Tag: free from

Brandy Snaps

Brandy snaps are an essential part of Christmas – i can’t imagine eating them at any other time of year! They’re also a perfect easy recipe to make in a rush, or with the children to keep them entertained in the days running up to Christmas. We’re going to fill them with dairy-free whipped cream and devour them for a special pudding.

Sweet crunchy exterior filled with soft cream, what could be more indulgent!

 

Brandy Snaps

(dairy-free, egg-free, nut-free, soya-free, sesame-free, vegan and vegetarian)

Makes about 16

75g dairy-free margarine

80g light muscovado sugar

70g golden syrup

80g plain flour

1/2 tsp ginger

Zest of 1/2 lemon

1 tbsp brandy

  1. Melt together the margarine, sugar and syrup until the sugar has dissolved.
  2. Place the flour, spice and lemon zest in a mixing bowl. Pour in the meted sugar mix and add the brandy (or use apple juice instead). Stir well to form a very sloppy dough.
  3. Line a baking sheet with non-stick parchment and preheat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade
  4. Place teaspoons of the mix onto the lined sheet, and spread into a thin circle
  5. Bake for 7-8 minutes until turning golden. Cool on the sheet for one minute and then loosely wrap around a wooden spoon handle to form a tube. Leave to cool. Repeat with the rest of the mix.
  6. Serve filled with cream (just before serving) and dusted with icing sugar
  7. These snaps keep well for a few days in an airtight container as long as you only fill them when you’re ready to devour them!

lucylox4 Comments

Biscoff Chocolate Truffles

I can’t think of a better time to make homemade chocolates than Christmas. They’re little cosy luxuries that fit perfectly with the festive season; either as an edible gift or simply a after-dinner (or anytime) treat.

You know, I do get my inspiration from funny places! The other week I was going out at lunchtime at work and walked past a doughnut shop. To be honest, they didn’t look too appealing, just over the top super sugary giant confections, but the chocolate and Biscoff variety caught my eye. I know it’s a winning combo and suddenly the idea of Biscoff flavoured chocolate truffles, rolled in Biscoff biscuit crumbs came to mind. I immediately started planning my experiments, working out the exact details of the recipe. I was correct, it’s a fabulous and rather morish combination. The mix of dark chocolate with sweet spicy Biscoff gives a wonderful warm hug of wintery spice in a luxurious chocolate truffle case.

It’s not easy to find nice dairy-free chocolate truffles, so I’m planning on making boxes filled with these, original and lemon truffles as Christmas gifts – i reckon they’ll go down a treat 🙂

Biscoff Chocolate Truffles

(dairy-free, egg-free, nut-free, sesame-free, vegan and vegetarian)

makes approx. 15 truffles

110g dairy-free dark chocolate

2 tbsps dairy-free cream

1 tbsp golden or maple syrup

1 tbsp Lotus Biscoff spread

6 Lotus Biscoff biscuits, crushed

  1. Melt the chocolate over a bain marie, or in a microwave. Stir until silky and glossy with no lumps.
  2. Stir in the dairy-free cream, syrup and biscoff spread.
  3. Leave in the fridge for at least half an hour to partially set.
  4. Pour the crushed biscuits into a shallow bowl.
  5. Roll into grape sized balls and coat in the biscuit crumbs.
  6. Keep covered at room temperature until ready to eat!

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Mocha Biscotti

This year I’m intending on making lots of my Christmas presents, well that’s the plan! I’ll have to see if life, work and the new puppy let that happen…

To me it seems like this is the right time to take a little step away from consumerism and reconnect with the the homemade. I also think it makes the festive season seem particularly special; that extra effort in making gifts for people adds an extra touch of love and I hope makes both the giver and receiver equally happy.

Along with the jams, chutneys and chocolate truffles (I’ve got a cracking new recipe coming up next), these biscotti make a wonderful gift. They keep well and are just perfect with coffee or something stronger 😉 over the festive season.

Biscotti may seem tricky to make but in reality they just need a little extra time to be double baked, first as a large log and then sliced. The resulting crispy slices keep well and are robust enough to make fantastic gifts.

I’ve given these biscotti a mocha flavour which i think works particularly well when it’s cold and dark; there’s something so cosy about the combination of coffee and chocolate. Don’t worry about it being an ‘adult’ taste, it works wonderfully with decaf and it’s more a tinge of coffee rather than a full whack in the chops!

Mocha Biscotti

(dairy-free, egg-free, nut-free, soya-free, sesame-free, vegetarian and vegan)

makes about 24 biscotti

250g or 2 cups plain flour

2 tsps baking powder

pinch of salt

200g or 1 cup caster sugar

50g dairy-free chocolate, chopped

120ml sunflower oil

120ml dairy-free milk (made up of 1tbsp instant coffee powder and 1 tbsp hot water topped up to 120ml with dairy-free milk)

30g dairy-free chocolate, melted (to drizzle on top)

  1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Centigrade/Gas Mark 4
  2. Line a cookie sheet with baking parchment
  3. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Stir in the sugar and chocolate chips.
  4. Make a well in the centre and pour in the oil, dairy-free milk mix. Bring together to a wet and sticky dough.
  5. Form into one or two log shapes on the lined baking sheet. (they spread out quite  a lot so make them smaller than you think unless you want long biscotti!) Brush with the dairy-free milk.
  6. Bake for 30-35 minutes until cooked through and starting to turn golden around the edges.
  7. Cool briefly, then cut into even slices. Return to the baking sheet and bake for a further 5-10 minutes, turn the slices over and cook for 5-10 minutes more. You want a uniform slightly golden tinge, but no particularly dark areas.
  8. Cool on a wire rack. Once completely cool, drizzle or dip into the melted chocolate
  9. These keep well, in an airtight container for a week or so.

 

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Bonfire or Christmas Spice Scones

I’m not one for a milky coffee but I do like the sound of the seasonal varieties that are sold in the big golf shop chains. Bonfire and pumpkin spice sounds so warm and appealing and just the right kind of taste for these cold winter months. So to avoid missing out, I’ve added the same warm spices to these delightfully light and fluffy spiced clouds of pure pleasure!

After the awful scones we had in a 5*hotel (see previous post!) I felt I had to post a better recipe  – One Aldwych if you’re reading look here for a good dairy and egg-free scone recipe 😉 These scones are spot on every time, light, fluffy and delicate; absolutely nothing like the almost inedible hard biscuits we got in the fancy tea!

I’ve provided two different spice varieties; one more autumnal and the other with a bit more of a Christmas feel but adding clementine and lemon zest to the mix.

Spiced Scones

(dairy-free, egg-free, nut-free, soya-free, sesame-free, vegan and vegetarian)

Makes about 12

1/2 tsp mixed spice

1/2 tsp ginger

1 tsp cinnamon

pinch ground cardamon

(zest of 1 lemon and 1 clementine for Christmas spice)

220g plain flour

1 and 1/2 tsps baking powder

2 tbsp dairy-free margarine

2 tbsp soft brown sugar

Pinch of salt

Up to 100ml dairy-free milk

1-2 tbsps Demerara sugar

1 tbsp dairy-free milk

  1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees centigrade/Gas mark 6
  2. Grease and flour a baking sheet
  3. Mix together all the spices (plus zests if making Christmas spice)
  4. Mix together the flour, salt, baking powder, sugar and most of the spice mix spices. Rub in the margarine until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
  5. Pour in some of the dairy-free milk. Gently bring together to form a soft dough (do NOT knead or you’ll end up with rock hard scones!). Add more milk if necessary.
  6. Gently pat out to a circle about 5cm thick. Stamp our circles and place on the baking sheet. Gather up the remaining dough, pat out again and stamp out more circles until all the dough is used up
  7. Brush the tops with dairy-free milk and sprinkle over some Demerara sugar and the remaining spice mix
  8. Bake for 20-25 minutes until well risen and golden on the tops and bottoms
  9. Cool on a wire rack

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Afternoon Tea at One Aldwych, London

It’s rare that my girls get to go out for a real fancy treat, one that is food based but also worth getting dressed up for! We’ve previously had a wonderful Afternoon tea at The Langham and have often talked about some of the delicacies we came across. So, to have a repeat experience but in a new venue I did masses of research. There really aren’t that many choices, a fair few offer you a vegan tea option but once you’ve taken out all the nuts and seeds there are less options available, and whilst my girls may be dairy or dairy and egg free, that doesn’t necessarily mean they want to eat the vegan menu.

In my research I came across a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory afternoon tea at One Aldywch. This sounded both exciting and a possibility as they specifically stated that they could cater for any dietary requirement, if given notice. I contacted the hotel and was given a very welcoming contact, who checked with the chefs and confirmed we could be catered for. It sounded so exciting and we couldn’t wait for our tea featuring “fizzy lifting drinks, snowberry jam, chocolate milkshake mixed by waterfall”.

I have to say I’ve really struggled with whether to post this review as I don’t like to be negative, but honesty is the best way and we found the whole experience so deeply disappointing.

The hotel is lovely, with a modern feel and some elegant features like a checkerboard mirrored lift to get to the bathrooms – notably the bathrooms (always a giveaway) were nothing special, you didn’t feel like you were anywhere luxurious.

The service was okay, we were made to feel welcome but it was painfully slow, so slow in fact that we spent a lot of time looking over our shoulders for something to arrive. I know we are tricky as we all have different requirements but I’d given them 2 months notice and they were the ones who said they were happy to cater for us. Honestly, don’t say you can deliver if you can’t!

So onto the food… which was at best only ok, there was nothing that made you go wow.

For the standard vegetarian savouries (that I had and I’m mentioning first as these didn’t need to be tweaked to be made safe and should be the knock out dishes they wheel out daily) there was a relatively tasty cheesy tart, the driest brioche you have ever eaten filled with something unidentifiable and purple, a very earthy beetroot wrap and a rather nice coronation cauliflower in matcha bread. There were cheesy scones which were good, but I’ve had better. So one nice savoury.

For the girls they got avocado in bread – honestly I couldn’t believe the lack of imagination. There was also a very plain chicken sandwich and a rather challenging beetroot wrap. Big S got some nice hummus topped with a carrot puree but it came with a spoon rather than something to dip in. Who eats hummus with a spoon? Then there’s the scones. Oh my goodness they were bad, like hard biscuits you could hardly swallow, you really couldn’t imagine a worse scone (and vegan scones are so easy to make!)

The sweet course looked prettier, it had it’s own stand and came with some candy floss which did make everyone smile but the flavours and execution were nothing special.

The standard options were some tasty little lemon sponges, chocolate financiers and fairly good scones with jam, there was an Eton mess which would be nice if you liked cream (I don’t) and a very milky chocolate mousse and super minty chocolate drink. The there was a red velvet cake pop which was just unpleasant – sorry but when you’re charging £45 per head I think you need to do better than unpleasant.

The girls sweet course was far worse, I just don’t know how they made dairy and egg-free food so horrible. I know I’m probably far more experience in cooking free-from but I’m not saying I can cater or people and then charging them 5* prices for horrible food. On the plus side the little chocolate sponges were quite nice. But then the chocolate mousse was the most bitter chocolate I have ever tasted, the same awful scones appeared, the chocolate drink was again far too dark and worst of all both girls reacted to traces of milk and needed antihistamine. All that and they charged adult price for little S when she should have  been charged the child price.

Sorry One Aldwych but we came away so disappointed and underwhelmed; this special occasion was anything but special, cost a fortune and has put us off trying somewhere else new. Maybe we should have made a fuss on the day, but eating out with allergies is challenging and we try to make the experiences as pleasant as possible, and making a fuss in front of the girls just makes the whole thing worse.

So all in all I wouldn’t recommend afternoon tea at One Aldywch, even the standard version was anything but magical and only had a vague hint of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; save your money or save up and go somewhere like The Langham where you will have an experience to remember.

lucylox4 Comments

Lemon and Poppy Seed Yogurt Loaf Cake

You might think that yogurt wouldn’t work in a dairy-free cake, but i’ve had great success using dairy-free yogurt to create a light and fluffy but also moist sponge.

This week’s inspiration was once again the Great British Bake Off, unfortunately they chose to make it dairy-week so i obviously had to flip that over into being non-dairy week! The choices were a cake including a cultured dairy-product, maids of hour or Mishhti (Indian sweets). neither Maids of Honour (custard tarts), or Mishti appealed so I went with the cultured dairy(free!) cake.

The beauty of using yogurt means the bicarb is activated without the need for any vinegar, giving a lovely delicate flavour that works well with this lemon and poppy seed version. The crumb is delicate but moist and would carry many flavour combinations with ease. This lemon is subtle (that was to encourage the youngest who isn’t a fan!) so if you like more lemon zing i would recommend adding a drizzle before the icing.

Lemon and Poppyseed Yogurt Cake

(dairy-free, egg-free, nut-free, soya-free, sesame-free, vegan and vegetarian)

makes 1 loaf

200g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

pinch of salt

1 tbsp cornflour

2 tbsp poppy seeds

100g caster sugar

zest of 1 lemon

2 tbsp lemon juice

100ml flavourless oil

125ml dairy-free yogurt

125ml dairy-free milk

  1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Centigrade and line a loaf tin (I used a 2lb tin)
  2. Sift together the flour, bicarb, baking powder, salt and cornflour.
  3. Stir in the sugar, lemon zest and poppy seeds
  4. In a separate bowl mix together the oil, yogurt, lemon juice and milk. Pour into the dry ingredients and mix to form a smooth batter
  5. Pour into the lined loaf tin, level off and bake for 45-55 minutes until a knife comes out clean.
  6. Remove from the tin and cool on a wire rack.
  7. Drizzle with lemon syrup if you like it zingy
  8. Top with a water icing made with icing sugar and lemon juice

lucyloxLeave a comment