Something so utterly unbelievable and incredible and awesome happened that I can hardly find the right words! But I’ll try:
ME! FREE! SOY! CREAM! 22 PACKAGES!!!!!
Woah, is it Christmas yet?
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Brownie Pops with Sesame and Caramel, fully vegan!
What’s better than brownies? I’ll tell you: Brownies on a stick! If you don’t believe me, just have a look and see for yourself. Those little crumbly monsters are covered with one layer of dark chocolate and sprinkled with bits of sesame brittle. This is 100% mouth-watering, vegan goodness!
Refreshing Vegan Strawberry Lassi with Vanilla and Mint
Frankfurt has been struck by a nasty heat wave these past few days. It’s really awful! Around noon the temperatures are somewhere around 30°C and in the afternoon there tend to be thunderstorms which make the air humid, thick, sticky and heavy. I sometimes wonder if I have some ancestors from scandinavia, russia or iceland. Even though nobody really enjoys this kind of weather, most people still seem to be able to deal with it a lot better than I am. I get headaches and I’m also not much of an eater in this weather. But just not eating at all is no solution either, so I came up with this little snack: since it’s thick and creamy and contains tofu, it sort of fills you up, the strawberries add some vitamins and the mint makes it very refreshing.
Serve chilled, maybe even with some crushed ice? Too bad my freezer is currently broken, but it should be worth a try…
A Three-Ingredient-Recipe: Sesame Brittle
A friend of mine always says she can’t imagine what stuff is supposed to taste like as soon as more than three ingredients are involved. In her head everything with more ingredients turns into a slimy grey mass. So lately I couldn’t help but wondering how many recipes I know that only use three ingredients. And the answer is: not many. But one recipe with three ingredients that I do know (and it’s sooooo lovely) is sesame brittle.
Homemade Cashew Nut Butter
Peanut butter is so yesterday. Seriously, if you wanna be somebody, then make your own cashew nut butter! It takes about five minutes, is as easy as can be and so incredibly delicious!
Stuffed Mushroom Crumble with Red Wine Vinegar
I used to loathe mushrooms. But I recently found out that it’s a lot about how you prepare them. What I always disliked most was when the mushrooms were too slimy and gooey. But when you stuff them and bake them in the oven they get a really nice consistency. And combined with some crunchy crumble topping they’re just lovely!
Rich and Creamy Choco Coco Fudge, vegan and dairy-free
I was so thrilled about my vegan butter fudge last week that I just couldn’t stop there. So brace yourself for phase two of my vegan fudge experiments! This time I’m making chocolate fudge. But not just plain old chocolate-only chocolate fudge, I’m making chocolate and coconut cream fudge!
Just look at the nice, dark colour. This fudge is rich in chocolate but also kind of exotic. I know some people don’t like coconut flavour, but if you do then you really should give this a try.
If you wrap it up in some fancy paper or a nice box, some homemade confectionery is also always a lovely (and not to mention unique) gift for your friends and family.
… on the other hand having it all to yourself is not a bad deal either!
Since my butter fudge recipe was quite detailed already and since I also posted this article about candy making theory, I’ll explain a bit less in this recipe and make it a bit shorter. So if you’re not sure about a certain step, you can probably look it up in one of the other two posts. But also don’t hesitate to ask!
Start by combining 200ml of soy milk, 100ml of coconut cream, 80g of marge, 350g of caster sugar and 50g of dark baking cocoa powder in a very big pot. Stir with a spoon until everything is roughly mixed, then slowly heat it on a small flame.
Stir well until everything dissolves completely, then stop stirring and put a food thermometer into the pot. When the temperature climbs above 90°C it will start boiling and rising soon.
I know the video quality is crappy since I took it with my small point-and-shoot camera, but this is what you have to expect:
As soon as it starts boiling you have to take care that it doesn’t burn so reduce the heat a little bit and maybe give it an occasional stir every now and then.
When you reach the soft ball stage at about 115°C take the pot off of the cooker and leave it alone for a while. Don’t stir, don’t do anything until it cools down to about 40-50°C. Then take a wooden spoon and start beating and stirring the fudge until it thickens and the crystallisation starts.
Now you need to be quick! You should prepare a small mould (like a small bread mould or a one person lasagna mould) by greasing it or – even better – putting non-stick baking paper into it so that once the crystallisation starts you can put the fudge in the mould right away.
At this point you’ll already have a very lovely chocolate fudge with a faint coconut flavour. If you like it like this, then you’re done. But if you want to go for the extreme-coconut-experience then you should have some coconut flakes ready to hand.
Sprinkle a few spoons of them onto the fudge. If the crystallisation already made your fudge pretty solid then take a piece of cling film to press the coconut flakes into the surface of the fudge. This is also a good way to slightly mould the fudge and give it a consistent thickness.
To get nice and clean cuts slice the fudge while it’s still slightly soft. You can also let it harden completely and break it into chunks if you like the irregular look.
If your fudge seems too soft, then give it a couple of hours in the fridge. If it’s to hard then maybe try wrapping it in cling film.
If you want the coconut flakes not only on top of the fudge but also inside of it then you can add a few teaspoons when you start beating it.
I hope you enjoy this recipe. Please don’t hesitate to ask questions if something is unclear or if the recipe gives you problems. Thanks for reading!
Make your Perfect Pizza Dough
Making pizza dough is very easy. Making good pizza dough apparently not that much. The tastes differ, lots of people have an own “secret recipe”. So why shouldn’t you have one? I’ll try to help you find your very own perfect recipe for pizza dough!
The basic principles of pizza dough:
- the flour-liquid-ratio should be about 2:1 (e.g. 500g flour with 250ml water)
- per 500g of flour you need 1 package of yeast
- don’t forget to season or it will taste like cardboard
- knead thoroughly
- give the dough sufficient time and warmth to rise
Now the details:
The flour can be pretty much any flour. The most popular way to do it is probably plain white flour. But it’s also quite common to use wholemeal flour. And don’t forget, there’s also other types! They all have different properties and different flavours and it’s sometimes worth to experiment a bit. Plain white flour is probably a good choice for light and sweet doughs. Light doughs go well with toppings with a very intense flavour. Sweet dough (yes, there’s also sweet pizza) can be topped with apple, pineapple, nuts or banana. Wolegrain flour is healthier than plain white and it’s also more filling. So if you want to do your body a favour, then use this. But sometimes the dough gets a bit too heavy. I personally like to use 3/4 plain white and 1/4 wholegrain. Maize meal is finer than wheat flour and has a mild corn flavour. I’ve never made a dough entirely with it, but if you add a small amount, it makes the dough nice and crispy. Another interesting thing to do is substitute part of the flour with semolina or polenta, the little grains give the dough an interesting structure.
The liquid is usually water, milk, or oil. And here again you should remember that there are different oils and milk with different amounts of fat and rice milk and soy milk and goats milk. Using water is a flavour-neutral, vegan and also low-fat way to do it. I usually use mostly water and managed to make many great doughs like that. I don’t have too much experience with milk, but a friend of mine once mentioned that he thinks skimmed milk gives you better results, crispier and not too soggy. Depending on which types of milk you use, always remember that they might influence the flavour of the whole dough. And: There are indeed people who use several hundred ml of oil to make a pizza dough. I really don’t know what’s supposed to be so great about that. Your dough gets all greasy and oily and if you eat it, so do you! Canola, sunflower and olive oil all have between 800 and 850 calories per 100ml, walnut oil even has nearly 900. A few tbs are fine to give the dough a nice flavour and to make it crispy, but more than that is just unnecessary.
For yeast you can usually choose between dry and fresh. Sometimes I have the impression that fresh yeast makes the dough rise better, but this could also be my imagination. Fresh yeast comes in small cubes of about 40g, dry yeast can often be found in small sachets of about 8g. In both cases this is about as much as you need for 500g of flour. But in case you use 600g, don’t bother to measure those few extra grammes. Plus/minus 100g of flour is usually still fine.
To season the dough most people use a pinch of salt and sugar and some olive oil (see above). But depending on what you want to do with the dough, a little creativity might be a good thing! Try to knead in some nuts and a spoon full of honey for a sweet dessert pizza, or a tsp of tomato purrée, some grated cheese and some oregano for little pizza rolls.
When you start kneading the dough it will be a sticky, gooey mass. But don’t be too hasty with adding more flour! At first the dough is always sticky. It will become better after kneading it for a couple of minutes. This is because the proteins in flour need some time to form gluten. So take your time and knead the dough for about 10-15 minutes.
And last but not least: letting the dough rise is really vital! There are two ways, one is relatively quick, the other works very slowly. If you want to make it quick then give the dough some warmth. So first of all, before adding the water, milk or – god forbid – oil, heat it up slightly. Warm hands when kneading the dough might help, too. And most important: After kneading the dough put it into a bowl, cover it with a tea towel and place it into a warm environment, for example close to a radiator, for at least (!) 30 minutes. One hour is good. Two hours even better. If you plan far enough ahead you can do it the other way. Prepare the dough half a day or a whole day in advance. Then let it rise in a cool environment. In a bowl on the kitchen cupboard or maybe even in the fridge. It takes long, but the flavour of the dough improves massively!
Did I forget something? Oh right, you should roll the dough verly thinly. Then it’ll turn out nice and crispy in the oven. So rather use a second tray instead of trying to fit everything on one. I always try to make it thin in the centre and thick at the sides.
With this last piece of information you should be able to create a pizza dough according to your very own taste! Please let me know how your experiments are going and post a comment with your recipe!
Here’s mine:
- 300g of plain white flour
- 150g of polenta
- 50g of wholemeal flour
- 250ml of water
- 2 tbs of olive oil
- 1 1/2 tsp of salt
- 1 tsp of sugar
- 1 tsp of yeast
Serves 3
This dough is soft and fluffy on the inside and crispy on the outside.
