Vegan meringues

When I was at the Kent Vegan Festival a few weeks ago, I did a double take on a stall that had beautiful mini meringues packaged up perfectly.

I was so confused.

How could you possibly make meringues vegan?

I went up to the guys behind the stall and asked them pretty much the same question.

Chickpeas – the guy said.

Chickpeas?! I thought.

But here’s the thing: it’s not even the useful part of the chickpeas. It’s the part that you throw away. It’s literally the useless part of the chickpeas that gets thrown down the drain.

Amazing. I had to try it. But I don’t have a mixer in my flat, and I couldn’t face the thought of whippin’ up that chickpea waste water by hand.

So when I popped in to see my parents last weekend I took it as the ideal opportunity to take over their kitchen and make meringues.

They turned out so great! They tasted just like normal meringues, they crunched just like normal meringues, and they were damn fine with fresh strawberries, just like normal meringues.

Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

• The water drained from a 400g can of chickpeas (otherwise known as aquafaba)
• 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
• 1 cup icing sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

Whisk up the chickpea water until it’s turned white and forms stiff peaks (just like normal meringue – you know the drill).

Add the cream of tartar and keep whisking, then start very gradually adding the icing sugar until it forms shiny peaks, like this:

Gently stir in the vanilla and be careful not to knock out any air.

Very carefully transfer the mixture to a piping bag and pipe it out into nest shapes on your greased and lined baking tray.

Put them in in an oven at 110C for 2 hours and whatever you do, don’t open the oven while they’re cooking.

Tip: I tried to take them off the baking tray as soon as they came out of the oven (I’m too impatient) and thought that they’d stuck to it and that they were ruined. I then tried again five minutes later and they came off easily. Moral of the story: be patient.

I smothered mine in Alpro yoghurt and fresh strawberries and it was awesome.

P.S. While I was at it I made some hummus with the leftover chickpeas. I’ll post a recipe soon!

Vegan cupcake heaven

This morning I read an article about the rise of clean eating and it cited the fact that there’s been a 350% increase in the number of vegans in Britain in the past 10 years.

It almost seemed to be blaming the unhealthy fad of clean eating on the rise of veganism, and forgot to mention the other reasons that someone might convert to a plant-based diet.

It also suggested that a vegan diet was synonymous with a super healthy (but actually kind of unhealthy) diet.

I beg to differ.

And since pictures speak louder than words, I’m just going to show you a collection of vegan cupcakes I’ve made and bought over the past month. Because vegan diets don’t have to mean raw superfood diets.

Cupcakes are life.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BE6LBe1oPA9/?taken-by=samanthalhopps

 

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Giant oreo cupcakes

Peanut butter chocolate giant cupcake (filled with peanut butter) – so yum!

Salted caramel and strawberries & cream cupcakes from Ms Cupcake in Brixton

Vegutopia at the Kent Vegan Festival

This weekend I went to my very first vegan festival and it. was. amazing.

There were:

• cakes
• brownies
• cupcakes
• hotdogs
• crisps
• cheeses
• *egg* mayo
• activists
• awesome T-shirts
• chilled music
• blue skies

The Kent vegan festival was in a hall in the idyllic centre of Canterbury: think cobbled streets, Tudor-style buildings and a massive cathedral.

I kind of expected an awkward village hall affair, but when we got there, a pretty big queue had already formed outside the hall (the hall was so packed they had to control how many people were going in).

Inside, it was completely rammed, but full of lovely happy people who care about animals (which is a great setting to be in), and a really lively buzz.

To top it all off, there were tastings galore. I tried cinnamon cake, kale crisps, 5 types of cashew cheese, *egg* mayo, and much more.

And here’s a little flavour of what I ate:

Hotdog with lashings of sauce including vegan mayo. Am I sorry? Not one teeny tiny bit.

Mini chocolate cheesecake with the creamiest chocolate you ever did taste

Down and dirty belly-filling cakes just like momma made

Made by Global Fusion, who also sold us this beast of a mud pie

And finally, the most gloriously adorable mini cupcakes in the world.

Chocolate and coconut

Cherry bakewell

All of the above, plus chocolate peanut (yum!)

There were a lot of cupcake stands and since I’ve recently started experimenting with making my own vegan cupcakes, I was really inspired by all of the different flavours and just wanted to bake for the rest of the weekend.

Which reminds me – I can’t believe how crazy hot and lovely this weekend was!

Sunshine, blue skies and lots of vegan food – does it get any better?

Vegan courgette cake with vegan cream cheese frosting

I remember staying with my grandma when I was a little girl, and she suggested we make a courgette cake.

At the time, I was shocked and appalled. I hated courgette, and I couldn’t understand why you’d put it in a cake anyway.

Until she pointed out that it was only as weird as a carrot cake, to which logic I had to submit.

And since then, courgette cake has probably been my favourite kind of cake (I’ve also tried parsnip cake, which is pretty damn awesome too).

I’ve made many courgette cakes myself now, all turning out perfectly, but all made with egg.

I wanted to try making my favourite cake vegan, so I combined a few different loaf cake recipes from across the internet, and decided to use banana and oil as my binding agents.

Although the recipe was delicious, it ended up taking absolutely hours in the oven, because I’d poured a massive mixture all into one tin.

I had to take it out after two hours, cut it in half, and then stick it back in the oven again.

The result: two very crispy layers, one of which ended up falling apart and having to be stuck together with frosting (not really a problem, depending on your viewpoint).

I thought it was a bit of a disaster, but when I took it into work the next day it was absolutely demolished, so I guess it turned out alright after all.

I’ve since made a few changes to how it should be cooked (in two separate tins right from the beginning) and that should help to avoid the architectural problems.

This was also my first attempt at cream cheese frosting, and it was excellent. I used tofutti cream cheese, but I’m sure any other cream cheese alternative would do just as well.

Vegan courgette cake recipe

Raspberry, cinnamon and sweet potato brownie recipe

Here it is, folks.

I made a second attempt at the sweet potato brownie and it was a fine attempt.

These brownies are gooey, smooth, bursting with sharp raspberries and smattered with lumps of dark, rich chocolate.

Plus they contain a vegetable and a fruit and therefore must count as at least two of your five a day. Don’t question it.

You can read the full recipe here.

Sweet potato, raspberry and cinnamon brownie (recipe to come)

It’s been a bit of a sugar-heavy couple of days. My friend Emma came to stay last night and during our 6-hour adventure around London we consumed the following:

• 2 vegan/gluten free cookies from Cookies and Scream at Camden Market
• 4 cocktails from The Gilbert Scott and 2 pots of smoked butter popcorn
• 4 mini cupcakes from Lola’s cupcakes (they do buy one get one free when they’re due to close for the night)
• 2 mojitos, 1 woo woo, 1 mai tai
• 3 scoops of ice cream from Gelupo on Cambridge Circus

We thought we were all sugared out, but then she made the mistake of telling me that someone had made her some sweet potato brownies and they weren’t very nice.

With 4 sweet pots about to go off in the fridge, we decided to give our own sweet potato-based confectionery a go.

Here was the result:

They weren’t at all what we were expecting, but they were pretty good all the same.

I have a couple of ideas for what could improve them, the main one being to shove in a huge handful of dark chocolate chunks.

So watch this space and I’ll update you with the new and improved recipe very soon.

In the meantime, here’s a cool picture of the mixture:

Interrail: scam or saviour?

I recently returned from an incredible month of travelling around Italy with a cumbersome backpack and a duck called Caecilius.

The route we took through the country started in Pisa, passed through Florence, Rome and Naples, and snaked down the west coast of the boot before arriving in Sicily.

The best way to do this route was by train, so we looked into the most cost-efficient way of doing it.

Interrail offers a one country pass to Italy for 8 days of travelling within a month for £137 per person.

Given that this price was not necessarily the full cost (some trains require hideous reservation fees and it’s very difficult to find out which ones), we decided we didn’t want to go with the Interrail pass.

So, having bought individual train tickets all the way through Italy, this is a breakdown of the journeys we took and their costs:

Pisa – Florence €8

Florence – Rome €20.85

Rome – Naples €11.80

(We took a Circumvesuviana train from Naples to Sorrento which I don’t believe would have been covered by the Interrail pass, and it was around €2 each. We then took a bus from Sorrento to Positano which was €1.80, and a ferry from Positano to Salerno which was €12 but went along the whole of the Amalfi Coast and was one of the most incredible things I have ever done.)

Salerno – Paola €12.50

Paola – Cefalu €40

Cefalu – Palermo €5.15

Of course we took various buses and metros during our travels but these would not be covered by an Interrail pass so I won’t include them in my calculations. I will, however, point out that all public transport in Italy is incredibly cheap. When we were in Naples, a single journey on the metro, regardless of how far you went, was €1.

Given that we travelled on 6 days rather than 8 and could therefore have got a cheaper Interrail ticket of £109, I will lower the price comparison. However, this is quite generous given that if we had actually bought the pass we would have bought an 8 day one for the sake of a little extra freedom.

So, the amount we spent on train tickets in the end was a total of €98.30, which given the current exchange rate of 0.71p to the €1 makes our total spend £70.02, meaning we saved at least £38.80, not including what we might have had to spend on reservation fees with an Interrail pass.

If that’s not enough proof that the Interrail pass is a bit of a scam, the freedom of knowing we could just turn up to a station whenever we wanted and buy a ticket without having to make a reservation was really great, and I can’t stress how easy it is to buy tickets in Italy.

Every station has plenty of Trenitalia ticket machines, which you can set to English and buy your ticket within about 3 minutes.

So, the moral of this story is that in many cases the Interrail pass is a rip-off. If you’re planning to buy one, make sure you do plenty of research to find out whether it is actually saving you any money, and what reservation fees you will have to pay.

In countries where the railway system is not as efficient or cheap, it may be a really good buy. Just make sure you don’t trust the pass implicitly.

Featured image: the view of Villa San Giovanni train station from the train-ferry to Sicily

Fighting the French: an egg battle

Bonjour!

I got back from France last night, and just before we left my parents and I popped into a supermarket to get some breakfast for my stepmum, who left for work early this morning. She normally likes her M&S brioche, so she went straight for the brioche section of the supermarket. Being in a rush for the ferry, none of us thought about the ingredients.

Back in England this morning, my pa realised that brioche has eggs in it and that, being French, those eggs aren’t free range (M&S uses free range eggs in all of their products, so I guess it’s something they’ve stopped thinking about).

So, my mission this morning was to write to the company who made the brioche we bought, Pasquier, and ask them why they don’t use free range eggs. I will copy the email I sent them below, and keep you updated on the response.

Please excuse the less-than-polished French 🙂

Cher(e) Monsieur/Madame,

J’étais en France jusqu’à hier, et j’ai acheté un paquet de votre pains au lait. Je n’avais pas le temps de regarder les ingrédients donc je n’ai vu pas jusqu’à maintenant que vous n’utilisez pas les œufs de poules élevées en plein air.

Je suis très malheureuse comme cette, et j’ai jeté le paquet parce que je ne mange pas les œufs de batterie, qui je pense que vous devez utiliser.

Cependant, aujourd’hui j’ai acheté un paquet de brioche de Marks and Spencer, qui était fabriqué en France, et il contient les œufs de poules élevées en plein air.

Donc mon question est cette : pourquoi vous n’utilisez pas les œufs d’origine éthique dans vos produits, quand je sais que c’est possible.

C’est très surprenant de devoir venir en Angleterre d’acheter les produits traditionnels de France qui considèrent les éthiques animaux, puisque ils n’existent pas en France.

Merci de votre compréhension et j’attends pour votre réponse.

Translation:

Dear Sir/Madam,

I was in France until yesterday, and bought a packet of your brioche. I didn’t have time to look at the ingredients so I didn’t see until now that you don’t use free range eggs.

I’m very disappointed about this, and I threw away the packet because I don’t eat battery eggs, which I think you must use.

However, today I bought a packet of brioche from M&S, which was made in France, and it contained free range eggs.

Therefore my question is this: why don’t you use eggs from an ethical source in your products, when it is possible to do so?

It is very surprising to have to come to England to buy traditional French products which take into account animal ethics, since they don’t exist in France.

Thank you for your time and I await your response.

Scrambled tofu and avocado wrap

I went to a veggie cafe a while ago and they were offering vegan scramble as a breakfast option. I love scrambled egg so much so I tried the vegan alternative. I’ll be honest, it didn’t taste like scrambled egg, but it was completely yummy.

So, I decided to recreate it with my own lunchtime twist (basically shoving it in a wrap and adding avocado), but it’s also slightly curried, which was an accidental and yet very excellent decision.

Ingredients (for two people)

• 1 onion
• 350g pack of firm tofu
• lemon juice
• salt & pepper
• curry powder
• 2 wholewheat wraps
• 1/2 avocado
• grated Sheese (or other cheese alternative)
• Sweet chilli sauce

Fry up your onions in some oil and when they’ve gone translucent, chuck in the whole cube of tofu, and smush up with a wooden spoon or spatula until it resembles scrambled eggs. Cook for about 15 minutes, and season to taste with salt, pepper, lemon juice and curry powder (which makes the tofu a nicer colour and adds a really good subtle taste).

Microwave your wraps, chuck on the scrambled tofu mixture, layer with sliced avocado, and grate the Sheese on top. Putting it back in the microwave for a few seconds at this points helps the Sheese melt a bit more (note: I had strong cheddar Sheese and the flavour is seriously strong, so you only need a tiny bit of it!).

Smother in sweet chilli sauce and wrap up.

Pauper’s vegan pesto

Estimated cost: £1.80 for two person meal of pasta and pesto*

Pasta and pesto is my one of my favourite meals. It’s so simple, so quick, and so yummy every single time. You can buy it in a jar, but the vegan version (the same but without parmesan) is actually quite expensive, so I decided to see if I could make some of my own vegan pesto for a reasonable price.

There are two tricks I used to make this recipe cheaper than homemade pesto would usually be. Firstly, I used flaked almonds instead of pine nuts, because you pretty much have to take out a payday loan to afford pine nuts. I learned this trick because I was in a restaurant once and ordered something that purportedly came with pine nuts. When it came out there were no pine nuts in sight, so I asked the waitress if I could have some. She brought me out a pot of flaked almonds, presumably hoping I wouldn’t notice they weren’t actually pine nuts instead of just telling me they didn’t have any, but when I had them with my meal they actually worked really well as an alternative. Since then I have used flaked almonds with pasta-based meals on a regular basis. Secondly, I used frozen spinach to bulk out the basil: you can’t taste the spinach at all but it gives the pesto a nice texture and means you have to use less basil.

I didn’t use a recipe for this pesto, going entirely by taste – I would wholeheartedly recommend this as everyone has different tastes (more salty, less salty, more or less oily, etc), hence this recipe is simply designed to be a guide.

You will need:

28g pack of fresh basil

2 handfuls flaked almonds (I wouldn’t usually suggest buying pre-chopped things as it’s lazy, but these were exactly the same price as normal almonds, and you don’t want the brown skin in your mixture)

A good glug of olive oil (this is a big part of the taste so you need to use the right oil)

2 handfuls frozen spinach, thawed

Lemon juice, to taste

Salt and pepper, to taste

Method:

Put your pasta on the boil. While this is cooking, chuck all of the basil, almonds and olive oil into a blender and start to blend. Use enough olive oil to bind all of the ingredients together but not enough to make it runny. You’ll know what this looks like if you add the oil gradually. Add the spinach and continue blending, then mix in lemon juice, salt, and pepper to your taste. Drain the pasta and combine with the fresh pesto. The easiest and tastiest thing I’ve ever made!

 

*Estimated cost breakdown:

• In the interests of openness, this is how I’ve worked out my costing:
• Pasta (Tesco own brand) – 100g @ 75p/kilo = 7.5p (rounded up to 10p)
• Basil (Sainsbury’s) – 80p packet
• Almonds (Sainsbury’s) – £2.20 pack – I think I used about 40p’s worth of this pack
• Olive oil (Aldi) – around £2 for massive bottle – I estimate I used about 20p’s worth
• Lemon juice, salt and pepper – these were in my cupboard already so I’ve attributed 10p to these as they are used sparingly)
• Spinach (Sainsbury’s) – £1 per pack – 2 handfuls @ 20p