Pumpkin oatmeal cookies {vegan + wheat free}

It is pumpkin season. I don't usually make many pumpkin recipes, because I am terribly lazy when it comes to buying (and carrying home), cutting up and cooking pumpkin. Tinned pumpkin is available in the UK, but it is generally imported from the US and thus quite expensive. All in all, pumpkin and I do not spend much time together in the kitchen.

This week, though, Tesco had tinned pumpkin on special. I picked up a tin and was pleased to use some of it for these biscuits - or cookies as I have termed them, building on the American tinned pumpkin theme.

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Carrot coconut and strawberry breakfast biscuits

These biscuits were not what I intended to make on Sunday afternoon. I had planned to make carrot and strawberry pikelets (pancakes), but in the end, I didn't feel motivated to stand at the stovetop flipping pikelet batter. When thinking about something easy and quick to make instead, I pulled out my food processor to make no bake carrot and strawberry oat balls. However, the mixture didn't seem right unbaked and so I turned the oven on and created these instead.

Given their origins, it is perhaps unsurprising that these biscuits are average rather than excellent. They are not very sweet and I can't clearly detect the strawberry. However, as a breakfast or low sugar snack (especially with a cup of tea) they are enjoyable, and the ingredient list is pleasingly free of refined ingredients. They seem worth documenting and sharing for these reasons

To make these more like a traditional biscuit / cookie, do feel free to add some sugar or even to use these as the exterior to a (vegan) buttercream cookie sandwich.

Carrot coconut and strawberry breakfast biscuits

Minimally sweet biscuits suited to breakfast or a low-sugar snack

Makes 30 or so small biscuits

Vegan and refined sugar free

Food processor required

Author: Bite-sized thoughts

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Ingredients

1 cup grated carrot

1-1/2 cups hulled strawberries

1-1/3 cup whole rolled oats

1/3 cup desiccated coconut

1/3 cup coconut flour

1/3 cup plain flour

2 tbsp cashew butter

Method

Preheat your oven to 160'C (320'F) and line two baking trays with non-stick paper.

Combine the grated carrot, strawberries and oats in your food processor and process until fully combined. Add the remaining ingredients and process until incorporated and the mixture clumps together.

Roll dessertspoons of mixture into balls and place on your prepared baking trays. Press the tops down slightly with the back of a fork.

Bake for 8 or so minutes, until golden and firm to the touch but still soft within.

Have you made anything unexpected recently?!

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Honeycomb and chocolate chip biscuits {Happy Christmas}

Honeycomb has been on my 'to make' list for a long time. On the weekend, I ventured into making it and then went one step further with these honeycomb and chocolate chip biscuits (cookies). They are easy to make, easy to eat, and a fun twist on standard chocolate chip combinations.

A word of warning, though, on baking with honeycomb: it has a tendency to explode out of your biscuits if you put too much in. I used nearly a cup of crushed honeycomb pieces and found some oozed out of the biscuits to form a burnt caramel layer on the baking tray. I have reduced the quantity in the recipe to half a cup, and advise keeping a close eye on the biscuits from the 8 minute mark!

 

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Peanut butter oat and raisin cookies (vegan + gluten free)

When I am in a peanut butter phase (or an almond butter phase, or a tahini phase, or an apple sauce phase, or a sweet chilli sauce phase...) it amazes me that I have patches when I am not obsessed with peanut butter (or almond butter, or tahini, or my food love of the week). After a few months of occasional peanut butter consumption, I am back into enjoying it with a vengeance and these biscuits (cookies) are a direct result.

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Made over orange, cranberry and chocolate chip biscuits

I'm pleased to say that in the space of a week, I have gone from disorganised to organised with Christmas food. I've sorted our Christmas meals for the Lake District, made my annual spiced Christmas cookies, and made a healthier, orange flavoured version of my popular cranberry and dark chocolate cookies.

Spiced Christmas cookies

Yesterday, we also had an early Christmas dinner with my UK family, making another day trip to my grandparent's home in Sussex. There were nine of us in total and it was great to be able to join in on celebrations with family here. We went out for the meal and I enjoyed a nut roast that may have been the best I've had (although I'll concede I haven't had all that many). The setting in a Tudor building was great too - quite different to Australian Christmas!

Christmas dinner, plant style -
nut roast with a sweet potato and coriander sauce, and vegetable trimmings

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Cardamom and ginger spiced biscuits (cookies)

Do you remember studying Venn diagrams in high school maths? Chocolate tastes in our household resemble an overlapping 2 circle example.

In the overlapping component ("Kari intersect Mr Bite") we have moderately dark (50-70% cocoa), reasonably sweet, dairy free chocolate that doesn't include nuts or spices.

In the bit specific to me ("Kari minus Mr Bite"), we have darker, less sweet chocolates of all varieties, plus lighter dairy free blocks with nuts and/or spices.

In the bit specific to my husband ("Mr Bite minus Kari"), we have milk chocolate.

Chocolate chip biscuits featuring Cadbury's Marvellous Creations chocolate.

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18 lower sugar Christmas cookies {Christmas ideas 2013}

I'm bringing you a short post today, to share this round-up of 18 Christmas cookies with a healthy twist. Each of the recipe links is below, or you can access them through the original post.

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Hazelnut and cherry carob cookies - vegan and wheat free {Christmas ideas 2013}

At the risk of sounding patronising, I always feel a little sorry for people who don't like carob. It's one of those flavours that I find so wonderful, and so satisfying, that it's hard to believe other people don't feel the same way.

(Oh, I know. You probably think the same about me and cheese, or plain avocado, or any number of foods I inexplicably Just Don't Like.)

I attribute my carob love to my mother. When my brother and I were young, she favoured it over chocolate as a lower sugar and - crucially - caffeine-free treat that was less likely to spark over-excitement in our young selves. Having acquired the taste as a child, I've retained it through to adulthood.

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Energy-packed pumpkin cookies - vegan and gluten free

Left to my own devices, I rarely buy pumpkin. This isn't really deliberate, as I like pumpkin and enjoy it plain and mixed into dishes. Rather, it reflects a certain amount of laziness on my part at the time of purchasing (pumpkin is heavy) and when thinking about preparing it (because, you know, it takes a good minute or two to peel and cut up).

Luckily for me, I'm not left to my own devices with vegetable buying these days. Aussie Farmer's Direct have provided me with two pumpkins over my previous three deliveries (six weeks), pulling me out of my pumpkin avoidance and highlighting that, actually, pumpkin is really very easy to prepare and very versatile to use.

Protein-packed pumpkin cookies

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Chilli spiced ANZAC biscuits

Chilli in ANZAC biscuits? I know. What sacrilege. What was I thinking?

Before you declare me un-Australian, let me assure you that I made regular ANZAC biscuits too. In fact, I set out to make regular ANZAC biscuits. It's just that towards the end, I found myself wondering...what would a chilli version taste like?

It turns out, a chilli version is rather wonderful.

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Vegan ginger-vanilla melting moments, for the tricky days

Some days are not good days. Or at least, they start out as good days, but go downhill so suddenly and dramatically that you don't quite know how you got from the start to the middle to the end.

I'm sure you know what I mean. Such is the nature of life, and sometimes the nature of my job, and I am not alone in that. On those days, sometimes the best thing to do is to put one foot in front of the other until you get to the other side.

I am posting these biscuits today because they are the cooking equivalent of climbing into bed, pulling the covers over your head, and shutting out the world around you.

I didn't make them for that purpose, mind you. I actually made them for Valentine's Day, which is a rather more upbeat affair. However, I am sure biscuits can have multiple roles. These are perfect for expressing love, or for metaphorically retreating under the covers, and if you are having a difficult romantic moment they may even be perfect for both.

I adapted these from a Taste.com.au recipe for ginger and vanilla cream hearts. The recipe barely needed veganising, with the only substitution being to use Nuttelex (non-dairy spread) instead of butter. I also used slightly more flour than the original recipe called for, because I found the mix too moist to begin with. Lastly, I made some heart-shaped melting moments and some regular-shaped ones.

These aren't really my sort of biscuits, but that is fitting given I made them for Mr Bite. I did like the use of custard powder in the mix, just because it is a new way of baking for me, and I liked that they were egg free. Mr B indicated that the biscuits were good enough to stand alone with no filling, and also enjoyed them filled, so I am calling that an endorsement from him.

Ginger and vanilla melting moments

Vegan.

Makes 1 batch, with the precise number of biscuits depending on how large you make yours.

Lightly adapted from the Taste.com.au recipe that can be found here.

Print recipe

Ingredients

Biscuits

180g non-dairy spread (I used Nuttelex)

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup icing sugar

1 2/3 cups plain flour

1/3 cup custard powder

2 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp baking powder

Ginger-vanilla filling

100g non-dairy spread (I used Nuttelex)

1 cup icing sugar

2 tsp lemon juice

2 tbsp finely chopped crystallised ginger

Method

Biscuits

Beat the 180g non-dairy spread, vanilla and 1/2 cup icing sugar together in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Add the flour, custard powder, ground ginger and baking powder. Beat on low speed to combine.

Roll the dough into a ball and cover in plastic wrap. Place in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 180'C and line 2 oven trays with baking paper. When the dough has chilled, roll it out between two sheets of baking paper to approximately 0.5cm thick. Cut out shapes using a heart cutter, or form small balls using your hands. Place on to prepared trays.

If making hearts, prick the outside edges with a fork to form a dotted pattern. If making small balls, use the back of a fork to press the top of each ball.

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until golden. Allow to cool on the tray for a further 5 - 10 minutes; biscuits will set further on cooling. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Filling

When the biscuits are cool, beat all filling ingredients together and then spread between two biscuits. Allow to chill in the fridge for approximately 1 hour before serving. I had filling leftover.

What do you like to make / cook / do when your days are sub-optimal?

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Christmas food ideas 2012: Vegan strawberry and white chocolate cookies, and cranberry and dark chocolate cookies

I know Christmas is tomorrow. You have probably planned your menu, started your preparations, finished your baking, and packaged up edible treats if you are giving any food items as gifts.

Given the above, this is a poorly timed post. However, I only made these biscuits (cookies) yesterday. I wanted them for Christmas, not in advance. I wanted them fresh and chewy and just right to bite into.

I hope you'll forgive me. The plus side is, if you do need a last minute baking idea, these biscuits are pretty wonderful. And if you make them today, they will be fresh and chewy and just right to bite into for you too.

I made these by adapting a recipe for chocolate chip pecan cookies in Kris Holechek's The 100 Best Vegan Baking Recipes. I wanted a festive variation on standard chocolate chip biscuits, and elected to combine dried strawberry pieces with dairy-free white chocolate, and dried cranberries with dairy-free dark chocolate. You could use any variety of chocolate, but I would recommend using larger chunks (by chopping chocolate pieces) instead of chocolate chips. You get more chocolate that way, you see.

Strawberry and white chocolate cookies, and
cranberry and dark chocolate cookies

Soft, chewy, sweet and chocolatey - with two flavour variations

Adapted from a recipe in Kris Holechek's The 100 Best Vegan Baking Recipes

Makes about 30 cookies in total (15 of each variety)

Vegan

Print recipe

Ingredients

1 cup non-dairy spread, loosely packed (I used Nuttelex)

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 tsp cornstarch

2 tbsp non-dairy milk (I used unsweetened almond)

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups plain flour

1 tsp baking soda

Decent pinch salt

1/4 cup roughly chopped dairy-free white chocolate (~50g; I used the Sweet Williams brand)

1/4 cup roughly chopped dried strawberry pieces

1/4 cup roughly chopped dairy-free dark chocolate (~50g; I used dark chocolate medallions)

1/4 cup dried cranberries

Method

Preheat your oven to 180'C (350'F) and line three baking trays with baking paper.

In a large bowl, beat together the non-dairy spread and sugars until light and fluffy. Add the cornstarch, milk and vanilla and beat briefly to combine.

Add the flour, baking soda and salt to the butter/sugar mix and stir through, mixing well to combine. Divide the mixture evenly into two bowls.

To one bowl, add the white chocolate pieces and dried strawberry pieces. Mix through. 

To the second bowl, add the dark chocolate pieces and cranberries. Mix through.

Using your hands or a spoon, create heaped tablespoon sized balls of dough and place on the baking sheets, about 2 inches apart.

Bake for 8 - 10 minutes, until cookies are golden at the edges but still soft in the centre (they will harden on standing). Allow to cool on the baking trays for 5 minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack.

I will be taking these with me to our Christmas day celebrations tomorrow, but have already taste tested several. As I am not usually a big cookie / biscuit fan (I like them, but don't love them), it is noteworthy that I struggled to stop my taste testing and put the rest away for sharing. I really, really liked them. Mr Bite has only tried the white chocolate variety at this point, but has already declared them the best cookies ever.

As this is my last post ahead of Christmas day, I would also like to wish all of you a very merry Christmas if you celebrate it, and a very happy and safe holiday season even if you don't. May you have good food and good company, wherever you are.

Happy Christmas!

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Product reviews: Moccona vanilla coffee, Ouma muesli rusks, Woolworths curried pumpkin & corn balls, and Sanitarium unsweetened almond milk

I am pleased to say that, as of yesterday, I have finished work for 2012. One of the advantages of my workplace is that we don't get Western Australian public holidays off during the year (which doesn't always feel like an advantage...) but then get those days off in lieu between Christmas and New Year. Generally we get a bonus day or two as well, to allow everything to shut down for at least 10 days over the Christmas period. Although Christmas Eve isn't usually included in this holiday stretch, it has been made a holiday this year because it falls on a Monday. I think this is brilliant.

Last week was a bit frantic as I rushed to finish everything I wanted to before Friday, but having ticked of most of my To Do list (the remainders can be done over the break with minimal effort), I am feeling like a child on summer holidays. My plans for the break involve lots of reading, sorting wedding and honeymoon photos into albums (we have the photos and the albums, but they are not yet in unison), 'big task' cleaning (windows, blinds, scrubbing grout), a few days out of Perth with Mr Bite and his family, and some time with friends. I think the 10 days will fill themselves up with no trouble.

I am looking forward to getting to these...

Despite my holiday mood, I am veering off Christmas for today's post. Product reviews feel slightly out of place at this point in the year, but they are starting to build up. What is more, all of today's products are ones that I have enjoyed trying. I am hoping they might appeal to some of you too.

Moccona vanilla infused coffee

To start at the simple end, there isn't a lot I need to say about Moccona's new flavoured coffee range, other than that it is good. In addition to vanilla, there are hazelnut and caramel flavours which I intend to try in due course. I have been enjoying the vanilla variety as a slightly sweeter alternative to regular coffee,  and I like it very much.

And that is all I have to say on that.

Ouma muesli beskuits (muesli biscuit rusks)

One of our local Woolworths supermarkets has recently added a South African food section to their store. I was interested to see the new range of foods in general, and intrigued by these rusk biscuits in particular. 

The rusks have a simple, vegan-friendly ingredient list, including wheat flour, muesli, sugar, vegetable fat, and baking powder. They are quite dense and one rusk is equivalent to two plain biscuits in nutritional value, but I found them extremely enjoyable with a cup of tea.

They are definitely a product for dunking in your tea (or any hot drink), and if you are someone who likes to dunk, I think you may well enjoy these. Since buying this first box, I have finished it, bought a second, and finished that too! I am definitely a biscuit dunker, and I definitely like these.

Woolworth's Macro vegetarian curried pumpkin and corn balls

One of the major frustrations in my life at the moment is the trend for Australia's two main supermarkets, Coles and Woolworths, to drop independent brands in order to stock their own in-house range. Thus, I feel hypocritical even reviewing these new vegetarian balls from Woolworths. I should really have boycotted them in protest, but instead negotiated with myself to buy them as well as the other (non-Woolworths) brands I usually buy.

Conscience aside, I liked these balls. I liked their taste, I liked their texture, and I liked that they could be microwaved and ready to eat in one minute.

Their ingredient list includes chickpeas (at 62%), pumpkin (29%), corn (9%), and various spices including paprika, cumin, garlic, parsley, and curry powder. They were reminiscent of falafel, and just spicy enough to provide a flavour kick without being so spicy you need to worry about serving them to children, husbands, or guests with unknown taste buds. Nutritionally they are comparable to many veggie burgers: five small balls provide 150 calories, 6.4g fat and 3.9g protein. I would like more protein, but that is something that characterises many vegetarian products.

There are a number of other products in Woolworths new vegetarian range, so I may get to some of them in due course too (conscience permitting). For now, I have enjoyed these balls plain, in rolls / English muffins, and with salad.

Sanitarium unsweetened almond milk

Australia is starting to have quite a collection of almond milk options. I have been enjoying unsweetened almond milk from Almond Breeze since it appeared in April this year. When Sanitarium released an unsweetened option of their own, I thought I should give it a try.

Nutritionally, this is almost identical to the Almond Breeze variety. Both are supplemented with calcium (Almond Breeze provides slightly more) and both have negligible protein. However, I liked the taste of this far less than the Almond Breeze equivalent. I am not sure why, given how similar the ingredient lists are, but it tasted chalkier and generally less appealing. 

I have added the nutritional information for this to my spreadsheet comparing different non-dairy milks. For now, I will be sticking with Almond Breeze, but am still grateful to Sanitarium for broadening their milk options. It's a nice trend in the market.

So there we have it - four new (to me) products. Have you tried any? Would you like to?

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Vegan English baking: Fruit digestive biscuits (cookies)

It seems that I have spoken about fruit digestive biscuits a few times on this blog. When I took part in Kate's listography of top 5 biscuits, regular and fruit digestive biscuits made my list. That post also sparked some interesting comments about differences between Australia biscuits and American cookies, and allowed me to conclude that digestive biscuits are like American Graham crackers but softer and perhaps a little sweeter. More recently, I showed yoghurt-coated fruit digestives from Spain, a little more exotic than the regular fruit variety but still true to the original digestive biscuit base.

Given the above, it is surprising that I have never tried to make digestive biscuits before. I genuinely grieved when fruit Granita biscuits, Australia's closest option to fruit digestives, disappeared from the Arnott's range some years ago. Digestives aren't a complicated biscuit and they don't even need veganising, with the standard McVitie's version being dairy and egg free.

For those of you who aren't familiar with digestives, they are one of the more popular biscuits (cookies) in Britain and are a soft-ish biscuit that is perfect for dunking in tea. They are made from brown wheat flour, which gives a distinctive taste, and are slightly but not very sweet.

Digestives have reportedly been around since 1839, when they were developed by Alexander Grant, a worker at McVitie's. At that time they were called "homewheat" biscuits because McVitie's used British rather than imported wheat. The change in name to "digestive" biscuits stems from the use of baking soda in original recipes, which was seen as an aid to digestion at the time. Chocolate-coated digestives were created in 1925, and these days the flavour options are extensive, including milk and dark chocolate as well as dark chocolate caramel 

McVitie's is the best known brand of digestive, and so it was with considerable surprise that I found the British McVitie's website to be lacking in fruit digestive biscuits! I am still perplexed by this discovery and wish that I had checked biscuit aisles more carefully when we were in England. McVitie's do list a fruit shortcake, and other English brands make fruit digestives, but I fear that McVitie's has dropped a little in my view with their omission of the fruit digestive from their range.

McVitie's regular digestive biscuits, and my fruit digestive biscuits

Today, of course, is about making fruit digestives and not about McVitie's biscuits per se. I was interested to see that most online recipes for digestive biscuits list butter and milk in the ingredient list, and often oats, despite those being missing from the ingredient lists of commercial versions. I decided to be guided by the McVitie's packet, and my version below thus omits milk and uses vegetable oil rather than non-dairy spread.

I used currants as the only fruit addition, but you could be more adventurous and use other dried fruit if desired. I also decided against using other flavourings like vanilla or mixed spice, although I think both would work. Perhaps next time I will branch out a little more, but for this recipe I thought simple would be best.

Fruit digestive biscuits

Adapted from a recipe for 'Close to McVitie's Digestive Biscuits'

Vegan

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Ingredients

1 cup wholemeal flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

4 tbsp brown sugar

4 tbsp vegetable oil

2 tbsp water

1/4 cup currants (small raisins)

Method

Preheat your oven to 190'C (375'F) and line two baking trays with baking paper.

Combine the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and brown sugar in a mixing bowl. Add the oil and water and mix to combine. Add the currants and knead to create a thick, smooth dough.

Roll out the dough on a floured surface, to about 0.5cm thickness. Cut into circles using a cookie cutter or round glass. Bake on the prepared trays for 14 - 16 minutes or until golden brown; allow to cool on the trays before storing.

When I first tried these, I made sure to eat them without eating a commercial digestive biscuit first. When consumed this way, on their own terms, the biscuits are thoroughly enjoyable. They are just sweet enough, with plenty of currants to balance out the wheat biscuit; are soft enough to bite into smoothly but crisp enough to break evenly in two; and work well when dunked into a cup of tea (a crucial part of performance!). Mr Bite declared them to be very similar to 'true' digestives.

Sadly, though, when I subsequently bit into a regular McVitie's digestive biscuit, I realised that my version was missing the distinct, characteristic digestive taste. McVitie's are a little maltier, a little wheatier, they have a little more something that is missing from this version.

I suppose I shall just have to make these again, and again, until I hit upon that something. Fortunately, I don't think I'll mind that process at all.

Are you a digestive biscuit fan? What about fruit-based versions?

This post is part of my Vegan Month of Food contributions for October 2012. 

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Purple carrot wins, and losses

Johanna should have a prize for her smoothie ingredient guess of roast carrots.

The ingredient list didn't include roast carrots, but it did include purple carrots.

Unfortunately, though, the story of this smoothie is a sad one.

You know those times when kitchen creation is driven purely by imagination? By an idea that sticks in your mind, an ingredient list that wafts to you, and a method that just comes together seemlessly?

Those kitchen moments can be magical.

But here's the thing. The magic is a bit dependent on the resulting product/s turning out. Otherwise it's somewhat of a let down - you have a delicious dish in your imagination, but not in front of you.

No one wants that.

For several weeks, I have been thinking about making soft carrot cake biscuits (cookies). Not just any carrot cake biscuits, though, but purple carrot cake biscuits.

I had such grand plans for them. They were to be beautifully purple, slightly sweet, suitable for breakfast or snack time, and firm and chewy all at the same time.

The ingredient list came to me in stages, as is right and proper for imagination-based cooking. It included coconut flour. Oats. Puffed millet. Chia. Purple carrots, of course. Pineapple juice and some crushed pineapple, almond milk, vanilla, mixed spice, agave, baking soda.

The mixture was dazzling in its purple-ness.

 The pre-baked biscuits were a bit odd, but still held promise.

But then.

This happened.

I know. I'm laughing too. Green purple cookies did not enter my imagination.

Worse than the colour (which could be viewed as odd but interesting) was the texture. Rather than firm and chewy, I had something that was both crumbly and too moist. Who knew that could happen?

In hindsight, making up a recipe and playing with a new flour (coconut flour) may not have been the wisest combination.

The taste also fell short of my dreams. These biscuits were edible but they weren't quite sweet enough, and they sat at the intersection between savoury and sweet in an unappealing kind of way.

I guess magic can't happen every time. Lesson learnt: never count your biscuits before they're baked.

On the plus side, the leftover purple carrot gave me a great smoothie, and my imagination has something to keep pondering. I also had some purple carrot success (thank goodness!) when I adapted Min's recipe for carrot, nut and date balls.

I followed Min's recipe closely but used one small orange carrot and one small purple carrot, instead of one medium orange carrot; added a couple of extra dates (14-15 instead of 12); omitted the coconut oil; and added a few tablespoons of oats.

Thankfully, the outcome was good enough to go some way to reducing the biscuit disappointment. These balls were enjoyable from the fridge and even better from the freezer, and I will definitely be making them again.

The biscuits, on the other hand...not to be repeated in a hurry.

Any recent flops in your kitchen?!

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