Christmas Gift #3- Fudge- Orange & Walnut and Rum & Candy Cane

I was actually looking for a fudge recipe for the type of caramel coloured vanilla fudge you think of when you first think of fudge but when I came across this recipe I had to try it and decided it would be perfect for the Christmas gifts.

The recipe is from Go Dairy Free and can be found here.

The changes I made were orange essence and crushed walnuts in the first flavour instead of vanilla and coconut. On top of the fudge I put one half of a walnut onto each piece that was going to be cut. For the second flavour it was rum flavouring with sprinkled crushed candy canes on top.

I thought the end result looked really impressive and the taste is just phenomenal. Very sweet but perfect for a Christmas indulgence!

Orange and Walnut Fudge

Rum and Candy Cane Fudge

Christmas Gift #1- Chocolate & Walnut Biscotti

For a lot of my family I am never sure what to buy them for Christmas- they seem to have everything they need and I always think my gifts will be wasted. This is why I have taken to making them food baskets as gifts (you may have seen a couple of posts from last year). This year I chose to do two sweet things and two savoury. The sweet things were Chocolate and Walnut Biscotti and 2 flavours of fudge and the savoury things were Rosemary Shortbread and "Cheesy" oatcakes. I have to say this has been my favourite gift basket I have done so far and I have had some really good feedback. Over the next few days I will be posting the recipes and pictures.

Today let's start with the biscotti. I did almond and cranberry biscotti last year and they were everyone's favourite thing in the present so I decided to do another biscotti this year but I wanted to do a completed different flavour. I perused my recipe books and the internet for hours looking for flavour inspiration. As we have just had a baby and so don't have quite as much money as usual to spend on ingredients I had to be a bit careful of what I chose- there were some wonderful sounding recipes but for the quantity I was making, the ingredients would have cost a fortune. Then I came across this recipe. The picture of them looked fantastic and I loved how instead of just being cocoa for the chocolate, there were also dark chocolate pieces inside and the biscotti was also flavoured with a little bit of coffee and cinnamon. This recipe isn't actually vegan due to the eggs and butter but I used an egg replacer and vegan margarine in place of these. I also didn't glaze them with anything before cooking- they really didn't need it. I trialled all my recipes a week before making them for the gifts to make sure I liked them and to see if any adjustments needed to be made. When I tasted these I was a little disappointed that the cinnamon didn't come through very well and I couldn't  taste the coffee at all. I decided to take out the coffee and double the cinnamon and when I tried them again they were perfect.

From the picture in the recipe it showed the biscotti with drizzles of white icing on. I really wanted to carry on the chocolate theme and didn't have any white chocolate to hand to make a contrasting icing so instead I did a dark chocolate one from this recipe (subbing the butter for vegan margarine instead). I tried to pipe the icing on a little like in the picture but I didn't have a thin enough piping insert so instead I coated one side in the icing. It didn't look quite as impressive (thinner piping bag insert is now on my shopping list for next time) but it took these biscotti to another level in taste! With a little creativity and time (four recipes in one day with a baby was very hectic!) I am sure these could have been made more pretty even without piping.

These biscotti are not difficult to make and really impressive as a vegan gift or as after dinner biscuits with coffee. I have had lots of compliments on these and many have asked for the recipe- so here it is!

**I either can't find my photos of these or I completely forgot to take them. Check out the images in the recipe though as they look very similar to how mine turned out minus the icing. Sorry!**

Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

It is a very special little boy's birthday on New Year's Day. He can't have gluten or dairy so I decided to make some gluten free vegan cookies for him. I have only used gluten free flour once in a sponge cake and although other people liked it I definitely thought something was slightly strange in taste (although I was pregnant at the time and weirdly some things tasted slightly different). As I wasn't completely happy with the cake I was a little apprehensive about this cookies but I really like these ones!

I chose a vegan recipe from vegweb which you can find here and the only substitution I used was gluten free flour in place of the regular flour.

The dough was quite crumbly when attempting to make cookie shapes but I found the best way was to mould with my hands. They were also quite crumbly when just cooked and when I tried them warm I wasn't so sure but as they cool down they harden and when I tried them the next day I thought they were really nice and definitely something I would bake again! As you can see from the picture they still look as if they are very crumbly but as they have hardened they toughen and you can break them (rather than crumble) quite well.

I will report back with the opinion of the birthday boy- 3 year olds never lie!

Mexican Hot Chocolate Snickerdoodles

I hadn't made any cookies from "Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar" (by Isa Chandra Moskowitz & Terry Hope Romero) for a while and even the ones I had made were some of the more simple and usual flavour cookies in the book. As I was going to a family gathering at my Aunt's I decided to take over some cookies for everyone to try and chose these ones as with the spice in them they are a bit more "adult". You can actually find the recipe online from the Post Punk Kitchen here.The teaspoon of cayenne pepper did not seem like it would be very spicy at all but these cookies definitely had a kick and the cinnamon complimented them perfectly. I also loved how the cookies look and I definitely made an effort to make them perfectly round and uniform so they looked very professional when I brought them out at the party. I had many comments about how good they were and where I got the recipe from them. These are a must bake recipe!

Best Brownies Ever!!!!

I came across a recipe for brownies on facebook a while ago and saw that it needed golden syrup which I didn't have at the time so I put off making them and put golden syrup on my list. This week I finally got organised and picked it up as well as some dark chocolate chips and today was the day!

Unfortunately I could not find the recipe on facebook and so took to trusty google for some recipe ideas...none of which had golden syrup in and I had had all the ingredients needed anyway!

I chose a recipe from VegWeb (from an anonymous poster) called Chewy Gooey Brownies because I am one of those people who like either rock hard brownies or chewy ones...not the soft crumbly cake type.

I mostly stuck to the recipe but I changed the nuts and added in my chocolate chips.

Here goes:

Ingredients:


1 cup plain flour
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup of cocoa powder (I didn't actually measure and probably put more in than this...I love my brownies VERY chocolatey!)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup vegetable oil (I used sunflower)
1/2 cup nuts (I used a mixture of chopped mixed nuts and flaked almonds)
chocolate chips- as many as you wish :)

Method- so so easy!!!

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius (350F)
2. Mix together the dry ingredients. 
3. Add the wet ingredients. 
4. Stir well.
5. Put into a greased/lined baking tray.
6. Bake for 20 minutes
7. Let cool.
8. ENJOY!!!

These seriously couldn't be any easier or any tastier. My boyfriend and I are a little hooked and we haven't even had dinner yet. They are the perfect level of hardness and chewyness and leave a rich chocolatey taste long after finishing....making you want more! Make sure you have plenty of people to eat them so you don't scoff them all at once. I have no self control when it comes to chocolate brownies!

cupcakes, cupcakes, everywhere!!

Well Wednesday was a baking extravaganza! It was Ciara's birthday (a friend from my nutrition course) and we were having dinner where I work which doesn't do desserts so I decided to bake vegan cupcakes. I always get ambitious so I wanted to do three flavours: vanilla and strawberry, chocolate and coffee.


I started off with a recipe from where better than from "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World" By Isa Chandra Moskovitz and Terry Hope Romero.





GOLDEN VANILLA CUPCAKES
The ingredients:


1 cup of soya milk
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 1/4 cup of plain white flour
2 Tbsp. cornflour (although I forgot to buy this so I just added a little more flour and it was fine)
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup vegetable oil (there is an option of 1/2 cup margarine)
3/4 cup sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract


(this recipe is slightly changed to what I did)

This made around 8 big cupcakes (I used a muffin tin)

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius. Mix the cider vinegar into the soya milk and leave to stand so it curdles a bit. Mix all the wet ingredients together and then stir in all the dry ones until well mixed. Fill muffin cases about 2/3 full and put into the oven for around 20-25 minutes until the cakes are springy to touch.

1 batch of these were left classic

1 batch had cocoa powder added (around 5 tablespoons- or until a lovely dark brown chocolate colour). 

1 batch had coffee added. I put a couple of table spoons of boiling water into a cup with 3 tsp instant coffee granules in and added to the mixture when they were dissolved.

Once they had cooled down I made butter creams:

225g vegan margarine

450g icing sugar

3 tbs soya milk

1tsp vanilla essence

I just mixed these in the food processor. For the chocolate icing I added 3 tablespoons of cocoa powder. For the coffee icing I made the same mixture as for the coffee cake mix but let it cool down in the fridge before I added it.

Before icing the vanilla cupcakes I cut out the middle, added some strawberry jam and replaced the middle part again.

I would have liked to pipe all the icing but I only had one piping bag and limited time so I just piped the chocolate icing.

To top the cakes I added a vegan chocolate button to the chocolate ones, a dark chocolate covered coffee bean to the coffee cakes and half a strawberry to the vanilla cakes.

I have to say these went down an absolute treat and everyone had different favourites. The surprise of the jam in the vanilla ones was a particular hit!