Week 15 Dish 2: Vegan pear walnut muffins

I went to the Enchanted Woodland in Syon park earlier this evening. For those of you who haven't heard of it, Syon park is famous for having many different and rare trees, and every year for 3 weekends they open the park in the evening with all the trees illuminated in lights of different colours. It really looks spectacular!

(The photo really doesn't do the park justice)

Earlier in the day before my exciting evening I baked pear and walnut muffins. It's difficult to find exotic fruits now so I thought it would be best to make something with pears which are so readily available. This recipe doesn't have a huge amount of sugar and the batter (I licked the bowl at the end of course :p) was not overly sweet, but when I bit into the muffin the taste was so amazing! The pears had become really soft and tender and the sweetness really came through making the muffins divine, especially when hot and fresh from the oven. Oh so good!!

Makes 12

Ingredients

1 cup plain flour

1/2 cup oats

1/2 cup whole meal flour

2/3 cup sugar

1 tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1 1/4 cup finely chopped ripe but firm pears (about 2 medium pears)

1/3 cup walnuts pieces

3/4 cup soya milk

2 tbsp vegetable/ canola/ rapeseed oil

1 tbsp linseeds

4 tbsp water

Method 

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C and line a muffin tray with muffin cups.
2. Grin the linseed with water until smooth and set aside.
3. In a large bowl, mix the flours, oats, sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Add the pears and walnuts and toss gently to coat.
4. In a separate bowl, mix the soya milk, oil and linseed mixture, and pour this into the dry ingredients stirring until just combined.
5. Divide the batter equally amongst the muffin cups and bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool on a wire rack though I recommend you eat them while hot and fresh!

Original recipe: Pear walnut muffins

Week 14 Dish 2: Vegan cranberry walnut oat cookies

I finished my renal placement, it went so fast (probably because it was only a week long) but was pretty useful! I talked to a lot of patients with kidney transplants, on dialysis, and with lots of other signs. There was a patient with aortic regurgitation with a diastolic murmur and a collapsing pulse, which I have only seen once before. Definitely useful! Now I'm on to my ENT week, let's see how that goes....

To continue the sweet and sour theme (mostly so that I can finish the cranberries in the freezer) I decided to make cookies with cranberries as my second recipe this week. The original recipe said dried cranberries but the frozen ones work just as well, hope you enjoy them :D

Makes ~20 (depending on size)
Ingredients
2 cups oats
2 cups wholemeal flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup agave/ honey
3 tbsp golden syrup (optional, depends how sweet you want the cookies. I used 3 and next would probably use 1-2)
1 cup water
3 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup chopped cranberries (fresh, frozen or dried unsweetened)
1/2 cup walnuts
Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C and line two baking trays with grease proof paper.
2. Mix together the oats, flour, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon, salt and nutmeg. Then add the remaining ingredients other than the cranberries and walnuts.
3. Stir until almost combined, then add the cranberries and walnuts and finish mixing.
4. Scoop heaped tablespoons of the batter onto the baking trays. They do spread a bit so leave about 1.5 inch gap between them. I made 21 cookies but they were quite big so you can probably get about 30 if you want smaller ones.
5. Bake for 10 minutes (maybe less if they are smaller), allow to cool for a couple of minutes on the tray before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely. Sweet and sour goodness!

Original recipe: Vegan cranberry and walnut oatmeal cookies

Week 12 Dish 2: Vegan banana walnut muffins

As I mentioned before, I started experimenting with vegan dishes because my dad recently decided to become vegan. He actually make this choice early this year, but I was so busy with 5th year and looming exams (nightmare!) I never really baked anything vegan until July after my exams were finally over. What really inspired me to begin were 3 extremely overripe bananas; usually used to make banana bread but the recipe was not vegan. So I thought, it can't be that hard to find a vegan recipe can it? And it wasn't hard at all! I found so many, chose the simplest one with ingredients that most people would have, and voila! Vegan banana bread! Soon this became a standard treat I would bake if the bananas became too mushy (and thanks to the gorgeous summer we've had, this has been pretty common). I've since experimented with bars and cookies, but nothing beats a moist muffin! So here is the recipe, which can be made as a bread, muffins or cake.

Makes 12 muffins/ one bread loaf/ one 8 inch cake
Ingredients
225 g plain flour
3 heaped tsp baking powder
100 g brown sugar (I've been reducing this to 75 g)
3 tsp ground cinnamon or mixed spice or a combination of the two (I've been using 5 tsp and would recommend it to anyone who loves cinnamon)
3 large mushy bananas, mashed
75 g vegetable or sunflower oil (weight)
50 g walnuts (or other nuts or dried fruits)
Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C and get the muffin cases ready.
2. Add the mashed bananas, sugar and oil to a large mixing bowl and mix well.
3. Add the sieved flour, baking powder and cinnamon/ mixed spice and mix until combined.
4. Stir in the nuts/ dried fruit and spoon into the muffin cases.
5. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of a muffin comes out clean.
6. To make as a bread, bake in a greased and lined loaf tin at 180°C for 20 minutes, then check. If the loaf is browning, cover with foil and bake for another 40 minutes or until a tooth pick comes out clean. Remove from the tin after cooling for 10-15 minutes. Allow to cool completely before slicing.
7. To make as a cake, bake in a greased 8 inch cake tin at 180°C for 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick come out clean. Allow to cool for 10-15 minutes before removing from the to and cooling completely on a wire rack.

Original recipe: Vegan banana bread
Like I said, a very simple recipe with scrumptious results! Because vegan muffins are usually made with oil, they are often more moist and soft than their non-vegan counterparts - try them and see for yourself!!

Week 9 Dish 1: Vegan banana nut cookies

Ahh my days are getting busier and busier. Netball season has started again and with 2 matches and one training session a week, free time is getting harder and harder to come by! But baking is pretty high on my priority list (can't give up all the yummy goodies) so I hope I can keep up with my two recipes per week.... I'm quite excited about some future bakes I have planned for Halloween and Diwali, which are both coming up. I managed to buy some very fun muffin and cake moulds, hope you're all excited too!

This week I once again had overripe bananas that needed to be used. I thought about making the bars from week 7 again because they we so quick and easy and yummy to boot, but then I found this recipe. It's pretty much the same as the bars but since it's cookies I think it's fair to use it as a whole new recipe (bit of a cheat I guess, cheeky me :p). As with the bars, this recipe contains absolutely NO ADDED SUGAR - it is sweetened with mushy bananas, making it as healthy as it is yummy :D.

Makes 24
Ingredients
2 cups oats (make this recipe gluten free by using gluten free oats!)
1 cup raisins
1 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 cups mashed bananas (about 3 large ones)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
Method

1. Combine the first 5 ingredients in a large bowl and stir well.
2. Mix the banana, oil and vanilla extract in a separate bowl and add to the dry mixture. Combine well and let stand for 15 minutes. 
3. While you wait, preheat the oven to 180 degrees C and line two baking trays with grease proof paper.
4. Drop rounded tablespoonfuls of dough on to the baking trays and bake for 15 minutes or until lightly golden. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before storing in an airtight container.

Original recipe: Banana-nut cookies

These are just so yummy, they will be gone before you know it! In my opinion this is definitely a recipe you don't want to miss - let me know if you agree when you've tried them :D