Reece's Cupcakes

Tom and Jess today!

Okay so for various reasons (not least because of our ongoing and undying love affair with peanut butter AND the recent discovery that Sainsbury's basics peanut butter is both amazing and cheap) we decided that a drizzly saturday REQUIRED cupcakes - and what better way to adapt our newly formed muffin recipe than into the greatest sweet on the planet - reece's pieces. The icing alone was good enough, but combined with chocolate cupcakes - unbeatable.

This recipe has quite a few specialist ingredients BUT it is vegan, gluten free, protein-filled and overall not incredibly unhealthy (except for the icing, but trust us, it's worth every calorie).

You're going to need the ingredients for the garbanzo muffins but with a few extra tweaks: makes around 10 (fairly large) cupcakes


1/2 cup Gram Flour (or chickpea or garbanzo beans - these things have too many names)
1/2 cup Gluten Free Self Raising Flour (I use Doves Farm)
1/2 cup Oats
1/2 cup of Soft Brown Sugar
3 tsp Soya Protein Powder (or substitute for 1 tbsp Cornflour)
3 tbsp Carob Powder (or you can use cocoa powder if you prefer)
3 tbsp Soya Butter
1 tbsp Vegetable Oil
2 ripe Bananas
1 tsp Baking Powder
2 tsp Distilled Vinegar
1/4 cup Peanuts
1/2 cup Almond Milk (or any other dairy free alternative)
10 1/2 tsp Black Cherry Jam
10 1/2 tsp Peanut butter

Make these in the same way as the garbanzo muffin recipe (http://twocooksoneblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/garbanzo-banana-muffins-with-cherry-jam.html), substituting the spices for the carob powder, the raisins for the peanuts and adding the peanut butter and jam to the centres.

Next you want to make up a batch of Jess' peanut butter frosting (the very definition of icing on the cake!) using:


1/3 cup Peanut Butter (use whatever type you prefer, other nut butters would work too if you wish!)
1/3 cup Dairy-free Butter
1 tsp Vanilla Essence
1 tsp Vanilla Bean Paste (this is an absolute necessity. And once again, worth every penny)
A few splashes of non-dairy milk (we used almond)
1 1/2 cups Icing Sugar
Optional - 2 tsp Maple Syrup (we used agave here)


For instructions see the second part of the recipe here (http://twocooksoneblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/vegan-gluten-free-chocolate-peanut.html).

Spread this on top in around a centimetre thick later, eat the rest of the bowl using you spoon/fingers/hands/face/tongue, and then enjoy!

Garbanzo Banana Muffins (with Cherry Jam Centres)

Tom today,

Okay so after having made my housemate the most ridiculously non-vegan, wheat-filled black forest gateau for his birthday, I decided I needed something sweet for myself to have for the party (I'm only so strong when comes to cake). I found gram (garbanzo or chickpea) flour in Sainsbury's a couple of days before and had been meaning to try out a recipe with them. For once, the internet was totally unhelpful so I decided to just wing it and see how they came out. Surprisingly they were an absolute hit and every single muffin (except for the one I hid in my cupboard for breakfast) was eaten! There's quite a lot of ingredients in these, and someone who know's more what they're doing couple probably cut them down a bit, but I was just adding a bit of this and that to experiment and get the right consistency. After I've had a bit more experience of gluten free baking I will probably come back and edit this. Anyway, for now, here are chickpea muffins with black cherry jam centres - yes, this is 100% necessary, trust me, you don't want to miss out.

Incidentally, no one guessed what they were made from!

Ingredients: makes 10 small muffins

1/2 cup Gram Flour (or chickpea or garbanzo beans - these things have too many names)
1/2 cup Gluten Free Self Raising Flour (I use Doves Farm)
1/2 cup Oats
1/2 cup of Soft Brown Sugar
3 tsp Soya Protein Powder (or substitute 1 tbsp Cornflour)
2 tsp Cinnamon
1/8 tsp Cloves
1/4 tsp Nutmeg
3 tbsp Soya Butter
1 tbsp Vegetable Oil
2 ripe Bananas
1/4 cup Raisins
1 tsp Baking Powder
2 tsp Distilled Vinegar
1/2 cup Almond Milk (or any other dairy free alternative)
10 tsp Black Cherry Jam

The vinegar here probably seems a bit weird, don't worry you won't taste it at all. Quite a few vegan recipes use extra baking powder to give cakes a lightness that eggs would normally give them, but to make sure you can't taste the baking powder, you have to add a bit of vinegar to neutralise it (I've tried it without - it's really really gross - still managed to get all of my friends to try them though, endlessly funny!). As this is gluten free as well I thought it would be a good idea to try this. If you have a soya allergy substituting the butter for oil will work fine, but again the cakes may be a bit denser - maybe sunflower spread would work. Also DON'T TRY THE MIXTURE! It tastes all beany and horrible from the chickpea flour - as is often the case with gluten free recipes - don't worry though, it tastes good once it's cooked.

Method:

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius
Combine all the dry ingredients (except the baking powder and sugar) in a sieve and sift into a mixing bowl
Add the sugar (do make sure to break up any lumps beforehand though - much easier)
Rub in the butter (I only used a spoon to do this roughly)
Mix in the oil
Mash the bananas, and mix in along with the raisins
Add the baking powder and vinegar and mix thoroughly
Mix in the milk bit by bit until the muffins are a thick consistency - you may not need all of this
Grease and line your muffin tin with cases (or I used squares of greaseproof paper, I just think it looks nice!)
Fill the muffin cases to just over half way
Add a generous teaspoon of jam
Top up the muffin cases to full (I like mine to rise over the top of the case - use less if you want them more like cupcakes)
Bake for 20 minutes - until a knife comes out clean (except for the jam...)
Cool on a wire rack

Once they were cooled I drizzled them with a bit of lemon icing for a nice effect (just combine half a lemon with 3 tbsp icing sugar in a mug and then drizzle over using a spoon). This recipe is easy enough to adapt to other flavours if you prefer. Anyone who comes up with a peanut butter themed recipe will win...everything. Ever. As always, let us know any suggestions you come up with at twocooksoneblog@gmail.com

Vegan Gluten Free Protein Granola Bars

Update 17/3  

Since I originally made these bars, I've done a little tweaking to reduce the sugar and calories whilst not losing the protein content, and they currently sit at 215 calories with 10g protein.

2 cups/160g oats
1/2 cup milled flaxseed
55g soy protein powder
1/2 cup agave nectar
1/2 cup cashew nuts
1/2 cup raisins
50g omega sprinkle (a seed mix from holland and barratt, but any seeds will do)
1 banana
1/2 cup almond butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
1-2 tbsp cinnamon
5 dates
Water

The only difference in method here is I quickly made up a little date syrup by mashing some pitted dates with some water for 5 minutes and drizzling this over the oaty mixture before toasting it. I would have properly made date syrup the night before if I had planned ahead, but I didn't. It seemed to work OK though, and I will get better at using dates. Also, I used 1/4 cup agave for the oat mixture, and 1/4cup in the banana-nut butter mixture. Unfortunately, as yummy as maple syrup and golden syrup and honey were in the old recipe, I needed to cut the sugar down. I also added some water to the whole mixture before putting in the dish and baking to try to keep the bars a little more moist as they dried out a bit last time. You could use milk (dairy or non) but I didn't have any to hand and water is calorie free I suppose. These bars maybe aren't quite as tasty as they were, but they're a lot healthier and will give you less of a sugar rush, so are probably better...

Jess and Tom today!

So, as we've both been working out pretty hard lately (Tom running millions of miles everyday, Jess complaining about her knee as she runs as far as she can and goes to a million Les Mills classes at the gym every week) and have been finding our diets fairly restrictive when it comes to sports nutrition, we decided to invent a vegan, gluten free, chocolate free protein bar. This is kind of 2 recipes in one, as we decided to play around with carob too. The protein bars are a take on our monkey bars which, if you've tried them, are just the best. I know a lot of protein bar recipes are raw but these baked ones are so good.

Carob

1 tablespoon vegan spread (we used sunflower, most recipes recommend coconut oil but we didn't have any to hand today)
1/2 cup carob powder
1tsp agave nectar
1tsp vanilla

Melt the fat (whichever you use), stir in carob powder over heat, add a little vanilla and agave to taste. Simple. Then, we poured this onto cling film on a plate, and wrapped it in another layer, and squashed it down nice and flat. Then we stuck it in the fridge/freezer to set.

Protein Bars

2 cups oats
1/2 cup flax seed (absolutely love the Linwoods one with sunflower seeds and goji berries in!)
1/4 cup oat bran
1/2 cup soya protein powder (50 grams)
1/2 cup cashew nuts
1/2 cup raisins
2 tablespoons cinnamon (or 3 or 4....)
2 tablespoons jam (optional but a nice sweet addition)
4 tablespoons maple/golden syrup (this time we used 3 maple to 1 golden but any combination works fine)
1 apple, grated

1/2 cup agave nectar
1 mashed banana
1/2 cup almond butter
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk (your choice, we used Alpro hazelnut milk)

So, as per the monkey bars, mix the oats, flax, bran, nuts, syrup and cinnamon in a baking dish and toast in the oven at 180C for 10 minutes, stirring halfway. Remove from oven and leave to cool.

Mash banana and add agave and almond butter, cook on the hob until the mixture is runny, remove from heat and add vanilla, salt and a drop of milk. You can also add more cinnamon here. We did.

When cooled, mix the oaty mixture, protein powder and banana-butter mixture. Add a grated apple and raisins (or whatever dried fruit you fancy) to this and add the milk. Mix thoroughly so that the ingredients are all coated and form a slightly doughy consistency. Spread half of this mixture in the bottom of the baking dish you are using, then spread jam on top of this if you are using it, and then we placed our carob flakes (yes, they came out as flakey bits but they taste nice anyway) on top of the jam. Then add the rest of the mixture and press down so that it is compact and neat. Then bake for 18-20 minutes.

And the result is high quality, high protein, vegan, gluten free granola bars. Using the above quantities, made into 14 servings these bars provide approximately 275 calories and 10g protein. So they're perfect to eat before or after a run or session in the gym. And they taste SO good. If you don't want to use soya protein powder, use whichever you prefer. We don't have much experience with protein additions yet so we'll add more recipes as we get more used to using it!

Update - Cherry Bakewell Monkey Bars

Quick one today!

Tom and I decided that as the dark chocolate and cranberry monkey bars we made were so good, it was definitely time to make them again with a variation. So I had the ingenious plan of making cherry bakewell monkey bars. And they were good - so good they deserved their own blog post.

The ingredients are pretty similar, but obviously a few changes
2 cups rolled or jumbo oats (gluten free if needed)
1/2 cup flaked almonds
1/4 cup milled flaxseed
1/4 cup oat bran
2tbsp maple syrup
2tbsp golden syrup (you can use 4 tbsp of one of these but we decided to try a bit of both)
1/2 cup almond butter
1/4 cup honey
1 large banana, very ripe and mashed
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 teaspoon almond flavouring
 1/2 teaspoon salt
Glace cherries, halved
Morello cherry jam
Icing sugar and hazelnut milk (didn't measure, but make sure it's quite thick - the icing can look quite...unfortunate if it's too thin!)


So, as before ( http://twocooksoneblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/monkey-bars.html ) , mix the oats, almonds, flax and oat bran with the syrup and toast this mixture for 10 minutes. Mash the banana and place in a saucepan with the honey and almond butter and melt until you have a runny mixture. Add the vanilla and almond flavouring and the salt to this mixture, then add the two mixtures together. No need to wait for this one to cool down as it doesn't use chocolate so there's no risk of anything melting. However, this time, only put half of the mixture in the dish you are baking it in. Flatten this mixture out so it is a smooth covering for the bottom of the dish, then add a generous layer of morello cherry jam on top. Then layer the other half of the mixture on top and bake for 25 minutes, until golden. Then, add the halved glace cherries on top, and drizzle the icing over the top.

This makes more of a dessert than the original recipe - a bit more of a treat with the icing but it's a really good variation. The flaked almonds give it a lighter texture than the cashews did in the original, and the almond butter goes really nicely with the cherry jam. Morello cherry jam is amazing. I cannot stress to you how important it is to have a jar in your life. It also goes really well on a salted rice cake with a bit of almond butter (not that me and Tom were trying this whilst making these...).

These are becoming a bit of a favourite for us so we will let you know of more variations - and let us know what you try too!

Press the first layer down well so the jam stays on top!

We served ours with pomegranate. Don't ask why, it just worked...

Gluten Free Porridge

Jess' turn!

This is essentially the antithesis to Tom's muesli post. Me and Tom will have to eternally agree to disagree on the way to eat oats. Personally, the idea of eating oats soaked in cold water is not appealing. Oats should be eaten hot! Porridge is the way forward.

Firstly, I implore you to not buy 'instant porridge'. It is overpriced and really not great. Yes, there are lots of wonderful flavours out there but in my experience, they never taste as good as you expect them to and it would be a LOT cheaper to make the flavours you fancy yourself. There are so many ways to make porridge more exciting than just hot milky oats, I will never understand people who say porridge is boring. It's great, filling comfort food and only needs to take a few minutes to make!

So anyway. Please buy plain oats. I would recommend Scottish oats (I don't know why they're nicest, they just are). I don't buy gluten free oats because they are exceptionally expensive compared to normal ones and I've never had a problem with oats, probably because I'm wheat intolerant not coeliac. But if you are coeliac and need gluten free oats, don't buy the instant packs, just buy the oats in a bag. Trust.

This post isn't going to result in an exciting recipe to try - it really is as simple as this:

Put 40-50g oats in a bowl. Add 200-250ml milk or water or a mix of both (depending on how creamy you want it to be). Microwave on full power for 2 minutes, stir, microwave further if needed. There you go. Porridge.

That's what I do when I have work or uni to attend in the morning. Add some fruit on top and you're sorted. There is no need for sugar. However, there are variations that make it more exciting. Making porridge with 1 part oats to 1 part oat bran makes a slightly creamier texture and since oat bran is great in lowering cholesterol and is generally recommended in weight loss plans (eg. Dukan diet), I like to think it's healthier even if the calories are the same. I use no-fat skimmed cows milk for my porridge, usually half milk and half water, but using hazelnut or almond milk makes a nice change sometimes.

One thing i always always always add to porridge is cinnamon. If you don't like it, sorry. But cinnamon makes everything amazing. I tend to add it once the porridge is already cooked, and just stir it in on top with fruit. Cinnamon porridge with raisins and hazelnut milk - please tell me if anything has ever sounded more appetising! Chop or grate an apple into cinnamon porridge and you have a bowl of apple cinnamon goodness for breakfast. Adding a bit of maple syrup to porridge is lovely too. As is honey. And jam - morello cherry flavour is a favourite at the moment. Blueberries, cranberries, raspberries, strawberries, chopped banana, all wonderful additions. A tablespoon of milled flaxseed on top adds omega fats and protein. A handful of nuts and seeds also works. Literally anything goes.

Except instant porridge and sugar. Enjoy!

Lemon and Coconut Chickpea Macaroons

Tom today,

Ever since going to the christmas markets (if you haven't been yet and are in manchester, GO, albert square, now) and smelling all of the wonderful things that I couldn't eat, I've had a massive craving for coconut macaroons. The smell of them cooking was enough to make my stomach tap it's watch disapprovingly to remind me it was dinner time. So, after a hard day's revision I decided that I would throw something together that vaguely resembled them, put it on the internet, then sit back and bask in the glory of my own genius. Here's what happened.

Ingredients:

1 can Chickpeas (drained and thoroughly washed)

1/2 cup Dessicated Coconut

3 tbsp Coconut Milk (I used creamed coconut in hot water)

1 tsp Baking Powder

6 tbsp Rolled Oats (This came out as roughly 75g when I measured it afterwards)

Pinch of Salt (I always use Maldon - you caught me, I'm a salt snob.)

1 1/2 tsp Vanilla Bean Paste

1/2 cup Brown Sugar

Juice and Zest of 1/2 a Lemon

This is another complete make-it-up-as-I-go-along recipe, but my last one went pretty well so I'm hopeful. I used this recipe to make 16 smallish cookies. These worked out to only 77 calories each, which was definitely my favourite bit!

Method:

Preheat an oven to 200 degrees celsius.

Blend the chickpeas in a mixing bowl.

Add all the dry ingredients (coconut, oats, baking powder, salt and sugar) and mix together thoroughly.

Add the vanilla bean paste, lemon (zest and juice) fold through.

Add the coconut milk, stirring gently until the mixture is the right consistency (if you don't need all the milk don't add it, and if it's a bit thick or dry then add a dash of water and mix in.

Spoon cookie-sized balls onto a lightly greased baking tray.

Cook for 15 minutes on the top shelf.

Then, just as they start to brown around the edges, squash them flat with a spoon (I was hoping they would spread like cookies but apparently I was too optimistic here)

Cook for a further 10 minutes until golden.

I am super happy with how these turned out! Only 77 calories apiece. And the smell filling the kitchen is definitely christmas-market-ey enough to satisfy my stomach. I'm starting to get into this style of cooking, however pretty soon I think I'm going to have to bake something hideous and fat filled to balance this out.

(Jess: Tom gave me one of these the day after making them and they were delicious - please try this recipe!)

As always, email any comments or photos you have to me and Jess at twocooksoneblog@gmail.com - we love to hear from you!

Enjoy

A close-up slightly-out-of-focus picture of food on a food blog!? Genius.

Nuritional Info (if made into 16)

                      Calories   Carbs     Fat     Protein     Sodium     Sugar

          Total:     1236        182       45         29             67          113

Per Serving:        77           11        3          2               4            7

Soaked Museli

Tom today,

Vegan breakfasts can seem daunting, as everything requires either eggs, milk, bacon or all three (bacon panackes - I'll have to get on to making a vegan version of these soon!). However, I have this museli with a portion of fruit (1/2 cup) each morning and find it keeps me full until lunch just fine. It can be made the night before if (like me) you are not a morning person. I really mean it. Getting up is just not my thing.

This is a recipe from my mum who is really into raw foods cooking (if it can be called cooking). She has very kindly bought me a years supply of each of these ingredients, which of course I have nearly finished three months later, however I realise these aren't necessarily ingredients which people have around the house. However, any good health food store should supply you with these, and buying them in bulk is always the cheaper way to do it! I make this every morning for breakfast and love it, combined with some fresh fruit makes a filling, healthy breakfast that I never get tired of. It's also extremely low fat and relatively low in calories (in comparison to other breakfasts) because it uses soaked oats instead of milk.

As a vegan I often use oat milk (along with hazelnut and almond), which is simply soaked oats which have then been sieved by someone in a big factory off somewhere (they may also heat it, I don't know the exact process) so by soaking these oats briefly, you create the creamy sensation of milky cereal without the need for extra calories. Linseeds are also very good for you, as are all seeds, but the energy and nutrients contained within are thought to be more easily accessible once they have been soaked (again, my mum could show you studies that suggest this to be the case, if anyone would like to hear them email and I'll ask her, I have seen enough to think it is worth trying but don't pretend to know everything about this). Raisins are also, in my opinion, infinitely better when soaked, and pumpkin and sunflower seeds are also better for you when soaked, though the difference is less so than with linseeds (when you do it you'll see, they get almost a coating around them).

Anyway on with the recipe!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup of Oats
1/2 tbsp Linseeds
1 tbsp Sunflower Seeds
1 tsp Pumpkin Seeds
Handful of raisins (probably about 7-9, I really dislike too many)

Method:

There are two ways you can make this, a quick way (using hot water and cold water) and a long way (using cold water).
Oats, pumpkin and sunflower seeds require about half an hour's soaking in cold water - I wouldn't use hot water to soak these - mainly because if you add boiling water to oats you basically make porridge (which I can't stand - seriously, why would you give me lumpy grey tasteless mush first thing in the morning and expect a gracious smile. Not going to happen).
First the long way; what I normally do is make about 2 weeks worth mixed up in a jar. This then needs at least an hours soaking in cold water (I often make it in a tub overnight so I can grab it and eat it on the bus when I inevitably oversleep my alarm and run off to lectures). Overnight is better, an hour is fine.
The quick way simply involves not mixing it beforehand. This way you can soak the oats and sunflower/pumpkin seeds for just half an hour. Then you can soak the linseeds and raisins; pour boiling water over them (I usually do this in a mug) and leave to cool. For ease I usually just leave it for the same amount of time as the oats and then mix it all together. This works just as well, but I like to have it all ready in a jar that I can pour easily (I'm not organised enough to do this separately each morning like my mum). Plus the jars look nice lined up on my worktop!

Hope you enjoy this museli as much as I do, nutritional information to follow. As always, feel free to alter this recipe, add your own dried fruits or different seeds, and let us know your ideas at twocooksoneblog@gmail.com.

Serving suggestions: sometimes I add toasted candied nuts (agan something I often make in bulk - recipe to follow) for a nice flavour. Also dried blueberries and a teaspoon cinnamon sugar (add 1 tsp of cinnamon to half a cup of golden granulated sugar and store in a jar) make a nice addition.

and everyone loves a kilner jar on the worktop. Makes me feel like a real adult.

Nutritional Information:

                      Calories   Carbs     Fat     Protein     Sodium     Sugar
          Total:      312         42        11         10            3             9

1/2 a cup of fruit adds around 23 calories.