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Caramel Cookie Dough Milkshake

March 30, 2017 · Natalie 28 Comments

A healthy Caramel Cookie Dough Milkshake made without ice cream or bananas. The cold creamy secret to this blender treat–frozen cauliflower! But you won’t even taste it…
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This is not your typical smoothie.

For starters it’s a milkshake. And no I did not just slap that label on for no reason. There is a certain level of decadence that garners that title, and this beverage has it.

It is also just barely fruity–no bananas in this blend. There are a few dates blended in for dessert-like sweetness and more in the caramel, but that’s the only fruit component. Well and coconut if that counts and if you take my advice on the nondairy milk choice.

But the bulk of this smoothie is veggie. And that veggie is frozen cauliflower. And no it doesn’t taste funky or healthy or like salad or anything, I promise. It tastes like a milkshake–frosty and ice cream-like with a lucious texture and sweet vanilla taste. The sort of treat you will want to slurp up every last sip of. Every last drop of cold creamy cauliflower in disguise!

I tried out this fun cauli-trick on these smoothies, but in that recipe the frozen cauliflower was just a sneaky sidekick to frozen bananas. And hiding under chocolate, which we know can hide almost anything. For this recipe I wanted to make the frozen cauliflower the main ingredient to truly test its beverage-base ability. Spoiler alert: it passed!!

All this delicious talk and we haven’t even gotten to the Caramel Cookie Dough Milkshake mix-ins yet…

Caramel. Added equally for looks and flavor, the drizzled component of this milkshake is my homemade date caramel sauce. We already know that it drizzles quite deliciously (see video), but if you decorate the inner walls of a pre-frozen glass with the stuff it also hardens just enough to stay put in whatever artistic design you create. So freeze your soon-to-be milkshake jar, caramel doodle, refreeze while you blend the shake, and then pour it in to create a beautiful caramel-streaked contrast look. And a little extra drizzled on top isn’t a bad idea either.

Cookie dough. I am far from done with these cookie dough bits. In fact, I am just getting started with the delicious things to do with them. Today they are taking this milkshake from yummy sip to borderline-blizzard. You will need a spoon. You will have a shake-soaked sweet soggy cookie dough feast at the bottom of the glass when you are done drinking (my favorite part!) And you will add them liberally because nothing’s worse than a milkshake that’s stingy on the mix-ins. Okay maybe a few things are worse, but you know what I mean.

And again, a few extra on top is probably a good way to go. Just so you don’t forget what kind of milkshake it is under there.

Oh and that nondairy milk rec I mentioned…I’ll keep it short and sweet: coconut milk. Unless you hate coconuts, then I’ll let it slide. Maybe go with cashew in that case, or homemade almond. Something especially lush, ya know? If you even think about using water I will cry.

I personally used light canned coconut and it I was marvelous. We are drinking our vegetables here, so I say treat yourself to a lil extra creamayyyy coconut texture.

Call it a smoothie. Call it a milkshake. Call it a salad if you can pull that off. But this funky frozen thing just one-upped green ~~smoothie~~ nicecream on my list of Most Delicious Ways to Consume Vegetables so I think you need to try it. My freezer will be fully stocked up on frozen cauliflower for the foreseeable future. I already cleared a dedicated shelf. Because it is the most super spectacular multi-tasking veggie. Ever.

Caramel Cookie Dough Milkshake

★★★★★ 5 from 1 review

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 5 minutes
Yield: 1 person 1x

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Description

A healthy cookie dough milkshake made without ice cream or bananas. The cold creamy secret to this blender treat–frozen cauliflower! But you won’t even taste it…

Ingredients

Scale

2 cups frozen cauliflower ((*see note))
1.5–2 cups light canned coconut milk ((you can use lower fat non-dairy milks, but it won’t be as creamy))
4 pitted medjool dates
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup cookie dough bits ((plus more for on top))
2 tbsp vegan caramel sauce ((plus more for on top))

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Instructions

Freeze a glass or jar for at least 1 hour. Remove from the freezer, and drizzle the inside with caramel sauce. Freeze again while you blend the milkshake.
In a high speed blender, combine the frozen cauliflower, dates, vanilla, and 1 cup coconut milk.
Blend on high until smooth, adding more coconut milk as needed but keeping it as thick as possible.
Add the cookie dough bits and pulse to briefly mix them in.
Pour into the caramel-decorated glass. Top with additional caramel sauce and cookie dough. Enjoy!

Notes

*The cauliflower should be cooked not raw. I used store-bought frozen cauliflower, so it has been blanched before freezing. If you are going to freeze your own, you will want to steam it before freezing.

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Grain-Free Banana Flour Chocolate Chip Cake

March 27, 2017 · Natalie 108 Comments

With a light fluffy crumb, you’d never guess this Banana Flour Chocolate Chip Cake is grain-free and vegan. Find out more about this funky flour and get the recipe!

I am both happy and sad to report that this cake was halfway demolished within hours of making it. Happy because it really is that good. Sad because all that demolishing was done by yours truly, and no matter how healthy/vegan/oil-free/grain-free/blah-blah-blah it is that is still a lot of cake for one person in one night. But no regrets. Mostly because that was like a week ago so the overly-stuffed-with-cake feeling is a distant memory at this point.

Before I dive into the whys and hows of this recipe though, I want to clarify a few things about this cake…

It does NOT taste like banana. I know reading that title it is easy for your brain to overlook that little “flour” word and think banana chocolate chip cake, but the there is no banana flavor to this cake. Now I may have just disappointed you if you love the chocolate + banana combination, but I’m hoping the chocolate + delicious sweet vanilla cake combo will suffice. And if you hate bananas…YAY!!

It’s actually a vanilla cake. Not chocolate. Not gingerbread. Not cinnamon mocha churro caramel almond spice something. I know the color is far from the dainty golden shade we expect with vanilla, but I promise the flavor says otherwise.

The nuts are optional. 100% not required. I know nuts in baked goods can be a controversial topic, I personally love the texture. But skip them if you don’t like them, we can still be friends. Now if you throw in a few extra chips to make up for nixing the nuts, then I might even come to your side.

Okay now that all the disclaimers are done, let’s get to the good stuff…

Banana flour. The unseen but cake-crucial elephant in the room. And what made this cake an especially fun experiment!

I have been asked about banana flour on countless occasions and my answer was always: “I don’t know, I’ve never worked with it before.” Truth be told I have had a container of the stuff sitting in my pantry for over a year now–opened but untouched. Why? One little reason: the smell.

Its not a terrible smell, but don’t hold out for a banana flour candle to hit the market anytime soon. It doesn’t scream scrumptious baked goods. It more screams going to take some getting used to. And please don’t taste it raw or you will never try it in anything (after you are finished gagging that is).

But when I was kindly sent another package to try out, I took it as a sign that I needed to quit resisting and give it a baking shot. For the sake of pantry space if nothing else.

But now I feel a little silly for waiting so long, because this stuff is awesome!

Banana flour texture. The biggest lesson I learned from the first few fails at this cake is that banana flour absorbs a lot of moisture. So unless you are trying to make an edible diorama of the dessert, you will need a lot of liquid/wet ingredietns to balance it out. I also discovered that date paste alone is not the best for the job, it made for a mushy un-baked texture that while tasty was not attractive.

The combination I eventually found to work wonderfully with this flour is applesauce + cashew butter. The applesauce is responsible for the majority of the moisture and some sweetness too. The cashew butter prevents the mushy date-paste problem from happening again, and keeps the cake moist while baking thanks to the nutty fat content. Together there is actually more liquid ingredients than flour.

Despite the very dry powdery texture, once you start mixing the banana flour makes for a lovely batter. It should be very much a batter, nothing near a dough.

My goal was to make this cake without any other flours or starches in addition to the banana flour, which I was successful with. But for that reason the cashew butter is absolutely necessary and I cannot recommend any lower fat substitutions. Of course you are always welcome to experiment for yourself

Banana flour flavor. I would go so far as to say the flavor is neutral. Undetectable. Not a hint of the bitter starchy taste it has in it’s raw form. I don’t know how exactly, perhaps it is oven magic at work, but it truly just tastes like normal cake in my opinion.

Everyone’s tastes are different, some more sensitive than others, so if you have tried banana flour or do try this cake I would love to hear your thoughts!

What is banana flour? (Hmmm guess I should’ve lead with this…) It’s flour made from green, unripe bananas. It is gluten-free and paleo. Since the bananas are not ripe (hence no banana flavor) it is very high in resistant starch. Resistant starch is a prebiotic that is said to be beneficial for gut bacteria. I won’t get too much into all that, you can google it if you are curious. There are not tons of recipes out there using it, and a large portion of them are paleo and require eggs, but there are some.

Now I’m not saying this the grain-free silver bullet substitution and you should just start swapping it in for wheat wherever you like–it’s certainly not. But it has major recipe potential when combined with the right ingredients. And compared to coconut flour it’s a grain-free walk in the park to work with if you ask me! You will definitely be seeing banana flour around here again.

You can order it online of course, but I have also seen it at my local health food store. There are a few brands that make it at this point, but I find the Let’s Do Organic one to be the easiest to find, most affordable, and certified vegan, gluten-free, and organic.

Believe it or not, this was originally supposed to be a banana flour blondie recipe. But this cake just had an un squelch-able determination to rise and be fluffy (something I wish other baked goods would learn from!) With each trial I decreased the amount of leavening, but yet it still came out tall and cake-textured every time, so eventually I quit fighting and changed the name.

Cake, you win. The prize? A slice of celebratory…wait. Hmm maybe I did still win actually.