Smooth, creamy truffles and crunchy oat crumble

One of my housemates has been making lots of super tasty looking truffles recently which has been a really good test of my will power. But to help me resist, I decided I'd make some vegan ones. Here's the recipe I used...

Nyom nyom nyom...

Coconut truffles

• Melt 250g dark chocolate.
• Stir in 100ml soya cream, 100g creamed coconut and 50g desiccated coconut.
• Leave in the fridge over night.
• Roll into balls in icing sugar and desiccated coconut, then sprinkle with cocoa powder.
• I made 31, but it could easily do a few more.

Recipe source: 'Return of the Cake Scoffer'

If you're feeling that all that's just a little unhealthy, why not make a crumble? Crumbles are great. They're full of fruit so you can pretend that they're healthy... At Veggie Soc on Sunday, we made an apple and rhubarb one. It was really easy, and tasty too.

Oaty crumble topping

Apple and rhubarb crumble

• Pre-heat oven to around 180°C/Gas Mark 5.
• Boil enough apple and rhubarb to fill most of your dish until soft.
• Mix together equal amounts of sugar and flour in a bowl.
  Using your hands, rub in small amounts of sunflower spread at a time until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs.
• Add a handful of oats.
• Use mixture to cover fruit.
• Bake crumble until the top turns golden brown.
  Enjoy with soya cream, custard or ice cream. (Hey, it's fine; you're eating fruit...)

With custard

The exciting escapades of Veggie Soc

Today, we had a Veggie Soc stall at the union as part of a Transition University event, which is about making the uni greener. We had various yummy recipes and leaflets to hand out, including one for Meat Free Monday, which seems to me a good stepping stone between enjoying veggie food and "I couldn't possibly be veggie all the time so I won't do it at all!", though it did have an odd information/Paul McCartney photo ratio. But anyway, as if that wasn't exciting enough, we were also selling Swedish choco-balls for 10p, along with a little recipe card. We first made them for the international food tasting event last week and they proved so popular that we thought we'd do them again, and now you can too...

Unfortunately, I was too busy buying and eating them to take a photo...

Oops That's supposed to read 2 tbsp water OR coffee.

Emma and Genevieve try out old and new recipes

Banana loaf and slightly grilled cookies (oops...)

This afternoon, Genevieve, a friend from the Lishi (tai chi) class at the university came over to listen to Beatles records, have a tour of our new house and meet some of the resident spiders. Oh yes, and most importantly of all, to bake cake! First, we made a banana loaf which a friendly cake baker called Melina recommended to me through a vegetarian/vegan couchsurfing group. Melina says that this one is her favourite, plus, cakes are a great way to use up very ripe bananas. And the end result was yummylicious! Genevieve and I also made some coconut and cashew cookies. These are from a recipe which contains egg, and up til now I've just cheated and used egg replacer because I was scared of messing up the cookies... Today, though, we used flaxseed (a great source of Omega 3 which can be added to anything you may be cooking) and my fears turned out to be unfounded; the cookies taste great! Anyhow, without further ado, on with the recipes... :)

Melina's banana cake

• Preheat the oven to 180°C/Gas Mark 4.
• Mix together the following ingredients: 225g soya/vegetable spread, 250g sugar or agave syrup, 2-3 very ripe bananas, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp nutmeg, 1 tsp baking powder.
• Next stir in 250g flour (Melina recommends a mix of dinkel and amaranth flour).
• Finally, stir in (optional) 50g crushed walnuts and 25g chocolate pieces (we used cacao nibs and came to the conclusion that whilst slightly odd on their own, they're not so bad in cake).
• Pour into loaf/cake tins.
• As a finishing touch, Melina adds a few clove heads, spread evenly across the top.

Coconut and cashew cookies

• Preheat the oven to 180°C/Gas Mark 4.
• Cream together 150g vegetable/soya spread with 135g sugar.
• Mix 1 tbsp ground flaxseed with 3 tbsp water (This is roughly equivalent to 1 egg. There are various other ways of replacing egg, like with banana for example. If in doubt, Google it!) and add to the sugar mix.
• Stir in 150g self raising flour (if you don't have self raising, just add 1 tsp baking powder for every 75g).
• Next, add 100g dessicated or grated creamed coconut (either works well, it just depends what kind of texture you want), 2 tsp ground ginger (optional) and 200g cashews.
• Add small balls of mixture (it'll be fairly sticky) to a greased baking tray and bake for around 15 minutes.
• Eat!

Recipe source for banana loaf: Melina (Thanks!)
Recipe source for cookies: Vegetarian Nosh 4 Students (This book has some really great recipes, although a lot of them do contain quite a bit of cheese.)

Emma and Harpreet make lamingtons and a mess, but mostly a mess

What a lamington is supposed to look like

After all the excitement of moving house in Leeds, I've been back to Nottingham briefly in order to catch up with friends, family and, of course, Robin Hood. Last night, me and Harpreet (one of my oldest friends, who I've known since I was 4) decided to attempt to make lamingtons, a cake generally found in Australia and New Zealand. Being half Australian, I'd made this cake when I was little, so I thought it would work quite well. Unfortunately, we were far too eager to eat the cake as soon as it came out of the oven, so we didn't leave it to cool. This resulted in a big mess. But a tasty mess all the same! Here is the recipe we used...

• Preheat the oven to 190°C/Gas Mark 5.
• Mix together 200g self raising flour, 3 tsp baking powder, 115g sugar, 125ml vegetable oil, 325ml cold water and 2 tsp vanilla essence.
• Add the mixture into greased cake tins and bake for 30 minutes.
• Leave to cool! This one is very important!
• Slice cake in half horizontally and sandwich back together with jam.
• Mix together 30g cocoa and 120g icing sugar with a few drops of water at a time until it reaches a good consistency (you may need to make more icing later).
• Slice the cake into squares and coat in chocolate icing. 
• Roll lamingtons in dessicated coconut.
• Eat after the (veggie?) barbeque on the beach, but beware the surfing kangaroos; they will try to steal your cake.

 Vanilla sponge recipe source: The Vegan Society