VEGAN CHOCOLATE, ORANGE AND PRUNE CAKE

OK, this is a weird one. I don't really like chocolate cake but I'd heard prunes were great in choc cake and even though I also hate prunes (AKA Torture Fruit), I thought I would try a pruney choc cake for Mr Vegan's birthday. I've been obsessing about this for weeks and I'm not sure why?! I thought I'd soften the blow by adding orange to the recipe, seeing that choc and orange are such a match. Anyhoo, I cobbled together several recipes and this is the result. Successful? YES! It's an absolute treasure of a cake: dense, sweet, moist. Really yummy. 'A keeper,' Mr Vegan says.

You will need 2 round, 8 inch cake tins

Ingredients

100 grams of Green and Blacks cocoa

300 grams Self Raising Flour

200 grams brown sugar

60ml veg oil

2 portions of No Egg (or 2 beaten eggs for non-vegans)

2 tins of prunes (strained, pitted and halved)

Juice of 2 large oranges

100 ml prune juice (from tins of prunes)

Grated rind of 2 whole oranges

2 drops of vanilla essence

Topping:

1 large bar dark choc melted

1 tablespoon of icing sugar, to thicken

Method

Preheat oven to 190C

Grease the tins and line the bottoms with baking paper

Drain and stone the prunes

Sieve the dry ingredients

Add the wet ingredients, rind and prunes, except the orange juice and PJ

Mix OJ and PJ in gradually - the mix shouldn’t be too sloppy

Pour in to the two greased tins

Bake for about 50 mins or until firm

Cool on a wire rack

Icing

When the cakes are cool, melt the chocolate

Mix in the icing sugar

Palette the icing between the cakes and onto the top

VEGAN BANANA BREAD

A lovely simple recipe for Banana Bread from Domini Kemp's Saturday page in the Irish Times Magazine, which I veganised (and reduced the sugar in) with great results. Bananas are a natural raising agent so they deliver a lovely high, springy loaf. Gorgeously banana-y too!

2 over-ripe bananas
100g light brown sugar
125g wholegrain spelt flour
125g self-raising flour
50ml soya milk
50ml rapeseed oil
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsps NoEgg mixed with 4tblsps water (or 2 beaten eggs for non vegans)


o Preheat the oven to 160˚C
o Grease a loaf tin
o Break the peeled bananas into a bowl and whizz with the sugar (I used a hand blender)
o Add the NoEgg mix (or eggs), oil and soya milk and whizz again
o Fold in the dry ingredients & pour into the loaf tin
o Bake for 55 to 60 minutes. Test with a skewer.
o Gorgeous hot or cold, on its own or with soya cream/custard/Alpro 'yogurt'

VEGAN DATE & ORANGE BARS

I love dates and find them a brilliant sweetener in cakes and slices. I've adapted this recipe from one in Rachel Allen's Bake, a book that my sister gave us as a wedding present. I added an orange because it's a flavour that goes so well with dates. As usual, I've reduced the sugar in the original recipe. Most recipes use far too much sugar IMO. Sugar ages you, people, and generally you can reduce it with v little effect to sweetness.

200g chopped dates
Juice and zest of 1 large orange
150ml water
175g plain flour
125g brown sugar
100g porridge oats
175g vegan margarine
half tsp baking powder
pinch of salt

o Preheat the oven to 180˚C
o Grease a square cake tin (20cm x 20cm). Line the bottom with greaseproof paper.
o Heat the dates, orange juice, water and zest over a low heat until soft (about 10 mins). Allow to cool
o Sieve the flour and baking powder
o Mix in the sugar, salt and porridge oats
o Rub in the vegan marg until it all sticks together in clumps
o Press half the mix into the bottom of your tin, tamp it down
o Plop blobs of the date mix onto the base at intervals and smooth down
o Put the rest of the oat/marg mix on top until the dates are covered. Tamp down.
o Bake for 40 minutes, until golden-brown.
o Cool in the tin before slicing into bars

VEGAN FLAPJACKS

Flapjacks are the easiest thing to make. OK, they are not super healthy except for the porridge oats but they are yummy. The recipe is a veganised version of one from a book called Porridge by Margaret Briggs which is full of no-frills, good recipes.

125g vegan marg

75g brown sugar

3 tblsps golden syrup

250g porridge oats

• Preheat oven to 180C

• Lightly grease a shallow baking tray
• Melt the sugar, marg and syrup together in a pot

• Mix in the porridge oats

• Flatten out on the baking tray with a wooden spoon

• Bake for 25-30 minutes

• Mark into squares or bars

• Leave to cool in the tin, then remove

Vegan Rhubarb and Pear Crumble

My friend Debbie brought us rhubarb from her garden in Kilconnell and I couldn’t decide whether to make my rhubarb cake or a crumble with it. Mr Vegan loves crumble so, as it’s a bank holiday week-end, and we actually get some time together, I went for that. The recipe is spliced from several different ones and I threw in a pear for sweetness. It’s nice and spicy and the crumble is good and thick. We had it with soya custard. Yum!

Topping

100g spelt flour
70g vegan marg
45g brown sugar
50 g porridge oats

Filling

4 stalks rhubarb, chopped
1 pear, peeled and chopped
¼ tsp mixed spice
1 tsp cinnamon
juice and zest of an orange
50g brown sugar

Method

• Preheat oven to 180C
• Stir the filling ingredients over a low heat until the sugar melts and the fruit starts to soften
• Pour the mix into a pie dish and let it cool while you make the topping
• Rub the marg into the flour
• Add the sugar and oats and mix through with your fingers
• Pour the topping onto the fruit and pat down with your hands
• Bake for 30 minutes
• Serve hot or cold, with soya cream or custard

VEGAN WEDDING CAKE

We got married in May (in lovely New York) and on Saturday last we had a family lunch here in Ireland for which I made our wedding cake. It's my Christmas Cake recipe and it turned out great. I cheated and bought the fondant icing but it was easy to put on and looked nice.

Wedding cake ingredients ready to go

Our vegan wedding cake

 

The top of the cake

Vegan Rice Krispie Buns

I am a hunger monster at the moment. Is it boredom? Frustration? Madness induced by motherhood?! All three?!? Anyway, what ever it is I am obsessed with goodies. Today I wanted homemade biscuits (cookies, to my American pals) but I didn't have the right flour.

OK, I thought, flapjacks will do, I'll make them. Guess what? Hardly any porridge oats. Grrr.

So what did I make? Essentially, vegan rice krispie buns. Do our American friends have these? They are a birthday party must-have in Ireland. They are Rice Krispies mixed into melted chocolate, then left to set.

There has been a bar of vegan couverture chocolate in the press since Xmas. Mr Vegan got it as part of his Xmas box from someone. I don't think the someone realised it was posh cooking chocolate.
Anyway, out it came today and I inspected it closely: it's organic, vegan and has raisins and almonds in it. Mmmm. There is so much written on the wrapper it's hard to know what's what. Anyway, the gist is it's by Organica, as part of their Vegan Diets range, and it's made in Switzerland for a company in England. The web address is www.seriouslyorganic.co.uk and they do lots of lovely stuff.

So I present to you, Vegan Rice Krispie Buns: