Clean Eating Chocolate Banana Pie

When it's 100+ degrees day after day, I love having a cold but calorie-light treat.

I found this recipe in Clean Eating and had to try it. I'm pretty happy with it. It tastes like chocolate banana ice cream and is super easy to make. The actual recipe calls for you to make your own crust...I just went with the pre-made Graham cracker crust.

Yum!

Ingredients: 

* 5 small ripe bananas

* 1 cup coconut milk

* 1 tsp vanilla

* 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

* Graham cracker pie crust

* Dark chocolate cut into small shavings

* Crushed unsalted peanuts

Directions: 

1.  Blend bananas, cocoa powder, coconut milk and vanilla

2.  Pour into pie crust

3.  Top with chocolate shavings and crushed peanuts

4.  Freeze for 4 hours and serve (if frozen for longer than 4 hours, thaw in fridge for 30 min. 

Red(dish) Velvet Cupcakes

For the 4th of July I was inspired to make red velvet cupcakes. I have no idea why. I've never made cupcakes before and suddenly I found myself smitten with the idea of making them.

So I googled a Martha Stewart recipe and got to it.

Cake Ingredients: 

• 2 1/2 cups cake flour
• 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 cups sugar (I cut this in half)
• 1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 tsp red gel paste food colour
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp distilled white vinegar

Frosting - I used premade frosting but you can make your own cream cheese frosting

Directions: 

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Mix cake flour, cocoa powder, and salt together. Don't wear black during this process. I got it ALL OVER myself.

2. In a mixer on medium high speed, whisk together sugar and oil until combined. Add eggs one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Mix in food color and vanilla.

3. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in 3 batches alternating with 2 additions of milk and whisking well after each addition. Stir together the baking soda and vinegar in a bowl and add the mixture to the batter and mix on medium speed for 10 seconds.

SCIENCE! It's a cupcake volcano!

 4. Pour into cupcake cups until 3/4 full. 

5. I tried out a tip I found on Pinterest. Preheat the oven to 350F. Pop your cupcakes in there, reduce the temperature to 325F, and bake for 25 minutes. Apparently this is supposed to make your cupcakes cook up taller and fluffier. I have no idea why, but it seems to have worked!

They're so fluffy!!!

They didn't turn out very red but they turned out very delicious. I can deal with that. I went kind of light on the food coloring. So I supposed they're just chocolate velvet cupcakes.


7. Icing. My nemesis. I don't like icing; it's too sweet. But these cupcakes are for someone else, so they needed icing (otherwise they're pretty much just chocolate muffins). As I mentioned above, I used pre-made cream cheese icing. To make it fluffy, I beat it in the mixer for a few minutes on high speed. 

Silky sugar

 8. I had big dreams of making beautiful swirls on each cupcake with a pastry bag but my nozzle was too small so it was taking forever to frost each cupcake. After three of them, icing squirted out the top of the pastry bag, all over my hands and the counter. I don't have the patience for that sort of thing, so I resorted to a knife. It wasn't as pretty, but hey, that's why I threw some sprinkles on there. Distract the hungry masses with some color and hope they just focus on the taste of the cupcake. 

Have a great Fourth!