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Treats & Snacks

Black Sesame Brownies with Miso Caramel

This is the next evolutionary step towards happiness.

Black Sesame Brownies & Miso Caramel

I am astonished at the volume of love this recipe can yield, again and again. It does so at a vertiginous rate.

For the brownie bit:

1 block creamed coconut (200g)

230g dark chocolate

3 tablespoons black sesame seeds

180g coconut sugar, light muscovado or rapadura sugar (or up to 220g, if you’re skipping the caramel)

4 eggs

3 tablespoons plant or regular milk

1/2 teaspoon flaky sea salt (way less, if it’s regular salt)

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

For the caramel:

1 cup (150g) regular pitted dates

100g cashew butter (just over 1/3 cup)

3 tablespoons white miso paste (I use Clearspring)

Clock your oven to 200 Celsius, fan-assisted 180.

Start by melting the block of creamed coconut and 200g of the dark chocolate in a bain marie. (This is fancy speak for a pot of gently simmering water, with a shallow bowl on top. Inside the shallow bowl, your chocolate and coconut will slowly melt over the heat of the steaming water. Magic).

Now roast the black sesame seeds on a dry baking tray for 3 minutes. Leave to cool on the tabletop.

Turn down your oven to 160-170 Celsius, 140-150 fan-assisted. Line an 8×10 inch baking tin (this is bigger than the usual square brownie tin, but if that’s all you have, it works too) with non-stick parchment. Set aside.

Seems like a lot of steps. Stick with me!

Beat the sugar and eggs with a metal whisker until frothy. If you have a sonic sweet tooth, you might prefer an extra 20g of sugar. Pour in the melted chocolate and coconut ganache, and keep beating. Roughly chop the remaining 30g of chocolate that you didn’t melt, and add this too.

Now parachute the toasted sesame seeds, sea salt and milk before scraping into the lined tin. Bake for 30 minutes at 160-170 Celsius. Leave to cool, refrigerate, and prostrate. They are significantly nicer when chilled.

For the caramel, cover the dates with a little water and boil in a small saucepan for 10 minutes. Whip in a food processor with the cashew nut butter and miso until smooth and shiny. Allow to cool down before you judge the flavour, because at this stage it won’t taste or smell like caramel. I usually add a little warm water to thin it out.

For maximum effect and pleasure, serve chilled alongside a dirty big wedge of black sesame brownie.

September 2, 2016

Vegan Chai Muffins

Chocolate has a calling like a ultrasonic dog whistle. Only audible to females, of course. Ignoring these soundwave emissions is, in my experience, damaging. The longer the ear-splitting sonar pulse, the sharper the fangs.

That’s why I came up with this vegan muffin recipe. They are criminally healthy, and taste lordly.

Check out these ingredients for superhero points: chickpeas, brown rice, almond milk, psyllium seed husks, extra virgin olive oil, anti-inflammatory chai spices and resveratrol-rich dark choc. Healthy food should never feel penitential. It can and should be delivered with ingredients that taste sensational.

Think of it as alchemy. I’d never eat dark chocolate with a handful of chickpeas and almonds. These muffins exploit each ingredient for their best qualities and textures, then puts them through a time machine. (Eh, the oven). Result? The ingredients are locked into a symbiotic samba.

And because these muffins are vegan, you can swagger into the office on Monday morning and let your colleagues rub your halo.

Chickepa flour and brown rice flour will stuff your battery with much needed B vitamins to spark your ignition and your dimples without damaging blood sugar levels. Something a Yorkie can’t boast. Both flours contain vertiginous amounts of fibre to service your pipes too. Nice one.

Oh and there’s no shame in wanting to straddle a tray of these chocolate chip chai muffins. You’ll soon see why.

You can order both flours, as well any other arcane ingredients on your wish list, online from a range of sources who deliver to Ireland. I like health-hunter.ie, downtoearth.ie and organicsupermarket.ie . Order today straight from your armchair, to your doorstep. Groovy, huh?

Chocolate Chip Chai Muffins

Makes 12 vegans very happy

125ml (1/2 cup) extra virgin olive oil
375ml (1 & 1/2 cups) plant milk
2 tablespoons psyllium husks

130g (3/4 cup) brown rice flour
120g (1 cup) chick pea / gram flour
3 caffeine-free, chai tea bags (we used Pukka)
½ teaspoon sea salt flakes
40g dark chocolate chunks
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
¾ cup coconut sugar or muscavado sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder

Preheat the oven to 190°C/170°C fan/375°F. Line a 12-mould cupcake tin with paper cases.

Let your plant milk, olive oil and psyllium party. Leave aside.

In a large bowl, let the remaining ingredients socialise.

Then combine both bowls and beat. Avoid tasting the batter – wet chickpea flour tastes and smells like cat’s pee. The cooked result is peerless though, so keep going!

Divide the batter between the 12 cupcake cases and bake for 28 minutes. Remove from the oven, turn the muffins out of the tray and let them cool on a wire rack. Prostrate.

These are best within 2 days, but I doubt that’s going to be a burden.

August 5, 2016

Events, Treats & Snacks, x For Freezer x

Kickass 5-Ingredient Cookies

I’m greedy and desperate enough to have alchemised my favourite junk food snack into a nutritional fox trot.

So here it is … an unreasonably tasty cookie that has been shamelessly flirting with me everyday for the past 3 months.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies

Check out this recipe – no hydrogenated fat, white sugar, artificial shite or additives. Just pure, unadulterated goodness with added omega 3 and calcium from some swanky chia.

The best part?

It doesn’t taste “pure” my friends. These cookies are not just for geezers (me) who fetishise loose leaf tea. It’s full on nasty. I’m not interested in sacrificing my taste buds just to put something healthy in my mouth. No thanks. Misery ain’t no ingredient in my pantry.

These are a version of the American Peanut Butter Cookies I have in my second cookbook. #plug . Adding chocolate chips, extra baking powder and chia seed turn them into a very different sonata. Think opera.

Scientists, look away while I mutilate your language: one teaspoon of baking powder will produce a rounder, firmer cookie (see above). Pretty groovy. But then! Two teaspoons of baking powder will significantly inflate the cookies in the oven, making them flatter and significantly chewier once settled (see picture below). It’s science, innit?!

Have a good summer y’all! Let me know how you get along with this recipe – just tag them in your Instagram account and I’ll hunt you down.

Makes 20

3/4 cup good quality peanut butter (200g)
3/4 cup coconut sugar or rapadura sugar (100g)
1-2 teaspoons baking powder (see note above)
2 tablespoons milled chia seed
1 egg
Handful of dark chocolate chunks

Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan/350°F. Line two baking trays with parchment paper.

Blend all the ingredients together in a large bowl with a fork and tenacity. Roll into little ping pong-sized balls, and flatten with the back of a fork or your palm. Not too skinny though – you’re looking for uniformity so each cookie bakes at a similar rate. You can cook one tray, and freeze the remaining dough no problem.

Cook in your preheated oven for 10–12 minutes, before they turn brown or crisp. Don’t panic if they appear soft – you’re on the right track, as they harden and deflate once cooled.

Resist the temptation to wolf them hot from the oven. I’m still nursing my sore tongue.

July 13, 2016

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Treats & Snacks

Black Sesame Brownies with Miso Caramel

Vegan Chai Muffins

Kickass 5-Ingredient Cookies

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