Treats

Treats

Caramel Date Sauce

Greetings from Dallas!
Do any of my bunnies have suggestions for some restaurants or shops I should visit?
I always love visiting Texas because everyone here is so sweet.
Speaking of sweet, I have a sweet treat for y’all today!

Fall is the time for candy apples, bathed in gooey caramel! This caramel date sauce is soooo easy to make and so perfect for anyone with a sweet tooth (like myself)! Dip apple slices in it for a sweet snack, or add it on top of your yogurt! My Caramel Date Sauce is vegan, gluten free, refined sugar-free, and low fat, so go ahead, indulge!

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Caramel Date Sauce

1 cup Medjool dates, packed
1 cup water
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt

Remove pits from dates. Place dates and water in a jar or container and soak overnight or about 6 hours. Transfer the dates and their soaking water to a food processor and add the vanilla and salt. Blend until smooth and creamy.

Mini {vegan} Pumpkin Pies

As promised, I have a fun pumpkin recipe for my little bunnies! These Mini Pumpkin Pies are vegan, refined sugar-free, flour-less, and gluten-free!

Natural Delights sent me a box of fresh Medjool dates, so I experimented using them as a natural sweetener in my pumpkin pie filling. My taste testers (a.k.a Matt and my sister, Jessica) loved how the pumpkin filling turned out. I bet it would be uhhh-mazing as a parfait or with yogurt and granola!

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Mini-Vegan-Pumpkin-Pies-1Studded Pumpkins can be found on RachelGeorge.com.

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Mini {vegan} Pumpkin Pies
Makes 12

For the Crust:
2 cups rolled oats (uncontaminated gluten-free oats)
1 1/2 cups walnuts
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 cup agave
2 Tbsp Coconut Oil

For the Filling:
1 cup canned pumpkin purree
5 medjool dates, pitted
1 Tbsp almond milk
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice (or 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp ginger, and 1/4 tsp nutmeg)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a food processor, pulse oats until flour consistency. Next add nuts, spices, and remaining crust ingredients until a dough consistency is formed. Spray a regular sized muffin tin with nonstick cooking spray. Evenly distribute the dough and press down into each sprayed muffin tin, forming little crusts. Bake in the oven for 15-17 minutes. While the crusts are baking, combine pumpkin puree, Medjool dates, almond milk, spices, and vanilla extract in a food processor and blend until smooth. When the crusts have finished baking, remove from oven and let them cool completely. Once crusts have cooled, remove from the tin with a knife. Fill each crust evenly with pumpkin mixture. Store in refrigerator.

Passionfruit Protein Popsicles

Happy fall everybunny!  It’s officially fall, but California still thinks it’s summer. Kind of awesome, kind of not, especially when the rest of the country is shopping for boots and scarves while sipping on pumpkin spice lattes, and we are over here sweating it out during this insane heat wave! I’m having fall FOMO (fear of missing out) and want to wear all of my fall clothes, dark nails, and dark lipstick!

So if you live on the west coast, or you’re experiencing a heat wave like we are, these popsicles are the perfect way to cool down. Greek yogurt popsicles are awesome because they’re creamy and loaded with protein! I love combining them with fresh passionfruit for a sweet and tart combo and some crunch from the seeds. Great for post-workout, an afternoon pick-me-up, or healthy dessert option!

But don’t worry, I’m working on some healthy pumpkin recipes for all of my pumpkin loving bunnies!

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Passionfruit Protein Popsicles
Makes 4 Popsicles

1  (16 oz.) container Chobani 0% Original Greek Yogurt
2 passionfruit

Cut passionfruit in half, scoop out each half of the fruit and place in the bottom of a popsicle mold. Fill the rest of the popsicle mold with Greek yogurt. Freeze overnight and enjoy.

Homemade Animal Cookies

Sorry for the lack of posts recently, little bunnies! My sister got married on July 19th, so as you could imagine, life has been pretty crazy! I finally got a few minutes to myself to relax and catch up on emails after our out-of-town guests had returned home and the newlyweds left for their honeymoon!

I want to introduce you all to Erin! Erin is one of my friends, and also my spin buddy at Full Psycle! She loves baking and creates the best low-ingredient desserts on her blog (3 ingredient red velvet cookies? I meannnnn). I am one lucky duck and get to taste test when she brings her creations to spin! She so totally spoils me!
Revenge Bakery and Rabbit Food For My Bunny Teeth
I love that she balances baking, healthy eating, and exercising. She loves green juice, and salads, but she also loves the occasional sweet treat. She’s seriously adorable and such an amazing person with mad style.

Erin and I had a fun girls’ day and made these adorable bunny ‘circus’ animal cookies!

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I bought this adorable bunny cookie cutter from our favorite store Daiso! It’s a Japanese dollar store, so this cookie cutter was only $1.50 in store!

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Instead of using artificial food coloring to dye our frosting pink, we used small amount of beet juice from canned beets!

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Homemade Animal Cookies
{with vegan options}

1 ½ cups White Flour (or gluten free alternative)
½ cup Sugar
¼ tsp salt
½ cup Earth Balance Buttery Spread
1 egg (or egg replacer for vegan alternative)
½ tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine all dry ingredients (sugar, flour, salt) in one bowl. In a separate bowl, combine all wet ingredients (earth balance, egg, and vanilla) and beat using a hand mixer until well mixed. Slowly add the dry mixture into the wet mixture while beating with a hand mixer until dough has been formed. Place the dough in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes until dough hardens. Roll out dough with a rolling pin in between parchment paper (if the dough seems too sticky to roll out, add an extra tablespoon or two of flour). Cut desired shapes with cookie cutters until all the dough has been used. Bake for 5 minutes until lightly golden brown.

For the frosting:
Royal Icing
1 cup powdered sugar
1 Tbsp vanilla soy milk (or almond milk – creamer is best)
¼ tsp vanilla

Combine all ingredients with a small whisk. Divide frosting evenly into two separate bowls. Use 1/4 – 1/2 tsp of beet juice in one half of the frosting to give a light pink color.

Vegan option: Melt vegan white chocolate chips. Color half of the chocolate chips with about 1/4 – 1/2 tsp of beet juice for pink coloring.

Healthy Vegan Cookie Dough Blizzard

I LOVE ice cream, frozen yogurt, but most of all, Dairy Queen’s Cookie Dough Blizzard. When it comes to fast-food soft serves, Dairy Queen’s Blizzard totally trumps their competition. If you aren’t familiar with DQ Blizzards, they’re ultra thick soft serve shakes with various toppings bended in. They’re so thick that when you flip the cup over, nothing comes out!

Although they’re mouth watering good, I have to admit that I feel kind of crappy from the extreme sugar rush upon eating one. Since creating my Healthy Frosty, I have been daydreaming about a healthy healthy Blizzard. Below I have included the calorie count for large DQ blizzards, so you can see how crazy it is!

Nutrition Facts for DQ Blizzards: 

  • Banana Cream Pie Blizzard (Large): 1090 Calories
  • Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Blizzard (Large): 1060 Calories
  • Georgia Mud Fudge Blizzard (Large) 1340 Calories
  • Chocolate Xtreme Blizzard (Large): 1420 Calories
  • Georgia Mud Fudge Blizzard (Large) 1340 Calories
  • Cookie Dough Blizzard (Large): 1020 Calories

Scary? Um yes!

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Healthy Vegan Cookie Dough Blizzard
Serves 1

1 frozen banana
1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk
2 Tbsp (or 2 “bites”) of Vegan Cookie Dough

Combine frozen banana, almond milk, and vegan cookie dough in a high powered blender or food processor and blend until thick and creamy.

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