Sweet treats

Making sweet foods makes me feel good. Sharing and eating them is quite nice too!

Here are a few sweet things that have been produced in our kitchen lately.

Fluffy White Cupcakes 

Cupcakes put a smile on everyone's face, don't they? I'm usually a Vegan Cupcake Takes Over the World girl, but I also love these vanilla cupcakes from Vegan Lunch Box. The coconut extract really adds something special to these.

Lemon Olive Oil Cake

I had a few lemons to use up so I decided to make this cake from Chef Chloe. I wanted to take a photo of this cake sliced up, perhaps with a bit of icing sugar sprinkled on. But the cake disappeared too fast. That's how good it was. I haven't baked with olive oil much before, but it was just divine in this cake. 

Mexican Wedding Cookies

These are delicate, melt in your mouth cookies from The Joy of Vegan Baking. They make perfect gifts. The recipe is also here online. I used a combination of pecans and walnuts. 

Crepes with lemon and sugar

Growing up, we were not a pancake household. We were a crepe household. We ate them with lemon and sugar or cocoa and sugar. This time I tried the crepe recipe from Veganomicon. They contain that magical chickpea flour. These are definitely the best vegan crepes I've made - thin and delicious!

Strawberry Mousse

This recipe from Vegie Head is simple and very creamy. It is made with fresh strawberries, dates, avocado, chia seeds and coconut cream. Lexie, now 9 months old, enjoyed it too!

Chocolate Date Balls

These chocolate date balls from Veggieful are a yummy and healthy quick treat to satisfy your sweet tooth. 

Lemon Macadamia Bars 

These bars are based on this recipe from Cupcake Kitteh. They are so delicious and easy to make - no need to buy expensive raw bars! 

What are your favourite sweet treats at the moment?

Creamy Lentils

Golden syrup dumplings were the first sweet dish I could cook. These lentils were the first savoury dish I could make. It has saved me on many an occasion!

I remember making this for my friends when I first moved out of home. I felt very domestic, given that the rest our meals were pasta, crackers and takeaway. 

My friends were reluctant to try it because it contained lentils, but everyone loved it in the end. Really, why do lentils have such a bad name with omnivores? No, they are not very attractive [see photo] but they can be so delicious!

My mum used to make these lentils with sour cream and butter, and so did I until I became vegan, but it is pretty easily veganised. You could try using other vegetables or adding some type of vegan sour cream at the end. It can be a stew or soup, depending on how much liquid you use. 

For me, this is the ultimate comfort food.  

Creamy Lentils

1 1/2 - 2 cups dry green or brown lentils, rinsed
2 carrots, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 cup peas
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp vegan margarine (I use Nuttelex)
4 tbsp flour
juice of 1 lemon
1 tsp salt or to taste

Put the lentils, carrots, onion and peas into a large saucepan and cover generously with water (or stock). Bring to the boil and simmer until lentils are cooked but there is still a bit of liquid. You may need to add water as necessary. 

Put the oil and margarine in a small saucepan on low/medium heat. When the margarine has melted, add the flour and stir for a few minutes, being careful not to burn it.

Add this mixture to the lentils and stir, adding the lemon juice and salt to taste. 

Serve on its own, with rice or bread!

Enjoy!

Vegan shopping heaven

I love cooking and making our food from scratch. Obviously. But I get such a thrill out of being able to buy food that I actually want to eat, rather than standing depressed in the middle of a food court with little to no options or settling for an unimaginative vegetarian pasta or salad.

On a wonderful friend's recommendation, I recently went to About Life Natural Marketplace in Rozelle, Sydney. It is a whole foods/health food supermarket with a cafe attached. They have quite a lot of vegan products that I see (drool over) on American blogs such as Amy's Kitchen products.

The thing that really impressed me was the amazing array of ready made raw desserts, such as tiramisu, cheesecake, energy balls and chia puddings. They also have a fantastic selection of drinks such as green smoothies (with all of those vegan super foods added!), vegan sweet slices, snacks, salads and other meals.

This raw tiramisu was the highlight. 

I must try to replicate this. 

I'm looking forward to going back there for a meal and more raw desserts.

Here are a few of the other random goodies we bought:

Afterwards, we popped into The Cruelty Free Shop. Total treat!

Details: About Life Natural Marketplace, 605 Darling Street, Rozelle NSW

Healthier vegan baking

There are definitely times when only white flour and sugar in baked treats will do. 

However, lately I have been dabbling in healthier vegan baking. 

Sylvia loves sweet foods as much as I do and is reluctant to try new foods at the moment. I have got into the habit of making a healthy sweet treat each day or second day, trying to load it with nutritious stuff. 

I feel better about her eating these kinds of sweets, even if she has had little for dinner (or a Vegemite sandwich!). And of course, it's good for the rest of us too!

I have found some great recipes on other blogs.

These healthier homemade pop tarts were lovely. The dough was a bit fiddly to work with, but worth it in the end. Anything with sprinkles is a winner with Sylvia!

 

Some other favourites are chocolate coated pretzels, spelt blueberry muffins and whole wheat chocolate chip cookies. 

I am quite obsessed with spelt flour at the moment. These chocolate pumpkin spelt muffins are lovely and light, veganised from a recipe I found online (recipe below).

 

I recently bought Whole Grain Vegan Baking. It's a gorgeous book. I only wish I had more time to make everything in it! I'm really enjoying trying the different flours in these recipes, such as barley flour. 

Here are a couple of things I've made from it so far.

Hearty barley fruit bread

Savory barley and potato scones 

I'd love to hear some other healthy baking ideas!

Chocolate Spelt Pumpkin Muffins (adapted from this recipe)

3/4 cup wholemeal spelt flour
3/4 cup white spelt flour
3 tbsp cocoa
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp ground flaxseeds
6 tbsp water
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/3 cup sunflower oil
1 cup pumpkin purée

Preheat over to 180C. Line/oil muffin pan.

Whisk together flaxseeds and water and set aside.

Mix together flour, cocoa, spices, baking soda, baking powder and salt. 

Make a well in the flour mixture and add flaxseed mixture, maple syrup and oil. Mix until combined.

Fold in the pumpkin puree until just mixed in.

Pour mixture into muffin pan and bake until muffin tops are firm, around 20 minutes. 

Vegan Wedding Cupcakes

Recently, I made some cupcakes for a family wedding. 

It felt like quite an honour to make these for such lovely people on their special day. I took a lot of care making them with this in mind, and I am pretty proud of how they turned out!

I spent the day before the wedding making all the cupcakes and icing, and iced and decorated them on the morning of the wedding. An ambitious task, especially with a baby and a three year old, but I really enjoyed it!

All the cupcake recipes are from the brilliant book Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. I made pistachio rosewater, lemon macadamia, chocolate orange and coconut lime.

 Congratulations Claire, Ben and Aaron!

101 uses for besan (chickpea or gram) flour

Well maybe not that many, but a couple of uses ...

I have used besan flour before to make French toast and omelette, but lately I have been experimenting with it in a few new recipes. It has a beautiful nutty flavour and is rich in protein. 

These dosas from Vegan Magic are really delicious. 

I was overjoyed when Sylvia liked these! They can be eaten as an accompaniment to a meal or even used as a wrap. 

I leave out the carrot because Sylvia prefers them plain. I also substituted plain flour for the rice flour once, and they turned out fine. 

These fritters from The Kind Cook were also a huge success with Sylvia. 

They are great with the corn, mint and zucchini in the original recipe, but work with most vegetables. Here I used grated carrot, corn, spinach and parsley. 

I am always excited to find such simple, tasty and healthy recipes on blogs. I don't think I'd be able to find and try as many new recipes such as these without my trusty iphone, which I can even manage to use with a baby balancing on my lap and a three year old giving me orders!

I'd love to hear how you use besan flour so I can add it to my list!

Chocolate Banana Quinoa Flake Bake

There are a lot of granolas and overnight oats happening at our place for breakfast these days. So this was a lovely change:

There is something about a baked breakfast that feels so wholesome. Especially when it contains quinoa flakes. Very virtuous, even with the addition of choc chips!

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this, given that I am not a huge fan of the taste of quinoa flakes on their own. This is definitely my favourite use of quinoa flakes so far. 

I used this recipe, using the applesauce option. It's very easy - just mix the quinoa flakes, mashed banana, applesauce, nuts of choice, cinnamon and/or nutmeg, choc chips and put in the oven for around 20 minutes. Or in the microwave for a few minutes. Go and do some other stuff, then you have a beautiful warm breakfast awaiting you! 

I'll definitely be trying vegan versions of some of these other bakes over the winter.