Marzipan Mince Pie Croissants

♥ Marzipan and Mince filled croissants with a drizzle of Almond Icing ♥

So, basically I've been having a mince pie craving lately but felt it was a little early to dig out the mince pie tart pan. Enter the mince pie croissant. These are so amazingly delicious I'm not sure I'll go back to the traditional mince pie :-) They are also a great example that there are vegan ready made ingredients out there, and no we don't have to make everything from scratch! The tube of croissant dough, mince pie filling and marzipan are all ready made and all vegan making these dead simple to whip up.

I've made these with Jus-Rol brand croissant tubes which just happen to be vegan. Back when we lived in London I used to buy the Aldi brand ones which were also vegan but they stopped making them. I cannot tell you how happy I was to discover the Jus-Rol ones were vegan. They make fantastic croissants, although, me being me I've never made them plain! I always either fill them with chocolate for a Pain au Chocolate or my personal favourite, Frangipane. I'm very happy to add these to the list.

The addition of marzipan is simply a personal favourite of mine as I make my regular mince pie's that way but is easily omittable if it's not your thing. Make sure you roll out it very thin and don't line the entire triangle with marzipan, a simple strip will do. These are very rich, in a good way, and make for a fine, sweet breakfast. Next time I may try slicing the triangles in half again to make smaller croissants for afternoon coffee. Either way they are so flipping good!

Marzipan Mince Pie Croissants:

1 tube Jus-Rol Croissant dough

1 jar of mince pie filling, you'll need about half

marzipan

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100g icing sugar

1 Tbsp dairy free milk

1/4 tsp almond extract

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flaked almonds 

icing sugar to dust

Preheat the oven to 180C and line a baking sheet with baking paper. Unroll the croissant dough and cut out the triangles where perforated. Very thinly roll out the marzipan and lay a strip down each triangle. Spoon in some mince pie filling, about 1-2 tsp, be careful not to overfill these. Roll up the dough starting from the wide end and place on the baking sheet.

If you are adding flaked almonds, mix up cornstarch with a little cold water to make a 'glue' add enough water to just make it brush-able. Brush this on top of each croissant then add some flaked almonds making sure they stick.

Bake in the preheated oven for 12 - 15 minutes, turn the pan if need be if they are not evenly browning. Due to the mince pie filling in these, give them a little more time than you think they'll need so that the bottoms are not soggy. Remove from the pan and let cool. You can either eat them warm now but if you would like the almond drizzle you'll have to wait for them to fully cool or the icing will melt.

To make the drizzle simply whisk the icing sugar, milk and extract together until you have a thick but pour-able icing and drizzle this back and forth over the croissants. Dust with a little icing sugar and serve, these are absolutely gorgeous with coffee!

Nutritional Information: per croissant

Calories: 375

Protein: 4.6g

Fat: 11.2g

Carbs: 54.3g

Sugar: 29.4g

Fibre: 1g

Sodium: 200mg

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Chilli and Rosemary Socca

I introduce you to my new beer snack of choice - socca. We are loving this at the moment, I have been whipping up a plate of these almost every evening lately to have with an ice cold ale as they go perfectly together. No boring nuts or pretzels for us, puh-lease!

So what is socca? I'm sure most of you are asking as such, it's something that's only come into my radar recently, having seen it in a cookbook and a take on this version in the October issue of Irish Food and Wine magazine. Apparently it's French street food, particularly from Nice and despite variations it's basic ingredients are chickpea flour and olive oil. It's like a soft, thin pancake and I've seen images of it thinner than this and thicker, so do what you like. It's also traditionally served warm with lots of black pepper and a good drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Wikipedia has a nice entry on it, just scroll down to France for the socca version.

I've changed the way I cook mine a few times now and am pleased with this version. Socca, by nature, sticks like mad to the pan. The impression I get in France is that they use very well seasoned copper pans and a wood burning oven, techniques us average home cooks simply cannot recreate. So my primary concern was to get all that yummy socca off the pan and not worry so much about authenticity, after all, I've never even had socca before! So to combat that I now line a baking sheet with baking paper, pour the batter on, thin it out with a pallette knife then bake. The baking paper ensures that all the socca comes off and is so much less stressful. Is it traditional? Probably not, but then again, neither is being vegan and we're cool with that, right? :-)

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White and Dark Chocolate Mocha Hazelnut Layered Mousse

♥ Dark Chocolate Kahlua Layer ♥

♥ White Chocolate Frangelico Layer ♥

♥ White and Dark Chocolate Mocha Hazelnut Layer ♥

Well, you all know I love my mousse! This was really a test as I have made mousse many times to layer within cakes and have made it on it's own in parfait glasses but I haven't tried a slice-able version. I really wasn't sure if the mousse would be firm enough to slice and hold it's shape once removed from the tin but as you can see it was all a success!

I based this on a recipe I saw for triple chocolate mousse which layered dark, white and milk chocolate. As the milk chocolate layer isn't really veganizable (is that a word??) I opted to mix the dark and white mousse for a contrast in colour for the top layer. This meant that the liqueur that I added to the dark and white had to go together as they would be mixed for the top layer. After much deliberation I settled on Kahlua (coffee) for the dark chocolate and Frangelico (hazelnut) for the white chocolate. This also meant that the white chocolate didn't change colour much as it's quite a pale liqueur. Combined they make a kind of mocha hazlenut top layer and altogether this mousse is sublime!

White Chocolate Mocha Hazelnut Layered Mousse 

serves 8

200g dark chocolate, chopped
200ml soya whipping cream, chilled
3 Tbsp icing sugar, sifted after measuring
3 Tbsp Kahlua
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200g vegan white chocolate
200ml soya whipping cream, chilled
3 Tbsp icing sugar, sifted after measuring
3 Tbsp Frangelico

First a warning - this needs a shed load of bowls so get prepared! Now completely line a standard size loaf tin with cling film so that it overhangs all edges. Melt the dark and the white chocolate separately, I did this placing bowls over pots of simmering water but you could also microwave. Once they have melted scrape them into separate bowls to cool down, they will take too long to cool if you leave them in the bowl you melted them in. Keep giving them a stir to help them cool.

Place the whipping cream into 2 large bowls (200ml in each bowl) and whisk in the icing sugar. Now you have to wait until the chocolates are close to room temperature, if you whisk hot or too warm chocolate into the cold soya cream it will seize up. When ready start with the dark chocolate and scrape it slowly into the whipping cream whisking all the time. When it looks all combined then you can slowly start to whisk in the Kahlua a bit at a time then set it aside.

Repeat the same process with the white chocolate and Frangelico but don't worry if this one seems floppier than the dark chocolate, they set the same.

Now take 1/3 of the dark chocolate mousse and place in another bowl (told you it takes a lot of bowls!) and take 1/3 of the white chocolate mousse and add that and whisk these together well. Now you should have equal bowls of dark chocolate, white chocolate and mixed mousse. Being precise as I am I weighed the mousse to figure out exactly 1/3, but you could just eyeball it of course!

Spoon the dark chocolate mousse into the loaf tin and level off as best you can. Top with the white chocolate mousse then the mixed mousse levelling off each layer. Now place it in the fridge to fully set, best to leave it overnight but 5 hours should do it.

To remove, carefully lift the whole mousse out of the tin, it helps to have someone else around to pull the tin down while you lift up. Place the mousse on a chopping board or serving plate. Now, the cling film will be impossible to get off the bottom here so I sliced the film off around the mousse leaving it underneath (no one can see it anyway) then carefully transferred the whole mousse to my serving plate with 2 large spatulas.

I opted to decorate this with some shaved dark chocolate on top and made some dark and white chocolate stars just for fun. You simply melt some chocolate and pipe some shapes onto baking paper, chill then lift off the paper and decorate as you wish.

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2013 EDIT - Feeling lazy? Just spoon one layer into wine glasses for the best and easiest chocolate mousse. I simply used the dark chocolate kahlua version here and spooned it into 6 small wine glasses.

 Look at that perfect moussy texture!! No chocolate pudding masquerading under the name mousse here!!!

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Vegan Chicken, Sun-Dried Tomato and Basil Sausage Rolls

Happy World Vegan Day!!!!

So, I made these the other day and I'm not kidding when I say this: they are the best sausage rolls I've ever had!! Simply delicious, and considering it's World Vegan Day I felt a party food post would be most appropriate. Seriously, if you're having a get together tonight whip a plate of these and watch them go ;-)

The idea came from a BBC Good Food recipe for "summer sausage rolls" that contained chicken, bacon, sundried tomatoes and basil. I thought they sounded nice and now that I have finally found vegan chicken style pieces I love - Fry's brand - thought I would veganize them up. I opted to omit the bacon as I didn't want faux meat overload here and the vegan bacon I buy really wouldn't process very well. I added a bit of smoked sea salt instead and also added a spring onion.

Altogether they came out beautifully, these are full of flavour and have a perfect texture. Obviously they will vary in taste and texture depending on your brand of faux chicken but I can say that these, with Fry's, are so, so good. I'll be making these quite often I'm sure, especially for get together's as they make perfect party food. As they are so full of flavour I would advise making them small like this, a full size sausage roll might be a bit much.... that being said, I ate 7 in one sitting - oooops!

Barmbrack

Happy Halloween!! Vegan Irish Stylie!! ;-)

So, a slight change from my previous Creepy Halloween Food post from a couple years back ;-)

Barmbrack is a traditional Irish Halloween yeast bread made with raisins and sultanas, slightly sweet and spiced with mixed spice and so very yummy. Traditionally various objects were baked into the brack and used to tell ones fortune: a pea, a stick, a piece of cloth, a small coin and a ring. Since we have moved back to Ireland my husband has been pretty outraged that the barmbrack for sale in the shops have only carried the ring. In his day all the items were there and I got it into my head to not only make one but to make it vegan (of course) and add ALL the items, just for him.

Then I read what the pieces mean if you were to find one:

The Pea - the person would not marry
The Cloth - the person would have bad luck or would be poor
The Coin - the person would have good fortune or be wealthy
The Ring - the person would wed within the year
The Stick - "to beat one's wife with" (would have an unhappy marriage) :-O

Yes, you read that last one right, suddenly it became apparent why the modern ones just go with the ring! Blimey. I also decided that it would be much easier to just shove a ring in there than all the other stuff. So apologies to my husband who was hoping for a proper traditional "Báirín Breac" but I think that stick is best left out of the bread ;-) I was also not very comfortable baking a ring in there so I inserted a very well washed plain old ring of mine deep into the bread after it baked and cooled with a wooden skewer.

Vegan Barmbrack: makes one large loaf

500ml strong black tea
140g sultanas
140g raisins
250ml dairy free milk, I use Kara Coconut Milk
100g vegan butter
520g - 600g plain flour
75g sugar
1 tsp salt
1 1/4 tsp mixed spice
1 package instant yeast

Soak the raisins and sultanas in the tea for at least 1 hour, it can even be left overnight.

In a small saucepan heat the milk and butter until the butter melts. Transfer to a bowl and let cool slightly, if you have a thermometer you want it to be between 120F and 130F. If you don't have a thermometer you want it to be hand hot, if you stick your finger in it's hot but you can leave it in there comfortably.

In a large bowl or the bowl of your mixer add the flour, sugar, salt, spice and yeast and give it a whisk. Pour in the milk/butter mixture then with the dough hook attached knead for 5 - 8 minutes until you have a ball of dough, slightly sticky. Do the same if kneading by hand then transfer to a floured surface.

Drain the fruit well and add to the dough a small amount at a time kneading the fruit in. Continue until all the fruit is added, it may seem like it won't all go in but just keep at it. Meanwhile keep adding more flour when it gets sticky. Once all the fruit is added and you have a nice non-sticky ball of dough transfer to a greased bowl, grease the surface of the dough, cover the bowl with cling film and place in a warm place to double in bulk, about 1 - 1 1/2 hours.

Give it a few more kneads, shape into a large flatish ball then place in a greased 8" cake pan. Loosely cover the surface with greased cling film and place in a warm place again for about 1/2 hour until risen slightly again, it should fill out the pan.

Preheat the oven to 200C and pop the bread in. Bake for between 35 - 45 minutes, or until golden brown, risen and it should sound hollow when tapped underneath. Transfer to a wire rack to cool slightly then insert the ring (if using) with a wooden skewer then slice and serve with vegan butter. It's also beautiful lightly toasted the next day, spread with butter for breakfast with a nice mug of tea. :-)

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Chilli Roasted Butternut Squash with Soba Noodles and a Creamy Miso-Tahini Sauce

You know what I love about this dish? Besides it being absolutely delicious of course, is that it's one of those dishes only a vegan could come up with... Ok, maybe that's a bit bold of a statement, but: miso, tahini, soba, squash, chilli, mirin....I love that we can and do brazingly use such ingredients together. I'll say it again, my food repertoire has skyrocketed since turning vegan and I love it. Back when I was vegetarian this squash probably would have been with spaghetti and a cream sauce. This dish proves that being forced to think outside the box definitely has it's advantages.

The butternut squash is roasted with olive oil, bit of thyme, salt and lots of chilli, the natural sweetness of the squash comes out here to balance the heat. Another counter to the heat is the sauce: sweet white miso with a touch of sweet mirin balances really well with the chilli squash. Oh and it's amazing too, super creamy and sublime! Then the nutty tahini and soba noodles simply add another taste dimension here and brings it all together.

For a fancy looking dish this was so easy to put together and feels like it has more calories than it does. With all the lovely butternut squash in the shops right now it's a perfect autumn dinner. The garnish of black sesame seeds and chives are entirely optional but do make a really nice touch.

A note about the chilli, I initially used 1 tsp as I've written in the recipe here but that was probably my heat limit here. You might want to use 3/4 tsp if you don't like things too hot, although I am a bit of a heat wimp!

Chilli Roasted Butternut Squash with Soba Noodles and a Creamy Miso-Tahini Sauce: serves 2

1/2 a med/large butternut squash. I used about 380g prepared weight
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp fine sea salt
1 tsp dried chilli flakes
1/8 tsp dried thyme
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2 Tbsp sweet white miso
2 Tbsp tahini
1 Tbsp rice vinegar (unseasoned)
1/2 Tbsp mirin
1/2 clove garlic, pureed
1/8 tsp salt
50 - 100ml water
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100g dry weight soba noodles
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fresh chives
black sesame seeds

Preheat the oven to 220C. To prepare the squash, slice it in half lengthways then scoop out any seeds and fibrous parts. Next slice it into 1 " slices. Peel these slices then chop them into chunks, about the size you in the picture there. In a small bowl whisk together the olive oil, thyme, salt and chilli flakes. Tip the squash into a roasting tin then pour over the oil. Toss it well until the squash is well coated then pop it in the oven. Roast for about 20 - 30 minutes giving the pan a shake now and again. I also pulled it out and turned each squash about halfway through as shaking wasn't flipping them over. You want them soft and some edges getting nicely charred.

Meanwhile cook the soba noodles according to package instructions. You want them warm here so don't do it too early, they tend to only take about 6-7 minutes to cook.

For the sauce simply add everything but the water to a small saucepan and bring to heat stirring all the while. Add the water, 50 ml first then add more if needed until it is a thick yet pourable sauce. Taste and check seasoning.

When everything is ready simply place the soba noodles onto plates, top with the squash then spoon over the sauce, you probably won't need all of it here so you can leave any extra on the table for family/guests to add more if they like. Garnish with a sprinkling of chopped fresh chives and black sesame seeds and serve warm.

Source: Sauce recipe based on Clearspring's Miso-Tahini Dressing.

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Nutritional Information: based on 1 serving

Calories: 443

Fat: 16.2g

Sat Fat: 2.2g

Protein: 11.9g

Fibre: 6.1g

Carbs: 67.9g

Sugar: 6.7g

Sodium: 1312mg

Calcium: 114mg

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Cranberry Almond Tea Cake

Cranberry studded almond infused cake with a simple almond glaze.

This was always one of my favourite tea cakes and is on my old vegetarian blog, why it has taken me so long to veganize it I don't know! I kept the veganizing pretty simple here, threw in some cornstarch to help bind and increased the baking powder to help rise, then of course swapped the milk with dairy free and the butter with vegan butter. Simple. It turned out fantastic too, great flavour and lovely texture, light yet moist and no gumminess at all. 

My original version had chopped almonds on top and the glaze just drizzled on top. I was unable to put nuts on top due to this batter being runnier than the last so opted for a whole covering glaze instead. It was a good call as I like this even better :-)

Cranberry Almond Tea Cake:

260g flour
120g caster sugar
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
175ml dairy free milk
4 Tbsp cornstarch
110g vegan butter, melted
2 tsp natural almond extract
100g sweetened dried cranberries

Glaze:
1/2 cup or 75g icing sugar
1 Tbsp dairy free milk
1/2 tsp natural almond extract

Grease an 8.5" x 4.5" x 2" loaf pan and set aside. Preheat the oven to 190C.

Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and cranberries in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl whisk together the cornstarch and milk until dissolved and no lumps remain. Whisk in the almond extract then slowly whisk in the melted butter until well blended. Pour the liquid over the dry and mix with a rubber spatula in a folding motion until just combined - do not overmix.

Pour into the prepared tin then bake for about 45 minutes or until risen, golden on top and a toothpick inserted comes out clean or with dry crumbs on it. Cool in the tin on a wire rack for 15 minutes then remove to cool completely on the wire rack.

For the glaze simply whisk everything together and spoon over the top of the loaf pushing it out gently over the sides. Make sure the cake is no longer warm when you do this. Allow the glaze to set then slice and serve! Beautiful with tea :-)

*Sigh* Blogging with a Doctor Who mad child running around. THIS is why you never see the "larger picture" with my photos! 

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Chocolate Frangelico Mousse Gateau

Light and fluffy chocolate cake, scattering of Frangelico candied hazelnuts and topped with silky smooth Frangelico Chocolate Mousse - heaven!

Oh my this was good! Those of you who have followed this blog for awhile might recognize some aspects of it as it is a variation on the Double Chocolate Mousse Layer Cake that I made for my son's 8th birthday.  I was inspired to do 2 large layers of cake and mousse from BBC Good Food. They had this Chocolate Cherry Mousse cake as their cake of the week and it just looked too good. I love cherry flavours but my husband doesn't so I opted for his favourite flavour of hazelnut using Frangelico. He was away in London at the time and thought it would be a nice 'welcome home cake; ;-) I have made my mousse with Frangelico before with the Chocolate Frangelico Mousse Tart and knew it turns out really nice. For the cake I stuck with my standard chocolate cake recipe, it's just the traditional 'wacky cake' recipe that's out there. It has a fantastic moist yet light and fluffy texture and always turns out well.

The Frangelico candied hazelnuts were entirely my addition and creation and honestly, they make this cake. I have always loved the maple candied pecans from Veganomicon and have used them in many recipes, as well as just to snack on. I wanted to candy some hazelnuts for this cake but didn't want maple flavour here. I started to wonder if you could candy nuts with liquere but was worried there wouldn't be enough sugar in them to candy. Well, there is and they turned out beautiful! Nicely roasted then crisply coated in Frangelico but not too sweet making them a perfect addition between layers of cake and mousse. While eating this cake the best bites definitely had the nuts in them.

As for layering the nuts between the cake and mousse, this was flavour wise the best place for them as it meant you can get all three layers while eating...BUT...they do cause the mousse to seperate from the cake when serving on a plate. If you are making this for guests and are worried about that then just sprinkle the nuts over top instead. Whatever you do, do not omit those nuts! They really do bring this cake together into something very special indeed.

Now the mousse....I have made this mousse many times, in the Double Chocolate Mousse Layer cake, the Chocolate Frangelico Mousse Tart, Chocolate Mousse Dome Cake and many other times when we just wanted mousse for dessert. In all my instructions I always say to wait until the chocolate cools to room temperature before adding to the whipped soy cream or else it will seize up and you will get little flakes of chocolate in your mousse. This happened to me the first time I made this. I got cocky. I thought, "I've made this loads of times and it's never happened....." Yes, because I usually listen to my own instructions!! *Sigh* So please, do I as I say not as I do here and wait. Be patient. The chocolate must be closer in temperature to the whipped cream. I'm glad I didn't dump this and start again though as even though you could see flecks, it did not affect the taste at all, nor could you feel them while eating. I still had a perfect tasting mousse, it just didn't look as smooth as it should have. Oh, and this is proper mousse here - not pudding, it really has that moussy texture!

Light and Fluffy Pull Apart Rolls

Rosemary and Smoked Sea Salt

Garlic and Herb

Dilled Cheeze and Onion Pinwheels

Well, as promised here is the pull apart roll recipe from the Puy Lentil Soup post below. These are all absolutely gorgeous and are going in the same blog post here as they are all based on the same basic recipe.

It's such a versatile recipe and the possibilities are endless but these are a few I've made with it so far and loved. Their texture is just stunning, really light and fluffy,such a joy to tear them away from each other! (That sounds awful!) They are really easy too and I've been whipping these up to go with homemade soups and my son loves the garlic and herb ones as a snack after school ;-)

2013 edit - I also used this recipe to make these cute bunny rolls to go with our Easter dinner! Instructions below...

Puy Lentil Soup with Rosemary Pull Apart Rolls

Well, I really just whipped up this soup so I had something to go with these stunning rolls, or rather, to stop myself eating a tray of freshly baked fluffy buns! That being said, it turned out really nice and is a soup I will certainly make again. Beautiful roll recipe post coming next ;-) ! *Edit - here it is!*

Puy Lentil Soup:

2 Tbsp olive oil

2 carrots, diced, about 130g

2 shallots diced, about 40g

2 small leeks, sliced, about 100g

2 smallish new potatoes diced, about 150g

4 cloves garlic, pureed

1 400g tin chopped tomatoes

1 litre vegetable stock, I made mine with 1 oxo cube

2 bay leaves

1 1/2 tsp dried thyme

100g dry weight puy lentils, about 1/2 cup

1/2 tsp smoked sea salt, or to taste, can use regular salt

freshly ground black pepper

fresh parsley, chopped - optional

First give the lentils a good wash then place in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring to the boil and fast boil for 10 minutes. Drain, rinse and set aside.

Add the carrots and potatoes and fry on low heat for 5 minutes, add the garlic with 1 minute remaining and stir well. Add the stock, tomatoes, herbs and lentils stir well, cover and simmer for about 20 minutes or until the veg and lentils are soft. Stir in the smoked sea salt to taste and parsley if using.

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