The first one of 2009

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! I can't believe it's 2009 already. I trust everyone had a good NY's Eve? Mine was a bit lame but it was nice to be with my friends.

Midnight also marked my one year veganniversary! A whole year of being vegan and I've loved every second of it! I decided I needed to bake something extra awesome to celebrate - more on that in a bit though, I have a couple of food pics....

Yesterday's brekkie, pancakes with lots of cinnamon added to the batter and maple syrup.

Today's dinner. It is rare that I fancy salad but today I did. I made the country fried tofu from Hot Damn & Hell Yeah (that stuff is awesome) and a salad out of chinese leaf, mushrooms, cucumber, carrots and a simple vinaigrette.

And now the important stuff - the baking. I wanted to use some of the white chocolate I got for christmas and some peanut butter so I made blondies. I got the idea for swirling peanut butter into brownies from the Barefoot Contessa! But this is my veganified version. They are a bit more effort than regular blondies, but I don't apologise for that, cuz they are tasty as fook!

White Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl Blondies

Dry Ingredients:

1½ cups/240g plain flour
¼ cup/4 tbsp cornflour
1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

¼ tsp salt

Wet Ingredients:

1 cup/250ml unsweetened non-dairy milk
1 tsp vinegar
¾ cup (packed)/135g light brown muscovado sugar

2 flax eggs (2 tbsp ground flax seeds whisked with 6 tbsp cold water)

½ cup/125ml soya yoghurt

¼ cup/60ml sunflower or rapeseed (canola) oil

1½ tsp vanilla extract

Extras:

30g/about ¼ cup vegan white chocolate, chopped or chips

1/3 cup/6 heaped tbsp natural smooth peanut butter
1 heaped tsp cocoa powder

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas 4.

Mix together the milk and vinegar and set aside. Whisk together flax seeds and water and set aside.

Seive together the dry ingredients and mix well. Whisk the rest of the wet ingredients into the milk mixture and then add the flax eggs and whisk thoroughly - don't combine the two just yet.

If need be, stir the oils back into the peanut butter and if it's not soft enough to drop off the spoon in blobs* then heat it very gently over a low flame, stirring until it softens a little.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix well until just combined, don't overmix. Remove 1/2 a cup of the blondie batter and put into a small bowl. Mix the cocoa powder in and set aside.

Toss the chocolate chips in a tsp or so of flour and then fold them into the batter and pour into a lightly oiled 8x8 baking tin. Then drop blobs of the chocolate batter and peanut butter over the surface. Like this.....

Then take a skewer and swirl swirly swirl...

Bake until the blondies are raised and cracked on top and a skewer comes out still a bit soft. It took 25 minutes in my oven. Leave it to cool in the tin and then I used a spatula to cut the blondies into 12 and remove them from the tin to cool on a wire rack. Here they are straight out the oven....

*sorry for shit description!! hehe

Cooking to: Heroes Series 2 - I'm catching up so I can start watching S3 that I've been V+ing.

Blondies have more fun

I had some more okara to use up (and no room in the freezer for anymore) so I figured if it worked well in brownies, why not blondies too! And it worked, they are yummy!!

I based it on the recipe for the brownies but I made them maple syrup & walnut flavour.

Low Fat Maple & Walnut Blondies
Dry Ingredients:
½ cup / 80g plain flour
½ cup / 80g wholewheat flour
½ cup (packed) / 90g light muscovado sugar
1/3 cup / 35g cornflour
1¼ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp cinnamon
½ cup / 50g walnuts (measured before breaking up)
Wet Ingredients:
½ cup /120g cup wet okara
½ cup /125ml unsweetened non-dairy milk
½ cup /125ml soya yoghurt
¼ cup /4 tbsp maple syrup
2 tbsp flavourless oil
1 tsp vinegar
1½ tsp vanilla extract

Method:
Preheat oven to 180C / 350F.

Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Break up the walnuts into chunks and mix well to get them coated with the dry ingredients (and stop them from sinking)

Whisk together the wet ingredients together and pour into the dry. Mix well and pour into an 8x8 glass dish, lightly greased.

Bake for 25 minutes. A knife won't come out clean because 25 minutes won't cook these through. You can cook them for longer if you like a bit less squidge!

Leave them to cool in the dish for at least 10 minutes before you cut them. I cut them into 12, but you could do 16 if you want smaller ones.

I don't bother to turn them out, just keep them in the dish and cover it with clingfilm - they keep well in the fridge!

Fresh from the oven.....

Cooking to: Nickelback - Black Horse (been waiting for this album for ages!)

I'm now off to pack my slutty tops and frost my cupcakes (pix next time!) ready for Hard Rock Hell this weekend. YAY!

Have a great weekend everyone.