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Why I’m no longer a vegan

I like burgers too much.

burgers

Mmmmm burgers…

But wait!

Of course today is April Fool’s Day, and the burgers are actually whoopie pies.

burger

Mmmm chocolate burgers.

Who needs meat when you can have chocolate??

 

Hamburger Whoopie Pies

(makes 12 circles)

Based on these: S’mores Whoopie Pies.

  • 1/4 cup milk of choice
  • scant 1 tsp vinegar
  • 1/2 cup whole-wheat pastry flour (or white flour)
  • 1/4 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • just over 1/8 tsp salt
  • 1/4 cup evaporated cane juice (or white sugar)
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons applesauce
  • 1 tablespoon water
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons oil (coconut or canola/veg)
  • 1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 375 F. Mix vinegar into milk, and set aside. In a separate bowl, combine dry ingredients and mix very well. Then put all the other liquid ingredients into the vinegar mixture and stir. Pour wet into dry, and stir to combine. Drop tiny circles (a little over the size of a silver dollar) onto 1 or 2 cookie trays. (Or, if you have a whoopie pie maker, you can use that!) Bake around 8 minutes.

For the fixins:

Feel free to get creative. I used strawberries to represent tomatoes. For the green frosting (i.e. the spinach!), I used the following recipe:

  • 2/3 cup Mori-Nu silken-firm tofu (140 g) (I’m sure soft-silken would work too!)
  • 6 tablespoons raw cashew butter or coconut butter
  • scant 1/8th tsp salt
  • small handful spinach (You can’t taste it! But if you doubt me, you can use food coloring instead.)
  • 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
  • sweetener to taste (stevia, agave, sugar, etc.)

Blend everything in a blender, food processor, or Magic Bullet cup. This frosting is thicker when cold, so it’s a good idea to make it up ahead of time. But don’t frost the whoopie pies until just before serving (or frost them and then store in the fridge). I put the frosting in a plastic bag and cut a tiny hole in the side to squirt it out.

**For a soy-free frosting, add the vanilla extract and spinach to the following recipe (and sub the pb for coconut butter or raw cashew butter): Soy-Free Frosting.

burger pie

For the chocolate:

You can use your favorite hot fudge sauce, chocolate frosting, or melted chocolate chips. Or you can even make vegan brownies and cut out circles for your burgers.

I used my favorite chocolate recipe: Hot Chocolate Butter.

Question of the Day:

Have you ever played an April Fools joke?

Also, does anyone have a good joke idea I can use on my roommate? I thought about setting the clocks back two hours, but she’s not working today so she probably wouldn’t even notice or care!

P.S. No, I didn’t expect to fool you with my obviously-not-real burgers. I realize not everyone is as gullible as I am. (Last year, I fell for Vegnews’ tweet that Paula Deen was turning vegan and signed on to be a spokesperson for Earth Balance!)

Published on April 1, 2012

Meet Katie

Chocolate Covered Katie is one of the top 25 food websites in America, and Katie has been 
featured on The 
Today Show, CNN, 
Fox, The 
Huffington Post, and 
ABC's 5 O’Clock News. Her favorite food is chocolate, and she believes in eating dessert every single day.

Learn more about Katie

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76 Comments

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  1. Anonymous says

    Do you think these would work out ok if I scaled the sugar back to 1 – 2 Tbsp instead of using a 1/4 cup (for the ‘cakey’ bit?) I really don’t do sweet….And these look as though they might work as a buscuity/scone type thing…

  2. Alanna says

    Those are so cute and clever! One of the best pranks I heard was a friend a few years back who set her co-worker’s computer to automatically run a PowerPoint presentation with nothing but black background slides. The coworker was so confused when their computer “wouldn’t start”, haha.

  3. Paula says

    P.S. I know of at least one vegan blogger who is now ex-vegan (formerly Voracious Vegan I think) . Created quite a storm of controversy on the internet.

  4. Amy Sun says

    Haha!!! You totally got me! Great post…and the chocolate whoopie pies look amazing! We had your raspberry fudgy cake last night for my brother-in-laws b/d party. Amazing!!!

  5. Suzie says

    Haha you got me Katie, I was reading the title and thinking no way! And then continued and felt silly that I fell for it, I completely forgot today is April Fools. Looks delicious though!

  6. Kat @ a dash of fairydust says

    Haha,when I read your tweet,I was like “What the–?! … Wait. It’s April 1st.” 😉 I just couldn’t believe it,I’m sorry!
    These “burgers” are super super cute though! I love this idea,so creative! 🙂

  7. Dobber says

    You got me!! I clicked on your link right away. 🙂 You could buy some Oreos (or make a cookie yourself!) and put toothpaste in the middle for April Fool’s Day. Thank you for the recipes…you are so gorgeous and sweet.

  8. Krista says

    Played a joke on the kids today. Their grandma is due in this Friday. They haven’t seen her in over a year, so they are obviously very excited. Told them she had broken her leg and couldn’t make the trip. They had just been doing silly little April fool’s jokes, so I thought they’d see right through it. Two of them started to cry. Woops! Apparently, I am evil. I have also told my mom I was pregnant before… Or that I broke a limb. A friend one called me hysterical and telling me another friend had been in a bad accident. Not funny!

    A funny joke for you to do would be to take pics of non-vegan food at the store or something and put them up on your blog with a bogus recipe. Or maybe some really bizarre recipe with ingredients nobody would put together. Yeah, I have a mean streak.

  9. Mary says

    You are the only person who got me today (from the title on twitter). I thought maybe you were going to start using milk for some reason. lol. These look super cute.

  10. Grati says

    Woa,you got me:)) I was shocked reading the title!!! I´m not good with pranks and April fool´s day so I´m always the one who gets fooled easily. Thanks God you´re still vegan,really;))

  11. Susie says

    First off, adorable recipe. Secondly, I played a great AFJ on my mom years ago when I told her that one of my cousins was either engaged or pregnant (literally, this was years ago, so I don’t remember) but we were at a restaurant and she almost spit her drink out! I think it was because it was JUST believable enough (they had been together long enough) but also so random that I would know and she wouldn’t. Another good one that I’ve hear of is putting just enough food coloring into something to make it look a little bit wonky. In college, just for fun a not for a real reason, my brother and his friends stole one of their other friends’ bed, which I always thought was pretty silly and quite harmless.

  12. Gabby @ the veggie nook says

    These are so cute! I should have known you’d come up with such a lovely way to celebrate April Fools Day 🙂

    Love your blog by the way. I’ve never commented but have made numerous recipes over the years. You are very inspiring!

  13. Nutrafit says

    Very cute! I’m new to your site. Everything looks so yummy! I made your chocolate cookie dough boatmeal recipe and it was amazing. Cain’t wait to try more. Next up will be the peanut butter fudge. I was wondering how many servings that recipe makes? Thanks for sharing your healthy sweet tooth with all if us!

  14. Kristen @ notsodomesticated says

    I’ve been following your blog for a little while now, but just haven’t written until today. I knew right away that it had to be April Fools, because I read your “about me” and knew how passionate you were about your vegan lifestyle. 😉 But I think these burgers look delicious!

  15. Cathy says

    Actually yesterday i made the fake chocolate reeces eggs for a party, and with the leftovers i filled a tiny hole with tabasco sauce and smoothed it over. I am going to have my mom and brother eat them! They never saw the actual eggs so hopefully they won’t think it looks weird!

  16. francesca says

    Hi katie
    i love your blog ! Best recipes ever ! You should consider doing a cookbook with lots of different sections and menus at the end ,like: dessert for two,Kids favorites, breakfast treats, by seasons … I really hope you take this into consideration because every time I go to look for a recipe on your site I end up browsing for hours. I don’t like procrastinating !
    Truly

  17. Katie @ Nutrition in a Peanut Shell says

    Hahaha all I saw was your facebook update that said “Why I’m no longer vegan.”, not the picture. With the recent flux of vegan bloggers turning to more vegetarian (Mama Pea, Happy Herbivore) I thought it was definitely possible!

    This is really creative!

    • Ivy says

      I really don’t think so. HH just doesn’t like the vegan label because she doesn’t like getting yelled at by the vegan police. She does eat honey, I think, but so do a lot of vegans. And I haven’t found anything about Mama Pea no longer being vegan. I have her first cookbook. If you’ve seen the postings, please send them my way. Thanks 🙂

  18. Eleanor@Eatinglikeahorse says

    Haha, good for you! I got an email this morning from a Groupon-type site offering the chance to carry the Olympic torch at the opening ceremony, plus a tour of the stadium with Daley Thompson etc – and nearly got taken in 🙂
    When April Fools’ Day fell on a Thursday (the day the paper I work for comes out) the other year, I wrote a piece saying a historic tower in the town was going to be converted into a power station – and it took loads of people in!

  19. Jennifer says

    I must say that I am completely gullible. When I saw the subject line of this post in my email, I practically fell out of my chair. Or, would have if I wasn’t sitting on the floor.

    The whoopie pies look amazing!

  20. J3nn (Jenn's Menu and Lifestyle Blog) says

    I almost fell for it… almost. 😉 The whoopie pie looks yummy! I’ve never had one! Ever!

  21. Kaila @healthyhelperblog! says

    Cute idea! These would be perfect to make for a kids birthday part! Fun food always tastes better 🙂

  22. Jasmin says

    You got me! LOL! I’ve never had a whoopie pie… but I really want to try one! Yours look fantastic!

    I got my mom a few years back by putting a stickey note on the laser thing at the bottom of a computer mouse (and then it doesn’t work). The note said happy april fools day. She’s not very technology-advanced and thought that the whole computer was broken! Hah!

    My friend once totally got me by telling me this bogus story about how Canadians aren’t going to be saying “eh” anymore but “ah”. I fell for it 🙁

  23. Amy says

    You goose! That was super-cute. April fool’s day is a tricky one around our house– you just NEVER know how a joke will be perceived by someone on the autism spectrum, and I want my kids to be happy, not stressed out! For this reason, we do a well-planned silly day of pizza for breakfast and pancakes for dinner. It’s also Palm Sunday this year, so the April fool was on yours truly if I thought my sons could sit quietly in church without sword fighting when they have palm branches in their hands! 😛

  24. Lisa says

    MMMMM. I just picked strawberries the other day with my kids and have been looking for different recipes for them. 😉

  25. Amber K says

    lol, I was so confused at first, especially because I thought the burgers looked so weird. What kind of burger is that? Ooooooh I get it, tee hee.

  26. Karina says

    The title to this post shocked me for about two seconds, then I was like, oh yeah it’s April Fool’s. You’re the only person who fooled me today. We actually don’t do much as far as April Fool’s around here. One of my brothers has been saying for the past six months that he is going to shave another one of my brother’s moustache during his sleep for April Fool’s, but he didn’t have the guts to do it when today finally came.

  27. vogelstar says

    Those are so pretty and probably taste delightful.
    Today I called my mom to tell her that I’m actually staying in Japan for 3 months. She freaked out, “I knew you were going to do this!”
    It was so funny, she barely gave me a second to tell her it was a joke.

  28. Jana says

    I read your post on twitter and I was like “What!?” (I’m a new vegan and was partially inspired by YOU to become a vegan, so I quickly clicked the link!) and you definitely fooled me very well! Third prank I fell for today!

  29. Kit-Kat says

    These look really yummy, Katie, and you almost fooled me, since I opened up my email of your post, and my email does not show pictures of things (so I could not see that the “burger” was just a cookie sandwhich)! Haha! 🙂
    I played an April Fool on my parents and siblings once. I made a vegan Sponge cake. but the first cake I served had real sponge baked in!!! They were so surprised when after being breifly dissappointed I brought out the real cake (I got the idea from Martha Stewart). 😉

  30. cucicucicoo says

    well, i guess i’m pretty gullible, too! when i saw the title in my inbox i couldn’t believe it and clicked right away! but i figured it out right away when i saw the picture. duh! lol! 🙂 lisa

  31. NessyS says

    You got me too! You should have seen my face!! Now, since it is now the 2nd here in Australia does that technically mean the jokes on you??? 😉 Nice one Sweetie – and the burgers look fantastic too! xxxx

  32. LizAshlee says

    How creative..you totally had me…no April fools jokes this year here..maybe bc it was on a Sunday?? Have a great day!

  33. Whitni Vasquez says

    What I want from the Easter bunny… Hmmm. I would like healthy dark chocolate candies for my toddler… And for my Mom (who’s currently visiting) to understand that all the horrible chocolate options are a waste of money, and hold no nutritional value, and goes against everything I am trying to achieve in our home….. But it is sooo ironic I just mentioned last nigh about trying to make our own chocolate bunnies and that I needed to get a mold hahaa so if I won it would be an awesome tradition that we would start every year!

  34. Karen says

    So great! Although honestly, you completely fooled me… when I first saw this post on facebook, my heart fell through the floor, selfishly all i could think of was, “no more vegan desserts??!” Great joke, and I’m very happy you are still vegan 🙂

  35. Michaela says

    We like to serve/order dessert first for April Fool’s Day. If we’re at home, I make a dessert & serve it first. If we eat out we order dessert first. The first time the family looked confused, but after that they used to like to invite their friends over every year. At the restaurants I’m sure it also brought smiles to the wait staff & nearby diners.

  36. Natalie says

    Omg I didn’t see this on the first of April and I was like what? Not a vegan? But you inspired me!! Katie, I find it really hard to eat vegan in the states. I only eat out and a few of the restaurants I’ve been to don’t even have vegetarian options. How do you do it??? The burger whoopie pies are super cute!!

  37. Casey says

    I honestly thought you had given up veganism and was so disappointed! I love your recipes and would be so sad if they weren’t vegan anymore. These mini burgers look too delicious!

  38. Matt says

    Ah! I thought you had decided to give up veganism for health reasons. I was so happy for you! Too bad it isn’t true.

  39. Aurélie says

    Ah ah ! I read this article because I was intrigued about the title. I love this sentence :
    “Who needs meat when you can have chocolate??”

    Sure I will use it again when people ask me about my food choices ! 😉
    Great site, great ides, great receipes ! Thanks!

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