Strawberries are one of the many foods which are only worth my while fresh when they’re in season and local. Call me a snob, but these a fruit that do not ripen properly when picked early; this means those which come from a distance rarely make the cut when it comes to flavour. I’ll take a local British strawberry any day, even if it means the supplies are limited to just a couple of months of the year. These cookies were made from some of my first strawberry purchases of the season.

I often like to over-complicate my food. When it comes to strawberries, however, I’m firmly of the opinion that some things deserve to be simple. These strawberry and chocolate cookies are far from complicated and are dead easy. Try serving them with a dollop of soy whipped cream!

But how do you get creaminess without the cream?

You’d be surprised what cashews can do, baby! This isn’t an original concept as many a dairy free souls have discovered the value of nuts as an ice cream base, but I’m all about spreading the love. This is a great vegan ice cream to fool dairy fans, and it’s divine with a dollop of peanut butter on top.

Psst, if you’re curious about the stuff that looks like marshmallow fluff stuff, that’s Bryanna Clark Grogan’s marshie fluff (thanks, Bryanna). Talk about fun to make. Talk about sugar high. Talk about… well, I think vegans could talk about marshmallow fluff quite a lot, come to think of it.

Recipe Notes

Okay, so I’ve got one of those annoying frozen drink blenders and the base is pretty much permanently sealed on. This means there’s always a whole load of liquid I can’t get out, especially if it’s a thick blend like this is. Here’s a tip: reserve 60ml (1/4 cup) of the soy milk and after you’ve poured the ice cream base out, chuck the remaining liquid in and swish around to help get the rest of the mix out.

Oh, and if you’ve got a blender which errs on the side of shite and you hate lumpy bits then you can strain the base to filter out any potential cashew hanger-onners.

The last time I visited my family in the U.S. my mother passed along an old German baking manual and I recently got around to taking a look at its inspiring if somewhat dated recipes. A German book printed in the early 1970s at a guess, there’s no such thing as a vegan recipe in its contents. It’s a good thing veganising most (imagine me sighing in memory of macarons) cookies is pretty straightforward!

When I bake cookies, I have all sorts of good intentions. I tell myself things like “just have 2 or 3 a day and they will last” or “maybe if you only make a dozen you’ll be more likely to savour them so they last until the weekend.” Sometimes I even tell myself I should save some for my hard-working husband.

I generally eat all the cookies by myself, quickly. Paul, if he’s lucky, might manage to scavenge a couple.

Recipe Notes

Raise your hand if you’ve already thought, “but wait a minutes! Those aren’t black and white cookies!” What you might traditionally think of as black and white cookies are coated with split black and white fondant frosting, apparently quite a favourite in New York. These cookies, however, resemble a shortbread with a mild cocoa rum twist.

I use a couple of teaspoons of rum in the recipe. Its impact on the overall flavour isn’t huge, but it does add a mellow extra something. If you don’t have any though, I don’t think the world will end if you leave it out.

Get creative with the dough! You’ve got two different colours on your hands, so twist and twirl it to your heart’s content and make some cool designs! The easiest is to make two small balls of dough and press together. Other options include mixing the dough together a bit so you get a swirled effect. You can also roll the dough into thin snakes for spiral effects.

German cookies tend to use far less sugar than American and British counterparts. This of course means they are less sweet, but it doesn’t mean they’re less good! Besides, it means it’s more acceptable that I eat virtually the entire batch by myself.

Right?

Okay, okay, so my main point of this post is to encourage everyone (omnivores, vegetarians, and vegans alike) to purchase Isa Chandra Moscowicz’s latest book, Vegan Brunch. It just happens this very simple but also delicious recipe for a fruity chocolate smoothie goes great with brunch.

See the muffin in the smoothie picture? That’s a blueberry ginger spelt muffin from the book, and it’s good too. They aren’t too sweet like muffins often are, and the texture is both gooey and nutty with a sweet grainy mouthfeel (what a word, what a word…). Key ingredients include blueberries and crystalised ginger (though I’ll admit I added a bunch of powdered as an alternative). It’s a good one for anyone who likes some sugar in the morning but not in epic proportions.

More Vegan Brunch Recipe Photos

…but if you do want some seriously sweet heaven in the A.M. hours then the banana flapjacks (a form of pancake in the US as opposed to the rolled oat bar in the UK) are the treat for you. Served here with some non dairy butter and fresh blueberries, these babies are pretty fab.

And here we have the Vegan Vidalia (sweet) Onion Quiche, a tofu dish for even the most devout of quiche fans.

I’m pretty sure if this was thrown in with a random pool of food pictures, “this looks vegan” isn’t the first thing a random browser would think. Probably two of the greatest recipes in the collection (based on the fact that I’ve cooked maybe ten), the vegan omelette and the vegan sausages are pure genius.

Does the omelette pretend to be an egg? No, not really. It’s heavier and smoother, but the general taste isn’t that far off. Methinks this will be the foundation for some amazing vegan “egg” dishes in future. I’ve already got my imagination cells set on a few, so watch this space.

Do the “sausages” pretend to be sausages? Well, this one can be argued. Sausages come in a variety of shapes and textures, with a gazillion recipes for herb and spice mixes to flavour. In fact, it seems most of the flavour of sausage tends to come from what’s included with the meat as opposed to the meat itself. With that thought in mind it’s really the texture you’re after, and gluten is the vegetarian/vegan answer. Shown above are the cherry sage sausages from Vegan Brunch, in which a main ingredient is gluten flour (and almond okara- my own addition). I’m already planning a Cumberland version!

Oh, and the smoothie recipe.

I was on a flight once, one where I’d requested a vegan meal. They served me my inedible “meal” (which, naturally, consisted of lettuce and rice since that’s all vegans eat), accompanied by a vegan brownie.

“Right, okay, I’ll give this a go,” I thought, and it was good. I’d even go as far as to say it was great. The texture was all smooshy and moist, and I was left wanting more. Please do not get me wrong because I am in no way complimenting airline food. I am merely using this one instance to illustrate what got me interested in the concept of vegan baking.

I tried a few other vegan baked goods after that, from cookies to cupcakes, and I was never dissapointed with any of them. So I was browsing the good old internets the other day because work just wasn’t going to happen, and I suddenly thought “hey! why don’t I try baking some vegan cupcakes or muffins or whatever the correct British term is for cakes in little cases!” Plus I was pretty anxious to try out my new silicone muffin mould thingies since they are pretty and stuff.

Recipe Notes

I found a recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World for chocolate cupcakes and decided to make a few changes to achieve one of my favourite flavour combination discoveries of last year: chocolate and chili. Please forgive any inconsistencies as this truly is my first attempt at vegan baking, if you don’t count bread.

Also, cat hair bakes well. Yes, born to be vegan.