Accidently Vegan Millionaire’s Shortbread

So it finally happened. I submitted my thesis, and now I am in limbo waiting for the final exam, and the next stage to begin. But mostly, I am exhausted.

The last weeks were horrible. I lost all interest in food, had porridge for almost every meal, and developed hideous stomach cramps that took me out for hours. I am fairly sure they are related to stress, but a small creeping doubt has manifested itself, and prompted me to give up dairy.

I have eaten dairy my entire life with no repercussions other than total joy, but recently, I have noticed an uncomfortable correlation between it and hours of unbearable stomach pain, migraines, and general tiredness for days after. I have been lactose free for a month, and so far, so good.

HOWEVER, I am not saying this is it. I think self-diagnosis is dangerous, and now that I have more time, I am definitely going to reintroduce and see what happens. But for now, what I do best, adapted.

Inspired by bake-off, i.e. watching ten variations on millionaire’s shortbread, dairy-full and delicious, forced me to do some research, get into the ‘alternative’ aisles, and construct this…which I would give the ultimate badge of honour, in that it tastes like it is not dairy-free. Which is all I want in a cake.

Accidentally Vegan Millionaires’ Shortbread 

For the shortbread base:

250g plain flour

75g caster sugar

175g Sunflower Spread (or similar) (if you are lactose intolerant, then you can use Lactose free butter for a more buttery taste, although obviously not vegan).

For the Caramel

300g brown sugar, I used a light brown

70ml soya cream

70 ml coconut cream, check the fresh aisle of Marks and Spencer

70 g of Sunflower/Lactose free butter

200g of Dark Chocolate (again here you can choose, I used a dark chocolate with no milk, (Lindt 70%) which is not technically vegan. You could use your own favourite vegan chocolate, or any other!)

Method:

Line a tin with baking paper and grease it. I used a square brownie tin.

I think shortbread genuinely works better in a blender, less hand contact means it is less likely to be rubbery, and remains SHORT, which is the endgame here obvs. Put all the shortbread ingredients in the blender until a rough dough forms. Don’t worry if it is crumbly, that’s perfect.

Tip in the tin, and quickly press out. Use your knuckles, then press out with a fork. Touch it as little as possible to get an even base. Prick all over with a fork and bake for half an hour at Gas Mark 5ish, until golden brown. Leave to cool.

While it is cooking, make the caramel. This requires careful attention so MONITOR and do not touch it. Hot sugar is like lava, and burns forever (see my croque en bouche entry for more on this). Use a heavy bottomed pan. Pour in the sugar and the both creams, and mix until the sugar begins to dissolve. Add the butter. Turn on a medium heat, and stir continuously whilst bringing to the boil.  Turn the heat down, and stir until you reach soft ball stage.

Soft boil stage: drop some caramel into a glass of cold water. If it forms little balls, it is ready. Here is a google search for soft ball stage, because it’s tricky to know. If you have a sugar thermometer then use that, but I don’t, so I didn’t.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=soft+ball+stage&rlz=1C5AVSZ_enGB688GB689&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjk1d_Kxr7WAhXnAcAKHTXkCVEQ_AUICygC&biw=1464&bih=711

When the caramel is ready, take off the heat. Pour over the cooled base. Leave to cool for 20 minutes, then put in the fridge until cool. Don’t put it straight in the fridge, or will destroy everything you hold dear in there.

Melt the chocolate, pour over the (cold) caramel and shortbread layers. Cool until solid. Cut in to squares. Watch bakeoff. Don’t feel left out.

 

Peace and love

Unchained Baking and Danny xx

Livi’s Homemade Christmas

Hello! This is the year of homemade presents, and just in case you are stuck for ideas- here are some homemade edible presents that are very easy and so cheap. Have a lovely Christmas and happy new year!

Livi’s Salted Pretzel Christmas Puddings

These are so easy 🙂 Just fill two piping bags, one with white chocolate and one with dark. Place the pretzels on a foil sheet, making sure they are flat. Pipe dark chocolate into the lower two thirds, and white into the top. Put some holly and berry Smarties on the top, and freeze them for about 10 minutes to harden them. 🙂

Livi’s White Chocolate Turtles.

These are really popular and so quick. I make mine in Madeline moulds, to give them a pretty shape.

On a tray lined with foil, or a silicone Madeline tray, place as 24 pecans at intervals. This is tricky- but try to balance a Rolo on top of each nut. Bake in the oven for upto five minutes, on a low heat. I have burnt so many, so I suggest sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the oven, bake-off style. When the Rolos still have their shape, but are being to melt, take them out and push another pecan on the top of each one- does not have to be neat, in fact, it’s better if it isn’t. Leave to cool, then pipe melted white chocolate over the top to encase them. Freeze for 10 minutes to harden.

Livi’s Rocky Road Sheet

 Melt 200g of white chocolate in a bowl over some boiling water. Spread out a large piece of foil, and pour the chocolate on. Use a knife to spread it into a rectangle, keeping it fairly thin. Next, use whatever you like to cover it. I used mini marshmallows, crumbled shortbread, pecans, and a drizzle of mint chocolate- but Rice Krispies, caramel, freeze dried raspberries, ginger nuts and hazlenuts. Freeze for ten minutes and cut/smash it into bits.

Stay Unchained ❤

Cupboard broke jumble cake

Hello!

 

I have thoroughly neglected this blog recently- not that I haven’t been baking, but I have been writing other, more studious things. I am, however, back with a serious bang, with a cake I call Livi’s storecupboard broke jumble sparkle cake. YEAH, YOU HEARD.

So this Sunday has been sponsored by laziness, the kind of laziness where you talk to yourself to keep yourself awake. By 4pm however, I rallied, and for the last two hours I have been typing and arranging primary sources for my thesis, and needed to inject some sparkle into my Sunday.

So here is a bloody easy cake, very delicious, and will feed 5000 if they all share politely.

All the love Unchained Bakers ❤

Livi’s Storecupboard Broke Jumble Sparkle Cake

This was a recipe born out of need for a cake, with no money and no real ingredients. I had some cake sparkles, a tombola Crunchie, an old flake and some abandoned gummies. Party cake ready!

Chocolate 

150g Butter

150g Sugar

150g Flour

3 eggs

2 teaspoons of Baking Powder

3 tablespoons of Cocoa Powder

Put the butter and sugar in a food processor, until creamy. Add the eggs one at a time. Add in the flour, cocoa and baking powder.

Put in a large roasting tray and bake at 180c until a knife comes out clean.

Vanilla

Same process, but leave out the cocoa, and put in a tablespoon of vanilla extract, the seedier the better.

Icing

Butter

Icing sugar

Cocoa Powder/ vanilla extract

Tablespoon of Greek Yoghurt

I have trouble in exact measurements for icing because everyone is different, but I start with about 125g grams of soft butter, and basically add to taste.

For the vanilla,  add the yoghurt and vanilla to the butter first, then the icing sugar until you have spreadable consistency- taste it!

For the chocolate, do the same, but add equal parts cocoa and icing sugar. 🙂

Its a glorious messeveryone, like my life!

 

❤ Stay Unchained

 

 

 

Strawberry and Black Pepper Scones

Happy May everyone! I skipped April on here due to being completely overwhelmed with marking, working, lesson planning, teaching, tutoring, working on my PhD and trying to get out and explore London. Whilst at a wedding at the weekend, my boyfriend switched on The Hairy Bikers, and I became obsessed with their scone recipe. I was really hungry at the time- but even so, a recipe rarely implants itself with such ferocity.

I have successfully never made scones. Ever. I have a mum who makes them perfectly, so I never really practised. But these were so weirdly, intensely exciting that I thought I would just throw caution to the wind and try it. Result: beautiful. I have had peppered strawberries every summer for years, and I love that combination. So this was a perfect mix of scone and sweet, peppery, summery, chewy bits. Lush.

Recipe here, try them warm covered in butter.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/roasted_strawberry_and_82071

Stay Unchained ❤

Autumn Apple Cake

I’ve cracked the oven! Time for a beautiful Autumn recipe that was inspired by some apples languishing in the fridge. Uninspired by apple recipes on the internet, I took a giant risk (in cake terms) and tried something of my own. Results: loved it ❤ Can’t really take credit though, as my boyfriend pointed out- what could possibly go wrong?

Livi’s Apple and Vanilla Crumble Cake

220g Plain Flour

100g Caster Sugar

100g Soft Butter

2 Eggs

100g Ground Almonds

2tsp Good Vanilla Essence

2 tsp Baking Powder

Pinch of salt

Milk

2 cooking apples

For the Streusel Top:

50g Melted Butter

50 SF Flour

40g Demerara Sugar

40g Flaked Almond

20g Ground Almonds

Method

Peel and core the apples and cut them into eights.

Put them in a pan with a splash of water and heat until the apples are soft. (Keep stirring so they don’t burn.)

Add a ¼ tsp of ginger and stir in.

Mix all the other ingredients together except the streusel ingredients.

Mix until well combined.

Spread the mix into a pudding dish, and add 2/3rds of the stewed apple and swirl in to the cake mix.

Bake for 30 minutes (or until a skewer comes out clean.)

Mix together all the streusel ingredients.

Spread the rest of the stewed apple over the top of the cake and spread the streusel over the top.

Bake for another 10 minutes.

🙂

Proof….?

Happy Autumn 🙂 Stay Unchained ❤

London Baking or ‘The oven does as it pleases’

Welcome back me!!

Well I have been absent for AGES, but I made it. I have started my PhD, moved to London and grappled with new technology in the form of a shiny laptop and a much, much older oven.

Yesterday I had the evening to myself, and being young, free and broke I put the books down and thought I would try something I had seen on a lush blog call ‘Forages and Finds’.

http://foragesandfinds.blogspot.co.uk/

What I mean to say is, I had a feeling that my first baking attempt in a new oven would end in catastrophe. So I began with my favourite cake recipe:

Livi’s Chocolate Sponge Cake

200g plain flour

200g caster sugar

200g butter

4 eggs

50g cocoa powder

3 tablespoons of sour cream

splash of vanilla

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

Its so simple, just mix all the ingredients in the processor, and split into 2 tins. Bake for about 30 minutes :0

So, everything went well until I checked the oven. One cake was cooking perfectly, the other was raw. I couldn’t even believe my eyes, so I just shut the oven and left it. 10 minutes later, one was burnt, the other was cooked.

I took them out, but unfortunately they had somehow burnt on the underside…?? I mean, they burnt through the tin.

I took a small Parks and Recreation break, did some work, had a sleep, came back, and did some cake trimming. Now I had two delicious, but slightly thinner, sponges. Seeing as they actually turned out pretty well I was conflicted, but I really wanted to try the trifle thing, so I froze half and trifled with the other half lolololol.

I made a super easy chocolate mousse, mixed some raspberries and crumbled the cake into layers and finished it with a splash of cream.

Pictures!!

 Stay Unchained<3

Life, the universe, and everything. (and some cake too, don’t worry)

I feel dreadful. I have become one of ‘those’ people. Those people I used to laugh at during my anti-hipster phase (which I’m still in).  Those people who sit in Starbucks, staring around with their Apple Mac, sipping some kind of coffee abomination whilst they tsk and roll their eyes whilst they work on their magnum opus, their great English novel.

Actually, I’m just blogging whilst I wait for my American to finish his PhD advisor meeting. I’m in Starbucks in Manchester, and I so desperate to avoid the above stereotype that I ordered a mint tea that tastes like polos in boiling water, and I made no noises and no eye contact with anybody. And this isn’t the great English anything- it’s a blog about cake.

So, Manchester! The city has a great buzzy feeling, everything is so cheap and individual, and the uni is so cool it hurts. The only thing i haven’t yet found is a decent teashop, hence Starbucks,  but I’m sure it’s just alluding me,

Whilst I have been here, it has been a challenge to not become overwhelmed by the hugeness of what we are undertaking. PhDs in separate towns, PhDs in general, resigning ourselves to the kind of broke only postgraduates can understand and the stressful passionate dedication of academic writing. I remember, during a particularly stressful part of my Masters, rushing back to the library with a short loan book, which had incurred a 30 pound fine, trying to speed read it on the way, whilst running through all the possible reasons that Anne Boleyn might have had devout religious intentions and how to disprove them- thinking that academia had claimed the very last parts of my soul, and that I should go and become a baker in Tuscany, and dedicate my life to raising wild boar.

But we are back again, and already I am itching to get back to the books, and the stress and the only lifestyle that makes me truly happy.

Wow mayte, that got a bit heavy for a cake blog. Here’s some pictures of some cakes what I made this year.

Sour Cream and Chocolate Cake

Chocolate, Hazlenut and Malteaser cake

Marmlade Bread and  Butter Pudding

Jam and Cream Viennese Whirls.

Stay Unchained ❤

Apricots

This pudding allows me to indulge two loves of mine; the first is Wholefoods, and the second is almond flavoured alcohols.

Once, in a particularly grim pub, my friend and I drank Disaronno on Christmas Eve. I was giddy with the high of being 18, having my friends back from uni over the holiday, and obviously- the drink itself. My friend bet me that I wouldn’t ask for the drink at the bar in the ridiculously seductive and glamourous manner of the Disaronno advert. I did, and a ungainly, pissed 18 year old got a free drink. Thus began my love affair with fairly sickly, smooth and expensive almond liquer.

Gliding through Wholefoods the other day, I noticed, on their market style towers of fruit, some gorgeous apricots. With no thought to my financial situation or dinner plans, I grabbed half a dozen. At home, I looked at my options, and decided on this- an almond and apricot tart with a generous smash of Disaronno.

It was pretty glorious.

Livi’s Apricot, Almond and Disaronno Tart

For the Pastry:

200g Plain Flour

100g Butter

Two tablespoons of icing sugar

For the filling:

175g Ground Almonds

3 Eggs

150g Caster Sugar

75g Butter

1 shot Disaronno

2 tablespoons of Almond Extract

8 apricots

Instructions

Blend together the pastry ingredients, until they form a dough around the blade. Add a few tablespoons of water if you need to.

Press into a fluted tart tin, but make sure to handle the pastry as little as possible- this keeps it short and crumbly.

 Cover the case with greaseproof paper and fill with rice, and bake blind for 15 minutes.

Then remove the rice, prick case with a fork all over, and bake for another ten minutes until golden.

Next, combine the sugar and butter in a separate bowl, adding the eggs one at time.

Add the ground almonds.

Mix in the Disaronno and the almond extract.

Spoon this mix into the pastry case, spreading it to the edges.

Slice the apricots in half.

Heat a tablespoon of sugar and a (generous) shot of Disaronno in a frying pan.

Add the apricots and cook until soft- about 7 minutes.

Push the apricots into the frangipan- LET THEM COOL FIRST, don’t get a Livi sugar burn- hurts like a bastard.

Bake the tart until the frangipane is cooked through and brown. If a knife comes out clean, you’re good to go.

Pictures now!

Stay Unchained<3

Unchained Baking: Rate the Fetes

WORLD! Unchained Baking- from the heart of the Cotswolds- is here to rate the fetes!! If you are not from the area, then a fete is a village party, which usually comprises cakes, plants, dancing, obviously named games, and all kinds of one -off or bizarre attractions. So as a Cotswold baker, I want to RATE these wonderful traditions and draw a conclusion that will truly RATE the fetes.

This time, Broadwell. Each fete will be rated in 4 categories- Obviously Named Games, Tombola Selection, Food and Drink, and Bricabrac.

Broadwell

Broadwell is a beautiful, and very quiet little village next to my hometown of Stow-on-the-Wold. It is typical of the Cotswolds, in that it has only a pub, a swingset and an unusual water feature (Broadwell’s is a ford). As I embarked on the village green, everything looked good.

Well, as a I left after 10 minutes…..it’s not looking good, but lets review anyway.

Obviously Named Games: Poor….not a ‘splat the rat’ or ‘guess the weight of the pig’ in sight. Instead there was a creepy crawly stand I was entirely to scared to approach, and a dog show that filled half the green.

Tombola: For this segment I will be handing over to Evan Vellis- American Gentleman fascinated by the concept of a tombola.

For me to rate the Broadwell tombola, there would have to be one for adults…however, since I have no use for barbie dolls and I have as many stickers as I’ll ever need there was nothing for me to spend my cashola on.

Food and Drink: Pimms stand, ice cream wagon and a barbeque…all right I suppose but nothing new or exciting….needed a larger tea tent.

Bricabrac: Good. A library of abandoned books did yield a couple of interesting finds, including a ‘Colours’ book from the 80’s that was filled with autumns/summers wearing faces filled with blue eye shadow. I did however, discover an awesome Ritz afternoon tea book.

So….a poor wardrobe choice (COLD) and a lack of entertainment meant that I lasted ten minutes. It was however, a wonderful kids fete- especially since halfway through a LARGE Punch and Judy show dominated the field.

Overall score: 5/10