Beautiful failure: rainbow vegan cookies

Never before have I put so much effort into something that turned out to be such a disappointment. These cookies took the better part of four hours to make, plus chilling time. My mistake(s)? Using an untested vegan sugar cutout cookie as my base. Making these cookies required mixing food colouring into six balls of dough, which decreased in size. The dough wasn't sweet or tasty enough to stand alone without icing. It couldn't stand up to all of the mixing required to get the colour evenly distributed. So I sadly threw 90% of these away. Lesson learned. Test first!

Blueberry Banana Muffins

These were originally supposed to be a way to clean the freezer of all of the happily laid up fruits of the past few months. Ontario wild blueberries from last season, those lovely sweet brown bananas that you forget to eat during the work week and get thrown into the freezer for banana ice cream or smoothies.

I based the recipe on the ppk's vegan banana cake, (http://www.theppk.com/2007/10/banana-bread/) and took a cue from the comments in how to adjust the baking time for muffins. These worked beautifully, although the batter seemed very dry. Next time I would add nuts or perhaps almond flour.

Vegan Rice Flour Thumbrint Cookies!

This is a slightly adapted, well-loved jam cookie recipe. As I prepare to move, I try to eat up everything in the pantry so I don't have to move it.  This is how I ended up with rice flour cookies.
These cookies are dead easy to make.  They're made of just under 1 cup of rice flour which is combined with just under 1/2 cup of margarine that's been creamed with 1/4 cup of sugar and a tsp of vanilla.
They're allowed to rest in the fridge for 20 minutes, then rolled into 15-20 small balls and pressed flat, with a small dollop of jam in a thumbprint in the middle.
Bake these beauties at 350 degrees for 15-30 minutes (they're done when they start to go slightly brown, and how long it takes depends on how large you made them).  Enjoy!

Vegan Millionaire's Shortbread!

Caution: chopped chocolate is dangerously delicious!

Keep stirring!

Almost there!

Here we go!

This dessert was a delicious pain in the butt.
Okay, I exaggerate.  It wasn't so bad, but I am certain that it's not very good for you.  It's full of sugar and Earth Balance margarine, and Soy Creamer (which I will never buy again because it is terrifying).
Still, if you want to make an oldschool dessert, or get that 'you're frigging kidding it's vegan?!' reaction, this is a great dessert to make.
I have no pictures of the final product because, frankly, I'm embarrassed at how it looked.  The thick, set chocolate got hard in the refrigerator and shattered when I tried to cut into it, leading to broken, dusty shapes a co-worker called 'parallelograms'.  If I were to make this again, I'd probably them just after they'd set in the refrigerator instead of waiting until the next day.
The process is basically this:  make shortbread by combining 1/2 cup of Earth Balance or other vegan margarine, 1/4 cup of sugar, and just under two cups of flour (I mixed regular flour with 1/4 cup of rice flour). Press this stuff into a small baking pan lined with wax paper.
Bake at 400 degrees until golden (just keep an eye on it, it could be 15 minutes or closer to 40, depending on the thickness and your oven).  Take it out and let it cool. 
Then:
Combine another 1/2 cup of Earth Balance with 1/4 cup of brown sugar and 1.5 cups of vegan cream in a heavy-bottomed pot.  Bring to a boil and then turn down to medium and allow the mixture to thicken and get dark.  It will take awhile, and you have to stir vigilantly the entire time.  My friend Edie and I took shifts on this one.
When it's thick, amber coloured and greatly reduced, remove it from the heat and continue to stir for a minute or so.  Then pour the guk over the shortbread and gently spread it. 
Refrigerate until set.
Then:
Melt just under 2 cups (about 20g) of chopped chocolate in a double boiler.  When it's melted, pour it over the set cookie and caramel, and spread evenly.
Let them shits cool again.
When it appears fully set, gently lift it out of the container by the edges of the wax paper and try to cut it into squares.  This is where I failed, so I wish you better luck.
Also: you'd better share this or you and your tight-ass jeans will be sorry!