Vietnamese Mushroom Balls with an Apricot-Ginger Dipping Sauce

I was going over some old blog posts with the intention of deleting some of them. You see, in the early days I would blog almost everything I made - successful recipes and the experiments. I would always state in those old posts when something didn't quite work out and what I would do next time, etc...Of course for the past few years that has not been the case - I only post tried, tested and perfected recipes but I was simply more casual in the start. 

I came across this post for "Vietnamese Mushroom Balls with Plum Sauce" from October 2008 and while reading the post remembered that although they tasted great it just wasn't a very successful recipe and decided to delete it but then noticed that it has been pinned over 600 times!!! What the frack?!?! I really have no idea how that could have been, it's a terrible photo and I even mentioned in the write up that it was a bit of a botched up experiment. I mean it's appreciated of course but baffling! :-)

Well, I decided I couldn't very well delete a post that's been pinned that many times but I could definitely get in the kitchen, experiment some more and get this one right! 

Originally this recipe came from "The Asian Vegan Kitchen" cookbook and called for some pretty obscure ingredients like dried wood ear mushrooms and straw mushrooms. I decided to make them with just regular ol' mushrooms to make things easier and also changed the process quite a lot to get the texture just right (they were like raw dough balls before!) Now, I am very happy with this recipe and am so glad I returned to it - these things taste incredible - packed with flavour, crispy on the outside and soft inside... So good, in fact, my husband boldly claimed that these are the best savoury things I've ever made! I think I have to agree with him :-)

For the dipping sauce, the old post just called for store bought plum sauce and I thought I could probably do a bit better than that now :-) Apricots actually go really well with mushrooms and I just happened to have a jar of apricot jam in the fridge not doing anything so I thought about making a plum-style sauce but apricot flavoured instead. I found a recipe for plum sauce that called for plum jam and based this one on that. 

OMG - I can safely say that I will never buy plum sauce or even Thai Sweet Chilli Sauce again. It is incredible: sweet and spicy with a good flavouring of ginger - it is the perfect accompaniment to these balls and best of all - incredibly easy and only takes 10 minutes to make.

Recipe Notes

• If you can't find white rice flour you can use cornstarch (cornflour in the UK/Eire) but I do find the rice flour gives both a better texture and taste.

• I did try baking these as well as I know a lot of people are not keen on deep frying and basically, I can't recommend it. A lot of the breadcrumbs fall off, they don't get that crisp shell which is so important and the filling goes a bit chewy. Just fry them and enjoy these at their best! Fried they have 53 calories each and 3.2g of fat. Baked they have 38 calories each and 1.5g of fat. Really, it's not so much to worry about! Treat yourself :-)

Vietnamese Mushroom Balls:

1 Tbsp peanut oil
200g mushrooms, diced small
1/2 carrot, diced small
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/2 inch cube ginger, peeled and finely chopped
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 fresh hot red chilli, de-seeded and finely chopped
1/2 tsp sweet freedom syrup (or light agave)
6-7 grinds of fresh black pepper
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup white rice flour
30g breadcrumbs or panko
~a little more peanut oil to coat the balls
~vegetable oil to fry

Heat the peanut oil in a wok. Add the mushrooms carrot, salt and pepper and fry until cooked and any liquid is gone. Add the garlic, ginger and chili and fry a few minutes more, until fragrant. Add the soy sauce and syrup and fry until most the liquid is gone, it’ll be wet looking but you don’t want any pools of liquid. 

Transfer to bowl and refrigerate until cool, about 1 hour. Remove from the fridge and sprinkle over the rice flour, toss with a fork until everything has a coating of flour.

Have a little bowl of peanut oil ready. The best way to make the balls and ensure they stick together is to press the mixture into a tablespoon (a measuring tablespoon, not a cutlery tablespoon) once it's pressed in, scoop it out then take some of the peanut oil to grease your hands and press and shape into a ball, ensuring that the ball is coated lightly in the peanut oil (this will help ensure the breadcrumbs stick). Repeat until all the mixture is used up - you should get 12 balls. 

Note: photo is from when I made a half recipe, hence only 6 :-)

Wash and dry hands then roll each ball into the breadcrumbs, pressing the crumbs lightly into the ball. Repeat until all the balls are coated.

Heat a pot of vegetable oil to 350F. I use a large pot and about 1 litre of oil, make sure the oil is only about halfway up the pot. Carefully lower 6 of the balls into the oil and fry until crisp and deeply golden brown – this should only take a few minutes maximum. With a deep fry safe slotted spoon, scoop them out and place in a paper towel lines bowl to drain. Repeat with the other 6 balls. Let cool slightly and serve with the Apricot-Ginger dipping sauce.

Apricot-Ginger Dipping Sauce:

113g apricot jam (¼ cup + 1 Tbsp)
½ Tbsp rice wine vinegar
¾ tsp dark brown sugar, packed
1/8 tsp red pepper flakes
1 clove garlic, minced
½ teaspoon finely grated ginger
2 Tbsp water

Place everything into a small saucepan and slowly bring to a boil, whisking all the while until smooth. Once it just comes to a boil, turn off the heat. If you want the sauce right away then transfer the sauce to a bowl and place the bowl into another bowl of ice water (with ice cubes) to cool quickly. Give it a whisk now and again while cooling to keep it smooth and even. Serve at room temperature or chilled, cover and refrigerate leftovers. After chilling you may have to add a splash of water if it's gone a bit too thick.

♥

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Creamy Almond Feta, Tomato and Basil Shells

Well, after the Baby Spinach Salad with Sage Roasted Sweet Potato, Walnuts and Almond Feta recipe consider this part 2 of things to make with leftover almond feta!

I actually have a LOT of really simple, easy pasta recipes that I make quite often but are not on the blog...I guess I always think that they are far too simple to publish, but now, I've decided that's crazy - I mean who doesn't like an easy recipe?!?

This one in particular, is one of my favourites - I will almost always whip this up whenever I have some of the almond feta in the fridge.  It involves minimal chopping, only uses one pot, the sauce is made while the pasta cooks and is absolutely wonderful :-)

Creamy Almond Feta, Tomato and Basil Shells

(serves 1)

• 75g shells

• 1 large clove garlic

• 2 medium tomatoes, cored and chopped

• 1-2 Tbsp chopped fresh basil

• about 30g almond feta

• salt and pepper to taste*

* I love to use ¼ tsp of Spike seasoning in this dish instead of salt - I believe you can only buy it in North America, I brought some home last time I was in Canada. It's a seasoned herbal salt and just goes perfectly with tomatoes! If you have some, do try it in this, if not regular salt will be just fine :-)

Bring 1 litre of water to the boil with 2 teaspoons of salt. Add the shells, stir and boil according to package instructions.

Meanwhile, add the chopped tomatoes and garlic to a mortar and pestle and pound them until them are all mushed up. Add the basil and seasoning and give it another mix.

Drain the pasta well and return to the pot. Add the tomato, garlic and basil mixture and simmer on low heat until it's less watery, stirring all the while - you don't want ALL the liquid gone but it should reduce a little bit. Crumble in the almond feta now and stir until it's all mixed in and creamy. Taste and season as need be.

♥

Nutritional Information:

Calories: 437

Protein: 14.9g

Fat: 14.5g

Sat Fat: 1.6g

Fibre: 5.8g

Carbs: 63.9g

Sugar: 7.3g

Sodium: 537mg

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Baby Spinach Salad with Sage Roasted Sweet Potato, Walnuts and Almond Feta

So, I had some ingredients leftover from Easter dinner, for those who don't know I always make the Eggplant Rollatini with Marinara Sauce over Spaghetti from Veganomicon. Such an amazing meal - there are some photos from last year on the now defunct daily blog. I do make a few changes to the recipe in the cookbook though - mainly I fill the rollatini with basil almond feta and use my own vegan parmesan recipe in the breading mixture. In the end I had a big bag of spinach and half a recipe of the almond feta in the fridge so came up with this salad for dinner the next day.

This is really another variation of a couple salads I already have on the blog: the Roasted Sweet Potato and Pecan Salad with Mixed Leaf and Beetroot and a Maple Balsamic Dressing AND the Warm Roasted Butternut Squash and Pecan Salad but still unique in it's own right and absolutely delicious! 

This was also inspired by someone on twitter who contacted me saying they made a dish using roasted sweet potato, sage and the almond feta (possibly walnuts too but I don't think it was a salad). Unfortunately I can't find the tweet as it was so long ago so I can't give credit or thanks - if it was you let me know! 

The flavours of sweet potato, sage and walnuts go so well with the almond feta and while I was debating what kind of dressing to put with this it dawned on me that with all those strong flavours all this salad really needed to finish it off was a simple drizzle of good quality extra virgin olive oil. Perfect.

Baby Spinach Salad with Roasted Sweet Potato, Sage, Walnuts and Almond Feta
(serves 1 as a main dish)

• Good handful of baby spinach leaves
• 1 small sweet potato, peeled, about 130g prepared weight
• ½ Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp dried sage
• 5 grinds of black pepper
• 20g unsalted walnuts, roughly chopped
• about 30g Almond Feta, crumbled
• extra olive oil to drizzle
• fresh chives, snipped

Preheat the oven to 200C. Chop the peeled sweet potato into medium size dice and place in a small roasting tin. Whisk together the olive oil, sage, salt and pepper. Drizzle this over the sweet potato then toss with your hands until the potato is all coated in oil. Roast in the oven for 20 minutes, tossing the potato a couple of times. Add the chopped walnuts, give it a stir and pop it back in the oven for another 5 minutes. Remove from the oven and set aside.

Toss the spinach with a small drizzle of olive oil and place on a plate. Top with the warm sage roasted sweet potato and walnuts, crumble over the almond feta then give it a good drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Snip over some fresh chives and enjoy :-)

♥

Nutritional Information: 

Calories: 509

Protein: 9.4g

Fat: 40.4g

Sat Fat: 4.6g

Fibre: 7.4g

Carbs: 32.4g

Sugar: 6.4g

Fibre: 7.4g

Sodium: 723mg

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Asian Style Soy Mince and Avocado Wrap with Spicy Peanut Sauce

So, this has become an absolute favourite wrap for my husband and me. I first made it with store bought frozen soy mince then when I couldn't buy it anymore, with my own homemade soy mince (in photo). Both versions are equally as good.

Garlic, ginger and soy mince are fried with a splash of soy sauce, tossed with spring onions and placed in a large wrap with shredded iceberg lettuce, avocado slices sprinkled with lime juice and topped with a good drizzle of delicious sriracha peanut sauce. 

Seriously one of my new favourite wraps!

Asian Style Soy Mince and Avocado Wrap with Spicy Peanut Sauce:

Makes 2 wraps.

Filling:
1 tsp peanut oil
1 fat clove of garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp finely chopped fresh ginger
Freshly ground black pepper – 4 grinds
100g frozen soy mince
50ml water – omit if using my homemade mince
1 tsp soy sauce
2 spring onions, chopped

Sauce:
1 Tbsp creamy peanut butter
1 Tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp sriracha 
1 tsp water

Plus:
1 avocado, sliced
Fresh lime juice
Shredded iceberg lettuce
2 x large wraps

Make the sauce by whisking everything together until smooth. Set aside. 

Heat the peanut oil in a large skillet then add the garlic, ginger and black pepper. Fry for a couple of minutes on a gentle heat until fragrant. Add the frozen soy mince and the water (if using store bought mince) and fry until the mince is cooked and all the water is gone. Stir in the soy sauce and fry a minute more then stir in the spring onion, give it a good stir then turn off the heat.

Slice the avocado, place in a bowl and sprinkle generously with fresh lime juice, toss well. 

Heat a large wrap in a dry frying pan until just warmed and pliable, transfer to a plate then top with a good handful of shredded lettuce. Top with half the soy mince mixture, half the avocado slices and drizzle over some of the sauce. 

Wrap up burrito style, cut in half on the diagonal and eat!

♥

Nutritional Information: based on 1 wrap

Calories: 398

Protein: 17.4g

Fat: 16g

Sat Fat: 3.3g

Fibre: 9.2g

Carbs: 42.9g

Sugar: 5.4g

Sodium: 726mg

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Homemade Frozen Soya Mince

So I was puzzled as to what to call this recipe. I've always found it confusing that the dry soy mince you see in the picture there is called the same as the bags of cooked and seasoned frozen soy mince you can buy....so just to be clear, this is a recipe for those frozen, cooked and seasoned bags of soy mince, not on how to make dried soy mince granules :-) Also, is it soy or soya?? I've never known and use both interchangeably here, gah - confusion!
*Update - The dry soy mince that I've used to make this (the bag you see in the photo there) is also known as TVP or textured vegetable protein in the US.

Anyway, I came up with this recipe out of necessity as I cannot seem to buy the frozen soy mince here in Ireland anymore :-(  My favourite was always Tesco's own label soy mince as I felt it had the best texture but I can't even find Linda McCartney's anymore. 

Since I have quite a few recipes that call for frozen soy mince: goulash, stuffed jumbo pasta shell lasagna, chimichangas, burritos and enchiladas, chilli and rice, wontons, gyoza, oven baked mini wonton rolls, grilled cheeseburger wrap and most importantly our traditional Christmas dinner main dish of Tourtiere, I committed myself to creating a recipe to replace it.

I had a look at the ingredients for Linda McCartney's Mince and basically just based this on that. The onion and garlic are basic flavourings here, the malt extract, a sweet syrup, was also in hers and adds a sweetness which is important as dried soy mince can have a slight bitterness, then I've tried to create "meaty" flavours with the soy sauce, Worcester sauce and mushroom stock.

Altogether, I am SO happy with this recipe that even if I could buy the store bought stuff again, I wouldn't. I have so far used my homemade version in my recipes for the goulash, burritos, enchiladas, the grilled cheeseburger wrap and a new favourite wrap which will be blogged next, and I haven't been able to tell the difference. Further bonus - my son, who was never too keen on the store bought soy mince, LOVES my version! 

You can use mine as you would the store bought stuff, the only difference I have found is that my version doesn't need as much water added (if any) while cooking. For example, in my goulash I would add half a can of water when I added the frozen soy mince and with this mince, I don't need it.

Homemade Frozen Soy Mince:

1¼ cups dried soy mince/ TVP (100g)
1 x Kallo mushroom stock cube
450ml water
1 tsp each: soy sauce, vegan Worcester sauce and malt extract
½ tsp each: garlic and onion granules (powder is fine too)

Measure the soy mince into a bowl.

 In a small saucepan add everything else. Whisk while bringing to a boil. 

Pour over the soy mince, cover and let sit for 5 – 10 minutes or until liquid is absorbed. Fluff it with a fork.

Spread out onto a large plate or paper lined baking sheet (whatever will fit in your freezer) cool to room temperature then place in the freezer. 

Every half hour or so, remove from the freezer and crumble and separate the granules with your hands so you don't end up with a large frozen sheet of mince. I first use a spatula to life the mince off the tray then crumble it with my hands. Return to the freezer. When the mince is completely frozen and separated, transfer to a freezer bag and keep in the freezer.

Recipe makes 470 grams of soy mince.

Use from frozen, as you would store bought frozen soy mince. Mine has always been eaten up within a month of making it but I imagine it should keep in the freezer fine for 6 months or so :-)

♥

Nutritional Information: based on 100g

Calories: 100

Protein: 13g

Fat: 0g

Sat Fat: 0g

Fibre: 4.3g

Carbs: 9g

Sugar: 4.1g

Sodium: 507mg

Singapore Noodles

This has become one of our favourite stir fries lately, it just has wonderful flavour with curry, garlic, spring onion, spicy chilli, ginger and tamari; loads of crisp vegetables with green beans, red pepper, carrot, sweetheart cabbage and shiitake mushrooms and your protein coming from both chickpeas and a turmeric and toasted sesame oil tofu scramble all mixed in with rice vermicelli noodles. Yum!

I've based it on Felicity Cloake's recipe, featured in her Guardian article on How to make perfect Singapore Noodles. I opted to keep most of the vegetables the same but added some thinly sliced carrot and omitted the peas and water chestnuts; kept the flavourings the same and obviously had to completely change the protein aspects!

Here, I opted to add chickpeas as they go perfectly with curry flavours and swapped the egg with a scrambled tofu flavoured like in my egg fried rice (coincidentally, also based on a Felicity Cloake recipe!) For the 'egg', a soft tofu is scrambled with turmeric, toasted sesame oil and some salt and pepper. This is then tossed in at the end of stir frying. As a result you just get small specks of tofu egg throughout the stir fry, with some larger pieces, which I think is nice.

Recipe Notes

The "mystery" chilli I used :-)

♥ Original recipe called for a green bird's eye chilli, every time I have made this I've used a mystery yellow chilli and have found the heat level perfect. It came in a bag of mixed chillies and described as having a 'medium' heat. Bird's eye would be hotter than what I used, so just use what you can take! I also de-seeded mine.

♥ I had wanted to add Chinese cabbage but had trouble finding it so I used sweetheart cabbage, simply because I love the mild taste of it. Again, you can use any cabbage you like here.

♥ Any of the vegetables can be swapped with your favourites but try and keep the quantities the same.

♥ I love the subtle coconut flavour which comes from the coconut oil here but you can swap that with peanut oil if you prefer.

♥ Original recipe stated that this serves 2 but I would find that quite excessive! We get 3 comfortable servings out of this...but hey, if your starving, go for it!
♥ For gluten free, use tamari in place of soy sauce and a dry sherry in place of the Shaoxing Rice Wine which I understand is hardly ever gluten free. Please also double check your ingredients for things like the rice noodles and curry powder as your products may differ from mine. Also - Harvey's Bristol Cream Sherry is vegan as far as I know but you'll have to check any other brand. 

 Singapore Noodles

• 150g rice vermicelli noodles (dry weight)
• 1 Tbsp extra virgin unrefined coconut oil
• 2½ tsp mild curry powder
• 1 Tbsp finely chopped garlic, about 2 large cloves
• 1 Tbsp finely chopped fresh ginger
• 1 finely chopped chilli - see notes above 
• 2 spring onions, sliced thin on the diagonal, white and green parts
• ½ red pepper, sliced thin (about 100g)
• ½ carrot, sliced into matchsticks
• 100g fresh or frozen green beans
• 100g sweetheart cabbage, sliced (about 2 cups)
• 100g fresh shiitake mushrooms, sliced
• ½ cup/ 88g chickpeas, from a tin - drained and rinsed
• 3 Tbsp soy sauce (use tamari for gluten free version)
• 2 Tbsp Shaoxing rice wine (use dry sherry for gluten free *see recipe notes above)
• 1/8 tsp sugar
For the "egg":
• 100g soft tofu, not silken
• ½ tsp turmeric
• 2 tsp toasted sesame oil
• 1/8 tsp salt
• some freshly ground black pepper

As with all stir fries, you'll want to get everything chopped and measured and ready to go before you start cooking!

First, soften the noodles: bring a pot of water to the boil, add the rice noodles, cover then turn off the heat and let them sit for 2 minutes. Drain, rinse them with some hot water and set aside to drain. Give them a toss now and again to stop them sticking together.

Next, make the tofu scramble: Crumble the soft tofu into a dry frying pan and add the turmeric, sesame oil and salt and pepper. Turn the heat on to medium and fry, stirring the mixture until well mixed and heated throughout - about 5 minutes. Set aside.

Prep all the vegetables and seasoning's, measure out the chickpeas and mix together the tamari or soy sauce, rice wine and sugar.

To Cook: Heat the coconut oil in a large wok until very hot. Tip in the garlic, ginger, chilli, curry powder and spring onion and stir fry for about 30 seconds (the smell at this point is gorgeous!!)

Now add all the vegetables and chickpeas and stir fry until well mixed. After a couple of minutes I sometimes add a tablespoon or two of hot water if I find the curry powder sticking to the wok - it all depends on how much water comes out of the veg. 

When the veg has softened and in particular the cabbage is wilted, then add the tamari/soy sauce, rice wine and sugar. Give it a good stir then add the rice noodles. I like to turn the heat down to low at this point and stir fry until everything is well mixed and there is no more liquid. Now, stir in the tofu scramble until well distributed.

Serve immediately! This is really lovely with a light refreshing lager like Cobra, Tiger or Asahi :-)

 ♥

Nutritional Information: based on 1 serving out of 3

Calories: 386

Fat: 10.4g

Sat Fat: 4.9g

Protein: 12.7g

Fibre: 7.7g

Carbs: 59.6g

Sugar: 5.5g

Sodium: 1033mg

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Spaghetti and Meatball Cake

Hello again!! I know, it's been ages...it started off with me just taking a break from blogging and ended up with me having a myriad of health issues - not all of which lupus related. Basically, January and February in particularly were the worst ever and again I apologise to all who tried to get in touch with me during that time but hopefully you can understand. I'm still not 100% - still a lot of tests and investigations to do and I'm still not sure I'm back to blogging for good but I thought I should touch base at least, especially with such a fun post as this one!

It was my son's 12th birthday recently and those of you who have been following the blog for awhile know that I like to make him a novelty cake or at least a special cake of some description. There has been the Veggie Burger Cake, Minecraft Cake, 10 Layer Chocolate Orange Cake and the Double Chocolate Mousse Layer Cake.

I've seen these spaghetti and meatball cakes around and thought they just looked so fantastic and really, they are so simple! Just cake, piped buttercream frosting, some chocolate Kahlua cake balls and raspberry coulis for a tomato sauce. What I really love about them is that they don't call for any fondant frosting. Fondant is wonderful for creating really creative and accurate looking cakes but lets face it, the stuff tastes gross. When we were eating the Minecraft Cake we flicked off all the tiles :-) This is just all luscious vanilla buttercream frosting - yay! I should also add that although it looks like it's covered in a shed load of frosting, it's really not:

Taste wise, this cake is amazing, that combo of deep chocolate cake, fluffy vanilla buttercream and punchy raspberry coulis is just gorgeous! This is definitely a cake I would make again, even just plain and without the novelty factor ;-) 

Now, I'm afraid that I was still in a "not blogging" zone when I made this so failed to get any how to pictures. Sorry. But it's really such an easy cake you shouldn't need any. I'll post the recipes I used for the cake and frosting but really you can use any chocolate cake and vanilla frosting recipe here :-)

Spaghetti and Meatball Cake

For the Chocolate Cake(s):

• 375g plain flour

• 300g caster sugar

• 1 tsp salt

• 2 tsp baking soda

• 60g unsweetened cocoa powder

• 3 tsp vanilla extract

• 160ml vegetable oil

• 2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

• 480ml cold water

optional - a few drops of vegan friendly red food colouring added to the water.

First a word on the bowl I baked this in. I thought this would look most effective baked right into a pasta bowl and thankfully my Denby dishes are oven safe. I have even baked a cake in these before as it's the bowl I used to make the burger top on the Veggie Burger Cake! It's 8.5" wide at the top and 1.5" deep (5.5" wide at the base). If you don't have an oven safe pasta bowl a pie dish would work as it has slanted sides, if not, others have just made this in an 8" cake pan - just have a google search to see.

Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F. Grease and flour the pasta bowl AND an 8" cake pan. (One cake will be your spaghetti and meatball cake, the other you will use to make the meatballs.) 

Combine all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Whisk together all the liquid ingredients in a separate bowl. I did add a few drops of red colour here as I thought it would help make the cake balls look a little more "meaty" but it's entirely optional.

Make a well in the dry ingredients and add the liquid, whisk until it all just comes together and there is no more flour showing. Pour into the pasta bowl almost full - about 3/4 then pour the rest into the 8" cake pan. Pop into the preheated oven and bake for about 30 - 45 minutes. I found that the 8" cake was ready after about 30 minutes but the pasta bowl cake took about 45 minutes. Just keep checking with a toothpick - it should come out clean with no batter stuck to it.

Once cooked, remove from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool - leave them in the bowl and tin.

For the Meatballs:

• the 8" cake you baked earlier

• about 2 tsp Kahlua (you can also use apple juice)

• you will also need a food processor

Crumble half of the cake baked into the 8" cake pan into a food processor and process until it's fine crumbs. Sprinkle on the Kahlua and process again. Test the mixture by pressing some between your fingers, if it sticks together it's ready, if not, sprinkle a bit more Kahlua on and process again.

Tip the mixture into a bowl and squish and roll into meatballs, whatever size you like, and set them aside on a plate. How many you like is up to you - lots of little meatballs or just a few large ones, either would look good.

Crumble the other half of the cake into the food processor and also process into fine crumbs. Tip this into a shallow bowl.

Take a cake ball and dampen it with water, now roll it into the cake crumbs so that they stick to the cake ball. It's the crumbs that make it look more like meat in texture. Plus, the chocolate cake mixture goes almost black when rolled into balls and the crumb coating is a better colouring. Once they are all made just set aside and make the frosting. Note: there will be leftover cake crumbs.

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting:

• 185g vegan butter

• 2 1/2 cups icing sugar

• 2 Tbsp dairy free milk

• 1 tsp vanilla extract, the regular dark brown vanilla helps the pasta colouring here. Don't use a clear vanilla extract.

• a few drops vegan yellow food colouring, preferably a paste

Place the butter in a large bowl and soften, add some of the icing sugar and mix well. Add the vanilla and mix well then the rest of the icing sugar with the milk when needed until you have a thick and creamy frosting. Now add a tiny amount of yellow food colouring, I used a paste as I prefer how they don't upset the consistency of the frosting. Just make sure you add a tiny bit at a time as you don't need much. Actually, depending on how yellow your vegan butter is, you may not need any. Just go by how "pasta-ey" the frosting is looking.

Note: you won't need all the frosting but it's best to have more, particularly if you do want to pile it on, then you won't run out and be left with trying to get the colour the same in the next batch.

Buttercream recipe source: foodequalshappyme.com.

Assembly:

• raspberry coulis*

• vegan white chocolate or fine desiccated coconut

First, frost the top of the cake with a thin layer of the buttercream.

Place the meatballs on top of the cake using toothpicks to hold them into place. I placed the toothpick where I wanted a meatball, then skewered the meatball on top.

Spoon the frosting into a large piping bag fitted with a small rope tip (whatever size looks like spaghetti to you) and pipe all over the cake and around the meatballs until there are no gaps anywhere and it looks like a big bowl of spaghetti :-)

Now place the cake in the fridge - this is important to keep the frosting firm - you don't want it getting soft and losing it's shape. Also make sure you don't have anything smelly like open onions in your fridge as the cake will absorb the flavours!

Just before serving, spoon over some raspberry coulis, especially over the meatballs and around the top of the cake then grate some vegan white chocolate over top to look like parmesan cheese. If you can't find this some fine desiccated coconut would work too.
Tip: refrigerate the white chocolate before hand to make it easier to grate.

* For the raspberry coulis, I actually decided I had enough to do on my son's birthday as I was also making several pizza's by scratch  SO I cheated and bought a store made raspberry coulis. I am so glad I did though as it was absolutely gorgeous!! For those of you in the UK and Ireland it was Tesco's Finest Raspberry Sauce and I just ran it through a fine sieve to get rid of the seeds, then added a tiny bit of vegan red food colour paste to deepen the colour a bit (but that's really not essential). My only qualm with it is that it was quite thin in texture, it would have looked better if the sauce was thicker as most of mine trickled down below the "spaghetti". That being said, it tasted so good I didn't mind!

•To make your own, this recipe for raspberry coulis looks very good: http://foodequalshappyme.com/2013/08/11/spaghetti-meatballs-cake/ This is also where I got the buttercream recipe from, I wanted to make sure it was a frosting recipe that would be firm enough to hold it's shape as "spaghetti" and yet be soft enough to pipe with such a small tip.

♥

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