I am a terrible blogger. My last post was way back in August!? Not cool, Ashleen. Not cool.

My apologies for the lack of consistency over the last few months. What can I say… life happens.

Anyways, let’s not dwell on my slacker ways and get right to the recipe.

These cupcakes are both delicious and healthy (well, a much healthier version of a typical chocolate cupcake, anyway). I love chocolate and I love avocados so why not put the two together? And since I was on a little bit of an avocado-kick I decided to avocado-fy the frosting as well.

I added a little bit of cayenne, cinnamon, and ginger, all of which complement the chocolate flavour really well. The spice is very subtle but gives the cupcakes a more complex flavour.

Ingredients

1 large avocado, mashed (125 g avocado meat)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
2 tbsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper*
1 cup white sugar (200 g)
1 cup brown sugar (200 g)

1 tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
3 cups all purpose flour (420 g)

1/2 cup dark cocoa powder (50 g)
1 cup boiling water (250 mL)
1-1/2 cups soy milk (375 mL)
2 tbsp. white vinegar (30 mL)

*Note: The spice in this cake is quite subtle. If you want more of a kick try adding more cayenne pepper (~1/2 tsp.)

Click here for the avocado chocolate ganache recipe used to frost these bad boys.

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 F (175 C) and line cupcake tins with cupcake papers.

Mash the avocado until it is totally smooth (it is easiest if you use a food processor; however, you can also use an egg beater to beat it until smooth.)

Add the oil, vanilla, and spices to the avocado mixture and beat until completely mixed.

Add the sugar to the mixture and beat until uniform.

In a separate bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

Boil the water and whisk together with cocoa powder until no lumps remain. Add in soy milk and vinegar.

Add the liquids and dry ingredients to the avocado/sugar mixture and mix until just combined.

Pour into cupcake tins (approx. 3/4 of the way full.) Bake at 350 F for ~16-18 min or until the tops of the cupcakes spring back when touched lightly (a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cupcake will come out clean when they are done.)

Allow to cool completely before frosting. For these ones I used a chocolate avocado ganache frosting.

This is not a true ganache recipe because real ganache consists of just chocolate and heavy cream (for more info, check out my Ganache 101 post.) While this version may not be the real thing, it is a healthier version that can be enjoyed by people who don’t do dairy. I used this “ganache” to frost my spiced chocolate avocado cupcakes but you can also eat it on its own like a pudding.

If you aren’t an avocado addict like me, this probably isn’t the ganache for you. On the other hand,  if you do have an avocado addiction, you’ll love this chocolate-avocado combo. The avocado flavour is subtle, but if you have super-sensitive taste buds you can try using just one avocado instead of two.

Ingredients

2 avocados, mashed (~250 g avocado meat)
1/2 cup maple syrup OR honey (125 mL)
2 tbsp. dark cocoa powder
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips (90 g)
Pinch of salt
1 can full fat coconut milk- my fave brand is Thai Kitchen (400 mL)

Directions

In a food processor, puree the avocados until smooth.

Add the maple syrup,cocoa powder, and salt to the food processor.

Melt the chocolate chips and add to the food processor.

Open the can of coconut milk and transfer the thick coconut cream from the top of the can to a separate bowl. Add the remaining liquid to the food processor and mix until completely blended.

Using an electric mixer, beat the coconut cream until light and fluffy. Beat in the chocolate mixture until you have a nice fluffy consistency.

Allow to cool in fridge for 2 hours before piping onto cupcakes.

After my last post on Homemade Speculoos Spread, I needed to find a use for all the leftover Speculoos (we are talking numerous jars from the various kitchen experiments.) I had already coerced many of my colleagues at work into helping me finish one jar, and in order to prevent myself from just eating the rest with a spoon, I decided to make a frosting to go along with some carrot cupcakes.

First, I would like to thank the Founder and Editor-in-chief of Framework Magazine, Miss Bria Lear, for providing me with the photographs for this post. Okay, I stole them from her Instagram, but she said I could! This is what happens when I’m too busy eating cupcakes to take my own photos.

Ingredients

1/2 cup vegetable oil (125 mL)
1 cup brown sugar (200 g)
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. cinnamon
2 eggs
1 cup all purpose flour (140 g)
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1-2 cups grated carrots (approx. 2 large carrots)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 F (175 C.) Line muffin tins with cupcake liners.

Mix together the vegetable oil, vanilla, cinnamon, and sugar.

Beat in eggs one at a time.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir in the grated carrots with the dry ingredients.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and mix until just combined.

Pour batter into muffin tins and bake at 350 F for 18-22 minutes.

Allow to cool before frosting with Speculoos Cream Cheese Frosting.

This frosting-cupcake combo is seriously addictive. I had to go back for seconds after eating a regular sized cupcake and ended up eating about a zillion mini ones. True story.

Ingredients

1 package (8 oz) cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup Speculoos spread (approx. 120 g)
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup icing sugar

Directions

Beat cream cheese, speculoos spread, and vanilla until smooth and uniform.

Slowly add icing sugar and blend together until thoroughly mixed.

If you are a little unsure about what exactly Speculoos spread is, then you are in for a treat! It looks a little bit like peanut butter (it has even been marketed as Europe’s alternative to peanut butter) but it is actually very different. It tastes like cinnamon cookies, but in spread form. A ‘cookie butter’ if you will.

Speculoos spread (also known as Biscoff spread in English-speaking countries) is made from a belgian cinnamon cookie called Speculoos and is probably one of my biggest addictions.  I’m absolutely obsessed with the Lotus brand  and nothing else I’ve tried has tasted as good. The cookies remind me a bit of ginger snaps except with a cinnamon flavour instead of ginger. Dip them in tea and they are dangerous. The spread is basically all of the cookie taste but with a peanut butter-like texture. It may have zero nutritional value (it is basically made up of sugar, fat, and flavouring) but I say it’s good for the soul. Try it and you’ll understand.

Unfortunately, while I’ve been able to find Speculoos cookies in Canada, the spread is very hard to come by. I had high hopes when I found the Trader Joes brand of “Speculoos cookie butter” in Vancouver. However my hopes were soon dashed. It was a sad day when I discovered it was nothing like the Lotus brand. While I’m a huge fan of Trader Joes, their ‘cookie butter’ just didn’t cut it for me. As a result, I:

1) Ordered some Lotus Biscoff spread online from the US, which ended costing me more than I would like to say (desperate times.) It was also not very straightforward using a Canadian address, which made me actually resort to contacting Lotus bakeries (like I said, desperate times.) p.s. I still have not received it in the mail.
2) Decided that I would set off to make my own version so I would no longer be stuck in such a desperate situation.

And here you have it… if you can’t get your hands on the actual stuff this is the next best thing and closest Lotus Speculoos spread imitation.

Ingredients

1 pack (250 g) Lotus Speculoos cookies (aka Biscoff cookies)*
1/4 cup brown sugar (50 g)
1/2 can full fat coconut milk (200 mL/200 g)
2 tbsp. vegetable shortening (20 g)
2 tsp. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. cinnamon

*The only Canadian store I’ve found these cookies is at Save on Foods.

Directions

Grind the cookies together with the brown sugar in a food processor until you get fine crumbs.

Add the coconut milk and blend for a few minutes, scraping sides with a spatula if necessary, until the cookies are fully mixed in.

Melt the vegetable shortening and add to the mixture along with the lemon juice and cinnamon.

Blend until completely uniform, transfer to a jar, and store in the fridge.

Here is a tip on how to best enjoy Speculoos spread: my favourite way is on toasted crumpets. The crumpet holes are perfect for holding melty, delicious Speculoos. It is also great to spread on crepes, pancakes, and waffles, as a dip for apples, or you know, to just eat by the spoonful.

I have decided that hazelnut milk is the best dairy-free milk there is. It makes cereal taste like dessert, is delicious in tea and coffee, and makes the best hot chocolate ever (hot chocolate that tastes like Nutella anyone?)

Turns out, hazelnut milk is incredibly easy to make yourself. After hearing about homemade almond milk from a lot of different people, I decided to go ahead and try hazelnut milk since I love the flavour so much. Pretty much one of the best ideas I’ve had.

I made this batch of nut milk with hazelnuts, but I’ve also tried it with almonds. You can use whatever nut you would like, or a blend of different nuts.

What you will need:

Blender*
Nut milk bag**
Juice jug
3/4 cup hazelnuts (~100 g)
4 cups water (1 L)
3-4 pitted dates for sweetness (omit if you prefer unsweetened milk)

*I have a terrible second-hand blender and this recipe still works quite well. I can only imagine the glorious nut milk I could make if I had a vitamix.
**I ended up using reusable produce bags from Whole Foods. You can buy actual ‘nut milk bags’ but if you don’t want to fork out the cash, you can use any bag that is made from thin fabric- just make sure it is clean!

Directions

1. Some people soak the nuts overnight before making nut milk, but I am not a patient person. I skipped this step.

2. Pour the water into the blender and add the nuts and dates. Set up your nut milk bag in the jug.

3. Blend on high for a few minutes, until it the mixture is as fine as possible. It will be very frothy, but the foam will settle after it has been left in the fridge for a little while.

4. Pour the nut milk into the nut milk bag.

5. Either use rubber gloves (that are clean) or make sure your hands are really clean and milk the nut milk bag! Squeeze and twist the bag to get all the liquid out.

6. Store the nut milk in the fridge. It lasts up to one week.

Enjoy anywhere you would use regular milk: in cereal, tea, coffee, hot chocolate, or just drink it as is.

I have a thing for the banana-Nutella combo.

Naturally, as soon as I saw this post I decided that it was absolutely necessary that I combine my love for banana bread and nutella into one delicious treat. After making a batch of dairy-free nutella I decided that instead of eating it right out of the jar with a spoon (which I have been known to do) that I would actually make something with it.  I opted for  a vegan nutella swirl  banana bread for so that my vegan pals could enjoy it too.

Ingredients

2 cups flour (280 g)
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup sugar (200 g)
4 ripe bananas (worked out to ~400 g for me)*
1/4 cup vegetable oil (65 mL)
1/2 cup full fat coconut milk (125 mL)
1 tsp. vanillla
3/4 cup homemade vegan nutella (see recipe)

*Never throw out old, brown bananas. Stick them in the freezer until you have a chance to make this!

Directions

Preaheat oven to 350 F (175 C).

Mix together dry ingredients. Set aside.

Mash bananas with electric mixer.

Mix mashed bananas together with oil, coconut milk, and vanilla.

Mix wet and dry ingredients together until just combined. Do not over mix.

Spoon nutella into dish and heat slightly in microwave. Approx. 20 seconds should do it (you don’t want to burn it!)

Mix 1 cup of the batter with the nutella.

Spoon the batter into a greased bread pan, alternating with spoonfuls of the nutella batter. Cut through the batter with a knife to give a marbled effect.

Bake at 350 F for 1.5 hours- this one takes a long time. And the smell that it gives off while taking forever to bake is torture.

Allow to cool slightly before removing from pan.

This banana bread is very tender and moist. And did I mention delicious?

Let this be a warning to you if we ever eat crepes together. Do not get between me and my Nutella-banana crepe. Ever.

As you may already know, I always like to be able to recreate store-bought foods myself. What if the world were about to end and all Nutella production ceased? No big deal because now I can make my own Nutella.

After some experiments, I came up with two different recipes. One that tastes pretty darn close to the real thing, and one for my dairy-free peeps (that’s right… real Nutella has dairy in it so it’s a no-no for people with allergies or lactose intolerance.) The dairy-free version also tastes similar to the real thing, just less milky. People who prefer dark over milk chocolate would definitely prefer this variety. After some extensive “testing” of these Nutella batches I’ve decided that I like both varieties equally.

Dairy-Free Homemade Nutella

150 g hazelnut butter (click here for instructions to make your own)- If making your own hazelnut butter, use  just over 1 cup of hazelnuts
75 g vegan semisweet chocolate
1/2 cup coconut milk (full fat from the can) (125 mL)
1/4 cup icing sugar (35 g)
2 tbsp. coconut oil

Directions

Prepare hazelnut butter following directions here. Or you can buy it.

If using a bar of chocolate, make sure you chop into into smaller pieces. If using chocolate chips, you are good to go.

Pour the coconut milk into a saucepan and heat while stirring.

Add the chocolate to the saucepan and stir until it is completely melted in the coconut milk.

Stir in the icing sugar and coconut oil until the mixture is completely uniform and there are no lumps.

Stir in the hazelnut butter until completely mixed.

Voila! Transfer to a jar and allow it to cool. Once cool it will thicken up to a proper consistency.

You can see in the photo below that the dairy-free version is slightly darker than the milk chocolate version (but just as delightful):

Homemade Nutella

150 g hazelnut butter (click here for instructions to make your own)- If making your own hazelnut butter, use  just over 1 cup of hazelnuts
100 g milk chocolate
2 tbsp. neutral tasting vegetable oil
1/2 tbsp. cocoa powder
1-1/2 tbsp. icing sugar

Prepare hazelnut butter using the directions above (or, again, you can always go the easy route and buy it.)

Either chop the chocolate into smaller chunks or use melting chips.

Melt the chocolate over a double boiler. Once completely melted, add the oil, cocoa powder, and icing sugar. Stir until completely uniform.

Stir in the hazelnut butter, until it is mixed in completely. Transfer to a glass jar and allow to cool. It will thicken to the proper consistency once it has cooled. To speed up the cooling process, you can stick the jar in the fridge.

*You can also try making this version dairy-free using vegan milk chocolate. I’ve never come across any, but I also haven’t looked very hard for it.

Emulsifiers

You will notice that, particularly with the dairy-free version, some of the oil can separate out from the rest of the Nutella mixture. This will most likely happen if you mix ingredients in the wrong order or overheat the mixture. Real Nutella doesn’t separate because it contains the emulsifier soy lecithin. Emulsifiers help distribute oil throughout a mixture and prevent it from separating out. Soy lecithin is able to do this because it contains molecules called phospholipids. Phospholipid molecules are attracted to both water and oil so they can keep the two mixed together. We all know what happens when we try to mix water and oil together: the two eventually separate. Add an emulsifier and it will bind with both the water and the oil molecules so once they are mixed, they stay mixed.

If you have a bit of oil separating out of your homemade Nutella, it’s no biggie. Just stir it up a bit before eating

These bad boys are so versatile that they can suit everyone’s tastes. You can make them more healthy by replacing the oil and using whole grain flour, or you can even veganize them, which I did this time around. I’ve also made them gluten-free and they were a huge hit with my gluten-free friends.

Ingredients

2 cups all purpose flour (280 g)- for a healthier version, use whole grain flour. (Or use a gluten-free flour mix.)
3/4 cup sugar (150 g)
2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. cinnamon
6 tbsp.  poppy seeds
2 cups grated carrot (200 g)
1 banana
1 tsp. vanilla
3 eggs, beaten (obviously not for the vegan version)
1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce (175 g)
1/4 vegetable oil (60 mL)- for a lower fat variety, replace oil with more apple sauce

For the vegan variety:

Use all the same ingredients except:
1. Reduce amount of baking soda to 1/2 tsp.
2. Add 1 tbsp. baking powder
3. Replace eggs with 1/2 cup soy milk + 1 tbsp. lemon juice

Directions

Grease muffin tins (or line with cupcake papers) and preheat oven to 350 F (175 C).

Mix together flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, and poppy seeds.

Stir in carrots and mashed banana (you will have lumpy banana bits-this is fine.)

In a separate bowl, mix together eggs (or soy milk), oil, vanilla, and apple sauce.

Mix in with dry ingredients until just combined. It is ok to have a lumpy batter with some dry spots.

Fill muffin tins 3/4 way full and bake for approx. 20 min (or until a toothpick comes out clean.)

I love my food processor. It was given to me for my birthday this year (thanks Dad!) and I have used it almost every day since – that is, unless you count the few weeks that I was separated from it when I recently moved. I had food-processing withdrawals. Luckily some awesome people brought my processor down to Vancouver for me and I was back to blending, slicing, and grating in no time.

One thing I love to make with my food processor is nut butter. It is so simple to make and you have total control over what ingredients you add. Some store-bought peanut butter brands, for example, contain ingredients like salt, oil, sugar, shortening, dextrin, and molasses. My homemade peanut butter contains peanuts. And that’s it.

You can make whatever varieties of nut butters you feel like. Variety is good. Right now my personal faves are hazelnut butter and almond butter.

Ingredients

This ingredients list is pretty simple:
-a few handfuls of the nut of your choice (almonds, hazelnuts, peanuts, cashews, etc. or even a blend of different nuts.)
Use more nuts for a larger batch, fewer if you just want a small amount of nut butter (you know, in case that wasn’t already very obvious to you)

Directions

The directions are also pretty simple:
Place raw or roasted nuts (your choice) in a food processor and blend until smooth. There is a very big difference in the taste and texture of the nut butter depending on whether raw or roasted nuts are used (scroll down for explanation.)

When you first start out, you will end up with a coarse nut flour. Keep blending and the nut powder will begin to clump. Keep on blending and you will eventually get a smooth nut butter. This entire process can take 10+ minutes depending on the quality of your food processor and whether or not the nuts are roasted. As you are processing the nuts, you may feel like they will never turn into butter and may be tempted to add oil, particularly if you are using raw nuts. Adding oil shouldn’t be necessary- just be patient and the nuts will eventually smooth into a paste. Make sure you scrape down the sides of the processor a couple of times with a spatula.

Some nuts will make nut butter more readily than others. Hazelnuts, for example, turn into a paste much more quickly than cashews or almonds and will give a much runnier paste (you can see this in the photo above.)

You can also make nut butter using a Vitamix blender. Although if you own a Vitamix, you probably already know this (and also, just know that I am extremely jealous… I’m dying to get my hands on one.)

Raw vs. Roasted Nuts for Making Nut Butter

It actually makes a really huge difference whether or not you use roasted nuts.

Some people swear that using raw nuts is the only way to go, usually for health reasons. Roasted nuts, on the other hand, are much easier to blend into a paste and have a more spreadable texture. Roasted nuts also have a nicer flavour, in my opinion.

When nuts are roasted, several chemical reactions occur that alter the nuts’ flavour and texture. These can include a breakdown of the fats in the nuts, lipid oxidation, breakdown of the proteins, and reactions called Maillard browning.

Raw nut butters definitely have a raw taste to them and do not spread as well. Roasted nut butters spread more easily because, with heat, the fats begin to degrade, which alters their consistency. The extent of the chemical changes in the nuts depends on the heat they are subjected to. The nice thing about roasting the nuts yourself at home is that you have full control over the roasting temperature/time. Also, some store-bought roasted nuts have added oil or salt, which obviously makes them less healthy.

To roast the nuts, simply place on a baking sheet and stick in a preheated oven (325-350 F) for up to 10 minutes. Keep an eye on them because you don’t want them to burn! If you are using hazelnuts, transfer them from the oven into a tea towel and rub them until the skins are removed. Then go ahead and proceed with your nut butter-making.