Updated: Brûléed Maple Pumpkin Pie with Gingersnap Crust

We are hosting Thanksgiving AGAIN this year, and my dreams are coming true.

One of my most favorite parts of being an adult is having control over our holiday plans. This year we will be joined by seven friends and two kiddos . Having friends, my chosen family, surround us on holidays feels like the highest honor to me. I am BEYOND excited! Feeding friends and family is one of my favorite ways to say, I love you!!!

That being said, I want to make sure everything we eat is as yummy as possible, so it was time for a pie run-through. I’ve been making Brûléed Maple Pumpkin Pie with Gingersnap Crust for YEARS and look forward to it every time. I made several adjustments to the original recipe, making it dairy free and even tastier than I remembered!

Vegan Dark Chocolate Peanut & Cashew Butter Hearts

Trust me when I say this - homemade nut butter cups are LIGHT-YEARS more delicious than your average Reese's Peanut Butter cup! They are pretty easy to make and just so happen to be dairy free and gluten free. I used my Vegan Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Easter Eggs recipe and made two tiny adjustments...

One-Bowl Vegan Gingerbread Cookies

This recipe is late. V late. But I worked hard to perfect this ONE BOWL version of Vegan Gingerbread Cookies, and wanted to share it so that at the very least, it will be here next year and we can plan ahead! I am squeezing out every last bit of holiday cheer during these last few days of 2016, and sharing this recipe is one way I can do that! I am SOOO happy to report that no one could guess these were vegan, including my friends sweet mom. I delivered some cookies, and right before I left she complimented me on them. I told her they were vegan! She was just so shocked, because she has never had vegan desserts because when she wants dessert, she wants dessert!!!

Christmas Desserts!!

Its Christmas time and time for a carol, time to sing about the little King,

to fill the bowl and roll out the barrel have our selves a fling!

AND TIME FOR CHRISTMAS TREATS!

Here are some delicious Christmas dessert recipes! Most of these recipes have been healthified (pretty sure that is not a real word, but it should be...) where possible, but you know, they're cookies so they're not as healthy as a carrot...

Roasted Banana Caramel Swirl Vegan Ice Cream

I have been lactose intolerant since before it was a 'thing'. The older I get, the more sensitive I am to even the smallest amounts of dairy. That being said, I don't even want to eat ice cream anymore because it makes me feel so terrible. One of my goals for the summer was to perfect a recipe for vegan ice cream. After many trials and tribulations, I realized there were four major problems. SPOILER ALERT. I SOLVED THEM ALL and Roasted Banana Salted Date Caramel Swirl was born! I think this is one of the best recipes I've ever developed!

Vegan Strawberry Pistachio Crumble Pie

Strawberry picking is one of our favorite summer activities! Usually we pick about three to four buckets of strawberries, but this time we we had to scale back a bit due to the size of the freezer in our new house. (I'm fairly certain our freezer was designed by someone with only ice cube and frozen pea storage in mind)

Until we can get a new fridge/freezer, I've taken to bribing people with berry desserts in exchange for freezer space. This pie is my newest bribery tool! The strawberry fruit swims in a sweet syrup right on top of a rich layer of cashew cream, all of which is complimented by a salty pistachio crumble on top.

Vegan Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Easter Eggs

Aside from the dark chocolate Easter bunnies, Resee's peanut butter cup eggs used to be one of the most highly coveted treasures in those Easter baskets. Then, one day, I became an adult and now most sweet things that you can buy in the candy aisle make me feel terrible, and I am not even the least bit tempted to indulge. One day I was making protein bars, and then these happened. What a happy accident!! I've experimented several times, and after making these into hearts, shamrocks, and medallians, I am so proud of how this recipe turned out!

100% more delicious than Reese's peanut butter cups and probably 100% healthier too! Peanut Butter Filling: 8 ingredients, including vanilla and salt. Dark Chocolate Covering: 3 - 4, ingredients including salt.

Healthier Dark Chocolate Oatmeal Bars

These bars are already healthier than your average cookie or dessert bar, but I wanted to see if I could make them even healthier by using a mix of different flours, some wheat bran, flax seed eggs, and cutting down on the sugar and coconut oil by adding dates. My thought was that I could use them on my long runs, since I had run out of Picky Bars. The second version was packed with fiber….and therefore not a good choice for before or during a workout…. Know what I’m sayin?

I finally found the perfect mix! It just happens to be gluten free, and includes the option to make them vegan/egg free.

Ode to Rustica: Bittersweet Chocolate Chip Cookies

I was home for a week in October, and the morning I left, we got up early and had breakfast at Rustica Bakery in Minneapolis. Everything we had was extraordinary and since Chris wasn't with me, I had to bring back some treats for him. Miraculously, the box of cookies stayed shut the whole entire flight back to Nashville. It didn't last long in the parking lot of the airport! Where most people have visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads at this time of year, we've had visions of bittersweet chocolate chip cookies on repeat.

Espresso Shortbread with Butterscotch Glaze

As much as I enjoy decorating these cookies, I am not convinced that they are memorably tasty. I think I love the first cut-out sugar cookie. They are a little too sweet for me and the clean up and prep takes too much time. So my goal was to find something different, delicious, a little bit easier with less prep work, and memorable. And then I read about Espresso Shortbread with Butterscotch Glaze. Does it get more unique than this?