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

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

Vegan Recipe of the Week - Spiced Pear Crumble

Spiced Pear Crumble

A few weeks ago I blogged about my Riverford Organic fruit and veg boxes. In that first fruit box, I had some gorgeous organic pears, so I decided to make a delicious Spiced Pear Crumble - Vegan style of course! Here is my recipe:

Serves 4

Ingredients:

Topping:

225g Plain flour

90g Caster sugar

Pinch of salt

1 tsp powdered ginger

115g vegan butter

Filling:

1 tsp powdered ginger or 2 pieces stem ginger in syrup (finely chopped)

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp vanilla paste

100g soft brown sugar

100ml water

4 large ripe pears, peeled, cored and chopped

Juice and zest of 1 lime

Method:

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/180C fan/Gas 6

Sift the flour into a mixing bowl and add the caster sugar, salt and powdered ginger.

Cut the vegan butter into chunks - a harder butter works well for this like Stork for Pastry in the foil packet - the colder the better. Rub the chunks into the flour mix with your fingertips until you get the texture of fine breadcrumbs. Set aside the bowl for topping your crumble later.

To make the filling, boil the water and brown sugar together and then add the chopped pears to the sugar water and simmer for a few minutes. Add the spices, lime zest and juice to the pear mixture and stir, simmer for another minute. Spoon the mixture into a large ovenproof dish or four small ramekins.

Sprinkle the crumble mixture on top of the fruit and sprinkle with a little cinnamon and brown sugar. 

Bake in the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes until the fruit is cooked and the caramel is bubbling. The topping should be golden on top.

Serve with vegan custard or vanilla vegan ice cream.

Enjoy!

Big Vegan Love,

VVx.