Reindeer Poop: vegan and GF cookie dough bites

This has been my super quick go to recipe for the holiday season since I came up with it; the great thing about this is it's something you can do all year round, vegan and gluten free friends can enjoy them, and they're so good no one can resist them. They're kinda like reese's peanut butter cups in cookie dough form. I found this lovely recipe over on momables but ended up tweaking it so much I think it qualifies as a different recipe. Here's the lowdown of what I did, but if you're feeling creative let me know what changes you made in the comments! I couldn't think of a better name for it but I think it's cute, no?

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup coconut flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
• 1/4 cup crushed almonds
• 1 to 2 tablespoons maple syrup to bind

Directions

1. Mix ingredients in a in a bowl with a fork until it resembles cookie dough. if it doesn't stick together, add more syrup. If it's too sticky, add a bit more flour.
2. roll into one inch balls (about a teaspoon of dough)
3. chill in the fridge for about an hour
4. enjoy!

this recipe makes about a dozen balls. I've made this recipe once with regular flour and once with coconut. Both times it came out great! If you would like it to look marbled like the photo, add the cocoa powder after everything else has been mixed. 

Other substitute ideas: almond butter, whole wheat flour, nutella, agave nectar, walnuts, peanuts, gosh the possibilites are endless...

TOTORO Cupcakes! // Snickerdoodle recipe

As you may or may not know, I love to bake. Mostly cookies, but these cupcakes were the bombdiggity so I had to share! I've debated whether or not adding a food component to this blog and decided what the heck, it's bound to happen sooner or later.

For my Asian art history class, we had a project in which we had to pick something artistic and Japanese and do a presentation on it. I chose to do the film My Neighbor Totoro, focusing on O Totoro because he's just so loveable (and my professor's favorite *brownie points*). Since he is the inspiration for many culinary artists, I baked cupcakes to go along with my slide show. The presentation went great!

YOU WILL NEED

• 1 box of vanilla cake, and all it requires
• cinnamon ~ approx. 1tbsp
• nutmeg ~ approx 1 tsp
• cloves and/or allspice ~ approx 1 tsp
• optional: pumpkin or apple pie spice
• 1 tsp of almond extract
• for frosting: cream cheese, butter, confectioner's sugar, vanilla extract 
• chocolate frosting ~ approx 2 tbsp
• plastic baggies
• food coloring

INSTRUCTIONS

Follow the directions on the box for the cake. Add the almond extract and the seasonings while mixing to taste. I understand that snickerdoodle is a fancy way to say with cinnamon, but that's boring by itself! So i always accompany cinnamon with nutmeg and cloves (allspice if I don't have cloves). Cloves really brings the taste of fall. To be honest I'm not entirely sure just how much of each spice I put in, but the ratio is about right (3 parts cinnamon, 1 part each of every other spice) I tasted the batter (alot) as I went along. The almond extract is a great undertone to round out these flavors *yum.*

I used this recipe from allrecipes.com for the cream cheese frosting. It's super great as is but a bit too tangy for this cupcake, so I added an extra half cup of the confectioner's sugar. I also halved this recipe which was just enough for 20 cupcakes/1 box of cake.

FOR TOTORO: 

1. Assuming you mixed the frosting in a bowl, put half of the frosting in a baggie and set it aside.
2. For the frosting left in the bowl, add one drop of red, blue, and yellow each to achieve the grey depicted (i wish I made it darker, so maybe two drops each next time)
3. place that batch in a baggie. Get the chocolate frosting in a baggie too.
4. In the white and grey baggie, snip a larger corner to squeeze out of. For the chocolate baggie, snip a tiny corner (for the detail :3)
5. Start with the bellies. You want a semicircle that goes a little more than half way up the cupcake.
6. fill the rest of the space with grey.
7. Add the whites of the eyes!
8. with chocolate, add nose, pupils, whiskers, and the iconic arrows on the belly that make it Totoro.
9. ENJOY!

This was a super fun cupcake to make (and eat). If you don't want to go with Totoro for the cupcakes, I'd suggest the cream cheese frosting with a simple chocolate design like a swirl; the bit of chocolate with all the other flavors was perfect! I was glad I got to experience and research a bit of the magic that is Totoro :) I'll be sure to watch some more Miyazaki films over winter break!