This recipe makes around 36 mince pies.
Ingredients
100g 4 oz organic currants
100g 4 oz organic raisins
100g 4 oz organic sultanas
50g 2 oz organic dates
50g 2 oz candied peel
50g 2 oz glacé (natural) organic cherries
50g 2 oz organic flaked almonds
1 ripe banana, peeled
4 tablespoons brandy or whiskey, or fruit juice
1/2 teaspoon each ground ginger, freshly grated nutmeg, ground mixed spice
Organic vegan caster (superfine) sugar, to serve; organic vegan icing sugar to sprinkle
Pastry:
750g 1 1/2 lb plain (all-purpose) organic wholewheat flour
Pinch of salt
350g organic sunflower spread (or vegetable margarine)
6 tablespoons cold water
Instructions:
Make the mincemeat. Mix all of the ingredients apart from the caster sugar into the mixing bowl. Use a food processor to make a finer mincemeat.
Preheat the oven to 200ºC or 400ºF. Grease or flour the muffin tin.
Make the pie pastry. Sift the flour and salt into a clean mixing bowl. Add the sunflower spread and using your fingertips, gently and quickly rub the fat into the flour. The mix is ready when it resembles breadcrumbs.
Pour in the cold water. Press the mix together to form a dough.
Remove from the bowl and place on a floured surface. Roll out fairly thinly. Cut 12 centimeter (4 3/4″) circles and 10 centimeter (4″) circles from the dough with round cutters.
Press a larger circle into the muffin tin. Place a heaped teaspoon of mincemeat into the middle of the pastry. Cover with a smaller circle. Repeat until all circles have been turned into mincemeat pies.
Press fork tines around the edges of each pie to seal closed and stab a fork in the middle. Alternatively, simply pinch the edges together and make one small neat hole in the middle of each.
Place into the preheated oven and bake for around 10 minutes or until the pies start to brown lightly.
Remove from the oven. Place the muffin tin on the cooling rack and leave to cool.
Sprinkle with the sugar. Serve warm or cold.
5 tablespoons sunflower oil, plus extra for greasing
200g dairy-‐free dark chocolate
170 g self-‐raising flour
3 heaped teaspoons cocoa powder
180 g golden caster sugar
sea salt
1 vanilla pod
230 ml unsweetened organic soya milk
200 g pecan nuts
Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF/gas 4.
Grease a square baking tin (roughly 20cm) with a little oil, line with greaseproof paper.
Break 150g of chocolate into a bowl and melt over a pan of boiling water, set aside to cool slightly.
Sieve the flour and cocoa powder into a large bowl, then stir in the sugar and a pinch of salt. Halve the vanilla pod lengthways, scrape out the seeds, then add them to the bowl. Stir in the oil, soya milk and melted chocolate until combined.
Roughly chop and stir in the remaining chocolate and most of the pecans, reserving a few for the top. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin, spreading it out evenly. Sprinkle over the remaining pecans, then place into the hot oven for 20 to 25 minutes, or until cooked on the outside, but still gooey in the middle.
Leave to cool for around 5 minutes, turn out onto a wire cooling rack.
We found increasing the chocolate by 50g, and using coconut/rice milk instead of soya (so reducing the sugar) made these even more choclatey and gooey! You can also play around with your types of nuts. Eat these warm (with vegan icecream melting over the top), or cold (goes well with a good cup of coffee!)
120g organic unbleached white flour
140g organic spelt flour
1 tsp bicarb soda
1½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
200g organic unrefined sugar
1 tsp cinnamon (optional)_
180 ml vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
60g vegan dark chocolate roughly chopped
Handful of raisins
Handful of brazil nuts roughly chopped
30 ml water
Pre heat oven to 180 / gas mark 4
Put white flour, spelt flour, bicarb, baking powder, sugar, salt and cinnamon in a bowl.
Blend the oil and vanilla extract in a jug and add to the dry ingredients, stir gently until combined.
Add raisins, chocolate, brazils and water, mix gently and thoroughly – mixture should be clumpy and quite moist.
Using a spoon or just your hands (easier!) make small balls, place onto baking tray and press down gently into fat cookie shapes. Leave at least 5cm gap between cookies as they expand in the oven.
Pop into oven and bake for 10-‐12 mins, rotating the tin once halfway.
Eat and enjoy as soon as they are cool enough.
I have played around with this recipe, you can reduce the sugar by up to 20/30g and substitute with dessicated coconut, cocoa powder or linseed. The flour is flexible too, try different combinations I have used all spelt, or part rye. Other nuts work too -‐ never forget the chocolate though!
Spaghetti (can be substituted for your own Gluten-Free pasta)
Tomato Sauce:
1 can Chopped tomatoes
1 clove Garlic
1 red onion
Salt and pepper to taste
Crunchy Courgette Balls:
2 large courgettes
1 red chilli
Salt and Pepper
Nutritional yeast/Breadcrumbs
Flour (gluten free flour is okay)
Cook the spaghetti as per directions.
To make the tomato sauce:
Slice up the onion and chop garlic. Fry off with a little oil. Then add the chopped tomatoes and warm through. Add salt and pepper to taste. If you like, you can add mixed herbs, smoked paprika or chilli powder to give it a bit more flavor.
To make the crunchy courgette balls:
Grate the courgettes. Put in a sieve and squeeze all of the excess water out. Finely chop the chilli and mix in to grated courgette along with salt and pepper. Form into small balls and coast with a mixture of the flour and breadcrumbs/nutritional yeast. Heat a saucepan of oil/deep fat fryer and cook the balls until brown and crispy on the outside. Serve on top of spaghetti and tomato sauce.