Vegan Recipes

 The figs should mush easily while boiling, if you keep stirring them with a wooden spoon, but if you want to keep a few whole remove them from the pot before mashing the rest, and add them back during the last 5-10 minutes. This jam went into jars, it looks great, but I have the feeling that it will also be quite hard (I added some pectine - jam setting mix) and probably next year I will end up making fig paste instead of jam!

Assorted natural flavours and colours, including green tea, cherry syrup, berry juice, candied citrus, and some stuffed dates too!

Last Sunday I did a demo about making Marzipan at the Auckland Art Gallery, to celebrate Italian Language week with the Dante Auckland. I have a basic recipe which I always follow (without egg white, thus suitable for Vegans too) and you can find it here. But since almonds don't have much taste in NZ (sorry... need to be said) I always add a few apricot kernels (not too much, they are poisonous!) so follow this recipe carefully! Now, apricots are not in season yet, and I made a little variation, which worked well: I added a little drop of Amaretto.



Marzapane with Amaretto

Ingredients
200g raw almonds
100g icing sugar
1 tsp Amaretto




Blanch the almonds in boiling water and remove the skins. Keep a few almonds aside for decoration, if you like, and ground the rest into a fine powder, almost like a paste. Add the icing sugar and Amaretto and mix until you get a dough. Shape into your favourite morsels, and colour with berries, green tea powder, spirulina, or anything you like. Some ideas for shapes and colours here.

Perfect for presents! Coloured with cocoa, green tea and berries

Ideal for 'baby's first Christmas' trees, sweet pastel colours, they can be used for Christmas cards too!

White and hand painted with a thin brush

Chocolate fondant, they smell great!

Green and silver for the trees

 Place the coconut cream in a pot, fill the can with the same amount of boiling water to rinse it and add into the pot. Remove the flowers from the sugar (it will be crumbly and moist) and add it to the mixture. Add a tsp of agar agar and bring to the boil stirring constantly. You can add a few petals of lavender if you like, but don't overdo it - not everyone likes to find 'bits' in such a smooth pudding. Fill 6 individual jelly moulds and let them set. The container with the lavender and sugar still had some sugar around the sides so I put the blackberries there for a few hours to marinate (with the lavender also) and get a bit of juice! I serve them alongside the tipped agar agar, which tasted a bit like young coconut flesh and with a subtle but distinctive lavender flavour.

Put the pulp inside a jelly bag, cheaper if you just use a clean pillowcase (I have one which I use just for jellies) and hung it over a bowl (using a broom and two chairs) for a day and night.

After making Aquafaba Vegan Pavlova I tried to make meringues. I changed the recipe only a little, and used less sugar (still experimenting though!). Here is the recipe:

 To get aquafaba basically all you need to do is to drain a can of chickpeas, keep the liquid and then beat it. Don't do it by hand though, unless you have strong arms, it takes longer that egg whites. But wow it peaks! And white and fluffy too! I got quite emotional seeing it, like a wonderful chemistry experiment.

After beating for 3-5minutes

After 7-8 minutes

After adding sugar and cornflour

Taaa-daaa!

But what to make first?  I was tempted to make an Italian meringue, but didn't want to add hot syrup to my new discovery, in case the magic stopped! No, I decided, I'll do that next time and stick to something easy.



Base
1 Can of chickpeas (just the brine - i.e. water, which already has salt)
250 g icing sugar
1 tbsp cornflour
1 tbsp white vinegar
a few drops of vanilla essence

Topping
1 can coconut cream
1 tsp golden syrup
a few drops of vanilla essence
Green and gold kiwi fruit and/or strawberries and edible flowers

Beat the chickpea brine first, then when it is nice and peaky add the sugar, one tbsp at the time, and the cornflour. Add the vinegar and vanilla at the end and beat some more.

Coconut cream