Basic Belgian Waffles

Today I craved for a decadent breakfast: waffles with strawberries and maple syrup! I have been having this waffle iron sitting here for quite a while and after my first try had been quite disastrous I always hesitated to make waffles again(I have a square, so called Belgian one, but of course you can also use the heart shaped! Just keep in mind that the Belgian waffles are thicker and might need to stay longer in the iron).

Usually I dont like posting recipes which you already can find on several blogs. But somehow most of them did not match my expectations, because I wanted to have a really simple recipe without yeast, apple sauce, bananas, egg replacers, etc. So I came up with this very simple recipe and the waffle came out perfectly!

Ingredients (for 8 single Belgian waffles):

500g plain flour

500ml soy milk

6 Tbs. sugar

3 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

4 Tbs sunflower or canola oil

one dash lemon juice

1 tsp vanilla powder

 

Preparation:

Just toss all the ingredients in a bowl and whisk with an egg beater (do you English speaking vegans really call it that way??).

Then preheat your waffle iron. Most of them will have a light indicating when its ready. Grease the iron and pour about 1 1/2 ladles of the dough onto the iron(depends on your iron and your ladle of course). Don’t pour too much or else it will spill over at the sides. After about 3 minutes, open the iron carefully. If it sticks on the upper part of the iron, remove it carefully with a knife. Avoid this by greasing your iron thoroughly.

Then serve with fresh fruits like strawberries, pureed strawberries, canned cherries, whipped soy cream, maple syrup, chocolate spread, confectioner’s sugar etc.

Or try making a chequerboard like me :

Malaysian Fingerfood: Mock Duck in Pandan Leaves

Here I prepared a very tasty Malaysian dish which is originally made with chicken. In Malaysian supermarkets you can get a vegan version which unfortunately I can’t get here in Germany. So I made my own with mock duck pieces sold in tins in Asian supermarkets (has it’s own Wikipedia article, wow!). Alternatively, you could make your own seitan.

Pandan leaves are widely sold fresh or deepr frozen in Asian supermarkets.

What is important to know for those who don’t know Pandan is that it gives the mock duck pieces a REALLY nice flavour but you should not eat the leaves itself! Just serve it with leaves and let your guests unwrap them.

Ingredients:

one tin mock duck

about 5 Pandan leaves, parted into two

about 10 tooth picks

oil for deep frying

Marinade:

100ml ginger juice( juiced with a juicer or alternatively water mixed with powdered ginger)

2 Tbs soy sauce

1Tbs sugar

1/2 tsp pepper

1Tbs sesame oil

Preparation

Mix the marinade and let the mock duck pieces marinate for at least half an hour. Then take out of the marinade (you could still use the marinade for another dish).

Part bigger pieces and take out tiny pieces which you can just nibble off. Wrap a half of a Pandan leaf around each piece and fixate with a toothpick.There where 10 pieces in the tin I used but it can vary, I guess.

Heat deep frying oil in a wok or use a deep fryer. Deep fry the mock ducks until they turn nicely brown. Transfer to a kitchen tissue to soak excess oil.

Eat as a snack with sweet chilli sauce or serve with rice as part of a dish.

Very creamy White Chocolate-Strawberry Ice Cream

This is by far the best ice cream I made with my ice cream machine. The consistency is unbelievably creamy! You could have eaten the unfrozen ice cream as a kind of dessert cream, as it’s not really liquid. The consistency of the finished ice cream reminded me a bit of “Cornetto” ice cream as it is both kind of frothy and creamy.

I prepared the ice cream with cocoa butter as I bought it in bulk on ebay. You could also do it with ready made vegan white chocolate if it’s easier for you to get. If so, reduce the sugar used in the recipe.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup cocoa butter (or vegan white chocolate)

1 Tbs vanilla powder (you should use one which has real vanilla in it as the small black vanilla dots look quite appealing in ice cream)

3/4 cup sugar

1 tsp soy protein powder (optional, but makes the ice cream alot creamier)

1 pinch of salt

250ml soy or rice milk

2 Tbs carob gum (locust bean gum)

1 tin (440ml) coconut milk

1 tsp soy lecithin powder

150g (deep frozen) strawberries

3 Tbs sugar

1 pinch og carob gum (locust bean gum)

ice cream wafers for decoration (often vegan)

Preparation:

Put your ice cream machine in the freezer about ten hours ahead.
Put all ingredients despite of carob gum and strawberries in a pot and let it melt on low heat. The mixture won’t really turn into a homogenous cream, so transfer it into a mixer or food processor, add carob gum and mix it. Now it should be quite creamy. Put it into a bowl and let it cool in the fridge. It will get much more solid because of the cocoa butter.

Puree the strawberries with sugar and the pich of carob gum. You can leave some strawberry chunks in it.

Turn on your ice cream machine and pour in the white chocolate cream. Let it stirr for about 20 minuten. Then stirr in the strawberry mixture manually but not trying to mix it completely. Put it in the freezer for about 15 minutes and serve!

Quick and simple Banana Cake

This one is a really simple recipe if you want to make a quick but still not boring cake. The banana and coconut milk makes the cake very moist and you don’t need any more egg replacers. You can find quite similar cakes in Malaysia, too.

Ingredients:

300g plain flour

3 tsp baking powder

200g sugar

1 tsp vanilla powder

1/8 l oil (sunflower, canola or coconut)

1 tin coconut milk (400ml)

2 mashed bananas

 

Preparation:

Just mix together all ingredients, pour into a greased tin(does’nt necessarily have to be a banana shaped one 😉 )and bake for about 50 minutes at 200°C.

Seitan Jerky with Barbecue-Pepper Flavour

I am actually relly proud of this, because I love seitan jerkys but store bought ones are always a bit too expensive so I did’nt have them very often. But now I can! 🙂 To achieve the jerky like texture i baked the seitan and brushed it with a marinade. I will also try to experiment with different flavours. I already have an idea of a tomato chilli flavoured one in my mind. Do you have any other ideas? Please comment!

Ingredients:

dry ingredients

1 cup gluten flour

1/4 cup nutritional yeast

3 Tbs fried onions

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp garlic, powdered

1 tsp coarse black pepper

1/4 tsp cloves, powdered

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp paprika

 

liquid ingredients:

1/2 cup water

1 1/2 Tbs tomato puree

1/2 Tbs mustard

3 Tbs soy sauce

3 Tbs ketchup

2 Tbs liquid smoke

1 tsp sugar

 

Marinade:

1 Tbs agave (or corn syrup)

3 Tbs ketchup

2 Tbs soy sauce

1Tbs liquid smoke

 

preparation:

Mix all dry ingredients( pulverize the fried onions). Mix all liquid ingredients separately and combine with the dry ones. If the dough is too miost add some gluten or else the jerkys will get too soft. Press it flat into a casserole dish or a baking tray. Mix the marinade and pour half of it over the seitan. Disperse evenly with a brush. or a spoon.

Bake in the oven for about 45 minutes at 200°C. When half of the time is over flip it and cut into thin strips as seen below. Brush it with the rest of the marinade and put back into the oven.


Cut into smaller parts and let them cool. When they are hot they will be still quite soft. You can also let them sit outside the fridge over night so that they will dry a little.

 

Coconut-Choccolate Zebra-Cake

Here I wanted to create a three-layered birthday cake. To make the layers really contrasting I made three layers with cocoa and filled the cake with a mixture of semolina and desiccated coconut. I used a small round 20cm-tin for this but you can also bake a two layered cake and use a bigger one.

Ingredients:

Dough:

2 1/2 cups plain flour

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

3 tsp baking powder

1 tsp vanilla powder or sugar

1/2 tsp salt

2 Tbs tapioca or soyflour or other egg replacements

1/2 cup sunflower oil

2 cups soy milk

1 tsp vinegar or lemon juice

 

coconut filling:

1 tin coconut milk (400ml)

1/2 coconut tin filled with soy milk

7 Tbs semolina

3 Tbs margarine

150-200g sugar

200g desiccated coconut (keep some for garnishing)

 

also:

100g dark chocolate mixed with some coconut fat

 

Preparation:

Mix all dry ingredients. Form a mould in the middle an pour in soy mil, vinegar or lemon juice and let it sit for some minutes. Add oil and mix to a smooth dough. Grease your baking tin and pour in one third of the dough. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes at 200°C. Do the same with the rest of the dough. Let the three discs cool. Meanwhile, prepare the filling.

Therefore, mix coconut and soy milk, semolina, sugar, coconut and margarine in a pot and heat until it boild while stirring continously. If the mixture is too stiff, add some more soy milk. Use more or less sugar to taste. Let sit for a while until it has cooled a bit.

Then spread on the parts and top them on each other.

At last pour over the melted chocolate and spread the sides with chocolate, too. sprinkle with coconut. If you have some filling left over you can either nibble it yourself or form them into small rounds and decorate the cake with it.

Malaysian Pandan Chiffon Cake

This is a recipe for a very tasty moist cake from Malaysia. In Malaysia Pandan is widely used in many desserts, almost like vanilla elsewhere. It both colours food naturally green and gives it a nice flavour and smell. It matches well with coconut, so most pandan cakes are made with coconut milk. Usually you need alot of eggs for a chiffon cake and the cake should come out very moist and melting in your mouth. I simply avoided using soymilk or water and just used coconut milk and pureed tofu, which gives the cake the right cosistency. You don’t even need expensice egg replacers! Just go to your next Asian supermarket (or your market if you live in South East Asia) and get some fresh pandan leaves. Alternatively, you can also use artificial pandan flavour, which will make the preparation procedure much faster and the cake even greener.

Ingredients:

560g plain flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

250g sunflower oil (or other neutral tasting cooking oil)

250g sugar

220g tofu

1 1/2 tins(400ml-tin) coconut milk

5 or more fresh Pandan leaves (they look like this:)

 

Preparation:

Mix flour, baking powder and baking soda in a bowl. Place coconut milk in a food processor and cut the pandan leaves into it using a pair of scissors. Puree finely and strain through a sieve to get a green coloured coconut milk. The picture below shows pandan juice with water(it’s not from this recipe), so yours will be less green.

Put the mixture back into the food processor and add tofu, oil and sugar. Mix and add to the flour mixture. Stirr it up and pour into a greased loaf tin.
Bake for 30 to 40 minutes at 200°C. The dough should be still a bit moist inside. Cool and invert the tin.

Vegan Deutsch Doodle Dang (“German Style Hot Dogs”)

I know, stupid name! Actually this Hot Dog style is’nt known in Germany at all. I saw it at an American fast food chain in Malaysia and as I always laughed at the name, I thought it would be fun to make vegan version out of it.

You will need “sauerkraut” for this which is a fermented sour, typically German cabbage dish. I hope you can get thsi ready made out of Germany. If not just google and try to prepare your own.

Ingredients (for 4 Hot Dogs):

4 Hot Dog buns

4 long vegan sausages

vegane mayonnaise (store bought or self made, just google, there are alot of simple recipes)

1 cup ready made sauerkraut

2 potatoes

100ml soy milk

1/2 tsp salt

black pepper

nutmeg

about 3 pickled cucumbers

fried onions

ketchup

lettuce

Preparation:

First prepare the potato puree and the mayonnaise if not using store bought. Therefore, peel the potatoes and cook until soft. Mash them, mix with soy milk and season to taste.

Heat the buns in the oven or with a toaster, spread with potato puree and mayonnaise and put in the other ingredients as you like.

Oriental Apricot-Seitan with Zucchini-Rolls and Manioc Fries

Today I wanted to create something completely new. Therefore, I veganized an Oriental meat recipe(don’t know its exact origin, sorry for that, I think the term “oriental” is rather stupid), invented a Seitan recipe, chose soy yoghurt and walnut filled Zucchini as a vegetable side dish and instead of boring oven potatoes I made fries out of Manioc. This first try of cooking with Manioc was suprisingly tasty. I can’t understand why some people degrade it to a non-tasty root that is only eaten in Third-World countries.
All in all preparing this recipes takes a fair amount of time, but you can either just cook one part of it (The Seitan also would match perfectly to Couscous) or prepare the Seitan one day before. It’s also advisable to make double of the amount of Seitan an freeze one part for later usage. Nevertheless, this dish is easy to cook. You just might need to buy some ingredient from an Asian supermarket.

I will begin with the Seitan recipe. I like to prepare my own Seitan and make different flavours and textures for each recipe. Instead of cooking the Seitan in a broth I prefer steaming it, because the texture gets better and you do not waste so many spices.

Ingredients for Oriental Apricot-Seitan:

Seitan:

1 1/2 cups gluten flour

1/4 cups nutritional yeast

1/4 cups gram flour (chickpea flour, makes the texture of the Seitan a bit smoothe and chicken-like)

1 tsp salt

3 tsp paprika

2 tsp cloves, powdered

2 tsp cumin, powdered

2 tsp cayenne pepper or chilli powder

2 tsp nutmeg

2 tsp coriander, powdered

2 tsp garlic, powdered

1 Tofu

3/4 cup water

1/2 cup tomato puree

2 Tbs soy sauce

2 Tbs olive oil

2 Tbs Liquid Smoke

1 Tbs sugar (optional)

Seitan preparation:

First, mix all dry ingredients.

In a separate bowl, mix all liquid ingredients. Puree the tofu and knead a dough out of all ingredients. If the dough is too moist, add more gluten flour, if too dry more water.

Now prepare your steamer. A ricecooker is ideal for that.

Pull small pieces from the dough and steam for approximately 30 minutes. If you can chew them without effort(and not like chewing gum), they are ready for further preparation.

other ingredients for Apricot-Seitan:

100g dried apricots

50g raisins

150ml freshly squeezed orange juice

(a little bit of saffron, if you have your decadent day)

1 tsp balsamic vinegar

1 onion

4 garlic cloves

1 cup vegetable broth

2 Tbs plain flour

coriander

cloves, powdered

cumin, powdered

black pepper

salt

fresh coriander and mint leaves for garnishing

Preparation:

Soak apricots and raisins in vinegar, orange juice and saffron for 1 to 2 hours.

Fry onions and garlic in a large pan. Add steamed Seitan pieces and fry until they are brown(ok, they are already brown before, but you know what I mean 🙂 ). Then add broth, apricots and raisins with soaking liquid, flour and spices to tase. Cook for a few minutes. Garnish with coriander and mint leaves. Done!

Ingredients for Zucchini rolls:

2 zucchinis

1 onion

200g soy yoghurt

2 Tbs chopped walnuts

salt

paprika

black pepper

Preparation:

Cut the zucchinis in halves. Cut two thin strips lenghtwise from each zucchini half. Cut the remainig Zucchini in small pieces. Also cut the onion.

Fry the big zucchini pieces. When they are brown from both sides, put on a kitchen tissue.

I used a sort of tofu curd for this recipe, but normally I would rather use yoghurt.

Then fry onion and remaining Zucchini pieces and mix with yoghurt, walnut and spices.

Form the zucchini strips into rolls, fix with a tootpick and put them on the plates you want to serve. Fill with the yoghurt filling. It’s much more easy than it sounds!

Ingredients for Manioc Fries:

for one big tray:

approx. 3 manioc roots (depends on size)

salt

a little bit of fresh lemon juice

olive oil

Peel the manioc roots and cut in big chunks. Cook in water for about ten minutes. After that it’s easier to cut them in fries, because the root is rather hard! Spread them on a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Drizzle them genereously with olive oil and bake for 30 minutes at 200°C or until they get a nice brownish colour.

Drizzle with fresh lemon juice before serving.

If you have some mint leaves left over, prepare a Moroccan mint tea! Just cook a black or green tea, sweeten it a little and put some fresh mint stalks in your teapot. If you don’t like store bought peppermint tea, you should still give this a try, as it tastes completely different!