The Ordinary Vegan - Fox's Party Rings

Fox's have reformulated their Party Rings recipe to get rid of the animal products and animal-derived colourants and they are now completely animal-free! Yay!

These Party Rings Minis bags are on offer at B&M Bargains at the moment for 89p. The new packets are labelled as suitable for vegetarians on the front and back. There may be old stock in some shops which are not suitable so please check the packets before you buy. 

I contacted the company to check the vegan status of the products and they assured me there are no animal-derived ingredients, however they do manufacture biscuits which contain dairy at the same facility so they would not label them as vegan due to cross contamination/allergy risks.

Enjoy reliving your youth!

Big Vegan Love,

VVx

Vegan Recipe of the Week- Shortbread

I love shortbread, it is so easy to make and you can use it as a base for lots of variations.

Here is my recipe:

125g Hard Stork in the foil packet
60g Caster Sugar
180g Plain Flour
1 Tbsp Vanilla Extract
pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 170C fan/190C conventional.

Cream together the sugar, vanilla and margarine until smooth, then sieve the flour into the creamed mixture, add the salt and work together until in forms a soft dough.

Roll the dough out until it is around 1/2 inch thick and cut into fingers, circles, stars, hearts or whatever you like. Sprinkle with caster sugar and prick with a fork.

Chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Bake in the oven for around 16-18 minutes until golden brown and then transfer onto a cooling rack.

Variations on the recipe include adding dark chocolate chips into the dough before rolling, adding chopped cherries or raisins to the dough before rolling or after baking drizzle with lemon or vanilla glace icing.

Eat and Enjoy!

VVx

Vegan Recipe of the Week - Mandarin Cheesecake

This week's recipe is perfect for a dinner party. You can make these the night before or in the morning and just decorate them before your guests arrive. 

Serves 4

Ingredients:

For the Base:

8 digestive biscuits

55g vegan butter - I used hard Stork

1 Tbsp golden syrup

For the Filling:

100g icing sugar

1 tub Tofutti Cream Cheese - plain

1 small orange/tangerine

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 Tbsp corn flour

1 Tbsp coconut oil

1 Tbsp almond milk

For the topping:

1 small tin of mandarins in juice, drained

Method:

Take the digestive biscuits, break them into quarters and put them into a food processor.

Pulse for around 20-30 seconds until crumbs.

Pour the biscuit crumbs into a mixing bowl.

Next, take the butter and golden syrup and warm over a low heat in a saucepan. Stir until melted and combined.

Pour the melted butter mixture into the mixing bowl with your digestive crumbs and stir to combine all of the mixture.

Take four deep ramekins and divide the mixture evenly between them. Press down with the back of a teaspoon until the mixture is firmly packed into the bottom of each dish.

Place the ramekins into the fridge for half an hour.

In a mixer bowl, place the icing sugar, vegan cream cheese, the zest and juice of a small orange, the vanilla extract, corn flour and almond milk. Warm up the coconut oil in a saucepan until liquid and add to the bowl. Starting off slowly with the whisk attachment, whisk the ingredients together until they are fully combined and a thick paste consistency.

Spoon the mixture into your chilled ramekins on top of your biscuit base. Smooth over the top and chill in the fridge for 5-8 hours or overnight.

Once chilled and set, remove the cheesecakes from the fridge and drain a small tin of mandarins.

Lay the mandarins on top of each cheesecake in an overlapping circle with a small mandarin piece in the centre.

Eat straight away or return to the fridge until ready to eat.

Eat and enjoy!

If you enjoyed this recipe, please share it with your friends and comment below. Click here to see more of my recipes.

Big Vegan Love,

VVx

The Ordinary Vegan - Lotus Biscuits and Spread

You may be familiar with Lotus Biscuits as the single or double portion packs you receive free with a coffee in a cafe or left on your tea tray in a hotel. The good news is that they are vegan and labelled so on the packets and on their website. They are delicious crunchy caramelised biscuits which go perfect with coffee. You can buy the large packet pictured above in most supermarkets and more recently, selected stores have started selling the Lotus Spread too.

The spread, which is sold under the name Speculoos on the continent, and as Caramelised Biscuit Spread in the UK, is a smooth spreadable paste version of the biscuit, great for use in baking, spreading on bagels, crusty bread and toast or dipping bananas in. It is very sweet and I can only eat a little at a time, but as a treat it is lovely, and adds a great flavour to cupcakes, flapjacks and frosting.

What are your favourite vegan biscuits? Share in the comments below.

Come back tomorrow for a brand new Vegan Recipe of the Week.

Big Vegan Love,

VVx

Vegan Recipe of the Week - Ginger Snaps

This week I am going to share my Ginger Snaps recipe which I mentioned in my blog post last week on the UK Vegan Food Swap as I included some in the parcel I sent out. These are perfect for Autumn evenings, spicy and warming, sweet and delicious (a bit like me! ;-))

Ingredients:

120g Self raising flour, sifted

60g Vegan butter - I used Stork (foil packet)

75g Caster sugar

1 tsp Bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp Ground ginger

1 tsp Vanilla bean paste

0.5 tsp Nutmeg

1 tbsp Golden Syrup, I used Maple flavour.

Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan.

Put all of the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl and stir to combine.

Melt all of the wet ingredients together in a small saucepan over a low heat - vanilla bean paste, butter and syrup and stir to combine.

Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour the melted mixture into the well, then mix together to form a dough.

Line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper and taking small pieces of the dough, roll them in your hand to form a ball and place them on the baking sheet, spaced apart.

Once you have 12 dough balls, squash them flat with the back of a spoon.

Bake in the preheated oven on the middle shelf for 10-12 minutes.

Take the tray out of the oven and leave it for 5 minutes.

Then place the biscuits on a cooling rack for 20 minutes until cool.

Eat and enjoy! Let me know what yours turned out like in the comments below!

Come back next week for another yummy vegan recipe and don't forget to check out the 'Recipes' tab at the top of the page for all of the previous recipes in one handy place!

Big Vegan Love,

VVx