Pancake day crêpes (egg free, dairy free and vegan)

Vegan crêpes

I wrote a post a few years ago about my go to pancake recipe which is one of the most popular on my blog and has again had a lot of interest this year as we head for pancake day or Shrove Tuesday tomorrow.  The lovely Pippa Kendrick tried out my recipe last week and used gluten free flour - it worked a treat!  You can see her creations on her blog The Intolerant Gourmet here:  http://www.theintolerantgourmet.com/journal/2014/2/25/maple-syrup-pancakes-gluten-free-dairy-free-egg-free-vegan.html

This year I've been experimenting with the idea of crêpes.  They are even more simple then the other pancakes and contain just four ingredients!

Vegan Crêpes

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups plain flour
1 cup non dairy milk
1 cup water
2 tbsp vegetable oil


Method

1.  Place all the ingredients in a small batter bowl and whisk until frothy.

2.  Lightly oil a small frying pan (I love my 20cm saute pan for crepes) and run a paper towel over it to remove excess oil.  Heat the pan until very hot.

3.  Pour in the batter and swirl the pan to coat the bottom of it evenly.  Cook until small bubbles pop all over the surface and the edges are beginning to curl slightly.

4. Flip over the crepe using a silicone scraper, and cook on the other side until lightly golden spots appear ( you have to check underneath it).

5. Slide onto a plate and repeat.  You can keep the cooked crêpes warm in the oven with greaseproof paper between the layers if you wish.

Serve with sweet or savoury fillings as required.

Have you decided on pudding for Christmas Dinner yet? It should definitely feature IceDelight!

I'm in my local Real Foods store in Edinburgh on a regular basis and a few weeks ago they asked if I would like to do another product review for them (I did one back in June which you can see here).  It was such fun last time I was delighted to have another go.  Boy am I glad I said yes! Would I review IceDelight for them?  Yes of course!

I went along to the store to collect my IceDelight which comes in tiny little 100ml tubs and larger 500mls.  I was expecting some little ones....what I got was the selection you see here and wow we have had fun trying out all sorts of things with these yummy treats.

IceDelight is made at Belhaven Fruit Farm by the lovely Mark Rennie who I had the pleasure of meeting several years ago at one of the food festivals in Edinburgh.  Belhaven Fruit Farm is just down the coast from us here in Edinburgh, near Dunbar where they grow fabulous fruits for pick your own, and sell their yummy treats in the shop.  (I can highly recommend them for strawberry picking next year!)

IceDelight itself is dairy free, egg free, gluten free and fat free, and made without artificial colours or flavours.  They taste great and even count towards your 5 a day! The five flavours are Strawberry, Raspberry, Blackcurrant, Gooseberry & Elderflower and Lemon.  In various taste tests with the family we had no outright winner.  I love the Raspberry for its straightforward flavour, Mr Robb liked the Gooseberry and Elderflower which we hadn't tasted before, our eldest enjoys Strawberry or Blackcurrant the most, and surprisingly the littlest loves the lemon, although couldn't make up her mind on her favourite.

We went a little bit Ice Delight wild here and I added it to puddings such as apple crumble, we had straightforward cones, dairy free knickerbocker glories, strawberry daiquiris, IceDelight tarts, ice cream cakes and more.

Brown sugar mini cupcakes (vegan) topped with Strawberry, Raspberry and Lemon flavour IceDelight

So what will we be having for pudding for Christmas Dinner this year? I still don't know, but it will feature a healthy helping of IceDelight!

Cheers! An awesome Strawberry daiquiri made with Rum and Strawberry IceDelight!

Apple Crumble (vegan, gluten free and nut free)

At this time of year my thoughts turn to comfort foods, and the use of seasonal staples such as apples and pears.

Apple Crumble and some amazing Raspberry IceDelight
(no colourings here - just naturally pink from the fresh raspberries!)

This week I've been playing with a wonderful selection of IceDelight flavours and I have plenty of other delights for you in the next few days along with a review of IceDelight for Real Foods. However, today I've been making Apple Crumble, one of the simplest and most comforting of desserts. I make mine completely plain, but you can add cinnamon for a bit of an apple pie style or any other autumnal fruit to boost the flavour.

I used wheat flour to make mine this time, but I have in the past used a plain gluten free flour mix and it has worked beautifully well, as it makes the topping lovely and short and light. I also didn't have enough Bramley apples so I used a selection of five from the fruit bowl today and no-one complained!

Apple Crumble

Ingredients

100g Solid Dairy Free Margarine (I use block Stork)
75g   Golden Sugar
175g Plain Flour (Wheat flour or Gluten Free)

3 to 4 cooking apples such as Bramley (or 5 eating apples)
Another teaspoon or two of sugar depending on how tat the apples are

Method

1. Put the margarine, sugar and flour in a Classic Batter Bowl.

2. Using a Pastry Blender, or your fingers, mix together until you have a sandy, fine textured crumb.

3. Peel and slice the apples and place in the bottom of a Mini Baker with a sprinkle of sugar.

4. Cover the apples with the crumble mix and give the surface some texture to give more crunch once baked.

5. Bake at 180°C for 40-50 mins until golden brown and crisp.

6. Serve with your favourite ice cream style dessert.  Our favourite at the moment is IceDelight from a farm just along the road at Belhaven in Dunbar. It complements the flavour of the apples beautifully and lifts the pudding into something really special.

Vegan hot dog rolls! (egg free, dairy free, nut free, soya free)

I've been meaning to try these little guys for ages having seen them on pinterest ages ago. The original idea came from Taste of Japan's blog and so I had a crack at it for the @sundaybakeclub on twitter whose theme this week is animals.




The recipe is super easy and I used a very basic bread mix:

225g bread flour
1 1/8 tsp yeast
3/4tsp salt
140 mls water

Raisins for eyes / nose
Olive oil for brushing

1. Mix all of the ingredients together in a bowl and knead for ten minutes until you have a smooth dough. Or be lazy like me and chuck it in a mixer with a dough hook or the pizza dough setting in a bread maker.

2. Divide into six equal parts and roll each one into an oval.

3. Place on a flat baking stone such as the Rectangle stone to rise for around 20 mins covered with oiled clingfilm.

4. After 20 minutes, cut a slice at each side to create the ears and smooth them to a rounded tip. Add raisins for the eyes and nose (push these well into the dough as they pop out again as it bakes).

Is it me, or does this little guy look like Droopy Dawg?

5. Brush with olive oil using the silicone basting brush and bake at 200°C for 15 - 20 mins until golden.

Serve with hot dogs or anything else you fancy!

Apple Crumble cupcakes (Gluten free, egg free, dairy free, nut free, soya free and vegan!)

These cupcakes were created as an entry for a Pampered Chef competition for their consultants. The challenge was to make a cupcake that could be cooked for Party Hour which is a super quick show and allows guests and host to enjoy a Pampered Chef show even if they are pushed for time.  I went for an allergy free cupcake as I feel that the recipe should be available to as many people as possible, and just because you have an allergy doesn't mean you shouldn't have a cupcake!

Don't be put off by the list of ingredients. It may seem a lot but it is just a bit of repetition in the crumble topping, and dairy free, egg free cooking needs a bit of extra oomph sometimes!

 Crumble Topping

¾ cup Gluten free self raising flour

½ cup brown sugar

½ tsp ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp salt

1/3 cup vegan margarine, melted

Cupcakes

1 ½ cups Gluten free self raising flour

½ cup sugar

1 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp ground cinnamon

¼ tsp salt

½ cup rice milk

½ cup vegetable oil

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 apples

100g Jar Apple Sauce, divided into 2 tbsp and 12 tsp

Icing

4 tbsp icing sugar

1 tbsp water

Ready rolled white icing

1.   Preheat the oven to 180°C.  Place cupcake cases in the 12-cup Muffin Pan.  Into the 2L Stainless Mixing Bowl, measure out the Crumble topping ingredients using an Easy Read Measuring Cup and the Adjustable Measuring Spoon teaspoon.  Mix together with two forks until the topping is crumbly and has small lumps in it. Set aside.

2.   Into the 4L Stainless Mixing Bowl measure out the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. In a Small Batter Bowl whisk together the milk, oil, vinegar, 2 tbsp apple sauce, and vanilla using a Stainless Whisk, until frothy.

3.   Wedge the apples with the Apple Wedger and then chop into fine chunks with a FoodChopper. Add to the flour mix.

4.   Pour the wet mix into the dry flour mixture and mix until just together with a Mix N Scraper.  Quickly Scoop into the paper cases using a Large Scoop.

Sprinkle the crumble topping over the cupcakes and press down slightly to make it stick.  Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden brown. 

5.   Meanwhile prepare the icing by mixing the icing and water together and scooping into a Decorator Bottle with the round nozzle attached.  Use the apple cutter from the Creative Cutter Set stamp out 12 apple shapes from the ready rolled icing.

6.   Remove cupcakes from the oven and leave to sit for a few minutes before removing from the stone.

7.   Carefully remove the cupcakes from the stone (see chef’s tip) and place on Stackable Cooling Rack.  While the cupcakes are still warm you can drizzle icing over in random patterns, add a teaspoon of apple sauce to the top of each one and place an apple shape on the top.

Chef’s Tip: Use a micro scraper to ease the cupcakes out of the wells without spilling too much crumble topping everywhere.

If you don't want to top with the apple shape then simply add the drizzled icing and stop there.