desserts

While many online donut recipes are for cake-like donuts, my favorite donuts are fried yeast donuts. Those are the light, airy, chewy donuts that are the base for glazed donuts and frosted donuts with sprinkles (and the donuts we'll be making in this recipe). I've included a recipe for a classic glaze as well as a chocolate frosting, so you can choose to make whichever one you'd like. (Each coating recipe makes enough for all twelve donuts and donut holes, so if you want to make half and half, make sure you cut the recipe for each coating in half as well).

If you've ever eaten the glazed donuts from Krispy Kreme, you probably know that they have a light in the window to let you know when the donuts are fresh. Just like theirs, these vegan donuts taste best just after the glaze has set. So it's best to make only as many as you and your family can eat right away. If you do have leftovers, I recommend freezing them as soon as possible using freezer bags. Then, when you're ready to eat them, take them out of the freezer an hour or two ahead of time to defrost. After they're defrosted, you may want to pop them in the oven for 2-3 minutes at 275°F (135°C) to warm up a bit. Keep in mind that the glaze may melt a little if you put them in the oven.

When I had my cupcake business more than 10 years ago, my carrot cake cupcakes had a cult-like following. The same people showed up to my little stand religiously to buy the carrot cake cupcakes over and over. My friends even started randomly offering to help me with various things in exchange for more carrot cake cupcakes. So naturally, they were high on my priority list of cupcake recipes to veganize.

Cake recipes are complicated to turn vegan, as they don't usually work by simply replacing a few ingredients. However, the effort was well worth it for these delicious cupcakes.

Sometimes, I create a recipe, and even I can't believe how amazing it turned out. This frosting is one of those recipes.

As I've mentioned in previous recipes, I used to have a cupcake business many years ago. I've been (slowly) working on creating vegan versions of my old recipes. When I created my vegan carrot cake recipe, I wondered how I was going to recreate a cream cheese frosting to go with it. I wanted to avoid using store-bought non-dairy cream cheese because they vary so widely in their taste and ingredients.

Some of my favorite childhood Christmas memories are of the holiday cookies. Each member of my dad's side of the family would make one or two types of cookies each year and bring them to my grandmother's house. In the basement were two long folding tables with endless tins of cookies of all types. After dinner, my grandmother would let us go downstairs and pick whatever Christmas cookies we wanted.

We also got to participate in making some of the cookies. As children, that usually meant roll-out sugar cookies that we got to decorate.

Apple crisp is one of my favorite desserts of all time. The tangy apples, sweet brown sugar and cinnamon, combined with a crumbly, crunchy oat topping make the perfect companion to my non-dairy vanilla ice cream.

Today I live in Miami, where it's warm year-round. But when the calendar reads October, I start daydreaming of picking apples at the apple orchard and taking hayrides in the crisp fall air. And, of course, making the perfect fall dessert: apple crisp.

Many years ago, I had a small baking business selling cupcakes at pop-up markets. I was obsessed with creating the perfect cupcake recipes, and I was known to most people as "the cupcake lady."

Now that I'm vegan, I can't use those recipes anymore. But lucky for you, I've been in the kitchen working hard at making vegan versions of some of those recipes! Chocolate is always my first choice of flavor for any sweet food, so the first recipe I've veganized is, of course, my famous chocolate cupcake recipe. I made these over and over, tweaking amounts and ingredients until I had them just right. I knew I finally had a winner when I almost made myself sick from eating so many of them.

A few weeks ago, I woke up with three words in my head: cookie butter frosting. I'm not saying that God herself tasked me with making a vegan recipe for cake frosting for you. But I'm also not saying that she didn't.

For those of you who don't know, I used to sell cupcakes many years ago. So veganizing my cupcake recipes has been on my to-do list for a while. But cookie butter frosting wasn't ever on my radar. I've seen some recipes for traditional (non-vegan) cookie butter frosting, but so far I haven't seen any vegan ones!

Back in October 2019, Disney World announced new plant-based offerings all throughout its parks and resorts. I couldn't wait to try them, so I saved up my coins and headed to Disney earlier this year (pre-COVID). Together with a friend, we sampled vegan eats and treats throughout all four parks. Over three days of dining, we each kept our food spending under $70! Here's a list of what we ate, and what I thought about it.

I cut costs by bringing my own water flasks to the parks to avoid buying bottled water throughout the day. It does add weight to your bags, especially in the morning when the flasks are full, so you'll have to decide if that's worth the savings. I also brought breakfast foods to eat in the hotel before heading to the parks. At Disney World, I shared almost every dish with my travel partner, so we got to sample twice as many foods!

As a vegan, I have been chocolate brownie-deprived for a very long time. I've tried many vegan brownie recipes, and none quite stacked up to the brownies I made from a box as a child, with the chewy edges and fudgy middle. Until now.

These are hands-down the best vegan brownies I've ever had. With a rich chocolate flavor, these fudgy brownies are not only the best vegan brownies I've had, they may be the best brownies period.