bakes and cakes Archives - A Vegan Obsession

Glazed Cherry Scones [allergy friendly recipe]

July 22, 2013 by India Leigh

Annie, loves baking and loves using well known British confections to add interest to her bakes. It’s all a bit horrifying for a vegan health freak. It had me running, screaming for cover by my power juicer! Annie has long lists of sweet and original recipes on her blog, with helpful step by step photography. Who’s Annie? you may ask. She is Annie of Annie’s Noms And she was my cooking pal for this months Secret Recipe Club. I know, where did the last month go? It flew!

I’m currently getting ready to move, and I’m gradually munching through my food stores so I don’t have to pack, or worse still waste any. I didn’t want to go out and buy any more food, so I chose a recipe based on both having the ingredients in my cupboard already and well, greed. I fancied scones. I’d not had a scone for years. I hate moving. I deserve scones!

As you probably know by now, I’m gluten and sugar free as well as vegan. A road my body has forced me down, rather like a culinary sheep dog, herding ‘safe foods’ into a pen. So, therefore, I had to change this recipe up. I kept the basic concept though. Cherry scones.

For the original recipe Annie’s Cherry Scones.

My changed up, gluten free, egg free and dairy free scones. Baked with rich caramely, coconut sugar for a golden scone. I used stevia too, to make it low calorie and Low GI.

Cherry Scones

makes 8 scones

ingredients

1 3/4 cup flour

1/4 cup sugar ( 2 tbs coconut sugar & 2 tbs stevia)

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

5 tbs vegan butter
1/2 cup non-dairy milk

1 tsp vanilla powder

4 tbs dried, fruit sweetened cherries

1/2 tsp salt

glaze

4 tbs stevia powder (use your coffee grinder)

water or non-dairy milk

method

preheat oven to 200 degrees

1.sift the flours, salt and baking powder/soda into a large mixing bowl. Add the sugar and vanilla powder. Drop in the dried cherries.

2. chop in the chilled vegan butter with a knife. Cut in the fat until it is the size of garden peas, or those sherbet pips that made you hyper when you were a child.

3. pour in the chilled non-dairy milk. Mix lightly until incorporated and can form a dough.

4. put the dough onto parchment paper, on top of your baking sheet. Pat or roll to a circle about an inch thick. Use a long sharp knife or pizza cutter to cut to 8 triangles. Pop in the oven. Brush tops with a little non-dairy milk. Bake 18-20 mins, until slightly golden. Remove, and gently pop onto a baking rack to cool. Don’t touch until cool (helps to hold them together). They are wonderfully sweet & crumbly. You can use a 1/4 tsp xanthum gum if you want them to hold together a bit more boldly.

4. make the sugar glaze. Powder the stevia in a coffee grinder. Mix with enough water to make a slightly runny paste. Drizzle with all the artistic flare you can muster.

My mother had been bemoaning the boring breakfasts she’d been making for years (she does tend to stick with what she knows…for years). I took a tub of the scones with me when I visited her this weekend. On Saturday morning I presented her with my fresh homemade scones and she scoffed them with gusto, alongside her morning tea. She’s already wanting more and getting all creative with it. What have I unleashed! Next time she wants walnuts baked inside with ‘fresh’ cherries. So demanding!

Time for Tea - Fig Cake

October 20, 2012 by India Leigh

I love figs

I’m getting ready for a trip away. Rattling through hoards of spices; glass jars pumped full of flours; dried this, dried that; florid jars of homemade jam and hot pickles that are making my drawers sag. I hate to let anything go to waste, so I am on a mission to use up as much as I can before I depart to distant shores. Try to go to the shop a little less.
As I stock take and ponder ideas for recipes I am finding little nooks where I place stashes of food I then have forgotten about. Oh dear, where did all this food come from?! Time for a cook off and a clear out!

Last week, the grocer in the next village on from me was selling figs for under 50p. This ‘bargain’ price had me excited, this is a rare occurrence in this part of the world. I think we import our figs from Turkey so they don’t come cheap. Being such a delicate, easy to spoil fruit I guess the price for such earthy, succulent fruits from the Gods comes at a premium. When I buy a handful and take them home, I feel almost reverential towards the little purple bombs.

Really, I don’t think you can beat the pleasure of an unadorned, perfectly ripe, fig, but with the leaves turning golden, and my collar turning up to beat the chill, I fancied a baked good, steaming from the oven with a dollop of thick cream. Vegan of course. So I pulled up my sleeves, gathered tubs, jars, lined up my bright measuring cups and set about creating a gluten free fig cake, moist as can be and sweet to a t.

As soon as I’ve ruminated on the ingredients, picked a suitable pan to bake the batter, and turned on the oven, my fingers reach for the radio. Depending on my mood, I’ll choose a slice of Woman’s Hour, where I may learn how to cook the ‘perfect’ something or other, or broaden my view of the world with interviews from female entrepreneurs in Africa or India, or perhaps they will be interviewing an actress, or a talkative bee-keeper. Or, if my brain is extra hungry, I’ll opt for a science programme and spend the time having my mind boggled about multi-verses, or string theory. Or, I’ll just pick a music station and sway or sing along (sometimes acutely tunelessly) to the river of songs. I love the cosiness of it. Creating my own little world whilst I create.

Ingredients

4 swollen figs at the peak of their perfection (or more if you can to cover the whole centre of surface of the cake - with the blessedness of hindsight, I would have done this)
1/2 c almond flour
1/2 c sorghum flour
1/2 c chickpea flour
2 Tbs potato flour
2 Tbs flax meal
2 Tbs maple syrup
2 tsp fruit sweetened orange jam or apple sauce
1 tsp almond essence
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt (Himalayan preferably - healthier)

Oven Temp 180 degrees - Loaf Tin (lightly coat inside with vegan marg or oil then dust with flour. this will help it to rise as it stops the mix from sticking. The marg helps the cake to easily be removed)

Method

Preheat your oven - 180c degrees.

1.Sift all the dry ingredients, with the exception of the flax meal.
2.Combine this with 2 Tbs water, mix and leave to absorb for five minutes.
3.in a separate bowl, mix all the wet ingredients.
4.Now add the wet, including the flax, to the dry ingredients and lightly and gently fold together. Pour into the oiled baking tin.
5.Pop into the pre-heated oven. Leave to bake for 25-30 min.
Use a stick of dried spaghetti or a wooden tooth pick to test when the cake is done. If you push it into the cake and it comes out clean…it is ready.

The cake will have a golden top, and the figs bubbling hot and scarlet when it leaves the oven. Have it rest for 15mins before gently turning out onto a wire rack and leaving to cool.

Slice and drop a generous spoon of thick coconut whipping cream (or soya cream if you are ok with soy). Ooh, or perhaps a cool scoop of creamy, very vanilla, vegan ice-cream. Or how about ice-cream with a hint of rosewater and a sprinkling of crushed, candied & salted pistachios? Whatever is your joy.

The cake is very low fat, moist, gluten free, sugar free and vegan.

Lovely, lovely.

India Leigh xxx

Lemon, cardamon cookies encrusted with dark chocolate and pistachio crumbs.

October 10, 2011 by India Leigh

October…think falling leaves, cosy, body hugging knits and comfort food…slow cooked, baked, sweet and stoking a furnace our bellies. That was the expectant seasonal change, blowing in on a gale as the new October arrived. Reality?…90 degree heat, vibrant blue skies, summer shorts grabbed from the depths of my ironing basket and a list of recipes to cook, rendered completely inappropriate. What to do?…go with the flow….what else.

This is my third time cooking with the Secret Recipe Club. My two previous are here… This month my baking buddy was Lisa, from sweet-as-sugar-cookies . She’s a busy girl, not only does she partake in the SRC but she also hosts her own Sweets For A Saturday Blog Hop. There was a unbelievable amount of treats to chose from on her blog for me to try, but I rather bravely (stupidly?) chose a cookie that Lisa said was her ultimate recipe (what was I thinking of…tampering with perfection?!). Lisa seems to love using lemons in her baking and I have not really used it much in sweet things before so I considered this a great opportunity to bake in someone else apron for a while (as opposed to walking in their shoes). Being a vegan, as I am, a little tweaking of the recipe was going to be done. Lisa’s original recipe here Whilst delving into the (very long) recipe library on sweet-as-sugar-cookies blog I came across an exotic sorbet, flavoured with sweet perfumed cardamon powder and I just had to add that to the cookies (trust me, it took a while to narrow it down this far for my chosen recipe for the SRC…Lisa, do you do anything else but bake?!). Finally, I was also inspired to do the sweet… salty….bitter thing by using dark, bitter chocolate, salty roasted pistachios and Truvia (stevia sugar).

In no time at all….Sweet Lemon, cardamon cookies dipped in rich bitter chocolate with a salty pistachio crust were born (baked).

This recipe is also gluten and refined sugar free. Makes approx 16 cookies.

Get your pinny on, and turn the oven to 190/375 degrees. Line a baking pan with parchment paper.

Ingredients

1 1/4 cup of flour (I used gluten-free - 1/2 cup sorghum, 1/2 cup almond flour, 1/4 cup potato flour)

2 tbs tofu

1/2 cup vegan butter

1/3 cup fruit syrup or agave

2 tbs lemon zest

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp cardamon powder

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp sea salt

to take the indulgence up a notch….dip and dusting will also need….

small bar of dark bitter chocolate (if you want sugar free then splash out of a bar of decadent raw chocolate. It is usually sweetened with agave or lucuma)

handful of roasted pistachios

1/4 tsp of sea salt

Method

1. Sift the flours, baking powder, cardamon powder, and salt into a bowl.
2.Mix the lemon zest into the fruit syrup then cream with the vegan butter and vanilla.

3. blend the tofu with a hand blender and add to the wet ingredients. Gradually mix in the flour mixture.
4. place the dough ball between two sheets of parchment, sprinkle with the stevia sugar and then roll to 1/4 inch. Cut into your desired shape and place on the baking sheet.

5. Bake for 9-11 min. until set but not browned (oops mine browned a little…I was too busy watching the chocolate melt!)

6. Leave the cookies to cool for a minute then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

7. melt the chocolate in a bain marie (set a bowl in a pan of boiling water and leave it to melt) then dip the cookies in half way and then carefully place on a wire rack. Sprinkle with pistachios and a scant amount of sea salt.

8. continue until all the cookies are dressed up in their cocoa/nut bling and pop into the fridge to set completely.

9. eat.

ta da!

When you join the SRC not only do you get to discover new bloggers every month and try foods that perhaps you wouldn’t have tried before, you also have the excitement of the run up to REVEAL day when you get to see what everyone has been busy making in the kitchen and just who was your baking buddy. I cannot believe how many more people join every month…you can too if you like..just click here to see what the excitement is all about

Thanks for being my October buddy Lisa! x

Fudgey, sinless - Black Bean Brownies

July 28, 2011 by India Leigh

Oh my God, are you excited just SEEING that picture? As if passing on the baton in a brownie relay race..come..I shall share with you, so you too can be Princess of the brownies in your very own kitchen…

There is this whole vegan and gluten free trend that I’m TOTALLY into. Legumes! Using them in cooking is nothing new, but they now lounge in cookies, cakes & frosting. They fake ‘fish’ and provide a satisfying crunch for a salty snack. Beans are the new ‘black’.

I am always looking for ways to find out how to make goodies that are sin free but feel as though they come from the devils bakery. Why? so I can eat them when I want, feel GREAT about it and stay my svelte self. Bean flour (and coconut flour) has been opening up new doors for me as I scouted to find a way of HAVING, without flours that make me feel.. blegh! My adventures led me to the door (website) of Happy Herbivore’s LOW FAT black bean brownies (thanks a million for the recipe!) I checked my map - sugar free, low fat, gluten free, vegan - yep, X marked the spot. black bean chocolate brownies I of course changed the recipe to make it my own…just a tad.

You are now only minutes away from dark fudgey treasure.

From your food chest you will cluster…

15 ounces of black beans (440ml or 1 1/4 cups) - I think cooking your own is best - make loads and then stash your remaining loot in the freezer
2 whole ripe bananas
1 cup organic gluten free oats I used Bob’s Red Mill
1/3 cup agave (I had run out so I blended a mix of 6 juicy prunes and dates)
1 tbs fruit sweetened marmalade (optional)
1 tbs fruit sweetened cranberries (optional)
1/4 cup unsweetened pure cocoa powder
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp coffee granules - pour over 1 tbs boiling water
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla essence
a couple of shakes of chili powder (purely optional)

Heat your oven to 350f (175) and line a 8 x 8 pan

1. with the exception of the oats & the cranberries, put all the ingredients into a mixing bowl and using a hand blender, blend until smooth.
2.fold in the ground oats and cranberries and mix well. If you wanted the brownies less fudgey and more cakey then add 1 tsp baking powder.

Bake for 35 - 40 mins. Check them after 30mins. leave in pan for 5 mins and then gently lift onto a rack to cool.

I am besotted, bewitched, captivated and SMITTEN by these squares of rich, chocolate LOVE! BFF

Cookie & Cream

July 26, 2011 by India Leigh

I just had to share these zucchini cookies and cream sandwiches with you. I made them for the first time last week. I had to freeze half of them to stop me from wolfing down the whole lot. Not that it would matter, they practically sport twinkly halos they are so ridiculously healthy. I used a Martha Stewart recipe for nub-bread cookie sandwiches as a guide and then changed it up to make them sugar-free, gluten free and lower in fat. The recipe is easy ( I simplified a few of Martha’s steps) and the results are pure heaven.

They took me (including cooking time) about 45mins to make.

Gather

1 cup of gluten free flour or if you are not gf then any all-purpose flour

I used;

1/2 cup coconut flour

1/4 cup brown rice protein (you can use brown rice flour or tapioca flour)

1/4 cup garbanzo flour

1 cup finely grated zucchini
1 cup Bobs Red Mill - gluten free oats
1/2 cup chopped and toasted walnuts
1 tbs vegan ‘butter’
1/2 cup fruit syrup
1/2 cup orange jam - fruit sweetened
1 flax ‘egg’ (fresh ground flax + 1 tbs water, mixed)
1 3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/4 tbs salt

For filling
*2 tbs coconut flour (this gives it structure to hold up to the cookies well, but you can use without)
4 tbs vegan cream cheese
1 tbs coconut oil
1 tbs fruit syrup

Method/

For the cookie dough
1.preheat oven to 350
2.sift flours, cinnamon, baking powder and baking soda, 1/4 tsp salt into a bowl. Cream in the ‘butter’, ‘egg’ and vanilla essence
3.grind half of the oats in a grinder and leave rest whole…Add into the mixture with the zucchini, walnuts & the sweeteners.
4.Using a spoon, scoop the dough (it will be a thick consistency) and drop onto parchment lined baking sheets. Leave a 2 inch gap to separate them.
5. bake for about 17 mins then let cool on a wire rack

make the frosting
1. blend all the ingredients and refrigerate for 10 mins
2. use equally sized cookies and spread frosting inside to create a sandwich.

They can be stored at room temp for about 2 days or they freeze really well. Great for picnics & parties….and for no reason whatsoever. Unfortunately, mine did not turn out looking quite as pretty as Martha’s but they were UNBELIEVABLY GOOD x

A week of VEGAN - Meal plan - DAY 7 -

July 18, 2011 by India Leigh

I made it! I got to the end of my first WEEK OF MEAL PLANNING. Yey! Obviously I’m not victorious at meal plan numero uno, reaching it’s zenith, but ‘clap my hands happy’ to have posted it all for you. I think I had varying heights of taste and photographic success along the way.

So, what did I eat on DAY 7?

I spent a creative morning mixing, sifting and baking for a future recipe I will share with you, so when my stomach started making itself known (surprisingly loudly seeing as I’d eaten SO much cake mix) I thought best, to balance out the mornings excesses, to have something light and redeeming.

zucchini pasta with sundried tomato pesto

It takes about 10 mins (with a little pre prep) to make and is rammed with flavour. To get the spirals you will need a spiralizer. I got mine from Amazon. If you do not have one of these gadgets cluttering up your cupboards then use a vegetable peeler to create pappadelle type ribbons.

You will need the following to serve 2

3-4 large zucchinis (courgette) - ribboned or spiralised

For the sun dried tomato pesto

1/2 cup sun dried tomatoes either in oil or dry - soak the dry SDT for 20mins in a cup of water. retain liquid

1/4 soaked sunflower seeds (easier to blend AND digest)

good handful of basil (about 20g)

1 clove of garlic

1 tbs good olive oil

* for low fat version use a tbs of the retained tomato liquid or add extra tbs of oil

salt & pepper to taste

pop all the pesto ingredients into a blender and process. I like mine to be a bit coarse as I love the textures

To serve either spoon the pesto on top or mix into the ‘pasta’.

It was joy in a bowl and exciting as I rarely prepare raw pasta. The UK weather gives me cravings for warm food.

The name of the game for the evening was ‘junk food’ night. Ridiculously healthy and SO GOOD.

Black bean burgers

Don’t you love it when you’ve got a freezer full of meals you can grab out for dinner?! I’d made the burgers a few weeks back so all I had to do was pop them in the oven. I served with cassava chips (crisps), onion kale chips (crisps) and a carrot, orange and sesame salad. I used Vegan A Go Go recipe to make vegan mayo (my first EVER batch). I tried the low-fat soya milk version first and it was a runny disaster (where did I go wrong?) so then made the tofu version;

3/4 cup soft/med tofu

2 tbs lemon juice

1/2 tsp salt

2 tbsp oil

pinch of fine ground black pepper

blend on high until thick.

now that had me whooping with delight and doing a little joggette on the spot (the excess excitement always finds an exit from my body!) If I had the skills I’d have given it a little wolf whistle, sadly it would have just been me blowing air into the room and making a eerie wind sound). Ra ra.

cake CAKE cake Cake CaKE CAKE CAKE CAKE

This cake was so GOOD I had to give a humongous slab of it it to my sister to take home to her family, else I would have SCOFFED the lot!

I fished around with my rod and interweb net to scout out a cake befitting of a visit from my sis, her hubster and my monosyllabic but lovely teenage nephew. I wanted to make it gluten free, not because any of them have a gluten intolerance (they are don’t) but because, it is all about me! I remembered Chef Chloe the pretty one who won Cupcake Wars in 2010, so she was my to go place for a recipe.

I of course adapted it because I am a rebellious know it all. This is the original winning vegan recipe. But yes, I did change it.

For the flour I used 1 cup chickpea flour and 1/2 cup coconut flour. Instead of, ‘send me all twizzly’ sugar, I used ‘zen’ fruit syrup. All else I followed to the letter. Well, ok, I didn’t ‘tiramisu’, it. I instead just used her sponge recipe and made up the rest myself.

For the filling I spread a layer of St Dalfour Orange cut Jam and then made a ‘cream’. 3/4 cup tofu, 1/2 cup coconut flour, 1 tbs chocolate chips, 1/4 cup fruit syrup, 1/2 tsp salt. For the frosting I used a carton of Cremovita - organic-soya-cream which whips and thickens beautifully, to which I added 1 1/2 tbs instant esspresso (made in coffee filter with 1 tbs of grounds) and whipped it into the cream before making pretty on the top of the cake with walnuts and choc chips. Coffee, creamy, gooey, soft, spongy, crunchy, chocolaty, swee…tie (but not too sweet).

I did it! Blogged every meal for 1 week. I take a bow and exit left of stage….. to go bake/cook some more.

A week of VEGAN - Meal plan - Day 5 -

July 15, 2011 by India Leigh

Bonjour. Hola. Ni Hao. Aloha. G’day. Helloo, ect. It’s day 5 of this weeks meal plan.

Ok, lets do this thing. LUNCH

I thought I’d try a mock tuna recipe from Happy Herbivore. I couldn’t imagine how it would taste and I was intrigued. Now, hands up, I admit I didn’t follow the recipe to the letter - anyone know what a dill pickle tastes like? Well, I have not a clue, so for this ‘mock tuna’ recipe I used ‘mock dill pickle’. What?!…LIFE is an improvisation.

This was enough to make two rounds of sarnies.

Mock tuna sandwich

1/2 can of chickpeas drained
1 celery stalk
1 tbs capers
1 tbs dried dill
1/2 tsp onion granules
1 tsp nutritional yeast
1 tbs tamari or liquid aminos
1/4 tsp black salt (optional..it adds a little..erm, sort of…something?) if not use sea salt
1/2 nori sheet cut v.small or 1/2 tsp kelp

2 tbs vegan mayo
I used the recipe from the lovely Sarah Kramer - Vegan-Go-Go-Cookbook
3/4 cup tofu
2 tbs lemon juice
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
Blend until thick

I mixed up all the ingredients retaining a couple of tbs of the mayo to layer on top of the mock filling.

How hard can it be to photograph a sandwich! I took loads of pics….I hold my head in shame. This is the best of the bunch. It tasted good, but when I make it again I’ll add finely chopped scallions to lift the flavours and, even though I LOVE my onion bread, it was not making BFF with the mock tuna. So sorry onion bread, you wouldn’t be on the invite list. Mock tuna needs to be the centre of attention between two slices of light, soft bread. I’m also going to try it as a mock tuna melt….one day.

To the sink..MORE washing up!

What did I have for dinner you ask?

I wanted something easy…tasty, and I wanted tempeh. That spoke to me of TEMPEH STIR FRY

Tempeh from Full of Beans at the Infinity foods store in Brighton. The BEST I’ve found in the UK to date. In the US, Trader Joes sells a rocking slab of fermented creaminess.

I splashed roughly a tbs of sesame oil into a pan and sauteed a clove of garlic and a chunk of ginger until golden. Then added the veggies.

I chopped enough of the following for my sweet self.

kale

broccoli

carrots

cabbage

snap peas

sesame seeds

I stir fried these in with sauteed chopped garlic (one clove) and an inch of fresh ginger grated.

to season I used tamari and rice vinegar. I heated through the tempeh for about 3 mins, once the vegetables were al dente.

Ready before you know it. Well, not literally….and, well it’s not my saying, it makes no sense to me either!

I sat with a fork and my bowl of plant offerings and watched some silly dating show on the TV about people being cooked for by blind dates. My dinner was delicious but my choice of entertainment was wanting.

Once my plate was empty I went back to the kitchen. It was filled with the aroma of warm, sweet almonds….

Dessert was an almond biscuit cookie type thing. (Any names suggestions welcomed)

Makes about 12 (btw that is a not a tiny grass daisy..so you know for proportions).

2 cups almonds
1/2 cup spelt or gf flour
1/4 cup agave or other liquid sweetener
1/4 cup almond milk (unsweetened) begin with this amount, add more if necessary. You don’t want a wet dough, just enough to bind.
2 tsp vanilla essence
1 1/2 tsp salt (I love the sweet n salty combo)
1/4 tsp bicarb of soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla essence

1/4 cup flaked almonds

preheat oven to 175

1. sift the flour into a large mixing bowl (not the almonds as too coarse). Add almond flour.
2. add other dry ingredients and mix
3.add sweetener & essence
4.add vegan milk and mix gently to a dough
5.roll into crescents or rounds.
6. pop into the oven until turning light gold. Approx 10-15 mins. Check if cooked with a tooth pick.
7. put on a baking rack to cool. (I did not do this as I couldn’t wait!)

Sweet, salty, crumbly, almondy…bliss x

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