Shortcake Cookies

Now that I've finished my Adventures in the USA series and it's now time for uni to start again (final year), there's several recipes that I want to share.  For the next few weeks, I'll be sharing recipes I've found in the June 2015 edition of the Tesco Food Family Living magazine.  The first of these recipes will be for shortcake cookies.  The original recipe includes a double cream, yoghurt and strawberry filling, but I decided to leave that bit out because my brother doesn't like strawberries (I love them though) and because I wanted to make this recipe vegan.  To do this, I swapped butter for Pure, a dairy-free vegan margarine that was recommended to me a few months ago when I was experimenting with recipes for chocolate Rice Krispie nests for a "Ladies Tea Party" at uni just after Easter.

Ingredients

(makes about 12 small cookies)
150g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
40g plus 1 tablespoon caster sugar
100g vegan margarine, such as Pure

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius / 160 degrees Celsius if using a fan oven / gas mark 4.
2. Measure out the sugar and margarine into a bowl and use an electric whisk to beat the two until smooth.
3. Work in the flour to make a dry dough.  Wrap in Clingfilm and chill for 20 minutes.
4. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough into a long baguette-like stick.  Divide the dough into 12 approximately equal portions.
5. Use your hands to flatten each portion of dough to about 5mm thick.  Use an approximately 7cm/3 inch diameter cutter to cut a round cookie out of each portion.  Re-roll the scraps if needed.
6. Cook on a lined baking tray for 12-15 minutes until golden.
7. Leave to cool on the tray for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack.
8. Serve with strawberries or banana nice cream.

Choc-Caramel-Vanilla Ice Cream Cake

Guess whose favourite food blogger/musical theatre person/student radio presenter/web design student is turning 20 this Sunday???  That's right, it's ME!  And to celebrate, I'm planning to spend tomorrow making the following ice cream cake that I found at The Peachy Pear.  This cake is vegan, gluten-free and low-fat, making it the perfect cake to share with two of my best friends from secondary school (one of them has recently gone vegan and the other is vegetarian with intolerances to both lactose and gluten), but wouldn't be an ideal cake to share with my uni friends because it contains a total of SEVEN bananas (one of my friends is allergic to bananas).  In any case, I can share this cake with my family, so I suppose we're onto a winner!  Plans for my birthday itself may include archery :D

Ingredients

Base

• 10 medjool dates
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1 tablespoon desiccated coconut

1st layer

• 3 frozen bananas
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon desiccated coconut

2nd layer

• 3 frozen bananas
• 1 tablespoon cacao powder
• 2 medjool dates
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Icing

• 1 frozen banana
• 2 tablespoons cacao powder
• 1 tablespoon maple syrup (optional)

Instructions

1. Cut the bananas into slices and freeze for a few hours or overnight.
2. Use a food processor or blender to combine the ingredients that make the base of the cake.  When well-combined or a ball forms, spread at the bottom of an approx. 15cm round cake dish.
3. Repeat process for the next 2 layers of the cake, then place in freezer until hard.
4. Combine ingredients for the icing of the cake, then spread on top of the cake.  Top with any desired toppings, such as dark chocolate squares, strawberries or blueberries.
5. Store in freezer until serving.

Healthy Vegan Flapjacks

I've had a couple of weeks off for deadlines and exams and the just a bit of winding down, but now I'm back with a bit more energy and more recipe finds.  Don't get me wrong, I'm still winding down, but I'm having a go at doing both reading and watching DVDs each day and then sometimes a bit of designing bits and bobs.  At some point, I'll focus a bit more on design work, and perhaps start trying again to learn to drive.  Last Friday, the day after I finished exams and deadlines, my university's Amnesty International group held a concert to raise money to help with the aid efforts in Nepal following the recent earthquake, and my musical theatre group (BUSOM) joined in with an a capella set of songs from previous shows and concerts (plus Lean On Me, which we haven't done before, but vaguely knew the words already in our own time).  For a donation, we could choose from a range of chocolate brownies, white chocolate chip buns, a peanut butter thing, cookies, and vegan flapjacks.  As always, my interested was piqued by the vegan flapjacks, so I went to ask Elliot, the event's host, for the recipe.  He told me that he had adapted a flapjack recipe from the BBC Good Food website to have a vegan-friendly alternative to butter and then added some coconut oil.  I'm yet to try this recipe at home, but I'm sure it will be as delicious as the one I tasted last week!

Ingredients

250g porridge oats
125g vegan margarine (such as Pure)
125g brown sugar
2-3 tablespoons golden syrup (depends on how gooey you want it)
coconut oil (optional)

Instructions

1. Place all ingredients in a blender or food processor and pulse until fully mixed, but be careful not to overmix as the oats could lose their texture.
2. Lightly grease the baking tray with margarine and use a spoon to transfer the flapjack mixture into the tray.
3. Press into the corners of the tray with the back of a spoon to ensure that the mixture is flat.  Separate the mixture into 12 squares.
4. Bake the mixture in a preheated oven at 180 degrees Celsius for about 20 minutes until golden brown.

Apricot and Almond Brittle

University (and GCSE and A level) exam season is starting in the next few weeks, so we'll all need that little bit of extra "brain food" (i.e. sugar) to keep us going through the long and seemingly very sunny days (and nights!) of revising for exams and meeting coursework deadlines.  Throughout the next few months, it will be very important for anyone taking exams to look after themselves and eat and sleep properly, so breakfast is a must, as well as little snacks throughout the day.  This apricot and almond brittle is a snack idea that I found in Home Sweet Home from The Hummingbird Bakery, and for any vegans out there, it's vegan-friendly too!

Ingredients (to make 1kg of brittle)

180g (6 1/2 oz) flaked almonds
200g (7 oz) dried apricots, thinly sliced
100g (3 1/2 oz) dark chocolate chips (minimum 70% cocoa solids)
600g (1lb 5oz) caster sugar
400ml (14 fl oz) water

Instructions

1. Line a large baking tray with baking parchment and preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius (325 degrees Fahrenheit), or gas mark 3.
2. Spread the flaked almonds onto the lined tray and toast them in the oven until they are a light golden colour - this will only take a few minutes.  Set aside to cool.
3. Once the toasted almonds are cool, add the sliced apricots and chocolate chips to the same tray and use your hands to mix them in evenly.
4. In a medium saucepan, dissolve the caster sugar in the water.  Bring to the boil and continue to boil for 15-20 minutes or until it forms a rich caramel colour.  Do not stir while the mixture is boiling or the caramel will crystallise; just gently swirl the pan from time to time.
5. Carefully pour the hot caramel over the nuts, fruit and chocolate, making sure to try and cover all of the ingredients evenly in sugar.  Carefully set aside as the tray will be hot, and leave the brittle to cool and set completely.
6. Once cooled, break into pieces to serve.

Vegan Honeycomb

Earlier this week, I was looking at the Instagram and blog of What the Cook, which is run by an old friend from school called Elle, and I saw that she had posted a recipe for black pepper honeycomb.  I'd seen the photo that she'd included, and I thought it looked quite nice and I was also reminded of the honeycomb of Cadbury's Crunchie bars.  As usual, I'd wondered if I could find a recipe for a vegan-friendly equivalent of honeycomb (i.e. a honeycomb without honey), and the easiest one I could find was the below recipe from Emily Cooks Vegan.

Ingredients

100g caster sugar
4 tablespoons golden syrup
1.5 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda

Instructions

1. Put the caster sugar and golden syrup into a stainless steel pan, stir once and then heat (do not stir the mixture at all while the pan is on the heat).
2. Leave the sugar to bubble away for a few minutes until the mixture reaches a deep golden, maple syrup-like colour.  Quickly whisk in the bicarbonate of soda, and when the mixture "whooshes up", pour into a small, greaseproof paper-lined tin (the mixture will spread out by itself).
3. Leave for a few minutes to set, then bash into smaller pieces.

Vegan Chocolate Rice Krispie Nests

This Sunday is Easter Sunday, so I thought a little Easter-related post was in order.  Ten years ago just before Easter, I had my best friend over for a sleepover and my mum organised three different Easter-related craft activities for us to do during the day.  One of them was making pompom chicks, the second was using stamps to make Easter cards, and the third were chocolate Rice Krispie nests.  Although my mum made a lot of Rice Krispie nests for school events when I was in primary school, these then fell out of favour, so I haven't had them in a while.  Then last week, I wondered "Hmmm, I wonder if I can find a vegan-friendly recipe for chocolate Rice Krispie nests?"  A quick search on Google brought up this recipe from Laurenne Hopkins.  In the recipe ingredients list as shown on the website, butter was listed as an ingredient, so I asked a vegan friend if she knew of any alternatives to butter that I could find easily in a supermarket and she suggested a brand called Pure.  I also plan to make these for a departmental "Ladies Tea Party" at uni in 2 weeks!

Ingredients

100g dark chocolate, broken into chunks
100g Rice Krispies

Instructions

1. Measure the chocolate into a bowl and melt in short bursts in a microwave (stirring really often to avoid the chocolate burning) or in a bowl over a saucepan of boiling water.
2. Pour the Rice Krispies into the chocolate mixture and cover them with the chocolate.
3. Use a spoon to divide the mix into cupcake cases.  Refrigerate until the "nests" are set.

Raw Chocolate Cake

I previously mentioned this treat a few weeks ago in an edition of What Katie Wants to Eat (WWKE, which should return once I have seen more things to show you).  This chocolate cake is completely raw and does not need to be cooked in an oven.  It’s a cake full of fruity, nutty and chocolately goodness, from the recipe of Laura-Jane the Rawtarian, that is perfect for small birthday parties!  I thought I might make this for my brother's birthday this weekend, but when I'd have made it this afternoon, I'll be preparing to go to and then participating in a 24 hour show between this evening and tomorrow, so I intend to make it when I can after that - by the way, nobody in my family is a vegan, I just think it'll be fun and easy to make!

 

Ingredients (makes 10 servings)

1 ½ cups walnuts

1 ½ cups pecans

1 ½ cups dates

1 ½ cups raisins

1/3 cup raw cocoa powder  

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Instructions

1. In a food processor, process nuts until they are very well blended, so that they look like chunky flour.  Basically, you should just see little chunky bits of nuts.
2. Then, add everything else to the food processor and continue blending.  You’ll probably want to add the ingredients one at a tie otherwise your food processor might get a bit stuck.
3. Keep on processing until your mixture looks like a big ball of dough.  There shouldn’t be big chunks of anything.  You will probably see small flecks of nuts though.  Once you’ve got a giant raw chocolate cake dough ball, you do not need to dehydrate the cake or anything, but just need to decide on the presentation of the cake (i.e. the shape of the cake and icing).
4. Press the dough into the desired shape for whatever you want to make.  For example, take a nice cake plate and press the dough into a cake shape.  Ice the cake, if desired.
5. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour to allow the cake to firm up.
6. The cake can be stored in a fridge for up to 5 days.

 

Bread Rolls

For my birthday this year, I received The Great British Bake Off Learn to Bake as a present from my family, possibly in an attempt to persuade me to start learning to cook. I took the book on holiday with me to see if I could try a few of the recipes out. The one that jumped out at me to be the first to try to bake was this bread roll recipe, which needs nothing but flour, salt, yeast and water to make. It took me the majority of a morning (with breaks inbetween while waiting for the dough to expand), however, so this is probably something that would be better to make on weekends when more time is available.

Ingredients

500g strong white bread flour, plus extra for sprinkling
1 teaspoon salt
1 x 7g sachet fast-action dried yeast

Instructions

1. Gently warm 300ml water until it is lukewarm. Put the flour, salt and yeast into the mixing bowl and mix with your hands.
2. Pour in the lukewarm water. Press and squeeze everything together to make a soft but not sticky dough. If the dough feels sticky, and sticks to the sides of the bowl, sprinkle over more flour a tablespoon at a time and mix it in; if there are dry crumbs in the bottom of the bowl and the dough won’t stick together, sprinkle over more water a tablespoon at a time and mix in.
3. Sprinkle the worktop and your hands with a little flour, then scoop out the dough. Now start to knead it using both hands – one to hold down one edge of the dough, and the other hand to stretch out the other end and then gather it all back into a ball again. Alternatively, a dough hook may be useful for if available.
4. Turn the ball around and stretch the dough out again, then gather back into a ball and turn it around. Carry on kneading like this for 4 minutes – set the timer.
5. Cover the dough with an upside-down bowl (so it doesn’t get dry and hard) and leave it for 10 minutes. Uncover the dough and knead for at least another 4 minutes. This time, the dough will feel much smoother and more stretchy.
6. Put the ball of dough back into the bowl and cover the top with clingfilm so the dough keeps warm and moist while the yeast produces lots of tiny bubbles of air that will make the dough expand to double its original size (this is called "proving"). Leave it for about an hour during this process.
7. Sprinkle the worktop and your hands with flour again, and scoop out the ball of dough. As you touch it, it will start to collapse – this is not a problem as you want to have millions of very small gas bubbles instead of a few bigger ones (this is called "knocking back").
8. Divide the dough into 12 equal portions. You can do this by rolling it into a sausage, then cutting across into 12 equal slices with a tables knife. Or you can weigh the ball of dough, then divide it by 12 (this would be easy if using digital scales).
9. Roll each piece into a neat ball in your hands (you could also make sausage shapes). Put them on the lined baking sheet, spacing them about 3cm apart.
10. Cover the sheet loosely with clingfilm, then leave for about 45 minutes – they will expand again to double the size. Towards the end of this time, preheat the oven to 220 degrees Celsius / 425 degrees Fahrenheit / gas mark 7.
11. Uncover the rolls and place in the heated oven. Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden brown. Wearing oven gloves, remove the sheet from the oven and set it on a heatproof surface. Transfer the rolls to a wire rack and leave to cool. Store in a covered container in a cool spot. Best eaten the same day, or split in half and toasted the next day.