Vogon Buns

I ran a charity cake stall with some friends last weekend, I thought we had just about every kind of cake until I was asked "Do you have anything suitable for Vegans?" I had nut free & gluten free... No was the short answer, everything had either butter, egg or yoghurt in, sorry Mrs Vegan Lady!

It stuck in my mind and when I saw an egg-less sponge recipe I thought I'd experiment and see if I could omit the butter too and still make something edible, so glad I did these are gorgeous! It's the butterscotch syrup that makes these so divine (and its suitable for vegans, I did check)

Oh and the name? Well, the word Vegan always make me think of the Vogons from Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, (I don't know why, but I do love a bit of Sci-Fi) after expressing this to The Good Dr he quickly started calling these Vogon Buns, usually preceded by "Have you got any more of those".

For 10 mini loaves

Ingredients:
80g Caster sugar
80g Sunflower oil (this was 8 of my tablespoons)
140g Lyle's Butterscotch Syrup
200g Self raising flour
1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp Baking powder
170ml boiling water

Method:
Preheat the oven to fan 160c. Line non stick tins with baking parchment (don't butter...)

Mix the sugar, oil and syrup in a large bowl, then add the flour, baking powder and bicarb and mix again, finally gradually mix in the boiling water to get a fragrant loose batter.

Divide between the tins and bake for 16mins or until cooked, which is when they bounce back when gently poked with a finger or skewer comes out clean. Allow to cool in the tins for 5 minutes then place on a cooling rack to cool completely, or to cool just enough so you don't burn your mouth...

Voila, gorgeous vegan cakes, enjoy! xx

Home Made Pastrami

OK so this isn't 100% authentic as I don't have a smoker however, if it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck... The final out come is delicious, it's an adaptation/amalgamation of a couple of recipes which now looks like this:

Home Made Pastrami

Ingredients:

• 2kg beef brisket
• 1.5 tbsp coarsely ground black pepper (like from your pepper mill)
• 1 tbsp ground coriander
• 1/2 tsp dried chilli flakes
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 2 tsp sweet smoked paprika
• 1 tsp hot smoked paprika
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• Disposable gloves
• aluminium foil

Method:

I couldn't get brisket on this day and was too excited to try this out to wait, upshot is I used a reduced piece of silverside.

Rinse and pat dry the beef. If there is a lot of fat trim most of it off leaving just a few (2-4) millimeters.

Brush some vegetable oil over a piece of foil big enough to wrap the beef in. 

Measure out and mix up the spices and mix together with a teaspoon of the vegetable oil.

Place the beef in the middle of the foil and using some disposable gloves rub the spice mix evenly all over the beef.

Wrap the beef tightly in the oiled foil, wrap this parcel in another piece of foil (no need to oil this one) making sure that the seal on the first one is on the bottom before you wrap again to give a tight seal.

Place this package in your slow cooker and cook on low for 5 hours.

Remove from the slow cooker and keeping it in the foil allow to cool to room temperature,  then  put the foil wrapped beef in the fridge overnight. The next day, unwrap and thinly slice the cold beef across the grain. 

You can eat it like this or warm the sliced beef in a pan with a few drops of water, tastes great served warm on rye bread with mustard mayo (just mix mustard and mayo together) and dill pickles.

'Ice cream' cakes!

Village school fete tomorrow, seaside theme so you can imagine my excitement when I remembered these from Xanthe Miltons fabulously titled book, 'Eat Me'.

The only change I made was the addition of the toffee sauce:

110g unsalted butter, room temperature

110g caster sugar

3 eggs

110g self-raising flour

1tsp baking powder

1tsp vanilla essence

12 flat-based ice cream cones

3 or 4 Cadburys chocolate flakes

For the icing:

225g unsalted butter at room temperature

450g icing sugar

2tsp vanilla essence

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4. Cut squares of tin foil and place them in the holes of a muffin tin. (I used a mini muffin tin which fitted them perfectly) Place the ice cream cone in each piece of foil and wrap the foil around the cone.

Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one, at a time. Sift the flour and baking powder together and add this a third at a time to the batter. Add the vanilla.

Divide the mixture evenly between the cones. Place in the centre of the oven and bake for about 20 mins. Place on a wire rack and leave to cool.

I used a straw to poke a hole through the middle down to the bottom of the cone, I then used a new syringe to fill the cavity with shop bought toffee sauce (the sort you would put on ice cream)

Make the icing. Beat the butter so that it is pale and creamy and add the icing sugar and the vanilla.  

Using a piping bag with a star-shaped nozzle, pipe the icing onto the cupcakes. Sprinkle with hundreds and thousands and add a chocolate flake to each.

I’m thinking of experimenting with raspberry ripple and mint choc chip versions…