Gluten Free Vegan Carrot Cake

Jess and Tom here!

We were craving carrot cake, but struggling to find a gluten free vegan recipe for one that didn't require a long list of weird ingredients we didn't have to hand, we decided to wing it and make it up using the contents of Jess' cupboard. And it worked. It worked so well we ate most of it in one night. Now, as happens quite often in our joint kitchen ventures, the exact method and quantities got blurred a little by wine (now Jess is eating clean this should happen less now!). But anyway, these ingredients make a large, gluten free, vegan carrot cake. 

1 cup ground almonds
1 cup plain gluten free flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cider vinegar
2 carrots, grated
1 apple, grated
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp ground ginger
3 tbsp brown/demerara sugar
3 tbsp agave syrup
1/2 cup raisins/nuts (optional)
1-2 tbsp dairy free milk
2 bananas, mashed
1 orange, juiced and zested

I think the general gist of the method is to combine the dry ingredients, then the wet ingredients, then add them together. The mashed bananas, juiced orange and grated apple and carrots add plenty of moisture so no additional fat is needed.  Then, once this incredible smelling cake had come out of the oven, we decided it was too good not to be iced. So we made our own orange-almond frosting up:

1 cup icing sugar (probably more like 2 or 3 cups, we just kept adding til the consistency was right)
1 orange, juiced and zested
2 tsp almond butter
2 tsp dairy free butter/spread
1 tsp vanilla essence

Add orange juice and zest to the icing sugar and mix, adding the vanilla essence along the way. Then add the butters and beat them in until you have a glossy frosting. Add more icing sugar as required until you have the right consistency.

Please do let us know if you know of a better way to spend an evening than eating carrot cake, drinking red wine and watching Girls?

Anyway, sorry this isn't the most useful recipe in the world. But do give it a try and let us know if you come up with something as amazing as we did!

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

Baked Cabbage

This is just a quick simple recipe that I made as a side dish for a roast dinner with the Walnut Roasted Squash (link), but was tasty enough (in my opinion) to warrant a blog post - and my housemate agreed (despite offering me the whole cabbage saying 'I don't want it because you can't make it taste good.') I think I succeeded. Yes, I'm being smug.

Ingredients

1/2 White Cabbage
2 cloves Garlic
1/4 cup Raisins
Pinch of Salt
Good grinding of Pepper
1 tspBalsamic Vinegar
1 tsp Olive Oil

Method:

Shred the cabbage
Chop up the garlic
Add all the ingredients and toss in a roasting tin (as you can see my is the same one that has been used many times in posts)
Bake for 40 minutes until soft and brown round the edges
Serve with other roast vegetable, potatoes and any main dish!

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!

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.

Thai Pineapple Fried Rice

Hi, Jess today!

Tom is usually the King of Asian cuisine, however during a nervous introduction to Thai food in New York, I tried this (I mean how wrong can you go with pineapple and rice?), realised I love Thai food and decided to make this myself and improve it to my own taste. I've always loved rice dishes, and when you're wheat intolerant you come to love rice simply because you can eat it. If you're a meat eater, its great with some fried chicken or prawns in it, however I made it for Tom so this recipe is fully vegan. Traditionally this dish is served in a sliced open pineapple, however I have not yet got round to this. Next time I make it, I'll try to remember because it'll look pretty in a picture.

As usual, use whatever quantity you need of the ingredients, I am no better at sticking to measurements than Tom.

1 cup jasmine rice (cooked and left in the fridge for an hour or two)
1 small tin of pineapple chunks in juice (or slices, chopped)
2-3 spring onions, sliced
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 red or green chilli, chopped (try to go for a hot one - this dish is great spicy)
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup cashew nuts
1/2 cup sliced mushrooms
1/2 courgette
1/2 cup peas
1 pepper, chopped (colour is optional based on your preference)
1/2 cup vegetable stock
Oil 


Sauce - 4 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp curry powder
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp honey (optional)
2 tbsp pineapple juice (from tinned pineapple is fine)

Firstly, mix the ingredients for the sauce together.
Fry the spring onions, garlic and chilli on high heat in oil for a few minutes. Add a little stock to keep it sizzling (but don't add too much, just a little at a time). Once this looks cooked, add the mushrooms, courgettes and peppers until softening, adding a little more stock if needed. Then, add the rice, raisins, peas and cashews. Drizzle the sauce over the rice and stir fry for about 7-8 minutes, until the rice has taken on the colour of the sauce. When it looks ready, try a bit and flavour it accordingly - add more soy sauce, pineapple juice, salt, pepper, whatever you feel it needs (I usually add a bit more soy and pineapple just for a stronger flavour but up to you). Be careful not to overcook the rice, it will end up soggy.

Serve fresh. Preferably in a pineapple. But in a dish is fine too.

This can be varied by adding different vegetables (carrots work well), and by using meat or fish. If you like egg, add an egg between the chilli and the veg and cook it like scrambled egg. This dish is really filling and is a great one to make for a big group, especially when you have dietary requirements (such as veganism and gluten freeism). Enjoy and let us know what you think and what changes you've made at twocooksoneblog@gmail.com !