My nannys welsh cake recipe veganised

Ok so my nan always made welsh cakes whilst i was growing up so naturally when i was old enough to learn to bake she taught me how to make them. When I was a teenager my nan gave me our family recipe book and the traditional griddle to cook them on so I could carry on baking them. 
When i first decided to become vegan the one thing i worried about (even more than cheese) was not being able to enjoy these little beauties and I really missed them until a few weeks ago when I thought about trying to veganise the recipe and was pleasantly surprised by the outcome. 
Once a few years ago when I made a batch I did attempt to veganise a separate batch for joe which wasn’t great, to me welsh cakes taste buttery but these just tasted like margarine so I was soo happy when I managed to get the taste I had been hoping for 🙂 
I hope you enjoy the cakes as much as I do, they are super easy to make and involve getting your hands dirty so would also be a good one to get kids involved in.
Traditionally welsh cakes are made with mixed spice but my nan never used it so the welsh cakes i know and love don’t contain it but by all means add it in if that’s how you like them!
The recipe makes quite a big batch and a lot! 
Ingredients:
1lb self raising flour plus extra for dusting
3oz caster sugar plus extra for dusting
4oz currants
Soya milk
113g vitalite or alternative vegan margarine
113g veg shortening, i use trex

Method- 
Mix margarine and shortening together until well combined, add in flour currants and sugar and crumble together like breadcrumbs, then add splashes of milk mixing with your fingers until you get a fairly stiff not too tacky dough. It needs to be able to be rolled and shaped so no too wet but if you add too much milk don’t worry just add in flour. Roll dough out in small amounts on a floured surface to about 1/4 inch thick then cut with a pastry cutter and fry on a pre heated to a medium heat and margarined griddle (cast iron, not the type with grooves) or if you don’t have one a frying pan will do and fry on either side until golden usually with brown spots in small batches (about 5 otherwise it gets hard to turn them all in time) once cooked through transfer straight to a bowl of caster sugar and coat on either side before transferring to a cooling rack (or your
mouth we don’t judge here) leave to cool and enjoy with a nice cup of tea 🙂 because obviously everything goes well with tea 😉

sian xx

Sorry, kosher kingdom, cupcakes cupcakes and doctor who cupcakes

Hi guys,

Sorry I haven’t posted anything for a while! I have been busy with work recently but I have been making sure I take lots of pictures everywhere we go!

A lot has happened since last writing, the biggest thing my first year vegan anniversary back in February! I can’t believe it has been over a year now and I really can’t believe how easy it has been to make this change in my diet.

i have been really getting into my vegan baking this year with recipes from various cookbooks, my favourite though is a vanilla cupcake from vegan cupcakes take over the world and ms cupcakes butter cream icing! I have also been playing with making my own cupcake toppers from icing, here are a few pictures that i have made, and of course no birthday is complete without a doctor who themed cake for joes birthday 2 weeks ago 🙂

 

We also found out about kosher kingdom which sell a LOT of vegan goodies! Because kosher foods can’t be eaten with mixing meat and dairy a lot of it is vegan so it is amazing to find stuff you won’t be able to anywhere else. We even got vegan cheese puffs!!! and lots of different types of ice creams and chocolate spreads. Here are some pictures of everything we spent all our money on 🙂

The cuties and fudge sickles were sooo tasty! So was the delinut chocolate spread!

On the way there we also popped into the loving hut in archway which for those of you who don’t know is a 100% vegan Chinese restaurant which is soo yummy! They even have vegan prawn crackers and sweet and sour soya balls!

Another meal we had which was worth mentioning is one in a small pub in a little village called Britwell Salome in Oxfordshire. It is definatley worth the visit (with 48 hour vegan notice) if you are around the Oxford/High Wycombe area. We went for valentines day so gave a few weeks notice and was pleasantly surprised, I can honestly say this is by far the best vegan meal I have ever had and it wasn’t even from a vegetarian restaurant. They even named the menu after us! The soup was especially spectacular! Unfortunately because we cannot resist eating food as soon as we lay eyes on it there aren’t any photos for this on except of the menu…

 

 

 

 

As well as all of this i also veganised my family welsh cake recipe which I will write up and post tomorrow 🙂

Sian x

Andrea’s Filipino Pancit (noodles)

The other night i went to my friend Andrea’s house for dinner and we made Pancit which is a type of noodles from the Philippines. They are traditionally eaten on your birthday to promote a long healthy life 🙂

They are super tasty and easy to make, here is the recipe:

1 Onion, minced

2 Garlic cloves

1 Mushroom stir fry pack (carrots, cabbage, mushrooms, bean sprouts)

1/2 Pack fine green beans

1/4 Cup soy sauce

2 Vegetable stock cubes (we used knorr)

1 Tbsp vegetable oil

1 Tsp ground black pepper

250g Rice/Vermicelli noodles

1 Lemon wedges to garnish

1 – Sautee onion and garlic on  medium heat

2 – Add mushrooms, beans and carrots

3 – Add vegetable cubes, soy sauce and pepper

4 – Once the cube has dissolved add the rest of the veg and lower the heat

5 – Soak the noodles in hot water for about 3 – 4 minutes until softened then drain (you can also use chilled rice noodles instead of dried)

6 – Combine noodles with veg, serve with lemon wedge

Enjoy 🙂

Vegan parmesan cheese and pesto pasta

Ok i know i haven’t posted in a while but here is a new recipe to make up for it 🙂

First i made vegan Parmesan using a recipe i found online by veggieful, here is the recipe

http://www.veggieful.com/2012/08/vegan-parmesan-cheese-recipe.html

it is very easy to make and really tasty 🙂 one note i will say is the blending took a lot longer than i expected (not too time consuming i’m just impatient) so persevere until you get a nice fine mixture.

Here is a picture 

I then added the mixture into a pesto recipe from the bbc good food website here:

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1507660/classic-pesto

I just replaced the Parmesan with the vegan one, it was very tasty! Joe doesn’t normally like pesto but that’s only because he’s only ever tried bad vegan jar versions. This recipe is so easy and you get a enough for 2 – 3 dishes as it can be stored in the fridge for up to 2 weeks that you won’t ever need a jar of pesto again 🙂

Here is the pictures of the pesto and the pasta

Just remember when refrigerating both recipes they need to be stored in air tight containers 🙂

Scones

I wanted to also add a recipe I tried a while back for fruit scones, they was really nice served warm with jam, they was from the bbc food website, here is the link and some pics
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/veganscones_83806
To the mixture i also added some currants to make it into a fruit scone and had it with raspberry jam

They was really easy to make so definatley worth a try

Ms cupcake cookbook

So for my birthday i got ms cupcakes first recipe book and today I Made some chocolate chip cookies, they came out perfectly and was amazing I would definately recommend buying the book and thats even only after making one recipe so far! Here are some pictures.

Vegan fish and chips!!

So last night Joe decided to try making vegan fish and chips; we’d seen it before at the Bristol vegan fayre and had always wanted to try it but never did. They came out really well and we wanted to share the recipe with you 🙂

Ingredients

1 silken firm tofu

nori wraps (sushi seaweed wraps that you can buy from most supermarkets)

batter –

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup soya milk

1/2 cup water

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

all whisked together until no lumps

Firstly you drain the tofu then press on either side for 30 mins each wrapped in kitchen roll (a lot) to get the excess water with something heavy (a big book and some beans usually does it)  then freeze for a few hours then fully defrosted.

You wrap the tofu in the nori sheets, wetting them down with water to make them more pliable.

 

you then dunk each wrap in the batter and deep fry them in oil straight away until golden brown, serve with chunky chips (we make ours in an air fryer with spray oil), salt vinegar and mushy peas 🙂

I hope you enjoy all the fuss with pressing and freezing the tofu is definitely worth it!

The flash made the pea’s luminous haha

tofu and nandos ;)

Sorry for the 2 posts in the space of 5 minutes but I also wanted to write about our quick fix tofu dinners recently 🙂

We always try to cook from scratch as much a possible but sometimes you just want a quick but still healthy fix.

We’ve recently started playing with tofu instead of buying ready marinated and I’ve come up with a great wrap which could be used for lunch or dinners using things that will be in your cupboard and normal ingredients in the fridge, here it is:

1 or 2 soft wraps

nandos sauce – hot or any other heat you can take 😉

mushrooms

tomatoes

firm tofu

vegetable or olive oil

rice

onion

avocado (optional)

spinach or any other soft salad leaves you like

vegan stock cube like knorr

Fry the tofu in a wok or frying pan in a good slurp of nandos sauce until nice a scrambled and to the consistency you like, in a separate pan fry the mushrooms and tomatoes again in more nandos sauce until all the water from the mushrooms had evaporated, and in another saucepan boil the rice with the stock and onions. once all is cooked put in the wok together and mix up, you can always add more sauce at this point to taste (but you want it sticky to go in the wrap) then pop it all in the wrap with the salad and maybe some sliced avocado and vegan mayo.

I hope you enjoy 😀

vegan cakes :)

So i have been playing with a few recipes for vegan cakes, this weekend i did a baby shower for my sister who is 8 months pregnant and made 3 different types of cakes, vanilla butterfly cake, chocolate brownies and banana bread.

I have found the cupcake recipes in vegan cupcakes take over the world book to be by far the best i’ve ever tried! I have been practicing these most weekends until now to get it right (i’m not the best baker) and i’m pleased with how they came out. The recipe is really easy and tasty. 

here is the recipe i found online – http://www.food.com/recipe/vegan-golden-vanilla-cupcakes-302367

i did make one change which was add more flour instead of cornflour.

The next thing i made was the chocolate brownies from http://www.lovefoodeat.com/best-vegan-chocolate-fudge-brownie-ever/

It was by far the best brownie vegan or non vegan i’ve ever tasted! Thanks to my friend andrea for forwarding me the recipe 🙂

Then the banana bread was from http://www.vegrecipesofindia.com/banana-bread-eggless-vegan-recipe/

I added in walnuts to this recipe instead of sunflower seeds.

No one else at the party was vegan but everyone loved the cakes and they all got eaten (except a few joe finished off after ;))!

I didn’t manage to get a picture of the banana bread as that was the first to go but here is the other two

First post :) Bruges and Brighton

So this week we have been away to Bruges and Brighton. We was a little worried about not finding anywhere to eat in Bruges so we did some research before leaving. On trip advisor we found about 5 vegetarian friendly places so as soon as we arrived we set about finding one for the next evening (valentines day). The first place had a vegetarian meal in their menu on the window which was topped with Parmesan so we decided they wouldn’t know what a vegan is if they think Parmesan is vegetarian so went on the the next one. That’s when we found Ryad, we went in spoke to the owner and made a booking after he told us he could make a vegan meal. When we turned up the next day he served us up a tagine containing paneer cheese then denied it and told us to just put it on the side if we didn’t want to eat it. I wouldn’t recommend it there… I would however recommend Royal Frituur, its a bit out of the way but close to the windmills so a nice place to visit and definitely worth it. They are a burger bar which do sell meat bugers but also have a large selection of vegan burgers and chips cooked in vegetable oil (Belgium chips are cooked in beef fat). We had the seitan burger and a hazelnut burger with homemade garlic ‘vegannaise’. It was very yummy 🙂

This weekend we also spent the night in Brighton, we love Brighton and decided to try new restaurants instead of the usual (infinity) We started with a banana and chocolate cake from waikikamukau down north lane where we’ve eaten before and was amazing! I think they do the best vegan cakes in Brighton. We then went to Bombay aloo which is an all you can eat veggie Indian restaurant  It is extremely cheap at £4.99 per person but it tasted like watery stew, there is much better places in Brighton so there’s no point. Today we got up and had breakfast at Iydea down the North lane, we’ve never been here but saw they won the best vegan breakfast and it didn’t disappoint, we had home made hash browns, sausages, toast and a really yummy mushroom, avocado and tomato stir fry. We then went on to have lunch at the loving hut in a park in St Peters place. Its just a little cafe which is purely vegan and sells Chinese food and fast food (burgers hot dogs etc) I had the sweet and sour chicken and rice whilst Joe had battered sausage and chips and we both shared chicken balls with sweet and sour sauce. It was the best vegan chinese I’ve ever tasted and the balls was amazing as its something I’ve really missed since becoming Veggie! They also sell frozen goodies like satay skewers, fish steaks and tofutti ice creams. They also sold really tasty chocolates from the US from go max go such as twilight (fake mars bar) and mahalo (bounty-reaallllyy good!).

After a big shop in Infinity supermarket (a purely veggie supermarket) we came home completely satisfied with our stay 🙂

Posted by Sian