Tiramisoy

I made this recently for some friends and it went down a treat!

Ingredients

For the sponge fingers:

• 200g Self-Raising Flour
• 3 tsp/15 ml Baking Powder
• 100g/3 oz Sugar (I used finely-ground Raw Cane Sugar)
• 3 Tbsp Freshly-ground Flax Seeds (a.k.a. Linseed)
• 75ml Water
• 1/2 a ripe Banana (50g)
• 50ml Soya, Rice or Oat Milk
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract

For the rest:

• 1/2 cup of pre-made cold coffee (strength to taste)
• Shot of brandy/ rum/ kahlua/ tia maria/ contreau (optional)
• 600 - 700g Soy Custard (I used 2 x Mocha Provamel Desserts + 4 x Vanilla flavour ones)
• Cocoa or carob powder, for dusting

Method

To make the sponge fingers:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C.
2. Sift dry cake ingredients together in a large mixing bowl.
3. Whizz up the flax seeds in a blender or grind them with mortar and pestle, and whisk them with up with the water in a jug.
4. Mash up the 1/2 banana and whisk it in with the flax-seed mixture.
5. Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and pour the banana/flax-seed mixture into it.
6. Pour in the milk substitute and vanilla extract and mix lightly until just combined.
7. Transfer mixture to two shallow greased or lined cake tins.
8. Bake for 20 mins, or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
9. Remove cake from the oven and leave to cool on a rack for 15 mins.
10. When cooled, cut into strips about 1.5 cm wide.

To assemble the pudding:

1. Start to place the sponge fingers into the base of a large glass/plastic bowl, lining the bottom.
2. Continue to layer the sponge, pressing down firmly, until the sides of the bowl are also covered, with the base having a thick, springy layer.
3. If using alcohol, mix the shot with the coffee and pour evenly over the sponge base. 
4. If using plan soy custard, halve and put into two seperate bowls, mixing a teaspoon of cocoa in with one. Then pour the 'cocoa' custard of the sponge and top with the plaun custard.
5. If using Provamel/Alpro desserts, pour in two of the vanilla desserts, then the mocha ones and top with the rest of the vanilla.
6. Dust with cocoa powder and serve.

Blackberrying

Walking to work along the river, I noticed a growing glut of plump blackberries slowly ripening next to the reservoir - so the other day I went and picked as many as I could find, returning home laden with 1.1kg of fresh local blackberries!

When I got home with my haul, I decided to use half the blackberries to make a crumble, and the rest to try out making some bramble jelly.

Very Blackberry and Apple Crumble

Blackberry and Apple Crumble is one of my favourite puddings, and is extremely easy to make. Best of all, it also happens to be Vegan - as long you use non-dairy margerine for the 'crumble'.

For this crumble, I only had one and a half apples, but because I was using 500g blackberries the overall fruit content was fine. The altered ratio of berries to apple did give the crumble more of a 'cherry-pie' feel though, especially as I decided to stew some of the berries with the apple slices beforehand. Mmm gooey...

Ingredients

For the crumble:

• 175g Plain Flour
• 25g Rolled Oats
• 30g Dairy Free Margerine
• 30g Demerera Sugar
• 1 tsp Cinnamon
• 1 tsp Ginger
• 1 tsp Nutmeg
• Pinch of salt

For the filling:

• 500g Blackberries
• 150g Apples 
• 2 tablespoons Water
• 1 tsp Cinnamon

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C /350F/ Gas Mark 4.
2. Rinse blackberries in a collander and leave to soak in a bowl of water for 5-10 mins
3. Core the apples and cut into slices.
4. Drain the blackberries and put half in a large pan together with the apple slices, 2 tablespoons of water and 1 teaspoon of Cinnamon.
5. Heat on a low heat until the apples have softened, but take off the heat before the blackberries start to lose their shape.
6. Stir together the flour, oats, sugar, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and a pinch of salt in a large mixing bowl.
7. Add the margerine and rub lightly into the dry ingredients with your fingers (or use the 'two-fork' method) until it resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Do not over-blend - it doesn't matter if there are some floury areas left in the crumble topping, and a briefly tossed, rubbed-together mixture will give you a lovely light crust.
8. Pour the stewed apple/blackberry mixture into the bottom of a large baking dish, distributing the rest of the blackberries over the top.
9. Cover with the crumble mixture and bake for 30-40 minutes or until browned and crispy on top and bubbling underneath.

Delicious served hot with a couple of spoonfuls of cold Vanilla Soy Yoghurt, although thick English custard is the most traditional accompaniment. 

Non-Vegans can have it with ice-cream, drizzled with single or double cream, or with a dollop of whipped cream, creme fraiche or greek yoghurt on the side - and of course Vegans can substitute these with their favoured non-dairy alternatives.

Thick Bramble Jelly

Ingredients

• 500g Blackberries
• 200g Sugar (I used finely ground raw cane sugar)
• 50 ml Water

Method

1. Put the blackberries in a pan with the water. 
2. Stew berries with the lid on, stirring occasionally, until they are softened and the pulp has started to seperate from the seeds.
3. Take another pan and pour the stewed berries into it through a sieve, mashing and pushing the pulp through with a wooden spoon to leave the seeds behind. You can store the left-behind pulp in a bowl or container to use later as fruit compote (nice with soy yoghurt or ice-cream).
4. Bring to the boil, stiring continuously to avoid sticking.
5. Once it starts to thicken, add the sugar and continue stiring until completely dissolved.
6. Pour into a sterilized jam jar and leave to cool.

Bagels

After my foray into Pretzelling I was feeling brave, so decided to try out some Bagels! They were surprisingly easy to make with not many many ingredients and tasted yummy :) The only thing was that I put a bit too much water in the dough so they were difficult to handle and ended up a bit squished-looking. Next time I will add the water more slowly!

For my recipe I used elements from these recipes at 'The Fresh Loaf' and VegWeb.com. Before, when I made Pretzels, I found that the recipes online only made just about enough dough for 8, and in fact I only managed 7. So for this recipe, I doubled the amounts and ended up with a respectable 14 Bagels.

Beautiful Bagels

Ingredients:

• 400g White Bread Flour
• 200g Allison Wholewheat Plain Flour
• 20g Raw Cane Sugar
• 2 Tablespoons Dry Active Yeast
• 1 Tablespoon Agave Syrup
• 1 Tablespoon Poppy Seeds
• 2 cups/ 200ml Warm Water
• Salt for sprinkling.

For the soda bath:

• A big pan 2/3 full of water + 
• 2 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda.

Method:

Before you start, you might want to prepare your baking trays and dough-rolling surface, as later on your hands will be doughy! For letting the bagels rise I used 3 baking trays, 1 big one and 2 smaller ones, covered with well-floured baking paper. Later on for the actual baking I replaced the paper with foil greased with cooking spray. You will also need a good-sized floury area for rolling out the dough.

1. In a large mixing bowl sift together the flour and sugar, and stir in the poppy seeds.

2. Create a well in the middle and spoon the yeast into it.

3. Pour in the Agave Syrup and some of the water, while starting to mix.

4. Keep adding the water gradually until the dough has fully combined, without becoming too sticky.

5. Knead for 7-10 mins.

6. On a well-floured surface, roll the dough into a cylinder and cut into 14 equal pieces.

7. Shape each piece in turn, rolling it into a ball and using your fingers to make a hole in the middle, creating the classic 'O' shape of the bagel.

8. Place the bagels on the floured baking trays and leave them in a warm place to rise for 30 mins.

9. Pre-heat the oven to 230C/ 450F.

10. Turn the bagels over and let them rise on the other side for another 30 mins.

11. Meanwhile, bring a large pan 2/3 full of water to the boil with 2 tsp Bicarbinate of Soda.

12. Boil the bagels 2 at a time for 2 minutes, turning them over in the water after 1 minute to boil on the other side (the best utensil for this is a large, flat slotted spoon. I didn't have one at the time, but I do now!).

13. Put the bagels on the greased, foil-covered baking trays and get them in the oven as soon as possible after boiling. I did mine in batches of 3-4 bagels.

14. Bake for 30 mins or until cooked.

Lots of recipes I saw said that the bagels should only need 25-30 mins to bake, but I found that mine needed a lot longer - at least 40! This might have been because I added too much water to the dough so it took longer to dry out, but I ended up putting most of mine back in to bake for around an hour altogether!

Sponge-Off!

I’d been toying with the idea of making a Vegan Tiramisu, and what with that and my sister’s birthday coming up, I realised that I needed to find a really good eggless sponge-cake recipe. Looking on the internet I found so many recipe variations, each using a different combination of egg-replacers, kinds of flour, proportions of sugar to flour, and baking times and temperatures – there was no way I could tell just by looking what the difference would be in the end result! So I decided to conduct a comparative experiment to find the best eggless sponge-cake recipe – a SPONGE-OFF!

First of all I came up with 5 different options, adapted from recipes I had found and incorporating tips and suggestions for eggless baking. I wanted my sponge to be healthy and not have any hydrogenated fats, so where the original recipes called for Vegetable Oil I substituted this with an egg replacer and/or other binding ingredients.

Rather than baking 5 complete cakes, I calculated a third of the ingredients for each recipe option to make test-sample cupcakes.

Option 1

Adapted from the Vegan Soc's "Vanilla Sponge Cake" recipe.

Recommended Baking Time: 25-30 mins @ 180C

Ingredients:

• 200g/ 7oz Self Raising Flour 
• 3 level tspns Baking Powder
• 115g/ 4oz Raw Cane Sugar
• 3 Flax-Seed ‘eggs’ (3 tablespoons ground Flax Seeds whisked with 9 tablespoons of cold water)
• 2 tsp Vanilla Essence
• Extra water if needed.

Option 2

Adapted from Claudette Baker's "Eggless Sponge Cake" at Recipes4Us.

Recommended Baking Time: 40 Mins @ 180C

Ingredients:

• 225g/ 8oz Self Raising Flour
• 2 tspns Baking Powder
• 175g/ 6oz Raw Cane Sugar
• 3 Vinegar 'eggs' (3 Tablespoons Cider Vinegar + 3 Tspns Baking Soda)
• 1/2 tsp Vanilla pod seeds (I ran out of Vanilla Essence)
• Extra water if needed

Option 3

Adapted from Animal Free Zone's "Easy Vegan Cake" recipe.

Recommended Baking Time 40 mins @ 180C

Ingredients:

• 450g/ 16oz Plain Flour
• 50g/ 2oz Soya Flour
• 50g Agave Nectar (I substituted this for the sugar to try it out - for more info on this amazing ingredient see here)
• 4-5 tsp Baking Powder
• 3 Flax-Seed 'eggs'
• Extra water if needed
  

Option 4

Adapted from the "Vegan Sponge Cake" recipe posted on Elstro's blog.

Recommended Baking Time: 30 mins @ 160C

Ingredients:

• 250g/ 10oz Self Raising Flour
• 1 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
• 3 Vinegar 'eggs' (3 tablespoons Cider Vinegar + 3 tspns Baking Soda)
• 200g/ 8oz Raw Cane Sugar
• (This was also supposed to have 150ml Orange Juice but I forgot to add it for the test!)
• Extra water if needed
  

Option 5

Adapted from a recipe on www.ifood.tv.

Recommended Baking Time: 25 mins @ 180C

Ingredients:

• 225g/ 8oz Plain Flour
• 225g/ 8oz Raw Cane Sugar
• 1 tsp Baking Powder
• Pinch fine salt
• 175 ml/ 6 fl oz Soy Milk
• 1 Ripe Banana, Mashed
• 3 Vinegar 'eggs' (3 tablespoons Cider Vinegar + 3 tspns Baking Soda) 
• Extra water if needed 
 

 

The Experiment

First I got to work labeling my bowls, preheating the oven and preparing the trays of cupcake cases.

 

Then, I sifted out all the dry ingredients and ground up the flax seeds ready to be mixed with water for the recipes requiring the 'flax-seed' egg replacer.

Finally at the last minute, I added the wet ingredients and egg replacers, quickly mixing each dough just enough to combine the ingredients without over-mixing (I read that the longer you mix it, the denser the cake will be).

Unsurpisingly things got a little hectic, and in the heat of the moment I forgot to add orange juice to one of the recipes, ran out of vanilla essence, and put Option 4 in the same tray as the ones that were to be baked at 180C. Still, nothing went too awry!

With the leftover dough I made a second batch of testers to put in later and bake for less time to see how this would affect the outcome.

After putting the cakes in the oven, I tasted the mixtures (purely in the interest of scientific rigour) and made the following observations:

Option 1 - Nice, like porridge, plain but slightly sweet. 

Option 2 - Bland dough-like mixture. 

Option 3 - Sticky, bland porridge-like dough. 

Option 4 - Yummy dough - a bit runny. 

Option 5 - Tastiest dough. Banana-y.

Rather than trying to take out each kind of cake at a slightly different time, I ended up taking the whole first batch out after 20 mins, as they seemed to already be brown and in danger of burning. I took out the second batch after 15 mins. 

I called in my independent taste-tester, and the fun began!

Our findings were as follows:

Option 1

1st Batch - baked for 20 mins

Crispy crust, soft interior, good smell, bready texture, not too sweet.

2nd Batch - baked for 15 mins

Good smell, better than the first one, lighter.

Option 2

1st Batch (20 mins)

Soft but sour, not sweet enough

2nd Batch (15 mins)

Better, doughy inside, not so sour

Option 3

Chewy but pleasant

Option 4

Nice delicate crust, a little chewy, good colour, finer texture - less bready. Good smell.

Option 5

Bready, good banana flavour but slight aftertaste of bicarb.

Overall verdict: The best cake was from the second batch of Option 1, baked for 15 mins at 180C.

Lessons learned: 

1. Care should be taken when using the vinegar/bicarb mix as an egg replacer - perhaps use less than is strictly equivalent to the original number of eggs and add more sugar to compensate for the sour taste of the baking soda.
2. Banana, while giving a nice flavour to the dough, will also make it heavier and more 'bready' in texture.

Things to consider:

• Using a combination of flax-seed 'egg' replacer and the vinegar-bicarb mix.
  
• Using fruit juices etc. to sweeten the sponge.

Moorish Vegan Moussaka

One of my favourite dishes is Vegetarian Moussaka, with its savoury morrocon aromas, juicy layered vegetables, soft potato and thick creamy topping making it a satisfying comfort-feast that even the most voracious carnivore wouldn't turn their nose up at on a cold winter's night.

The challenge I set myself today was to recreate the classic Moussaka using only Vegan ingredients, meaning no yoghurt, cheese or milk - i.e. everything that makes the Moussaka different and more than just a simple vegetable bake!

Moorish Vegan Moussaka

Ingredients:

• 1 Medium or 1/2 a large Onion (50g), chopped
• 1 Aubergine (275g), sliced lengthways
• 3-4 Cloves of Garlic, minced
• 3 Medium Potatoes (250g) - I used organic ones
• (125g Green Bell Pepper - I put this in but it didn't really add anything so will probably leave it out next time)
• 75g Baby Button Mushrooms
• 400g Chopped Tomatoes
• 2 Fresh Tomatoes
• 150g Vegan Mince (I used Granose, 25g soaked for 1 min in boiling water, but think Frozen Quorn Mince would actually be better for this dish)
• 600g Vegan 'Cheese' Sauce or White Sauce (I made 300g using 3 tsp 'Cheese' Sauce Powder reconstituted using 250 ml Unsweetened Soya Milk, which worked fine, but there wasn't enough to cover the Moussaka!)
• 200g Soya Plain 'Yoghurt' Substitute (I used 150g Alpro Plain Yoghurt, mixed with a bit of fresh Coriander to neutralise the vanilla taste, but again there wasn't enough!)
• 10g Vegan 'Parmesan' or sprinkly 'cheese' - optional (I would actually leave this off next time as the sauce was delicious enough anyway)
• 1 dried chilli
• 1 tsp/ 5ml Ground Cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp/ 2.5ml Ground Nutmeg + another tsp/ 5ml for the Sauce
• Sprig of fresh Mint (or dried mint if you don't have any)
• Sprig of fresh Coriander (dried if you must)
• 1 tablespoon of salt (to salt the Aubergine and Courgette, rinsed off again before baking)

Method:

1. Put potatoes on to boil in a pan.
2. Cut the Aubergine and Courgette lengthwise into strips and layer them in a bowl with salt springled between each strip. Put to one side.
3. Put the Onion and Chilli in a frying pan on a low heat with a little oil or frying spray.
4. Mince the Garlic and Slice the Mushrooms, and add to the frying pan along with the Mince once the Onion has softened a bit. Stir and continue to cook on a low heat until the Mushrooms are a bit soft.
5. Add the Chopped Tomatoes, Cinammon and 1/2 tsp Nutmeg to the frying pan. Turn the heat up to medium and keep simmering and stirring.
6. Take the potatoes off the boil and drain. Slice them into strips and line them up in the bottom of a square baking tin or casserole dish.
7. Rinse the courgette and aubergine under cold water to get rid of the salt. Drain.
8. Layer the aubergine strips over the potato in the baking tin.
9. Take the Mince/Tomato in the frying pan off the heat and spread half over the aubergine.
10. Layer the courgette over the top.
11. Slice the two tomatoes and distribute over the courgette.
12. Cover with the rest of the Tomato/Mince mixture.
13. In a bowl, mix the Soya Plain Yoghurt substitute with the fresh Coriander and Mint. Dollop or spoon evenly over the Moussaka, depending on your preference.
14. In a thick-bottomed pan, make a Vegan white sauce, adding the rest of the ground Nutmeg. I used a ready-made 'cheese' sauce mix, but you could just use some flour, Vegan marg and Unsweetened Soya Milk.
15. Pour over the top of the Moussaka.
16. Bake for 40-50 mins (I cooked mine for 30-35 mins but I don't think it was long enough as the vegetables were a bit chewy - but the topping was perfect, and I have a feeling it might get a little bit too crispy if it was left longer. Because of this I think next time I will experiment with baking the Moussaka without the sauce for 10-20 mins and then adding it later.)

Hand-Baked Wholewheat Vegan Pretzels

My biggest triumph so far in the world of Vegan cookery, I made these today for lunch using inspiration from two recipes I found on the internet: Divya Dil Se's Pretzels and Kathy Roy's Vegan Soft Pretzels.

Ingredients:

• 3 Cups/ 275g Plain Wholewheat Flour (I used Allinson’s)
• 2 tsp/ 10 ml Dry Active Yeast (I used Allinson’s Dry Active Yeast Granules, designed for hand baking)
• 2 tsp/ 10 ml sugar
• 1 ½ tsp/ 7.5 ml salt
• 1 Cup/ 100 ml Luke-warm Water + another 1/4 Cup
• 1/2 Cup/ 50 ml Hot Water
• 1 ½ tsp/ 7.5 ml Baking Soda

Method:

1. Dissolve the 2 tsp Dry Active Yeast and 2 tsp Sugar in a small bowl with 1 Cup of Luke-warm Water and leave for a little longer than 10 mins, or until it starts to go a bit foamy.
2. Put the Flour in a large mixing bowl, and gradually pour in the foamy yeast mixture, while stirring.
3. If the mixture seems a bit dry, you can add a bit more warm water - but make sure it's not too sticky! Bear in mind it will naturally become a bit moister once the yeast gets to work.
4. Knead the dough for about 7 minutes. There's no great technique to this, just get stuck in and scrunch and stretch the dough in your hands while turning it around. You'll notice the dough getting stretchier and smoother.
5. Lightly oil the surface of another mixing bowl and transfer the dough across in a ball, turning it around so that it gets competely coated. (You can use whichever oil you prefer for this, but I just spray the bowl with "Fry Light" - how I love that stuff! It's so versatile and cuts out needless hydrogenated fat).
6. Cover the bowl with celophane and leave for an hour or until the dough ball has grown to twice its size.











7. Preheat the oven to 230°C/ 450°F/ Gas Mark 8.
8. Prepare a safe, floured surface to one side. Then remove the celophane from the bowl of dough and pull off small chunks  about the size of your palm, stretching them one by one into long thin snakes. The best way I found of doing this was to flour my hands and squidge and pull the dough alternately until it was long enough. Line the thin pieces of dough up on the floured surface to one side.
9. Boil 1/2 a cup's worth or 50 ml of hot water and pour into a bowl with the 1 1/2 tsp/ 7.5 ml of baking soda, stirring to make a Soda Bath.
10. Grease two baking trays ready to put the pretzels on (again, I use a sheet of foil sprayed with "Fry Light").
11. Shape each long piece of dough into a pretzel shape, dip into the Soda Bath and let the water drip off a bit while reshaping, and place on the baking tray.
12. Sprinkle pretzels with salt and bake for around 8-10 mins.

Mmmmmmm!

Took a while to get the hang of the shape!

Even the malformed ones tasted yummy :)