Recipe

A Vegan Christmas: Peanut cookie balls. For Dogs!

Posted on by Living Dead Cakes / 0 Comment

Its well documented that my two dogs are spoilt and treated like they are one of my children, so when I bake cookies for everyone else, Prue & Phoebe need some too.

These make cute little Christmas gifts for our fur friends too.

I have said before that my dogs are not vegan but they do eat some vegan treats and these cookie balls are vegan and can be gluten free if you use gluten free oats, they contain no sugar as I only use sugar free peanut butter when making treats for them.

The fresh mint in these can be increased if you furry friend has doggy breath.

In this recipe I use Coconut oil, Coconut oil is great for dogs, it aids digestion is fabulous for their coats and can even help prevent infection & clear up eczema, BUT like everything in life too much of a good thing can be bad for you, so if your dog has never had coconut oil before give them these treats little and often no matter how much they bug you for more, they will keep in an air tight container & can even be frozen.

Ingredients:

  • 200g Oats (if your dog is gluten free use GF Oats)
  • 135g Coconut oil (solid)
  • 100g Peanut Butter
  • 1 large Carrot, grated
  • 10g Fresh mint, finely chopped

Method:

Pre-heat your oven to 220c/425f/or Gas mark 7 and line a cookie sheet with non stick parchment paper

Makes 14-16 cookie balls

  1. In a bowl add your oats, carrot, & mint.dogcoc1
  2. In a saucepan over a medium low heat melt your peanut butter and coconut oil,
  3. Once melted pour over your oats, carrot and mint and mix well,
  4. Roll your oat mixture into balls and place on your cookie sheet
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  5. Bake for 20 minutes or until the edges are golden brown and leave to cool
  6. Once cooled your dogs can enjoy them, either transfer to a air tight container or freeze.

dogcoc5UPDATE: My dogs loved these, they had half a one each morning until they were gone, and both of their coats looked amazing, Phoebe especially her coat was very shinny and fluffy, I can only put it down to the coconut oil.

Recipe

A Vegan Christmas: Apple Crumble & Custard Cookies

Posted on by Living Dead Cakes / 1 Comment

I love apple crumble & I love cookies, so why not make an apple crumble and custard epic cookie!

These are light, fluffy & soft cookies, and they just melt in your mouth, they do involve a few elements to make them delicious but all the prep is worth it. Trust me!!.
You don’t have to add the custard buttercream if you do not like custard.  They are amazing with or without the buttercream.

Perfect to serve with tea or coffee when you have guests over for the holiday season.

If you want to make my Caramel Apple Crumble you will find the recipe here.

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Ingredients:

For the cookie dough

  • 115g Vegan butter
  • 150g Caster Sugar
  • 80g Light Brown Sugar
  • 1x 125g pot of Alpro Vanilla Soya Pudding or apple puree/1 mashed banana
  • 270g Self rasing gluten free flour
  • 1 Tbsp. Cornflour
  • 1 Tsp. Baking powder
  • 1 Tsp. Vanilla Extract

For the apple filling,

  • 2 large Apples, peeled, cored  & diced small
  • 1 Tbsp. Soft Brown Sugar
  • 1 Tsp. Lemon Juice
  • 4 Tbsp. Water

For the crumble, 

  • 60g Gluten Free Flour
  • 30g Soft Brown Sugar
  • 30g Dairy Free Butter

For the custard buttercream, 

Method:

Pre-heat your oven to 180c/350f/or Gas mark 4 and line a cookie sheet with non stick parchment paper

Makes 14-16 cookies

  1. In a saucepan add all the ingredients for the apple filling and cook on medium heat for 5 minutes or until the apples are soft, transfer the cooked apple mix to a bowl
  2. In another bowl add all your crumble topping ingredients and rub the butter into the flour & sugar until it resembles fine sand, keep to one side.
  3. In a bowl cream together the butter & sugars for the cookie dough until light and fluffy,
  4. Add the soya pudding, flour, baking powder, vanilla, & cornflour & mix until well combined, cover bowl with cling film and allow to chill in the fridge for 2 hours,
  5. Once chilled scoop balls of cookie dough onto a baking sheet and top with a spoon full of the cooked apple mix & a spoon full of the crumble mix, they will spread a little so leave 2″ between each cookie.cookies2
  6. Bake for 13-16 minutes or until golden around the edges
  7. Once baked move to a wire rack and allow to completely cool.
  8. In another bowl cream together all the ingredients for the custard butter cream & once combined you can add a swirl to your cool baked cookies, sprinkle a little left over crumble on the top and they are ready to enjoy.
  9. They only keep for a few days so enjoy them while they are fresh.

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Recipe

A Vegan Christmas: Christmas Cake Making & Decorating.

Posted on by Living Dead Cakes / 1 Comment

Christmas Cake.  For some people its like Marmite you either love it or hate it.
You can even like fruit cake but hate icing and marzipan so this recipe post will have one decorated with marzipan & icing and one without.

I LOVE CHRISTMAS CAKE!!

Fruit cake in its many shapes and forms is one of the cakes I have been making the longest, due to my Fathers love of it.  I have a repertoire of about 9+ different recipes that get used for different occasions.

The 1st Christmas cake I would have helped make would have been around 1986 when I was 5, I helped my beloved Grandma make hers, she would decorate hers in true 1980’s fashion with peaks of fluffy white royal icing to look like snow and a little red plastic Merry Christmas sign with a plastic Father Christmas & Robin on top.
I can still remember it now on the table in her living room ready for my family to devour over the festive season.

So Grandma, this blog post is dedicated to you, you might not be here but you have inspired me, my love of cooking & this whole website. I miss you & Grandad more & more each day.

familychI will show you how to make your cake from scratch and two different ways of decorating your cake & of course its Vegan & Gluten Free.

The below recipe makes a 6″ cake, you can find a deep 6″ cake tin here.
If you would like to make an 8″ cake make x1.5 of the recipe.

Ingredients:

For the cake, 

  • 100g Dairy Free Butter
  • 100g Dark Brown Sugar
  • 70g Pouch of apple sauce 
  • 600g Dried Mixed Fruit
  • 220g Plain Gluten Free Flour
  • 2 Tbsp. Treacle
  • 2 Tsp. Ground Cinnamon
  • 1 Tsp. Ground Nutmeg
  • 1 Tsp.  Ground Ginger
  • 1 Tsp Baking Powder
  • 100ml Plant Milk
  • 25ml X2 Disaronno or Brandy (Optional)
  • Optional nuts (see below)

I have made this recipe nut free, if you would like to add nuts feel free to add 100g of your favourite chopped nuts to the batter. Or if you are decorating it with nuts as in the picture below you will need 200g of roughly chopped brazil nuts.

You did click that link right, I have used baby food! its just organic apples, so I thought why not, saves me having to make apple puree, I will be making a few more recipes using these little baby food pouches.

Method: 

Pre-heat your oven to 160c/325f/or Gas mark 3

  1. Line your cake tin with non stick baking paper,
    First fold some baking paper in half and draw around the base of the tin with a pencil and cut it out, I like to make two so you have a spare just in case.
    Then pull out a long stripe of paper about 25″ long, fold up approx 2″ along the bottom and cut lots of slits all long the bottom of the fold, Roll the sheet up and place inside the tin to fill it, if you need to you can add a staple to keep it in place, just make sure it’s at the very top and not near where to cake will be.
    Add one of the round discs to the bottom and your tin is ready, save the 2nd disc of paper for later, you might need it.20161120_212312000_ios
  2. In your bowl beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy,
  3. Add your spices & treacle to the butter & sugar mix and combine
  4. Add your mixed fruit, nuts if using, & apple sauce and combine.
  5. Now add your flour & baking powder, milk and alcohol and combine once more
  6. With a spatula give your cake batter one last mix by hand making sure everything is mixed in and make a wish, Yes make a wish! something nice but don’t tell anyone!
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  7. Spoon your batter into your cake tin smooth the top* and place in the oven and bake for approx. 2 hours or until your cake is baked through and a skewer comes out clean.
  8. Once baked remove from the oven and place on a wire rack & leave in the tin for 10 minutes, after 10 minutes remove the tin and baking paper and allow the cake to completely cool.
  9. Once cool prick your cake all over with a skewer and feed it the other 25ml of alcohol if you are using.

*If you are decorating your cake naked as below, when you smooth the top of the batter in the tin sprinkle over your 200g of roughly chopped brazil nuts, check the cake after 1 hour and if the nuts are browning too quickly cover them with the extra round of parchment we cut out at the start when we lined the tin.

How to decorate: 

One option for your cake is to leave it naked and dress it only with a little festive ribbon, this option is great if you don’t like traditionally decorated Christmas cake or if you don’t have time over the festive season to decorate it.

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The other option is to cover in marzipan and decorate with sugar paste (fondant)
Every supermarket marzipan I have checked seams to be vegan & gluten free but please double check before you buy, we all know how much supermarkets like to “improve” their products from time to time.

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I Will be using Sainsbury’s marzipan and sugar paste to decorate this cake, I checked all of their ready to roll icing and the only one I saw that wasn’t vegan was the chocolate brown one. As I’m decorating mine with a Reindeer I used some Renshaw sugar paste in teddy bear brown. But you can use any colours you like.

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You will need to decorate:

  • 250g Marzipan
  • 300g White ready to roll icing
  • 30g Apricot Jam
  • 3 Tbsp. water
  • Coloured ready to roll icing for your decorations
  • Icing sugar for dusting
  • Ribbon
  1. Once your cake is completely cold you can level the top ready for decoration, if when you level your cake you lose a few pieces of dried fruit you can use a little marzipan to fill in the little holes.
  2. Take a length of ribbon and measure your cake up, this will help when rolling out your marzipan and sugar paste.
    ccmarzi
  3. Roll out your marzipan to about as thick as a pound coin & using the ribbon make sure its big enough to cover your cake.
  4. In a little saucepan add your apricot jam and water and bring to a boil,  brush your cake using a pastry brush with the warm apricot glaze mix,
  5. Lift your marzipan carefully and cover your cake, smooth out and trim around the base.
  6. Now re-measure your cake with the ribbon as before and roll out your white sugar paste to the same thickness as your marzipan, brush the cake again with warm apricot glaze and cover & trim the cake at the base.
    ccwicing
  7. I placed my cake on a cake stand ready for decoration I wrapped some red ribbon around the base & used a little sticky tape to keep it in place.
  8. I printed out a little Reindeer face to the size I wanted, I used this image.
    Save the image & import into word and change to the size to suit your cake.
    rdeercaketopper
  9. Once you have printed you little Reindeer I cut him out & cut of his antlers & rolled out my Teddy Bear Brown fondant and using a sharpe knife I cut around the paper template.
    cakerendeer4riencake3
  10. Then I added a little black to my brown to make a darker brown to make the Reindeers antlers
    cake-ren6
  11. I rolled out a little red to make his nose & two little black balls for his eyes, & stuck him on the top of my cake using a little water.
    cakereind7If you don’t have time to make a little reindeer you can just cut out some holly using a cutter that all the super markets have at this time of year and add a few little balls of red fondant to be berries.cake-hollyHappy Holidays from us at Living Dead Cakes we hope you have a great festive season & enjoy all of our coming Christmas recipes. xxcakecake
Recipe

Birthday Cake Sandwich Cookies & 1 year on….

Posted on by Living Dead Cakes / 5 Comments

Since my Birthday Cake Popcorn recipe went live I have been inundated with so many messages & requests  (13 in fact) for more Birthday Cake flavoured treats & in honour of our website being 1 year old today I thought today was the perfect day to share another Birthday Cake recipe.

Marvellous things have happened to Living Dead Cakes in such a short space of time since our website launch.  The last 12 months have been a totally spectacular rollercoaster ride, so much has changed and we have evolved each month, Im looking forward to so many more fun & exciting things that are to come within the next 12 months!

I would like to thank everyone for their love, support & messages of encouragement over the last year & for putting up with my insane cake ramblings & force feeding those close me all the recipes I have been creating for the website.

People have been asking about how they can support LDC, If you would like too please  have a look at our Support us page for all the ways you can help us and the charities we support. Don’t forget to give our Facebook Page a like too.

This cookie is truly yummy, I may have put my self in a cookie induced coma while taste testing these, I needed a soya milk IV! STAT.

You can make these instead of a birthday cake & put candles in them like I did.

Happy 1st Birthday www.livingdeadcakes.co.uk I can’t wait for the next year!

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Ingredients:

For the cookies,

For the filling,

  • 60g Vegan Butter
  • 60g Vegetable shorting (Trex)
  • 100g Gluten Free cake mix
  • 200g Icing Sugar
  • 2 Tsp. Vanilla Extract
  • 8 Tsp. Strawberry Jam

Method: 

Pre-heat your oven to 180c/350f/or Gas mark 4 and line a cookie sheet with non stick parchment paper

Makes 8 cookie sandwiches 

For the cookies, 

  1. In a bowl cream together the butter & sugars until light and fluffy,
  2. Add the soya pudding, cake mix, flour, baking powder, vanilla, & cornflour & mix until well combined, cover bowl with cling film and allow to chill in the fridge for 2 hours, overnight if you can.
  3. Once chilled scoop balls of cookie dough onto a baking sheet and top with a little of the sprinkles, they will spread a little so leave about 2″ between each cookie.
  4. Bake for 13-16 minutes or until golden around the edges
  5. Once baked move to a wire rack and allow to completely cool.cookiedoughbc

For the frosting filling & putting the cookies together 

  1. In a bowl cream together the butter & vegetable shorting until light & fluffy
  2. Add the icing sugar, cake mix, & vanilla and beat well, place in a piping bag. I used a 1M piping tip.
  3. Once your cookies are completely cold pipe a circle around the base of the cookie and fill the centre with 1 Tsp, jam, top with another cookie.
  4. Repeat with all your cookies,insidecookies

Enjoy! These are seriously moorish!

cookieside

Here is to the next 12 months of Living Dead Cakes, lets get this ride started!
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Recipe

Trail protein bars

Posted on by Living Dead Cakes / 0 Comment

This is another what do to with over ripe bananas recipe,  for these trail bars you need bananas that are as black as night or as black as my soul! The darker the banana the better.

This recipe is sugar free! The only sugar in these are 100% natural occuring sugar from the fruit, NO added fruit syrup or coconut sugar. If your bananas are not quite black enough you can add a few table spoons of date syrup, but I find you don’t really need it.

These are great for lunchboxes or mid morning snacks as they are packed full of seeds, nuts and fruit. You can add any nuts or seeds you like, these are lovely with some extra hazelnuts & peanuts.  Or if you are nut free just miss out the nuts and add some dried cranberries or even dark chocolate chips.  You can add anything you like to these to make them fit your tastes, Chopped apple and plums work great too.

I call them trial bars as I make these when my friend and I go hiking, we take them as a little snack for our children and they love them. We quite like them too.

They will keep in an air tight container for about 5 days.

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Ingredients:

  • 170g Oats*
  • 35g Pumpkin seeds
  • 35g Sunflower seeds
  • 45g Pecan nuts (chopped)
  • 45g Dried Apricots (chopped)
  • 55g Medjool Dates (chopped)
  • 2 very ripe large bananas
  • 1 Tsp Cinnamon or any spice you like  Optional,

Method:

Pre-heat your oven to 180c/350f/or Gas mark 4 and line a 23cm square tin with non stick parchment paper 

  1.  In a bowl peel and mash your bananas.
  2. Now add everything else and mix until well combined.
  3. Pour the mix into your prepared tin and bake for 20 minutes or until the edges start to go a golden brown.
  4. Remove from the oven and tip out onto a cooling rack and peel of the parchment paper.
  5. Leave to cool and cut into squares

*If you can’t have GF oats you can substitute for GF puffed rice cereal.

My tip: It helps to peel of the paper at step 4 otherwise the paper can stick them the bars are cold.

 

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Recipe/review

Lilithas Bones trying our cakes & Birthday Cake Popcorn <3

Posted on by Living Dead Cakes / 1 Comment

Yes you read the title correct, Popcorn that tastes like Birthday Cake & the fabulous Lilithas Bones from YouTube trying our selection of vegan & gluten free Halloween inspired treats.

I love Ava-Elizabeth and have been watching her videos for about 2 years, so when she approached me about making a tasting video I jumped at the chance.

Due to all the changes we have had a Living Dead Cakes HQ this took a little longer to happen than I had wanted but as halloween approached I though now would be the perfect time.

Ava’s channel on YouTube is full of videos about her body modifications, like myself she has a few facial piercings and she posts honest reviews of jewellery & tips on how to look after them once you have had them done, she posts make-up tutorials and even though she isn’t vegan she does use some high street vegan make up!

One of the many things I love about Ava is her honesty and her open heart, her videos are real and from her heart. Never change Ava <3 xxx

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In Ava’s box I sent her a cute LDC mug and a cracker full of spooky spiders along with some new yummy vegan & gluten free treats the recpies of all of these will be up on our website over the coming weeks as every day is halloween for us!

Ava tried our ……….

Scream Skulls,
Chocolate skulls filled with vanilla crème fondant. Crème Eggs got scary!! & Vegan.
These are a spooky take on my Crème Egg flowers click here for the recipe 

Brownie Truffles,
White chocolate brains filled with rich brownie truffles.

Birthday Cake Popcorn, (recipe below) 
Popcorn smothered in white chocolate & vanilla birthday cake.

Hello Kitty Peanut Butter Cups,
Vegan chocolate shell filled with smooth peanut butter

Graveyard Pots,
Chocolate cake, chocolate brownie layered with cherries & chocolate ganache, topped with coconut and broken mint glass!

Hazelnut Brownie Loaf,
Chocolate brownie filled with vegan hazelnut spread and crowned
with roasted hazelnuts.

Peanut Butter Brownie Loaf,
Chocolate brownie filled with crunchy peanut butter.

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Everything Ava tried was vegan & gluten free!

Thank you Ava for the fabulous review and I’m so glad you liked everything and enjoyed your first taste of vegan chocolate. <3

Click Ava’s picture below to go watch her review of our halloween treats.

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Ava’s links…show her some love.
YouTube
Instagram
Twitter 
Facebook 

Ava loved our birthday cake popcorn so this is the 1st recipe from her box that I will share with you all, Yes its vegan & yes its gluten free and yes in case you are wondering its bloody yummy!

This delicious popcorn was born because my son loves birthday cake M&M’s,  I can’t eat those & I wanted something we could all eat while we watch movies & I really wanted something birthday cake flavoured. (We need more things this flavour in the UK)

This is the only time you will ever see me using a box cake mix, but to make this taste so good sadly it is needed.

If you are not vegan you can use your favourite white chocolate & if you are not gluten free you can use any white cake mix.

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Ingredients:

  • 1 bag of microwave popcorn (about 60g of popped popcorn)
  • 200g Vegan white chocolate*
  • 30g Vegetable shortening
  • 150g Gluten free, vegan cake mix*
  • 50g Sprinkles**
  • 1 Tsp Vanila extract

*I used Sainsbury’s free from white vegan chocolate
**I used Asda vanila Gluten free sponge mix.
*** I used quality sprinkles they are gluten free & vegan.

Method:

1. Line a baking tray with parchment paper and pop your popcorn in the microwave & cook according to the packet instructions.
2. Melt your white chocolate and add the vegetable shortening, vanilla, and cake mix and pour this over the the popped popcorn, add the sprinkles and mix until all the popcorn is covered.
3. Spread the mix over the parchment paper and leave to set for an hour.

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EAT!

If you make this don’t forget to tag us on Facebook or Instagram,
I love seeing you all make my recipes.

bcpopfeat

Recipe

Pumpkin spice & all things nice!

Posted on by Living Dead Cakes / 0 Comment

I have been dying to play around and make something using pumpkin and pumpkin pie spice. Once the cans of tinned pumpkin puree appeared in the shops I knew it was time to create something.

You can make all of these using just one can of pumpkin.  Or you can make your own pumpkin puree by de-seeding a pumpkin, cutting into chunks & roasting for 50-55 minutes (180c/350f/ or Gas mark 4) out the flesh into a bowl and puree with a blender.

pumpkintinspiceIn this post there will be 3 NEW delicious recipes.

  • Pumpkin cheesecake brownies
  • Pumpkin spiced bites
  • Pumpkin spiced milkshake

All 100% vegan & gluten free.

For the brownies I baked mine using my 12 hole brownie tin,

If you would like to use a similar tin I found this one on Amazon for you.

Pumpkin cheesecake brownie

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Ingredients:

For the brownie 

  • 165g Caster sugar
  • 100g Dark vegan chocolate
  • 100g Dairy free butter
  • 165g Plain gluten free flour
  • 75g Chocolate soya yoghurt
  • 1 Tbsp ground flax seed mixed with 4 Tbsp. cold water
  • 1 Tsp Baking powder

For the cheesecake filling 

  • 125g Pumpkin puree
  • 100g Violife creamy soft cheese
  • 25g Caster sugar
  • 2 Tsp. Pumpkin pie spice*

*If you can’t find pre made pumpkin pie spice you can mix your own,
By mixing 3 tablespoons ground cinnamon, 2 teaspoons ground ginger, 2 teaspoons ground nutmeg, 1 ½ teaspoons ground allspice and 1 ½ teaspoons ground cloves.

Method:

Pre-heat your oven to 160c/320f/ or Gas mark 3 grease your brownie tin

  1. In a small bowl combine all your cheesecake filling ingredients & place to the side.
  2. In a saucepan add your dairy free butter and chocolate and melt over a low heat.
  3. Once melted add the caster sugar, and all your other brownie ingredients and mix well.
  4. Divided your mixture between the 12 holes.
  5. Add a generous teaspoon of the cheesecake mix to each cavity and using a tooth pick swirl it into the brownie mix.
  6. Bake for 22-25 minutes**.
  7. Once baked leave to cool for 10 minutes and then carefully remove them from the tin using a pallet knife and place on a wire rack to cool completely.

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** If you are baking this is a square brownie tin you will need to bake for 30-35 minutes.

Pumpkin spice bites

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Ingredients:

Makes approx. 20-24 cookies depending on size.

  • 110g Dairy free butter, Melted
  • 100g Caster Sugar
  • 85g Soft brown sugar
  • 100g Pumpkin puree
  • 235g Plain gluten free flour
  • 65g Dark chocolate chips
  • 35g Vanilla soya yoghurt
  • 2 Tsp Pumpkin pie spice
  • 1 Tsp Baking powder
  • Pinch of salt
  • 2 Tbsp Icing sugar mixed with 1 Tsp pumpkin pie spice for decorating

Method:

Pre-heat your oven to 180c/350f/ or Gas mark 4 & line a cookie sheet.

  1. Pour your warm melted butter over your two sugars and mix well.
  2. Add the rest of your ingredients and mix until well combined to form your cookie dough.
  3. Using a small ice cream scoop or two tea spoons place balls of mixture on your cookie sheet, place them about 2″ apart as they don’t spread too much.
  4. Bake for 12-13 minutes or until golden brown around the edges
  5. Once baked remove from the cookie sheet and cool on a wire rack.
  6. Dust with the icing sugar/pumpkin spice mix once cool.

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Pumpkin spice milkshake 

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Serves 2

Ingredients: 

  • 4 Tbsp pumpkin puree
  • 2 Tsp Pumpkin pie spice
  • 400ml Plant milk*
  • 6 scoops of dairy free vanilla ice cream
  • Vegan squirty cream to decorate
  • 1 Tsp. pumpkin pie spice to decorate

*You can use chocolate flavoured plant milk to make it chocolatey.

Method:

  1. In a blender all your pumpkin puree, pumpkin pie spice, plant milk and 4 scoops of ice cream and blend.
  2. Pour into a glass and top with one scoop of ice cream and some squirty cream add a little dusting of pumpkin pie spice to the top & serve.

If you make any of there recipes please don’t forget to tag us on Facebook or Instagram,
I love seeing you all make my recipes.

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Recipe

Tea bread

Posted on by Living Dead Cakes / 2 Comments

Another recipe from our 5 things to do with ripe bananas, this one is perfect with a cup of tea as the evenings get darker.

This my take on my Grandmas old tea bread recipe.

My Grandmas cake would be served in slices on plate with a cup of tea after an amazing Sunday lunch at my grandparent’s house.  This cake and a huge bowl of sherry trifle that had enough sherry in it to make a sailor blush.

It would all be laid out on the table in the living room & everyone would sit down, eat cake, drink tea and listen to my Grandma tell stories about my family in South Africa.

My Grandma was born and lived in Cape Town, South Africa.  She came to the UK when she was 25.  Like many South African women of her generation she loved cooking & feeding those she loved and her love for that has rubbed off on me.

One of my favourite memories was spending Saturday afternoons cooking in her kitchen with her when I was little & this cake was one thing we would make ready for Sunday lunch.

My Grandmas old recpie called for yogurt in but in mine I have taken it out and used banana. You can use a small pot of vanila soya yogurt if you don’t like banana. You can also add pumpkin and other nuts and seeds if you like too.

Ingredients:

  • 500g Mixed dried fruit
  • 1 Tea bag
  • 130g Dairy free butter
  • 120g Soft brown sugar
  • 140g Self raising gluten free four
  • 1 small banana (or vanilla Soya yoghurt)
  • 1 Tsp Baking Powder
  • 2 Tsp. Cinnamon
  • 1 Tsp. Ginger

Method:

Pre-heat your oven to 160c/325f/ or Gas mark 3 and line a loaf tin with parchment paper or cake liner case.

  1. In a bowl before you weight out your other ingredients add your dried fruit and tea bag and cover with boiling water and put to one side. Allow your fruit to soak for 10 or so minutes.
  2. In another add your dairy free butter, sugar, & banana and mix for a few minutes until they are all combined.
  3. Take out the tea bag and drain away the water, lightly squeeze the excess water from the fruit*
  4. Add the fruit and all the dry Ingredients to the wet Ingredients and using your mixer mix for a few minutes until well combined.
  5. Pour all your mixture into your lined loaf tin and bake for approx. 45/50 minutes.
  6. Remove from the oven when a tooth pick comes out of the centre clean and leave to cool on a wire rack.

My Tip *The banana adds extra moisture to this cake so step 3 is very important, you do not want a soggy cake. If you are using yogurt instead of banana this is a must also.

The bake on this is long and slow don’t worry the wait will be worth it.

Make memories with your family and enjoy this with them. Its really nice with a little dairy free butter spread on top of the slice.

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?✅ key

?=Vegan
✅=Gluten Free

General/Recipe

Fairy Tea Party

Posted on by Living Dead Cakes / 0 Comment

After how wonderful our little Halloween party was and how much fun we all had we decided here at Living Dead Cakes HQ to have another little party.

This time it was a fairy theme.  As Both Lilith-Rain & Baya love fairies, so it was an obvious theme.

Over the half term holidays, we got together with our closest & best friend and her two little girls again.  The fairy fun & games began.  We dressed up as fairies and played fairy games & enjoyed lots of fairy activities

I made many vegan & gluten free treats for our tea party.

The table centre piece was a big fairy house cake and 3 little fairy house cakes around it. A mini fairy village. One mini fairy house each for the girls after the party to take home.

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The big fairy house even had a little pond.

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The little mini fairy houses were the same base as the big house, vanilla cake with creamy vegan vanilla butter cream.

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The girls loved the mini houses and said “They were really cute”

 

 

 

 

 

I had so much fun creating all the food we had, I wanted to make some of my favourite things.

Im going to add a few recipes from some of what we had to eat, if you would like something I have missed please message me and I will add the other recipes.
Contact me here 

On the savoury side we had mini VeganEgg quiches with red onion and roasted peppers, the recipe for my sweet potato quiche can be found here.

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We also had roasted pepper & red onion with green pesto sandwiches (bottom of cake stand) & hummus with red pepper wrap pin wheels. (top left of cake stand) All made with  gluten free & vegan bread & wraps.

Some of the sweet things we had are fairy creme flowers (recipe here)

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We also had butterfly marshmallow treats

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I made these using freedom vegetarian mallows  & Nature’s path gluten free crispy rice

Ingredients:

  • 75g Freedom mallows
  • 30g Dairy free butter
  • 30g Golden Syrup
  • 150g Natures path gluten free crispy rice
  • Vegan sprinkles to decorate

Method: 

  1. line a brownie pan with cling film & grease well
  2. In a saucepan melt the butter, golden syrup, and mallows
  3. Once melted add the crispy rice and mix until well combined and place in the lined brownie pan
  4. Sprinkle the top with sprinkles and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes
  5. once chilled cut into shapes, I used a butterfly cutter.  Return to the fridge to compleatey set.

 

CAKES

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Some of the other cakes we had

Mini lemon drizzle loafs with Fairy Jam tarts (bottom left)

Brownies, Fairy flowers, & Mallow butterflies (top left)

Mini chocolate cakes, Purple ombre vanilla cakes & Mini victoria sandwiches
(bottom right)

We also had vegan & gluten free trifle!
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Lanterns

I made little fairy lanterns for the girls for late night fairy spotting:
Each lantern had their first name initials & battery powered tea lights.

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The girls also had personalised drinking jars with their initials too.

We didn’t just eat yummy fairy food we also decorated butterfly cookies and made sticky pictures with pipe cleaners and other fun things

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All 3 girls had a great time, Little Erika even joined in with the fun and games.

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We ended the party with hot chocolate & vegan cream and fairy presents.
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I will add lots more photos of the fairy party to our Facebook page, so if you would like to see some more of the cakes and other details check out the Facebook page.

Recipe

Peanut Banana Cake

Posted on by Living Dead Cakes / 0 Comment

Recipe two from our 5 things to do with ripe bananas, You will thank me for this one! ?Don’t forget to give our Facebook page a like

I love banana cake and I love peanut butter so this cake for me is a match made in heaven.  The salted peanuts on the top cut through the sweet cake and add something extra special. Salty & sweet is one of my favourite flavour combinations.

This recipe works better the riper and as my daughter says the uglier the bananas are.

You can use either smooth or crunchy peanut butter, I had smooth that was nearly gone so I used that.

This mixture makes 2 mini loaf tins if you want to make a large loaf tin triple the quantities of the ingredients.

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Ingredients:

  •  100g Peanut butter
  • 75g Caster sugar
  • 2 Medium mashed very ripe bananas
  • 1 Flax egg*
  • 150g Self raising gluten free flour
  • 1 Tsp. Baking powder
  • ¼ Tsp. Bicarbonate of soda
  • 60g Dark chocolate chips
  • 20g Crushed salted peanuts

*Make your flax egg by mixing 1 Tbsp. of ground flax seed with 2 Tbsps. of water in a bowl and leave to the side for 5/10 minutes.

Method:

Pre-heat your oven to 190c/375f/ or Gas mark 5 grease your loaf tins

  1. Cream together the peanut butter & sugar until light and fluffy.
  2. Add the mashed banana and the flax egg and mix until well combined
  3. Now add the baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, flour, and chocolate chips mix until all combined
  4. Pour the mix into your tins
  5. Sprinkle the top of cake with the crushed salted peanuts
  6. Bake for 25/30 minutes until golden and a tooth pick comes out clean
  7. Leave to cool and serve

My Tip: This cake is delicious spread with extra peanut butter or some vegan chocolate spread.

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