Cake'n'Bake Club: Peanut Butter Cookies

I know I usually post Cake'n'Bake recipes on a Wednesday, but since I struggled to post anything at all towards the later part of last year, I think I'm going to start posting these on a Friday instead. I have a lot of Cake'n'Bake recipes to type up and catch up on too... I was just seriously bad at blogging in 2013!

For Cake'n'Bake Club's January 2014 meeting, our theme was "free-from", so I knocked up these vegan and gluten free cookies. Originally I had used gluten free flour, but they didn't hold together too well so I remade them last weekend using oats and they were much better! The recipe below started it's life over on this blog here, but with a few tweaks from me ;-)

Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 8-10 minutes
Makes 18 cookies

Ingredients:
150g rolled oats
1 tsp baking powder

250g crunchy peanut butter

150g dark muscovado sugar
1tsp vanilla extract
4 tbsp water

1. Preheat your oven to 180 and line a couple of baking sheets with grease proof paper
2. Pop 100g of the oats into a blender, and whizz to a fine powder. Don't worry if there are a couple of rough bits. Stir in the remaining oats and the baking powder and put to one side.
3. Beat together the peanut butter, sugar, vanilla extract and water until well combined. Stir in the oats until a crumbly dough starts to form, then knead this gently with your hands until the mixture comes together. 
4. Roll the dough into balls and pop on the baking sheets, leaving a little space in between. Press down with a fork to make a criss cross pattern on top.
5. Bake the cookies for 8-10 minutes, until golden brown and starting to get crisp on top. Don't worry if they are still gooey when you take them out of the oven, they will firm up as they cool. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking tray for a minute or two before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
6. Enjoy!

Happy Thoughts
x

Vegan "Sausage" Rolls

Last Friday at work we had a charity bake sale in aid of Hand in Hand for Syria and the British Red Cross Typhoon Haiyan Appeal. I sit on the charity committee and am starting to get a bit of a name for myself with my baking. I just missed our on the Star Baker award at our Christmas do last year, but have got it in my sights this year. At any rate, it had been requested that there are more vegan and gluten free offerings made at bake sales, so I did my best to comply.

All credit for this recipe goes to my friend Joy, who bought these "sausage" rolls to Cake'n'Bake a few months back. They are super simple, and I wouldn't have guessed that the ingredients were vegan friendly, but they are! I'm not sure if all brands would be equally vegan friendly, so just check the labels to be sure.

Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 18-20 minutes
Makes 24 sausage rolls

Ingredients
200g sage and onion stuffing mix
Boiling water (as needed)
1 packet of ready-to-roll puff pastry
1 tbsp soy milk, to glaze

1. Pre-heat the oven to 160, and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper
2. Tip the stuffing mix into a bowl and stir in boiling water. Check the packet of stuffing mix to get the quantity of water, as I believe this varies brand to brand. I used around 350mls. Pop the stuffing to one side to cool.
3. Unroll the packet of pastry and cut into 24 evenly sized rectangles.
4. When the stuffing is cool enough to handle, roll into 24 balls. Pop each ball onto the centre of each rectangle of pastry, and warp the pastry around the stuffing, making sure to tuck in the edges of the pastry as you go.
5. Brush the sausage rolls with a little soy milk to glaze, the pop in the oven for 18-20 minutes, until golden brown.
6. Can be enjoyed hot or cold!

Until next time,

Happy thoughts x

Vegan Apple Muffins

Happy New Year, friends!

Did you all over-indulge over the holiday season? I know I did! So, after spending the whole of December posting Christmas recipes, I thought it would be a good idea to have January be detox month. So, this month I'll be posting as many healthy(ish) recipes I can muster, starting with these Vegan apple muffins.

These muffins are tasty, moist and have a lovely subtle apple and almond flavour, and they are dairy free (if you want them to be!) I used sunflower spread and almond milk, so all in all these muffins are fairly healthy, but if you're not on a dairy-restricted diet, cows milk and standard margarine will work just fine. This is a recipe that Alex and I love, as once the muffins have cooled, you can wrap them tightly in cling film and then put in the freezer. If you take the muffin out of the freezer in the morning and allow it to defrost still wrapped, it will be fully thawed and ready to eat by lunch time!

Ingredients:

60g sunflower spread (or margarine, if making the non-Vegan variety)

2 eating apples

100g soft brown sugar (plus extra for topping)

200ml almond milk (or standard milk, if non-Vegan)

2tsp baking powder

1tsp mixed spice

150g plain flour

100g wholemeal flour

Prep time: 10 – 15 minutes

Cook time: 15 – 20 minutes

Makes 9 muffins

1. Melt the sunflower spread in the microwave for 15 seconds, then place to one side to cool.
2. Preheat the oven to gas mark 6 and line a muffin tray with cases.
3. Peel the apples and then grate them into a medium sized mixing bowl, (watch for those pips!)
4. Add the sugar, milk and cooled sunflower spread to the apple and beat with a fork until the sugar has dissolved.
5. Add the baking powder, mixed spice and both flours to the bowl. Stir into the mixture with the fork until the ingredients come together to form a thick batter.
6. Spoon the batter into the muffin cases, filling each around ¾ full. Sprinkle a little extra brown sugar over the top of each muffin, then place on the middle shelf of the oven for 15-20 minutes until golden brown all over.
7. Allow the muffins to cool in the muffin pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Once the muffins have cooled, you can wrap them tightly in cling film and then put in the freezer. If you take the muffin out of the freezer in the morning and allow it to defrost still wrapped, it will be fully thawed and ready to eat by lunch time!

Happy Thoughts
x