Vegan Lemon Drizzle

Whoops. It’s been quiet here for a very long time. Where have the months gone?! Our family expanded with the addition of our beautiful puppy Arlo, and he certainly has been keeping us busy. Whilst running a business, working part time, and looking after a pup, finding time to blog has been hard; not only do you need time, you also need significant surface area (read… the floor!) to photograph the bakes which has been challenging with an inquisitive puppy!

My plan for 2018 was to post at least 1 new recipe a month… safe to say that being in March already, it hasn’t gotten off to a good start! But that being said I already have a few recipes in the pipeline for you ready to go.

For now you’ll still see a heavy vegan influence on my blog. My first attempt at reintroducing eggs was not much of a success, so for now I’m still egg free. That being said, I’m winning more and more every day at creating vegan bakes, so I feel like I’m missing out less and less.

All that said, here is my recipe for a vegan lemon drizzle. It might not be the fanciest of bakes, but I love a good, punchy lemon cake and it’s something I’ve really missed since going egg free. This recipe is loosely based on a basic cake recipe in Ms. Cupcakes Naughtiest Vegan Cakes In Town book. As I’ve said before, I can’t recommend this book highly enough for anyone starting out with vegan baking. This cake is light, fluffy, delicious and smack-you-in-the-face lemony. What’s not to like?!

Vegan Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

A great teatime treat, these vegan cookies will have even the most ardent peanut butter hater craving more! For non vegans and vegans alike, these cookies are sure to be loved by everyone. Make a double batch and watch them disappear!

These cookies are the perfect combination of caramel, peanuts and chocolate. I’m told it’s ‘just like a Snickers bar’ – but I honestly wouldn’t remember, it’s been so long now! Either way, these cookies are a really delicious, easy, one-bowl-mix-it-all-together recipe. They’re so good I may have eaten 3 in-between them coming out of the oven and being photographed… whoops!

Continuing my vegan baking streak, these cookies contain no dairy and no eggs, and you honestly wouldn’t know. With all the flavour and fat from the peanut butter, it’s one of those rare times you don’t miss the richness that dairy usually brings to a recipe.

You can use whatever type of peanut butter you have in these, and the end result will vary accordingly. I use an all natural, no added sugar, crunchy variety; I love the little pieces of peanut in the cookies and personally think the recipe is sweet enough. However, I’m really keen to try it with smooth peanut butter, and if you use a variety with sugar in it, consider reducing the sugar in the recipe a little.

This recipe is based on a recipe from a vegan baking book that I absolute love and would highly recommend – Ms Cupcake: The Naughtiest Vegan Cakes In Town. Full of all sorts of vegan sweet treats, I’m yet to come across a recipe that hasn’t been a roaring success.

Vegan Scones

Vegan scones; this recipe proves they can be just as light and delicious as their dairy and egg filled counterparts!

Oh, scones. I’ve waxed lyrical on here before about my love of scones, and since having to cut out eggs, they’ve been something I’ve really missed. I honestly was not convinced that this would be possible, but after a bit of trial and error I’m so happy to say that scones are back in my life!

I’ve been egg free now for almost 4 months, after first cutting them out to see whether my eczema improved. Sadly.. (or luckily, I suppose, depending on which way you look at it!) my eczema is doing so much better without eggs, so I think they’ll be gone for good. Although this has presented more than the odd food challenge, it’s wonderful to have something to aim for again – winning the battle of egg free baking and making sure these recipes are just as delicious.

Having scones back in my life has been a huge plus recently, and it has been encouraging me to go after some of the other bakes I don’t think are possible without eggs, like brownies. Whilst the brownie recipe might still be work in progress, this scone recipe is complete. Light, fluffy and flavoursome, just begging for some dairy free butter and jam, these are perfect and a great bake to have up your sleeve for the dairy and egg free person in your life! The best thing? You’ll have the ‘normal’ eaters loving them too!

Vegan Chocolate Walnut Banana Loaf

Moist, delicious chocolate and nut banana loaf. A play on the usual banana bread by adding chocolate, this has turned something a little over-done into something a little magical.

Sometimes the best recipes are the spontaneous ones. Although for those of you who know me well, you will know that spontaneity is not one of my top qualities! So it really says something to me when a recipe is quickly pulled together, only to be a roaring success. So much so that in the last 4 weeks, I’ve made this recipe three times! And no, there are still only two of us at home, and, yes, we ate it all each time…

I do love a banana bread cake, but recently I’ve been trying to improve my diet a little (being at home now with all these cakes is definitely starting to take it’s toll on my waist line…Safe to say my jeans are feeling a little more snug than they used to!). So when I fancied a sweet treat, that was only a little bit naughty, I saw I had two lone and blackening bananas. Well, at that point it was obvious what I fancied, but I also was really wanting something chocolatey. So out of the oven 45 minutes later came this amazing Chocolate Walnut Banana Loaf!

This is a fabulous Vegan recipe, that it doesn’t matter if you’re vegan or not – you’ll love it. It’s sweet, but not too sweet with the bitter walnuts. It’s chocolatey, but not so much that you can’t taste the banana. And it’s banana-y without being overbearing. In my book, it’s just perfect with a cup of tea for a mid-afternoon pick me up.

 

If you can leave the walnuts in, do. If you can’t (or would prefer to remove them), add in 10g less of sugar. The walnuts give lovely texture to the otherwise quite soft and moist loaf; but crucially they also take away some of the sweetness with their lovely bitter flavour.

This is a quick mix in two goes recipe. The most involved part is smashing up the bananas which you can put as much or as little effort as you like into. Or, why not get some small hands involved? This would be a great recipe to make with little children with a little bit of adult supervision.