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Sweet
Cantucci (the Tuscan name for biscotti) are typically served with vin santo for dessert. I tend to chuck in whatever nut or dried fruit we have available, and this particular combo worked out exceptionally well: the tanginess and chew from the oranges, the toasty crunch of the hazelnuts, and the plump, wine-soaked sweetness from the figs. I try not to overcook them so as to retain some of that satisfying chewiness.
These are slightly different from my other cookie recipes – they’re NYC-style: enormous, and molten and tender, to the point where they very nearly collapse when lifted. They’re saturated with chocolate and have the delicious crunch of walnuts and a touch of sea salt to counteract their sweetness.
What could be better than a mattress of focaccia painted with glistening peppery olive oil, the occasional crunch of salt crystals, and a soft, pillowy interior that creates an insatiable appetite for more?
Almost nothing, apart from simply another version of a focaccia – this time with a layer of succulent grapes folded into the centre of the dough. Grapes, which burst in your mouth as you bite through the focaccia.
It’s perhaps even more beautiful than the OG focaccia, and tastes sublime on its own, or paired with pecorino and a glass of Vin Santo.
This recipe is delivered with a warning: this stollen, despite its understated, simple, appearance, is highly addictive. I ate almost an entire stollen in one day and felt quite sorry for myself afterwards (guilt streaked sugar-overload), so arm yourself with friends or a freezer before making it
Epic apple pie: the pastry is golden and flakey, and the apple filling a medley of tart, tangy and sweet. There’s a hint of autumnal spice (without it being overpowering), and it’s topped, not with more pastry, but a brown butter cinnamon crumble that adds moreish crunch.
This cake is heady with the spirit of Tuscany. The grapes combined with the harmonious perfumed trio of orange, almond and vanilla is particularly luscious, and peculiar to Italian baking. The use of olive oil instead of butter, and the addition of ground almonds make it so moist and sumptuous. The flavour tends to develop after a day, so I’d advise making this a day or two in advance of eating (storing it an airtight container or covering the top of the cake tin until ready to serve).
It’s the perfect cake for vegans and non-vegans alike: no weird gums or chemicals or frogspawn-y aquafaba, and it doesn't even need them. It’s moist, sticky and absurdly moreish. It can stand proudly beside any egg-containing cake, and win over any vegan cake-hating sceptic. When I say it’s easy to make, I mean it is exceptionally easy. It can be whipped up in under 10 minutes and, if you're making mini loaves, it bakes within 10 minutes too.
This cheesecake speaks for itself. It combines my three of my favourite things: lotus biscuits, white chocolate and passionfruit. The lotus biscuits make the perfect base, providing an almost umami, caramelised base.
The cake is tender and chocolatey and, when cut open, reveals a molten centre. The raspberries add that vital fresh astringency to cut through the sweetness and make a second piece impossibly hard to resist.
Once again, this recipe comes with a disclaimer that despite being vegan, the cake does not vaguely taste “vegan”.
Checkerboard Cookies: This cookie is partially inspired my nostalgia for playdough, and partially by my extreme jubilation about the fact that Drag Race (both UK & US editions) has just started again (the cookies represent the Drag Race flags that Ru Paul holds, obviously). If you like either of those things, especially playdough, are feeling crafty, and/or are seeking some fun on day 323 of lockdown, then these cookies are for you.
I don’t understand why there’s a “season” for pumpkin spice themed dishes when delicious pumpkin puree is available (from a can) all year round. In honour of this recent discovery, I decided to make these cookies. I was influenced by a recipe on Bon Appetitwhich incorporated pumpkin and various spices into a cookie. However - I was very disappointed by the result: the cookies were mean and thin, with root canal problem-inducing sweetness, overly egg-y, and totally lacking in the promised pumpkin flavour.
So, I made my own to tick the 3 commandments of cookies:
- Chewy
- Molten
- Thick
I radically amped up the amount of pumpkin, and reduced the sugar. I also added both white and milk chocolate, so that, upon baking, they caramelized, creating a sophisticated toffee flavour. The added crunch and maple-flavour of the pecans add some complexity, too.
NB If you would like a more savoury cookie, you could switch the milk and white chocolate for dark chocolate. And if you’d like to have a supply of cookies for emergencies, you can freeze the scoops of uncooked cookie dough and bake them when desired.
150 unsalted butter, softened
80g light brown sugar
70g caster sugar
1 egg
40g pumpkin puree
1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp cinnamon
1 ½ tsp ground ginger
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp mixed spice
220g plain flour
heaped ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
100g white chocolate + 30 g white chocolate for topping (I use buttons but you can chop up a bar or use chips instead)
50g milk chocolate, roughly chopped
50g chopped pecans, + 20g for topping
2 large baking trays, lined with baking parchment
1) Put the unsalted butter, light brown sugar and caster sugar into the bowl of an electric mixer, fitted with the paddle, and beat until light and fluffy (about 5 minutes). If doing by hand, beat ingredients together with a spoon. Add the egg, pumpkin puree and vanilla extract, and beat until full combined.
2) Add the spices (cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, mixed spice), flour, baking powder and salt to the wet ingredients, and very gently fold together until almost combined, leaving some flour still visible. Add the chopped milk chocolate, white chocolate and pecans, and very gently fold them into the cookie dough until combined.
3) Cover the bowl and refrigerate for minimum 1 hour and up to 24 hours (until you’re ready to bake the cookies).
4) Preheat the oven to 180°C. Then. either using an ice cream scoop, or a tablespoon, scoop the cookie dough into 40g dollops. I weigh each one to make sure they cook evenly, but if you can’t be bothered just estimate. Roll each into a sphere between your palms to ensure that they bake into near-perfect rounds. Place on the tray leaving about 4cm between each so that they have room to spread when they bake. Then, into each sphere, press a piece of white chocolate and a piece of pecan.
5) Place in oven to bake for 7-10 minutes, or until they are golden at the edges but still soft to the touch. Once they are removed from the oven, they will continue to cook on the baking tray so leave them to sit for a couple of minutes. Serve warm if you can’t wait, or keep them for up to 4 days in an airtight container. You can also freeze them in an airtight container for up to 3 months.
These chocolate brownie and peanut butter cookies are not hard to make, but they’re so good I wouldn’t recommend wasting them on frenemies.
This is basically a brioche without the effort – all you do is mix everything together, knead a little bit (great for taking out tension), punch it (great for relieving stress), let it rise, then bake and devour.
Putting the words “vegan” and “cake” together can be dangerous territory. I’ve had some scarring experiences: vegan cake conjures up memories of synthetic, stomach-ache inducing, chemical-tasting, dry sponges.
I’ve managed to defy the stereotype before with these chocolate cupcakes and was beginning to fear that that is where my vegan cake adventures would end. I was wrong. These pistachio cakes are light, moist, and totally delicious – and they have no gross chemicals.
They have a semblance of a Moroccan/Arabian dessert with tangy lemon to cut through the sweetness, crunchy salted pistachios for texture and relief from the sweetness, and a touch of rose water not to make them too perfumed (which I also don’t like) but to add a hint of exoticness.
The batter is also dangerously good (so make sure your spatula isn’t too effective).
(makes 10 mini cakes or 1 large loaf cake)
Ingredients
100g roasted and salted pistachios, shelled (80g for the cake and 20g for the topping)
200g plain flour
8 cardamom pods
¼ tsp vanilla
¼ tsp salt
220g caster sugar (150g for the cake, 70g for the syrup)
80ml vegetable oil
200ml plant-based milk (I use oat or almond for their neutral flavour)
3 lemons (zest of 1 lemon and juice of all 3)
1 ½ tsp baking powder
¾ tsp bicarbonate of soda
¼ tsp rosewater (you can leave this out if you’re not a fan or can’t get hold of it)
200g icing sugar, sifted
10-holed mini loaf tin (each one is 10cm x 4cm), or large loaf tin (10cm x 20cm), greased with vegetable oil and dusted with flour, or a 12-hole muffin tin, lined with cases
Method
1) Preheat oven to 180°C.
2) In a large bowl, mix together the flour, 150g caster sugar, baking powder, bicarb, salt and the zest of one lemon.
3) With a pestle and mortar (or back of a knife), gently crush the cardamom pods so that you can remove the shells and are left with just the seeds. Crush the seeds to a powder. Then either in the pestle and mortar or in a blender, blitz 80g of the shelled pistachios until they resemble coarse sand. Mix them into the dry ingredients.
4) Pour milk, oil, vanilla and the juice of one lemon into the dry ingredients and fold together until combined (btw the batter tastes amazing raw). Spoon the batter into the mini loaf tins/large loaf tin/muffin cases, and place in the oven to bake until an inserted skewer comes out clean. The mini loaf tins and muffin tins will take 10-12 minutes, the large loaf tin will take 30-40 minutes, and you may need to cover it with tin foil after 25 minutes to ensure the top doesn’t burn.
5) While the cakes are baking, in a small pan over a medium heat, stir together the juice of 1 lemon and 70g of caster until the sugar dissolves. Allow to simmer for 3-4 minutes until the liquid becomes slightly viscous (almost like maple syrup).
6) Remove the cakes from the oven, place on a rack to cool, and pierce all over with a cake tester or toothpick. Spoon the heated lemon juice/sugar solution over the cakes. This will be absorbed quickly and make the cakes extra zesty and moist.
7) While the cakes are cooling, make the icing by mixing together icing sugar, 2tbsp of lemon juice (about 1 lemon) and the rose water until they form a smooth paste. Often weather can affect consistency: if the icing is too stiff, you may need to add a drop more lemon juice; and vice versa, if it is too liquid, you can add a touch more icing sugar. It should be a thick paste.
8) Once the cakes have cooled, drizzle the icing over, sprinkle with the remaining pistachios, and serve.
(Adapted from So Vegan)
Crumpets are even better when home-made. Store-bought can be bland, powdery and stodgy. These, however, are fluffy and light, yet sturdy enough to provide an excellent foundation for several storeys of topping. Don’t be put off by the need for yeast - the whole process takes just over an hour and once you’ve made your own, it’ll be impossible to revert to store-bought.
I am reluctant to call them custard creams as they are everything traditional ones are not. Instead of being brittle and flavourless, the biscuit is light, vanilla-scented, and so tender it almost dissolves on your tongue. And the filling is smooth, and generous, with a subtle lemon tang to add astringent relief.
So, I’ve got the solution. Why make loads when you can make one large pancake to divide between your salivating guests? This is the pancake to top all pancakes – it makes even the most indulgent of American pancakes look pitiful and mean. It’s giant, thic(cc)k, pillowy and stuffed with blueberries. It can be dressed up, piled high with tumbled berries and drenched with lashings of maple syrup.
if I have a vegan chocolate cake, it needs to meet or surpass its non-vegan equivalent in taste, in texture and in appearance.
And, it most certainly cannot have any weird artificial or suspicious gunk holding it together.
Anyway, I stumbled across a basic recipe online: it came out disturbingly black, and tasted acrid. And I tried an online vegan icing recipe: it was revoltingly oily, and tear-inducingly bitter. So, I’ve chopped and changed and adjusted and refined, and this is the result: cupcakes that are juicy, fluffy, tender, and moist, with a smooth, creamy chocolatey icing.
They are so good that I guarantee no one will guess they’re vegan.
This the perfect non-picnic picnic cake. It’s light with a cloudy vanilla sponge, and laced with fresh cherries which burst in your mouth and whose astringency perfectly cut through the smooth rich vanilla-cream. I keep the cherries fresh and unadulterated so as to keep the cake not too sweet, with a hint of cherry jam just to counter too much acidity.
In my dictionary definition of cookie, I’m going to be demanding. It needs to be thic(ccc)k so that each mouthful contains some of the promised flavours, be they chocolate, nut, or candy. I want it crisp on the outside so that when broken, it gives way to a chewy cookie-dough goo. If there’s chocolate or caramel, they need to be molten. They also need to have enough salt to balance the sweetness and add depth of flavour.
And, after years of trials, the quest to create the perfect cookie becoming increasingly Sisyphean, I’ve done it. And you need to make them ASAP.
