Sticky Lime and Chilli Tofu - two ways

Oven grilled with broccoli rice.

Pan griddled with steamed broccoli and pad thai noodles.

Hurrah! After five posts of excessive sweets I finally post a savoury dish!! I really don't live off cake and cookies, I swear.... Saw this recipe on BBC Good Food ages ago, it was featured with chicken but I thought the flavours would suit tofu really well for a simple replacement. It's also dead easy, using bottled thai sweet chilli sauce, and easy is what I need right now as I am still, yes still, trying to get over this cold!

Initially I made it with the noodles and despite the recipe stating to oven grill, I pan griddled. As you can see it didn't get as 'sticky' as the oven grilled version and I really don't recommend it this way. It did go nice with the noodles but afterwards I realized it was all way too similar to a dish I've already posted .

So today I thought I would make it with rice and to oven grill the tofu. Again, oven grilling is the way to go (although you'll need to have a chair ready under your fire alarm!) As you can see it got better cooked and nice and sticky like it should be. For the rice, I intended to have nice bright green florets of broccoli stir fried in like with the noodles but decided to boil the broccoli with the rice and clearly over did it! At first I was disappointed as it wouldn't look as good but it was actually really yummy that way and I would do it again this way.

I'm not too sure what quantities to give here, when I made it with noodles I made a lot (too much for me although I did shamefully manage to eat it all). With the rice I cut everything in half and found that to be a much nicer amount. I'll give the smaller amount here, just double as your appetite desires! Serves 1:

Rice version: (my preferred)
63g firm fresh tofu (that's 1/4 pack of cauldron tofu for those in uk)
50g thai rice (raw weight)
50g broccoli florets
1/4 tsp soy sauce
1/2 Tbsp thai sweet chilli sauce
1/2 lime, zest and juice (you want about 10ml juice)
1/2 tsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp peanut oil

After pressing your tofu and cutting into 4 thin triangles, mix together the 1/4 tsp soy sauce, lime zest, thai sweet chilli sauce and half the lime juice. Pour over the tofu and marinade, turning over now and again. I didn't time this, 15 - 30 minutes I guess. Put some salted water on for the rice and cook according to package directions. When there is 5 minutes left add the broccoli, add this later if you want them whole, but I did like it cooked down like in the picture. Meanwhile, lightly grease a baking sheet with some extra peanut oil and place the tofu on. Grill under a hot grill until golden and charred around the edges, flip over, brush with more marinade and grill again.

When rice is done, drain and add back to the pot with the other half of lime juice, 1/2 tsp soy sauce and the peanut oil. Stir gently over low heat till well mixed. Tip this onto a plate then top with the grilled tofu, brushing a bit more marinade over top.

Noodle version:

I would follow the steps for the tofu above as it was much better grilled, then just replace the rice with 100g straight to wok noodles of your choice, still tossing them with the lime, soy and peanut oil mixture.

** Just a note, if you do have a big appetite and double this, 1 serving gives you 428.6mg of calcium, 31g of protein and 6.4g of fibre!**

Based on the recipe here .

Veggie Burger Cake!!!

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So it was Finn's 7th birthday on Wednesday and what does a veggie kid ask for his birthday cake? Well, a burger cake of course!! Naturally I had to make ours a 'veggie' burger cake, and I am so pleased how it turned out, as was Finn. I didn't think I would be able to make it at all considering I woke up the day before his birthday battling flu and a very bad sinus infection. But he was sooo looking forward to this cake so I drugged myself up and slowly went to work on it (the other mom's out there will understand!)

I decided to just use the good old wacky cake recipe for all of this. I have made the chocolate wacky cake many times and it always turns out well but I haven't tried it plain which I needed for the bun layers. I just omitted the cocoa and added a bit more flour, increased the vanilla and added some almond extract. It tastes great but the texture isn't as nice as the chocolate for some reason. Then I just made the regular chocolate wacky cake for the soy patty!

The 'mayo' is vanilla buttercream as is the mustard with yellow food colouring. The lettuce, tomato and cheese are made from ready coloured ready to roll fondant and the onion rings from plain fondant. Then I iced the bun in vegan cupcakes take over the world's peanut butter frosting - perfect colour and the taste goes very well with this.

Makes 1 mahoosive burger cake!

Bun Layers:
436g (3 1/2cups) plain flour
300g caster sugar (1 1/2 cups)
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
3 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
160ml (2/3 cups) vegetable oil
2 Tbsp white vinegar
475ml (2 cups) cold water

Preheat oven to 180C (350F). Grease and line one 8" cake pan with baking paper on the bottom. You will also need a bowl that looks like a bun that will fit whatever size cake pan you use. I was very lucky in that my pasta bowls which are oven safe fit over the cake pan with the sides coming down like a bun so used that. Whatever you use grease and flour it as it will be too awkward a shape to line with paper.

Combine all dry ingredients and wet ingredients and keep separate. Make a well into the dry and add the wet stirring until just combined. Pour into the prepared pans making as even as possible.
Bake for 30 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let cool in pans on rack. When time to remove, first cut off any domes with a serrated knife and then run a knife along the edges and turn out onto rack. Remove any paper.

Soy Patty Layer:
188g (1 1/2 cups) plain flour
150g (3/4 cup) caster sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
30g (1/4 cup) unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
80ml (1/3 cup) vegetable oil
1 Tbsp white vinegar
1 cup cold water

Grease and line the bottom of another 8" cake pan then follow the directions for the bun layers.

Vanilla Buttercream (for the mayo):
1/2 cup vegetable fat (shortening)
1/2 cup vegan margarine
3 1/2 cups icing sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 Tbsp - 4 Tbsp rice milk (or other)

Beat the fats together then slowly add the icing sugar and vanilla, add some milk as needed to get a good spreadable frosting. You won't need all of this, it makes extra for the mustard and if you wanted to add ketchup too.

Peanut Buttercream:
1/4 cup vegan margarine
2 Tbsp vegetable fat (shortening)
1/3 cup creamy peanut butter (not the natural type, sorry!)
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups icing sugar
1 - 2 Tbsp rice milk (or other)

Beat the fats together until smooth then slowly start adding the icing sugar and vanilla. Add milk as needed till you get a smooth spreadable frosting.

Assembly:

ready coloured fondant
**2010 Edit - I went to go buy this again to make Finn another 'fun' cake for his 8th birthday and the brand here in the UK has now changed companies and is not only no longer vegan friendly but not even vegetarian! You can still make this vegan though by buying read made white fondant and colouring it yourself with vegan colours.

-risotto rice
-toothpick

When the cakes are cool and you have sliced the domes off, take the bottom bun layer and place on a serving plate. Top with a generous amount of vanilla buttercream for the mayo. Top this with the chocolate cake.

For the 'cheese' I kneaded together some yellow and red coloured fondant then rolled out thin. I didn't want the fondant to cover the whole cake as it would be too much so I rolled it out to a square then cut that into 4 even sized triangles. I then placed these over the cake to look like it's just melting.

For the lettuce, I just rolled out some green already coloured fondant, cut it into strips then placed it along the edges folding it as I went.

For the tomatoes, I rolled out some red already coloured fondant and cut out circles with a cookie cutter, placed them over the lettuce, again, just along the edges.

For the onion rings, I just made them out of plain fondant and placed them over the tomatoes.

Now, as all of this is just along the edge it will be higher than the centre so I filled this with more vanilla buttercream until it's even:


Next, I added quite a lot of yellow food colouring to the remaining buttercream, you'll need to add more icing sugar to thicken it up, put it into a piping bag with a small plain tip and pipe your mustard along the edges. Now, the bun goes on top, spread it with the peanut butter frosting and I topped the bun with raw risotto rice. Real sesame seeds would have been too small and these gave the shape and look of sesame seeds but at a size better suited to the bun! Just make sure of course you remove them before eating. Although I was thinking pine nuts would have a similar shape too, although maybe a bit too big. I also made a little pickle with some leftover green fondant and placed that on top with a toothpick.

Then it's ready to serve! As it's so big you'll get a ton of servings out of this, I haven't even counted, it's so high though make sure you cut the slices pretty thin or else it'll be sugar overload ;-)

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Chocolate Chip Cookies

My absolute favourite basic chocolate chip cookie recipe, these always turn out wonderful and can even take a lot of substitutions. I have often made these with 140g or 2/3 cups golden caster sugar in place of the white and brown sugar and have even just used full granulated sugar - they still turn out fantastic. I have also made these with about 4 different brands of vegan butters and they will yield different results, some give you thinner and crisper cookies like in the photo, others thicker, soft and fluffier cookies. They all taste fantastic though :-)

Chocolate Chip Cookies
makes about 18

180g vegan margarine (3/4 cup)
70g caster sugar (1/3 cup)
70g light muscovado sugar (1/3 cup)
1 tsp vanilla
200g plain flour (1 1/2 level cups)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
100g dark chocolate chips or chopped (2/3 cups)

Preheat oven to 180C. Beat the margarine, sugars and vanilla until light and fluffy. Mix flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda together in a separate bowl. Stir dry into the sugar mixture with a wooden spoon, until well blended then stir in chocolate chips. Drop with a tablespoon onto baking paper lined baking sheets and bake for 12- 15 minutes. They should be golden, particularly along the edges. Let cool on sheets for a few minutes to firm up then carefully transfer to a wire rack to cool. Now get the coffee on....

Source: Loosely based on a Canadian Living recipe.

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French Fancies - Revisited

The pink ones are plain, the yellow (which I should have added more colour too) are lemon flavoured and the chocolate ones are, well, chocolate of course!

These 6 are thinly covered in marzipan for a smoother finish.

These 6 have no marzipan underneath, the fondant was poured right over the icing blob and cake. (edit - these were actually the best!)

I know I have blogged these before but I wanted to try them again doing more or less everything from scratch. Last time I used a cake mix and ready rolled fondant, they tasted great but the fondant wasn't right, too soft as I didn't use a 'pourable' fondant. I wanted to completely make my own but the recipe I wanted to use requires a candy thermometer which I am having trouble finding. So for these I made my own cake, kept the buttercream and jam the same but bought a box of fondant icing sugar that you add water to until 'pourable' with whatever flavours and colours you like.

They turned out very good, the cake for some reason came out quite dark, it looks like I used wholemeal flour but I assured you I didn't - still tastes good. For some of the fancies I covered in very thinly rolled out marzipan, then poured the fondant over just to get a smoother finish (plus the marzipan tasted great in these, sort of french fancies meet battenburg!) For the rest I just poured the fondant straight over the icing blob and cake, these ones got a crisper fondant which is more accurate but don't look as pretty.

Makes about 20 fancies depending on how you cut them.

**Edit - I have now, finally, made a white sponge cake I am more than happy with. Recipe is in my White Chocolate Raspberry Mousse Cake post. I haven't used it yet to make these but I have no doubt it would turn out best as it actually comes out looking white! That being said, I'll leave this cake recipe up as well.**

Sponge Cake:
250ml rice or soy milk
1 tsp apple cyder vinegar
30g vegan margarine
140g caster sugar
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
200g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 180C and line an 11 x 7.5 x 1" jelly roll pan with baking paper - set aside. Combine the cyder vinegar and rice milk and set aside to get a little curdly. Beat together the margarine and sugar then add the oil and vanilla and beat well. In another bowl add all the dry ingredients and set aside. Alternately add the dry ingredients and the milk into the margarine mixture, stirring well after each addition but be careful not to overmix. Pour into the prepared pan and bake for about 18 - 20 minutes or until golden all over and feels firm to touch. Let cool fully in pan then carefully turn out and remove the paper.

Cut the cake slab in half, spread raspberry jam over one side then place the other half on top. Cut this into squares, however many or size you want.

Vanilla Buttercream:
2 Tbsp vegetable fat (shortening)
2 Tbsp vegan margarine
3/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp icing sugar
1/4 plus 1/8 tsp vanilla extract

Prepare the buttercream by simply whisking all the ingredients together until smooth, it will be slightly stiffer than the recipe for cupcakes as you want it to hold it's shape when the fondant goes on. Place frosting into a piping bag with a large straight circle tip and pipe little blobs on top of each cake. My previous post on these has step by step photos here .

Now, if you are going to add marzipan, I just very thinly rolled out some marzipan and placed over the whole cake, adding some more jam to the outside edges to help it stick. Also make sure you dust your surface and rolling pin with some icing sugar as it can be sticky. If you are not going to add it, some almond extract added to the pink fondant is very nice.

Fondant:
375g fondant icing sugar
6 Tbsp hot water
1/2 Tbsp cocoa powder
lemon juice
red food colour - check vegan
yellow food colour - check vegan
1/16 vanilla extract


For the fondant I mixed 125g fondant icing sugar with about 2 Tbsp hot water for each colour. The pink ones had some red food colouring added, the yellow ones had yellow colour and fresh lemon juice and the chocolate had 1/2 Tbsp cocoa powder and 1/16 vanilla extract added. Add more hot water or fondant icing sugar to get a spoonable, fairly thick frosting. Then, it's pretty messy, because of the icing blob on top I couldn't really dip these so I placed them on some baking paper and spooned over the fondant, making sure all the sides got covered. With some as I had the fondant too thin I had to cover 2 -3 times. When they are uniformly covered carefully lift off the paper with a butter knife and place on a plate and refrigerate until fully set.

The squiggles on top are more buttercream thinned out for the pink ones and just melted dark chocolate for the yellow and chocolate ones.

I definitely prefer this fondant to the last one, but strangely enough prefer the cake mix of last time to this one. I think all the chemicals in it make it more like the Mr. Kipling ones...oh the shame.... Anyway, they are very good and so cute - great for presenting if you have guests over.

Cinnamon Toast Shortbread Cookies

These were featured in the 2008 Canadian Living magazine holiday baking edition, which my mom sends me every year, and just looked soooo cute! I love cinnamon toast (which is simply a mixture of cinnamon and sugar sprinkled onto hot buttery toast, in case it's a uniquely North American thing) so just had to make these. The cookies themselves were already vegan as long as you replaced the butter with vegan margarine, no eggs even! They are very good too, I was surprised how little sugar went into the dough but it works, the icing counters that quite nicely.

I did change the icing recipe though. The original called for cooking butter until browned then mixing in the icing sugar, cinnamon and cream. I tried this with margarine but it turns out that margarine cooked this way ends up tasting like very old deep frying fat - it was not good, trust me! So I just whipped up a regular buttercream and added cinnamon to it - worked very well.

I can't find the recipe on their website so here it is, I'll post a cut in half version as the original made tons of cookies. Also, I ran out of plain flour so used self raising here, worked just fine.

Makes about 16 small cookies:

1/2 cup vegan margarine (110g)
1/4 cup sugar (50g)
2 Tbsp cornstarch (cornflour)
135g plain flour (that's half of 1 3/4 cups)

Beat margarine and sugar together until smooth. Stir in cornstarch until smooth, stir in flour. Roll into a 9" long log, wrap in cling film and chill for at least half an hour. Flatten 3 sides of the log, leaving one side rounded then using chopsticks or similar press indents into 2 opposing sides of the log. (This is the recipe authors complicated way of saying, make the log look like a loaf of bread.) Wrap again in cling film and chill for at least another half hour. Preheat oven to a low 140C, slice dough into generous 1/4" slices and place on a paper lined baking sheet. You will have to touch up the slices to make sure they look like toast again as slicing can make the shapes a little wonky. Place 2" apart on the sheet and bake for 30 minutes or until edges are lightly golden. Let cool on sheet for 5 minutes then transfer to a rack to fully cool.

Cinnamon Butter Cream:
3 Tbsp vegan margarine
2 cups icing sugar
1 - 2 Tbsp oat cream, or soy
1/8 tsp cinnamon, or more to taste
tiny pinch of salt

Whisk all together till smooth, add more cream or icing sugar until soft spreadable consistency.

Hot Cross Buns

** 2012 - Edit: Easter is fast approaching and I will be trying these again soon without the egg replacer as I no longer bake with it and I'm sure these will work just fine without :-) Stay tuned!

Success! For a new variation without egg replacer I've now made Apple and Cinnamon Pull Apart Hot Cross Buns with Maple Icing!

Now I know you can buy what appear to be vegan hot cross buns in the grocery stores but I'm very picky about mine. I hate peel. Can't stand the stuff in my baked goods, and I much prefer icing piped into the cross over dough strips. So, after being tempted by all the hot cross buns in the shops decided to make my own. I used, as my mom does, the recipe from the brilliant Purity Foods Cookbook, a 1960's Canadian cookbook with fantastic bread and baking recipes in it. It did call for 1 egg which I used egg replacer but I really don't think it would be missed in this. The recipe was supposed to make 18 but I made 12 underestimating how much bigger they would get during the second rise and baking. So I made rather huge hot cross buns, but worse things have happened! They are delicious too, only have raisins and spiced with cinnamon and cloves with just a hint of sweet icing on top. I further borrowed an idea elsewhere to get the nice shiny glaze on them by brushing them with warmed, sieved apricot jam - worked brilliantly as they did come out much duller than what you see.

Makes 18 (normal sized buns)
3/4 cup (180ml) dairy free milk, I used rice
1 Tbsp and 1 tsp sugar
1/2 cup warm water
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup vegan margarine (55g)
1/2 cup sugar (118g)
20g egg replacer (this is probably omitable)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 cup raisins (80g)
2 - 2 1/4 cups more flour
apricot jam
3/4 cup icing sugar
1 - 2 Tbsp oat cream or soy
1/4 tsp vanilla

Heat the milk until just about simmering, pour into a large bowl and add 1 Tbsp sugar, stir till dissolved and set aside to cool to lukewarm. Meanwhile dissolve 1 tsp sugar in 1/2 cup warm water and sprinkle over the yeast. Let stand for 10 minutes, it should get nice and bubbly. Add this to the milk mixture and stir. Add 1 1/2 cups of flour and whisk until very smooth (also add the egg replacer at this stage if using). Cover and let rise until light and bubbly in a warm place, about 45 minutes.

Cream together the margarine and sugar and add to the mixture with the salt, cinnamon, cloves, raisins and if using egg replacer about 50ml water. Then add another 2 - 2 1/4 cups flour working the last of it in with your hands. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead for about 5 minutes or until nice and elastic, adding more flour if needed. Shape into a smooth ball and place into a greased bowl. Cover with cling film and let rise until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour in a warm place.

Punch down the dough and turn onto a lightly floured surface, cut into 2 equal pieces and shape into smooth balls. Cover and let rest 10 minutes. Divide each ball of dough into 9 equal pieces and shape each into a slightly flattened bun. Arrange on lined baking sheets 2" apart. Cover and let rise until doubled in bulk, about 45 minutes. These last 2 risings do not have to be somewhere warm. Preheat the oven to 200C / 400F. Brush each bun with diary free milk then slash the tops with a cross. Bake for about 15 minutes or until golden and sound hollow when tapped.

Let cool on wire racks then whisk together the icing sugar, oat cream and vanilla. Place into piping bag and pipe over the crevices. Leave to set, although you can still ice and eat these when they are warm, the icing doesn't melt too much!

Lemony Artichoke, Mushroom and Pine Nut Spaghetti

Well I've not been doing much cooking lately, been fighting a nasty cold instead. We had tons of filling leftover from the valentines ravioli but was in no condition to make more so thought it would be nice just tossed with some spaghetti. Made a really nice, light, easy dinner although some black olives would have been nice in this. While I found this too lemony in the ravioli it suited spaghetti really well. Recipe is in the valentines post below, just spoon some filling mixture over cooked pasta and stir well, about two tablespoons per person and top with loads of black pepper - it counters the lemon taste really well. If using the filling fresh you probably won't need any more liquid but I was using it chilled from the fridge and did need to add a splash of pasta cooking water until creamy.

Valentine's Dinner

Artichoke Heart, Mushroom and Pine Nut filled Ravioli (heart shaped because vegans can be cheesy) with home made garlic bread.

Tiramisu Layer Cake

Decided to go with an Italian theme for Valentine's Dinner and try something with artichokes, as like the eggplant posts below, not something we have that often. I based the filling recipe on one I saw online but made quite a few changes. It was delicious even on it's own but way too lemony - so I will adjust that here and the pasta is the same recipe from my last ravioli post. It was very good as a filling but didn't really go with a tomato based sauce, both are quite acidic and the tomato flavour overpowered the more delicate flavours in the ravioli. It would be best kept simple, a 'cream' sauce or just some garlic olive oil drizzled over would be nice.

The 'tiramisu' isn't very traditional. I've seen recipes for vegan tiramisu's around but I'm really not that keen on vegan cream cheese except in Vegan Cupcakes take over the World's cream cheese frosting. So I thought I would try a standard vegan white cake, bake it twice to dry it out, soak it with a Kahlua and espresso mixture then frost it with the cream cheese frosting. I was worried this might get too sweet and rich, and, well - it is. It was delicious but has a bit too much frosting and not enough cake so I would adjust that next time. Also, due to it's richness it needs to be cut much smaller than the usual size square of tiramisu. Otherwise a success, just needs some tweaking.

Pasta recipe is here but half would do for 2 people.

Artichoke, Mushroom and Pine Nut filling:
88g mushrooms, sliced
50g shallots, chopped
100g marinated chargrilled artichoke hearts, chopped*
30g vegan margarine
4fl oz white wine
1 tsp olive oil
25g toasted pine nuts
1/2 tsp chopped fresh lemon thyme (or regular)
juice of 1/4 lemon
2 cloves garlic
1/8 tsp salt
black pepper

Fry the shallots in the oil until soft. Add the artichokes, mushrooms, garlic and salt and pepper. Fry until mushrooms are soft and it is dry. Deglaze with the white wine then add the margarine, lemon and thyme then season to taste. Cook over medium high heat and reduce till there is no more liquid. The margarine may separate a bit but that's ok. Tip all of this into a food processor with the pine nuts and whiz until smooth. Set aside.

Roll 1 segment of the dough out till very thin on a floured surface - set aside. Roll out another sheet about the same size. Using whatever cookie cutter you like gently mark the dough without cutting through. Spoon some of the mixture on this leaving the edges bare:


With your finger wet the plain edges of the ravioli with water then place the other sheet of dough over top making sure to get out all air bubbles before pressing down around the edges to seal:


Then using the same cutter you marked the dough with cut around the mound all the way through.


Set these aside on a floured plate then re-roll the scraps and continue. Boil 4 at a time for about 5 minutes (they will rise to the surface) in salted, slightly olive oiled water. How many you need for a main meal depends on the size of your cutter, these were quite large and 4 per person was sufficient (with the garlic bread).

*a lot of artichoke antipasti in jars have lactic acid, which may or may not be vegan. For those of you in the UK I used Waitrose cook ingredients Apulian grilled artichokes in olive oil. No lactic acid and marked 'vegan' on their website.

Garlic Bread:
I just used my previous recipe but used a par baked baguette, slice it diagonally (not all the way through) along the top of the entire baguette. Spread the 'butter' in between each slice and spread some more over the whole top, wrap it in foil and bake for 10 minutes in 200C oven. Unwrap the foil and baked again a few minutes more or until golden.

Tiramisu:
Sorry, but all recipes came from current cookbooks. Used 'My Sweet Vegan's' cake recipe from her green tea tiramisu, Vegan Cupcakes Take over the World's cream cheese frosting and soaking liquid from the tiramisu cupcakes. For the cake though, after cooking, cooling and slicing in half, I put them back in a very low oven (150C )for about an hour to dry out. I wanted them to get more ladyfinger like to soak up as much of the espresso/Kahlua mixture as possible. It worked really well, too well maybe as I could have done with more soaking mixture! Serve small as it's so rich, you could get 12 servings from an 8x8 inch pan.

Sticky Pecan Buns

right side up

the bottom side (just so you can see that they are cinnamon rolls under all that sticky toffee sauce!)

I saw this recipe for sticky buns, which were cinnamon rolls baked in a tray of sticky toffee sauce with pecans and had to try it. The bun recipe wasn't vegan so just used my cinnamon roll recipe but doubled it to fit the whole tray. The filling and topping ingredients were vegan anyway. They turned out fantastic, was quite worried when it came to getting them out as you turn the whole pan over but they all came out together with almost all the sauce and pecans. Altogether easy and delicious!

For the buns, sorry but I've got a nasty cold and have no energy so I'm redirecting you to my link above for the cinnamon buns - just double it.

Filling:
2 Tbsp/ 35g vegan margarine
3/4 cup/ 75g chopped pecans
1/4 cup/45g packed brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Topping:
1 cup/170g packed brown sugar
1/2 cup/ 115g vegan margarine
1/4 cup corn syrup
1 cup/ 112g whole pecans

After the first rising of the dough, punch down and roll out on a floured surface into a 15" x 10" rectangle. Spread with the margarine then after mixing the pecans, brown sugar and cinnamon, sprinkle all over. Starting at the long side, roll up tightly, pinching the seams to seal. Cut into 15 pieces.

For the topping, bring the brown sugar and margarine to a boil in a saucepan, stirring constantly - you may have to whisk at one point. Remove from heat and stir in the corn syrup. Pour into a 13" x 9" non-stick pan.

Place the rolls in the pan in 5 x 3 rows, lightly cover with cling film and leave to rise for 1 hour. Preheat oven to 350/180C and bake for about 15 minutes or until golden brown on top. Leave in the pan for 3 minutes then on a wire rack lined with baking paper carefully turn the pan over onto it and tap the bottom a few times. It should all just come out easily. I also ran a plastic spatula around the edges first to make sure.


Leave to cool although they are best still warm with a cup of coffee. Also, it may be a good idea to separate these while still warm, might get a bit sticky later. For the next day they are best heated up in the microwave for about 30 seconds.

Eggplant Potato Moussaka with Pine Nut Cream

So, yet another entry from Veganomicon! I still had some eggplant and silken tofu leftover from the Veganniversary on friday and saw this in the cookbook. I had a quick look online to see what others thought and everyone seemed to love it - rightfully so, it's delicious....BUT, as a few bloggers have noted the quantities of eggplant and potato are seriously out of whack! Even knowing this beforehand and cooking up extra potato and eggplant I didn't have enough to do two layers, hence my vertically challenged moussaka you see here....

Anyway, it didn't impede the flavour at all and the dish is lovely - the cinnamon in the tomato sauce is a nice addition and that pine nut cream will certainly be used in other dishes as well, it's fantastic. The recipe has been re-printed with permission on Vegan Peace HERE , just make sure you at least double the quantities of eggplant and potato!

Furthermore I don't know why I took a picture where you can't see the layers, must be cooking exhaustion! The sprinkles you see on top is some of Veganomicon's 'almesan' that I had leftover from the eggplant rollatini - it went really nice with this.