Tea and Sympatico

The truffle recipe I blogged about the other day is so good I couldn't resist having a go at another variation. These are made using 4 of those small packets of dairy free white chocolate buttons. I was hoping to use Cherry Brandy but I couldn't get any. I did spot some cherry flavour syrup though for a fraction of the price and this worked really well. Ingredients Makes 20 truffles 100g dairy free white chocolate 50g vegan margarine 1 tablespoon of cherry syrup 1 tablespoon of soya cream 25g of ground almonds 150g of icing sugar 6 glace cherries chopped into tiny pieces Dessicated coconut for rolling Melt the margarine and chocolate in a pan over a low heat. Remove from the heat and stir in the cherry syrup and soya cream. Stir in the rest of the ingredients and put in the fridge to chill. Once chilled roll teaspoon of the mixture into balls. Roll in the coconut and place in petit-four cases.

I really like rose and violet fondant creams but I've yet to find some that I'm 100% sure are vegan. Hotel Chocolat sell them but list them as vegetarian rather than vegan although I can't see anything on the ingredients list to make them non vegan, possibly whatever is the red colouring in the rose ones..  Anyway I was really pleased when I spotted an easy recipe for Floral Cremes in my copy of The Vintage Tea Party Book . This is a lovely book that is beautifully illustrated. Whilst it's not a vegan recipe book there's stuff in there that is vegan friendly such as the Whisky Marmalade and brilliant Chocolate Granola I made for Christmas presents last year and lots of styling ideas. It gave me an excuse to buy this which I'm looking forward to trying in fizz and lemonade too. I remembered to Americanize them too so here's the recipe with cups. These were really easy and came out great. I ended up adding a bit more icing sugar but I think tha...

For day of two of the week of sweet making I thought I'd have a go at something I haven't tried before - honeycomb! Incidentally  I noticed recently that Sainsburys sell little bags of honeycomb pieces in their cake decorating section that are vegan friendly. The recipe I used is this  Lorraine Pascale one from the BBC Website. I just had to sub margarine for butter. I must say it wasn't 100% successful. It did set but it was more of a toffee than a honeycomb although a nice tasting toffee at that. I think I didn't have the heat up high enough and I couldn't resist stirring a few times so I think it's likely to be my fault not that of the recipe. Oh well, it's an excuse to have another go!

When I had to choose a category on the Mofo sign up form I had to admit that my blog definitely falls into the category of 'comfort foods'. After the week of muffins and the week of mash we now have a week of sweet making. These are super quick and easy truffles and make an impressive gift. I've posted the basic recipe before and have made several variations on them. This time I decided to use whisky and ginger. You start off by melting the dark chocolate and margarine.  Then you stir in the cream and whisky followed by the rest of the ingredients. After chilling in the fridge until the mixture cools and firms up you rolls them into balls and roll them into cocoa. Ingredients Makes 25 truffles 100g plain chocolate 50g vegan margarine 1 tablespoon of whisky 1 tablespoon of cream 25g of ground almonds 150g of icing sugar 5 large pieces of crystallised ginger chopped into tiny pieces Cocoa powder for rolling

Before we get onto the last muffin of the week I just wanted to share this great idea that I spotted whilst surfing the sea of Mofo blogs. I found it over at Scottish blog The Modern Housewife . It's a simple yet tasty idea. I heated a small cup of soya milk adding a teaspoon of agave as the soy milk was unsweetened. Once the milk was warm I added a small packet of dairy free white chocolate buttons and whisked until they melted then topped it off with a sprinkle of chocolate and cinammon. So, here they are the last muffins of the week and quite a contrast to yesterdays. They are fat free and use Sweet Freedom instead of sugar. They taste good but have a denser texture than the others I've made which I'm guessing might be down to the fat freeness of them. I like the flavour combination though so I will definitely try them again, maybe adding some oil or trying applesauce to make the texture a little lighter. What do you think, has anyone got any advice? I love...

The idea for these came from a conversation with Mike N at the teapoint when he was telling me about a brilliant Death By Chocolate cake one of his sons had made and was joking that if they saw the muffin generator list they probably just choose all the chocolate things. We didn't actually get that many suggestions with chocolate in them so that seemed like a great idea to me. So, for this recipe we have cocoa, dark chocolate chips and then a bag of both non-dairy white and milk chocolate buttons cut into quarters. There was a bit of a panic whilst I thought I had run out of muffin cases. Luckily I found some Halloween ones I bought a couple of years ago in Vancouver that I'd stashed in a cupboard and forgotten about. As they were getting an outing I'd thought I'd show you my two purchases from the Aldi weekly specials. A brilliant skull cake tin (they also had pumpkin ones) and some ghost and bat sprinkles that whilst not labelled as vegan I can't see a...

As is the way of this time of year, I have got a horrible cold. Luckily I cooked ahead, froze some muffins and prepared some posts for the Muffin Generator in advance so I been able to keep up with the Mofo blogging. My colleagues have only had the first lot but I've been feeling a lot better this afternoon so hopefully I'll be back in work tomorrow laden down with muffins! The next flavour combination idea came from Karen who came up with Pear and Almond which I couldn't resist adding some crystallised ginger to. Instead of trying to get ripe pears I used those ones you get in juice in a plastic container and they worked really well. Pear, Ginger and Almond Muffins Makes 12 Ingredients 1 cup of soya milk 1 teaspoon of cider vinegar 1 ¾ cups of plain flour 2 ½ teaspoons of baking powder ½ teaspoon of salt ¾ cup of caster sugar ½ cup of sunflower oil 2 teaspoons of almond extract 1 cup of pear diced into little cubes (about 2-3 pear...

Something totally tropical for the next Magic Muffin Generator selection. These Lime, Pineapple and Dark Chocolate Chip flavour muffins suggested by Mike K are just the thing when we're having day after day of rainy Manchester weather! I picked up a carton of this new Provomel Rice and Coconut Milk in Eighth Day on Saturday and it worked really well in this recipe. Mike K's Totally Tropical Lime, Pineapple and Dark Chocolate Muffins Makes 12 2 cups of plain flour 1 cup of sugar 2 teaspoons of baking powder ½ teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda ½ a teaspoon of salt Zest of 2 limes Juice of 1 lime 1 cup of milk (I used the new Provamel Rice and Coconut) 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract ½ cup of sunflower oil 1 bag of chocolate chips 1 cup of chopped tinned pineapple (small tin / 4 rings) Pre-heat the oven to 190C/ 375F/ Gas 5 and line a muffin tin with paper cases. Sieve the flour, sugar, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt an...

Welcome to Vegan Mofo 2012! Before I kick off I just want to remind people in the UK about the fabulous monthly Vegan Snack Swap organised by Too Happy Vegans. Here's the package I put together to send to Gail. Here's the exciting parcel I received from Joel with lots of things I'd not tried before. It also contains a corn facemask which was funny as the day before it arrived I'd decided to do some posts on food as beauty products for some of my Mofo posts. If you want to sign up for this month get over here by the 6th  and put your name down. So, for week one of Vegan Mofo 2012, here at Tea and Sympatico we have the Magic Muffin Generator, hopefully a way to get your work colleagues excited about vegan cooking. I sent a list of fruits, nuts and flavours etc round last week and asked if they could come up with some flavour combinations that I'd then make into muffins and bring in, a different batch each day. Jenny came up with quite a range and there ...