Strawberry Chocolate Cupcakes!

I made these incredible cupcakes for Reuby in celebration our 5 year anniversary! After we ran out of the yummy chocolate Banana cupcakes I made a few weeks ago he asked me one night where the cupcakes were, we'd had heaps of them (mini ones) in the pantry and he seemed quite distraught that they were all gone and I had no time to make any more! So I handed in my second assignment of the semester (not sure if i mentioned im studying a post grad diploma in Development studies - hope to work for Oxfam or the UN one day), last night it took a few weeks of late nights and long weekends in the library... I got super excited last night when I submitted the essay cause I could finally bake again without feeling guilty about having an assignment to do! I found some cheap end of season strawberries at the University market today so decided to try and make strawberry chocolate cupcakes and they turned out better that I could ever have imagined!

Dry Ingredients:

3 cups wholemeal flour

2 cups raw sugar

2/3cup cocoa

1 tsp salt

2tsp baking soda

Wet ingredients:

400ml coconut cream (1 tin)

2 mashed bananas

4 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

2 tsp instant coffee disolved in 2 tsp hot water

3 tsp vanilla esssence

Frosting:

1/2 kremalta (non-hydrogenated coconut oil)

1 Tbsp vegan margarine (i use olivani)

Icing sugar

3 tsp vanilla essence

Mix all dry ingredients together in a bowl then in a separate bowl mix all wet ingredients. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix together. If it's a bit dry just add a little bit of water. Bake in the oven for approximately 20 minutes at 200 degrees.

For the frosting i mixed kremalta and olivani together, I did this by hand using a fork and potato masher but if you have a mixer use that you'll save heaps of time! Then mix in icing sugar until it's light and fluffy. Once the cupcakes are cooked and completely cold pipe frosting on top and then add freshly chopped strawberries. Otherwise if you have decent tops on them cut them off and smooth some frosting over the bottom half then pile strawberries on top and replace the lid, garnish with a little extra frosting a strawberry piece and I used melted dark chocolate too.

Enjoy!

Homemade Vegan Cheese

So we are having pizza for dinner tonight and we don't have any soy cheese in the fridge so I decided to try and make my own! I consulted a few different vegan cheese recipes on the web as well as my pantry and this is what I came up with...

Ingredients:

1 1/2 Tbsp almond butter

1/2 Tbsp cashew butter

2 Tbsp lemon juice

1 dsp crushed garlic

1 Tbsp nutritional yeast

pepper and salt

Mix the ingredients well and then spread on a lightly greased oven tray and bake for about 30mins (15mins each side) at 100 degrees. Alternatively you could use a dehydrator for raw vegan cheese. Or you could enjoy it as a cheesy spread uncooked and undehydrated.

Orange, Chocolate Cup Cakes..

Today I felt like making some pretty cupcakes with lovely looking frosting. I've never experimented with vegan butter cream either, but finally decided to take the plunge! I'm happy I did, so here you go, vegan orange chocolate cup cakes!

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups flour

3/4 cup sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 2/3 cup water

1/3 cup oil

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup whittakers dark chocolate chips/chunks

orange zest from one orange

juice from two oranges

Ok so first you need to mix all the dry ingredients together, then in a separate bowl mix all the wet ingredients and then combine slowly and add the chocolate chunks last. Put mixutre into cup cake papers or tins and bake for appoximately 15 mins.

Butter Cream Frosting:

1 Tbsp vegetable shortening

3 Tbsp vegan margarine

2 cps icing sugar

2 freshly squeezed oranges (the juice)

1/4 block melted dark chocolate

orange zest to decorate

Mix shortening and margarine until well combined, light and fluffy. If you don't have an electric mixer just use a whisk and or fork - that's what I did. Sure your arm get's sore but it works the same! Then mix in icing sugar a little at a time and lastly melted dark chocolate. I sprinkled vegan cocoa on top and used orange zest to decorate.

Baked Eggplant Stacks

Reuby and I have new flatmates and they cook interesting and different things to what we normally cook, so last night they were eating this amazing looking eggplant thing, and that inspired me too create my own amazing looking eggplant thing. So I consulted a few other blogs and then got some ideas and voila here's what I did:

Ingredients:

1 big fat eggplant
2 big red juicy looking capsicums
4 plump yummy smelling red tomatoes
a handful of spinnace
1 shiny red onion
a dessert spoon of garlic
1 cube of oxo vegetable stock
a little bit of water

Ok so first I cut two red capsicums into four quarters and placed on a greased oven tray, then Cut an eggplant in half length ways then cut each half in half again length ways. Then cut four tomatoes in halves and place all of the vegetables onto a greased oven tray and bake in the oven for about 45 mins or so - just check regularly to check their progress. In the mean time, finely chop a red onion, put in a small saucepan and gently fry with some garlic (I use alot so just whatever you're comfortable with), then add some herbs i used oregano and basil and a handful of spinnach. Boil water and crush up a cube of oxo stock and then add a tiny bit of water (maybe 2-3 Tbps) and mix it so it's quite thick and then mix into the onion mixture.

Once all the baked vegetables are cooked - peel the skin off the capsicums and tomatoes and then arrange all of the vegetables ontop of each other in a stack. I put some yummy onion sauce in the middle of each layer and put some capsicum and tomato in each layer.

Chocolate raisin fudge, with hot raspberry sauce and vanilla soy ice cream!

The other day I decided to invent some vegan fudge, I'd been thinking alot about this amazing chocolate biscuit fudge my Mum used to make when we were little. I remember smashing biscuits for what seemed like an eternity, and then we'd press the mixture into a tin and have to wait for hours for it to set in the fridge. Well it seemed like hours but it probably wasn't. So anyway, from memory I thought I'd try and replicate and veganise it.

Fudge ingredients:

1 packet of budget vanilla round biscuits

1 cup of coconut

1 cup of raisins

1/4 cup of cocoa

1 cup olivio margarine

1/3rd block whittakers 72% dark chocolate

First you need to crush the biscuits until they are fine and crumbly. Then melt the margarine and chocolate together in a double boiler on the stove. While this is melting, mix the coconut, raisins and cocoa into the biscuit mixture. Once the margarine and chocolate mixture has melted together pour into the biscuit mixture and stir until well combined. Then press into a fudge tin and refrigerate.

Raspberry sauce ingredients:

1 cup fresh or frozen raspberries

1/3 cup sugar

1/2 Tbsp of cornflour (but only if you want really thick sauce - I wasn't happy with how thick it was so would have preferred a runny sauce)

Mash the raspberries with a fork and then add the suagar and heat slowly on the stove until it melts and becomes a nice thin consistency. Now you can either add the cornflour for a thick sauce or leave it out for a runny sauce.

Then melt 1/4 block of whittakers dark chocolate in a double boiler. Crumble the fudge or slice it into whatever shape you please and place on top of or under a spoonful of "dairy, wheat and gluten free" vanilla ice cream. It's in a blue 1 ltr pottle in New World supermarkets, or any other soy alternative you like. Pour the raspberry sauce around the edge and the melted chocolate on top.

Voila, a decadent vegan dessert to please anyone!

Vegan Lemon Curd

Ok so about a month back I got a craving for vegan lemon curd cupcakes, I searched the internet far and wide and couldn't find any cupcake recipes. So what's a girl to do, I invented my own, however I was too excited at the time and forgot to write down my recipe! So if anyone out there has their own cupcake recipe please feel free to direct me there or post it here as a comment. In the mean time I do have the lemon curd recipe, it was super easy and sooooo tasty but a little scary to see how much sugar goes into it. So lemon curd is definitley those once in a blue moon treats, although I know there are much worse things out there!

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups of lemon juice
2 1/2 cups raw sugar
1/2 tsp of salt
4 Tbsp of coconut cream
6 Tbsps of cornflour dissolved in 6 Tbsps of cold water
4 Tbsps of margarine

Simmer the lemon juice, sugar, and salt stirring constantly until the sugar has dissolved. Then add the corn starch mixture and the coconut cream and stir until it's combined with the lemon mixture.

Continue to stir constantly and the mixture will start to thicken, then add the margarine and cook for a little longer as it dissolves into the mixture. Once this has happened you need to let the mixture cool completly, then put it in the refrigerator.

Enjoy spread on vegan scones or lemon cupcakes or perhaps lemon poppy seed cake!