Coconut & Strawberry Sandwiches

I made the Coconut & Raspberry Sandwiches from the Vegan Indulgence cookbook a couple of weeks ago.  I didn't have raspberry jam so subbed strawberry & also made some with marmalade.  These are quite nice, the biscuit dough is a lot easier to work with than the melting moment dough so they were easier to shape & made lots (I think I got 19) but weren't so shortbready.  I am a big fan of these sort of sandwiched biscuits so will probably make these again.

Biscuit
1/2 cup vegan margarine
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup soy milk + 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup custard powder
1 1/2 cups self raising flour
1 cup shredded coconut

Filling
1/2 cup vegan margarine
1 1/2 cups icing sugar, sifted
3/4 cup shredded coconut
Raspberry jam (about 1/2 a jar) - I made some with strawberry & some with marmalade

Preheat oven to 160˚C/320˚F/Gas Mark 3. Line two biscuit trays with baking paper.

Biscuit
In a large bowl, beat margarine and sugar together until light and creamy. Carefully beat in vanilla soy milk.
In another bowl, sift flour and custard powder together. Fold into the margarine mixture until well combined.
Add coconut and mix through well. The mixture should be soft and slightly sticky, but you should be able to handle it without too much sticking to your hands.
Use two dessertspoons to form ovals of dough, about 5cm long. Place these on the baking tray, spaced out by about 5cm. Carefully flatten the ovals with the back of a flour-covered spoon to form a 1 cm thick slightly oval biscuit.
Bake for 30 minutes, until the biscuits begin to colour on their bases and are firm to the touch. Leave on the tray for another 10 minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack.

Filling
Beat margarine and icing sugar together until creamy and light. Fold in coconut until well combined. Chill in the fridge until the biscuits are cooled.

Putting it all together
Match up the biscuits to the most even pairs. Spread 1/2 teaspoon of coconut filling on all of the biscuits. Place 1/2 teaspoon of jam in the centre of the icing mixture on half of the biscuits. Carefully sandwich pairs together, using the edges of the coconut icing to join them together.
Keep in the fridge. These will keep for about a week.

Chocolate Melting Moments

So I am now on maternity leave which is why I actually have free time for the first time in a long time & can blog regularly.  The best things about maternity leave (besides the whole not working thing) are being able to catch up with people on weekdays who don't work regular Monday to Friday hours and having time to cook more.  My mum is a high school teacher but only works 3 days a week so she came over recently for afternoon tea so I baked the chocolate melting moment biscuits from the book 'Vegan Indulgence'.  The biscuit dough is very, very dry to the point that I really wanted to add some soy milk but didn't and I had some trouble rolling them so they ended up huge!  The recipe says that it makes 20 sandwiched biscuits, I made 10 enormous biscuits.  They are very yummy though but disappeared way too fast given how few I made.

Easter treats

As I was seeing my family for Easter lunch I decided to make them some Easter treats.  I made the super easy & delicious cookies & cream truffles from Fat Feminist Foodie, but covered them in Sweet William milk chocolate & piped white chocolate crosses on them so they kinda looked like hot cross buns. I also made Sugar Cookies from 'The Joy of Vegan Baking' which I cut into Easter shaped & badly piped some icing on.  These biscuits were nice but they became super sweet with the icing.

Baking for the Aduki Vegan Bake Off

Last weekend was the Aduki Vegan Bake Off,  I had no idea what to make & on the day before decided to make White Chocolate & Cherry Blondies to enter into the slice category & Brownie Bite Cookies to enter into the biscuit category.  I make both on the Saturday morning & was not super happy with either, they were fine, but not winners.

I had some leftover blondies at home & were so much better the next day, oh well - we enjoyed them!  They are based on a recipe on taste.com.au but I did change it a bit, so my recipe is as follows:

Ingredients

• 100g nuttelex, chopped
• 180g Sweet William white chocolate, chopped
• 1/2 cup caster sugar
• Egg replacer made up to the equivalent of 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup self-raising flour, sifted
• 3/4 cup plain flour, sifted
• 1 cup (175g) pitted cherries (I used canned morello cherries)

 

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C/160°C fan-forced. Grease an 18cm x 28cm (base) rectangular slice pan. Line base and sides with baking paper, allowing a 2cm overhang on all sides. Melt nuttelex and chocolate in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat. Remove from heat. Set aside for 5 minutes to cool.
2. Add sugar, made up egg replacer and flours to pan. Stir to combine. Spread into prepared pan. Press cherries into mixture. Bake for 30 minutes or until edges are firm and top golden. Cool in pan. Serve.
   
   
   

I wanted to make a really decadent biscuit so thought that the brownie bite cookies would be perfect - they are biscuits with chunks of brownie in them - genius!!  When these came out of the oven I thought that they were a disaster because they looked horrible, too big & they looked really dry, but they were deceptively delicious.

I used almost the exact recipe from Have Cake, Will Travel (that blog is amazing) but mine didn't look anywhere near as good as hers.

Ingredients

For the brownies:

• 1/3 cup (75 g) nondairy butter
• 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (120 g) brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons (30 g) vanilla soy or other nondairy yogurt
• 3/4 cup (90 g) light spelt or (94 g) all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup (20 g) unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

For the cookies:

• 1/4 cup (180 ml) canola oil
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 2 tablespoons (30 ml) pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons (90 ml) plain soy or other nondairy milk
• 3 cups (360 g) whole wheat pastry flour (I used plain white flour)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

Method

To make the brownies: Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C, or gas mark 4). Lightly coat an 8-inch (20-cm) square baking pan with non-stick cooking spray.
With an electric mixer, cream butter and Sucanat until light and fluffy.
Stir in vanilla and yogurt.
Sift flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt on top of the wet ingredients.
Stir dry ingredients into wet.
Place and level batter into prepared loaf pan.
Bake for 10 minutes, or until the sides of the brownie start to pull away from the pan.
Let cool in pan, on top of a wire rack, and chill before slicing. Cut into medium to large chunks. Set aside.
To make the cookies: Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C, or gas mark 4). Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats, such as Silpat.
In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, oil, vanilla, salt, and milk until combined.
Sift flour and baking powder on top of the wet ingredients.
Stir dry ingredients into wet.
Fold in brownie chunks, or use your hands to gently incorporate them.
Divide into 12 (about 1/4 cup each) portions of dough.
Flatten onto prepared cookie sheets: the cookies won’t spread much while baking, but leave 1 inch (2.5 cm) in between anyway.
Bake for 16 minutes. Wait a few minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.
Yield: 12 cookies

Melindas White Choc Custard Biscuits

These biscuits are delicious. I know that I can make similar biscuits from scratch but when you arefeeling super lazy, they are really easy & really fast. I had some passionfruits in my fruit bowl so added the pulp of 3 passionfruits to the icing which sandwiches them together which makes them all the yummier.