TROPICAL FRUIT COOKIES

The -nth cookie recipe sharing really does prove that I could sit all day munching and chewing and scrunching cookies. And sipping tea. This actually should be a paid occupation. Or an Olympic sport. Imagine.

So another weekend, another cookie for all you cookie monsters out there. Packed full with fruit this time, so you can have your five-a-day and feel slightly less guilty about scoffing down this whole delicious lot.

BANANA OAT COOKIES

I promised myself that I wouldn’t bake as often during the week as I get home quite tired after work and I wake up quite early in the morning (you kind of grow old on the bus through the City at rush hour). But then, two things happened. Firstly, the two bananas I bought some day last week turned worryingly black. With worryingly black, I mean too black to be eaten by human beings, and possibly any creature populating the earth. But definitely not too black to use in baking (eeh, you see where this is getting). Secondly, this book arrived at the office and it was like Christmas. I hadn’t even got to the end of it and I already decided I had to bake something as soon as I got home. The conciseness of the ingredient lists saved me from a pit-stop at the corner shop and – oh joyful day – one recipe contained the sacred words “2 small, very ripe bananas”. Banana oat cookies, you are a blessing.

RASPBERRY JAM CROSTATA

My mum saw my blog and told me off. She said that all cakes and cookies and treats here are very British and there’s no Italian recipes in sight. You could argue that my cardamom pudding recipe last week was adapted from an Italian cookbook, but truth is: I’ve never made a proper Italian cake. I have nothing against Italian sweets and desserts, I promise. BUT, most Italian cakes are quite simple (recipe- and flavour-wise), much less sugary, less buttery and gooey (and in most cases, significantly healthier) than their British counterpart. Actually, there’s no Italian word for muffin, cheesecake, brownie, nor cookie. Italian traditional biscuits are the drier kind (see biscotti & co.), and we don’t really do shortbread as such. So, even though I’ve always been best friends with stuff like pandoro and bomboloni and tiramisù, which are all but dry, low-sugar and healthy, I still found myself stuffing my face with huge amounts of muffins, brownies, cookies and all sorts of puddings as soon as I stepped into the UK, and that’s what I learned to bake.

But not today! Today I will be a militant Italian baker – I will show you the wonders of crostata. This tart is very quick and easy to make, full of flavour, super pretty and reasonably healthy. It’s also quite customisable as you can use whatever flavour of jam you prefer for the filling. Actually, crostata alla Nutella is a thing in Italy. Just saying.

Buon appetito!

COCONUT & LIME COURGETTE MUFFINS

I made these muffins for Muffin Sunday. Ok, I just made that up - there's no such thing as Muffin Sunday, but there should be. Especially because I was trying to bake some doughnuts for Doughnut Sunday (fine, that's not a thing either), but failed miserably due to a doughnut pan disfunction. So I switched to muffins to cheer myself up. This gives me the right to celebrate muffins, and therefore, the right to create Muffin Sunday. I hope you agree! Also, if you were slightly freaked out by the word "courgette" sitting right next to "coconut" and "lime", and even more worryingly, "muffin", don't panic. That is actually a thing. Courgettes here do the same job as bananas or carrots and make the muffins all nice and moist and delicious. Give it a try!

CARDAMOM PUDDING

If you're sad, have some pudding.
(And if you're not)

BLACK FOREST COOKIES

I christened these cookies “black forest cookies” because I made them to replace a black forest cake. I’ll expand a bit. They do contain the same main ingredients as a black forest cake: chocolate and cherries. However, cookies are much much easier to carry around London on buses than a cake. And I have a friend who’s having a birthday party tonight. And his favourite cake is black forest cake. So, I made these. Makes sense now? Cake-replacement cookies!

Well then, before you even start reading the recipe, let me warn you. These cookies are possibly the unhealthiest thing I’ve ever baked in my life. Vegetable fat! Margarine! Bucketfuls of sugar! Egg-replacement powder!!! But I have no regrets. They are delicious. 

(Thank me later)

APRICOT & GOJI BERRY PUFFED RICE BARS

These could be considered a fancy version of kitchen-sink bars. After a disastrous attempt at making vegan white chocolate cookies with a veeery watery fake white chocolate bar the other night, I ran out of flour, oil and pretty much everything you need to bake something edible. However, upon inspecting the kitchen cupboard looking for treats yesterday evening after work (I did find treats by the way. And consequently ate the treats. A lot of them. BAD), I also discovered a sad-looking pack of puffed rice lying there at the back, together with two little bags of equally sad-looking dried apricots. I also had a pack of goji berries, and I actually had been looking for some nice recipe to use them in. Add an opened jar of peanut butter and ta-daah. Mission accomplished. No more abandoned puffed rice. No more forgotten dried apricots. This has cleared some space in my cupboard (and officially allows me to refill it asap), and after throwing everything in a pan (everything but the kitchen sink, as they say), has brought to life some lovely, quite healthy puffed rice bars, which are also vegan and gluten free. I can’t really complain, can I! Should you want to experiment with these bars yourselves, feel free to throw in whatever you have in your cupboard (yeh ok, within reason): dried fruit/nuts of any kind all work a treat (!) here.

BANANA STRAWBERRY MUFFINS

It’s been two weeks since I started posting stuff on here and this morning I suddenly had a mind-blowing realisation. I’ve only been posting chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate cake and cookie recipes one after the other. No fruit in sight! No vitamins! As any sensible reader would say, this needs to be fixed. So today I thought I’d share with you this brilliant banana and strawberry muffin recipe from Ms. Cupcake, with a slight tweak to redeem myself even more: wholemeal flour.

Strawberry season is finally here, so it’s actually the perfect moment to make these muffins. You can bring them with you to your picnic/garden party/barbecue (24 degrees in London today everyone!!!!) and show off like there’s no tomorrow. So let’s all make these and then get our shorts and flip-flops out and practice our best lizard impression under the sun while it lasts. PLAN!

CAPPUCCINO CAKE SLICES

The past two weeks have been super-hyper-mega hectic at work. To that, add a combination of birthday drinks on Mondays (it’s veeeeery challenging if you ask me), waking up at stupid a.m. because of abnormal sunlight (although yay, for summer finally approaching) and the desire of baking cake at stupid p.m. on weekdays, and consequently photographing it at stupid a.m., the following day before work. So all my good intentions about quitting diet coke have not only been put aside; they also have been accompanied by a considerable increase in my consumption of coffee. When I say coffee, I mean coffee in all sorts of forms: proper Italian espresso, Starbucks americanos, filter coffee, and instant coffee a.k.a. dirty water. So it was only natural to post a recipe for some coffee-related cake this week. And believe me, this is a good one! Of course, these vegan “cappuccino” slices are best enjoyed with...a cup of coffee.

LAZY COOKIES TWO WAYS

Lazy cookies are a godsend. A couple of years ago, when I was barely capable of cooking pasta (and I’m Italian! Such a dishonour to my own roots), the idea of baking something never even crossed my mind. Just the thought of buying ingredients I would never ever use again, plus finding bowls, cookie trays and all that and - god forbid - washing up afterwards, was just not very appealing. These cookies, however, are one of the first I made in my life. Not only do they require only one bowl (ok, two if you’re using flax eggs), they also take less than 10 minutes to prepare, less than 10 minutes to cook, and, if you ask me, less than 10 minutes to eat. Hooray for lazy cookies.

CHAMOMILE TEA COOKIES

Don’t be fooled by the simple appearance of these cookies. They are sweet, soft, with a chewy middle and soo flavoursome. It’s the first recipe I try from Chickpea Magazine and I have to say I was super impressed with it. It’s very original (I’d never even heard of chamomile cookies before) and I’ve made it so many times already. Totally a personal favourite (sorry chocolate chip cookies). Needless to say I’ll be trying out more recipes from the magazine, there’s all sorts in there to make your tummy happy! So if you’re a big fan of chamomile tea (I’d be married to tea if it was legal), or if you fancy trying something different, go for it and make these. A cup of tea or coffee on the side, and happy days for all.

CHOCOLATE BISCOFF BUNDT CAKE

I am known for eating spreads by the spoonful. However, finding myself all curled up in bed with stomach ache one night last week, after scoffing down half a jar of Lotus biscuit spread in one go (duhhh), I had an epiphany. Why not putting this delicious yet dangerous treat to good use in baking? And what could go amazingly well with it (ok, arguably anything goes well with it)? Yes indeed: it's choco-Biscoff cake, ladies and gentlemen. The chocolate cake recipe taken from the Post Punk Kitchen is a gem itself. It's the moistest, lightest and fluffiest yoghurt chocolate cake. And using the biscuit spread glaze on top makes it an absolute winner. So here it is, in all its glory: vegan choco Biscoff Bundt cake for all of you to stuff your face with.

CHOCOLATE CHIP BUNS

The thought of yeast dough has always been really daunting to me. Whilst baking soda, baking powder and all chemical raising agents are relatively easy to use in baking (even though they can and do go wrong too sometimes), yeast is more of a beast to handle. Having watched thousands of episodes of The Great British Bake Off in the past couple of years, the image of Paul Hollywood scrutinising a crumb of some poor contestant’s bread loaf and going “It’s underproved, underworked and underbaked” was always stuck in my head and put me off trying to make bread myself. But it is also known that I’m a bit of a scaredy cat, so I thought: what’s the best way of starting my new blog (which is, did you know, just as frightening), other than by trying and fighting this horrible misconception about my personality (HA)! Here’s a very easy, not-so-scary sweet dough recipe that, although it requires the yeast-beast to work its magic for quite a few hours, will provide you with 18 delicious, really-easy-to-make, reasonably healthy, and vegan chocolate chip buns. And did I say delicious? These work super well for breakfast, as an afternoon snack and even dessert, or in my case, all three (hhem).