Living Dead Cakes

Vegan ice lollies: Vegan & Gluten free on a budget

Posted on August 19, 2016 by Living Dead Cakes / 0 Comment

We have made ones for our furry friends so its only fair we make some for ourself!
Dog ice lolly recipe can be found here

Being vegan doesn’t mean you have to miss out or spend a fortune on the vegan options in the supermarket & you can make them so they fit into your dietary requirements.

These are 3 of my favourite recipes for cool cruelty free treats, 2 of these are refined sugar free and only contain the natural sugar found in the watermelon & other fruit you add, the other is a rich decadent treat.

This is the first recipe in my Vegan & Gluten free on a budget series, so keep your eyes peeled for more tasty cheap on a budget recipes,

I used some traditional ice lolly moulds from IKEA for £2 & found the other two sets in the £1 shops. Not only are these tasty they are very cheap & easy to make too.

Perfect to make with children.

Ice Lolly one :
Watermelon & Strawberry

These really are so easy, the thing take takes the longest is waiting for them to freeze!

Ingredients:
300g Chopped & de-seeded Watermelon
150g Chopped strawberries

Method:
Using a hand blender or in a NutriBullet blend up the watermelon and strawberries, pour into the moulds and freeze over night.

Thats it, it couldn’t be any simpler. If you don’t like strawberries you can add 75g blueberries.

Ice lolly two:
Watermelon Kiwi

Ingredients:
350g Chopped & de-seeded Watermelon
50ml Coconut milk
1 Kiwi, Sliced

Method:
Using a hand blender or in a NutriBullet blend up the watermelon and pour into your moulds and freeze for 1 hour, after an hour and a few spoons of the coconut milk to the tops of each mould and freeze again for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes and some sliced kiwi to the tops and add the sticks and freeze over night.

Simple!

Ice Lolly Three:
Peanut Banana cream

These are my all time favourite! So yummy.

Ingredients:
3 Very ripe bananas, chopped and frozen for 1 hour
65ml Coconut milk
2 Tbsp. Chocolate peanut butter

Method:
I chopped my ripe bananas and froze them for an hour, if you do this your ice cream will be thick and yummy!

Using a hand blender or in a NutriBullet blend up all your frozen bananas, coconut milk and 2 very generous spoons of chocolate peanut butter & pour into your moulds and freeze over night.

All of these treats are a great way to get your children in the kitchen. I know both my children love making these.

Recipe

Banoffee Cupcakes

Posted on August 6, 2016 by Living Dead Cakes / 0 Comment

Bananas! I love them! I could eat them all day.

This is the first recipe in a series of 5, What to do with over ripe bananas!.
Coming in the other recipes are, Trail bars, Nice cream, Tea bread, & Peanut banana cake, so keep an eye on our social media to know when they are up.

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Never throw a over ripe banana away again!

Banoffee pie was one of the first deserts I made on my own when I was allowed to play around with boiling tins of condensed milk without blowing my self or the house up. Now you can buy tins of pre made condensed milk toffee if you are making these non vegan, so gone are those days of playing with tins and boiling water.

A gluten free cupcake version was one of the first recipes I made when I had to go gluten free and now in turn I have made this recipe vegan.

Another perfect way to use up ripe bananas.

Ingredients:

Makes approx 6-8 cupcakes

For the cupcakes,

150g Vegan butter
130g Soft brown sugar
2 medium mashed bananas
2 Flax eggs (2 Tbsp ground flax seed mixed with 6 Tbsp water)
160g Self raising gluten free flour
1 pinch of Bicarbonate of soda
1/2 Tsp Baking powder

For the toffee/caramel,

175g Soft brown sugar
65g Golden syrup
100g Vegan butter
125ml Soya cream
1 Tsp Vanilla bean paste
2 Tsp Cornflour mixed into a paste with a 4 Tsp cold water

For the banoffee butter cream frosting,

65g Dairy free butter
70g Vegetable shortening
1 Tsp of vanilla bean paste
500g Icing Sugar
2-3 Tbsp of the toffee sauce

Method:

Pre heat your oven to 375°F/190°C or Gas mark 5 and prepare your cupcake cases

For the cupcakes,

Beat together your butter and sugar until light and fluffy,
Add the flax eggs, mashed bananas and all the dry ingredients and mix well until combined.
Dived between your cupcake cases and bake for 22-25 minutes until golden brown, or a tooth pick comes out clean,
Once baked allow to cool completely.

For the toffee/caramel

In a saucepan add your butter, sugar & golden syrup and bring the mix to the boil and simmer for 4-6 minutes.
Let the sauce cool for 3 minutes and add the cream & cornflour mix and heat gently to allow the sauce to thicken.
Once thicken allow the sauce to cool completely in the fridge. You will need it cold for the frosting.

For the butter cream

In a stand mixer beat your butter, shortening & vanilla bean paste together for a few minutes.
Now slowly add your icing sugar a few spoonfuls at a time.
Once you have added all your icing sugar add a few spoonfuls of your cold toffee/caramel and mix until combined.
Leave to one side ready for your cupcakes

Once you have made all the above elements and your cupcakes are cold you can now decorate them,

Take a cupcake and using an apple corer take out a small core in the centre and fill the hole with a tsp of the toffee sauce,
Now pipe a swirl of butter cream on the top of your cupcake and drizzle over a little extra toffee sauce,
Repeat with all your cupcakes and now they are ready to eat,

Recipe

Vegan summer dog treats – Ice lolly

Posted on July 21, 2016 by Living Dead Cakes / 2 Comments

Summer has arrived with full force in the UK at the moment & its so hot, as a country the UK isn’t used to this weather so for lots of us its a shock to the system, especially for our furry little friends.

I have two black fluffy dogs who are both a little crazy at the best of times. In this heat I do a few things to help them keep cool, one of them being my Dog ice lolly. I make batches of these through out the hot weather & give them one every so often to help keep them cool & as a little treat.

My dog ice lolly is 100% vegan & gluten free, not because my dogs are vegan, they are not. One of my dogs Prue, is a rescue dog and I’m her 3rd owner and she is getting on in dog years, a drastic change in her diet to become vegan wouldn’t be in her best interest, my other pup Phoebe, is very fussy about what she eats and its taken me a long time to find a brand of dog food that I’m happy for her to eat and one that she will eat. If your dog isn’t vegan you can add some of their favourite meat treats to this recipe.

There are lots of foods you shouldn’t feed your dog as they can be dangerous for them but there are also lots of foods they can have.

Things to never feed your dogs:
❌Grapes & Raisins – can cause kidney failure
❌Avocado – The pit, skin and leaves contain Persin a toxin that causes vomiting & diarrhea the flesh inside doesn’t contain much Persin but still too much for you dog to handle.
❌Onion – NO, Onions, leeks, & chives are from a family called Allium thats poisonous to most pets. Cats & dogs. Can cause vomiting, stomach pain, & diarrhoea.
❌Chocolate – Contains caffeine & theobromine, can cause vomiting, dehydration, abdominal pains, severe agitation, muscle tremors, irregular heart rhythm, elevated body temperature, seizures and death.

Things they can have:
❤️ Apples – Great source of vitamins A & C and packed full of fiber.
❤️Strawberries – Full of fiber & vitamin C are high in sugar so a treat in moderation (be wary of pips & core)
❤️Blueberries – Superfood rich in antioxidants Perfect for dogs
❤️Carrots – Great low calorie snack high in fiber & beta carotene
❤️Cucumber – Perfect for dogs, packed full of vitamins K, C, & B1, plus potassium,

My Dog-Lolly contains coconut milk*, Soya yoghurt*, carrots, apples, & peanut butter. Normally i use a sugar free peanut butter but i didn’t have any and i only used a few table spoons, But if you can use a brand that has no added sugar and check for Xylitol, This sweetener is very dangerous for dogs symptoms of xyllitol poisoning include weakness, tremors, seizures, and death!.

*I checked with my vet that coconut milk & Soya yoghurt where ok for my dogs after reading mixed things online about coconuts, he confirmed that the milk & yoghurt I use is perfectly ok & safe for dogs.

Now the fun bit, to make these you will need:

Disposable ice cream pots,
500ml Water
350ml Coconut milk
4 Tbsp Soya Yoghurt
2 Carrots, grated
1 Apple, grated (do not grate to core)
3 Tbsp. Peanut butter
Some of your dogs favourite treats
Stick treats, like the ones pictured or delta sticks. cut in half

I made 8 using this recipe.

Method:

In a bowl add your coconut milk, water, soya yogurt, carrots, apple, peanut butter and mix well so all the peanut butter & yoghurt has mixed in.

Divided your mix into the ice cream pots and and a few of your dogs favourite treats to each one.

Place in the freezer for about 45/60 minutes, after that time you will be able to add the stick treats into the middle, carry on freezing over night or until completely frozen.

To remove from the pots place them in a little warm water and they will pop out the pots & let your dog enjoy. Prue ate hers so quick I couldn’t get a good photo but check out our YouTube channel to see Phoebe lick hers.

Recipe

RaffaCakes: Chocolate raspberry “Jaffa” cakes

Posted on June 15, 2016 by Living Dead Cakes / 0 Comment

I used to love Jaffa cakes, Full moon, half moon, Total eclipse!
Oh come on, I know you have sat there with a whole packet of them doing just that.

I have tried a few gluten free Jaffa Cakes and didn’t really like them, they were dry, tasteless and didn’t match up to the good old ones.

A few weeks ago I tired a Vegan & Gluten free traditional Jaffa cake. Vanilla base, orange jelly and dark chocolate. I can honestly say it was the worst cake I had ever tried.
I was so disappointed.
Every element of it was wrong the base was dry and tasted like sawdust there was too much chocolate and it left a horrible aftertaste in my mouth.
My children even agreed it was horrible.

So as always I set out to try and make my own but with my little twist.

I swapped out the orange for raspberry, the vanilla base for chocolate and the Raffacake was born! A dark chocolate base, topped with jam, jelly & dark chocolate and a sprinkling of freeze dried raspberries.

I used my own home made jam but you can use any jam you like, I wanted to use dark chocolate as I wanted the rich chocolate to cut through the sweet cake and sweet jam/jelly but you can use any chocolate, White vegan chocolate on these would be amazing!

Ingredients:

Makes 24:

For the cake:

100g Gluten free Self raising flour
80g Caster sugar
25g Cocoa powder
1/2 Tsp. Bicarbonate of soda
30ml Vegetable oil
1/2 Tsp. White wine vinegar

1 packet of vegan raspberry jelly
4-5 Tbsp Raspberry jam
250g Vegan chocolate
Freeze dried raspberris for decoration

Method:

Pre-heat your oven to 200c/400f/ or Gas mark 6 and grease a 12 cup bun tray

Make up your jelly according to the packet instructions and pour into a 31cmx21cm tray and place in the fridge to set, I made my jelly the day before so it had plenty of time to set. My jelly was about 5mm thick.

In a large bowl add all your ingredients for the cake base and mix until well combined & you have a smooth batter, add a tablespoon of batter to each cavity on your bun tray and bake for 5-7 minutes, remove from tray and cool upside down.
Repeat until you have made all your bases.

Once the bases are cool on what was the bottom add a little jam just enough to taste and to help the jelly sick, using a 1″ round cutter cut circles of your set jelly and place on top of the jam.

Melt you chocolate, Pour a tablespoon over the top of your jelly, while the chocolate is still wet sprinkle on some freeze dried raspberries and leave to set.

Once they are set you can add them to cupcake cases and put them in a cupcake box like i did. They make a great gift or just eat them all with a cup of tea.

Recipe

Peanut butter Popcorn

Posted on May 22, 2016 by Living Dead Cakes / 0 Comment

I love peanut butter, no really I do!

My love for the salty peanut nectar is verging on an obsession. If its peanut butter flavour and vegan/gluten free then I will be eating it!

Last year in the free from section in Tesco bags of Earth Balance – Gluten Free Peanut Butter Popcorn appeared and they were only £1 for a bag, so of course I had to try them and my god they were dangerous.

Popcorn covered in peanut butter with oats stuck to them. With each mouthful I swear I could hear a chorus of angels singing.

Then one day they were was gone! The bags of heaven were no more.
I have not seen them anywhere since; I did find them online but for £4.00 a bag and they were in the USA. So I hate to think how much they would cost to import.

So I made my own & this is my recipe for making them yourself!

Super easy recipe it only takes about 10 minutes to make from start to finish.

Ingredients:

1 Bag of microwave popcorn (I used Mcennedy American Way its marked as vegan)
150g Peanut butter* (any you like I used 50/50 smooth v’s crunchy)
20g Dairy free butter
50g Caster sugar
100g Oats
50g Salted peanuts (optional)

*My Tip: This recipe works better using a cheap peanut butter, it melts better than the Whole earth ? If you use whole earth you can add a few tea spoons of coconut oil, when you melt it in the saucepan.

Method:

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

Cook your popcorn via the instructions on the packet.
While the popcorn is cooking in a sauce pan add your peanut butter, sugar & butter and melt & mix until combined.
Once your popcorn is cooked add it to a large mixing bowl and pour over the contents of your saucepan, add the oats (& peanuts if using) to the bowl and mix it all together
Pour your popcorn mix on to a baking tray and bake in the oven for 3 minutes, stir and then bake for another 3-4 minutes until the popcorn is golden brown
Serve

Recipe/review

Chocolate avocado mousse

Posted on May 9, 2016 by Living Dead Cakes / 0 Comment

This rich decadent mousse will even fool your non-vegan friends its a perfect end to a dinner party or even a romantic meal.

I used Tescos frozen avocados* to make mine, Since finding these little treasures in the freezer section of my local Tesco I haven’t looked back, I still buy the odd fresh avocado but these are a staple in my freezer. Using the avocados frozen is perfect for smoothie bowls or this avocado mousse. If you have an avocado thats just past its best or your not going to use it before it goes off just de-stone, peel and freeze & use for recipes like this.

Never waste an avocado again.

This recipe is also refined sugar free and uses medjool dates to add the sweetness. If you find the dates do not add enough sweetness for your own personal taste you can add a few table spoons of date syrup or any other fruit syrup you like.

I love using raw cacao in my non baked treats.
Its the purest form of chocolate you can eat! & its packed full of antioxidants. Raw cacao is processed very differently to traditional cocoa powder. If you are making a raw treat you must use raw cacao. Cacao is made by cold-pressing the un roasted cocoa beans and during this process the living enzymes in the cocoa remain and it removes the fat. Cocoa powder is roasted at a high temperature and this reduces the living enzymes and changes molecular structure of the cocoa bean.

This mousse serves two, small portions:

Ingredients: **see notes below

1/2 Frozen Avocado, chopped
10g Cacao powder
2 Large Medjool dates, pitted & chopped
1/2 Tsp Vanila paste
65ml Cold water
Pinch of sea salt
1 Tbsp. Date syrup* Optional
Whipped Soya cream/coconut cream to serve

Method:

In your blender add all your ingredients and blend until you reach a smooth constancy.
Place in the fridge in tiny dishes until you are ready to serve. Shot glasses are a good size for serving.
Just before serving top with a little whipped soya cream or whipped coconut cream.

It really couldn’t be any easier. You can add lots of other ingredients to this mousse, a table spoon of nut butter, some fresh raspberries, or some ripe banana. Just use this basic recipe as a base and add anything else that takes your fancy. Toasted nuts sprinkled on top are a nice addition too.

**This mousse is very dark and rich if you would like it a little lighter. You can use plant milk instead of the water and use 5-7g of Cacao powder and add some fruit syrup or extra dates for sweetness.

*Sadly my local Tesco hasn’t had any for a few weeks and i can’t find them online anymore. But you can use fresh avocados to make this or freeze your own when they have become to ripe.

Recipe/review

Follow Your Heart VeganEgg: Sweet potato & roasted pepper quiche

Posted on April 24, 2016 by Living Dead Cakes / 3 Comments

Follow your heart VeganEgg has finally reached UK shores. This lusted after egg replacer has been making waves within the vegan community since it was launched in the United States.

I was so excited to see it was coming to the UK and when I found some in Whole Foods I snapped it up. I found mine in the baking section with the other egg replacers, and its was £6.99 a box.

We have been waiting with bated breath for it to arrive and now it has!

I made these in mini form for our little fairy party and they were so good so I made a big one for this review. Perfect for a family dinner.

My first impressions of the VeganEgg were good the packing is cute and looks like a little egg box. With a bag of the yellow VeganEgg powder inside. It even smells like real eggs!

VeganEgg is also gluten free, soy free, non-GMO and Kosher. Each box contains the equivalent of 12 normal eggs.

I love Follow Your Heart products but sadly in the UK I can’t find the whole range, I love their Veganaise: better than mayo. I really would love to try their cheeses but have yet to find any in the UK.

I will have lots more recipes coming using VeganEgg but for now here is my delicious sweet potato & roasted pepper quiche.

Ingredients:

For the pastry:

200g Gluten free plain flour
70g Dairy free butter
35g Vegetable shortening
40ml Cold water
Pinch of salt

In a bowl add the flour & salt, rub in the butter and shortening,
Add the water a little at time until you form a soft ball of pastry.
Wrap your pastry in cling film and chill in fridge for 30 minutes before use.

For the quiche:

1 Medium sweet Potato
2 Peppers
80g Grated Vegan cheese
20g Vegan Egg
150ml Plant milk
70ml cold water
Salt & pepper
Oil

To serve:

1 Medium potato per person & a small mixed salad & dressing

Method:

Pre-heat your oven to 200c/400f/ or Gas mark 6

Roll out your pastry and line your dish, I used a 20cm x 3.5cm fluted tin, Bake blind for 10-12 minutes, once baked leave to one side.
While your pastry case is baking, peel and chop your sweet potato, boil until soft. Once soft mash and season with salt & pepper put this to one side.
Cut your peppers in half & de seed place on a baking tray with a drizzle of oil and roast in the oven for 25/30 minutes until some of the skin is black and the peppers are soft.
Once cooked place in a bowl and cover with cling film and leave to the cool, Once cool peel of the black skin and slice into strips.
Add your sweet potato mash to the base of your blind baked pastry case and top with some slices of the roasted peppers. Save some peppers for the top.

6. Now make up your vegan egg mixture I used my nutri bullet to mix everything and I have found this makes a lovely fluffy filling. In your nutruibullet mug add 70g of your grated vegan cheese, and 20g of Vegan Egg, 150ml of ice cold plant milk & the ice cold water blend until smooth pour over the sweet potato & peppers. Top with the rest of the cheese and the left over pepper slices and season with salt & pepper bake in the oven for 35 minutes.

To serve:

To serve with my quiche, I made my Salt & Pepper wedges and a little side salad.

To make my wedges I pricked a potato with a fork and cooked in the microwave for 6 minutes. Once cooked I cut into wedges and placed on an oiled tray and sprinkled with pink himalayan salt & fresh ground black pepper & baked for 15 minutes at 200c until golden brown

For my salad dressing:

I mixed 6 Tbsp. of organic olive oil with 2 Tbsp. of white wine vinegar & seasoned with a squeeze of lemon juice, salt and pepper and a little mustard.

Final impressions:

Out of all the egg replacers I have tried, VeganEgg makes the best quiche. Once baked its light fluffy and so tasty. I only used 20g to make this whole quiche.

My only tip is you must use ice cold water/plant milk & mix well

VeganEgg was worth the wait! & in my eyes lives up to all the hype! I will be buying it again and I can’t wait to try it in the other recipes I have in mind.

Follow your heart website: www.followyourheart.com

Check out our YouTube channel and video for this recipe

Recipe/review

Testing new supermarket finds: Vegan & Gluten Free

Posted on April 11, 2016 by Living Dead Cakes / 1 Comment

Over the last few weeks I have noticed some of the main supermarkets have started to expand their “Free From” ranges, Tesco, Asda, & Morrisons have all added more lines to their ranges with Tesco and Asda re packing them too. Marks & Spencers have also added new items to their free from range but i haven’t seen any new items that are both vegan and gluten free, if you are just gluten free M&S have bought out a vanilla cheese cake! I love cheesecake, but i haven’t eaten it since being diagnosed so i will be adding my vegan/gluten free recipe on here soon.

I picked up 2 items each from Adsa and Tesco to test them and see what they are like.
They all are gluten free, dairy free but the instructions on the packets do call for butter & eggs, so I’m going to try and veganise them and see how they turn out.

These things can really help when you are short of time and want to make something quickly, Or you don’t have a cupboard like mine full of every baking item you can think of but really want to make some brownies or pizza. I never use ready mixes like these in my normal baking, I will make something from scratch but I’m excited to try these and see if they are any good & if they save time & to see if they taste OK too.

They will all be given marks out of 5 in the below categories
1. Ease to make
2. The taste
3. Value for money

Item One: Tesco Free From garlic bread.
The Price £1.50

Garlic bread like this has never been seen in the free from section before so I’m so excited to try this one, I couldn’t find it on line on the tesco website when i wrote this so I’m sure it will be in all Tesco shops soon.

Ease to make: 5/5
Take out the packet and bake in the oven for 12 minutes, can’t be any easier.

The taste: 4/5
AMAZING! So good. The baguette was nice and crispy on the outside fluffy on the inside, The only reason it didn’t get 5/5 was it wasn’t very garlicky. They could have added a lot more garlic.

Value for money: 3/5
I think its a little pricey as its not very big and not very garlicky, but it is tasty so i might buy it again but add some of my own garlic butter.

? Total Score 12/15

Item Two: Asda Free from chocolate brownie mix

Price £1.60
All of the supermarkets have started to bring out these type of ready mixes.
Asda also had a sponge mixes in their new range.

The Test: 5/5
The recipe on the packet called for eggs and margarine, so I used Pure sunflower and 2 flax eggs. It also required 1 Tbsp. of water but once I added that you could have made cookies with the mix so I added another 2 Tbsp. of water to make a more brownie batter like consistency.
I baked mine for 13 minutes, I used my normal brownie tin, once baked they are quite thin not as high as my normal brownies I think to achieve that with this mix you would need 2 or more packets.

They were very easy to make, just a case of mix it all together and bake, no stand mixer needed just a spoon and a bowl.

The Taste: 4/5
We love brownies in the Living Dead Cakes house its one thing I probably make the most, so this mix had a lot to live up too. They were very rich and and packed full of chocolate. My children both liked them and gave them 4/5 as they said mine are better.

I would like to try these using peanut butter instead of the flax eggs.

Value for money: 4/5
£1.60 is quite good value for the mix and I had dairy free butter and flax seed in my fridge, I got about 9 squares of brownie out of this batch.

?Total Score 13/15

Item Three: Tesco Free from dough mix

Price £1.20
This is my first time trying a dough mix, so I quite excited about this one. When I make pizza I normally use a Schar brand pizza base and add my toppings & vegan cheese.

The Test: 5/5
Making the dough was easy, I added 1 Tbsp. of organic olive oil & 100ml warm water & mixed together for a 2 minutes using my stand mixer and placed in a bowl to prove for 30 minutes. Once proved I divided the dough into 4 and made 4 mini pizzas. I added a little tomato puree some grated Vio life Pizza cheese and some chopped red onion & red pepper. I baked them for 20 minutes at 200.

The Taste: 4/5
They turned out very nice, the dough was fluffy & light, and if i didn’t know any better i would have thought they were normal non GF pizza dough.

Value for money: 5/5
I think £1.20 for the dough for the base is quite good, I normally pay £3.00 for two Schar pizza bases & these were more fluffy and more like traditional deep pan pizza. I’m going to try and make a calzone next time using this dough.

?Total Score 14/15

Item Four: Asda Pastry mix

Price £1.50

Ease to make: 4/5
On the packet of this pasty mix it said to use 1 egg so I used 1 quantity of egg replacer made up as it said on the packet, Plus 90g dairy free butter & 3 Tbsp. cold water, I used my food processor to crumble in the Pure Sunflower & then i added the egg replacer & water. I left it to rest in the fridge for 1 hour before I rolled it out, cut out circles to make little jam tarts using my Fairy Jam.

The taste: 5/5
This pastry was very nice, light and flakey and perfect for the jam tarts I made.

Value for money: 4/5
I made 24 jam tarts using this mix so its not too bad value but I think if I made pastry from scratch it might be a little cheaper.

?Total Score 13/15

Over all I’m quite impressed with the baking mixes from both Asda & Tesco. They are all good and end up with a satisfactory result even with my vegan substitutes. I might even buy them again when I’m pressed for time or if i want a deeper pan pizza.

The garlic bread from Tesco was very nice too, but lacking in garlic flavour i think i will buy it again to keep in the freezer but I prefer my home made garlic bread with my smoked garlic butter.

Lets hope M&S add some vegan items to their free from range too all the new gluten free items looked really nice, as you would expect from M&S.

Recipe

Doughnies: Brownie doughnuts

Posted on April 3, 2016 by Living Dead Cakes / 0 Comment

We have had the cronut (a croissant and a doughnut hybrid) they have been done to death and have thankfully passed on patisserie heaven.

So I bring you the Doughnie, a brownie and doughnut hybrid, a soft fluffy doughnut crossed with the depth and decadence of a chocolate brownie.

A Living Dead Cakes exclusive creation.

I love brownies & I love doughnuts and since being gluten free I have missed doughnuts, sadly you can’t walk into Tesco and buy gluten free doughnuts. Even though some doughnuts can be vegan (I think some co-op ones are) they are sadly not gluten free.
I wanted to make something that combined the two.

I have another vegan/gluten free doughnut recipe that’s more traditional I will upload that one soon.

Ingredients:

For the dough:

300g Gluten Free self raising flour
35g Cocoa powder
2 Tsp baking powder
40g Dairy free butter, melted
120g sugar
1 flax egg (1 Tbsp ground flax seed mixed with 3 Tbsp water)
120ml Almond milk

For the glaze:

120g icing sugar
25ml Almond milk

Method:

For the dough:

In a bowl sift together all your dry ingredients and place to one side
In another bowl add your melted butter and sugar and beat well together add your flax seed and mix until well combine
Now add half your dry ingredients and half the milk and mix, once combined add the the rest of the milk and dry ingredients and beat until you have a smooth dough
This dough needs to chill for as long as you can allow it, an hour at least more if you can. Over night would be perfect.
Once chilled roll your dough out to approx. 1/2” thick and cut out your doughnies, I made mine mini using 2 little round cutters, you can make them any size you like.
Heat your oil too (350°F/180°C) and fry your doughnies, my minis ones took about 60 seconds to cook, if your doughnies are bigger then will take a few minutes on each side.
Once they are cooked drain on kitchen paper to remove excess oil and either dip in the glaze or roll in sugar.

To make the glaze:

Mix the icing sugar and almond milk together to form a lovely thick dip able glaze

These little doughnies will keep in an air tight container for a few days if they last that long.

Recipe

Velvet chocolate cookies

Posted on March 20, 2016 by Living Dead Cakes / 2 Comments

I know I have a chocolate cookie recipe up already but this one is just too good not to share, its velvety richness is what helped give these decadent cookies their name. and like my best cookies ever recipe these will make non vegans think twice that all we eat is rabbit food.

These little cookies are perfect topped with raspberries or blueberries. Just add a few berries to the top of the cookies just before you bake them.

Ingredients:

200g Plain gluten free flour mix
30g Cocoa powder
1 Tsp baking powder
½ Tsp Bicarbonate of soda
½ Tsp salt
115g Dairy free butter
150g Soft brown sugar
50g Caster sugar
1 Tsp egg replacer mixed with 3 Tsp of warm water
40g Chocolate Soya pudding
50g Chocolate chips
½ Tsp White wine vinegar

Method:

Pre-heat your oven to 200c/400f/ or Gas mark 6 and line a cookie sheet with non stick parchment paper

In a bowl swift together your flour, cocoa, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt and move to one side.
In another bowl beat together the butter and sugars until light and fluffy,
add your egg replacer, chocolate soya pudding and mix until well combined,
Now add your dry ingredients a little at a time mixing well,
Once you have nearly added all your flour mix add your chocolate chips and white wine vinegar, and mix again
The trick to these cookies is chilling the dough, you need to chill in the fridge for at least 1 hour two if you can
Once chilled place spoon full of the cookie dough on a baking sheet and bake for 7-9 minutes
When cooked move to a cooling rack and cool