Best Vegan Recipes Directory

I make Banana Loaf all the time, so when I found myself with some very ripe bananas it was a toss between muffins or bread, for some reason Banana Bread won.  Whilst making this Banana Bread, I was reminded of a time when I took some into work for colleagues to try and someone at work called me over, I thought she was going to ask me for the recipe, instead she asked  What are those dark bits in the cake? Banana I responded without hesitation, yet a little bemused.     As I was fumbling in my kitchen cupboards looking for some vanilla essence, I remembered still having some Vanilla paste left over from making a vegan Vanilla Coconut Creme Brulee , its so much more powerful in flavour and scent. You get a good waft of it when you bring  to your mouth for tasting, and the pecan nuts added a fabulous buttery crunch.   Other banana recipes you will find on my blog Vegan Tiger Cake s Banana Blondies Banana and Coconut Flapjack s Banofee Toffee Curd...

The past month, I have been making, baking and eating some variation of Plum Cake, but this is one  of the most delicious cakes I have made in a while.  As much as D likes chocolate, he is not really a fan of chocolate flavoured things but he also adored this too. The sponge was almost fondant like, perhaps my whipping and whisking made a difference this time. I am sharing this follow the recipe here , but reduce the flour by 50grams and replace it with 50grams cocoa powder. 

Over the weekend, I was going  through my larder, well its not really a larder I pretend it is.  Its just space under the stairs where I store excess things mostly from the kitchen as space in the kitchen comes at a premium, so things like my Kitchenaid Food Processor and Kitchen Aid Artisan Mixer (both Birthday presents from D many years back) live under the stairs.  As I was fumbling about I came across the box that contained loads of homemade jars of preserves, jams and chutneys that I made last year including a Marrow Curd.   I decided to approach the jar of Marrow Curd in the way I would approach Lemon Curd, so this cake is really a Lemon Pistachio cake with the lemon curd substituted with homemade marrow curd. I guess you  can make this Marrow Curd Pistachio Cake with other fancy pants curds like blackberry curd,  strawberry curd ,   clementine curd ,   banana curd   and many others  - experiment, but then make sure you m...

This handsome dark Rutabaga Cinnamon Nutmeg Cake has been a long time coming.  I bookmarked it way back in 2010.  For those of us living in the UK, Rutabaga is known as Swede and it is quite an underrated vegetable and also one that causes much debate Miso Caramel Sauce  which transformed it from a cake to a pudding mimicking the British Sticky Toffee Pudding found on the menu of most traditional pubs. The idea to serve it with miso caramel sauce came from one of my favourite experimental chefs in the UK Stevie Parle who made a  Is it a Swede or a Turnip...   I baked this Swede aka Rutabaga Cake on Good Friday.  The Miso Caramel Sauce  which transformed it from a cake to a pudding mimicking the British Sticky Toffee Pudding found on the menu of most traditional pubs. The idea to serve it with miso caramel sauce came from one of my favourite experimental chefs in the UK Stevie Parle who made a Miso Sticky Tofee Pudding a couple of years back for C...

This prettily dressed up Hazelnut Swede Lemon Drenched Cake  has come and gone in our home and while it lasted, it made every one who had a slice or a taste, first crinkle their noses and then purse their lips and nod their heads in approval. It was intriguing.  For my overseas readers, you may know Swede as Rutabaga.  It is a vegetable that I avoid eating in savoury meals, I find it sweet like parsnips and don't often enjoy it, but hide it in a cake then it takes on a different flavour all together.  I know it won't convince everybody, but all I can say is try it before you pass judgement. I  have made a few dishes with both swede and turnips  of late.  Previous to this blog post you may have seen my   Turnip, Kale and White Bean Stew , Swede Mash on top of a Veggie 'Meatball' dish and of course that   dark   Rutabaga Cinnamon Nutmeg Cake  with Miso Caramel Sauce  reminisce of Sticky Toffee Pudding.    I hav...

I have made sweet tarts and cakes with fresh herbs like thyme, rosemary and bay leaves many times; and cakes with ripe bananas many, many times, but not the two combined together.  So my curiosity was peaked when I found a recipe for Banana Thyme Cake in Ruby Tandoh's new cookbook Flavour.  I have borrowed the cookbook from the library.  I spotted her Crumb: The Baking Book there too, but decided that I would pick that up some other time.  We always have overripe bananas in the house.   I have to say the bananas coming into the UK recently have been rather disappointingly bordering on still green and unripe.  We tend to have bananas for our working desktop breakfast or lunch, but recently the bananas brought home have been overlooked until of course they are too ripe and only good for making a sweet bake. This Banana Thyme Cake was lovely by the way, but the zingy Lemon and Thyme Glaze was the best part and I am not an cake icing person. ...

One of my nephews has been calling me my little courgette because of my moss green rain coat, its term of endearment and affection, but its also a cheeky little request to make him  a Courgette Cake , I promised to when courgettes were in season and indeed they are now.  Courgette brownies are not new and nor are courgette cakes, they have been around a while - in fact throwing vegetables in sweet recipes including cakes, biscuits and rice pudding is not a new idea at all, even if some people think and convince themselves and those around them that they were the first to introduce the social media generation to this idea. Sadly I think its the same people who fall for fake news, which also is not new.  The world is indeed shrinking and everything according to them can be answered by google.  One of my lecturers at Glasgow University, now a Professor Greg Philo  teachings impacted and completely changed the way I viewed the mass media a.  I still have ...

D moved my bread  loaf tins somewhere and could not remember where he moved them.  I have looked in all the obvious places. I told him many times, if he is unsure where to put kitchenalia to let me know and I will put them away.  He has done this to me a few times and it makes me frown when I go to look for whatever it is, even some of the ingredients for shopping are put away in wrong places.  Grrr He looked everywhere he would put them and he could not find them either. so over the weekend, we went shopping in Cardiff and I picked up a decent loaf tin as I wanted to make Zucchini Bread.   Ah if this is all the grief he gives me, then I am in a happy relationship.  I know I am blessed and very very lucky. The Zucchini Bread was very nice by the way.  D of course had his with a bit of butter, I don't think it needs it, but it definitely does need a  cuppa  of some sort with it to wash it down. Apricots are optional, but they are in s...

The last of the plums have fallen from the trees and they have been attracting the Red Admiral and Peacock butterflies who have been feasting on them. It has been a honour to watch them on mass, though I wish D had the energy to take some pictures as they posed without care.  I have had my share of plums this year and am pleased to have been able to shared some with family and neighbours, after making the Plum Chickpea Curry, I made a Plum Crumble Cinnamon Cake which was a good change from my  awesome  Cinnamon Plum Cake .   It was really good, especially the next day.  We served it with cream. The original recipe is made with apricots, but of course I had homegrown plums . Plum, Crumble Cinnamon Cake Serves 8 Ingredients 140grams self raising flour 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon 50grams caster sugar 1 egg, lightly beaten 3 tablespoons milk 85g butter, melted 5 - 6 plums, halved and pitted Topping 40grams plain flour 1 teaspoon ground ci...

I have to confess that I have really lost my blogging mojo lately, so regular readers I do hope you will forgive me.   I just don't have the mental energy when I get home from work so m y blogging is likely to be weekly, I hope you will stick around.  I share with you a recipe for an Easy Pear and Cinnamon Loaf adapted from A Girl Called Jack by Jack Monroe.  I flicked through the cookbook to see if it had a  recipe for pears as I had a load that were beginning to go really soft.  I could not find a pear recipe int he cookbook but noted that I could adapt the Apple and Cinnamon Loaf.  Although my layering of the sliced pears on top is quite amateurish, the loaf actually turned out to be rather nice, .  I also made  Jack Monroe's Carrot, Cumin and Kidney Bean Burgers (so no pictures)   I am not going to write up the Easy Pear and Cinnamon Loaf recipe here, as you can find Jack Monroe's original Apple and Cinnamon recipe...

Early on in the month, I made a Blood Orange Tart when blood oranges were still in season.   I have been wanting to make this for a while, and when I saw blood oranges at a supermarket, it was decided that this was my weekend mission.  I started with great excitement, measuring out the ingredients, bringing out bowls, whisks and measuring spoons.  I made everything from scratch, the shortcrust pastry.  The orange custard creme  brulee -like filling and then sliced the blood orange as thinly as I could with such concentration that you think I had telepathic skills.   However, as I slowly progressed with each stage, my heart began to sink beginning with the shortcrust pastry that began to shrink from the sides of the cake tin when it came out of the oven.  It bothered me as I thought the filling was going to overflow.  Then came the blood orange custard filling which I thought was never going to thicken to a luscious Orange curd lik...