Featured Recipe by Camila//Pies and Tacos

Photos by Camila//Pies and Tacos

Want to dazzle your guests this holiday? Check out this wonderful recipe by Camila of Pies and Tacos. Thank you so much!

*For original post, please see link above.

Ingredients: 

Chocolate Cupcakes

Matcha Buttercream

• 3/4 cup unsalted butter room temperature (170 grams, 6 oz)
• 1 1/2 cup powdered sugar 191 grams, 6.75 oz
• 2 teaspoon of matcha powder or more it’s up to how strong you’d like your buttercream to be
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions:

Chocolate Cupcakes

• Pre-heat oven to 350F. Line a 12-cupcake pan with cupcake liners or grease it with butter and flour.
• Sift flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, espresso powder, and salt together in a large bowl.
• In another bowl, mix coffee, vinegar, vanilla and oil. Pour dry mixture over wet ingredients. Whisk briefly, until incorporated. Be careful not to overmix. As soon as you see no more streaks of dry mixture, stop whisking.
• Distribute batter evenly in cupcake pans.
• Bake for 15-20 minutes.
• Remove and let it cool.

Chocolate Fudge Frosting

• Start by melting the chopped dark chocolate in the microwave or in a double boiler. Make sure to chop the chocolate finely, so it’s easier to melt it.
• Let it cool until it isn’t warm to the touch any longer.
• While the chocolate cools down, you can gather the rest of the ingredients.
• Sift powdered sugar and cocoa powder together. Set aside.
• Place butter in the bowl of an electric mixer.
• Cream butter for about 2 minutes on medium speed.
• Turn mixer off, add sifted powdered sugar and cocoa powder to the bowl.
• Turn mixer on low to combine the ingredients together.
• Once they are combined, you can turn the speed up. Cream on medium high for about 30 seconds.
• Add melted chocolate, mix until combined.
• Add vanilla, milk and cream frosting on medium high for 45 seconds.
• Check for consistency. If frosting is too thick and dry, add a bit more milk, about 1 teaspoon at a time, mixing in between.
• If the mixture is too runny, there might be two options. You may either add some more sifted powdered sugar. Or it may be the case that your butter or chocolate were too warm when you made the frosting, or your kitchen might be too warm. In this situation, you want to cover your frosting bowl with plastic wrap and place it in the fridge for a few minutes, about 10 or so. Cream frosting again, and check for the consistency.

Matcha Macarons

• Before you start, get all of your ingredients ready.
• Prepare a large piping bag, fitted with a large round tip.
• Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicon mat.
• Under my parchment, I put a layout with my cactus that you can find above on the post.
• Measure out all of your ingredients.
• Now you can finally start.
• Place egg whites and granulated sugar in a heat proof bowl or in a double boiler. Over a pan of simmering water, whisk the whites and sugar until frothy and sugar completely melted. It will take a couple minutes.
• Make sure the bottom of the bowl isn’t touching the simmering water.
• Transfer mixture to the bowl of a stand mixer. (I use my kitchenAid bowl when doing this, because it makes it easier)
• With the whisk attachment, whisk mixture on high speed for a few minutes until stiff peaks are formed.
• Best way to check this is to keep your eye on the whites. Once they get glossy and you start seeing streaks formed by the whisk, it might be time to stop.
• You don’t want to overbeat the mixture at this point, because you don’t want to add too much air to it. Just whisk until stiff peaks have formed.
• Sift powdered sugar, almond flour and matcha together.
• Pour into stiff whites.
• Start folding gently forming a letter J with a spatula.
• It’s time to stop folding when the batter is glossy and has a thick and flowing consistency. There are several ways to test this, and you might have to have a couple failed batches before you get this right.
• First, grab a spatula full of batter and pull it up at a 90 degree angle on top of the bowl, then you start drawing a figure 8 in the air with the dripping batter. And if you can draw a few number 8s with the flowing batter, without having it break apart, that means your batter is probably ready, or close to being ready.
• Then, I grab a teaspoon of batter and spoon onto my parchment paper or silicon mat.
• If the batter stays stiff and doesn’t spread out a bit, I start folding a little bit more, about 3 folds.
• Test again.
• Once the batter spreads out a bit and starts to look glossy on the parchment paper, I transfer my mixture to the piping bag.
• You don’t want your batter to be too runny either. So be careful not to overmix. It’s always best to undermix and test several times until the proper consistency has been achieved.
• This is the most important part about making macarons in my opinion.
• To pipe the cactus macarons I used two different tips, a round Wilton 12, and a round Wilton 2A. The large tip (the 2A) I used to pipe the body of the cactus, and the smaller one (tip 12) I used to pipe the arms.
• When you pipe the macarons, you will need to use a toothpick to spread the batter around to fit the whole cactus shape. Check the post above for picture instructions.
• Once you’ve piped as many cactus macarons as you can, bang the trays against the counter a few times each. This will release air bubbles that are in the batter and prevent your macaron shells from cracking.
• Let your trays sit for a while so the shells will dry out a little bit. I usually leave about 20-40 minutes, depending on how humid the day is. You’ll know they’re ready when you gently touch the surface of a macaron and it seems dry.
• Pre-heat the oven to 325F.
• Bake one tray at a time.
• Bake for 4 minutes, rotate tray.
• Bake for 4 more minutes, check if it needs to be rotated again. You will know if it needs to be rotated again depending on how the macarons are baking. Take a look at them, if one side seems taller then the other, maybe you have to rotate the tray again.
• Bake for around 2-4 more minutes. Really keep an eye out, not to overbake.
• When baked, the macarons will have a deeper color and formed feet.
• Remove from the oven and bake the other tray.
• Let the macarons cool down before proceeding with the filling.

Matcha Buttercream

• Some of the Matcha Buttercream will be used to pipe inside the cupcakes, and some will be used as the filling for the macarons.
• Start by Sift powdered sugar and matcha powder together. Set aside.
• Cream butter on medium speed, until creamy, for about 1 minute. Add powdered sugar and matcha and beat until mixture is fluffy and incorporated, another minute. If mixture seems too stiff, add one or two teaspoons of milk. If it seems too runny, add one or two teaspoons of powdered sugar.
• Add vanilla extract and mix for 30 seconds to combine.

To assemble Cactus Macarons

• Put filling in prepared piping bag. Pipe some filling in each macaron and close the sandwich. You are looking for the proportions of 2:1 cookie:filling
• On the post above I mention the recipe I used for the royal icing, to make the decorations on my macarons. For the star on top, I simply used a piece of fondant from Wilton brand, rolled out and cut into stars.

To assemble Cupcakes

• Use a spoon to remove the center of the cupcakes. Fill them with Matcha Buttercream.
• Frost with the Chocolate Frosting.
• Sprinkle some dried coconut flakes to resemble snow.
• Place the Cactus Macaron on top. Voila.

Featured Recipe by Sarah//Cookathome.info

Photo by Sarah//Cookathome.info

These cups are paleo, gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan and has no refined sugar. Thanks Sarah!

*For original post, please see link above.

Ingredients:

Featured Recipe by Ashley//Ashley Castle Nutrition

Photo by Ashley//Ashley Castle Nutrition 

One of our favourite recipes! These delicious treats are: GLUTEN-FREE, DAIRY-FREE, SOY-FREE, EGG-FREE, GRAIN-FREE, NUT-FREE, PALEO. Thanks Ashley!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup shredded coconut (just coconut, no sugar added)
• 2 1/2 Tbs coconut oil, separated
• 1 Tbs raw honey
• 1 1/2 tsp organic culinary grade matcha
• 8-10 fresh organic mint leaves* (you can taste and adjust for desired minty-ness)
• optional: 1 scoop collagen peptides for added nutritional prowess
• 3/4 cup dark chocolate chips

*optional: you could use 1-2 drops therapeutic grade peppermint oil instead, but the fresh mint is always nice!

Instructions:

1. In the bowl of a food processor or high-powered blender, add shredded coconut, 2 Tbs coconut oil, honey, matcha, mint leaves, and collagen if using. 

2. Blend until all ingredients are well incorporated and you have a soft paste that holds together. 

3. Using a small cookie scoop or just your hands, scoop approx. 1 1/2 tsp worth of mixture and form into a ball. If the mixture is too soft, refrigerate for a few minutes to make it easier to scoop.Place onto a small dish lined with parchment and freeze until solid, approx. 15 min.  

4. In a small glass bowl, add your chocolate chips and coconut oil. Place in the microwave and heat in 30 second increments, stirring in between until smooth and melted (time will vary, but this typically takes less than 2 minutes total).

5. Remove matcha balls from the freezer and coat, dip, or drizzle with chocolate, depending on your desired amount of chocolate coverage. The easiest method for smooth coating is to toss the matcha ball around your bowl of melted chocolate with a fork, then remove and tap fork on the edge of the bowl to allow the excess chocolate to fall through the fork tongs. You can repeat this step if you want a thicker chocolate coating, just refrigerate in between to allow chocolate to set. 

6. Return chocolate covered truffles to your parchment lined dish and refrigerate until set. Keep refrigerated until ready to enjoy! Let sit at room temp for a few minutes before serving to soften just slightly for the perfect texture.

For the original post, please click the link above.

Featured Recipe by Brittany//Thebasicallybalancedfoodie

Photo by Brittany//Thebasicallybalancedfoodie

Ingredients & Instructions:

• Blend together 1 cup of almond milk, 1/2 scoop of vanilla protein powder, 1 tsp of matcha green tea powder (@midorispring), and stevia to taste.
• Then stir in 3 tbsp of chia seeds.
• Allow these mixtures to sit in the fridge overnight top as pleased and enjoy!

Featured Recipe by Amanda//ablonderfullife

Photos by Amanda//ablonderfullife

We absolutely love this recipe! Full of antioxidants and healthy fats. It is also gluten free, dairy free, and vegan. 

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup coconut oil, melted
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 3 tbsp. pure maple syrup
• 1/3 cup peanut butter
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 heaping tbsp. Midori Spring matcha green tea powder

Instructions:

• Melt the coconut oil in the microwave for 15-25 seconds depending on how solid your coconut oil is.  I keep mine in a very dark and cool cabinet, so it stays completely solid.
• Mix the coconut oil with the cocoa powder and maple syrup with a whisk until the clumps of cocoa powder disappear and small air bubbles form.  You should have to whisk for 1-2 minutes.
• Once your chocolate mixture is smooth, line a muffin pan with paper liners. Spoon a teaspoon of the chocolate mixture into each liner to coat the bottom of each liner.  You may need less depending on how melted and thin your chocolate is.
• Pop the muffin tray into your fridge for 8-10 minutes for the chocolate to harden. While the chocolate is in the fridge, you can make the peanut butter matcha filling.
• Combine the matcha powder, vanilla extract and peanut butter in a small bowl.  I found that it is best to mix the ingredients with a rubber spatula because a lot of the mixture will get stuck to the side of the bowl.  I was very impressed that the matcha powder did not form clumps in the peanut butter and it was very easy to create a super smooth mixture.
• Take the hardened chocolates out of the fridge and spoon on a half teaspoon of the peanut butter matcha onto each chocolate.  Smooth the peanut butter out to be sure that it is evenly distributed on each chocolate.

• Cover each matcha chocolate with two teaspoons of the melted chocolate until you can no longer see the filling.

• Put the muffin pan back in the fridge for an additional 10 minutes for the chocolate to harden.  Once you take the chocolate out of the fridge, you will want to pop the chocolate out of the paper liner and top each of them with a small sprinkle of coarse sea salt.  The sea salt is completely optional, but the added saltiness paired with the chocolate is incredible.