It all started with an innocent attempt at concocting vegan creme eggs for Easter Sunday. Then we had all these veges and I decided that pizza would be a great idea. Then we had a guest with (justafiably) hurt feelings who needed cheering up, so I baked apology biscuits. I think I spent pretty much the whole day cooking.
VEGAN CREME EGGS (SORT OF)
With a lack of egg shaped moulds, and a lack of neutral syrups, these became more like chocolate-covered caramel patties, but they were still delicious and came out really pretty when dressed up with some piped icing. My recipe was based on this one.
Ingredients
1/4 cup barley malt syrup
1/8 cup Olivani
1 tsp vanilla essence (or less depending on strength)
1/8 tsp salt
1.5 cups icing sugar
about 200g dark chocolate
Method
1. Combine the syrup, Olivani, vanilla, and salt in a large bowl. Beat with an electric mixer until smooth.
2. Add powdered sugar, half a cup at a time, mixing by hand after each addition. Mix well until smooth.
3. Cover and refrigerate (or freeze!) until firm, a couple of hours or so
4. Roll balls from the filling (about 12). Place on a greased plate and refrigerate again for a couple of hours.
5. Melt the chocolate with a tsp of oil, and dip centres in chocolate using a fork. Chill for an hour or so and dip again.
The pizzas included a few standard ones with a tomato base, fried capsicum and zucchini, black olives and fried vegetarian sausage chunks.
We also tried to recreate my favourite of Old Corner's vegan pizzas, the felafel pizza. Olive Grove felafel mix makes shit easy. Felafels, fresh tomatoes, thin ribbons of zucchini, and tahini sauce on a tomato base, then topped with extra tahini sauce when out of the oven. Tahini sauce is pretty much just tahini, olive oil, lemon juice, garlic and paprika. Then we made Isa's fabulous romesco pizza, except with big fat juicy black olives instead of caramelised onions.
My favourite pizza base recipe is:
Ingredients
1 Tbsp DA yeast (or 25g fresh yeast)
1.5 cups warm water
3.5 cups flour
1 Tbsp olive oil
pinch salt
Method
1. Dissolve yeast in water and set aside for a few mins.
2. Add to flour in a well. Add olive oil and salt. Draw ingredients together and mix to a dough.
3. Knead on a floured surface till dough stops sticking. Put in a greased bowl (turning dough to coat in oil). Cover and leave to rise in a warm place for 1.5-2 hrs. When doubled, punch down and separate into 3 pieces. Roll out into rounds.
4. Add topping and bake at 250 degrees for 20 mins or so till base is lightly browned.
MELTING MOMENTS
(a Kiwi favourite veganised from here)
Ingredients
125g Olivani
3/4 cup flour
1/4 cup icing sugar
1/3 cup custard powder
60g Olivani
2/3 cup icing sugar
innards of 3-4 passionfruit (for a real passionfruit kick. Can use less).
Method
1. Preheat oven to 160°C. Line an oven tray with baking paper. Use an electric mixer to beat the Olivani until pale and creamy. Add the flour, icing sugar and custard powder and use a wooden spoon to stir to combine.
2. Roll teaspoonfuls of the dough mixture into balls. Lightly flouring your hands can help here. Use a fork dusted in icing sugar to gently flatten. Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes or until just cooked through. Remove from oven and set aside for 30 minutes to cool.
3. Use an electric mixer to beat the extra butter and icing sugar in a bowl until light and fluffy. Add the passionfruit and beat until combined. Spread the butter mixture over the flat side of half the biscuits and sandwich together with remaining biscuits.
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