Vegan Chocolate Chip Biscuits

They're classic biscuits and easy to make. Enough said :) I used Dairy free chocolate chips  and freshly ground spelt flour.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup sunflower or grapeseed oil
1/2 cup agave nectar
1/4 cup soy or rice milk
2 Tbsp arrowroot
2 1/4 cups spelt flour or whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking soda

 pinch of salt
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Method:

Preheat oven to 190C and prepare a baking tray or sheet lined with greaseproof paper.
In a large bowl, mix togetrher oil, agave and milk, mix and add arrowroot. Mix thoroughly until smooth.
Add the flour (you can do it in a few batches to make your mixing better), salt and the baking soda, mix well. Finally fold in chocolate chips.
Take a bit of the dough with a middle-sized spoon and drop on the baking sheet, making sure that there's at least 6 cm/2 inches between your biscuits.
Bake for 12 minutes, and leave them on the sheet for a little while before transferring them onto a plate.

Gluten-free Pistachio Rosewater cupcakes

This recipe is a gluten free and sugar free version of pistachio rosewater cupcakes from Isa and Terry's Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. I also skipped flax seed and used arrowroot  instead of tapioca flour - works perfectly.

 Makes about 20 small cupcakes (Dr Oetker papercases)
(didn't try to use regular muffin cases but must be around 10 maybe)

Ingredients:
1/2 cup soy yogurt
2/3 cup soy milk
1/3 cup oil
2/3 cup agave nectar
2 Tbsp pure rose water
2 Tbsp arrowroot
1/3 cup maize flour
1/2 cup quinoa flour
1/2 cup rice flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp freshly ground cardamom seed
pinch of sea salt
1/2 cup chopped pistachios

Method:
Preheat oven to 170C and line your cupcake tray with paper cases.
First chop pistachio nuts and crush cardamom seeds with a mortar with a pestle.
In a large bowl, mix all the liquid ingredients and add arrowroot. Mix with the electric handmixer for 1 minute. Put a fine sieve ot top of the bowl and sieve in the flours, soda, baking powder, ground cardamom and salt. Mix with the handmixer for 2 minutes. Then fold in the pistachios.
Pour the mixture in the liners, and bake for 26-30 minutes (depending on the oven and the size of the cupcakes). Check with a wooden toothpick, placed in the middle of a cupcake, which should come out dry or with just a couple of tiny crumbs on it.

These cupcakes were topped with the Soyatoo whippable soy cream, coloured with a very small amount of dry beetroot powder and sprinkled with some crushed pistachios. I added a dash of rosewater in the cream while whipping too.

Of course, these cupcakes can be made with normal flour too: just omit arrowroot in the recipe and swap the gluten-free flour mix for 1 1/3 cup of whole wheat or spelt flour.

Vegan Hazelnut Chocolate cupcake

Another cupcake recipe with the nut butter. It's very simple in decoration as well - just a drop of rice syrup or barley malt in the middle and some crushed roasted hazelnuts on top of it.

 
Makes 9 big hazelnut cupcakes (in regular muffin paper cases) or 16 small ones

Ingredients:
3/4cup soy milk
2 tsp cider vinegar
1/2 cup hazelnut butter, stirred
1/3 cup sunflower or grapeseed oil
1/2 cup agave nectar
1/4 cup barley malt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 cup wholemeal wheat or spelt flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
pinch of sea salt

Method:
Preheat oven to 170C, line a cupcake tray with paper liners.
In a small bowl, mix soy milk with the vinegar with the whisk and leave for a few minutes.
Meanwhile, in a larger bowl cream the hazelnut butter, oil, barley malt and extracts until smooth. Add the soy mixture and mix. Put a fine sieve on top of the bowl and sift in the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt, mix together, trying not to overmix.
Pour the mixture in the liners with the small ladle and place in the oven immediately.
Bake for about 28 min, checking with the toothpick put in the middle of one of the cupcakes, which should come out dry.

Vegan Peanut Butter cupcakes

I've just decided to search the web for polenta and poppy seed cake recipe and found lots of them. Lemon's present in most recipes too. How sad - I actually thought I've invented something lol. I just love poppy seed and try to put it anywhere it seems to fit. Well, I suppose, in terms of cooking nowadays there is nothing which hasn't been invented yet. Here is another classic cupcake.

Peanut butter cupcakes with chocolate ganache and roasted peanuts
Makes 9 big cupcakes (in regular muffin paper cases) or 16 small ones

Ingredients:
3/4cup soy milk
2 tsp cider vinegar
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/3 cup sunflower or grapeseed oil
1/2 cup agave syrup
1/4 cup barley malt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/3 cup wholemeal wheat or spelt flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
pinch of sea salt


Method:
Preheat oven to 170C, line a cupcake tray with paper liners.
In a small bowl, mix soy milk with the vinegar with the whisk and leave for a few minutes.
Meanwhile, in a larger bowl cream the peanut butter, oil, sweeteners and vanilla until smooth. Add the soy mixture and mix. Put a fine sieve on top of the bowl and sift in the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt, mix together, trying not to overmix.
Pour the mixture in the liners with the small ladle and place in the oven immediately.
Bake for about 28 min, checking with the toothpick put in the middle of one of the cupcakes, which should come out dry.

Decorate your cakes with vegan chocolate ganache from this post, piping it on top and letting it set afterwards. Top with some roasted unsalted peanuts.

Gluten-free polenta and poppy seed cupcake

The health education centre where I used to work is often visited by gluten-free people, so I did quite a lot of gluten-free stuff. Although I prefer making normal cakes, there's nothing difficult in gluten-free baking, if you have the right mixture. The ones on sale sometimes are too stiff and sandy, probably due to a high content of rice flour, I don't know. I started using 'Gluten Frida" mixture from Isa and Terry's book, which is 1/3 cup maize flour+1 cup rice flour+1 cup quinoa flour, but then I discovered coconut flour, which I think is better than rice flour, because it is very smooth and kinda starchy, resembling maize flour in texture - and maize flour is the best gluten-free flour in terms of acting like a glutenous flours. You can bake a full cake only with maize flour and it will bond fine, only it will have a pronounced corny taste.
Polenta is a relative of maize flour - it's coarsely ground cornmeal, so you can also use it instead of maize flour. Plus, using polenta can be a justification of using more maize flour in the mixture (because you actually want it to taste corny), which makes using starches in gluten-free mixtures unnecessary. Well, I think so.

For polenta and poppy seed cupcake (or cake) I use this formula:

1 cup soy milk
1/3 sunflower oil
2/3 cup agave syrup
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp lemon extract (or more vanilla)
2/3 cup maize flour
1/2 cup polenta
1/2 cup quinoa or rice flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
pinch of sea salt
3 Tbsp of poppy seed

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 170C or 350F and line the cupcake tray with paper liners.
2. In a large bowl combine milk, oil, syrup and extracts, add the first 1/3 of maize flour and mix with an electric mixer for one minute, it's gonna turn quite smooth.
3. Place a sieve on top of the bowl and sift in the second 1/3 cup of maize flour, add polenta and quinoa flours, baking powder, baking soda +salt. Mix with the electric mixer for 2 min. There's no gluten so there's no danger of overmixing. The mixture must be smooth. Stir in 2 tablespoons of poppy seed, (leave 1 Tbsp for just now)
4. Immediately pour the mixture in the liners, and sprinkle the remaining 1 Tbsp of the poppy seed on top of every cupcake. Bake for 28-30 minutes, checking with the toothpick, which should come out dry or with just a couple of tiny crumbs on it.

These cupcakes can be left without any additional decoration.