Vegan Chocolate Brownies

Okay, so I have to hold my hands up and say I did not expect this to go well! I've cooked vegan food but i've never baked anything vegan. So when I was doing my daily scan of Pinterest and stumbled upon a few different recipes and ideas, a lightbulb did flash above my head. WHY NOT EH?

The recipes I found were really straight forward - some only using four ingredients - however I've heard of these scary 'Making a Pinterest Recipe' stories from friends and I was a bit....well terrified. I sort of tailored the recipe to what I had in the cupboard because, well, bugger going to the shops when I was in full blown lounge wear and my hair resembling a milkmaid's with a bandana to stop my fringe pissing me off. For the record, this is not the cute look that you see on the 'milkmaid braids with bandana look' Pinterest search images; oh no! this is a sweaty, no make-up, faded and frizzy hair look - HOT!

So adorning my pinny, I ventured into the rarely-opened baking cupboard. The measuring was a bit of a faff (as I hate measuring) but it was reasonably easy to do as the recipe I was basing mine on was all cups. 

You've seen the photo *points above* and I actually haven't said this but the brownies are AMAZING! For someone who isn't actually vegan, I surprised myself with how much I loved these. The dark chocolate gives it a richness and the uncooked batter actually tastes like there's egg in there - BUT THERE'S NOT! I haven't actually tried any other vegan brownies so I can't compare to where these should be on the 'Awesome Vegan Brownie' list, so I encourage all you vegans to try it. I also used spelt flour for this to make it a bit more on the healthy side and less gluten-y and adds a bit of protein.

The recipe I made up is:

2 heaped cups of Spelt Flour (around 2 and a quarter cups)

2 cups dark drown sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp sea salt

1 cup dark choc chips (for melting)

Half a cup dark (or dairy free milk) choc chips

1 large ripe banana

Half a cup olive oil

1 cup water (give or take half a cup depending on consistency)

4 tsp cider vinegar

Preheat the oven to 170C and grease and flour (or greaseproof paper) a rectangular cake pan that's about 11x7 inches.

Melt the cup of dark chocolate chips over a Bain-Marie until all the chocolate has melted. Keep this on a low heat until melted to stop the chocolate setting.

Sift the flour and add in the rest of the dry ingredients. In another bowl, mash the banana until it's a smooth consistency without any lumps then add in the oil, water and vinegar. Whisk these together and add to the dry ingredients. Before mixing, add the melted chocolate and stir until the mixture is fully combined and smooth. Add your chocolate chips. Bung in the oven for 15-25 minutes until the top looks cooked.

Hopefully this has made sense! As you can see it's all pretty easy and straightforward and measuring with cups made it a bit less stressful than all this measuring on scales malarkey!

ENJOY x

Summer, Summer, Summertime....Lemonade

Time to sit back and unwind! Apologies for the nod to Will Smith there but I couldn't help it!

So Summer has well and truly arrived in the Highlands and for most it would be "taps aff" but here it was a bit more reserved kettle of fish with picnics on the bistro set in our garden and the idea of making homemade lemonade thanks to a Tesco version we tried recently.

This version of lemonade is really refreshing and really light tasting (despite the sugar) and I am really happy with the way it turned out.

What you will need:

3 unwaxed lemons, cut randomly (skin on - the lot!)
140g sugar (to taste, you can add more)
1 litre water

Add the lemons, sugar and half the water to a blender or food processor and blend.

Place into a sieve over a bowl and stir until all the juice has come though. Discard the pulp (coz there will be seeds and rind there - YUCK!)

Add the juice to the rest of the water and chill. Add ice to serve.

Simple as that really! If you want to make it PINK lemonade, add raspberries or cranberries for a bit more tartness and a lovely pinky colour :)

Pardon for the lack of arty photos!

Banana and Sultana Muffins with a Chocolate Centre *Drools*

So I found some lovely brown squishy bananas in my kitchen the other day, and hating waste, I sat and had a good think about what I could do with these manky looking things.

My conclusion - banana muffins! I jazzed it up a bit by putting some sultanas in and adding a piece of dark chocolate to the centre to make a melty middle bit. They're soooo yummy and good for you too (..well it does have bananas and sultanas in them...)

This recipe makes 12 muffins.

What you'll need to gather:

85g (3oz) butter or margarine (I used olive spread)
85g (3oz) light brown caster sugar (however normal caster sugar is grand!)
170g (6oz) self raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 egg, beaten
2-3 VERY ripe bananas, mashed into a puree (yuck!)
about 115g sultanas or any other type of dried fruit
small bar of dark chocolate broken into pieces
muffin tray
muffin cases
mixing bowl

Okay, so first of all heat your oven to about 180oC/Gas Mark4.

Cream together the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy looking. In another bowl mix together the flour and baking powder.

To the butter and sugar, add the egg and a spoonful of the flour. Mix until well combined. Add in the bananas and the sultanas. Then add the rest of the flour mixture until it's all mixed up well.

Divide evenly among the 12 cases then take a piece of chocolate and press it down into the batter so it's sitting in the middle. Do this for all the cakes.

Sprinkle a little bit of sugar over the top and bake for about 20 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

If you have some left (which won't happen) you can always freeze them and defrost for a few hours as and when needed.

Just try not to eat them all!!

Jammy Heart Biscuits

I made these little beauties for my birthday last week and I absolutely ADORED them (along with everyone else! - They were gone by the end of the day!)

I had been deciding what type of cake I should make for my birthday, when I thought that a) not a lot of folk in my family/extended family are huge fans of cake and b) there is an endless amount of genres of cakes I could make. One word: decisions!

So, after a few minutes of pondering (and a lovely cup of peppermint tea), I decided to make these beasts! Everyone loves jammy dodgers and what could be better than making a tastier, less heavy alternative?!

The recipe below makes about 20 (depending on the size of the biscuits you want to make!) and they're suitable for vegetarians :)

What you'll need:

250g Butter

150g Icing sugar

1 large egg (separated)

375g plain flour

seedless rasberry jam (about 100g or so)

for the buttercream:

You can either use this recipe:

140g butter (softened)

280g icing sugar

1-2 tbsp milk

to make: beat the butter in a large bowl until soft, add half the icing sugar and mix until smooth. Add remaining icing sugar and 1 tbsp milk and beat until lovely and creamy. Add in the extra milk if the mixture needs loosened up. 

OR

buy buttercream frosting :)

Okay doke!

So first of all we're going to beat together the butter and the icing sugar until it's a light and fluffy consistency. Then add in the egg yolk and add half the flour. 

Add the remaining flour and mix with your hands to ensure you get all the mixture and start to knead with your hands in the bowl until it's smooth (this shouldn't take long). Then wrap in cling film and either put in a cool place (NOT THE FRIDGE) for about 30 minutes to rest.

Heat the oven to 190oC/170oC Fan/Gas 5. Roll out half the dough until it about 3mm thick (on a floured surface - believe me, it'll make your life so much easier!). I used a 5.8 cm fluted cutter to cut out 20 rounds. Place on a greased baking tray and bake for about 8-10 minutes until the edges are golden. Cool on a wire rack.

Next, roll out the remaining dough and cut out 20 more rounds (again on a floured surface). Now, we have the difficult part - cutting out the hearts. If you're lucky enough to have a tiny heart cutter, use that. Otherwise, the best way to do it is to place the rounds onto the baking tray first, then cut out the hearts using a small veg knife. It does get a bit tedious once you get to the 15th round but remember - ONLY 5 MORE TO GO!!

Beat the egg white until it's a wee bit frothy and brush over the biscuit just to give it that extra crispiness. Bake and cool as before.

Then what to do is make the - or use the bought - buttercream and spread over each biscuit (make sure not to get the ones with the hearts on it! Place some jam in the centre (about a teaspoon) and cover with a biscuit with the heart cut out. Push down gently so the jam fills the heart shape.

Sprinkle with icing suga.

So there you go. Yummy and fabulous looking biscuits that are suitable for a kids party and also for a grown up party. 

Now the only problem will be is not to eat them all!!

Trio of desserts... (Don't worry it's simple to make!)

Apologies for lack of action on here! Time does not seem to be my pal at the moment however I've kicked my ass into gear to get this blog back up and running. Recently I've been doing A LOT of cooking and baking.
Most recently, I've done these cute wee desserts which include Rhubarb panna cotta, meringue (with leftover roast rhubarb) and vienesse biscuits (dipped in leftover dark Easter egg chocolate!). These were for a dinner which I was making for my family and they only took me a few hours to do all three (this includes chilling time!) Plus i even had enough time to make Hollandaise sauce with the leftover egg yolks from the meringue for an asparagus and Jersey Royal potato bake thing (recipe to follow!)

Right so let's get our apron on and get started!! :)

Rhubarb Panna Cotta

serves 4

You'll need for the roasted rhubarb:

500g/1lb 2oz rhubarb
2tbsp caster sugar
4tsp apple juice

and for the panna cotta:

75g/2oz caster sugar
150ml/5fl oz double cream
2 leaves of gelatin (soaked in cold water til soft)
300ml/11 fl oz buttermilk (the buttermilk they sell here is around 284ml so i topped up the rest with normal milk)

Preheat oven to 200oC/180oC Fan/400F/Gas 6. Cut up rhubarb into 1" pieces and place in a roasting tin along with the sugar and the apple juice. Roast for around 8-10 minutes or until all soggy and yummy looking. Using about 125g of this, blend to a puree and place the rest aside for later.

Mix the sugar and the double cream in a saucepan and bring to a simmer (at about a medium heat so they don't burn - YUCK!) just til all the sugar has dissolved. Squeeze out all the water from the gelatin leaves and throw in the pan and stir about until they've completely dissolved. Add the puree then remove from the heat and leave to cool for about 5/10 minutes or until you get impatient! Stir in the buttermilk then it's ready to pour into dishes!

I used these little plastic dishes you get with these meals for a tenner from markie parkies! However you can use little ramekin dishes or whatever else you can find that resembles a little dish :)
Place some of the roasted rhubarb you done earlier into the bottom of the dishes then pour over the mixture (I used a measuring jug for this to save mess!). Pop in the fridge for about 1-2 hours (or longer if you're making them the day before). If you want to be fancy (and have time) and want to turn them out onto a plate, dip the dishes (alliteration!) into some boiled water to loosen the sides and run a knife round the edges. Spoon some of the rhubarb over the panna cotta for some uber awesome taste!
I just served the panna cotta in the dish as it was and spooned some of the rhubarb over it.
So there you go! Something super fancy and super tasty and it literally takes you less than half an hour to make the mixture. I think the only difficult part is the waiting coz it's SO GODDAMN DELICIOUS!

So while we're waiting for the panna cotta to set we're going to do some...

Vienesse Biscuits

Makes LOADS!

These are always easy to do and the ingredients are always stuff that I have in the cupboards. What you'll need is:

100g/30z softened butter

25g/1oz icing sugar

100g/3oz plain flour

1/4 tsp baking powder

50g/2oz dark chocolate

Heat oven to 190oC/170oC Fan/Gas 5. Grease baking trays or cover in grease-proof paper.

Beat the sugar and butter together until it looks pale and it's quite a fluffy texture. Using a sieve, add flour and baking powder to the mixture and mix until well blended.

Fill a piping bag with the dough (as it's quite gooey!) and pipe about 2" lines on the baking tray. Bake for about 10 minutes or until the biscuits are golden brown around the edges.

Leave the biscuits to cool on the tray for about 5 minutes. If you try to lift them off while they're still hot then they'll just fall apart and you'll be left with broken biscuits! Yummy none-the-less but still broken! Transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.

Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of boiling water. Then, carefully, dip half of each biscuit it so half of it is coated in chocolate. Place back on the wire rack and leave to set (this normally takes about an hour or so).

We made these while we were waiting on the panna cotta setting and we still had time to make...

Meringues

PHEW! *mops brow* We're nearly there! By now you'll be feeling like Delia Smith/Gordon Ramsay/Michel Roux Jnr (or possible senior) depending on your kitchen temperament!

Meringues have always been something I have wanted to try but have just been that little it too impatient to make them ever since i lost my electric whisk (seriously I have no idea where it went and I could have done with one for this!).

I was looking through loads of recipes to try and find one that sounded easy and yet had a photo to prove that it looked impressive, and came across the easiest theory for a meringue: For every egg yolk used, use 50g caster sugar. Tada! That's the trick so they're not too chewy and have just the perfect amount of crispiness!

I had used 2 egg yolks so used 100g sugar for this. This made about 9 decent sized meringues.

Heat your oven to 150oC/130oC Fan/Gas 2

Now remember I've lost my electric whisk - so I used sheer strength and determination to whisk the egg whites into lovely white fluffy stiff peaks. I must admit I did use the "hold the bowl over the head" theory and, luckily for me, it worked! If you're lucky enough to not have lost your electric whisk, use a medium speed to do this.

 Next, slowly add the sugar. Again, if you're using an electric whisk turn the speed down low as you don't want to over mix this! I added the sugar about a tablespoon at a time until the mixture was this lovely shiny mixture and gave stiff peaks when i lifted the whisk up.

Then I plonked a tablespoons of the mixture onto a greased baking tray (again you can use grease-proof paper but be careful incase it sticks!)

Place the meringues into the oven, then as soon as they're in, turn the oven down to 140oC/120oC/Gas 1 and cook for about 30 minutes until they're a lovely pale coffee colour and sound hollow when lightly tapped. Turn off the oven completely and leave the meringues in the oven to dry out (otherwise they go a bit overly-chewy!) I left them in for about an hour and a half and then removed them and they turned out ace!

To serve them all as trio, simply place on a plate and spoon some of the leftover roasted rhubarb over the meringue as a tasty extra!

So I hope these recipes have came in useful and that you enjoy them as much as I have! I also hope to find that you found them just as simple an stress free as I have!

ENJOY!

Garlic, Sea Salt and Herb Focaccia

Hey guys! Sorry for the lack of posting recently! Things have been manic busy the past few months :) The only good thing to come of it is that i'm planning to up roots and move 140 miles north to the Highlands to be with the love of my life :) very excited about that!

Anyway! We're not here to drink tea and gab (although that does sound tremendous, no?) we're here to BAKE!

I've seen ALOT of baking programmes recently where they've been making focaccia bread. I must admit after watching the Great British Bake off where there was THAT episode with the focaccia, it kind of made me a bit scared. However I do not get scared of baking or cooking. No, I go in gung-ho and give it a bash - after all whats the worst that could happen?

I must admit, the initial dough formation made me panicky. I did actually wonder if I had put in too much water (which I hadn't) and the fact that it didn't act like normal white bread made me a bit out of sorts. however I am more than pleased with the final outcome and I am pleased to say that this lovely tasty bread will be taking pride of place next to my Flammkuchen tonight at dinner (recipe for that alternative German pizza to follow!)

So give it a bash and let me know how you get on :)

So, you will need:

500g/1lb 2oz white flour (you can also use bread flour)
2 tsp sea salt
3 tsp dried easy blend yeast (or buy 2 sachets)
2 tbsp olive oil
400ml/14 fl oz cold water
olive oil (for drizzling)
sea salt
1 large garlic clove, crushed
selection of herbs chopped finely

Place Flour, yeast, oil, salt and 300ml/10fl oz water into a bowl and mix together until a dough is formed (this is messy!), knead the dough for about five minutes while gradually adding the remainder of the water.

Stretching the dough by hand, fold the edges of the dough into the centre for another five minutes, turn the bowl 180 degrees and repeat the process.

Tip the dough onto a well oiled surface and continue kneading for five minutes until it looks a bit more smoother and manageable. Place the dough in the bowl, cover with cling film and place in a warm place until it's almost doubled in size (I put mine under the radiator!)

Line two baking sheets or dishes with spray oil (this makes the bread easier to remove!) and set aside. Tip the dough out and half. Using your fingers, flatten the dough onto the baking sheets until all the area has been covered. Cover in cling film and place in a warm place to prove for about an hour.

Preheat the oven to 220C/425F/Gas Mark 7. Drizzle each loaf with olive oil, sea salt, garlic and the herbs (or whatever you fancy!) and place in the oven for 20 minutes.

Once cooked, drizzle more oil over the bread.

If you are reheating it, just drizzle more oil over the top afterwards :)

Good luck!

Tomato & Red Onion Chutney

I've only started looking into chutney recipes recently when I got it into my head that i'm going to make everyone a jar of chutney for Christmas. So rather than going a bit gung-ho a week before Christmas and end up making a right pigs ear of things, I thought having a bit of practice would probably be the best and the most sensible idea!

I had a trawl through recipes and - seeing that I had a ton of tomatoes that i'd grown kicking about - I decided on a tomato-based recipe. However, most of them had a few different ingredients like cardomom seeds and chilli that I just wasn't into in a big way. So I concocted my own recipe using the base of red wine vinegar, brown sugar and tomatoes and kind of just added anything that I could find!

This does take quite a bit of preparation so make sure you have plenty of time to do this!

I do hope that you try and enjoy this recipe as I think I actually done really well considering this is my first attempt!

This makes about two standard jam-sized jars, however you can increase or decrease the ingredients accordingly :)

2 medium red onions
750kg tomatoes
1 or 2 peppers
4 garlic cloves (crushed and chopped finely)
half teaspoon of ground ginger
1 teaspoon of dijon mustard
250g light brown muscovado sugar
1 braeburn apple (or any type of cooking apple)
150ml red wine vinegar

First of all peel and deseed your tomatoes and peppers. To peel them, plunge the tomatoes and pepper into boiling water for about 30 seconds, drain then fill with icy cold water. This makes is so much easier to peel them! Cut into quarters and remove the seeds (WARNING! Your hands will actually stink of tomatoes afterwards!)

Dice the apple and onion into small bits and slice the tomatoes and the peppers.

Add all the ingredient to a stainless steel pan (not brass or copper as it reacts with the the vinegar and leaves a metallic taste apparently) and bring to the boil stirring occasionally. Once boiling, reduce to a medium heat and simmer for about an hour.

In this time you can sterilise the jars. There is a few ways which you can do this:

  - Wash the jars in hot soapy water and rinse thoroughly. Shake off any excess water and place in the oven on a LOW HEAT for about ten minutes or until dry.

  - Place in a saucepan of cold water and bring to the boil. Once the water is boiling, boil for about ten minutes.

  - Or simple place in the dishwasher and fire it on a warm rinse (this is the method I chose!)

You should do this so the jars are just done and warm for when your chutney is ready.

So after the hour, the chutney should be looking a lot darker in colour and have a jam-like consistency. Like this...

It will reduce dramatically as all the ingredients sort of mush together. I left it on a low heat and stirred for about five more minutes just to make sure it was cooked properly.

I then placed into the warm jars and covered in kitchen paper until cooled. If you place the lids on right away, the condensation will settle on top of the chutney and make for a runny consistency.

This keeps for about 6 weeks.

So there you go! Some yummy chutney to make, right on time for this freeeeezing weather! It goes amazing with hard cheese and oatcakes. You could also mix up the vegetables and add or take away certain ingredients.

For hints and tips a great website to visit is here as it gives you ideas on how to prepare certain fruits or vegetables for the chutney and also whats a complete no-go for it!

Chocolate Orange Aero Cookies

These *points above* are my YUMMY cookies i made today. I normally sew or try to be crafty on days off from work so I decided to make something a bit different. The result? These Aero chocolate orange cookies. The Aero bubbly chocolate makes the cookies not as sweet or heavy as normal chocolate does i think. Why not give it a bash with the recipe below and see what you think?

(makes about 18 cookies)

You will need:

125g or 4 1/2oz soft butter/margarine (plus a bit extra for greasing)
175g or 6oz plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
85g or 3oz muscovado sugar
5 tbsp caster sugar
1 egg
125g, 4 1/2oz or 1 large bar of Aero Orange Chocolate bar
Preheated oven to 190oC/365oF/Gas Mark 5

- Lightly grease two baking trays or use grease proof paper.

- Cookies are probably the easiest thing i've ever made. All you need to do is throw ALL ingredients into a bowl and mix until well combined. I added the chocolate after all the other ingredients had been mixed in case any of the mixture spilled out.

- Use a tablespoon to put the mixture onto the trays, make sure there is plenty of space between them as they do spread out a bit. I cooked the dough in two lots, having six spoonfuls of dough on each tray.

- Bake in the oven for about 10-12 minutes (for fan assisted ovens bake for 10 minutes). If you have to put your trays on two separate shelves, set a timer for five or six minutes then swap around and bake for another five or six. This makes sure the top tray doesn't get burnt!

- Using a palette knife (or fish slice in my case!) transfer the cookies to a wire rack and leave to cool. If you don't have a wire rack, use a few sheets of kitchen roll instead :)

TADAAAA!

Hopefully this has made it easy for even the most novice baker.

Why not try making other types of flavours too? 

Just change the chocolate for anything else you think might work :)

How to Make Lebkuchen

Lebkuchen is a German biscuit-type treat thats meant to sort of resemble gingerbread (but FAAAARRRR better). Its a typical German Christmas biscuit and is a fantastic and really easy way to make some form of festive bakes goods :)

Plus it makes your house smell AMAZING!

Ok so what you will need is...

250g  (or 2 cups if you don't have scales) plain flour
85g (6 tbsp) ground almonds
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of cloves
pinch of grated nutmeg
pinch of black pepper
200ml (13 tbsp) clear honey
85g (6 tbsp) butter
1 lemons grated zest
100g (10 1/2 tbsp) icing sugar
1 egg white, beaten

utensil-wise you will need...

a wooden spoon/spatula
tablespoon
teaspoon
a small grater/zester
2 medium sized bpwls (make sure one is glass as this will be heated)
a saucepan that allows the glass bowl to sit on top like this....

Set your oven to 180C. That's gas mark 4 and if you have a fan assisted oven set it to 160C

Okay, so put the flour, ground almonds, ginger, cinnamon, baking powder, cloves, grated nutmeg and pepper into one of the bowls and mix them about so they're distributed evenly.

Place the butter and honey into the GLASS bowl. Next put water into the saucepan, however only fill half way (you don't want to butter and honey to burn) and allow to boil on a medium/low heat. Once slightly bubbling, put the glass bowl on top of the saucepan and mix until all the butter and honey has melted together and has created a runny golden liquid.

Add the melted honey and butter to the dry ingredients and stir until it creates a solid dough like this...

Now leave to cool for about 10 minutes as it will still be warm from the melted butter and honey. Once cooled, roll the dough into about 15/20 balls and flatten slightly.

Place on a greased baking tray (i used that spray oil stuff and it worked really well)

Then bake in the oven for about 15 minutes. The biscuits should be golden brown once cooked. Set aside to cool as they will need to be relatively cold for the icing.

Measure the icing into a bowl. So now separate the white from the yolk and discard the yolk. Beat the egg white until frothy.

Add the egg to the icing sugar and add 1 tablespoon of water.

Mix together until it has a smooth and runny consistency...

So now your biscuits are cooler and your icing is ready dip each biscuit into the icing and set aside on a tray or on a plate to dry.

It will only have a light coating of icing on it, but don't worry! The icing is REALLY sweet so if it had been any thicker it would take away the taste of the actual Lebkuchen.

These make great gifts when wrapped in tissue paper or plastic wrapping and laced in a fancy gift bag :)

Hope you enjoy making these as much as I do.