Peanut Butter Blossoms!

In class this week we worked on substitutions and replacements in baking. We talked about using banana puree as a replacement for fats in baking and I began to day dream about peanut butter cookies using bananas in place of butter. After I quickly wiped the drool off my desk, I vowed it would be something to work on over the weekend.

I came across this recipe when I was searching for recipes that had experimented with this substitution. Flourless and vegan (except when you chose to use Hershey kisses :D)! Even better than I had imagined!
AND! Drum roll please..... these are 80 damn calories.

Flatty-Flat Flourless Peanut Butter Banana Blossoms

In retrospect I should have used baking powder rather than baking soda for this particular application.  

For those that don't know how baking powder vs. baking soda work, here's a little science lesson for you.  Baking powder is baking soda with an acid, like cream of tartar, added to it.  In order for these chemical leaveners to get down with their bad selves and do their thang they need an acid, moisture, and heat. Baking soda is used in applications where an acid is used in the recipe. In this recipe baking soda was chosen because the recipe had chocolate chips. Chocolate is an acid.  Because I chose to omit the chocolate chips the batter lacked enough acid to work with the baking soda.  That's why I am going to suggest to you, Mr. Reader, to used baking powder rather than baking soda, and you should get more rise, and less spread out f these bad boys. 

Enough of my blathering and on to what you really want. 

The recipe, again adapted from this recipe here.

1 cup Peanut Butter (I used store brand natural peanut butter, super nom)

3/4 cup White Sugar

1 Ripe Banana, Mashed

1 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Vanilla 

Hershey Kisses!!! (Or some sorta vegan stuffs) 

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Combine all the ingredients except the chocolate in a bowl and use your super chef muscles to stir them vigorously with a spoon... or use a food processor if you don't have super chef muscles yet, but I like to use a spoon and work for my food stuff. 

Plop rounded tablespoon size servings onto a ungreased sheetpan, and bake for about 15 minutes. Add kisses to the tops and bake for 5 more minutes. 

I know it's hard, but let them cool a little before eating them, because there's nothing worse than burning your tongue and not being able to taste anything for two weeks. 

Love you! 

How To...

So how do you change your favorite fattening meals into healthy ones you can truly indulge in? Substitutions are the key to success in the lives of comfort food stress eaters like you and I. You won't always be able to make a meal "healthy" this way, but you can make it a bit better for you than it normally would be without sacrificing the kind of food you really love.

Gluten-free, vegan pot pie.

I made this pot pie a while back. Who doesn't love pot pie? Go ahead name something this side of Thanksgiving that's as comforting as pot pie, I dare you. 

Pot pie also happens to be extremely high in calories and fat.  My goal was to make a gluten-free, vegan, healthier pot pie. Now, I'm just a vegan wannabe, I can't get myself to make the change even though I know how great it would be for me.  I try to cook and eat vegan as much as possible, I find it a fascinating and admirable life-style. 

I sincerely apologize, but the actual recipe for this was lost. Fortunately, it's easy enough to make on your own.

So let's talk substitutions. 

The crust was a typical 3-2-1 ratio pie dough.  3-2-1 refers to the ratio (by weight, not volume) of flour (3), fat (2), and water (1).  The flour for this dough is made with white rice flour, gluten-free flour blend, flax seed meal, and shredded zucchini.  It's kind of a strange combination, but that's what I happened to have on hand at the time. Using shredded zucchini in baked goods like pie crust, bread, and muffins is a great way to boost the nutrients in an ingredient.  Because of the zucchini I reduced the water a bit. And If I can digress for a moment I'd love to speak about my love affair with flax seed meal. In this application it's only be used for fiber and added protein, but flax seed meal makes an amazing egg replacer (1tbsp flax seed meal to 3 tbsp water per egg).  Eggs freak me the heck out. Which is ridiculous statement for someone going to school for baking and pastry, but if there were ever a driving force pushing me into veganism it's my hatred for eggs.  Not only does the texture of eggs freak me out, but the amount of illnesses attached to them and their cooking, and the amount of cholesterol and fat in one egg starts to make me a feel a bit nauseated. 

The fat I used to cut into the flour was Earth Balance vegan vegetable spread.  It's made with non-hydrogenated oils, it's gluten-free, vegan, lactose-free, and casein-free. 

The filling is made with sauteed onions, blanched carrots, peas, potatoes, and vegetable stock rather than chicken stock.  It's thickened using rice flour to make a roux with the oil from the sauteed onions. 

I lined ramekins with the pie dough, filled them up and put a layer of pie dough on top and baked in a 350 degree oven until the dough crisped up. 

It was delicious, warm, creamy, and wonderful.  I highly suggest you try to make some smart substitutions in your own cooking. As I continue this blog I will talk a lot more about how to make substitutions.