I love Aqua Faba - Meringues and Coconut Macaroons

Over the last few weeks I have discovered Aqua faba, the magic ingredient that has popped out of the woodwork allowing sufferers of egg allergies to enjoy things with egg as the key ingredient, like meringues.

At first I was sceptical, I was horrified, to use chickpea water wasn't something I had tried.

Sorry, anyway having joined a Vegan Meringue ~Facebook group  I did my research and thought, why not me too? Now we haven't eaten chickpeas much in our house, as quiet frankly I hate the taste. This taste somehow leaves the water once it is whipped up. Both these recipes use water straight from the tin. I have also made a boat load of houmous (thanks Jamie), the one chickpea thing I can cope with.

Meringues

Ingredients

¾ cup aquafaba (what comes out of one tin)
1 cup sugar,
½ tbsp vanilla essence

Method

• Preheat Oven to 100C
• Use a machine to whisk aqua faba until it has peaks (use an electric mixer, on maximum, it takes a while)
• Slowly add sugar and vanilla essence whilst the whisk is still moving
• I used a spoon to scoop it onto the tray - it can be piped though
• Cook for approx 1.5 hours. Then open door, leave meringue to cool in oven

To store these keep them in an airtight container and leave in a cupboard. I managed to keep them for a round 4 days. On top I used whipped coconut cream with icing sugar in it and strawberries.

Out of the oven

Coconut Macaroons

This is a variation (very small ones, just no salt and cup measurement of aqua faba) to this: http://theblenderist.com/coconut-macaroons-vegan-and-gluten-free/. I also didn't bother with the chocolate drizzle either, but that's because that is always a mess when I try and the wee girl is dairy intolerant. These can be made by hand rather than using a machine.

Ingredients

¼ cup of aqua faba
2 and ¼ cups of shredded coconut
½ tsp vanilla extract
¾ cup sugar

Method

• Preheat oven to 160C (approx 325F)
• Whisk aqua faba  and the vanilla extract for 30 secs so it is frothy
• Add the coconut and sugar, make sure the coconut is all covered in the aqua faba
• At this point it doesn't really look like it should stick together. Don't panic (I did I was going to add extra aqua faba)

After mixing all together

• I used two spoons to make little "balls" of the mix which I then put on a baking tray. I did have to squish some back together once on the tray
• Put in the oven for approx 20 mins - I would suggest using the bottom level of the oven, as they didn't stick to the bottom of the tray and could come out whilst still a little white (see photo below)
• I found if they stuck to the bottom of the tray (as the ones in the middle of the oven did for me) they needed to go back in again. Mine ended up brown all over. Nice and crunchy on outside and still soft in the middle. I think if you used greaseproof paper you could take them out earlier as they wouldn't stick to that.
• At this point let them cool and eat - or drizzle some melted chocolate on top

top four were from the bottom tray in oven and could come out at 18 mins and unstuck without going brown all over. The others all had to go back in.

Lego birthday party - off topic

Yes my son is Lego crazy and as such I became Mum - Project Manager and planned a Lego theme for his birthday. He also requested a Spiderman cake so that was on the agenda too. I scoured the internet for ideas, saved links from different sites and then went stir crazy! This took a fair bit of planning ahead as I work as well - thankfully the crayons could be done bit by bit. I did the sweets a week before the party.

My main guide for planning was this wonderful blog http://cleof.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/lego-birthday-party.html 

First things first was getting the Invites right, I used the idea of VIP invites as the link above suggests, then I followed this guide on creating Lego font (although it wasn't 100% as I had to create bigger borders in slightly different ways but it worked out in the end - sorry I didn't note the steps at the time). I will update this post as no doubt will  be doing it again ;-) I got the lanyards off Amazon. Everything was printed on card and just used a hole punch for the corner. I think laminating it would have been a nice touch if you have one.

Then it was to plan the Party Bags (this doesn't show the sweets as they were in process of being made at this point). The clear bags used for holding both the sweets and crayons, were from Amazon, as were the moulds for them.

• Creating the Colouring Book - again I started with the one shared from the blog mentioned above but modified it, so that it had some more female characters, and the layout worked better. See the cover and inside pages here (these were originally Word documents, and I would suggest downloading and re-saving as Word as the white out image I used to cover a grey line (rather than modify original image) on the cover is grey in the GoogleDoc). I just cut the A4 pages in half and stapled them together through the centre pages, making them close to book like as I could.
• Stickers were actually pretty disappointing from eBay - they were mostly small square and pretty boring. I put them in little plastic bags and labelled them with a pen. 
• Transfers - always popular with the kids, a better selection and larger than the stickers thank goodness - again from eBay and again I put them in little plastic bags so the stickers and transfers didn't get mixed up.
• Crayons - I got a load of basic crayons from the local pound shop, some were better than others (some created a white film over the crayon but I just left those out - I think it had something to do with the melting process rather than the quality of crayon). As each Lego brick was approx 7 crayons worth, and I had 20 kids with three bricks each that was ALOT of crayons to buy. I melted these in the microwave in a separate container and then poured into the moulds to set over night. This way the moulds didn't discolour or smell of crayon afterwards. To reduce having to clean the container each time I started with the white crayons, then yellow, then orange, then pink then red etc. I used the big bags, folded over, with Spiderman labels and then stapled. This worked for the sweets too. 
• Sweets - these were great to make I put three little guys in each bag and one big one. I used a Lego Spiderman sweet label for bags. I followed the video in the article How to Make Edible Stackable Lego Sweets to make the sweets. I did end up playing with the recipe to make my second of set of gummy men slightly squishier. With those I had to freeze to get out of the moulds whole but they were much squishier, so it is up to you which texture you prefer. I ended up using:
• 1/2 cup cold water
• 1 and a half pk Gelatine 
• 1/4 cup corn syrup (Tesco)
• 1 packet of jelly (I used pineapple flavour)

March of the sweet man

• Bags - I went for the traditional red paper bag, I was going to put the big circles on but quite frankly by the time I got to this I had lost the will to live. I got matching red lunch boxes for the kids food too.

Finally it was time to sort out the cake, I used the Amazon moulds again, in the moulds I just pushed in the relevant red and blue bits of icing, and let set overnight before pushing out. I then cut out the middle bit of the legs to make them look a bit better. I kinda wish I had used real Lego figures around the side of the cake but that could of led to arguments as to who got them, but it certainly would have saved my back! The web was created using rolled out icing and then cut into strips. I used one of the left over invites to model the hand cut out name plate and age plates that went around the side of the cake. The cake was the now traditional egg and dairy free chocolate cake recipe.

Strawberry, raspberry and redcurrant tart

I can't believe I totally forgot to add this to the blog! This got lots of positive comments when eating it. It looked pretty too. I made this mainly on my own but the little ones did help with the pastry and jelly mixing, and adding the redcurrants. I will say be patient to get the jelly right before pouring it - otherwise it leaks into the pastry. This used mixed fruit from the garden

Ingredients

Shortcrust Pastry

225g (8oz) plain flour
50g (2oz) butter, diced
50g (2oz) lard, diced
3-4 tablespoons chilled water
Pinch of salt (optional)

Custard

2 tablespoons Custard powder (I used Birds)
50ml whole milk
250ml

Topping

70g strawberry jelly (unmade up, I used half a pack of Hartley)
120ml cold water
120ml boiling water
1 tablespoon caster sugar
300g strawberries (hulled and halved)

100g raspberries
50g redcurrants

Method

Pastry

• Add salt to flour
• Rub in the fat using your fingers, until the mix looks like breadcrumbs 
• Sprinkle the water over the surface 
• Stir in using a round-bladed knife until it sticks in large lumps
• With one hand collect the mix to format a ball
• Knead lightly for a few seconds, don't over handle
• Roll out, flour work surface and rolling pin. Roll in one direction, turning the pastry occasionally. It should be about 3mm thick. 
• Place in the tin, trim and then let it rest in the fridge (covered by foil/ greaseproof paper) for 30mins.
• Preheat oven to 200C
• Place a circle of greaseproof paper in centre and weigh down with dried lentils/beans/ceramic pastry balls
• Cook for 10min 
• Take out greaseproof paper and weights. Press down any raised areas of pastry and return to the oven for a further 5-10mins, until lightly browned.
• Leave to cool.

Topping

• Make up the strawberry jelly by adding it to the boiling water and the caster sugar. Stir until dissolved
• Add the cold water
• Allow to cool until almost set, might want to keep stirring to ensure lumps don't occur. 
• I put mine to set in the fridge, but might be best to just set outside while doing the Custard (I did mine after the custard which was the wrong order for me!) Then put in fridge.

Custard

• Heat the custard powder and milk in a pan on a medium heat, whisk out any lumps.
• Slowly add the cream, sugar and vanilla.
• Keep stirring until it thickens
• Remove the custard from the heat and allow to cool

Finishing the Topping

• When the pastry and custard have cooled, pour the custard in to the pastry case and put in the fridge, for approx 20min. 
• Lay the strawberry halves and raspberries onto the custard, fill the gaps with the redcurrants.
• Pour the nearly set jelly over the strawberry halves/ redcurrants 
• Top with more fruit 
• Put in fridge to set for at least 2 hours.

Chocolate Cake with raspberry layer

Well it has been a while! I have been baking but not recording it, sorry. Life has been busy but getting some down time thanks to the oldest off with chicken pox, so balancing working at home with making sure he is entertained. Yesterday this was done by doing some baking. We modified two recipes into one, the first was http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/i-can-cook/makes/i-can-cook-stickychocolatecake/ which we saw being made on Cbeebies the day before, the second http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/13485/eggless-chocolate-cake was a bigger version, for a full family cake. This made one loaf tin and three cup cakes as little guy can never wait for big cakes to be finished!! Each worked well, but the cupcakes did get wet thanks to the raspberries in the bottom.

Ingredients

(I didn't go diary free, just egg free)

• 160ml Milk
• 1/2 tbsp. Vanilla Essence
• 85g Butter
• 2 tbsp. Golden Syrup
• 300g Self Raising Flour
• 1 tsp Bicarbonate Soda
• 35g Cocoa Powder
• 125g Caster Sugar
• Handful of raspberries

If you don't go down the raspberry route, and want a plain chocolate cake in a round 9 inch tin...

• 1 small tub of cherry yoghurt (I used a soya yoghurt which was lush)
• 1 large beetroot (the cooked, vacuum packed version)

Add both these to the milk and liquidise (then add the bicarb of soda). Mix in as much liquid as you need.

Method

• Grease the tin with some butter, I would recommend that you use some greaseproof paper in the bottom too (I didn't and the cake/raspberries did stick a little to the bottom, so I had to scrap it out and spread it back over the base of the cake)
• Pre heat oven to 190C/ 170C (fan assisted)
• Mix together the milk and the bicarbonate of soda in a cup
• Mix together the flour and cocoa powder in a "dry bowl"
• Cream together the  butter, sugar, syrup and vanilla essence "wet bowl" (big bowl)
• Slowly add some of the milk mixture and dry bowl mixture into the wet bowl, continuously mixing. (Little chap helped add these, I would then stir, he would add more etc)
• Once you have a smooth, but slightly stiff mixture you are ready to put in the tin
• Take a handful of raspberries and layer them at the bottom of the tin, then add mixture on top. Smooth the mixture out as otherwise the cake will be "lumpy" on top as it rises. 

Notes

• I would  be tempted to try the raspberries on the top of the cake next time, or even all through the mixture. The raspberries helped with the moisture of the cake.
• This was very nice with ice cream and extra raspberries.
• The cupcakes took around 15 mins
• The cake took around 45 mins
• The raspberry free round (9inch) cake took around 40 mins. Just keep checking it!

 

Double Chocolate Chip Cup Cakes

I found this recipe on the Annabel Karmel website and decided to try it to keep little man entertained while we emptied the house ready for our move! Plus little man has been invited to a birthday party and they are not providing egg free cakes. Unfortunately I have lent out the cake pop maker so will be trying this as a cupcake recipe. This makes 12 cupcakes.

They didn't sink! Yeah. 

Ingredients

• 145g sifted plain flour 
• 150g caster sugar (or vanilla sugar) 
• 20g nice quality cocoa powder 
• 62g vegetable oil 
• 175ml water 
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda 
• small pinch of salt 
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract 
• 100g of choc chips

Method

• pre-heat oven to 180C / gas mark 4. 
• Set out the cupcake cases
• In a bowl, sift the flour, bicarb of soda, salt and cocoa powder. Mix well. 
• Add sugar and mix well 
• Add oil, water, choc chips and vanilla essence and mix well
•  Pour into cupcakes 
• Cook for approx 22 mins

Notes

Original recipe says it serves about 6, so I'm guessing a 8" tin, and says to grease a tin and pour in to the baking tin/ring and bake for 1 hour in the middle of the oven or until a knife inserted in to the centre comes out clean.

These tasted a little funny to us... The taste of bicarbonate of soda seemed to come through. Will be trying again with self raising flour or adding some orange/lemon juice to balance it out. I think even a bit of vinegar would help. 

Leftovers and garden fruit

Well this week the little one didn't get involved in the baking (I really do need to fit some time at the weekend for this so he doesn't miss out) although he did help daddy get the ingredients for the custard ready!

I had half a can of condensed milk left over from making the cakes for the birthdays, and some cooking apples from the garden. I did try and find something that would use my cupboard ingredients and these two items in one recipe, however no luck there so I ended up doing an apple pie and making some fudge.

The Fudge

I found an Ultimate Fudge recipe on the Carnation website which I modified a little bit, as no demerara sugar in the house. I wanted to use up some older sugar I had floating around ready for the house move in the next week or so....

Recipe
200g condensed milk
75ml milk
200g light brown sugar
25g dark brown sugar
57g butter cut into cubes

Method

•  Line a tin with baking paper. I used a 20x10 tin for this recipe
• Stick all the ingredients into a saucepan, I didn't have a non stick pan and it didn't seem to make any difference to the cooking. You need to put it on a low heat (I have induction and I started on 2 and went up to 3 on the heat setting) to melt the butter and dissolve the sugar.  You need to keep stirring. This takes way longer than I expected.
• Once everything has dissolved/melted put the heat up and bring to the boil
• Simmer for 15 mins (making sure you continue to stir) (you can test the fudge by dropping it into a bowl of ice cold water - it should solidify into fudge when ready. The recipes talk about a ball of fudge, mine was more a line but still worked!)
• Remove from heat and then beat with a wooden spoon for around 10 mins, until thick and starting to set. WARNING This is VERY hard work!! Gosh was my arm sore by the end, I definitely earned a taster!
• Tip into the tin, and spread with the back of a spoon, I used a bit of baking paper on top to stop it sticking to the spoon!
• Wait to cool and then cut and enjoy!

Now for a girl's first birthday cake

Design ideas

After looking on the internet for ideas for my little girls first birthday, I had two criteria, one it had to be simple and two it needed to have some items that could be taken off and kept (like my boys train and cubes from his first cake).

This 1st Birthday Party supplies page has some cakes on it, including a baby pulling down a cake but was much too complicated, but perhaps I could include a baby on my cake somehow? It also showed a lovely cake with a girl on the top, and spots over the cake itself. I really like this cake. This two coloured cake of pink and green was lovely, and the bear very cute. 

With these, and my daughters cot toys, in mind I got out my iPad and using a Paper app I started sketching out ideas. These are not shared here as I am a TERRIBLE drawer and they are awful!! However they helped me pull together a couple of thoughts. 

The Plan

So I had a basic design, and I was going to reuse the recipe from my little boys cake. First it was off to the cake shop in Shrewsbury Market Hall (the ladies are so lovely and helpful) to get my supplies, I even managed to save a little by getting some flower paste icing on sale to make the baby skin (and with a little food colouring the dress too!).

Second it was tripling up the recipe and getting all the ingredients, this is because the recipe is for one 6" cake and I wanted to make two 8" cakes to put on top of each other with some butter icing. I had set aside Friday before the party (Sunday) to get the cake cooked and iced, although the other half was off too I was hoping to send him off on the bike or something!

The Reality

In fact I started the characters on Thursday evening, as I was loosing sleep about how to do them. This turned out to be a good thing as they took much longer than expected to make. I'm sure if I had all the tools and some training they would be dead easy to make but each character took approx 2 hours!! The first one made was the bunny, which used toothpicks to hold head to body and ears to head. 

Friday morning I baked the cakes, these are a bit more dense than normal egg cakes but still taste yummy and the cake was polished off at the party which I took to be a good sign. They did take approx 2 more mins to cook than on the recipe, and the first sank a fair bit in the middle. Otherwise I did not modify this at all. After the cakes had cooled it was time to stick them together with a fair bit of butter icing (the two tops together so they didn't look sunken with icing on). I then stuck the cakes in the fridge to let the icing go hard before adding the jam, marzipan and royal icing to the cake. While they were in the fridge, I made the little baby girl/doll.  This was using flower paste icing as it let me go finer in rolling out for the dress and hair. I used toothpicks to hold arms and head to the body.

Once the cake had the base icing on it was time to stick on the spots and make the monkey (this was a copy of a toy that my daughter was given at birth by her Nana and Granddad). I ended up doing this on Friday night once the kids had gone to bed, so I was pretty tired at this point so it wasn't brilliant. Anyway the final cake....

...

Daughters first birthday cake