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Happy Mother’s Day to all my mom friends! And of course to my own beautiful mom!

Dan and I are headed out shortly to spend some quality time with my family but before we do, I wanted to show off what my wonderful fur-babies put together for me this morning.

A girl can wish, right? Sorry for the quality, I snapped it with my phone.

You caught me, I made my own special breakfast, but I enjoyed every sweet bite of that cinnamon vanilla pancake. I topped it off with homemade peanut-almond butter. And a side of fresh mango. Now, if you’re a mom… show this to your kids right now and let them head into the kitchen with some inspiration!

I’m on week 2 of making our nut butter because I’ve learned it is so much cheaper than buying it. Spending $ 3.50 to make a full jar is much better than $ 5.99 for store bought.

Just grind up 2 cups of peanuts and 1/2 cup of almonds and you’ve got nut butter.

Let’s move on from pancakes to cake cakes.

My mom asked that my brother and I cook for the family for her Mother’s Day. Sounds great to me.

I offered to be in charge of dessert. At first, I was going to to buy a cake at Whole Foods… save time, they’re gorgeous and taste great. But then I came to my senses and realized that wasn’t an option. I’ve mentioned before that my family isn’t exactly vegan-friendly. So I made Dan promise to tell them that this cake was “normal” until after they ate it. Sneaky.

The edible flowers, I found at the Charleston Farmer’s Market yesterday morning and they ended up being my inspiration.

The idea of making a chocolate chip sheet cake just didn’t seem appropriate once I laid eyes on these gorgeous buds.

Vegan Almond Vanilla Cake & Chocolate Ganache

I’ll take a few pictures once we cut into it later today, but I should go ahead and warn you, this is actually a double iced cake. Lying right beneath the fluffy, creamy chocolate ganache is actually a crunchy layer of dark chocolate that I had melted down.

Just wanted you to be 100% aware of what is in store here.

Cake Ingredients: 

• 8 Flax eggs (8 tbsp flax meal + 15 tbsp water)
• 1.5 cups unsweetened coconut milk (or other vegan milk)
• 4 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup raw sugar
• 1 cup almond meal
• 1.25 cup oat flour (ground up oatmeal)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda

Cake Directions: 

1. Preheat oven to 350-degrees
2. In a mixing bowl, combine eggs, milk, vanilla, sugar and set aside.
3. In a second bowl, combine everything else. Add this to the wet ingredients.
4. Lightly oil and flour a cake pan (or use a nonstick). Pour batter in.
5. Bake 25-30 minutes, until slightly browned.
6. Remove from heat and allow to cool completely before decorating.

Chocolate Layer: 

• 3/4 cup vegan dark chocolate chips

1. In a microwave safe bowl, microwave chips for 15 second intervals, stirring between each until melted.
2. Pour over cake and smooth out evenly.
3. Set in fridge to start hardening as you put ganache together.

Chocolate “Ganache” Icing

• 1 can FULL fat canned coconut milk (Trader Joe’s brand works really well, Taste of Thai doesn’t)
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 1/2 tsp vanilla

1. Open coconut milk completely, and scoop out just the “fat” from the top, leaving the water at the bottle of the can. You can keep the water for smoothies and cooking if you want.
2. In a bowl, mix all ingredients until smooth, thick and creamy.
3. Layer on top of dark chocolate crunch.

– What’s on the agenda for today?

By the way, many of you responded to my kettlebell training by being very excited! So tomorrow, I’ll be sharing some “getting started with kettlebell” moves and even a workout.

Happy Mother’s Day!

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