Fruit
Izy you’re posting fruit
And pastry
Where am I
Where’s the chocolate and the cinnamon and maple syrup
Are you okay?

Well, you may or may not know, but I just completed my art AS level! (One subject down, 3 more to go. COME ON.). Yep, my exams have only just started – I know I’ve been stressing about for, oh, only like FOREVER on here, and being utterly boring and slow at replying and hopeless at commenting on things. And theres still a month of this left, which sucks, but I promise, come June, WE WILL CELEBRATE.

So, yeah, I did have a point there – since February I’ve been completing the exam half of my art course, for which I chose the brief of local produce (I’ve got to get food in there somewhere, its literally my only talent). As a final pie(ce) (AHAHAHA I ONLY JUST CAME UP WITH THAT PUN), I managed to fanangle my way into making a .gif video of making this rhubarb pie. Or galette, if you will. I also spent 8 hours making a series of lenticular images from some of the stills.

Now, I don’t think I can technically show you the video until it’s all been examined, but it’s gotta be the most dramatic ones as of yet. Seriously. and it took the LONGEST TIME TO MAKE EVER because normally, I have a friend around to help me (read as: I convince my friend they’ll get cake if they help) by just standing there and pressing the shutter button. It’s a simple job, but when your camera can only take pictures on self timer in a burst of 10 photos at a time, and your hands are covered in floury pastry mixture, the job doesn’t seem so easy anymore. So anyways, you can be looking out for that 5 minute rhubarb thang sometime in June. For now, I have photos and a recipe!

I went to the allotment with my dad to take photos of him picking the rhubarb, I literally hadn’t been there in about a year (although I’m constantly eating all the stuff that gets cycled back from there). It was nice, apart from the centipede thing and worms (no weird larvae/caterpillar things pleaseeee. Spiders? fine. A caterpillar? I am already 100000 miles away freaking out), but made me a bit nostalgic.

When I was a lot younger, and the internet hadn’t stolen a third of my life, I would spend a few hours there every few weekends making ‘potions’ (aka putting a bunch of my mum’s flowers into a bucket with water and stirring it around with a stick. I don’t think my mum was too pleased by that), eating tonnes of runner beans and raspberries straight from the plant, and running around the place with my bro filling plastic water bottles with flowers.

annd now I have no idea how to end this post

so

um

hasta luego

Lately, because I have no time to spare for things like lugging marble around, and clearing up a million props post-photo sesh, I’ve been taking more photos like this,

at the counter top, not my usual spot by the window.

Minutes after making, not days;

Hands on, not “hands off!” (If you have a food blog, you probably know what I mean when I say this, haha)

More like lifestyle shots, rather than my usual side-lit editorial stylie. It’s different and I think I like it.

I think it’s because of that morning light that floods the kitchen,

because of the atmosphere,

and how, to me, they’re (and this may sound weird if you’ve never styled food) so utterly honest.

No styling involved,

No patch tool used.

Manual everything (apart from white balance because ‘aint no body got time for that, and I shoot in RAW so it doesn’t really matter)

Just me making my breakfast and taking a few photos before devouring it

I know the pancakes aren’t beautiful, but they’re honest too, if that makes sense.

Cakey and soft, but also hearty and slightly bumpy.

My favourites.

Enough batter to make a nice tall stack of pancakes, enough to linger over.

and healthy enough to not make me feel sluggish and hungry for the rest of the day.

Pancakes for one

3 tbsp oat flour
1 tbsp your choice of flour (I’ve tried coconut, whole wheat, all purpose and oat flour)
1 tbsp oat bran/bran/more flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 egg whites
3 tbsp mashed banana/applesauce/pumpkin puree/ yogurt
1 tbsp milk (use 2 tbsp if you used coconut flour)
optional add ins: 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon, 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, 1/4 cup blueberries, 2 tbsp chocolate chips, orange zest

Stir together all the dry ingredients in a small bowl. Add in the rest of the ingredients and any add ins. Mix well.
Spray a non-stick skillet with oil, spoon 2 tbsp of batter into the pan, and spread into a circle.
Golden rule with pancakes: cook them low and slow – i.e. low heat for a few minutes on each side.
Stack them high, and eat with plenty of maple syrup.

Question

Did I drink 3 frappucinos today?

Answer

Yes.

Question

Do I feel weird and shaky? Is it really hard for me to sit still right now?

Answer

Yes….aaaand yes.

(Maybe I shouldn’t have done that you guys. But it’s so hot. and I just wanted to cool down, and I added the ice to the blender and then suddenly had like double the amount that I had intended to make)

Question: Did I add this fudge sauce to said frappucinos to make mocha frappucinos?

Answer

No

but actually,

yes.

See, fudge sauce has uses other than ice cream drizzling. To me, they are 5-fold:

Mocha frappucinos or milkshakes

Dessert time but want pancakes –> pancakes with fudge sauce = a legitimate dessert, okay. I said so.

Making a quick bread or pound cake –> layer some of that fudge sauce all up in the batter (and swirl it a bit too) =  best marble cake you’ll ever eat. Done and done.

Tortillas + melted butter + cinnamon-sugar –> cut into chips –> bake –> eat with fudge sauce = sweet nachos.

Fudge sauce –> fold into whipped cream –> chill = easy mousse.

I told you.

Ohhhhhh wait, waittttttt there’s one more

Cold fudge sauce in a jar + spoon –> eat = so flahrgen good.

Notes:

• Basically, I made this as an easy thing for breakfast sundaes (…yep) , so to make it more decadent (getting into more dessert-y grounds) add:
  • a pinch of maldon salt and
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract.
• It turns into a thick pudding consistency when refrigerated. Re-warm it (add a little more liquid if needed) to get it back to a saucy consistency.
• I strained my sauce through a mesh sieve after making it, but that was mainly because I wanted it to look smoother for the photos
• I used around 7 small dates for this recipe
• use chocolate for a better flavour, or cocoa for a lighter version.

How to make doughnuts from Izy Hossack – Top With Cinnamon on Vimeo.

(or watch here on YouTube)

So I’m back!

and I’ve brought doughnuts,

and.. a video… (wait, can you technically ‘bring’ a video? I’m ‘bringing’ it to your computer, I guess..)

Last week was actually crazy. Oh my god I don’t even remember most of it. So many mock exams and stress.

I think if I was a computer it would be the equivalent of having Photoshop, Lightroom, Chrome (with 100 tabs open), iTunes and streaming TV,

ALL AT THE SAME TIME.

I think my brain needs more RAM;

or maybe it just needs doughnuts.

But I would be boring if I did all the doughnut making and then left them as just vanilla – right?

So I made them awesome.

Who wants sprinkles, when you can have crushed biscoff cookies and crispy bacon on a coffee glazed doughnut.

Coffee with your doughnut?

NAH IT’S FINE BRO

THERE’S COFFEE ON MY DOUGHNUT

(although, let’s be honest here, I totally still drank coffee with them)

To be precise – I managed to have a total of 6 cups of coffee over the two days that I made + shot these doughnuts on.

So, yeah.

Coffee + doughnuts are the power pairing of this weekend.

Sugar + caffeine were precisely what my soul needed after that week.

Crackly glaze, crumbs scattered everywhere, licking your lips and fingers.

Shameless.

That’s what doughnuts should be about.

Just happy food.

Notes:

- Lara’s original recipe rests the dough in the fridge for 1-12 hours – I just let it rise on the counter for 1 hour instead.
- If you don’t have a doughnut cutter, and you can’t find a 1″ cutter, try using a piping tip, or like me the lid to something like a salt shaker
- To tell when the doughnuts have proved enough: gently poke the dough, it should spring back slowly.

For Coffee-Bacon-Biscoff Doughnuts

- coat the doughnuts in the vanilla glaze. Let set.
- slightly crush 6 or 7 biscoff cookies (I put them in a plastic bag and gently crushed them with a rolling pin)
- fry 5 or 6 rashers of bacon until crispy. Drain on paper towel, then use scissors to cut up into small pieces. Mix in with the crushed biscoff cookies.
- then glaze top with coffee glaze (just dissolve the instant coffee in the boiling water, add the milk and sugar):

For the coffee glaze
1 1/2 tsp instant coffee
2 tbsp boiling water
1 to 2 tbsp milk
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

- whilst coffee glaze is still wet, sprinkle on crushed biscoff cookies and bacon.

A little change of pace for today!

a recipe-free post

…yes, I realise this is a recipe blog :/ buuuut it’s also my blog and I can do whatever the heck I want!

I thought I’d show you guys something pretty awesome (and at the same time try my hand some actual photography, rather than just shooting cookies 24/7 :/ ) ;

A few days ago, I got the opportunity to spend a few hours in Shoreditch, at Protein by DunneFrankowski, coffee cupping with Callum, Rob and Victor (and some other guys who came along), after Callum had come back from Berlin with a BUNCH of different coffees.

Now, what is cupping? (whenever I hear it, I get an image of people frantically putting upside-down cups over things like mice and ping-pong balls, hahaha…oh me.)

As Callum put it “the best analogy for it is wine tasting, but with coffee”.

The bags of coffee beans are randomly assigned numbers, a 12 g sample is ground and put into a cupping bowl, then lined up on the table where it’s labelled with its number – only the person who grinds the beans and numbers the bags knows which coffee is which.

200g of slightly-cooler-than-boiling water is poured into the cups and left for 2-3 minutes.

A ‘crust’ of coffee grounds forms on the surface, which you then break by pushing a cupping spoon through it 3 times whilst leaning over the cupping bowl to breathe in the coffee-y goodness

(I did actually try doing this, but I think I was failing. Callum took over after that…)

You then skim off the remaining grounds floating on top,

okay well I didn’t, I’m not skills enough for that

and nooooow

its coffee tasting time!

You take a small amount of coffee from the surface, in a cupping spoon,

and, I’m not too sure how to describe it, but you basically just rapidly slurp the coffee from the spoon, whilst breathing in (this helps to spread the coffee to all your tastebuds, so you can taste it more)

..and if you’re me, and it’s your first time, you try to not actually breathe in the coffee and start choking.

I didn’t take photos of this part because a) I was tasting the coffees myself, and I ONLY HAVE TWO HANDS PEOPLE

and b) you spit out the coffee into a spittoon..and I didn’t think we needed pictures of that.

You repeatedly taste the coffees as they cool,  to see how the flavours change.

At the end, the bags of coffee beans are lined up with the corresponding cups

and you get to find out which ones are which!

Then you can just stand around and smell the coffee beans because they smell so freakin good.

all in all, I had a pretty epic day, and then I went home and drank more coffee

and ate cookies (the recipe for which I shall be posting soonio, I pinky swear).

Detailssss (if you’re in London and wanna have a go at coffee cupping, tweet them!):

Callum Hale Thomson – a.k.a young_barista

Protein by DunneFrankowski - 18 Hewett Street, EC2A 3NN

http://dunnefrankowski.tumblr.com/

Before I get into my regular ramblings about…things…and stuff (of which are important and specific, evidently),

I have just found out that I am a finalist in the Saveur 2013 Best Food Blog Awards for the Category of Baking and Desserts

(haha, well of course, if it was gunna happen, it would be the baking one…).

and by found out I mean I totally stalked the page for about 6 hours to see if I’d got through or not… (time differences are a little bit of a pain)

so now I am totally freaking out.

It would mean the WORLD to me if you would just click here to get to Saveur’s site and vote for Top With Cinnamon!!

(p.s. voting ends on the 19th of April – i.e. next Friday) 

I’ve never won an award before…(well apart from that one time I came second in a potato and spoon race – yep, not egg and spoon..potato and spoon – but that’s a story for another day) and I never thought I’d get through to the finalists .

so if you do decide that my 17-year-old baking antics and foodporn .gifs deserve your vote then

THANK YOU!!!! LOVE YOU MUCHO

update: el voting period is over now! Thanks so much if you voted

now back to our regularly scheduled post, yes?

(p.s. I totally fell in love with about 99% of the photos I took. I usually take about 200 photos {No i’m not even kidding}, and this time was no exception, so be prepared for a lot of cake photos okay? )

Test: Can you remember me making this recipe?

This really is a test of who is a long-time TWC reader,

Even I admit that I wasn’t sure whether or not I had actually posted the recipe (I had, it was back in the day when I didn’t own a DSLR – aka pre- Jan 2012… yeah I know, its only been a year since I got one, and I’m still learnin the ways of photography)

But if you did remember that post, WELL DONE YOU (I can’t really give you anything..apart from a cyber high five..)

but guys look, more layering (we already know about me and my layer-y ways, okay)

purple nails!

But you know why I love layering so much? It gives you OPTIONS!

• This is a total make-it-your-own recipe: you just need to stick to the basic cake and meringue recipes but because there are 4 super simple components to the recipe, there is a HUGE amount you can change with this recipe
• The cake: I like to keep it simple with vanilla. But you can replace 2 tbsp of the flour with cocoa powder for a chocolate cake, add extracts (almond is super good), fruit zest (HELLO LEMON), poppy seeds, some espresso powder dissolved in a little hot water, add spices (ginger, cinnamon, cardamom…). Whatever dude!
• The meringue: I swirled food colouring into mine to keep it simple but pretty – you could also fold in powdered, freeze dried fruit, sprinkle on cacao nibs or chopped nuts, again add cocoa or spices. Or just leave it plain!
• The toppings: I add a creamy component (sometimes whipped cream, or just greek yogurt when I’m feeling less indulgent, haha) you could also use creme fraiche, coconut cream or serve it with ice cream! You can also swirl whatever you want into that. Use fruity yogurt, or mix in compote, spices, cocoa, extracts, coffee…
• Then I layer on fruits: I use berries during the summer, but I can totally imagine using passion fruit, pineapple and mango, or sliced apples or pears, maybe even blood organges (I’d skip the creamy component then..)
• Other toppings: I also garnished mine with flaked coconut (that I finally found at Whole Foods, WOOH), but you could go for flaked almonds, chopped pistachios, chocolate chips, citrus zest, lavendar, candied ginger.

Or even

Top With Cinnamon

hah

oh man

that just wont get old will it?

 :’)

lastly (yeah you thought I was finished didn’t you, no siree, I told you there were reasons for the layering-love and options. They’re totally my thang):

Serving it: I usually just leave it as a huge sheet cake, layered up and just cut it into squares/diamonds/rectangles and serve it like that, as needed. But for the aesthetics this time (what else would I do it for tbh) I used a large pastry ring to cut out circles, then layered them individually. The individual circles are good for if you want to make it look fancier, but the square (or diamond or rectangle) way is so much easier and quicker.

Plus bonus points: I know there’s a heck tonne of sugar in this recipe, but there ‘aint no butter or oil, so it’s ridiculously airy and fluffy, like eating a cloud cake (yet still satisfying from all ye sugar and fruit). So if you’re craving a nice, liiiight, cool and fresh cake to fulfill those sweet cravings that summer brings, this be the cake for ya!

Phew

Okay so now I’ve got all of those details of the recipe out the way.

Lets talk about those important things, yes? Me and my weirdo fails.

That’s fun isn’t it. If you’re a new reader, then you can get to know me, and if you’ve been a TWC-er for a while, this will just be regular reading material for you, ha.

1. I can’t open letters. I try. I tear at the edge. I end up with an envelope that looks like it was just attacked by a..well a 5 year old
2. I have to clear plates away individually. I can’t deal with stacking plates. It grosses me out. totally.
3. No matter what I do, my hair, when freshly washed, expands to about double the regular volume. I’m all ‘YOU’RE NOT COMPRESSED AIR. WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!’ and my hair’s all ‘whatever. Frizz.’
4. Autocorrect. is. the. bane. of. my. life. No, autocorrect, just because I typed HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH, one time, doesn’t mean that every time I type haha, that I want to repeat the enthusiasm that I used that single time. okay?
5. Ambiguously labelled push/pull doors scare me. So much potential embarrassment posed by such an everyday thing. Why is there no label on the door. Whyyyyyyyyy?
6. When getting onto a crowded bus, I’d kiiiind of rather stay downstairs and be crushed, rather than do the oh-so-awkward ‘walk up the stairs, and have everyone stare at you whilst you see that no, there are no seats left and have to do the slothy retreat and walk back down the stairs…’
7. I still sometimes have to make an L shape with my hand to remember left and right.
8. I do the thing where, when I only know partial lyrics, I will sing those parts…and then kinda mumble / bob my head around for the rest of the song because it’s too awkward to just abandon ship once you start singing when your friend’s there.
9. When I’m put in pressured situations, I go bright red. I’m not even talking like ‘ha, aww her cheeks are flushing’. I mean red. AND it’s worse because I can actually FEEL it happening. I can feel my face getting hotter than freakin Vesuvius, and there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it.
10. Tweeting isn’t a spontaneous thing for me. I’m not one of those witty one liner people who just effortlessly find words to speak. It can take me like 10 minutes to compose my tweet. *sigh* I don’t even know what my life is.

Notes:

- Don’t be intimidated by the recipe, it’s super easy. Most of the ingredients are repeated, and the methods are pretty basic (not acidic at all..hahah science jokes. sorry.)

- The meringue-topped cake, once baked, can be wrapped up in plastic wrap and kept at room temp. for about 3 days before you need to serve it up (just don’t layer on the toppings until you’re ready to serve the cake or else it goes soggy)

- You have free reign with variations! Check the list abooooove to see the my tips/ideas (I’ve included some of them in the recipe below)

- You totally don’t have to put the colour swirl into the meringue. I only just added it this time cos it be prettay!

I think when I try to keep up with everything too much, I end up metaphorically falling over. Turning into basically – a turtle – on it’s back trying freaking hard to flip over and carry on, but majorly failing.

This is what happens when revision, 1000+ items in your feedly, food blogging, instagramming and having a social life collide, haha,

and this, currently, is my life.

When you’re too busy to even think about the ways in which you’re busy, it’s nice to be able to just stand in the kitchen for a while and make something for you, and only you to enjoy.

For that period of time, everything is focused on just making

and by the end you have yourself a hot-from-the-oven soft pretzel (..well in my case you do).

Thankfully, the SNOW from last week has stopped, and it’s warming up, here in London, making going out actually enjoyable! Plus OMG the light. It’s just…like, endless or something.

6pm? Yeah sure, you can still take photographs.

:O

Loving it so much.

Probably as much as I’m loving these pretzels! I’ve made them a few times over the past few weeks, tweaking the recipe here and there, hopefully making it just right.

It’s never gunna be as good as one you knead for ages, and leave to rise a few times for a couple of hours,

but it’s damn fast, and deliciously satisfying when you’re having a calorie crisis in the middle of the day.

Okay, so I’ve tried a few different toppings (they’ll be in the recipe, dw)

But the one thing I never get is

Why does everybody make them with dipping sauces?

Can you enlighten me? I’ve never eaten a pretzel with some kind of magnificent cheese sauce; it sounds awesome, but to be honest, I just want to eat the pretzel warm, maybe with some butter or cream cheese

I dunno..

Do what you wish! Sauce, no-sauce, they’re super tasty and easy to make

and I think that’s all I want at the moment.

Notes:

- one pretzel with salt has around 150 kcal, 0.7 g fat, 29g carbs (4g fiber), 5.5 g protein

- this is basically no-knead (or minimal-knead haha) and only has a 15 minute rise.

-If you want the pretzel super shiny (like the main pretzel in these photos) then brush with egg yolk after it’s been dipped in the baking soda solution, and before you sprinkle on the toppings

- Don’t bake them on parchment paper. Unless you grease it like a crazy person. It sticks. I know.

Print

Single-Serving Soft Pretzel

1/3 cup (45g) whole wheat bread flour, plus a little more for shaping (you can use all purpose, whole wheat or strong here)

pinch of sugar

generous pinch of salt

1 tsp active dried yeast

3 to 4 tbsp warm water

for dipping/coating:

1/2 cup warm water, 1 tsp baking soda (and 1 egg yolk, if you want it to look shiny)

toppings:

coarse sea salt, cinnamon-sugar, sesame seeds, poppy seeds, rosemary

In a small bowl, combine the first 4 ingredients. Stir in 3 tbsp of water first. If the dough is SUPER dry, then add a little more water and mix again.

Pour the entire contents of the bowl out, onto a lightly floured work surface and sprinkle with flour

Knead gently until the dough comes together into a ball - it'll be slightly sticky - it should only take 1 or 2 minutes.

Shape the dough into a roughly 20" rope. Make the rope into a U shape, twist the ends over each other and fold them down over the base of the 'U' to make a pretzel shape (see the .gif below)

In a shallow dish, combine the water and baking soda (from the dipping ingredients). Dip the shaped pretzel into the mixture and flip to coat completely. Transfer to a well-oiled baking sheet. (If you want a shiny pretzel, brush it with egg yolk now).

Immediately sprinkle over your topping(s) of choice. Leave in a nice warm place to rise whilst you preheat the oven to 450 degrees F (225 degrees C) - for about 15 minutes.

Bake for 20-25 minutes until darkly golden.

Eat immediately.

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2.2

http://www.topwithcinnamon.com/2013/04/single-serving-soft-pretzel.html

So, a few weeks ago I was asked if I would contribute to the re-launch issue of Spenser Magazine with an interview type thing and a recipe!

Of course I said yes!

 and so came about this Wholegrain Lemon Poppy Seed Layer Cake (my first time shooting a layer cake too!!) because as we all know, I am a die-hard fan of lemon cake.

It’s got oats, whole wheat flour, wheat germ and buttermilk in it, and it’s layered with an awesome lemon-cream cheese frosting! Yummmm

Anywhooo, you can read it all online fo’ free, and get the recipe HERE! (and be sure to subscribe to their mailing list so you know when the next, lovely issues are coming out too )

 Hasta luego, lovelies

(Just a mini reminder in case you didn’t catch it last week – I’ve made a Top With Cinnamon Facebook page )

Heh

Wow, so yeah, hi.

Sorry bout that 2 week break, I could bore you to TEARS with complaining about the fact I have my AS exams coming up in a month, and all I’ma be doing is revising (and making food) but I know that that is SO DULL.

So lets just not think about that okayyy?

(and I’ve got a lot of photos of popcorn for you so you’d better be ready)

I’ve been full on taunting people with this popcorn for a month, I think, on instagram;

mostly because I literally spent a week making it every day after school, trying to perfect the technique of coating the popcorn with the caramel whilst not letting it burn and then having to scrub a lot of pots.

As you can imagine,

I ate a lot of popcorn that week. I had to give it a break before I was ready to get back into popcorn mode again.

(I…I didn’t really know how to .gif the popcorn…so I just…dropped/threw it…).

For most of my life I’ve been stuck making plain popcorn because I can’t find techniques which get things to stick to the popcorn, without making it soggy or involving a heck tonne of butter.

So far, I’m loving this kettle corn thang where you add a little sugar to the pot whilst it’s cooking;

firstly you get caramelised popcorn and secondly, you can get all the additional toppings to stick to the hot caramel

Double win

But

I am mad into the cheddar cheese and caramel popcorn combo, and it makes me sad that I can’t recreate the cheddar popcorn at home so have to spend minimum £3.50 at Whole Foods buying a pack to lug home.

Plus it’s like “Hah, sure GH Cretors, ~8 servings per bag. Yeah, we’ll see about that *eats half a pack in one sitting*”

Cry.

So then it’s back to Whole Foods.

Which means I’m inevitably going to be drawn towards the grind-your-own-nut-butter section in with all the bulk grains and end up spending another £7 on pecan butter and flaked coconut.

Man, that place…it’s just too tempting (Hello free bread samples. Yes, I will eat ALL OF YOU)

Ahh okay, so enjoy the recipe, lemme know what you think and if you have any ingenious popcorn making techniques (…I don’t have a microwave though, so don’t make me sad with all your cool microwave popcorn…I’ve been through enough having to look at everyone’s delicious-looking 1 minute microwave mug cakes )

Firstlayyy,

because of the whole google-reader shutdown sitch that’s totally ruining my internet life at the mo, and because I keep getting asked by people,

I’VE  FINALLY MADE A Top With Cinnamon FACEBOOK PAGE

soooo if you ‘like’ it (hint hint hinty hint hint… hint) you can get updates, and read more of the words I type, even more often!! (I don’t actually know if that’s appealing to you, or not…)

(Also on the google reader note – I’ve switched to feedly for my blog reading, and bloglovin’ seems good too)

Secondly, my computer…

My dear, sweet, computer (I liked to call him Sam..well, I call many machines Sam: the 1950′s Kenwood stand mixer (uh, yeah, not even joking), ice cream maker and mini food processor, but whatever.)

decided that 5 years was enough time to be on this crazy planet, and left me yesterday.

As before, I had everything backed up, so I’m good to go; however I still feel a little lost without my Packard Bell (hah, yeah, you might be able to tell why it broke so much now…)

BUT ANYWAY, enough of that, life goes on (and it goes on with chocolate, heh heh heh).

So if you had scrolled to the bottom of the deep dish cookie post, you probably would have seen one of these totally photo bombing the last picture.

I’m sorry, but it just happened.

I think I just go on recipe trends.

There was the whole 2/3/4-ingredient thing, and now I’m making all these single-lady vegan things.

If you think I’m dropping more hints or something, I’m not I’m not I’m not.

I am a single-lady, buuuut I’m not actually trying to advertise that :/

and I’m not a vegan (it’s just convenient to not use eggs for single serving recipes, plus it means more people can make these recipes!), but it is nice to give that buttah and white sugar a rest

But, whatever, I have this to eat. I don’t even care about anything else.

(Note: I slightly modified the above image because apparently some people can’t actually read/ don’t {want to} read the written recipe where I do say that honey isn’t vegan. I take the photos for the recipe using ingredients I have on hand at the moment that I’m shooting. This time I used honey. It was merely out of convenience for ME – someone who isn’t vegan, but is INTERCHANGEABLE with vegan sweeteners like maple or agave syrup as, again, I have specified in the written recipe below. The pictures are just a piece of graphic design – not meant to be used in place of the written recipe which contains the METHOD, notes and ingredients. Sorry this is a long note, but I thought that people would be able to let go of the fact I used honey in one photo – {ooh rebel, I know} but apparently, 2 people so far can’t.)

I literally said, out loud after making this “I don’t even know what I was doing before this.”

As in: this is the best thing ever.

and

how has this not been a thing? What on EARTH have I been doing that has meant that I haven’t made this before?

Whole wheat, vegan, chocolate, molten, whaaat.

(the .gif makes it look hard to dig into… not really molten-y; that’s because it had been cooling for about 30 minutes whilst I was shooting, by then! It basically turns into a piece of fudge once cooled, pinky promise)

It’s so easy to make, and so delicious that I want to cry.

You mix it in the freaking dish people – in the dish! You don’t have to wash up anything apart from spoons and whatever vessel you decide to use to mix/bake/eat it up in. Easy as. NOW GO, GO TO YOUR KITCHENS AND MAKE THIS. IMMEDIATELY.

Notes

-I just minimally adapted this from my single-lady deep dish cookie from a few posts again, so the method is exactly the same
-Worried that the brownie will taste of honey if you use it? DON’T FRET, you seriously can’t taste it (Unless you’re using a strongly flavored honey, that is)
-To make it grain free, use the gluten free adaptations at the bottom of the page, and use baking soda instead of baking powder

For the gluten free version:
- replace the coconut oil with 2 tsp of almond butter (or another nut butter)
- replace the flour with 1 tbsp of ground almonds