Vegan Snickerdoodles

This came about as I was in experimentation phase and due to stay at friends – one of whom is vegan. I don’t like to arrive somewhere empty handed so the hunt was on for some vegan baked goods. I couldn’t be bothered to hunt through my old copies of Jamie magazine to find the ‘vegan’ issue so just went free style on an old favourite.

 

This recipe needed substitutes for butter and egg. The butter is easy as coconut oil has a lot of the same qualities. The egg was harder as I’d never had to do it before. Plus I had thought that this recipe didn’t have egg in so it was initially a bit of a surprise. However help is only a google away. There are tons of suggestions but I went for vegetable oil as it seemed to promise to do what was needed.

 

The final products were very good. A bit more crumbly than regular ones, as I guess the egg does a binding job that the oil doesn’t, but they held their shape. I took them into work, my usual test for my baking, and everyone was very complimentary.

 

Ingredients

125g plain flour

¼ tsp grated nutmeg

½ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

60g coconut oil

50g caster sugar + 1tbsp

30ml vegetable oil

½ tsp vanilla extract

1 heaped tsp ground cinnamon 

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/GM 4.
2. Add the nutmeg, baking powder and salt to the flour and mix well.
3. Whisk the coconut oil and 50g caster sugar together. You’re not going to be creaming it as much as you would with butter, but make sure you spend a couple of minutes doing it.
4. Then add the vegetable oil and vanilla, mixing well, before adding the flour mixture. You’ll need to use your hands at the end to bring the dough together.
5. On a plate mix the remaining sugar and cinnamon together.
6. Then divide the dough into 16 balls. Just break the dough into quarters then each of the quarters into four. Roll into balls, then roll in the sugar and cinnamon mix to cover the outside completely.
7. Pop on a baking tray and bake for 20 minutes. Let cool completely.

Angel Food Cake (Dairy free)

One of my baking issues is what to do with the yolks when you just need egg whites. If I was super organised I’d make crème brulee or freeze them or something but I never do. Frustratingly most of the things I want to experiment with use egg whites – macarons, meringues, marshmallows – so I end up not practising these because of the dreaded waste of left over yolk. 

However I recently saw that you can buy just egg whites in a carton. I’ve seen this in the USA for years as egg white omelettes are a ‘thing’ there but I hadn't seen anyone selling cartons of egg white in the UK. I’ll probably find out now that this has been available in the UK since the dawn of time but it’s new to me. I got ridiculously excited about it, bought a carton and started planning what I’d make. However after some macarons went badly wrong and I’d made marshmallows I sort of got bored of experimenting.

Luckily an excuse to use the rest of the carton came up. Someone at work had a birthday and she is intolerant of dairy. This cake is basically a meringue that has some flavour added to give it more of a cake texture. It’s not that common in the UK as far as I know but is found in a lot of American baking books.  

You will need a round cake tin with a hole in the middle. 

Ingredients

150g plain flour

320g sugar

12 large egg whites (I recommend buying a carton of egg whites like Two Chicks)

1 ½ tsp cream of tartar

¼ tsp salt

1 ½ tsp vanilla extract

½ tsp almond extract

Seasonal berries - optional

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C/GM 5.
2. Put the flour and 170g of sugar in a bowl and set to one side.
3. Beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar and salt until you can form soft peaks. Then put in the remaining 150g of sugar until you have glossy stiff peaks forming.
4. Using a low setting beat in the flour and sugar mixture (you are actually meant to fold it in but as long as you don’t over beat you’ll be fine).
5. DO NOT GREASE THE CAKE TIN. I know this is scary as how in the hell are you going to get the cake out?!!! Trust me. It will be fine. Put the cake mixture in the tin and gently move a knife through the mixture as this will remove any air pockets.
6. Bake for 40-45 minutes. You may want to cover the cake with foil after about 30 minutes to stop any over browning.
7. Cool completely before getting the cake out. Run a knife down the side and round the centre. The cake is fairly robust to go as far down as possible and push the cake inward a bit to ensure it is away from the side. Then put upside down on a plate or board and whack the hell out of it. Repeat if it doesn’t come out being braver with how far down the knife does and how much you move it away from the side of the pan.
8. To serve pile the berries in the middle.



Banana and Date Bread (gluten and refined sugar free)

For me a baked good is a treat with butter, sugar, chocolate, etc – if it tastes good I want it in there. However I’m not unaware of the move to healthier baking and cutting out refined sugar and making gluten free versions of favourite bakes is becoming increasingly popular.

 

There are lots of alternatives to refined sugar but in this I’ve just gone for the natural sugars in fruit to sweeten this banana bread. A girl I work with has inspired me as she has launched a site with her friend all about healthy eating, MT Real – check it out here. She eats the most amazing array of food and is constantly coming in with delicious bakes that are gluten and refined sugar free. So here is my contribution to celebrate her site launch.

Ingredients

175g ground almonds

2 tsp gluten free baking powder

½ tsp bicarb of soda

½ tsp salt

125g butter, melted

150g dried dates

2 large eggs

400g ripe bananas

60g chopped walnuts

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1. Preheat the oven to 170°C/GM 3.
2. Add the baking powder, bicarb and salt to the almonds and mix. Set to one side.
3. Take half the dates and put in a food processor with the bananas and whizz up until smooth.
4. Chop the remaining dates. Add 1 tbsp of almonds to this and mix to that the sticky edges of the chopped dates are covered. This keeps them separate and also helps them not drop once added to the mixture.
5. Whisk the eggs into the melted butter in a bowl.
6. Add the banana and date mixture, along with the vanilla extract and cinnamon, and mix again.
7. Add the ground almond mix and whisk until it’s all mixed well.
8. Pop in the chopped dates and walnuts and mix again.
9. Put into a lined loaf tin and bake for about an hour. It might need 10-15 mins longer.