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!

Healing, but not by numbers

I can’t have scales in the house any more. 

Why? 

Because they are dangerous. 

This might seem like a strange statement, but I can get obsessed. There was a time in my life where

I would weigh myself every time I went into the bathroom. EVERY TIME. And I’d get on the scales 3

times, just to make sure the numbers were right. 

I would obsessively count calories and make sure I was at a deficit every day. I would spin every

single day, partly to get out of the house, and partly in an effort to burn off the calories from my

enemy: food. 

The seed was planted when I was in primary school. For some godforsaken reason we were being

weighed. The girl next in line hated my guts, and when she heard what I weighed - which was

considerably more than she did, being a slim, leggy girl, and she told everyone. I was laughed at.

It was then that I learned to be ashamed of my body.

Fast-forward to secondary school. In Year 9 I came back to school after having a vomiting bug, and

a TA said that I looked well because I’d lost weight. That’s when my brain first latched onto the idea

of bulimia - not that I knew it had a name at the time. 

In my early 20s I was finally in control of what I ate as I was at uni and began restricting and purging.

Avoiding social events for fear of having to eat in front of people. Things escalated after a breakup

and graduation,and I went from an 18-20 to a 12, and while social media was thrilled for me, my

self-esteem was rock bottom. 

I managed to quiet the demons for a while when I met someone. He came on very strong and

showered me with compliments for the first few months. So much so that I was blind to anything else.

In most relationships you gain a little weight. He liked food, and my weight crept up. It was then I

discovered Slimming World. Combine that with a tendency to obsess over a calorie deficit and a

newfound enjoyment of exercise, and things get very dangerous indeed. 

I was within 2lb of my goal weight and in a size 10. And then my life unravelled. I did a factory reset,

went back to Somerset, leaving behind a 5 year relationship and a job I had loved before the rot set

in. It was the right decision as my mental health was suffering to the point where I had finally given in

and started taking medication. 

I began to heal and started to enjoy life again, with the help of one of the weirdest humans I have

ever had the pleasure to meet. I weaned myself off the medication. We went on holiday. We made

big plans and I was the happiest I could remember being. 

Enter Sepsis. 

That was one of the hardest experiences of my life. I nearly died because of a mistake made in a

routine operation. There was a lot of vomiting. Drains in my stomach. Nil by mouth for almost a

month. My muscles wasted, and when I was finally discharged from the BRI, I was practically

skeletal, barely able to walk and with a big dose of PTSD. I had to build my strength up, but I also

needed to gain weight. 

Gaining weight to be healthy was a foreign concept to me. It felt wrong. There was a tiny corner of

me that as my weight went up to a healthy BMI once again, was longing to go back to having bony

legs and no curves, to even have a relapse so as to stay thin. It has been hugely triggering. As soon

as I was well enough to be by myself, I started obsessing and restricting again. If I bring scales into

the house, I’ll be further down that slippery slope. Even now, I need to be held accountable for what

I’ve eaten, or I won’t. I’ve gone back to avoiding social situations where I have to eat where possible,

or just coming along and having a coffee or a drink. 

Add into the mix learning to love a body that will never be the same again, and you’ve got a tough

task ahead of you. Clothes that used to fit me now sit differently because of the 9 inch scar that starts

at my waist and cuts my abdomen in two. There are days when I cry because I hate my body so

much. They are fewer than they were, but they still crop up every so often. Running has helped,

but I’m not as fast or strong as I was, which gives me more numbers to obsess over. 

I have amazing support in the form of wonderful friends, and the very best cheerleader, who has

been by my side through everything the last 20 months has thrown at us. 

I will get there.