Adaption of the Chocolate Loaf

I hate to be cynical; but it always seems like when you're looking for something you can't find it. But then when you're not, every door is open to you. When I became vegan for a few months, I could hardly find anything that would fill the sweet hole beyond fruit and Alpro Soya yogurt. The choices were very limited and I was hard-pressed to get a good baking recipe - even on sites that specialised in vegan baking.

Recently, I was searching for fitness tips and stumbled across 2 vegan baking recipes on FitSugar. The vegan no-bake brownies that I made (and that are listed under the 'recipe' section) were very nice. They lacked the gooey fudge texture of normal egg crammed, butter filled brownies but nonetheless calm the angry cravings of a sugar-deprived stomach. Essentially, they tasted vegan. 

The bet recipe I tried was sold to me as: "Zucchini bread that tastes like brownies". I had to give it a go. And, it was delightful. Even the raw batter tasted like real brownies. It was so chocolatey and fudge-like that I could instantly tell it would be a winner. When it was baking, it smelled divine and when I took it out I could finally say that I'd made something vegan that tasted 'normal'. It has quite a crumbly texture but it's not at all dry: a lovely treat for a Saturday evening! 

I had initially intended to make these into muffins by the mixture was incredibly sticky and formed a ball which I didn't want to break up. Beside, for the first try, which is always my mistake, I ought to stick to the original recipe. 

However, I did make a slight change. I am not a particular fan of dried cranberries so I substituted half of the required quantity for glacé cherries which are one of my favourite baking ingredients!!

(Vegan) Chocolate and 'Cranberry' Zucchini Loaf 

(Taken from www.fitsugar.com) 

NOTE ON THE RECIPE: This is an American recipe and so measurements are in cups. If you have cup measures then I always find that American recipes are a lot easier because they save you the hassle of measuring ingredients with scales. However, I have written the equivalent measure in grams alongside the initial measure for ease of access. 

Preheat oven to 190 degrees C

1. Grate 225g courgette (zucchini) thinly and place in a bowl. Place to one side
2. In a separate bowl, mix 120g wholemeal flour, 60g cocoa powder (unsweetened), 1 tsp and 1/4 of baking powder, a pinch of salt, 1/2 tsp cinnamon and 1/4 tsp mixed spice. Place this to one side
3. In a large bowl, Mash 1 ripe banana and stir in 110g caster sugar, 125ml canola oil and 1 tsp vanilla extract
4. Pour the shredded courgette into the above mixture and stir until combined
5. Stir in all of the dry ingredients
6. Add to the bowl 60g of dried cranberries or glace cherries
7. Line a small loaf tin with baking parchment, pour in the batter and bake for 45 minutes (The cake should be soft to the touch and cooked on top. Insert a skewer into the middle to ensure it is fully cooked)

mmmm...appetizing!!! 

Summer Strawberry Roulade

Time is this amazing concept that we don't, and can't, get enough of. Like all great things it has an end (for us at least). 'Our time' is defined by the period of, perhaps infinite, number of seconds that our heart beats but to what rhythm your heart beats really is up to you.

It is strange that all I needed was time again to rediscover the things that I love to do. At uni, there is so much going on. Lectures, essays, work, reading, secondary reading, meeting up with friends, seeing family, sports, gym, extra curricular activities, going out. There's so much going on that your free time becomes a muddle. 

Every spare moment I had would be spent watching Tv. I just wanted to curl up in bed with some chocolate and watch films, or Sherlock. But that's not what I would normally do. I don't like to watch too much TV because, when I have those 'life evaluation' moments, I feel like I've wasted so much time, essentially looking at a screen and blinking. 

It took me having so much free time to understand how much I had missed baking. Now I've taken care of the extra bits I wanted to do with my blog, sorted some other things out, found time to visit some people, I've found that I now need my time to bake. That, and time to read. 

When I first arrived in Dubai this summer, mum pointed to the 'baking cupboard' and said: 

"We need to use that up." 

Most of the ingredients we use for baking, have been left dormant, waiting mainly for my return to be turned into some culinary delights. But every time I've been lazy and only now are they being showcased. 

So today, I rustled up a low fat favourite. This is also a super easy recipe and perfect for any tight students pocket. Naming no names *ahem*! Anyway, the recipe ... 

Strawberry Roulade

I was looking for something low in fat, something to use up the strawberries and something which I could put a twist on. 

So I've swapped the vanilla in this recipe for almonds and made the sponge using brown, instead of plain, flour. Feel free to swap my alterations for the original ingredients but I feel like you should give the almond essence a whirl!

PRE-HEAT OVEN TO 200 DEGREES C

1) Beat 3 eggs into 85g caster sugar with an electric whisk for about 5 mins.

What you want from this mixture is to lose the orange colouring in favour of a pale and 'bubbly' texture. The amount of mixture should almost double by whisking for this amount of time. 

From this ...

To this ...

2) Now, FOLD in 85g brown flour into the mixture with 1 teaspoon of baking powder and 1 teaspoon of almond essence. 

3) Line a Swiss roll tin (which is a shallow and flat tin) with grease proof paper and pour the batter onto it, spreading into an even layer but taking care not to remove the air. 

4) Bake for 15 minutes

5) When the cake is golden and springy to the touch, remove from the oven. 

6) Immediately roll out a length of great proof paper the same length as the cake itself. 

7) Dust with 1 tablespoon of caster sugar (N.B. I used 0 calorie sugar - if it was indeed 0 calories, which I doubt - to try to save on calories here.)

8) Put the cake face down onto the sugared paper and peel of the original grease proof paper. 

9) With a small knife, score the cake about 1cm from the edge of each side. (Explaining this is where English fails me. Basically what you want to do is drag your knife in a rectangle along the outside of the cake as though your drawing a frame - I hope I've explained that clearly enough!!) 

10) Now, carefully and tightly roll the cake over itself (so that you have a spiral shape at each end) wrapping the great proof paper inside the cake - this will prevent the cake walls from sticking to one another as they cool. 

11) Leave to cool. 

12) Prepare the filling by mixing 200g Greek yogurt with 2 tablespoons of icing sugar and a splash of both vanilla and almond extract. Add 2 handfuls of chopped strawberries.

13) Once the cake is cool, unroll it and spread the filling inside. 

14) Now re-roll the cake into the spiral shape, but DON'T include the great proof paper when you roll. 

15) And you should now have what looks like a white "Christmas" log. You can now dust with icing sugar and decorate the lip with strawberries.

I know this just looks awful, but appearance never really was my forte. It couldn't even be fixed with photoshop! But I promise you, the proof is in the eating! I promise!

And you're done. 1 strawberry roulade coming up!! 

Helpful hints: 

Folding:

Folding is the process by which you incorporate the mixture without knocking air out of the mixture. Take a metal spoon and draw it around the circumference of 1/2 the mixing bowl. Once you reach what would be the 6 or 12 o'clock mark on a clock, draw the spoon through the middle. Turn the bowl and complete on the other side.

If you need more help, check out the video below, or send me a message by clicking on the "Contact" page.