meatless mondays - a load of nectarines

a load of nectarines! 

Last week, J and I picked up a load of nectarines from a friend that has an old nectarine tree. This is our second year receiving such a wonderful gift, and I had a few recipes in mind already.

nectarine cupcake! OMG!

 The first thing I made was nectarine cupcakes. I used this recipe, which is an adaptation of a Martha Stewart recipe (M.S. uses heavy cream in hers, and I can't figure out a vegan sub for that). I used flax seed eggs, and my own buttercream recipe for the frosting (vegan butter, powdered sugar, and usually almond milk. This time I used nectarine juice instead of milk and added a bit of almond extract). The cupcakes are delicious - one thing to pay particular attention to: the recipe says to pour a little batter in the bottom, then add the nectarines, and add more batter on top. I wasn't paying attention and mixed the nectarines into the batter and then poured it into the cupcake pan. This made the cupcakes a little fragile, since some of them got nectarines on the bottom and they didn't have a strong base.

nectarine upside down brownie cake

The next thing that I made was this nectarine upside down brownie cake. I've been craving brownies, especially since I found the pan, but I knew I had to use up the nectarines. I part-jokingly googled "nectarine brownies" and was shocked with this recipe! and it was vegan to begin with! I used nectarines instead of peaches, and used 1 banana and 2 flax seed 'eggs' instead of the applesauce. in addition, I added pecans and chocolate chips! mmm! they are very thick/dense and really really good. 

Tracy