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.

Alfajores

What is with all these celebrities writing open letters to each other? I get the idea behind them but it’s getting a bit boring. They have all this money and they resort to releasing the equivalent of a press release about someone else and their thoughts on them. It also seems to be the older celebrities that write them, I guess because younger celebrities just let rip at one another in 140 characters or less. 

However that is also disappointing. These people are meant to be creative and they’re just doing what everyone else does. Where is the sky writing above someone’s film premiere? Where is the interpretive dance on Oprah’s sofa to show how they feel about twerking while drinking SodaStream? Why don’t they write their thoughts across their naked body and commission a Vogue shoot? It could be so much more interesting and entertaining for all.  

Hey ho. I’ve been feeling slightly angry all week as the extent of my wheat allergy (which I’m in total denial about) starts to make itself known. I’ve done something gluten free this week and gone all out and made it dairy free as well. These do taste ok, and the texture of the biscuit does work, although if you’re ok with dairy then use better instead of the margarine. Sadly when cooking they don’t fill your home with the smell of fresh baking but more like slightly burnt rice. However the caramel filling smells great so that’s a bonus. The original recipe has Xanthan Gum in but as it's powdered mould I left it out. It doesn't lack for want of it.

Ingredients

 

Biscuits

200g dairy-free margarine (or butter)

100g icing sugar

200g ground almonds

200g brown rice flour

1tsp cinnamon

Pinch of salt 

Caramel

150g dairy-free margarine (or butter)

150g light brown soft sugar

A good dollop of golden syrup

OR A tin of Carnation Caramel

 

1.    Cream the margarine and sugar, then add the rest of the biscuit ingredients, mixing well.

2.    Make the dough into a disc, wrap in cling film and put in the fridge for 30 minutes or so.

3.    Preheat the oven, while you wait, to 180°C/GM4.

4.    Next make the caramel as it will need to cool before you use it. Put the sugar and golden syrup on a very low heat and melt together. You’ll need to mix it every now and again as you don’t want it to burn. It will create a paste, rather than liquid, so don’t panic.

5.    Add the margarine (it will spit a bit) and mix until the margarine is incorporated. Then leave on a slow simmer (it will look very bubbly) for 15 minutes. Do not stir. After that time drop some of it into a cup of cold water and check if it’s chewy. If it is it’s done. Leave to cool. Stir a bit as the fat will want to separate out but don’t panic about it.

6.    Once the dough has had its time in the fridge roll out on a surface floured with rice flour. You want it about 4mm thick. Then cut out discs of 4 – 6cm in diameter.

7.    Put on a baking tray, they don’t spread so you don’t have to worry about that, and bake for about 22 minutes (if you have a gas oven then turn half way through for an even colour).

8.    Cool and spread one biscuit with the caramel – there is enough to be generous – and sandwich with another. This makes about 20 in total if you use a 6cm cutter.

Chocolate, Fruit and Nut Bars

 

 

Why couldn’t my mum be from the Maldives? I hear it’s the flattest country in the world. Very flat, no big hills, level. But no. Ireland it is and not just any old part – Connemara with its hills, bogs and lashing of rain. Now on a good day Connemara is one of the most beautiful places in the world. It’s also good on a bad day when you’re in a car or a pub. When it’s not good would be when you’re running for two miles up a fairly hefty gradient knowing that it’s only the start of the half marathon, or so I imagine. Soon I won’t have to imagine and will actually be experiencing this joyous event for myself. 

 

For some reason I agreed with The Thew when he said that when visiting my family we should time it so we could do the Connemarathon. Ok I agreed to half but still, the course looks brutal. This now means that I have to actually train for it. I’m not saying that I wouldn’t have to train for a normal one but it would be so much easier training for one in say the Maldives, than building hill training into my regime and thinking about waterproof clothing. I’m not the biggest fan of running at the best of times so I’ve decided to try and be a bit healthier so I have less of me to drag around the course.

  

So I’m afraid that today’s recipe is fairly healthy (although the dried fruit has a ton of sugar in so not that great – yay!) However it’s very easy and doesn’t involve putting the oven on. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while as The Thew eats a lot of Nakd bars and I think that they are dry and horrible. However when looking at the ingredients the bars should be moist so I decided to try them myself. I’m guessing that Nakd have to dry theirs out more in the cold pressing process they use so that they stay more rigid and can be packed easily. These bars retain the juiciness of the dried fruit used and are fairly sweet with the cocoa adding a nice touch of chocolate.  I actually enjoy these and they have gone down well in the office. Also gluten and dairy free, along with being vegan!

 

Ingredients

290g dried dates (stoned)

175g cashew nuts (not roasted or salted)

100g flame raisins (so I didn't use flame raisins once. You can read what happened here)

10-30g good quality cocoa powder (it’s more to taste and depends on how chocolately you want it. You can always add more so start low and just add more if you think it needs it.) 

 

1.    Whizz the cashews buts in a food processor until they are in tiny pieces.

2.    Add the rest of the ingredients and whizz into a mush. You’ll see what I mean.

3.    Turn out into a silicon or lined tray. I used a 20cm x 20cm silicon tray so something of similar dimension. Smooth out with the back of a spoon.

4.    Cover the top with baking paper and top with heavy books. Ideally the first book would roughly fit the dimensions of the tin to give an even press. Put it in the fridge for anything from 3 – 48 hours.

5.    Remove from the tin and cut into whatever size pieces you want.