I don’t know why, but I’ve been craving banana pudding for a week or so.  I thought I’d try to veganize it for Vegan MoFo and this is what I ended up with…

It was a little soupy and didn’t have the intense banana flavor I was hoping for.

Here’s what I started with:

• 3 bananas
• 1 package silken tofu
• about 2 tbsp. agave nectar
• a package of vanilla wafers that just happened to be vegan

I started by mixing the tofu, bananas, and agave together in the food processor.

I tasted the mixture and decided that it needed more flavor, so I added a sprinkle of cinnamon and about 1 tsp. vanilla extract.

I lined the bottom of a bowl with the wafer cookies…

….then added a layer of the pudding mixture and more cookies…

then more pudding and lots more cookies.

After the last of the pudding was added I crushed even more cookies on top.

Normally I would let something like this set up in the fridge first but I really wanted to try it so I dug right in.

It was good, but just not “bananaey” enough. I think that I would want more like 4 or even 5 bananas in it next time.

I had a bit this morning after it had set up overnight in the fridge and while the pudding was a much thicker and decadent consistency this time, the cookies had turned to mush. Surprisingly, I didn’t find it that gross though.

Overall I think I made a pretty tasty vegan nanner puddin’, but it could still use some tweaks to be perfect.

Any ideas on what you would have done differently?

November 15, 2010 Alayna Discussion 1 comment

So, we’ve had a bunch of bananas in the freezer for kind of a while now and I’ve been meaning to turn them into banana bread for as long as they’ve been in there.

Today was the day! Banana bread for everyone! Yay to using up left-overs!

Not really.

I put the bananas in the fridge to thaw over-night and what greeted me this morning was not pleasant. They had oozed out a brown banana-scented liquid all over the fridge and were sagging and falling apart.  They were in an unsalvageable state.

Enter pumpkin, our hero of this tale! I knew I made all that pumpkin puree for something!

I was inspired by this recipe.  I’ve made quite a few changes to the original so I don’t feel bad about writing it out with my adjustments for you:

• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 1/4 cup softened Earth Balance
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1 cup gluten-free all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup flax meal
• 1 and 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 cup almond milk
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
• 1 and 1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Start by creaming together the vegan butter and sugars, then add the pumpkin. This picture shows the wrong way to do it…

I got ahead of myself here and added the pumpkin in with the sugars because that’s what the original recipe said to do. The butter clumped though, and I think it would have incorporated better without the pumpkin present. The finished product didn’t seem to be affected by the uneven butter though, so no worries if you do it this way.

Meanwhile, mix all the dry stuff together…

Add it to the wet slowly, in three installments.  When it’s completely incorporated, add the almond milk and mix through.

Pour into a buttered and floured loaf pan and spread to the edges.

Bake for 35-40 minutes at 350 degrees.

And here she is!…

I let it sit until it was cool enough to pick up then turned it out of the pan and let it cool on a rack.

I did not have high hopes for this bread, the batter tasted kind of awful. The finished bread is a real winner though.  It’s not too sweet; should make a great breakfast bread. It may look a bit dry in the pictures, but I assure you it’s nice and supple!

I’d say this is a triumphant ending to the great banana massacre that took place in my fridge.

Oh, pumpkin.  You’re my hero!

October 18, 2010 Alayna Discussion, Recipes Comments Off on Vegan banana (er…pumpkin) bread