Red, White and Blue... and exploding cupcakes

Sharing cars in Buffalo meant some extra time spent in the hotel over last weekend. I filled my time with yarny fun. I finished knitting up the wool I had on hand for my messenger bag and started in on some cotton with my crochet hook.

The water bottle is my own design. The star can be found here (I stopped after a few rounds and added a chain across the back for easier use) and the spiral scrubbie here.

On Thursday, I had the opportunity to browse through The Kind Diet while killing time at Barnes & Noble. This is one I've had my eye on awhile but hadn't yet caved to purchasing. I copied down the recipe for Peanut Butter Cups to try out in the meantime. Um... yum!

 

Seriously good stuff! Though they're incredibly rich! I used smooth pb I had on hand and I didn't want the extra cost of nuts, so I ground up a few extra graham cracker squares for on top. Next time, I'll probably opt for mini cupcake size instead. Being one of  chocolate peanut butter's biggest fans, even I thought one at this size was a bit over the top in richness. Whew! Sugar coma, anyone? You've been warned.

Since I was already melting chocolate (vegan chocolate chips from TJ's) anyway, I pulled out my bag of pb filled pretzels (also TJ's) and drizzled them as well. I used to love the choc pb pretzels from Trader Joe's... but they're milk chocolate covered... so now I make my own. =) And I think they're even better. heh Sprinkled a bit of the leftover graham crumbs on top. Delish! 

This morning, I decided to celebrate the red white and blue with a red, white and blue breakfast! The Joy of Vegan Baking has quickly become one of my go-to cookbooks. I used the Blueberry Cobbler recipe, using raspberries from our yard and frozen, organic blueberries and subbed a bit of whole wheat flour for some of the white flour in the biscuit dough. Yeah, it was yummy!

What about the exploding cupcakes, you ask? Okay, they don't really explode... but there is a surprise inside! I do love a dessert with a good surprise inside! My mom's been talking about the chocolate lava cakes you can get at restaurants for awhile now so I decided to give it a go... in a vegan version. Most recipes are heavily egg-based and undercooked to keep that ooey, gooey center. A quick search turned up a few vegan versions online. I settled on one filling that looked particularly simple and viola!

Vegan chocolate lava cupcakes! I used the Chocolate Cake recipe from the vegan baking cookbook above and the filling from here. Fill the cups about halfway with batter, place a dollop of filling in the center and cover with more batter. They're maybe more pudding-like than lava-like, but they're yummy and the thicker filling definitely makes eating them easier. No mess! Being on a pb/choc kick this weekend, I made half the cupcakes with a hit of pb... in the form of a teensy peanut butter cookie (yep, recipe from the same cookbook). I'd seen this done in another cookbook at B&N. You fill the cupcake liner about 3/4 full and place a small ball of cookie dough in the center and bake - I flattened my mini pb cookie dough balls with a fork first. These rock when warm out of the oven! You could easily use whatever cake/cookie dough combo you prefer. =)