Baking: Oreo stuffed chocolate chip cookies

Oh yes, the day has finally come. The day when I combine my love for Oreos with my love for endless peanut butter and chocolate. The recipe for these beauties can be found here: http://www.veganoslo.com/bloglist/2015/2/28/peanut-butter-oreo-stuffed-chocolate-chip-cookies

Asides from the awesomeness of all of the components of this recipe (oreos + cookies = !!!), I was a bit disappointed in the finished product. I substituted tapioca flour for cornstarch and apparently that was a mistake, as the cookie dough was really runny, so I couldn’t shape the cookies well. The dough could use a bit less oil as well, so next time I think I’ll just freestyle that part of the recipe. Oh yes, there will be a next time.

Price: £5.6

Protein: 30ish grams in the entire thing

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Baking: Chocolate avocado cake

So this may sound like a strange combination, but rest assured it does not taste like avocado. It tastes like the most moist, gooey cake in existance, with a zingy frosting. I tried it out just because I had a few ripe avocados lying around that needed eating, but it is genuinely the best cake I’ve made in a while. The recipe can be found here: http://joythebaker.com/2009/07/vegan-chocolate-avocado-cake/

Gooey and delicious no-bake peanut butter and chocolate squares

Well. It is safe to say that this is the worst recipe I’ve ever tried. Not because it doesn’t work or tastes horrible, but because it’s so easy and delicious, that I’ve already made it twice and eaten most of it myself. It takes maybe 20 minutes to make these and there is no baking required. I give you the recipe in the hopes that you will be able to use its power for good (and not end up cursing me at 2am when you were on your way to get some water, but somehow ended up in the fridge, wolfing down the last bits of the chocolate square remnants that were stuck to the kitchen foil you wrapped them in. Not that that’s ever happened).

http://spoonuniversity.com/recipe/no-bake-chocolate-peanut-butter-bars/

Obviously for a vegan recipe, I substitute the butter for margerine and use dark chocolate. For the graham crackers, I use any old vegan biscuit I can find and blitz in a food processor. The only thing I’d note about the recipe is that the peanut butter dough is a bit too dry with the amount of oil the recipe uses, so I add a bit of warm water (or milk or oil or whatever you have handy) to the mix, so that the consistency is still very firm but loose enough to spoon into the tin.

Price: £1.20 for the entire batch

Protein: 50 g per half a batch, yay peanut butter

Baking: Peanut butter and chocolate protein bars

In an effort to eat less sweets and more healthy snacks, I decided to make some protein bars. I came across these: http://86lemons.com/chocolate-peanut-butter-breakfast-bars/

They turned our wonderful and I almost forgot to take a picture of them before eating them all. They were a bit crumbly, so I suggest not changing the wet to dry ingreedient ratios (like I did when I added fruit and more nuts than called for). I kept them in the fridge and they stayed very yummy for the 3 days it took me to devour them.

Price per portion: £5 for the entire tray of bars

Protein per portion: 5 grams per bar

Baking: Nut and five spice cake

Another creation my boyfriend made over the weekend, a misterious mix of brazilnuts and hazelnuts and chinese five spice that was smothered in ginger sugar.

Breakfast: Waffles

The lovely boyfriend (who is Belgian, so it’s only right that he make Belgian food) made me these on Saturday morning. First time he tried making them vegan, and they turned out beautifully!

I don’t have a recipe for this (family secret, obv), but I can give you the rough estimate of what goes in them, curtesy of the internet. Oh, and this only works if you have a waffle maker:

To make 5ish waffles

250g plain flour

pinch of salt

pinch of baking powder

a bit of vanilla extract

50g sugar

500 ml hazelnut milk

to substitute 1 egg: 1 tablespoon flax seed meal mixed with two tablespoons water

30 ml vegetable oil

Mix all of the things together until you get a smooth, not too runny dough mix. Don’t overmix, because the waffles won’t be as fluffy. Put 3/4 of a cup of mix in a waffle iron and cook for 3-4mins until the waffles are golden brown on the outside.

Price per portion: £1.25

Protein per portion: 15 grams

 

Baking: Peanut butter banana cookies

Once in a while I walk into my kitchen and realise I have a problem. I have too much of some food or other and it needs to be used right now or it’ll go off. This weekend i had some bananas way past their prime and some peanut butter that’s been sitting in my fridge for a few weeks, so the most logical thing to do was to make some cookies. Recipe: http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/19121/peanut-butter-and-banana-cookies.aspx

They were super easy to make and looked amazing when they were out of the oven. I brought them to work, where my collegues assured me they tasted just as delicious as they looked!

Price per portion: £1.45

Protein per portion: 3-ish grams

Birthday cake

Yesterday was my birthday, so the boyfriend made me a vegan pear, dark chocolate and hazelnut cake. It was delicious, he’s definitely a keeper!

Here’s the recipe: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1420/pear-hazelnut-and-chocolate-cake
To make it vegan, he replaced the butter with vegan margerine and the eggs with bananas.

Price per portion: £1.5

Protein per portion: 3ish grams, more if you add extra nuts