Vegan MoFo Day 21 - Sweet Saturdays - Apple-Blueberry Grunts

I'm not sure how everyone else is faring at this stage of the month but honestly Vegan MoFo is starting to wear me down. My intention was to post daily throughout Vegan MoFo, yesterday was the second time in less than a week that I've missed a post. Rather than throwing in the towel I'm aiming to get through the rest of the month with as many posts as I can manage. I'm going to give myself a breather tomorrow and skip Summary Sundays and the following Sunday I'll be posting a round-up of bookmarks from the month.

This week for Sweet Saturdays I actually baked something to please myself which meant it involved fruit and wasn't overly sweet. The main apple eater in our house has always been the young man - the time he spends at home has decreased recently due to a lady friend in his life which resulted in our fruit bowl overflowing with apples. There were a few different recipes I could have used them up in but I turned to Blueberry Grunts in Vegan Yum Yum last night as I've wanted to try it for years and it seemed like an easy recipe to make.

I modified this recipe a bit, obviously I included apples in my version. The sugar that was added to the apples and berries was decreased by a substantial amount and a small amount of sugar and cinnamon was added to the biscuit topping. As the baked apples and berries turned out to be a little too runny, I added a touch of a cornflour paste to thicken them up slightly. The only thing I would do different next time around is to use a slightly larger baking dish, the one I chose was a square 20cm dish and the quantity of biscuit topping was too much for this so I've indicated to use a 24cm dish in the recipe below. Alternatively this could be baked in individual ramekins.  

This dessert was not quite sweet enough for the man but it was perfect for me so if you have a sweet tooth you may wish to increase the amount of sugar. My preference was to enjoy this on it's own although it could also be served with some nut-based cream or a scoop of non-dairy ice-cream.

Apple-Blueberry Grunts (Adapted from Vegan Yum Yum)

Apple-Blueberry base
5 red apples, approx 500g (I used a mixture of pink lady, fuji and royal gala apples)
250g frozen blueberries
1/2 cup water
3 tablespoons raw sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon cornflour mixed with enough water to make a thick paste)

Biscuit topping
2 cups self raising flour
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons raw sugar
3 tablespoons dairy-free margarine
1 cup soy (or other non-dairy) milk

Preheat oven to 200C.

Peel the apples, cut into quarters and remove the cores, then cut into thin slices. Place the apples, half of the blueberries, water, sugar and cinnamon into a saucepan. Cover with a lid, bring to the boil then reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes until the apples have softened, stirring occasionally. Stir through the remaining blueberries and cornflour paste, allow to cook for a few more minutes, then turn off the heat. Transfer the berry mixture to a 24cm baking dish or spoon into ramekins.

Place the flour, salt, cinnamon and sugar in a large mixing bowl then add the dairy-free margarine. Use a fork to cut the fat through the flour then pour in the soy milk and continue mixing until a rough shaggy dough forms. Tear off small portions of the dough with your hands and arrange them on top of the apples and berries.  

Bake in the oven for 20 minutes until the biscuit topping is slightly browned.

Vegan MoFo Day 7 - Sweet Saturdays - Raspberry yoghurt cake

There was a time in my life when the majority of the cookbooks I owned were a selection of Woman's Weekly cookbooks, which had been impulse purchases during shopping trips to the supermarket. In the midst of a clean out a few years back I gave all but one of these cookbooks away to charity as the pile was so large and I hadn't been using them for ages anyway. I held onto one for nostalgic reasons as it contained a recipe for a lentil cottage pie which was the first vegetarian meal I ever cooked for my family.

When Jes from Eating Appalachia posted about a lemon blueberry yoghurt cake this week, I had an instant flashback to a raspberry yoghurt cake my husband used to bake years ago. I knew that this recipe came from one of those Woman's Weekly cookbooks and immediately went searching for the one I had retained to see if the cake we used to love was in this book. After I scanned the index and found the raspberry yoghurt cake my other baking plans for Sweet Saturdays were put on hold as I was compelled to veganise this cake that used to be such a household favourite.

It was never a complicated cake to put together and this vegan version also proved to be pretty straight forward. The cake can be made with whatever berries you have kicking around in freezer, at times we used to make it with a mixture of berries or blueberries. It's a lovely moist cake and not overly sweet which is a good thing in my book. When it comes to sweet treats I've been making slices mores than anything recently but now that this recipe has been rediscovered I'm sure it will be appearing often at home.

Raspberry yoghurt cake with cream cheese frosting (Adapted from Woman's Weekly Low-fat food for life) 

½ cup (125g) dairy-free margarine

¾ cup (165g) firmly packed brown sugar

2 tablespoons ground flaxseed

6 tablespoons water

1¼ cups (200g) self-raising flour

½ cup (140g) soy (or other non-dairy) yoghurt

100g frozen raspberries

Cream-cheese frosting

60g tofutti cream cheese

20 g soy yoghurt

½ cup (55g) icing sugar

1 teaspoon lemon or lime juice

Preheat over to 180C. Grease a 14 x 21cm loaf pan and line it with baking paper.

Beat the margarine and sugar together with a hand held mixer in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Stir the ground flaxseeds with the water in a small bowl and pour this into the bowl containing the butter and sugar mixture. Beat until just combined.

Using a wooden spoon, stir through the flour, yoghurt and raspberries until all the ingredients are thoroughly combined. Spread the mixture into the loaf pan.

Bake in the oven for 1 hour. Test for readiness with a skewer after this time, if it comes out clean the cake is ready. If not, bake for an extra 5-10 minutes.

Allow the cake to stand in the tin for 10 minutes then turn it out onto a wire rack and allow it to cool down before icing.

Whisk together the tofutti cream cheese, soy yoghurt, icing sugar and lemon/lime juice and spread over the cake.

As the icing contains tofutti cream cheese I prefer to store the cake in the refrigerator.

Vegan MoFo - Stopover 6 - Monaco

I'm back to my world trip this time stopping off in Monaco, the second smallest country in the world. Even though it measures just under 2 km in area, I still managed to find some dishes that are tied to Monaco. The first is socca, naturally vegan chickpea crepes that are also linked to Nice nearby in the south of France. The other was a dessert called Prince Albert mille feuille, a pastry filled with custard, cream and strawberries.

Socca is a fairly regular breakfast item at home on weekends ever since recipe testing for Terry Hope Romero's new cookbook Vegan Eats World, it's also become my solution for running out of bread. Apart from the resting period it's so easy to put together and tastes great. We normally love our socca with sun-dried tomatoes as well as olives and this was the first time I had been out of them but they worked well enough with olives and onions.

I had great plans for the mille feuille and when it can to the execution, everything went wrong. The puff pastry sheets were pre-baked using a flattening method I saw in this post, unfortunately mine didn't need quite as hot an oven or as long as the recipe stated so the first batch were a burst mess after half the cooking time. A pre-prepared batch of almond cream didn't turn out as thick as I was expecting. I also had woes with an initial batch of custard due to being distracted by a family drop-in and had to remake another batch. When it came time to put the few untainted ones together, I was weary and did a very rushed job. The main thing was they tasted fantastic and my decision to add lemon flavoured icing was a wise one indeed.

______________________________________________________________________________________

Did you know?

Monaco's flag is the same as the flag of Indonesia. The only difference is that the Indonesian flag is wider. The red and white colours of the flag are the heraldic colours of Grimaldi, the name of the ruling family of Monaco since 1297.

Do you want to know where else I've been this month? Click here for the round up.

Weekday smoothies

Life has been extremely busy recently as I've been planning and cooking for an upcoming party this weekend, participating in another round of recipe testing for Terry Hope Romero and enjoying the company of interstate friends last weekend. I only have time for a quick post this week, but you can be assured there will be several posts to follow about the party food next week.

Smoothies became a part of my Monday to Friday ritual around the same time this blog was created but I haven't posted about them yet. Throughout my life I never enjoyed various cereals or muesli for breakfast and was generally happy to nibble on a couple of slices of toast. That all changed when the man began to purchase smoothies on a semi-regular basis. I questioned why he should pay for something at inflated prices when I could easily be whizzing them up at home for a fraction of the cost.

So I began making smoothies for the man and decided that I quite liked them too! I fluctuated with various combinations before we mutually agreed that pineapple and blueberries are our favourite base fruits. A third and sometimes fourth type of fruit is added which provides subtle differences in the overall flavour of the smoothie. The most common supplementary fruits I use are banana, mango or other type of berries. Ground flaxseed is always included to provide us with some Omega 3.

I call them our weekday smoothies as we consume them throughout the working week. The man takes 500ml off to work in a jug which leaves me with 250ml and enough room in my belly for a slice of toast.        

Weekday smoothie

1/4 - 1/3 pineapple, roughly chopped
1/4 cup frozen or fresh blueberries
1 small banana or 1/2 mango or an equivalent amount of other various fruit
1 cup (or more) soy milk
2 tablespoons whole flaxseeds

Place the pineapple, blueberries, banana/mango/other fruit in a blender with about a cup of soy milk and blend until no chunks of fruit remain. Grind the whole flaxseeds in a coffee or spice grinder until it becomes a powder. Add the ground flaxseed to the blender and pour in additional soy milk up to the 750ml level mark on the blender. Blend again briefly, then pour into glasses and enjoy!

Vegan MoFo - U is for Upside Down Blueberry Microwave Cake

A minor cooking mishap in an attempt to make a chocolate mug cake that K from In the Mood for Noodles posted about last week wasn't enough to deter me from trying again. The disaster was totally my fault, I should know by now that microwaves can vary when it comes to cooking times and I still don't understand how I managed to turn my back at that crucial moment. It was only a matter of seconds from when that delicious chocolate aroma turned into a horrible burnt smell and the microwave starting smoking!

I felt very stupid for failing at such a simple recipe so I had to give it another try. This time I made the berry almond variation and checked the Facebook page for further hints before getting started. I made the cake in a ramekin rather than a mug as the sizes are similar and initially set the microwave for 2 minutes (watching it like a hawk the entire time). The middle looked slightly underdone so I zapped it for another 20 seconds and the cake was done.

My son really enjoyed the cake and fruit isn't his favourite thing so I have promised to make good with a chocolate one for him soon! This is the type of dessert I would usually like but I was way too full from dinner tonight so I'll have to try one for myself soon.

Click here to see my A - Z of Vegan MoFo posts.


Upside Down Blueberry Microwave Cake (Adapted from In the Mood for Noodles)

2 tablespoons dairy-free margarine
2 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons self-raising flour
1 tablespoon almond meal
1 tablespoon applesauce
Handful of frozen blueberries
A drizzle of maple syrup

Cook the margarine in a bowl for about 30 seconds or until melted. Stir through the sugar, self-raising flour, almond meal and applesauce and mix until well combined.

Place the blueberries in a ramekin or large mug, drizzle with some maple syrup then cover with the cake mixture. Put the ramekin or mug on a plate and cook in the microwave for 2-3 minutes or until the cake has set in the middle.

Run a knife around the edges to loosen the cake, then invert onto a plate and enjoy!

Simple strudel

The other night I had an urge to cook something for dessert which is quite unusual as I don't feel compelled to bake sweet things very often. After looking at a few cookbooks, I decided to make an apple strudel from Vegan Yum Yum.

There was one minor flaw with this plan, only one apple was left in the house which was not going to be enough for the strudel so I pulled some frozen blueberries out of the freezer and made a mix of both. My son was disappointed about the inclusion of blueberries as his preference for fresh fruit has always been limited to apples. The only way he will eat other fruits is when they are included in something sweet like a dessert or cake.

This was such an easy dessert to throw together and only took about 10-15 minutes of preparation time (gotta love those puff pastry sheets). I was highly impressed with how it turned out for such minimal effort. The pastry was nice and flaky and the filling had a perfect balance of sweet and spicy flavours. A dollop of cashew cream would have been a lovely accompaniment which I will keep in mind for next time!

Apple and blueberry strudel (Adapted from Vegan Yum Yum)

3 tablespoons raw sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons plain flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon allspice
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 large apple, peeled and sliced thinly
1/2 cup frozen blueberries
1 Borg's puff pastry sheet, thawed
2 tablespoons dairy-free margarine, melted
Extra sugar and cinnamon, for topping

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Mix together the sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and salt. Drizzle the lemon juice over the apple slices and blueberries and then coat the fruit with the dry mixture.

Spread the fruit mixture in a line down the centre of your pastry sheet. Fold over the dough and tuck in the ends. Place the strudel on an oven tray lined with baking paper. Brush the strudel generously with the melted margarine and top with sugar and cinnamon. Make several slashes in the strudel with a knife.

Cook for about 30 minutes or until golden and crispy. Allow to cool a little before serving, or eat straight away and try not to burn your tongue!