Recipe: Peanut Butter Cookies

Preparation time - two hours
Cooking time - 10 minutes

This recipe makes about 20 tender cookies.

Ingredients for vegan peanut butter cookies

• ¾ of a cup of unrefined brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons of maple syrup
• ½ a cup of peanut butter
• ¼ a cup of sunflower oil or any other oil without a strong flavour
• ¼ a cup of softened vegan buttery spread - I used 'Pure' sunflower spread
• ⅓ of a cup of apple sauce
• 1¼ cups of flour blend - I used a flour that was made of a blend of four different types of flour
• ¾ of a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
• ½ a teaspoon of baking powder
• ¼ of a teaspoon of salt

How to make vegan peanut butter cookies 

1. Mix the sugar, peanut butter, apple sauce, oil and maple syrup in a large bowl
2. Stir in all the other ingredients
3. Cover this with cling film and put it in the refrigerator for about 2 hours or until firm
4. Heat the oven to 190 Celsius
5. Shape the dough into one inch balls
6. Place them on greaseproof paper
7. Keep them about 3 inches apart as they expand a fair bit
8. Use a fork dipped in sugar to flatten and create a criss-cross pattern on top of each cookie
9. Bake for about ten minutes OR until they become a light golden brown
10. Let them cool for ten minutes before you move them or they will break
11. After ten minutes, move them onto a wire rack to cool
12. Enjoy! :)

Please note that the original recipe is American. Thus the names of various ingredients are slightly different. I've amended these, where necessary, and listed them by the name that they are known by in England. 

Adapted from the pretty bee 

Recipe: Thumbprint Cookies within 40 minutes

Of the four items I baked, these cookies were the quickest and easiest to make. I didn't get bored of eating them either! They were crunchy, savoury yet sweet and simply morish!

This recipe makes about 24 cookies.

Ingredients for vegan thumbprint cookies

• 1 cup of ground almonds
• 1 cup of brown rice flour
• 1 ½ cups of raw whole almonds - crushed in a food processor
• ½ teaspoon of salt
• 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
• ½ cup of coconut oil
• ½ cup of maple syrup
• Jam

How to make vegan thumbprint cookies 

1. Preheat the oven to 176 degrees
2. Combine all the ingredients (except the jam) in a large bowl
3. Create tablespoon-sized balls with the mix
4. Space them evenly on a baking tray, which has been lined with greaseproof paper
5. They don't expand much so you don't need to leave lots of space around them - about 2 centimetres is fine
6. Use your thumb to make an indentation into each cookie
7. Bake until the cookies are evenly browned - this will take about 20 minutes
8. Let the cookies cool
9. Add some jam and enjoy immediately

If you have added the jam and want to eat them later, put them in a container in the fridge. If you are going to add the jam just before eating, keeping them out (room temperature) is fine.

Please note that the original recipe is American. Thus the names of various ingredients are slightly different. I've amended these, where necessary, and listed them by the name that they are known by in England. 

Adapted from passports & pancakes

Recipe: Linzer cookies

I've been wanting to bake something for ages but for one reason or another it hadn't happened. So guess what I did? I made four different items in one day and they were all delicious! I'll post recipes for all of them over the next month. :)

Preparation time - about half an hour Cooking time including refreezing the mix - about half an hour This recipe makes about ten cookies

Ingredients for vegan Linzer cookies

• ⅔ of a cup of finely ground almonds
• ⅓ of a cup of coconut flour
• ¼ teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
• ¼ teaspoon of Himalayan rock salt
• ⅓ of a cup of coconut oil at room temperature
• ¼ of a cup of Golden Syrup 
• 1 tablespoon of pure vanilla extract
• Jam - I used raspberry jam

How to make vegan Linzer cookies 

1. Sift the ground almond, coconut flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt in a large bowl
2. Leave this flour mix on the side
3. In a smaller bowl, mix the coconut oil, Golden Syrup and vanilla extract with a blender until it has combined
4. Add the wet ingredients to the flour mix and use a blender to incorporated it
5. Put the dough in the middle of a large piece of greaseproof paper and then cover it with another sheet of the same
6. Place your rolling pin on top of the top sheet and roll the dough to ⅛ of an inch thick
7. Put it in the freezer for 30 minutes
8. Preheat the oven to 180 Celsius
9. Get your baking tray ready by lining it with greaseproof paper
10. Remove the dough from freezer and use a special cookie cutter set or do what I did and find something to cut the cookie into the shape you want (I used a glass bowl to create round shapes in the dough and then I used a knife to cut a square out of the top cookie) - here's where you have to concentrate a bit -
    • You need to make sure that create the cookies in pairs so that they form the top and bottom of the cookie
    • The bottom will be a complete cookie
    • The top will need a hole cut out of it for the jam to peep through
    • You won't be able to make all the cookies in one go because the dough gets sticky very quickly so be prepared to make about 4 at a time
    • When it gets sticky, put it in the middle of the greaseproof paper again, put another sheet on top and roll it again
    • It only needs to be in the freezer for about 3 minutes
11. When the oven is ready and you've created the shapes in your dough, cutting holes in half of them; put them in the oven for about 5 minutes or less - the cookies should have lightly golden edges
12. Let them cool on the baking tray for 2 minutes before transferring them elsewhere to cool otherwise they will break
13. Keep repeating these steps with the remaining dough and keep freezing it for a couple of minutes in between batches
14. I added the cut outs to the dough and re-used them
15. When they have completely cooled, put 1 teaspoon of jam on the top of the complete cookie and then put the top layer (with the hole in it) on top

This recipe required a lot of effort, but it was worth it!

Please note that the original recipe is American. Thus the names of various ingredients are slightly different. I've amended these, where necessary, and listed them by the name that they are known by in England. 

Adapted from Healthful Pursuit

Recipe: A quick, crispy, sweet, cooling dessert within 2 minutes

This dessert takes two minutes to make but you can devour it for much longer.

This recipe serves 1.

Ingredients for a vegan, sweet and crispy dessert

• 2 scoops of Swedish Glace Smooth Vanilla flavoured iced non dairy dessert
• 3 tablespoons of a sweet, crunchy vegan cereal - we used Sainsbury's Pecan and Maple Crisp

How to make a vegan, sweet and crispy dessert

1. Put 1 scoop of ice-cream in a glass/bowl
2. Add the cereal
3. Add the remaining scoop of ice-cream
4. Enjoy :)

Kizzy's cookies

Below, you'll hear from from Kezia. She is the founder and force behind Kizzy's Cookies. 

Kizzy's cookies

Having a seriously sweet tooth means I’m always on the look out for delicious vegan treats. But I could never quite find the indulgent, chewy cookie of my dreams.

So I made it my mission to combine my passion for cooking with my love of veganism and create the perfect vegan cookie. After much adapting, tweaking and finely tuning the recipe, Kizzy's Cookies was born!

With animal welfare and educating people about veganism at the heart of what I do, I'm eager to share my passion for tasty vegan treats with the world.

Starting right here in the UK, where they are already available in two London shops, (Oliver's Whole Foods in Kew and Black Cat Cafe in Hackney) and with more business meetings lined up, I have an ambition to get Kizzy’s Cookies into Whole Foods, Waitrose, Sainsbury's and eventually the US.

For those of you who do not wish to support companies that are owned or in partnership with those that test on animals or sell non-vegan products; you can feel assured that Kizzy's Cookies doesn't tick that box. I'm not owned by, or in partnership with, companies that test on animals or sell non-vegan products.

Look out for me on the Kizzy’s Cookies stall at the London Vegan Fair in August.

I want to change the way the world feels about vegan food one cookie at a time.

image (1)

Recipe: Blackberryblue with Baked Apples and Raisins

This is a great winter recipe! It's super simple, delicious and almost completely comprised of fruit!

Ingredients for vegan blackberryblue with baked apples and raisins 

• 250ml of Blackberryblue
• 3 apples
• Handful of raisins
• Squeeze of agave syrup
• Sprinkle of cinnamon (optional)

How to make vegan blackberryblue with baked apples and raisins

1. Simply grab a few apples, splash with water and put them in the oven for around 20 minutes - the water stops them drying out
2. Once your apples are looking nicely golden brown take them out of the oven and chop in half
3. Scoop some Backberryblue on top of the apples
4. Sprinkle on the raisins
5. Squeeze some agave syrup on top
6. If you like cinnamon, sprinkle some on top

Recipe and photo courtesy of Michael and Victoria