughter, but thought she might have changed it a little, plus she gave it this name. I have made these for the dance school's fund-raising refreshment table during The Nutcracker Suite, where they seemed to sell well and no one knew they were eating a vegan treat. Try to find fresh pecans to make them with, as that is the most important ingredient.

 

INGREDIENTS

Crust

2 cups  — organic white flour and/or whole wheat pastry flour

1 cup — organic brown sugar

1/2 cup — organic plant-based butter

Sprinkle — vanilla

Middle Layer

1 cup — pecans

 

Next Middle Layer

2/3 cup — plant-based butter

1/2 cup — organic brown sugar 

Top Layer

1 package — dairy-free malt-sweetened chocolate chips

 

METHOD

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a mixing bowl, stir together two cups of organic white flour or whole wheat pastry flour and a cup of Sucanat, which is an organic brown sugar. With a fork, mix in half a cup of Earth Balance or organic Smart Balance non-hydrogenated butter substitute. Possibly you could try this with a bland oil, like sunflower, but since the rest of the ingredients are expensive, I have yet to experiment. I added a sprinkle of vanilla.

Chocolate Pudding, Tofu Whipped Cream, and Vanilla Extract

 

I mentioned before that I would tell you how to make a CHOCOLATE PUDDING with the soy milk that may be languishing in the refrigerator. Tonight was the night.

Ingredients for Pudding

1/3 cup — cocoa powder

1/2 cup — organic sugar

1/4 tsp — salt

1/4 cup — organic cornstarch (increase to 1/3 cup if making a pie, so it will set up)

3 cups — soy milk

1 1/2 tsp — vanilla

2 tblsp. — vegan butter substitute (optional)

Method for Pudding

In a sturdy pot, add one-third cup of cocoa powder, one-half cup of organic sugar, a quarter teaspoon salt, and a quarter cup of organic cornstarch.

 

Whisk in three cups soy milk and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer, cover, and cook for ten minutes. Whisk occasionally while heating.
 

Add one and a half teaspoon of vanilla. If you want it to taste richer, add some plant-based margarine like organic Earth Balance. Mix it all together.

Pour into eight glass pudding cups — or just in a bowl to scoop out of. Top with plant-based whipped topping right before serving. It tends to collapse, so don't let it sit. Or whip up some tofu whipped cream. Read on about how to make it.

Blueberry Buckle

We went picking blueberries today, and tonight I made the second BLUEBERRY BUCKLE of the season, which went away as quickly as the first one did. It is a sweet dish somewhere between a cake and a pudding, with plenty of blueberries throughout, quick to make and quick, it seems, to eat.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Oil a rectangular baking dish. Have two cups of fresh blueberries handy.