Dessert

Kate brought amazing carrot cake balls to our tango class. She said it was easy to make: dates, walnuts, carrots, optional frosting. The recipe seemed a lot like this Minimalist Baker recipe, and a...

Our alto, Alex, had a birthday coming up, and I wanted to buy or make a cake, so I asked what kind she liked. Lemon was among her choices, and sounded delish to me, so I looked through vegan lemon...

Elsa hosted a birthday brunch last week, cooking up several experiments for us, all delicious! Larry went back for 3 pieces of this yummy lemon blueberry coffee cake. The original recipe called for a...

A nice vegan chocolate cake recipe from Isa that I adjusted slightly – by doubling it (because her recipe makes just one 8" round). For a 2-tier round cake, I add more milk to the ganache,...

Rick and Lauren brought over an AMAZING upside down cake, made using Eric and Marilyn’s frozen kumquats (which had thawed out during our 2.5 day power outage). Omg, it was one of the best cakes...

I like making pies, including tofu quiche and fruit pie and pumpkin pie. Good pie crust is hard to make, though. I buy Wholly Wholesome rolled pie dough when we can find it. But it’s been hard...

For our acappella rehearsal, Harold’s wife Chris served this delicious, easy spice cake without frosting. The recipe came from her kids elementary class, made vegan so more kids could eat it....

I had some phyllo dough to use up, and adapted this recipe for apple turnovers. I ended up having a fair bit of the fruit mixture left, so I also made a small apple crisp. Both were great!

We harvested some of Judi’s apricots while her family was out of town. Her tree has the best apricots I’ve ever tasted! Sherry came to visit and shared her vegan apricot cake recipe, which...

Shelley Million gave us a blood orange cake when we made a backyard visit in March, and it was divine! I asked Larry what he wanted for his birthday, and he said this cake. Shelley made it with...

It’s lemon season! When the frost comes they go bad, so Larry is bringing in scores of meyer lemons and limes. After success with key lime yogurt, I got a craving for lemon cake. Larry said yes,...

Pat brought over more persimmons! We sliced and dried a dozen unripe ones. We still had half a dozen ripe ones, and I owe cookies to some members of our movie-review SupPort group, so time to try...

A super easy, yummy vegan pumpkin pie, great for using up that 2-pack of Wholly Wholesome pie crust (use the other one for the Festive Chickpea Tart ).

I’ve made half a dozen fruit pies in the past few weeks because of our prolific pear tree. I usually mix blackberries with the pears, because we have to use those up, too. But recently, for...

I needed some cookies to fill the empty space in a box I’m mailing to Dad, and I’ve had these cookies by Vegan Richa on my list for awhile to try. I actually made some...

So many figs! I made afig pie, which was pretty good, and we actually tried our hand at canning fig jam (see photos below). The result was yummy, though quite the effort and a bit sweet (so much...

Every year we have so many oranges! They’re more difficult to give away this year given COVID… we give to a few neighbors and friends, but I can’t take them to the office and hand...

Growing up, Larry’s family had a tradition of eating applesauce at most meals. Since we’ve started doing weekly zoom dinners with his family, they decided everyone should always have...

We really like these PB2 brownies - super easy to make, not too sweet, and very satisfying. But it’s time to try some other desserts. I still have a lot of PB2 and almond butter; surely one can...

Thinking about alternatives to my (limited) flour as we go shopping less during the pandemic, I recalled that I have two big jars of PB2 (powdered peanut butter) that have been in my cupboard for...

We bumped into Elsa the other evening on a walk, and asked how she uses Candied Buddha’s Hand. She makes biscotti! Larry turned to me and said, “Biscotti, please.” I found a recipe...

Our friends Pat and Allen have a Buddha’s Hand Tree, and offered us a chance to harvest a couple of the fruits! Pat also shared her recipe for delicious candied Buddha’s citron. It’s...

Shelley shared a delicious chocolate pudding with us today, packed with healthy ingredients! It’s super easy to make, too. She recommends a dark cocoa like Hershey’s Dark or Guittard...

A vegan variation on a cake recipe by my college roommate Elizabeth, with orange promoted to a primary flavor – increasing the zest in the cake from 1/2 tsp to at least a tablespoon, and adding...

Figs! We have so many figs. Larry is picking a dozen a day, scrambling onto the roof to get half of them from the top of the tree. During an afternoon get-together, Shuchi tells us that she gets a lot...

We have SO many blackberries we can’t keep up. I started putting cups and cups of them in bags in our freezer - which is getting WAY too full. I got an idea: What if I try to use up some of...

Wanda shared a chocolate chip apricot bar recipe with me more than a decade ago, when I made it for our SRI chili cookoff and it won best dessert! The recipe is adapted from a Gourmet 1995 recipe. I...

I made these cookies to bring to Munira & Vinod’s for dinner because I know they love ginger. The recipe is a cross between my grad roommate Elizabeth’s Molasses Crinkles and Vegan...

Munira is cooking us another delicious dinner, and wants rum cake! So I gave it a try. I googled and found a few recipes, and two stood out to me: A vegan coconut rum cake that was somewhat similar to...

Omg, these date cookies are so good. Munira and her friend Shobha made them for a party we went to last night, and we got to take some home. The date, pistachio, cardamom, and coconut flavors are...

Judi makes the best pecan cookies! This recipe is super fast and easy and tasty. The photo below shows puffs along with a happy chocolate xmas dog from Sandy🙂 The recipe below about 15 cookies.

We bought a big pineapple. It’s kinda sour, and that’s a lot to eat! So I googled recipes, and found a couple of no-bake pineapple cream pies that I combined. It’s actually...

At my (new) work, Masha brought back some delicious cookies from her holidays in Iran. I have lots of chickpea flour I need a use for, and these were delicious and not too sweet. Masha sent this...

Larrys’s sister Cyndy made these for our long-weekend get-together; easy and yummy. Ingredients 1 box Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry (17 oz) 2 cups fresh or frozen berries 2 T water 1/4 tsp...

Wait, vegan meringue cookies? Aren’t meringues made from whipped egg whites and sugar? Ya, that’s right. And you won’t believe what can be used in place of egg. Garbanzo bean liquid....

So many pears on our tree! So I googled for a pear dessert, and found this recipe for Pear Spice Upside-Down Cake that looked good - and it was! And relatively healthy, too. The freshly pureed pears...

Another recipe of my grandma Esther’s, easier to make than her ostakaka and also not vegan, but vegetarian of course. Blogging it here for posterity and so I have access to it when I’m...

This is my grandma Esther’s recipe for Ostakaka (Ost = cheese, kaka = cake), a custard from her Swedish family (*) and one of Dad’s favorites. It’s not vegan, but I’m blogging...

Judi found a “divine” recipe for blueberry lemon energy bites that she modified slightly to use walnuts (for the omega-3s) instead, and she skipped the coconut. I tried with different...

Yummy chocolately walnut crust from Judi (bottom crust only); try with pumpkin pie or pudding pie. Ingredients Chocolately walnut crust (1 crust)2 C walnuts 6 dates + 2 T maple syrup or some combo 1 t...

We got a batch of bananas that wasn’t so tasty, so I thought hey, why don’t I try to sweeten them up a bit and fry them? A quick google search found a good recipe for fried honey bananas...

Matthias and Petra from Lugano left a box of Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry cups in our freezer when they left, and surprise, the pastry cups are vegan! Our house is being painted this week, so I decided...

It’s blackberry and pear season! After enjoying our friend Judi’s “momba” smoothies so many times, we got a good Ninja blender to make our own. Dr. Gregor has some videos about...

During a visit to Nebraska, Dad’s friend Jack gave him a bag of about 30 fresh-picked peaches. I decided to try to make a pie, and after a little googling and experimenting, came up with an...

A berry crisp that combines elements of a few recipes I’ve tried, including Judi’s. Delish! Ingredients Fruit (berries, pears, apricots, etc.) 2 T canola oil 1/4 C brown sugar 1/2 lemon...

Happy Healthy and Oh She Glows both have recipes for chocolate chia pudding. One serving gives you all the omega 3’s you need in a day! Happy Healthy has her Overnight Chocolate Berry Breakfast...

A super easy, yummy vegan dessert. We used to make it with Grapenuts, but then Costco had some Love Crunch Dark Chocolate and Red Berries organic granola one day, and now we have another favorite...

A raw, easy, yummy vegan dessert; see Happy Healthy Librarian’s Chocolate Chia Walnut Bars. Ingredients 1 1/2 cups pitted Medjool dates (be sure all pits are gone!) 1/3 cup raw usweetened cocoa...

Adapted from Life-changing Vegan Thumbprint Cookies. I halved this recipe, used a combination of walnut pieces and sliced almonds (NOT ground up), and added a little flax meal. Note: It’s hard...

Ginger pears are yummy and a great gift. We have a pear tree, so in the fall I make a bunch of it and refrigerate it (up to a couple of weeks). You can also freeze it (canning is too much work 🙂...

Judi found this Hearty Cookie recipe and tweaked it a little; then I tweaked it, too. I took them down to Larry’s family for his dad’s birthday. They were a hit, yay! They are vegan, of...