Category: No Refined Sugar

Lemon and Polenta vegan cookies

Easy peasy lemon squeezy – these are my Go To lemon cookies that I make in one bowl really fast and just shape by hand. They are made almost by the time the tea is brewed!

Ingredients

  • 200 grammes flour
  • 50 grammes polenta
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 3/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt (optional)
  • 120 grammes organic sugar or 75 ml honey or agave nectar or grape syrup or 80 grammes of fructose
  • 190ml cold pressed sunflower oil
  • 40ml lemon juice
  • zest of 1 lemon (**save the squeezed lemon skins for making jam)

How To

Set the oven to 180C if baking with regular sugar and 160C if baking with fructose or agave or grape juice

Line your baking tray with some baking paper or silicone sheet

Place all ingredients in one bowl and mix gently until the dough comes together and is pliable

Break off into chunks and mould each one into a ball – these pictured are quite large 50g cookies – if you feel OCD-ish then weigh each chunk before you shape it. Then place on your baking tray and squidge with your fingers into round cookie shapes

Bake gently for 12-15 minutes until pale golden.

Perfect with a cup of afternoon tea.

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

I don’t do breakfast but if I do its dark chocolate (preferably neat) or black pudding. Nothing odd about that, nope nothing at all. So these little nuggets  cut it being very very chocolatey, not very sweet and with enough iron to boost the hemoglobin of a horse.

The method is “one bowl” and if you are not fussed with the vegan thing, add an egg as this just helps glue them together and reduce crumbles.

Ingredients  (12-15 cookies)

  • 120g coconut oil
  • 200g pureed dates (no stones) after they have soaked in water with a pinch of bicarbonate of soda overnight
  • 150g wholemeal flour (for gluten free use your GF flour combo)
  • 60g organic cocoa powder
  • 1 heaped tablespoon of peanut butter
  • 80g dark chocolate (70%) chopped into chunks
  • 50g crystallised ginger chunks
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • optional 1 x egg if not vegan

How To

Set the oven to 180C  Prepare baking sheets with baking paper or silicon sheets

Blend the dates into a smooth puree.  Add the coconut oil if it is solid and create a paste.

Measure all dry ingredients into a bowl.

Add the paste (and egg if you are using), and the chocolate and ginger pieces.

Gently mix until the dough comes together and has the consistency of plasticine (play doh) and comes away from the sides of the bowl.  The consistency is important – a knife stuck in the middle should stay there. You may need to add a little flour or water to adjust it.

Make balls of dough in your hands. Press down gently on the sheet to create a cookie.

Bake for 12-15 minutes depending on how fierce/ fan assisted your oven is.

Transfer to a cooling tray where they will firm up.  They keep for up to 1 week and freeze perfectly too.

Lazy leftovers fruit cake…a cake for all times

A gloriously laissez faire affaire full of bonhomie and warmth. It has its roots in the frugality of Nana’s war time fruit cake when eggs, butter and sugar were scarce. This was simply what you did for the generation that believed throwing away food was “the work of the devil”. Fast forward to these food sensitive times and we have a right on “recycled vegan low GI GF  gateau” oh trendy dears. Whatever its name..it is a cake for all times in every sense – judging by the number of second helpings this Easter and enthusiasm from the marauding feline contingent too.

 

Continue reading “Lazy leftovers fruit cake…a cake for all times”