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 12 Dish 1: Vegan red velvet cake with cashew cream cheese frosting

It was my sister's birthday yesterday!! Happy belated birthday Sis!! Unfortunately I'm away in Somerset at the moment, but I did go home last weekend so we celebrated her birthday on Sunday. I baked a cake (of course) and we went out for a yummy meal (cake first, then the meal - this is the way it should always be :p). The cake I baked for her was a vegan red velvet. The original recipe was for a two-tier cake but I knew that it would be too much for my family to finish especially with all the Diwali sweets I made, so I only made half the recipe, and as you can see below I made it in a skull cake tin - so cool!! I also left out the food colouring because I didn't have the right type, and didn't put on any frosting because it would just be too sweet for us. But the recipe below is for a two-tier cake with frosting. Enjoy!!

Ingredients
For the cake
440 g plain flour
300 g sugar
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp salt
4 tsp cocoa powder
470 ml soya milk
155 ml vegetable oil
3 tbsp red food colouring - this should be a non-natural type for the colour to stay red. Apparently beetroot juice works too but I haven't tried it!
2 tbsp white vinegar
2 tsp vanilla extract
For the cashew frosting
2 cups cashews, soaked for 4 hours
3 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp liquid coconut oil
1/3-2/3 cup maple syrup/ honey/ golden syrup
Water as needed
Decorations as preferred e.g. nuts, raisins, chocolate etc
Method

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees C. Line two 8 inch cake tins with grease proof paper.
2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, bicarbonate of soda, salt and cocoa powder. Create a well in the centre and add the milk, oil, food colouring, vinegar and vanilla. Mix until combined.
3. Divide the cake batter evenly between the two cake tins and place in the oven spaced evenly apart. Bake for 35-45 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean and the cakes pull away from the sides of the pan.
4. Let the cakes cool for 10 minutes in the pans, then remove and let cool completely on a wire rack.
5. While the cakes are baking and cooling, make the frosting. Blend all the ingredients in a blender until smooth. Add as little water as possible. Set aside.
6. Once the cakes are cool, you can frost them. Place one cake upside down (slice off the rounded bit of the cake if it doesn't stand straight). Using a palette knife, spread some of the frosting, about 1/4-1/3, over the top of the cake. Carefully set the other cake on top, again upside down and with some of the rounded bit sliced off to help it sit straight if necessary. Cover the cake with the remaining frosting and decorate however you like!!

Original recipes: Red velvet cake, cashew cream cheese frosting

Vegan almond barfi

And here is the final recipe! It's really a halwa recipe, but you can set it and cut it into diamonds like I did, or serve it warm as halwa!

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups almonds soaked overnight
2 cups water
2 pinches of saffron
1/2 tsp cardamom
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup coconut oil
Method

1. Line a 9x9 inch baking tray with grease proof paper.
2. Blend the soaked almonds with some of the 2 cups of water - use as less as possible to start of with to make the almond paste as smooth as possible. Add the remaining water.
3. Pour the paste into a pan and cook until the mixture thickens and dries. Add the sugar and mix well. then the oil. Continue cooking until the mixture becomes lumpy and thick.
4. Lastly add saffron and cardamom and mix in. Pour into the prepared tray and let cool for 30 minutes before refrigerating to cool completely. Cut into diamonds. Store in the fridge in an airtight container for up to a week.

Original recipe: Almond halwa

This is the last of the 3 Indian sweet recipes - I hope you like them!

Vegan date fig barfi

My second vegan Indian sweet recipe is a sugarless vegan date fig barfi - delicious and not overly sweet like most Indian sweets are! Definitely an easy one to make, so go for it :D

Makes 12-16 squares (depending on how big you cut them)
Ingredients
1 cup dates
1 cup dried figs
1 cup water
1/4 cup almonds
1/4 cup cashews
2 tbsp coconut oil
1/4 tsp cardamom powder
Method

1. Soak the dates and figs in hot water for an hour. Line an 8x4 inch (or similar size) deep tray with grease proof paper.
2. Coarsely grind the dry almonds and cashew and keep aside.
3. Blend the dates and figs using some of the water used for soaking until coarsely chopped (the less water you use the easier the next step will be). 
4. In a pan, heat the oil at a low heat and add the date fig mixture. Cook at low heat stirring occasionally for 20 minutes. Add in the almonds, cashews and cardamom powder and keep cooking until the mixture starts to leave the sides of the pan. 
5. Spread the mixture into the pan. Let cool and refrigerate for an hour before slicing. Store in the fridge in an airtight container for up to a week!

Original recipe: Date fig barfi

Vegan kesar barfi

Happy Diwali and Happy New Year! It has been a very busy weekend for me. Saturday night was my final year dinner, and it was a really good night - and a bit emotional too! I can't believe I'm almost at the end of my 6 years at medical school. So many good memories :) Other than that, I also celebrated my sister's birthday yesterday because I'm away in Somerset during the week on her actual birthday. Which of course means I baked a cake for her (recipe coming soon). And as if that wasn't enough, I ambitiously decided to make 3 different indian sweets for Diwali! I don't make things easy for myself do I? So here is the first of the three sweets - vegan kesar (saffron) barfi!

Date fig barfi (left), almond halwa (middle), kesar barfi (right)
Makes 12-16 squares (depending how big you cut them)

Ingredients

3/4 cup almonds soaked overnight
1/2 cup fine semolina flour

2 tbsp coconut oil

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup water

Pinch of cardamom powder

1/2-1 tsp saffron strands (to taste)

Pinch of salt

Method

1. Line a small dish with grease proof paper (I used a small pie dish).
2. Soak the almonds overnight. Peel and pulse into coarse crumbs (peel them by soaking in boiling water for 2 minutes, then press them and the almonds should pop out of their skin).
3. In a pan, dry roast the semolina on low-medium heat for 6-8 minute or until it's starts changing colour and in fragrant. Add the ground almonds and oil and mix well to form crumbs.
4. In another pan, mix the sugar, water, cardamom powder, saffron strands and salt. Bring to the boil on a low-medium heat until 1 string consistency is achieved (a few minutes). Add it to the semolina mixture and mix well until combined while on the heat.
5. Take off heat after a few seconds and pour into the prepared tray. Even it out and cut into squares before it hardens. Allow to cool for 15 minutes before breaking into pieces. Store in the fridge in an airtight container for up to a week.

Original recipe: Kesar barfi

2 more recipes to come!