Category Archives: Desserts

Cheap & Easy, Desserts, Festive, Recipes, Vegan on a Budget

Tofu Chocolate Mousse

Serves 4

Ingredients

300 g silken tofu

150 g dark chocolate melted

2-3 tbsp maple syrup or to taste

Optional – pinch of salt, toppings such as fruit, biscuits or sauces

Method

Break up the chocolate into a heat-proof bowl and melt in the microwave, or over a pan of boiling water, stirring every few seconds to make sure the chocolate doesn’t burn.

To a food processor, add the tofu, melted chocolate, maple syrup and optional pinch of salt. Blend until smooth.

Transfer into serving glasses or ramekins and serve.

Top with more melted chocolate and any other toppings you want!

Photo of the mouse with blueberries and raspberries on top.

Cheap & Easy, Desserts, Recipes, Snacks, Vegan on a Budget

Sweet Pancakes

Sweet pancakes are really very easy to make vegan!

Ingredients 

  • Self-raising flour (2 mugs full)
  • Sultanas (½ mug full)
  • Apple juice
  • Soya milk (1 mug full)
  • Banana 
  • Oil

Method

Soak sultanas in apple juice overnight in a small pan. This plumps them up, and they will be ready to put on the pancakes. 

The principle is to have a non-stick pan with a dessertspoon of vegetable or rapeseed oil (olive oil is also fine, but don’t burn it), heated very hot without the oil smoking. Heat slowly, on a low to medium heat.

In a medium bowl, take 2 mugs of flour. Then measure out approx 1 mug full of soya milk, and add to the flour slowly and steadily,  stirring fast to avoid lumps. You are aiming for a pouring cream consistency. 

When the oil is hot, add approximately half a mug full of mixture to the frying pan. Tip the pan slightly to try to create a round shape,  but try to leave space around the edge of the pan, so you can flip it. After about 3 minutes, check the pancake is golden brown underneath, then flip with a spatula. 

In the meantime, mash the banana with a fork. 

When each pancake becomes ready, you can cover them with a plate to keep them warm together. Ensure the oil is hot when you come to do the next pancake. 

Fill the pancakes with banana and plump sultanas (hot or cold). Alternatively, you could use the traditional lemon and sugar topping.

Costings

To give an estimation of prices for ingredients bought in a supermarket, self-raising flour is approximately 80p for 1.5kg, and soya milk is approximately £1 for a litre. One banana is about 20p, and sultanas are £1.80 for 500g packet.  A litre of apple juice is about 85p. Therefore to make 4 pancakes, the overall cost should be £1.40

Reduce waste

There will be leftover ingredients – to reduce waste, use the flour within a couple of months in cakes, biscuits, veggie burgers and flatbreads. Sultanas can be used as snacks instead of sweets, and soya milk is good in tea and on cereal.

Desserts

Strawberry trifle by Phil (Christmas 2019)

Strawberry trifle

Ingredients

Method

  1. Smash up the biscuits and slice the strawberries. Make the jelly as per the instructions on the packet. Arrange the biscuits and fruit into a large bowl and pour the jelly into it. Chill until set (I left it 8 hours but I think it would have been set sooner had I checked).
  2. To make the custard, I loosely followed the instructions on the packet but had to change the proportions (perhaps because I was using soya milk?). Mix 1 tbsp sugar, 4 tbsp custard powder and 1 tbsp soya milk into a paste in a bowl then heat the rest of the milk until nearly boiling. Pour the hot milk into the bowl gradually and whisk in thoroughly. Return the mixture to the pan and heat up for another minute, mixing continually. You should start to get a thick mixture but may need to add a little more custard powder.
  3. Pour the hot custard over the set jelly and return the bowl to the fridge to set for an hour.
  4. Whisk the rice cream in a bowl as per the instructions on the packet (2 minutes with an electric whisk on full power). Spoon this over the custard and sprinkle grated chocolate on top. Chill for another hour.
  5. Serve the trifle chilled to a room full of non-vegans and watch them lap it up!

By Phil

Desserts

Chocolate peanut butter bites by Tanu (Christmas 2019)

Ingredients

  • 8 medjool dates, stoned, or 150g raisins
  • 50g pecan nuts, chopped
  • 2 tablespoons crunchy peanut butter
  • 1 tablespoon cocoa powder, plus extra for dusting
  • 1 tablespoon date syrup

Method

  1. Line a plate or baking tray with greaseproof paper.
  2. Put all the ingredients in a food processor and whizz until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs.
  3. Turn out the mixture into a bowl and roll it into 12 equal-sized balls. Place on the lined tray or plate and chill in the fridge overnight.
  4. To serve, place a little sifted cocoa powder on a plate and carefully roll each ball until coated. Shake off any excess cocoa powder before serving.

By Tanu

Desserts, Recipes

Sri Lankan Aluwa (Sweets)

Ingredients

  • 1 kg roasted rice flour
  • 750 g sugar (dark brown)
  • 1½ cups water
  • 1½ tsp ground cardamom
  • 1 tsp ground fennel
  • 1 tsp vanilla essence
  • 100 g cashew nuts

Method

  1. Put sugar into a saucepan and add the water. Bring it into boil. When the sugar syrup becomes a bit sticky, switch off the flame and add ground cardamom and fennel, then roasted rice flour little by little but constantly into the sugar mixture. Keep ½ cup of rice flour back.
  2. Before you start boiling sugar syrup, spread that spare rice flour on the tray where we are going to set our Aluwa.
  3. When you’ve added all rice flour and the mixture has become like a fudge, put it on the tray. Press it until flat.
  4. Then mark lines on it in a diamond shape or as you like. Separate the pieces before it gets hard.

Recipe by Theja

Desserts

Chocolate Mousse with Aquafaba

1 Comment

chocolate mousseIngredients

  • 20ml or ½ cup of aquafaba — that is, about half the brine from a can of chickpeas
  • ½ tsp vanilla extract
  • 10g caster sugar (optional)
  • 75g dark chocolate without dairy (I used one from Lidl)

Makes enough for 2 decent portions.

Method

  1. Melt the chocolate carefully in the usual way (in a bowl over a pan of hot water).
  2.  Strain the chickpeas to get their water. Use an electric whisk, preferably in a food processor or other contraption, for 10-15 minutes, until the chickpea water has thickened and reached the ‘stiff peak’ stage (as you might call it with egg whites). You don’t need to worry about over-whisking, but it will likely take longer with a hand-held electric whisk.
  3.  At this stage, add the vanilla, and slowly add the sugar while whisking a bit more.
  4.  The chocolate should be cool now but still runny. Fold it into the whisked mix thoroughly with a silicone spatula, then pour into glass serving dishes.
  5.  Chill for 3 hours and serve.

Phil – impressivefood.wordpress.com