Rhubarb and Apple Crumble

This is probably a rather healthy desert – I mean, it’s pretty much muesli disguised as pudding! (Although, probably anything could disguise itself as pudding if it sprinkled a bit of sugar on itself). With lots of fruit, seeds, and oats, it does provide a chunk of nutrition. And sugar… for energy…? The trick with crumbles is to use lots of apple; they’re nice and sweet, cheap, and bulky, so provide a good base to full out the crumble, and use smaller/more expensive tasty fruits for the flavour.

INGREDIENTS

3 Apples
2 branches Rhubarb
3 Plums (or another branch of Rhubarb)
1 Tblsp Sugar
3/4 C Flour
1/4 C Margarine
1/2 C Oats
1/4 C Brown Sugar
2 Tblsp Pumpkin Seeds
2 Tblsp Sunflower Seeds
A pinch of cinnamon

INSTRUCTIONS

Peel the apples, then slice them up as well as the rhubarb and plums. Chuck them in a pot, sprinkle with the sugar and cover with some water. Bring to the boil, and let it do so until the rhubarb is nice and soft.

While you’re waiting for the fruit, in a food processor (or with your fingers) blend together the flour and marg to form crumbs. Then blend in the oats, brown sugar,  seeds, and cinnamon.

Drain the fruit, layer onto a dish, then sprinkle the crumbs on top. Bake at 200ºC until it starts to brown on top.

  *Authors note: If I wasn’t writing this for Tahini Sauce, which claims to be “low in sugar, low in fat”, I would probably also grate some chocolate onto the fruit before putting the crumbs on, and mix in some maple syrup.

Caramel Slice

This was yet another pregnancy craving, and a somewhat (I feel) epic undertaking of food-creation. I refused to drive across town and buy expensive vegan caramel sauce (or condensed milk), nor do I feel you should have to do this either. The flip side being that I had absolutely no idea how to make caramel sauce – of course, I didn’t dare tell the pregnant person this, and with utmost confidence declared that I could make caramel sauce easy-peasy.

If you do have an easy, delicious, cheap caramel sauce recipe you use, please do send it to me :)

INGREDIENTS

Base

50g Margarine
1/4 C Sugar
1 C Flour
2 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 C Water

Caramel

150g Margarine
1 1/2 C Brown Sugar
1 C Soy Milk
1 tsp Vanilla Essence

Chocolate Icing

100g Chocolate
1 1/2 C Icing Sugar
2 Tblsp Soy Milk

INSTRUCTIONS

Blend (or mush it all together with your hands) together the marg, sugar, flour and baking powder to form crumbs (or mush it all together with your hands). Stir in the water to produce a thick dough. Push this into a lined, greased tin and bake at 180ºC for 25 minutes, or until the top is just starting to brown. Leave the base to cool completely (feel free to accept the fridges help, but make sure the tin has cooled down first!). Keep the slice in the tray, as it will stop the caramel and chocolate going everywhere when you add it.

Melt the caramel ingredients in a pot over medium heat, and then turn the heat up until it starts to boil. Reduce the heat again and leave to simmer for about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat, and give it a good mix (you really want to try whipping it with a wooden spoon) – it should start to thicken. If it doesn’t start to thicken, boil it for a few more minutes then try again. Don’t worry about over boiling, it will take a long time for this; you may have to boil/whip a few times before it behaves right. Pour the sauce over the base, and again leave to cool completely.

Over a low heat, melt the chocolate. Remove from the heat and mix in the icing sugar and milk. Spread this on top of the caramel, and again leave to cool. Once it has cooled completely you can remove it from the tin and cut it up.

Raw Macaroons

Jessie takes credit for this - I'm just posting it for her x

Unlike everything else I claim is healthy, these ACTUALLY ARE HEALTHY. As good as they taste, you’d think they’re full of sugar, but the truth is it’s just wonderful nutty goodness. All of a sudden I feel less guilty for eating half a plate of these.

INGREDIENTS

1/2 C Brazil Nuts
1 handful of Almonds
1 C Shredded Coconut
3 Tblsp Agave Syrup
2 Tblsp Almond Butter (peanut is okay)
3 tsp Coconut Oil
3 tsp Vanilla Essence
2 tsp Cocoa (or cacao)
Cinnamon
Generous pinch of Salt

INSTRUCTIONS

Blend all ingredients in a food processor except cocoa and cinnamon. Make sure this is sticky and dough-like. If not add more almond butter.

For vanilla – Place bite-size biscuits onto a tray and sprinkle with cinnamon.

For chocolate – Blend the the mixture with cocoa, then place bite-size biscuits on the tray.

Chill in the freezer briefly, then enjoy.

Passionfruit Cheesecake

Jessie takes credit for this - I'm just posting it for her x

Cheesecake is probably a vital piece of baking in an activist-vegan’s arsenal. I mean, it’s CAKE made out of CHEESE (well, not really, at all, but, you know..). No one would ever imagine they could go vegan and still have CHEESEcake, but now they can! Next time someone asks you that annoying question, “so what can you eat!?”, you can whip out a cheesecake and eat it in front of them.

INGREDIENTS

Base

1 C Ground Almonds (or almond flour)
1/2 C Soaked Sultanas
2 Tblsp Coconut Oil
2 tsp Vanilla Essence

Cheesecake

2 C Cashew Nuts, soaked overnight, drained
1/4 C Coconut Oil , melted
1/2 C Lemon Juice
1/4 C Maple Syrup
3 Tblsp Vanilla Essence
1 C Water

Topping

5 Passionfruit
1/3 C Maple Syrup

INSTRUCTIONS

Blend all base ingredients and press into tin.  Put in freezer. Blend all cheesecake ingredients, slowly adding in the water. Keep blending until smooth and creamy – this takes a wee while to become creamy. Bear with it, it will eventually. Drizzle atop of base and place in freezer. Mix passionfruit pulp with maple syrup, add more syrup if need be and blend well so that the passionfruit flavour distributes amongst the syrup. When the top has sufficiently solidified, drizzle the topping on top and freeze.

You may like to eat this straight out the freezer (like Jess), or leave it to sit for half an hour so it’s not freezing cold when you put it in your mouth (like me).

Dark Chocolate Ganache Tart

Jessie takes credit for this - I'm just posting it for her x

This is what I imagine a ‘Death by Chocolate’ pudding would be made from – just add chocolate ice cream! It was adapted from a raw recipe book, which talked about how bad unhealthy foods are, which means DUN DUN DUNNNNNN!!! This is totally healthy and good for you! (Just like that Banana Cake). Unlike the banana cake though, this is really rich and so somewhat self-moderating – and when I say something is rich, you should trust me on that.

INGREDIENTS

Tart Crust

3/4 C Cocoa
3/4 C Ground Almonds (or almond flour, if preferred)
1/2 C Maple Syrup
1/4 C Coconut Oil
Pinch of Salt

Ganache Filling

2 1/4 C Cocoa
2 1/4 C Maple Syrup
1 C Coconut Oil

INSTRUCTIONS

Tart Crust

Blend all ingredients in a food processor and press into base. Chill until set.

Ganache Filling

Blend all ingredients. Pour onto base. Chill or freeze until firm (approx 3 hours). Lick spatula. Get overtaken in a frenzy.

When cutting, be sure to do so with a hot knife, then clean and heat it between cuts. It’s sticky.

Banana Cake

For once, I have made something healthy! This cake uses 3 whole bananas, and 3 bananas is probably quite good for you. Eat a whole cake every day and you’re bound to be healthier than everyone you know!

<DISCLAIMER: There is also 2 cups of sugar in the cake, and the above is just a joke. I take no responsibility if you eat one of these every day and die.>

INGREDIENTS

125g Margarine
2 C Sugar
2 tsp Vanilla Essence
3 Large Bananas
2 C Flour
2 tsp Baking Powder

INSTRUCTIONS

Soften the marg, then beat in the sugar and vanilla essence. In a separate bowl, mash up the bananas, and then stir into the marg/sugar mixture. Sift in the flour and baking powder, mix, and pour into a lined cake tin.

Bake at 180ºC for about an hour. Leave to cool, then cover in chocolate icing.

Chocolate Crackles

Wiki says that these are great for kids to make, as they don’t require baking. What Wiki doesn’t tell you though, is that these are amazing! Probably because of all the sugar. Sugar being something you probably don’t want to feed your children too much of (hyperactive kids stuck indoors on a rainy winter day? No thanks!) – I propose that you get your kids to make these, and then eat them yourself.

INGREDIENTS

250g Vegetable Shortening
1/2 C Icing Sugar
1/2 C Coconut
5 Tblsp Cocoa
4 C Rice bubbles

INSTRUCTIONS

Melt the vege shortening in a pot over medium heat. While it’s melting, sieve the cocoa and icing sugar into a bowl. Mix in the coconut and rice bubbles. Once the vege shortening has melted, pout into the mixture and stir it up.

Spoon the mixture into cupcake cases, and refrigerate for 5 – 10 minutes.

 

Edit: I have since been informed you should add 1 tsp Raspberry essence and a small pack of dried cranberries to make these even better!

Peanut Brownies

More traditional food of my people.

Don’t get our brownies confused with chocolate brownies, American-style. These are biscuits, or “cookies”, as you types may refer to them.  They are best enjoyed with a big glass of soy milk.

My  mum is addicted to these crack-like biscuits, so now she can make some for us to share when we visit. Pay attention Ma! 

They’re both crunchy and chewy.  You like what you see? You like it? Aw yeah you do. So do I. For this reason tonight I’ll be featuring a beetroot salad on Tahini Sauce.

INGREDIENTS

125g margarine
1 cup sugar
1.5 cups flour
1 tablespoon cocoa
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 pinch salt
1 cup peanuts
1 tablespoon of water

INSTRUCTIONS

Blend all ingredients, except peanuts, in a blender. Mix batter with peanuts. Roll into balls, press, bake on a greased tray at 180ºC, until springy to touch and cooked through.  When you remove them from the baking tray they will be bendy so let them cool on a cooking-rack; they’ll firm up and the final result will be a chewy-but-crunchy biscuit.

Ginger nuts

I could say something funny here, like; ‘Kids will go nuts for these Ginger nuts!’ – but that probably wouldn’t be very funny. Pregnant women on the other hand… well, sugar (tick) plus (possible) anti-nausea properties of ginger (tick)… they go down a treat.

These are probably the easiest/quickest biscuits I know how to make. You can whip up the batter before the oven’s even preheated. So again, great for those pregnant women who want things NOW.

INGREDIENTS

125g Margarine
1 C Sugar
2 Tblsp Golden Syrup
2 Tblsp Water
2 C Flour
2 tsp Baking Powder
3 tsp Ginger Powder

INSTRUCTIONS

In a large pot, melt the marg over low heat. Remove from the heat, then mix in the sugar, golden syrup and water. Finally, sift in the flour, baking powder and ginger powder.

Roll into balls, place onto a greased oven tray, flatten, and bake at 180ºC for ~ 15 minutes. They should start turning golden brown, but still be slightly soft to the touch. Don’t cook them till they’re firm (like my mother used to), as they harden when they’re cool.

I advise dunking them in coffee as the best way to eat them. Enjoy!

Upside-down Apple Pie

Do you have a pie dish? I don’t! Which means I make all my pies ‘upside-down’. If you do have one, feel free to make yours the right way up. I imagine it will still taste as good.

This is a great way to use up any apples that are getting old, or home grown ones that just don’t look appetising enough to bite into.

INGREDIENTS

4 Apples
1 tsp Sugar
Pastry

INSTRUCTIONS

Peel, cube and slice the apples. Put them in a pot of boiling water with the sugar for about 10 minutes, until they are soft. Drain of the water completely.

Split the pastry into 2, and roll out both of them. Lay one piece on a greased oven tray, pile the apple in the middle, and then place the second piece on top. Roll up the edges of the pastry, if you’ve made your layers the right side this should seal the pie up.

Poke a few holes in the top with a fork, and bake at 180ºC for about 20 minutes. Leave to cool for a few minutes, and then serve with cream.