Dessert Obsessed

MOT.  My Olive Theory.

The Olive Theory is from the hilarious show How I Met Your Mother.  It basically states that opposites attract. 
The protagonists of the show, Marshall and Lily, are an Awesome Couple because they fulfill The Olive Theory. Lily loves olives while Marshall hates olives, which makes them completely compatible and a superfantastic couple.  But later on in the show, we find out that Marshall actually loves olives, and he only pretends to hate them because of The Olive Theory - but they are still a superfantastic couple, even though they no longer fulfill The Olive Theory.

Well, I have my own Olive Theory!  A person who is just the opposite of me, yet we are fabulously compatible: My Olive Theory.

MOT hates beans and jalapenos while I love them.  MOT likes the edges of brownies while I prefer the centers.  MOT only eats the white bread in the basket at the Cheesecake Factory and I only eat the brown bread.  MOT likes to cook while I hate it.  MOT is a Sandra Lee while I prefer to be a Ina Garten.  MOT likes to bake with mixes while I like to bake from scratch.  MOT loves to decorate desserts while I love making desserts.  The list could go on forever…but we’ll stop here

And so Mint Chocolate Brownie Cups were born!  These were created by MOT, aka BonBOn, my very opposite-of-me-but-still-compatible roommate!  They’re Duncan Hines family style brownies baked in cupcake pans, and then frosted with a semi-homemade mint frosting and topped with Andes mints.  They are so cute!  She’s so superb at being creative with her sweets.

 

Do you have a MOT?

My favorite love affair: peanut butter and chocolate.

 

Peanut Butter is so mouthstickingly fantastic by itself, and chocolate is so sinfully decadent, but together?

Together, a match so beautiful it would make a Greek god jealous.  The combination is sticky, melty, gooey, and so sweet…

Ok, i’m over the romance!  On to the edible part!  These cupcakes are vegan again!  The chocolate cupcakes are really light, so they go perfectly with the heavier peanut butter frosting.  Once again, I liked these much better than some other nonvegan chocolate cupcakes I’ve made before.  The peanut butter frosting really makes the cake.  Its so good!  I could just eat the frosting… but the frosting and the cake combined together just takes the already fabulous frosting to a whole new level.

Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes (I can’t remember where I found this recipe; I just have a printout)

1c soymilk mixed with 1 tsp white rice vinegar (set aside for 10 minutes to make “buttermilk”)

3/4 c granulated sugar

1/3 c oil

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 c all-purpose flour

1/3 c cocoa

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

Preheat ovent to 350 degrees and line a 12-cup cupcake pan with liners.  Add the “buttermilk”, sugar, oil, vanilla, and beat until foamy.  Sift together the dry ingredients in a separate bowl.  Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and combine until there are no lumps left.  Fill liners with batter.  Bake 15 - 18 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Generic Peanut Butter Frosting

1/2 c peanut butter

1/4 c margarine

1/2 c powdered sugar

1 tbsp soymilk

Combine all ingredients until desired consistency.

 

 As long as we’re on the subject of love affairs, here’s a gorgeous poem from the new Harold & Kumar movie. 

“The Square Root of Three” by David Feinberg

I’m sure that I will always be
A lonely number like root three

The three is all that’s good and right,
Why must my three keep out of sight
Beneath the vicious square root sign,
I wish instead I were a nine

For nine could thwart this evil trick,
with just some quick arithmetic

I know I’ll never see the sun, as 1.7321
Such is my reality, a sad irrationality

When hark! What is this I see,
Another square root of a three

As quietly co-waltzing by,
Together now we multiply
To form a number we prefer,
Rejoicing as an integer

We break free from our mortal bonds
With the wave of magic wands

Our square root signs become unglued
Your love for me has been renewed

 Isn’t it clever?!

 

photos courtesy of JanJann and BonBOn.

Its almost summer! Which calls for celebration of all things tropical, sunny, and yummy! For the past week, we’ve had awful sauna-esque summer weather, here in Los Angeles. I couldn’t even turn on my oven, because it was SO HOT!!!

I’d been obsessing over the Pina Colada Bundt Cakes in Hannah Kaminsky’s My Sweet Vegan, so I had to make these as soon as the weather got cooler and I could turn on the oven again.

Pina Coladas are probably one of my favorite drinks, so I was really excited for this recipe. They’re so sweet! And I love coconut. The cakes don’t taste EXACTLY like Pina Coladas, but they are still super delicious! The coconut in the cakes make them all chewy and macaroony. The texture’s my favorite part. And the icing is the perfect complement to the cake (but don’t eat the icing by itself; it needs the cake bring out the flavors!) My cake didn’t come out gorgeous, but the taste more than made up for it.

Pina Colada Mini Cakes (adapted from My Sweet Vegan)

1 c sweetened shredded coconut

1/4 c margarine

1/4 c granulated sugar and 1/4 c brown sugar

1 c crushed pineapple, drained

1 c all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 tbsp Kahlua (or other tsp rum)

1 tsp lemon juice

1/4 c soymilk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and lightly grease a 12 cup muffin pan.

Cream together the coconut, margarine, and sugars. Add the drained pineapple to the creamed sugars, and combine. Sift the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt) together and combine with the creamed mixture. Stir in the soymilk, rum, and lemon juice.

Pour the batter into your prepared pan and bake for 20-25 minutes. Allow them to cool completely before icing.

Rum Glaze (by Dorothy)

1 c powdered sugar

1 tbsp Kahlua

1/4 c soymilk (or however much you need to get the consistency you want)

Whisk all ingredients together, and then drizzle over cakes!

Enjoy!