Vegan Banana Creme Pie

INGREDIENTS
- 1 pre-baked 9" pie shell
- whipped coconut cream (i.e. the fat from a can of coconut milk left in the fridge for a day, whipped with sugar and vanilla extract)
- 4 bananas, sliced
- 2 tsp orange juice
- 1 tsp Grand Marnier (or just another tsp of orange juice)

Pastry Cream
- 2 cups plain soy milk, divided
- 1 tsp agar flakes
- 1 vanilla bean, halved and scraped
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 3 tbsp cornstarch
- pinch of tumeric (optional)
- 1 tbsp margarine

Method
1. Bring 1/2 cup of the soy milk to a boil in a small saucepan. Remove from heat, sprinkle agar over top, and set aside.
2. Bring 1 cup of the soy milk (not the stuff from step 1) and the vanilla bean/scrapings to bubbling over medium heat in a saucepan. While it is heating, whisk the sugar and cornstarch (and tumeric, if using) together in a medium bowl, then whisk in the remaining 1/2 cup of soy milk. When the soy milk on the stove is bubbling around the edges, remove the vanilla bean and slowly whisk it into the sugar/cornstarch/soy milk mixture.
3. Return the mixture to the saucepan over medium heat, add the soy milk/agar mixture, and bring to bubbling, whisking constantly. Cook for 2-3 mins, or until the agar is fully dissolved. Remove from heat and whisk in margarine. When thickened, pour into a clean bowl (pour through a sieve if the vanilla bean left any chunks behind) and cover with plastic wrap to prevent that scummy layer from forming. Poke a few holes in the plastic wrap to let the steam escape. Let sit to cool to room temperature.

To make the pie:
1. Toss the banana slices in the juice and Grand Marnier. Pour half of the pastry cream into the pie shell, then layer all the banana slices on top. Top that with the remaining pastry cream and smooth out the top. Top with plastic wrap and put in the fridge to fully set (this will take a few hours).
2. When ready to serve, remove from fridge and top with coconut cream.

This is a pie you can make the day before and let sit in the fridge. It really does taste fabulous the next day.

Low Fat Lemon Bars

These moist, tangy lemon bars are a wonderful low fat treat. Take some along to your next family picnic or gathering. You might want to make two batches, as they will disappear fast.

Cook Time: 25 minutes

Total Time: 25 minutes

Ingredients:

• For the Base:
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup quick oats
• 3 tbsp butter
• For theTopping:
• 1 egg
• 1 egg white
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 tbs flour
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• Juice and zest of 1 large lemon
• Confectioner's sugar, sifted, for sprinkling

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat an 8-inch square baking pan with nonstick cooking spray. Combine flour, oats and sugar in a medium bowl. Using a pastry blender, add butter and blend until the mixture is crumbly.
Press crumbs into the bottom of the baking pan. Bake for 10 minutes until edges are golden.
Meanwhile, whisk egg and egg white. Add sugar and beat until creamy. Add flour, baking powder, salt and lemon; whisk until smooth.
Pour lemon mixture over pre-baked base. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until center is set.
Cool in pan for 15 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.
Makes 16 squares.
Per Serving: Calories 133, Calories from Fat 24, Total Fat 2.8g (sat 1.4g), Cholesterol 19mg, Sodium 15mg, Carbohydrate 25.1g, Fiber 0.1g, Protein 2.1g

Sugar Free Birthday Cake

Ingredients:

2 cups sifted cake flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons softened butter
1 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup sugar substitute for baking, such as Equal
1 egg
3/4 cup milk
1/2 c. sugar-free jam of yoour choice
1 c. nondairy, fat-free whipped topping

1. Prehead the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Line 2 8" cake pans with waxed paper.

3. Sift the flour, baking powder, and the salt together

4. Mix the butter and vanilla together at medium speed until it is fluffy.

5.Gradually add the sugar substitute.

6. Add the egg, beating until the mixture is fluffy.

7. Add flour mixture, alternating with milk, beating on low speed until well-blended.

8. Pour mixture into the pans; bake for about 25-30 minutes, until the cake is done.

9. Cool thoroughly.

10. Spread the sugar-free jam on the bottom layer of cake.

11. Stack one layer on top of the other.

12. Spread the whipped topping over the cake. You may color the topping with food coloring if you like
before spreading.

13. Refrigerate cake until shortly before serving; decorate.

You can use sugar-free pudding to ice the cake instead of whipped topping if you like. For instance, use chocolate pudding for chocolate icing. You can also sprinkle the whipped topping with sugar-free jello. Use silk flowers, small toys, sugar-free candy, and, of course, candles to decorate.

I usually will take the end of a wooden spoon and poke holes through the cake every 2 inched or so.  Then I would pour in jello and sugar free pudding. Save some puuding and sugar free whip cream for the top! Best flavors are strawberry and orange! Keep refridgerated!!

Chocolate Fudge Cupcakes!

These are a pretty decadent cupcake if I say so myself! Dark rich chocolate packed with fudge and carmel inside.  Here is how to make them. 

Buy the best chocolate cake mix you can, it is well worth the price.  Mix accordingly, remove 1/2 c. of batter and put aside. fill cupcake tin 1/4 full. Add to the bowl with extra batter and add 20-25 dark chocolate chips and carmel of your choice, it can be cut up Kraft caramels or even caramel syrup. What ever will equal about a 1/2 c.

Spoon this on top of cupcakes, then add the rest of the batter on top of that, bake as recommened.

Enjoy!

The Pink Frumpy Cupcake

                    See those cute cupcake liners?? Yeah my soon to be daughter in law bought those for me =o)

Well it certainly has been a bit since I have posted the cupcake of the week, so here it is.  It is all very much vanilla, with vanilla creme center. The frosting is delish! but you cannot work with it! I used everything to get this to stand up. It is a new recipe in which I will only post if someone would like very tasty FRUMPY cupcakes =o) lol!

     This frosting will not stand up! Not good for decorating at all, sorry lol

                            The best part NUM!

Important Cupcake Making Instructions

1. Add coffee to all your chocolate cupcakes. It doesn't have to be much, but it has to be at least 2 tablespoons per dozen cupcakes. You can substitute this amount for other liquids in your recipe, such as water or milk.

2. Don't skimp on the vanilla! Especially for vanilla cupcakes, you should be adding 1 tablespoon of vanilla instead of the measly teaspoon called for in most recipes.

3. Frosting. This is important. You don't want your frosting greasy and gritty. To make the best, most creamy vanilla frosting ever, this is what you do: Add about a 1/4 cup Marshmallow Fluff (comes in a jar near the marshmallows) or melted marshmallows (microwave - 10- 20 seconds) to a butter-based frosting recipe. Don't you dare use shortening (this is where the greasy mouth-feel comes in, yuck!). Be frivolous and careless with the vanilla here too. You won't be sorry.

4.  Use color in your frosting! Is it springtime? Add a few drops of blue, green or pink. Fall? A deep orange, brown or green would be nice. You get the idea. White is boring, both on your walls and on your cupcakes. Don't be like that.

5. Very important...don't overbake! Only bake until the middle of a cupcake is springy and a toothpick comes out with crumbs on it. Don't bake until your toothpick comes out clean and the sides of the cupcakes come off the sides of the pan...that spells dry and overdone. Leave the cupcakes in the pan for about 5 minutes after they come out of the oven and they will cook a little more and you'll also be able to handle them easier.

Let the cupcakes completely cool before frosting or you will have a runny mess on your hands.

6. To frost the most beautiful cupcakes- don't use a boring old butter knife-that's old school. Put the frosting in a ziploc sandwich bag and cut off a small corner. Squish the frosting through the hole. I like to start on the outer edge of the cupcake and swirl around until I get to the middle. This way, I have a nice little curly-q on the top. If you're going to add sprinkles, do it quickly before the frosting sets and they don't stick.

For a cool frosting effect, put a few drops of food coloring in the ziploc bag before you add the frosting. The frosting can be white or a different color. Try it!

7.  For the best cupcake experience, EAT WITH A SMILE AND GIVE ONE TO SOMEONE YOU <3<3

Winter Mint

Check out these dreamy, decadent, and divine cupcakes!! They are a vanilla cupcake with white frosting, with just a touch of peppermint........What a nice cupcake for winter =o)

Apple Strudel

This is a Paula Dean recipe that turned out fantastic!! I made it for Thanksgiving morning YUM!

Ingredients

1/2 cup golden raisins

2 to 3 Granny Smith apples (about 1 pound), peeled, cored, halved, and thinly sliced

1/2 lemon, juiced

1 tablespoon lemon zest, finely chopped

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, plus more for sprinkling

1/2 cup brown sugar, packed

1/2 cup crushed shortbread cookies

1/4 cup chopped pecans

2 tablespoons butter, cut into pieces

5 sheets phyllo dough from 1 pound package of frozen dough

2 tablespoons butter, melted, for brushing phyllo sheets, plus more if needed

1 tablespoon granulated sugar

Confectioners' sugar

Caramel sauce, purchased

Glaze:

• 2 cups confectioners' sugar
• 3 1/2 tablespoons milk

For the Strudel:

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a small bowl, pour the bourbon or apple juice over the raisins and microwave on high for 45 seconds. Let sit for 15 minutes.
Combine the raisins, apples, lemon juice, lemon zest, cinnamon, brown sugar, cookie crumbs, pecans, and butter in a large bowl.
Remove the phyllo dough from the box, unfold, and cover with a damp towel. Place 1 sheet of phyllo on the work surface and brush lightly with melted butter. Repeat with the remaining sheets, brushing each with melted butter, stacking when done, being sure to keep the unbuttered phyllo covered.
Place the apple mixture on the nearest third of the phyllo stack, being sure to leave a 2-inch border. Gently lift the bottom edge of the phyllo stack to cover the filling and fold the side edges over. Continue to roll the stack away from you until the filling is completely sealed in and the seam is on the bottom. Transfer to the prepared baking sheet. Brush the top with melted butter and sprinkle with granulated sugar.
Bake for 30 minutes, until golden brown. Pour over the glaze and sprinkle with cinnamon and confectioners' sugar. Pass warm caramel sauce, to drizzle over the strudel.

For the Glaze:

Mix ingredients thoroughly.
*Cook's Note: If too thick add a little bit of milk. If too thin add a little bit of confectioners' sugar.

Pineapple Upside Right "Delights"

These little bad boys just might be my favorite! They are filled with a light cream filling with pineapple sauce, Mmmm  decadent, and divine for sure!!!

Ok this is how I made these

1 white cake mix of your choosing

1 stick of butter

2 c packed brown sugar

1 can crushed pineapple

creamy white frosting

Drain the pineapple juice and place aside

Mix your batter according to box instructions with the exception of the water, use the pineapple juice you set aside.

Use an oblong pan and put your stick of butter in, place in preheated oven to melt.  Fill your cupcake papers 3/4 full and bake, take out butter in pan and sprinkle brown sugar coating the pan completely. Add crushed pineapple to the final layer, bake with cupcakes 18 minutes or so.

After cupcakes have cooled, cut cones in the center of each cupcake and save top. Spoon in just a tad of pineapple goodness, cover with frosting and replace cap. After you have them all filled use the remaining pineapple goodness to frost each cupcake! Wha La YUM!



Pumpkin Roll

You can find this recipe on the inside label of the Libbys can =o)

If it says Libby, Libby, Libby on the lable, lable, lable you will like it, like it. like it, on your table, table table!!

What Do You Know About Pumpkins And Pie?

Pumpkins are the most famous of the winter squashes. That is right pumpkins are a vegetable. They come in various sizes, color and sweetness. The most common familiar color is orange.

Special pumpkins are used for making pies. They are called pie pumpkins or sugar pumpkins. They generally weigh two to four pounds. There flesh is sweeter and less stringy.

History
The tradition of eating pumpkin at Thanksgiving came from the Pilgrims, who settled in New England.
The custom was to serve the pumpkin with its head and seeds removed. The cavity filled with milk, honey and spices. It was then baked until tender.

Now the pumpkin is served at any time of the year and pureed, either fresh or canned. This is used to make sweet golden pumpkin pies.

A little story about Libby´s:
90% of the pumpkins grown in the United States are farmed within a 80 mile radius of Peroria, Illinois. The town of Morton, close to Peroria, is claimed to be the Pumpkin Capital of the World.

Libby´s pumpkin processing plant is located in Morton, Illinois. Nestle Food, a Switzerland company, owns Libby´s. Libby contracts with private farmers and supply the proprietary seed and the equipment to grow their patented pumpkins.  About 5,000 acres of the farm land is devoted to producing the Dickinson pumpkins for Libby.

Libby´s Select Dickinson Pumpkins are a special strain of Pie Pumpkin used by Libby´s (a division of Carnation Company) for their canned pumpkin. These pumpkins are larger than your normal pie pumpkins. Pie Pumpkins weigh about 5 pounds. The Dickinson’s weigh 10 to 14 pounds, are oblong and tanned in color. They have a much thicker orange flesh and less open space in the center.

How Libby´s Canned Pumpkin puree makes it to your store shelves:

Libby uses Dickinson pumpkins which are larger than your traditional pie pumpkin you find in the stores. These pumpkins take about 105 warm days from planting to maturity. They weigh about 12 pounds.

The Dickinson pumpkins are smaller, squatter, meatier, heavier and sweeter than the Halloween pumpkin. It has a creamy texture and fresh pure pumpkin flavor

The harvest for the Dickinson pumpkins is in late summer and through the fall. The Dickinson pumpkins are harvested mechanically, using machines that snip the pumpkins off the vines and line them up in a row.

After being cut off their vines the pumpkins are left in the field for an one or two week curing period.

A tractor with a conveyor belt collects the pumpkins from the field and dumps them into a padded truck. The pumpkins are transported to the Libby´s processing plant in Morton, Illinois.

At the processing plant, the pumpkins go through a disinfectant wash and then rinsed. They get chopped and cooked.

The pumpkins are pureed and canned, which will take less than 24 hours from the farm field to canned pumpkin puree.

During the harvest, the factory can process 500,000 pumpkins a day into cans.

Now off to big chain stores and your local grocer.

The future of Canned Pumpkin puree is in DANGER:
Libby´s supplies 90% of the world´s pumpkin puree in just over 5,000 acres of contracted and leased farm land.

This is not good for you and I for two main reasons.

1. Libby´s has total control over the future prices of canned pumpkin puree. They control 90% of the world market for pumpkins. If they want to increase their profits, they can easy raise prices to no end, that is until the market refuses to live without pumpkins.

With no real competition, the consumer would need to just live without canned pumpkin or boycott Libby´s.

2. Reason number two is the most scariest because it has already happened in 2009.
All the world´s pumpkins are grown in such a small area of about 5,000 acres. All the pumpkins in this small area are all of the same patented Dickinson pumpkin variety.

Libby´s processing facility is located in Morton, Illinois, and almost all of the pumpkins are grown within a fifty-mile radius of the plant.

Disease and bad weather conditions could destroy 90% of the world´s pumpkins in just a matter of days. This exactly what happened in 2009.

A 15 ounce can of Libby´s Pumpkin puree went from $1.80 to $7.00. This was just because of a single year of bad weather.

Imagine what the danger will be if multiple years of bad weather or disease took over Libby´s pumpkins. No more pumpkin pies unless you grow it yourself or wealthy enough to eat a $50 dollar pumpkin pie.

If different varieties were used in Libby´s pumpkin puree, a diseased crop would not spread so quickly. It might just attach a single variety while preserving another.

The same applies to the weather. Different varieties of pumpkins will mature at different times of the year. Some might get hit with bad weather while another could wait until the weather cooperates.

Conclusion:
You get the story that Libby´s just about owns the pumpkin market and the towns they use for their patented pumpkins. And Libby´s is at the mercy of mother nature and of plant diseases.


What is in a can of Libby´s Pumpkin Puree?
Nothing is added to the canned pumpkin puree, no salt, no sugar, no artificial flavorings, no colorings or preservatives. Some water is removed to concentrate the pumpkin for an even consistency and fresh rich taste.

Libby´s uses pumpkins they call Libby´s® Select Dickinson. Libby´s owns all of the rights to this modified pumpkin. So do not try to look if you can grow it yourself.

Cookies And Cream Cupcake

To fill the cupcake, take a knife and cut out cones, add your filling, slice the pointy part off and recap the cupcake wha la!

What can I tell you about these cupcakes? Well they were made with a white cake mix and then I added crushed oreos. I filled them with a mix of vanilla pudding and crushed oreos, and I used the Buttercream frosting also mixed with crushed oreos. I think that they were way too rich and would have been better in the summer!

Classic Buttercream Frosting Recipe

Directions:
1 cup butter (2 sticks or 1/2 pound), softened
3-4 cups confectioners (powdered) sugar, SIFTED
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
up to 4 tablespoons milk or heavy cream

Instructions:
Beat butter for a few minutes with a mixer with the paddle attachment on medium speed.  Add 3 cups of powdered sugar and turn your mixer on the lowest speed (so the sugar doesn’t blow everywhere) until the sugar has been incorporated with the butter.  Increase mixer speed to medium and add vanilla extract, salt,  and 2 tablespoons of milk/cream and beat for for 3 minutes.  If your frosting needs a more stiff consistency, add remaining sugar.  If your frosting needs to be thinned out, add remaining milk 1 tablespoons at a time.  Enjoy!

Best Ever Pie Crust

This is the only pie crust recipe I will use, it comes out perfect every time!  Nice and flakey

In a food processor:  Combine 1 1/4 cups flour, 1/8 teaspoon salt and 1/2 cup COLD butter or margerine. While processing add 2 to 4 tablespoons ice water.  When dough forms a ball, remove and either roll out for pie or wrap in plastic wrap and chill until ready to use.  If you want a baked pie shell, bake at 450 degreesf. for 12 to 15 minutes.

My Newest Creation, I call them Jolts

Check out these dreamy, decadent, and divine cupcakes, They are dark chocolate cupcakes with a chocolate mocha filling, iced with more chocolate. Sprinkled lightly with cocoa and a piece of milk chocolate on the top!  Gotta love them!

Gourmet Cupcakes Sweet!

Tomorrow I will be starting a new weekly cupcake series. I will be offering  many different dreamy, decadent, and divine cupcakes!  And Everyone loves cupcakes!! =o)