Peanut Butter Cookies, vegan or not

Yes, I know, 'cookies'. Never liked the word, but I take it to mean chewy biscuits, whereas 'biscuits' are crunchy to some degree. These are definitely cookies. Vegan recipe, with dairy alternatives in brackets.

Preparation takes about 20 minutes, baking 12 minutes or so. Oven needs to be at 180C fan, 190C otherwise, and a large baking tray ready, lined with parchment. This recipe makes 16-20.

Peanut Butter Cookies
Ingredients
170g plain flour
75g demerara sugar
100g granulated sugar
1 tsp fine salt
1 tsp baking powder
50 Flora spread (butter-based spread)
100g peanut butter
60ml plant-based milk (dairy milk)
10 soft ready-to-eat apricots (from a pouch), snipped fairly finely - optional
16-20 peanuts, whole or halved, roasted or not

Method
1  Place all the ingredients in a medium bowl and mix well to make a dough, using
       a mixer, a wooden spoon, or just hands. Make sure all the Flora and flour
       disappear into the dough. 

2  Put individual tablespoons of the dough on the baking tray, a little apart, and
       press lightly to flatten a little. Push a peanut into the middle of each one.

3  Bake for about 12 minutes until they are turning golden. If your oven, like mine,
       can bake unevenly, quickly turn the baking tray around halfway through.

4  They will seem a little soft, but leave to cool and they become nicely chewy.

Adapt
Chocolate chips could be added, or substitute finely chopped dates or snipped raisins for the apricots. If the cookies don't need to be vegan, buttery spread could be used instead of Flora, and dairy milk.

Vegan Cranberry & Orange Chelsea Bun Christmas Tree

The idea for this festive bake came from BBC Good Food Magazine towards the end of last year. I made it according to the recipe, and took it to our family gathering to serve at Boxing Day breakfast. Omitted the icing drizzle as to add it just before serving the following day would maybe get in the way of other kitchen activity.

We agreed we could make this a tradition. However, recently two of the younger members of our vegetarian family have changed to a vegan diet, so there was only one way forward - the recipe would need to be adapted. First problem was to find (or make) suitable marzipan, as traditional recipes seem to require egg white. Luckily Dr Oetken's and Sainsbury's ready-made marzipan are both suitable for vegans. Milk and butter were less challenging to replace. I have made my adapted version twice now, and it seems to be about right. Alternative layouts are mentioned at the end, and can be used at Christmas or at other times.

This quantity makes 12 modest sized buns. Allow 5 hours or so from the start until they are to be served. This includes two sessions of proving (leaving to rise); I use our airing cupboard, but at room temperature it may need a little longer. A food mixer is very helpful to make the dough, but of course not essential.

The original recipe, complete with a great photograph, can be found on BBC Good Food Magazine's website. They agreed to my adapting and using it on this blog, and this is the link to their recipe:

http://tinyurl.com/ybjzcwcv

Vegan Cranberry & Orange Chelsea Bun Christmas Tree
(Oven will need to be at 160C fan, or 175C otherwise. 
A very large baking sheet is required, lined with baking parchment.)

 

Ingredients 
140ml soya milk (or almond)
20ml olive oil
225g strong white bread flour
4g dried yeast (about half a sachet)
25g caster sugar (+2tbsp for later)
level tsp ground cinnamon
half tsp fine sea salt
100g vegan marzipan, chilled and coarsely grated
finely grated zest of 1 large orange
50g fresh cranberries (* see below if not available)
50g dried cranberries
20g roughly chopped pistachios
2 tbsp marmalade or apricot jam

Method
1  Warm the soya milk gently in a small pan until steaming but not boiling. 
        Stir in the oil and set aside to cool a little.
2  Put the flour, yeast, 25g of caster sugar, cinnamon and salt in the mixer bowl
        (or any good-sized bowl). Add the milk and work into a smooth but stretchy
        dough. Takes about 5m in the mixer, a little longer if kneading by hand on a
        floured board. Be prepared to add, very carefully, a little more flour or water
        if necessary - depends on the flour used.
3  Lift the dough from the mixer bowl and oil the bowl lightly (I use One-Cal spray).
        Cover with clingfilm and leave to prove until doubled in size (about 2h).
4  Tip the dough onto a floured board and roll out to 36cm x 20cm, forming a
        neat rectangle. Sprinkle the marzipan evenly over it, together with the orange 
        zest and fresh cranberries.
5  Scatter over about two-thirds of the dried cranberries and same with pistachios,
        topping with the extra 2 tbsp of caster sugar. Starting with the long side of
        the dough, roll up fairly tightly. Neaten the ends of necessary. Using a sharp
        knife, cut the roll in half, then quarters, then cut each quarter into three.
6  Lift the buns very carefully onto the lined baking sheet, placing them flat and a 
       little apart, one for the top, then a row of two, then three, then four. Of the other
       two, place one under the four to make the trunk of the tree, and put the last on
       a corner (for the cook - not shown above as I ate it.)
7  Cover with the clingfilm and leave to prove for an hour or so until about doubled
       in size and just touching one another.
8  Bake in the centre of the oven for 16-18m until golden brown, then leave to cool 
       for 10m or so. If your oven, like mine, cooks a little unevenly, quickly turn the
       baking sheet around 180 degrees half-way through. (I forgot this with the above
       batch, hence the bark-coloured bark.)  
9  During the cooling time, put the marmalade or jam in a pot and stir in a teaspoon
       of warm water. When the buns are cool, brush the mix all over the buns to glaze 
       them. Scatter over the remaining pistachios and dried cranberries.

The icing, if you fancy adding it, is made with a mixture of sieved icing sugar and juice from the orange, drizzled artistically over the whole shebang.

*  If fresh cranberries aren't around, use another 40g of dried berries soaked in water
   for a while then drained well. I have made the recipe with half and half, also with
   all dried. The fresh cranberries make the buns a little more luscious, but using only
   dried works well too.

Alternative Forms
Fewer but larger buns can be arranged in a flower shape:

     
Or cut the rolled-up dough into eight and make them into a ring shape. When they're baked, cooled and dressed, a sprig of holly or twigs from a cupressus can be placed in the centre for a Christmas wreath, or even at Easter with a pile of tiny chocolate eggs in the centre. 

A rather longer recipe than my usual, but good fun to do, and the buns have had very appreciative audiences. For us it's a keeper. Happy baking. 
  

Shortbread with (or without) Stem Ginger

Shortbread, the real thing - surely everyone loves it? Not difficult to make, and it lends itself to interesting flavourings. The option here is stem ginger (clue is in the title ...), but this shortbread without it is delicate and delightful too, I think.

This recipe takes very roughly 60 minutes to prepare including chilling, and about 25 to bake, allowing for varying ovens and depending on the size of your biscuits, as they say. Here's a very artistically posed picture of four made with the ginger:

(Well my great uncle was an artist. But not a cook.)

I like to make these small, about 5cm x 3cm, on a baking sheet but of course they can be larger and even hand-pressed into a square or round tin (for 'petticoat tails'). At the smaller size the quantity of dough makes 25 or so. Either way, the baking sheet or tin is best lined with parchment.

Shortbread with Stem Ginger
Ingredients
120g plain flour
55g semolina flour
60g caster sugar
120g butter, softened a little
4 pieces of stem ginger, chopped fairly finely

Method
1  Sift the two flours into a medium bowl. Add 50g of the caster sugar, the butter and 
         3/4 of the ginger, and blend together. Then knead the dough on a floured board 
         (or with dough hook) until smooth. Rest in the fridge for about 15 minutes.
2  Roll out or press the dough to a thickness of about 7-8mm, and cut into pieces of the
         size of your choice. Rectangles are traditional and easier to avoid waste than if
         you choose circles.
3  Place the pieces, a little apart from one another, on the baking sheet and prick each
         2-3 times with a fork. Press one small piece of the remaining ginger into the top
         of each.
4  Bake for about 25-28 minutes until firm and golden brown, watching carefully for the
         final few minutes.
5  Leave on the baking sheet to cool a little, then sprinkle with the remaining 10g of caster
         sugar. Cool completely and store in a tin.

No ginger on top of these

Variations
Instead of stem ginger, I fancy using dried lavender next time, since it's lovely in muffins and creme brulee. Not a fan of millionaire's shortbread, but a pattern of thin lines of flavoured icing piped over the biscuits could work well. Thinking strawberry, lemon or orange. Or, for special occasions (e.g. Easter), the biscuits could be a little bigger and have a name piped on each. To be dry, you could pipe 'biscuit' on them.

Vegetarian Moussaka (that could be vegan)

This recipe is adapted from one by Anna Jones, featured in the Vegetarian Society's recent magazine. Anna has made it vegan - more on this at the end of the recipe* - but this version remains vegetarian and has some short cuts including the all-important sauce. It should take perhaps 1h 20m from start to serving; some ingredients can be prepped while others pre-cook. 

Although this recipe looks quite long, there are no special skills involved - only peeling, slicing, turning and layering, and possibly boiling a kettle for the sauce. The quantities given serve 2 to 3.

A medium-sized griddle pan gives a nice effect for the aubergine and potatoes, but otherwise a frying pan is OK. Also needed is a large roasting tin and a fairly shallow, lightly-oiled oven-proof dish - a round one especially suits the finished moussaka. I used a cast-iron frying pan 4cm deep and diameter about 20cm. Some kitchen paper is useful to blot the tomato slices.

The oven is set at 180C and preps can begin as soon as it's switched on.

Vegetarian Moussaka
Ingredients
2 tbsp oil
250g large tomatoes (3-4)
2 medium red onions
1 small red chilli snipped finely or half tsp chilli flakes/powder
1 lemon, juice and grated zest
salt & pepper
300g small potatoes
1 large aubergine
500ml cheese sauce - ready-made or hot-water packet or granules
2 tbsp snipped fresh parsley

Method
1  Pour the oil into the roasting tin and place in the oven when you switch it on.
       While the oven heats up, slice the tomatoes to 1cm, blot with kitchen paper then 
       halve them. Peel the onions and slice slightly more finely; halve the larger rounds.

2  When the oven is up to temp, tip in the tomatoes and onions. Add the chilli and
       lemon zest, then season with salt and pepper. Toss to coat the ingredients
       well, then roast for 20 mins. Remove from the oven but maintain the temp.
       Meanwhile ...

3  Wash the potatoes and slice to about 1.5cm. Place in a pan with water, bring to the 
       boil and simmer 15 mins, then drain. Meanwhile ...

4  Heat the griddle pan (or frying pan) with a dash of oil. Trim the ends from the
       aubergine then slice to 1.5cm. Cook the slices in batches until browned both sides. 
       Set aside.

5  Griddle or fry the potato slices until browned each side, then arrange in the oven
       dish. 

6  Add the lemon juice to the tomato and onion and mix well, then pile on top of
       the potatoes, spreading evenly. Top with a nice arrangement of the aubergine.

7  Make up the sauce (if not ready-prepped) and pour it over the veg, covering
       all the aubergine. Bake for about 25 mins until bubbling and turning brown.
       Scatter the parsley over the dish just before serving. 

Alternative Ingredients
The main ingredients are basic and don't lend themselves to alternatives, but if the sauce isn't that strong, some crumbled blue cheese or Cheddar could be mixed in. Some thinly sliced mushrooms could be added as a layer between tomatoes and aubergine, and/or two pressed garlic cloves, but otherwise I would keep to the hymn sheet.  

Accompaniments
For wine I prefer red with this. A small side salad would go well, and perhaps some crusty bread if potatoes and bread are acceptable to your diners at the same meal. Or you could go mad and serve a couple of nice browned vegetarian sausages at the edge of the plate.

*Anna Jones's Vegan Version
The sauce is the issue. Anna recommends making a bechamel by melting 1.5 tbsp of coconut oil in a pan, adding same quantity of spelt flour, mixing to make a roux, then adding 150ml unsweetened almond milk gradually, whisking all the time to keep it smooth and continuing until it thickens.




 

Cauliflower, Stilton & Tomato Tart, a pub favourite

While thinking of dropping into a chain pub/restaurant, I checked their menu online, probably like countless other skeptical vegetarians. Only two choices appeared, a simple pasta dish, or - cauliflower, cheese and tomato tart. That'd be good. But then again, it sounded so simple that I decided to make it at home. Cauliflower, cheese, tomato, pastry?

The freezer already contains portions of various tarts, but since I enjoy making them to eat straight from the oven, we forget to forage for them. Accordingly, I make this dish for just two portions, especially as there was half a rolled sheet of puff pastry in the freezer just asking for it. Hence the picture which looks as though the tart is topped with giant tomatoes. 

The quantities here would make four to six helpings. Once the pastry is thawed in the fridge, the tart takes about an hour from start to serving and there are no complicated manoeuvres. The step of brushing the pastry with egg and baking an initial five minutes before filling isn't vital, but it helps to form a barrier to prevent the base from becoming soggy.

Cauliflower, Stilton and Tomato Tart
The oven will need to be at 175C, middle shelf. A baking sheet ready lined with parchment will make sure the pastry doesn't stick while cooking. The pastry should be thawed, preferably overnight or for a few hours in the fridge. If you like pastry to be thin, the sheet can be rolled out to a slightly larger area.

Ingredients
1 sheet of frozen rolled puff pastry
1 medium cauliflower trimmed into small florets (leaves can be saved to use later)
1 tbsp oil
1 large onion (or 2 medium), peeled and coarsely chopped
2 eggs, lightly beaten
100ml double cream
100g Stilton, crumbled (or another blue cheese or Cheddar)
Half tsp salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
2 large tomatoes, thinly sliced

Method
1  Unroll the pastry and place centrally on the lined baking sheet. Turn up about 15mm
         all around the edge, pinching the corners to help keep the turn-up in place. Prick
         the base a number of times with a fork to help prevent it rising in the oven.
2  Put the oven on about now!
3  Boil a good amount of water in a large pan. Add the cauliflower and simmer 6-7 mins
         then drain well and leave to cool a little.
4  Meanwhile, heat the oil in a small pan, then saute the onions gently for 5 mins.
5  Brush the pastry case very thinly with a little of the beaten egg; put it in the oven
         for 5 mins to help seal the base, then remove from oven.
6  Add the cream to the eggs and mix well. Stir in the crumbled cheese and the salt &
         pepper.
7  When the tart is out, press the base down gently if it has risen. Spread the onions 
         over the base and arrange the cauliflower florets over them. Pour the egg mixture
         carefully on top, then arrange the tomato slices over the tart.
8  Bake for about 25 mins until the pastry is golden and the filling looks set.

We served this with only a heap of buttered Jersey Royals sprinkled with chopped fresh coriander. And a dry white wine.

A chopped herb of choice could be sprinkled over the tart before cooking, or sliced mushrooms added just before baking. 

An alternative presentation is to make individual tarts, either on a baking sheet using the 'turn-up' way, or using a tray of individual Yorkshire pudding tins. In this case, slightly less filling would be needed. The tart is nice at room temperature, but if there are leftovers, I think they're nicest given about 5 mins in the oven to crisp up the pastry. Shortcrust pastry would be OK and perhaps more traditional, but I'm seduced by the golden flakiness of puff pastry and always have it in the freezer. 

I keep two files of recipe cuttings and scribblings. One has ideas which sound great but are yet to be tried, but the other is the tried-and-tested collection, separated into lots of categores in a really nerdy way, e.g.starters not soup, soup, mains with pastry, mains with pasta, veg sides, biscuits/cakes.This recipe has gone straight into the latter.

Apple and Cinnamon Traybake - it's a piece of cake

Unintentionally, the photo bears more than a passing resemblance to the previous post pic for pear muffins. But hey. The squares look rather large, but the apple is actually quite small!

This is another fairly quick and very easy recipe, I think, and the result is a traybake of very nice, moist and not too crumbly squares (or you could do triangles) with a mildly crunchy topping. Prepping the apples takes a bit of time, so I do this first and turn on the oven after that. Lining the baking tin with parchment is worth the trouble.

Although there are 10 steps in the 'method', the preparation steps (1-8) wouldn't take much more than 20 minutes.

I use a 24x18cm baking tin to get just the right height of the finished cake. (My calculator says that's roughly the same as 21cm square.) The mixture doesn't look that much and spreads quite thinly in the tin, but it should all rise nicely. This quantity makes 24-30 squares.

Apple and Cinnamon Traybake

The oven will need to be at 150C, middle shelf. 24x18cm baking tin, lined with baking parchment.

Ingredients

4 medium apples 

170g butter 

240 caster sugar

3 (medium) eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract (or 3 if using essence)

265g self-raising flour

2 heaped tsp ground cinnamon

60g demerara sugar (otherwise soft brown)

Method

  1  Quarter, peel & core the apples. Chop to hazelnut-sized pieces.

  2  Soften the butter in a large bowl, e.g. 10sec in microwave or sit 

         for a minute over a pan of very hot water.

  3  Add the caster, eggs and vanilla and beat together until smooth.

  4  Stir in the flour and cinnamon until none is visible.

  5  Pile half the mixture into the tin and spread over the base.

  6  Scatter half of the apple pieces evenly over it.

  7  Add the remaining mixture, smooth over and top with the rest of 

         the apple.

  8  Sprinkle the demerara sugar evenly over this.

  9  Bake for 30-35 mins until top is browned and a skewer inserted 

         into the centre comes out clean.

10  Leave in the tin for about 10mins, then cut cleanly into squares.

This recipe also works well if apples are replaced by 3 mashed over-ripe bananas, mixed in with the flour instead of layering. In either case the cinnamon could also be left out & some chopped nuts (pecan/walnut/hazelnut) added. All of these can be frozen, or kept in a tin in the fridge for a few days.

Pear Muffins, Wheat-Free

Yes, I know I've recently done gooseberry muffins, but these are a different kettle of fish. Ran out of plain wheat-free flour so used self-raising. If plain flour is used, an extra teaspoon of baking powder should balance things out.

As can be seen in the picture, they look more like rock cakes although the texture is softer than that. Should have smoothed the dough before baking. Taste great, though, and it's hard to believe they've no wheat content.

This recipe makes about 16 muffins. I used my 12 silicone cases and 4 paper variety. When they came out of the oven, the silicone ones just floated out, while the paper had to be peeled off carefully to avoid crumbling.

Pear Muffins, Wheat-Free

These need the middle shelf of the oven, at 170C, and muffin cases set out on a baking tray.

Ingredients

270g wheat-free self-raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp xanthan gum

Half teaspoon salt

80g granulated sugar

350g ripe pears (about 3 medium), cored, peeled and chopped fairly finely

1 egg

100ml milk

50g melted butter

1 tbsp caster sugar (optional)

Method

1  In a large bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, xanthan gum, salt and sugar.

2  Add the chopped pears and mix them in to coat with flour.

3  In a smaller bowl, beat the egg, milk and melted butter lightly together, then stir into

         the flour mixture to form a soft dough with no dry flour visible.

4  Fill each muffin case to half or three-quarter level, making sure each has some pear

         pieces, and smooth over!

5  Bake in the oven for 16-18 minutes or until a skewer poked through comes out clean.

6  Sprinkle with the caster sugar if used, and leave on a rack to cool.

I'm thinking that, as xanthan gum isn't in everyone's kitchen, it would probably be OK to leave it out. However, it's trailed as helpful to make a decent spongy texture so I use it in all my wheat-free baking, just in case.

These muffins freeze well. Otherwise, if they've been around for a while, they'd be good crumbled as the base for a trifle, with vegetarian jelly poured over to set, topped with sliced ripe pears, then a thin layer of custard and finally whipped cream. For decoration I fancy honeycomb pieces or finely chopped gorgeous stem ginger.

Pushover Wheat-Free Cranberry & Coconut Biscuits

They are what it says in the title!

With my long history of sporadic reaction to wheat, I know that if I go too far then my system will complain. Many years ago, self-diagnosed after 6m of medical tests, I then went totally wheat-free for a couple of years and was immediately well. Now I'm able to get away with most things in moderation.

Must have been too devil-may-care recently, as the intolerance is back and so, therefore, are the wheat-free ingredients. My first version of this recipe was with spelt flour - I think spelt is an early ancestor of modern wheat - and it caused problems. This is the adaptation using Asda's 'free from' plain white flour, and it worked very well. It is made from rice flour and potato starch. However, I would expect the recipe to work with straight plain wheat flour too.

The recipe makes about 20 biscuits. I've called it pushover because it's quite quick and involves no 'rubbing in' or 'rolling out and cutting'. Preparation should take 20-25 minutes, and baking 12 minutes or so. Cook on a baking sheet, either a good non-stick one or lined with baking parchment.

Wheat-Free Cranberry & Coconut Biscuits
The oven should be ready at 170C.

Ingredients

130g demerara sugar
80g melted butter (20 secs in microwave, or in a pan)
270g wheat-free flour (plus a little for shaping later)
2 tsp baking powder (should be wheat-free - usually are)
Half tsp salt
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp milk
25g dried cranberries, snipped if larger than a pea
50g desiccated coconut

Method

1  Place the sugar and melted butter in a large bowl and beat well - either with a wooden
       spoon or using an electric mixer.
2  In another bowl thoroughly mix the flour, baking powder and salt.
3  Beat the egg, vanilla and milk into the sugar/butter mixture.
4  Add in the flour mix with the cranberries and coconut and mix gently to form a soft
       dough. Make sure the cranberries are evenly distributed.
5  Using hands, roll pieces of the dough into spheres about the size of a ping-pong ball
       and place them on the baking sheet with gaps between of about 4cm as they'll 
       spread a little. Flour your hands from to time if the dough is sticking. Flatten the 
       biscuits a little with the back of a fork, leaving tine marks.
6  Bake in the centre of the oven for about 12-13 minutes but check after 10. The edges
       should be turning golden and the tops starting to firm up.

Chocolate chips - white or dark - would work well here (if they're wheat-free), perhaps with cranberries but not maybe with the coconut. Lemon would be worth a try, too: perhaps omit the milk, berries and coconut and add the grated zest of 1 large lemon and all of its juice at stage 3. That would make slightly fewer but very interesting biscuits!

Gooseberry Muffins - a Delight and so Easy to Make

Since it's very much the gooseberry season around these parts, and we've done the crumble, I woke this morning with the thought that gooseberry muffins might be worth a try. By 9am the recipe was written and the muffins cooked and photographed. See me move!

I think they turned out really well, and the quantities given in the recipe made 12 medium muffins. Used always to use paper muffin cases, but they often stuck and were hard to remove without taking a chunk of the muffin with them. Finally got round to buying a set of twelve medium silicone cases (from Tu at Sainsbury's as it goes), and now I'll never go back to paper.

Once the gooseberries are washed and topped and tailed - with scissors is easiest - the method takes about 15 minutes. And there's NO RUBBING IN and you don't need a food processor. So including baking, only around 30-35 minutes is needed from start to ready. They're lovely warm from the oven.

Ingredients

170g plain flour

2 level tsp baking powder

Quarter tsp salt

80g sugar (gran is fine)

1 egg

150ml milk

50g butter, just melted (e.g. in microwave)

180g gooseberries (prepared as above)

12 medium muffin cases should be ready; if paper, use a bun tin to keep their shape but if silicon, just arrange them on a baking sheet. Oven should be at 170C.

Method

1  Place the flour, baking powder, salt & sugar in a medium bowl and mix well.

2  Add the gooseberries and mix so they're coated in flour.

3  Beat the egg lightly in a small bowl, them stir in the milk and melted butter.

4  Add the egg mixture to the flour mix and stir briefly but quickly so that no 

          lumps of flour are visible.

5  Use a spoon to drop the mixture cleanly into the cases, filling them about half 

          to three-quarters full and making sure each has its share of fruit.

6  Bake in the centre of the oven for 15-18 minutes until browning nicely. 

          They're done when a skewer pushed in from the side comes out clean.

_________________

Of course other fruits can be used, e.g. blueberries, dried or fresh cranberries, raspberries and so on, though if the fruit used is sweet, 20g less sugar will be needed. For me, this recipe is a definite keeper for my 'special tried and tested' recipes folder. Nerd.