SPELT SCONES - sugar free!

I am off bread during the week in an effort to feel less bleh. My daughter wanted a scone today, so rather than buy tempting shop ones, I decided to bake spelt scones. Because they have strawberry soya yogurt in them, these are really sweet and tasty.

The lovely cloth is a bread cloth given to me by writer Valerie Trueblood and hand woven by her friend. It is my newest treasure possession and it got its first use with these scones.

INGREDIENTS

150 g wholemeal spelt flour

50 g porridge oats

2 tbsp olive oil

1 large egg beaten

4 tbsp yogurt (any flavour or plain)

1 heaped tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

METHOD

Preheat the oven to 200C

Preheat baking tray in oven and sprinkle with flour when ready to use

In a bowl mix all the dry ingredients together and make a well in the middle

Mix the yogurt, oil and egg in a jug, then mix into flour mixture until it forms a dough

Turn out onto a floured surface and shape into a round about 2 inches thick

Cut out scones with a small pastry cutter – about 8 depending on size of cutter

Place on a floured baking tray and bake in the middle of the oven for approx. 20 minutes

Cool on a wire rack

NAME CHANGE - THE VEGAN GOES VEGGIE

I've decided to change the name of this blog because the whole vegan thing is too restrictive for me. I am not vegan (my husband is) and sticking to vegan food only as a blogger means I blog little. I do intend to still post vegan recipes though.

So welcome to The Hungry Veggie, I hope I can manage to blog here more now that I can use eggs :)

VEGAN PRUNE AND BRANDY CAKE

Juno enjoying some cake

I have been experimenting again. I put on weight in May which is always a party month in our house with all the birthdays that fall in that month. This year we also had our first wedding anniversary, one son's communion and a holiday in NY. So I am trying to eat more sensibly and because I simply can't give up goodies, I needed a healthy cake. This delivers a moist, delicious loaf that just oozes goodness. It is even more gorgeous slathered in soy yogurt.

RECIPE
410 g can of prunes, pitted
120ml prune juice (the juice left in the can)
30ml tea
30ml brandy
50g brown sugar
1 portion of No Egg (or 1 beaten egg for non-vegans)
25 g melted vegan marg
255g wholegrain spelt flour
1tsp bread soda
1 tsp mixed spice

METHOD
- Pit the prunes, then soak them with the prune juice, sugar, brandy and tea in a bowl
- Preheat the oven to 160C
- Grease and line a 2lb loaf tin (ready-made liners are great and no greasing needed!)
- Add the NoEgg mix and melted marg to the fruit mix. Stir through.
- Fold in the flour, bread soda and spice
- Pour into the lined tin
- Bake for one hour, until a skewer comes out clean
- Cool in the tin for 10 mins then turn onto a wire rack

VEGAN ST PATRICK'S DAY BISCUITS

Uniced vegan biscuits

Hello, all, and Happy Saint Patrick's Day. I decided to make biscuits for today's festivities and I veganised one of Rachel Allen's recipes from her lovely book Bake. It's easy peasy. This made 22 smallish biscuits.

Decorated vegan biscuits

Ingredients:
4oz vegan marg
2oz brown sugar
5oz plain flour
half tsp lemon essence (optional)

Method:
Preheat the oven to 170C
Cream the marg, lemon essence and sugar with a mixer or by hand
Sift in the flour and mix to a soft dough
Roll walnut sized pieces of dough in your palms
Place them apart from each other on an ungreased baking tray
Flatten them a little with a fork dipped in water
Bake for 15 to 17 minutes, or until golden
Remove from tray immediately and cool on a wire rack

Icing:
Mix 2 tsps of icing sugar with a little water.
Add more sugar and more water until the mixture is hard to mix
Palette onto the biscuits and decorate with green, white and orange jellies
Eat and have a happy Saint Patrick's Day!

VEGAN CHOCOLATE CAKE - VALENTINE'S DAY

Personally I'm not a huge fan of chocolate cake but what nicer for Valentine's Day for my favourite vegan than Vegan Chocolate Cake? I got this recipe from veganchocolatecake.net and changed the weights to European ones.

Ingredients

185g plain flour
3 tablespoons cocoa
1 teaspoon bread soda
100g sugar

½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
5 tablespoons cooking oil

1 tablespoon cider vinegar
240ml cold water

Icing

1 small bar dark choc melted

1 tablespoon of icing sugar, to thicken

Method

• Preheat oven to 180˚C
• Grease and line an 8 inch round tin
• Sieve the flour, cocoa, bread soda and salt in a large bowl
• Mix in the sugar and salt
• Make 3 holes in the dry ingredients. Put vanilla essence into one, oil into another and cider vinegar into the third.
• Pour cold water over the top. Mix only enough to combine all ingredients.
• Pour the batter into the tin
• Bake for 30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean
• Decoration:
• When the cakes are cool, melt the chocolate
• Mix in the icing sugar
• Palette the icing onto the top
• Decorate with chopped nuts

MINI VEGAN BANANA AND WALNUT LOAF

I had a blackening banana hanging about and I also have a 1 pound loaf tin that I never use, so I decided to try a smaller version of one of my cakes, just to see. It worked out, so if you have a weeny tin that needs filling, here's the cake for you.

1 over-ripe banana
50g light brown sugar
125g wholegrain spelt flour
25ml soya milk
25ml rapeseed oil
50g chopped/halved walnuts
half tsp baking powder
1 tsp NoEgg mixed with 2tblsps water (or a beaten egg, for non vegans)


o Preheat the oven to 160˚C
o Grease a 1lb loaf tin
o Break the peeled banana into a bowl and whizz with the sugar (I used a hand blender)
o Add the NoEgg mix (or egg), oil and soya milk and whizz again
o Fold in the dry ingredients & walnuts
o Pour into the loaf tin
o Bake for 45 minutes. Test with a skewer.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

My friend Claire made my vegan cake - look at her gorgeous result. Nollaig shona / Happy Christmas to everyone.