Plant Based U

Fat-Free and Low Fat Vegan Plant Based Recipes

special-occasion

Plant-Based Chocolate Banana Cream Pie – Oh My! (Dairy-Free and Vegan!)

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Ok so you may or may not know but I try not to make desserts very often! You see I don’t like to tempt myself by keeping things like this in the house as I used to be addicted to candy and baked goods as a kid. But occasionally I make desserts for special occasions or for guests and I came up with a healthier version of one of my favorites. Chocolate banana cream pie.



You see plain old banana cream pie doesn’t do it for me… no, no I like to coat the crust in a little melted dark chocolate and drizzle some on top for good measure. But this is a special treat! I don’t eat chocolate every day and certainly not desserts.

Here’s what the final product looks all sliced up and pretty!

I also made a coconut milk whipped creme to top it off with as well, but this is optional. If you are looking for a lower fat dessert you can certainly skip the coconut milk whipped cream. I have never made coconut whipped creme before so I wanted to try my hand at it. Turns out it helps to actually own egg beaters! (which I don’t… hah) So mine ended up being a little flat and not really whipped… but it still tasted great nonetheless. So I recommend using egg beaters (the kitchen tool not the product!) to make whipped cream.

Ok so now I’m going to show you how you can make a basic banana cream pie with fresh ripe bananas, almond milk and vanilla pudding. Then I’ll give you the option of using dark chocolate and/or coconut whipped cream. That means you can totally choose how to build your banana cream pie to your tastes and dietary needs. So if you are on a strict diet don’t throttle me please! This is a special occasions recipe and sometimes you want to blow your guests away with a totally vegan and plant based treat.

Compared to the original non vegan recipe this is definitely “reduced in guilt”. 🙂



There’s a new print function installed on the blog, click the print icon at the top of the post and you can edit the text to print and remove the photos if you like as well.

Vegan Chocolate Banana Cream Pie

Serves 8-10 (depending how big the slices are)

Pie Ingredients:

1 graham cracker pie crust (look to see if it contains honey- if concerned, many don’t)
3 oz. semi sweet baking chocolate (dairy free)
3 bananas, ripe
2 cups almond milk or other non dairy milk
1 package vanilla pudding mix (not instant the stovetop kind)

Coconut Whipped Cream Ingredients *optional

1 can coconut milk (regular, not light)
2-3 teaspoons maple syrup or confectioners sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract or vanilla powder

Chocolate Drizzle Ingredients *optional

1 oz semi sweet baking chocolate (dairy free)

Pie Assembly Directions:

1. Remove graham cracker crust lid. Melt chocolate in a microwave safe bowl for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes.

2. With a spatula carefully spread chocolate mixture over crust, gently dragging it up the sides. Set crust in refrigerator to harden.
3. When chocolate is firm, slice one of the bananas and place half of it on the bottom of the crust. Reserve the other half banana.
4. Blend 2 remaining bananas with 2 cups almond milk in a blender. Add to a saucepan with vanilla pudding mix and cook as directed on package. This makes the vanilla pudding turn into banana pudding with no artificial flavors. (Bring to a boil over medium to medium high heat, stirring constantly until mixture boils.)

5. When thickened pour into pie crust and cool until chilled and set.

If you want the lowest fat version, stop here and serve as is without coconut whipped cream and chocolate drizzle

6. Garnish top of pie with remaining banana slices. Cover and refrigerate for 2-3 hours until set.
7. If desired top with coconut whipped creme and chocolate drizzle, or serve as is for a lower fat version. Instructions below.

Coconut Whipped Cream Directions:
1. Place the can of coconut milk in refrigerator for 6-8 hours, or in freezer for 3-4 hours until really really cold.
2. Place metal bowl and egg beaters or immersion blender stick in freezer for a few minutes.
3. Remove the can of coconut milk from the freezer and turn upside down. Open the can and pour off coconut water. (reserve for another recipe such as a smoothie!)
4. Remove the bowl from the freezer and scoop out the coconut cream with a spatula and add it to the chilled bowl.
5. Whip cream until light and fluffy. Add maple syrup or vanilla extract if desired. Whip again until combined.
6. Garnish or serve.

Chocolate Drizzle Directions
1. In a microwave safe bowl melt chocolate (1-1/2 minutes on high).
2. Drizzle over pie or dessert and serve.

Vegan Chocolate Banana Cream Pie

 Have you ever had chocolate banana cream pie before? Have you ever made a vegan pie at home?

Special Occasions: Plant Based Cheesecake and Blueberry Rooibos Compote (Vegan Cheesecake)

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Today I made a special recipe for my friend’s birthday. A vegan cheesecake with vegan graham cracker crust and blueberry rooibos compote. When trying to impress friends and especially non-vegans, having a great vegan comfort food treat can be a little daunting, but trust me this recipe is easy.



Since I have never made a vegan cheesecake before, and the last time I made actual cheesecake was almost a decade a go, I decided to look online and see what I could find. My friend requested an almond-lemony flavoured cheesecake, and what do you know? I found one here. It uses firm silken tofu and Tofutti better than cream cheese. With the almond extract and fresh lemon juice, it really tastes nice, and I could not detect any tofu flavour at all. I made the recipe almost exactly as the post, but the only firm silken tofu I could find was by Mori-nu and it comes in a 12 oz size and not 14 oz. It seemed fine and enough filling anyways for the cheesecake.



The cheesecake part was very easy, since I had a Vitamix and I could just combine everything and blend. I still blended a little longer than normal for good measure, just to be sure there was no sugar granules or chunks of corn starch.

The hard part of this recipe was that there are no vegan graham crackers (they contain honey) or crusts at Whole Foods in Vancouver, BC I could find. So I had to do it old school and make my own graham crackers… I’ve never even made any crackers before… so here’s how what I did…



I found a recipe here for vegan graham crackers and smores. I didn’t know how much of the recipe I would need for the crust, so I made the whole thing. But now I know I could have halved or even thirded the recipe since I now have a lot of extra graham crackers. I froze them for later in case I need a dessert crust again.

You definitely DO NOT need to make a crust for vegan cheesecake, your recipe will be much lower in fat if you don’t, since I can’t see any way to make a fat free or low fat pie crust.  The graham crumbs are held in by Earth Balance, which is a highly processed food so I don’t recommend making this recipe regularly, just for special occasions like birthdays and holidays for your friends and family. My friend likes graham cracker crusts so that’s why I made it.



A note about the graham cracker recipe if you make it, I wouldn’t bake them so long. My crackers were baked for the full time and were SO freaking hard. Like dangerous to chew hard. It took me forever to break them down in the food processor. I should have used the Vitamix instead, but it had the cream cheese filling in it. But it took forever to get down to crumbs. It would barely crush with my stone rolling pin! Try baking 30-35 minutes only. They don’t need to be totally firm when you take them out, they will solidify. And if you roll them too thin they will turn too brown and burn. The texture is not that great for eating, as it’s a little gritty, but if you’re into whole wheat treats you might not mind.



Now on to the part where my recipe comes in. Earlier this week some friends and I had a vegan tea cook off and I made a blueberry rooibus tea compote for my raw banana ice-cream made with Provence rooibus tea. It was very delicious, I decided to replicate it again for this cheesecake.

Here’s the recipe:

Plant Based Blueberry Rooibus Tea Compote

Ingredients:

3 cups frozen blueberries
1/2 cup blueberry rooibos tea or other rooibos tea (steeped at double strength)
3-4 tbsp granulated sugar,  maple syrup, honey, or vegan honey
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice



Directions:

1. Add 1 1/2 cups of the blueberries, the tea, sugar and lemon juice and cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes.
2. Add the remaining blueberries and cook for another 6-8 minutes.
3. Taste test and adjust to your liking, add more sugar for more sweet, or more tea for less sweet.
4. Serve over vegan cheesecake, ice-cream, yogurt, and more.

My suggestion for a healthier decadent vegan treat would be to serve this compote like I originally did, over fat free banana ice-cream made in the Vitamix or a juicer. Then it’s completely fat and guilt-free.

My rooibos banana ice-cream was:

1/2 cup Provence rooibos tea (steeped at double strength)
1 tsp vanilla extract
6 frozen bananas (make sure your bananas are ripe, see my post here about how to tell if bananas are ripe)

You’ll need a Vitamix to make this, or let the banana thaw a little bit and slice into small pieces for your regular blender or food processor. Add the tea and extract and then the bananas. Turn the Vitamix onto 5 and use the tamper to push it down and cream the bananas. Continue pushing it all down until it’s blended evenly. This should take no more than 30-60 seconds, since you don’t want your ice-cream to start melting.

Serves 2 large servings, 4-6 small dessert servings.

Let me know what you think!



Update!

I made this vegan cheesecake again crustless and with the same blueberry sauce but without the rooibos tea. If you make the vegan cheesecake crustless, make sure you spray some cooking spray on the bottom of your dish! Mine would not come out, so it was messy.  Also the blueberry sauce was rather 1 dimensional. I really missed the subtle complex flavours left by the fruity blueberry rooibus tea. So I really hope you will try it. It will not be the same if you get another kind of blueberry tea, like green tea because it’s less fragrant.