Vegan Nanaimo

 I'd literally never heard of these until we went to a VR parkrun in Winchester, long before the pandemic. 

They're Canadian in origin, and are biscuity, chocolatey, coconutty, custardy goodness. 

I know we ALL hate it when people write reams and reams before the recipe, so I'll get straight into it. 

Ingredients

Base

200g digestive biscuits (you can use hobnobs etc, depends on what you have)

150g sunflower margarine

100g desiccated coconut

50g ground almonds

40g cocoa powder

60g caster sugar 

Custard layer

60g Flora Plant Butter at room temperature(essential if you want a sturdy custard, but you can use margarine and just reduce the milk if you're not fussed about structural integrity)

250g icing sugar

3tbsps custard powder (Birds is vegan!)

3tbsps plant based milk

Chocolate topping

200g plain chocolate

3tbsps sunflower margarine

Method

1. Start by lining a square brownie tin with cling film (this makes it easier to turn out. If you have a silicon pan, definitely use it).
2. Melt the margarine in a pan on a low heat, once melted, stir in the cocoa powder and sugar until fully combined
3. Meanwhile, crush the biscuits with a rolling pin, add to a big mixing bowl along with ground almonds and coconut. 
4. Combine all base ingredients, spoon into prepared tin and press down to make an even layer. Freeze for at least an hour.
5. While that chills you can crack on with the custard. Literally all you need to do with this is put all the ingredients in a bowl and mix with an electric mixer. Then once the base is chilled, spread evenly over the top, and then back into the freezer for an hour.
6. Final stage! Break your chocolate into chunks, and put it in a bain-marie (bowl over a pan of boiling water to us lay-folk) along with the margarine, melt, stir and then pour onto chilled layers. Back in the freezer for at least half an hour, and then you can eat it! I'd recommend cutting it into 16, but 9 works too. Top tip - keep it in the fridge unless you want it to go squidgy.

I have tried out lots of different variations of this, but the above recipe is has turned out perfectly every time. 

Unsophisticated Baking: Tiramisu Ⓥ

When we went to Sicily last summer not only did we find an excellent vegan restaurant for a date night while we were there, but they had pistachio tiramisu. This may not be common knowledge, but tiramisu is one of the things I've missed the most since becoming vegan. I vowed to work out how to make it when we got back to Bristol, but it wasn't until Christmas that I gave it a go.
I've tried it twice more, with varying degrees of success, but have finally got round to writing up the recipe.

Excuse the state of my hob!

Sponge ingredients

• 250ml plant milk
• 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 50g sunflower spread
• 220g self-raising flour
• 230g caster sugar

Mascarpone ingredients

• 270g raw cashews
• 120 ml maple/golden Syrup
• 5 1/2 tbsps melted coconut oil
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2tsp vanilla extract
• 120ml plant milk

Vegan whipped cream ingredients

• 2 x 400ml tins coconut milk (chilled in fridge overnight. Make sure it's the kind that separates)
• 30g icing sugar

 Coffee syrup ingredients

• 100g granulated sugar (caster works fine for this too)
• 120ml water
• 2 tsps instant coffee granules (I use Nescafe Azera because I am a woman obsessed)
• 4 tbsps Kahlua

And cocoa powder for decoration!

Stage 1 - The Sponge

Preheat the oven to 180°C & line two 7 inch cake tins with baking paper. 

Put the plant milk, apple cider vinegar, vanilla extract and sunflower spread  in a small saucepan over a low heat to melt. Once melted, pour them into your mixing bowl along with the sugar and self-raising flour. Fold together and pour into your prepared tins. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean, and leave to cool.

Stage 2 - Marscapone

While your cake is in the oven, you can get cracking with the marscapone. Boil the cashews for 10 minutes then pop them in your blender along with the other marscapone ingredients. Blend and place in the fridge. 

Stage 3 - Whipped Cream

Remove your tins of coconut milk from the fridge and do not shake them. Flip them upside down, open them and pour off the coconut water to use another time. Then you should be left with the solid coconut cream. Scoop this out and whip in a bowl (you WILL need an electric mixer for this bit) until it forms peaks. Then add in the icing sugar and whip again. Grab your marscapone mixture from the fridge, fold the two together and then put it back in the fridge. 

Stage 4 - Coffee syrup and assembly

Add the sugar and water to a saucepan and heat until it starts to create a syrup. Remove from the heat and add in the Kahlua and coffee granules. Stir until combined and let it cool before you assemble your tiramisu. 

Grab your dish and place the first sponge in the bottom, face down, so that the glossy side on the bottom of the dish. If your dish is like mine then you will almost certainly have to trim off bits of cake to make it fit. Pour over half the coffee syrup so your sponge absorbs it. Then add half your marscapone mix, smooth down and freeze until reasonably set (I didn't time this, sorry!). Then repeat the process with the second sponge, top with syrup and marscapone, sprinkle on your cocoa powder and whack it in the fridge until you're ready to serve it. 

And there you have it. It's a lot easier than it looks. You could make individual ones if you fancied by baking a 'sheet cake' and cutting out your layers (next on my list once I've found dishes I like). You could even play around with the flavours and maybe make a lemon version with limoncello and top it with lemon zest. 

Enjoy!

Unsophisticated Baking: My trusty brownies, with optional salted caramel Ⓥ

I've been making variations on this recipe for the last 18 months or so and I've yet to find one I like more. Several people have asked for it, so here it is:

80g vegan margarine 

2 tbsp ground flaxseed

200g dark chocolate

½ tsp coffee granules

125g self-raising flour

70g ground almonds

50g cocoa powder

250g light brown soft sugar

1½ tsp vanilla extract

Method

Heat oven to 170C/150C fan. Grease and lie a 20cm square tin with baking paper.
Then combine your flaxseed with 6 tbsp of water to make your flax eggs, and leave to go a bit gooey.

In a saucepan, melt HALF the chocolate, coffee and margarine with 60ml water on a low heat and
allow to cool slightly.While you’re waiting, you may want to chop up the rest of the chocolate.

Once cooled, stir in the sugar until it is dissolved. Then add your flax egg and vanilla, stir in,
then add all your remaining dry ingredients, finishing with the chocolate. 

DO NOT WORRY that it’s thick. This is very normal.

Spoon into your prepped tin and then bake for around 40 minutes, until your skewer comes out
clean with a few moist crumbs. You make need to poke a few times to make sure you don’t hit a
vein of chocolate! 

You can pimp this up by adding nuts, fruit OR  the salted caramel recipe below…..

1 can coconut milk (check it’s the kind that separates)

150g light brown soft sugar

¼ tsp sea salt

The night before (or a few hours before) pop your can of coconut milk in the fridge, upside down…

Turn your coconut milk over, open and drain off the coconut water. 

Heat the sugar in a small pan for about 1.5 mins to warm it through, then add the coconut milk
and sea salt, stir in til it all dissolves and is combined. 

Bring your pan to the boil, then let it simmer for at least 20 minutes. It;s ready to come off the
heat when it can coat the back of a spoon - I tend to leave it for as long as it takes! 

If you want it slightly saltier, now is the time to add a bit more to taste.

Leave to cool. I’ve had better luck with leaving it OUT of the fridge as it’s more malleable and
less likely to crystallise again. 

Once cooled, drizzle over brownies. Allow to set slightly, cut and eat. 

Unsophisticated Bakes: Vegan Chocolate, Coconut and Passionfruit Cupcakes

I like a challenge. Particularly when it pushes me out of my baking comfort zone. Having a vegan brother-in-law does mean I have to get a lot more creative. I've made vegan brownies, mojito cupcakes - and awakened his mojito obsession (soz Hannah), and even a vegan cheesecake using soaked cashews, but this time I needed to make something suitably fancy and chocolatey for my sister's 30th, and vegan-friendly for her husband, thus the idea for chocolate, coconut and passion-fruit cupcakes was born.

As it turns out, passion-fruit are extremely hard to find in Bristol at the moment, but after much traipsing and researching, and a test bake I slightly forgot about while watching Rick and Morty, here is the recipe I used:

You will need:

200g of self-raising flour
200g of caster sugar
3-4 tbsp of cocoa powder
4 tbsp of vegetable/sunflower oil
250ml cup of cold soya/almond milk
1 tsp of vanilla extract
1 tbsp of lemon juice

1 can of coconut cream(pop this in the fridge preferably 24 hours before you need to make the icing)
200g icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp honey
3-4 passion-fruit to decorate

Equipment: 

cupcake tin
cupcake cases
electric mixer (seriously, you don't want to be whipping by hand)
ice cream scoop (optional but really handy)
mini palette knife (again, optional, but v useful)

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 180°/160° fan & line your tin
2. Mix together the sugar, oil, milk, vanilla and lemon juice. Make sure the milk is cold or the mixture may curdle.
3. Sieve in the cocoa powder and flour together in 2 stages, mixing in-between additions until fully incorporated.
4. Using your ice cream scoop (or spoon), place one scoop's worth of mixture into each paper case, and bake until tops are springy and a skewer comes out clean. (I didn't time them, I went by instinct, sorry! But I'm guessing around 12-15 minutes before you first check on them?).
5. Meanwhile... turn the can of coconut cream upside down before you open it, then drain off the coconut water for another day.
6. Add icing sugar (sieved), honey and vanilla extract to coconut cream and whip it, whip it real good! Then pop it back in the fridge until you're ready to serve, then ice, leaving a dip in the centre, fill well with passion-fruit and enjoy

Stray thoughts:
I carted these cupcakes around London for about 12 hours before they got to their destination so they did look rather distressed. If making again I'd be tempted to add some white chia seeds to the icing mix to give it some extra stability.

Unsophisticated Bakes - Pistachio Marzipan?

Fruits. Christmas. Family. Those are the things that come to mind when I think about marzipan. Every Christmas, without fail, there have been marzipan fruits. It’s kind of a tradition now. We used to make them ourselves, H & I when we were children with help from our Nan. It was always murder finding natural food dyes that wouldn’t set off her allergies!
All these years later, marzipan is still a sweet treat that we all love – H’s vegan husband loves it too as it’s one of the only sweets he can have.

We’ve always had a massive soft spot for pistachios in our family too, so I started scouring the internet to see if you could make marzipan with them. Turns out that you can! After a hefty Pinterest session I discovered a recipe, I’ve tweaked it a little, but it works beautifully.

Photo from  Pinterest - I forgot to take pictures of mine!

You will need:

285g shelled pistachios, preferably raw (they will give you a brighter green)
200g icing sugar
1/4 tsp salt, if using raw or unsalted pistachios
1 egg white, lightly beaten
Green food coloring
350g dark chocolate (min. 50% cocoa)

1. Blitz the pistachios in a food processor until they’re finely ground. Remove a few tablespoons if you fancy using it for decoration.

2. Add the icing sugar to the food processor, and if your pistachios are unsalted, the salt. Blitz again until it’s broken down to a very fine powder.

3. Add a little of the raw egg to the food processor, blitz and repeat. You want the marzipan to be malleable like Play-Doh. You might not need to use all the egg to get to this stage, so keep an eye on it.

4. If you want to make your marzipan a bit greener, now is the time to add the food dye, just work the colour in like you would with normal marzipan.

5. Divide the marzipan into little balls and pop them on a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper or foil. Put them in the fridge for 10 minutes.

6. While the balls are chilling, melt the chocolate in a glass bowl over a pan of hot water. Keep stirring it, and don’t let the hot water hit the bottom of the bowl – it could cause the chocolate to burn. Leave to cool for a few minutes before introducing it to the marzipan!

7. Dip the balls into the chocolate (naughty!) and then pop them back on the baking tray. If you’re being extra fancy you sprinkle them with the leftover pistachio bits before popping them back in the fridge. 
8. Leave them in the fridge for at least 10 minutes (or until the chocolate is set) and voila! Yummy chocolate treats

I have to say, these went down so well when I made them for my Nan’s birthday that my mother has requested them for hers!

Unsophisticated Bakes - THE Banana Loaf

In my line of work, some days I can end up with a lot of surplus bananas. There's nothing terribly wrong with them, they're just too ripe, or have split in transit, or they just won't last the weekend. I don't like wasting perfectly good food, particularly not when I can bake with it. They almost always end up in the banana cake recipe I'm sharing below, although they've crept into a few welshcakes of late.

You will need:

125g soft butter/margarine

250g caster sugar

3-4 over-ripe bananas 

2 large eggs

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

250g plain flour (or self raising, just omit the extra raising agent)

3tsp baking powder

optional handful of pecan nuts

Equipment:

1x 2lb loaf tin

Greaseproof paper or loaf tin liners

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 160°/150° fan & line your tin
2. With a spoon (or an electric mixer if you're lazy like me), mix the butter & sugar together until fully combined - it should have formed a paste.
3. Chop your bananas and add them into the bowl, along with your eggs & vanilla essence. Mix until you've got a lumpy wet mix.
4. Sieve in, then fold in the flour. Take your time, do it slowly, until the last of it is no longer visible, but you want your mixture to still be lumpy
5. Chop your pecans (or whatever nuts you fancy bedecking your cake with) as finely or roughly as you fancy. 
6. Pour your mixture into the prepped tin, and sprinkle the nuts evenly over the top of the cake.
7. Bake for 50-60 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. All ovens vary, so don't worry if it takes longer. Leave to cool in the tin for a few minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack. Enjoy!

Variations

• You could try adding extra bananas. The most I've ever tried is 6! It makes the cake super-moist and a bit fudgy.

• You could also try adding nuts or chocolate chips to the mix itself, or even cocoa powder. From experience, the chocolate chips option is divine.