Vegan Sugarfree Macaroons

My curiosity recently has led me to trying to create a recipe of a vegan macaroon - something I was dreaming about for quite a while (but only dreaming - it's impossible to recreate their meringue-ness without eggs), because meringues and macaroons/macarons are my biggest weakness and the absolutely only thing which prevents me from forgetting about non-vegan foods completely. I can (and I did) give up everything without any regret or looking back  - except meringues. ) However, I eat them very rarely, 1-2 times a year, perhaps... although they're on my mind at least 365 times a year.
Anyway, I was wondering whether such different foods as macarons/macaroons and macaroni (a.k.a. pasta) have something in common apart from similar names, and why coconut macaroons being so distinct from the French macaroons, are still called the same. I googled, and I found more than I could imagine. I found this amazing article Macaroons, Macarons, and Macaroni on the blog called The Language of Food, and I plan to read it all through when I have time.
I liked the fact that coconut macaroons are not a recent invention by vegan people, trying to create some substitute to the French macaroons, as I thought - coconut macaroons were invented in the end of the 19th century in America, when coconut was a fad at the time, so people just substituted ground almond with grated coconut in the recipe for macaroons. So, coconut macaroons are their own things, not just a sad alternative to the French macaron, and easily can be vegan and sugar-free. 
There are too many interesting things in the article to talk about, but when I came across the first English language recipe of macaroons, written in 1611, using ground almond, rose water, sugar and muske (? probably musk), I thought: "Wow: no eggs, actually, and still a macaroon!", and went to the kitchen immediately :)
I don't use sugar, but rice syrup is even better, because there's no need then to make a syrup with sugar and rose water. So I put together the ingredients listed below.

Vegan Sugarfree Macaroons 

Makes 18-20 biscuits
Ingredients:
200g of ground almonds
1/3 cup rice syrup
1/2 tsp rose water extract (I use Uncle Roy's)
1 Tbsp rice milk
3 Tbsp powdered soy milk
1 tsp baking powder

Method:
Measure the almond meal, put it in a medium bowl, mix with the baking powder. Add rice syrup, rose water extract (or 1 Tbsp rose water - and then omit the rice milk), rice milk and powdered soy milk, and mix everything with a spoon. You can use your hands later. When your paste looks incorporated, wet your hands, pinch a small piece off it and form a walnut-sized ball, then flatten it and place on a baking tray, lined with parchment paper. They spread just a little bit, so 2 cm between them on a tray should be enough.
Bake at 170C for 10 minutes. I use non-convection oven.

I would use a regular rose water, but I ran out of it, so I used the rose extract. The paste was a bit too wet after I've put the rice milk, so I added powdered soy milk, so next time I'll try without and see what happens.

They're came out so beautiful, a bit puffier than on the picture (sadly, they flatten as they cool down). Maybe a tiny bit darker than "proper" macarons, so next time I'll bake them for couple of minutes less.
They tasted really good. Not as airy and gooey as the Parisian macarons, of course, but very close. At least, for not only eggless  but also sugarless - probably the closest possible, who knows? They also had lovely cracked tops, looking just like Russian almond meringue biscuit called pechenie orekhovoe, and I loved that fact.

They looked lovely as they were, but I decided to make them even more macaroony and paired them together with my kinda perfect vegan coconut icing, colouring it with a pinch of beetroot powder. Voilà :)

Vegan Simple Vanilla Sandwich Cakes

I was just trying out my new mini-sandwich pan the other day (which I coveted for quite a while, because I kinda got tired of the usual cupcake shape) so this is a basic vanilla cake.
It's decorated with coconut icing and topped with pomegranate seeds and white chocolate shavings.
To say the truth, my white chocolate was not vegan, but I'm not really a vegan, I'm macrobiotic, so if I want it, (or don't have a choice :) I'll eat it, really...

Simple vanilla cake
Ingredients:
Makes 12 mini-cakes (6 sandwiches), or one layer in the 8-inch tin

1 cup soy milk
1 tsp cider vinegar
1/3 cup sunflower oil
1/2 cup agave syrup
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup spelt flour (wholegrain +white)
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
pinch of sea salt

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 170°C and oil the cake tin.
2. Put soy milk and vinegar in a big bowl and mix with the whisk, leave for a couple of minutes, then add the oil, agave syrup and vanilla, gently beat till nice and smooth.
3. Place a fine sieve on top of the bowl and sift in the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Mix just a bit till no lumps remain, but try not to overmix.
4. Pour the mixture in the tin and if it's cupcakes, bake for about 25 minutes. If it's a cake, it'll take more time, depending on the size and depth of the tin and the type of the oven. Usually 35-45 minutes should work. Check if ready putting a wooden toothpick in the middle of the cake, which should come out dry.  I'd like to note that all ovens vary, so the aforementioned time and temperature are guidelines only.


Coconut kinda perfect icing

Ingredients:
150 ml organic creamed coconut (the yield from Biona's 200g vacuum pack)
2 Tbsp agave nectar
100 ml hot water
2 Tbsp coconut flour

Method:

1. Take the brick of the creamed coconut out of the package and chop it finely so it melts much quicker. Melt it in a bain-marie until it reaches an even consistency, and transfer it to the bowl of your mixer. Put the mixer on and slowly add agave first, then hot water and then coconut flour, one by one, preferably sifted. It won't take long to get to a nice stiff peaks texture. 
I'd like to note, that these proportions are good for piping, rather than spreading. If you want to spread your icing with the palette knife, you will need to find another kind of icing, because this one just doesn't work for that. It's not spreadable, I've tried to do it thinner but it just becomes grainy and not nice.
I think this icing may not be liked only if you don't like coconut flavour. Otherwise I think it's a great alternative to the traditional icing. And even if you aren't number 1 coconut fan, at least you should feel much better taking a bite off something healthy and packed with lauric acid and other wonderful things, rather than a lump of animal fat and white sugar.

Finally, the white chocolate shavings were made with a French potato peeler :)

Vegan Sugar-free Gingerbread House

This Christmas I tried to make my own gingerbread house. Next time I promise I'll make it prettier, but altogether the experiment wasn't fruitless.
To be honest I didn't even bother to google how they are usually made, maybe there is a better way - I just drew a simple design and cut out walls, a base (house "floor" - a key element), and a roof from a thick paper, rolled the dough and cut the dough around the paper templates, chilled the cut-out pieces (to minimise spreading of thre dough) for 15 minutes and baked. The base was baked after the walls, which I tried on, lightly pushing them into the dough, making shallow grooves for them. It helped later to make the walls stay in place.
The roof took a bit more work - my husband made a triangle-shaped thingy from a cardboard, covered it with a piece of kitchen foil, and I placed the cut-out piece of dough on it, chilled in the fridge, and baked the whole construction, and it stayed intact.
Then I piped doors and windows with the vegan chocolate ganache, and glued everything together with the rice syrup. Then I piped little stars around seams with the ganache. As for the white cream, there was a bit of a disaster. It melted. Next time I'll use my vegan kinda perfect coconut icing, which will stay put! Finally, I dusted the roof with the powdered barley malt.

Anyway, I'm not entirely happy with this experiment, because I think the dough needs working on a bit, and the cream was not what I wanted it to be, so I won't give the recipe, because it needs further revising and practice.
Although I hope it will be ready before next Christmas :)