Why do I only use one sweetener at at time?
I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but when a recipe calls for two different types of sweeteners, I always opt to stick to one. If I’m going to be frosting a pumpkin muffin with maple cream, for instance, I sweeten the muffins with maple syrup. I like to stay consistent. Why do I do this?…
Because it’s easier on my body to only have to deal with metabolizing one kind of sugar at a time. In this episode, I explain what happens and how I figured this out in the first place. Please check it out. Let me know if you have had similar experiences with sweeteners, and then please, share this episode like wild.
The music in this episode is ‘You Lit Up For Me’ by Spirit Kid. Check them out and buy their latest album HERE!
Lovelillian
It’s that time. (PUMPKIN) MUFFIN TIME!
Ingredients
- 1 cup Pumpkin Puree (Canned is fine. But make sure it’s just pumpkin and nothing else)
- 3 large Eggs
- 1/4 cup Grapeseed Oil
- 1/2 cup Maple Syrup
- 2 cups Blanched Almond Flour
- 1 tsp Baking Soda
- 1/2 tsp Celtic Sea Salt
- 1 Tbsp Cinnamon
- 1/2 Tbsp Ginger
- 1/2 Tbsp Nutmeg
- (optional) Maple Cream
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F
- Combine and mix all the wet ingredients in a medium bowl
- Combine and mix all the dry ingredients into a large bowl
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients
- Put baking cups into your muffins tins (you’ll need 12 or 13)
- Bake for 22 to 24 minutes (It’s done when the fork comes out clean in the fork test)
- Cool for 10 minutes
- Optional: frost with the maple cream
- EAT!!!
Congratulations to Mean Creek!
Mean Creek, the band who’s song “It’s good to be back again” is featured in my latest short episode: Grade A Maple Syrup -vs- Grade B Maple Syrup, just won best album of the year at the Boston Music Awards!
Check out their award winning album and download it HERE!!!
This is amazing. Congratulations guys.
Lovelillian
Things that I do when I’m not cooking: Loving life and playing some ultimate frisbee.
Lovelillian
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Some days I need just a little boost to get things going. I need a bona fide pep talk to rev myself up in order to face the day. I can’t be the only one… Right?
Well regardless, here it is. Here’s my latest pep talk. And it pretty much guarantees that:
Today things will go WELL.
(Raspberry Vanilla Cupcakes with Meringue Frosting Coming Soon!)
Lovelillian
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Meringue Frosting is awesome. Cotton Candy is stupid.
I’m not going to pretend that this is something that people have been discussing for ages. Or that (most likely) anyone cares about but me. But back when I could eat sugar, (or at least back before I knew I have a sugar allergy) I used to get cotton candy at the circus and carnival, and I was always really excited about it. Even the process that cotton candy goes through to be made is cool. It’s a total ritual: with the machine and the person standing there wrapping the thin strands of sugar around a paper cone until it’s an overwhelming gravity defying ball of what looks very similar to the stuff that the walls are insulated with. How could that possibly go wrong?
Well, it does.
Check out the video and be sure to tweet and comment on my facebook page about your feelings of betrayal.
Lovelillian
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Tweet your terrible, awful, no good, very bad cooking jokes to @LilsTestKitchen
Lovelillian
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Raspberry Thumbprint Mini-Cakes
This recipe was thoroughly inspired by AndreAnna Mclean’s recipe for Flourless Grain-free Fig Newton Mini-Cakes
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups of unsweetened almond butter (12 oz)
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 c. applesauce
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 jar fruit-juice sweetened raspberry jam (you wont need the whole jar)
- parchment paper
- 2 Tbs oil (grapeseed or olive oil will both work fine)
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F
- Throw the almond butter, eggs, vanilla, baking soda, and apple sauce into a food processor and blend.
- Line a sheet with parchment paper
- Put some oil in a small bowl
- Oil up your fingers (You’ll do this repeatedly. It’ll keep the cookie dough from sticking to your fingers)
- Put scoops of dough on the parchment paper (12 to 14 of them)
- Oil your fingers again
- Use your thumb to create a “thumbprint” size crater in each cookie
- Fill each crater with jam
- Now pinch the sides of cookies so that you create a little nest for the jam. Or don’t. It’s fine either way.
- Bake for on the top rack for 15-17 minutes until it’s slightly brown on the edges
- Let it cool completely
- EAT!!!
Leftovers
These cookies are super delicious and super nutritious. They would be great for healthy after school snacks or just snacks in general.
If you want them to be a little sweeter, I’ve been sweetening them with 1/4 cup to 1/3 cup of coconut sugar. 1/3 cup is really sweet. 1/4 cup is medium sweet.
I love these cookies and have been baking them kinda nonstop. They take almost no time to make, and I’m loving have them around so I can just grab one on my way out the door.
Thank you so much to AndreAnna from www.LifeAsAPlate.com for this fantastic recipe. You should all check her out. She’s awesome in about a billion ways.
EDIT:
Some background on those hamantaschen cookies I was talking about. Christi wrote in and shared some knowledge:
Hamish (the guy the cookie is named after) is the one who got the king to sign a decree that all the Israelites living in Persia could be killed on a certain day (since at that time the vast majority were exiled to Persia, the race could have nearly been wiped out). But Esther was the queen (and secretly Jewish) and after fasting and praying she went to the king and got a new law passed allowing the Jews to kill their enemies. Its in the book of Esther which is a very short book and reads like a story (unlike some of the prophets who are short but not story-like).
Knowledge is power. Thanks for filling us all in, Christi!
Lovelillian
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A delicious cookie episode coming soon.
I’ve got a another short to put up (for your entertainment) and then I’ll put up a completely tasty episode in which I make some *pretty* amazing cookies.
So no worries. It’s on it’s way.
Lovelillian
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Life Lessons: How to craft a proper conspiracy theory
This is obviously an important skill. Because if I’ve learned anything about the world it’s that: she who fear mongers best, wins.
And who knows? it could be true.
Lovelillian
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Solving Mysteries: What is parchment paper?
I need to use parchment paper for a recipe (for it’s non-stick qualities). Alex wants to know what it’s made of, so we investigate.
The song in this episode is “Don’t Break My Heart” from Destry’s new album, Waiting on an Island. Check them out HERE.
Lovelillian
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Vanilla Ice Cream!!!!
I’m adapting a recipe for vanilla ice cream from Kelly Brozyna’s new cookbook ‘The Spunky Coconut Grain-free Baked Goods & Desserts’.
Ingredients
- 2 cans of coconut milk
- 1/2 cup coconut cream
- 1 cup unsweetened almond milk
- 10 soaked & pitted dates
- 2 Tbs vanilla extract
Directions
- Put the freezer bowl from the ice cream maker in the freezer at least 8 hours before you start.
- Blend all the ingredients
- Start the ice cream machine
- Pour the mixture into the machine
- Wait 20-40 minutes (I suggest 40 minutes)
- Put what is now soft serve ice cream into a new container and put it in the freezer for 2 hours. (If you leave it in there for longer you may want to take it out of the freezer 15 minutes before you eat it. So it can soften up.)
- Eat!
FYI
• The way I made this you will need over 2 cans of coconut milk. So have 3 on hand.
• You need an ice cream machine for this recipe.
• Your ice cream will freeze hard. Kelly leaves hers out for 30 minutes before she eats hers. It doesn’t freeze hard because the recipe is bad, but because of two reasons.
- Home ice cream machines can’t move as fast (and so get as much air into the ice cream) as commercial ice cream machines. So the ice cream will have less air and be a bit denser than the store bought kind. Consequentially it will require a little more time on your counter to get to the right consistency.
- Home freezers tend to be colder than the commercial freezers and wont keep the ice cream at the perfect temperature for the perfect texture.
Just a heads up.
Thank you Kelly for the inspiration for this recipe! I love a recipe that can take my kind of manhandling and still come out delicious. Check out www.TheSpunkyCoconut.com and Kelly’s new cookbook “The Spunky Coconut Grain-free Baked Goods & Desserts”
Good luck!
Lovelillian
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Life Lessons: How To (Properly) Taste Date Juice
I’m sweetening the ice cream that I’m making (in the next episode!) with dates, which means that I had to soak them in water overnight. Which means that there is leftover date water. Do we throw it out? Of course not! We’re going to taste it! Thoroughly.
And we’re not messing around. We’re taking this verrry seriously.
Lovelillian
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Ice Cream Fundamentals
I’m going to try to make some vegan ice cream from The Spunky Coconut’s new cookbook “Gluten-free Baked Goods & Desserts” But before I start that, first thing’s first:
How does this ice cream maker work?
I break it down so you don’t have to waste your time “reading directions”.
You’re welcome.
Lovelillian
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In which I explain how editing works and request that Apple make a time machine. But a real one this time. None of that “saving your files” BS, but rather some of that “bending time and space” BS. They can do it, even if some scientists in China just said that it’s impossible.
I believe.
(New episodes coming soon!)
Lovelillian
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