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Since it is nearly Christmas I thought I would share with you a recipe for vegan mince pies!
The pastry recipe is from the amazing "Vegan Pie in The Sky" by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romeo.

Let’s make MINCE PIES!

(ps..they’re vegan!)

You will need:

·         11/4 cups (7 oz/ 200g)  plain flour

·         1/4 teaspoon salt

·         1.5 tablespoon sugar

·         4 tablespoons (2oz/50g) cold dairy free margarine (recommend “Vitalite” or sunflower “Pure”)

·         4 tablespoons (2oz/50g) cold vegetable fat (ie Trex)

·         3 tablespoons ice water

·         1/2 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

·         1 jar readymade mincemeat

·         3 tbsp soya or almond milk

·         Icing sugar for dusting

·         Rolling pin or wine bottle for rolling out pastry, muffin tin, round pastry cutters, or a glass

To make your pastry: This is an all-purpose, flaky, roll-out pie crust, perfect for any pies. It's great for cutting shapes, or making lattices. Double the recipe and use it to make apple pie!

1. In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour and salt. Mix in the sugar. Add half the margarine and vegetable fat by about half tablespoonfuls, and rub into the flour with your fingertips, until the flour appears pebbly. Add the remaining margarine and shortening, and rub in.
2. In a small bowl, mix together 2 tablespoons of ice water with the apple cider vinegar. Drizzle the water and vinegar mixture into the flour by the tablespoonful, gently mixing it after each addition. Knead the dough a few times, adding more water until it holds together. You may need only the 2 tablespoons, but add up to 1 more tablespoon if needed. 
3. Divide the dough in two, roll each half into a ball, then press them into disks and wrap each in cling film. Refrigerate for half an hour. (Refrigerate your rolling pin too!)

To assemble you pies:

Preheat oven to 200 C.

·         Dust a clean work surface and rolling pin with flour. Roll out one ball of pastry to about 1/8 inch thick.

·          Using a glass or pastry cutter cut out circles approx 3.5 inch wide, and press carefully into the muffin pan to make the base of your pies. 

·         Spoon 2 teaspoons of mincemeat into each pie.  Roll out the other ball of pastry to 1/8 inch thick. Use a star cutter (if you have one) or a smaller glass to cut out the lids of your pies.  Press the lids on. Make a small hole in the surface of each pie with a small sharp knife to allow the steam to escape (no need if using star shaped lids).  Brush each pie with a little soya or almond milk.

·         Bake in the preheated oven for 15-20 mins or until golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tin for 5 mins before moving to a cooling rack. 

·         When cooled sprinkle the tops with icing sugar.

·         They will keep well if placed in an airtight tin. If you like you can warm them in the oven before serving.

 

I have neglected keeping up to date with my news! And a fair bit has happened lately.
Most notably, I was very excited to come third in the category of "Best Vegan Cakes" at the UK vegan awards!
It was a surprise enough to see I was nominated, so I was super excited to finish in the top three (out of 13 nominated vegan bakeries).

Other good news, I am currently supplying two new locations.
The first is "Cafe at number 21" which is a new eatery on Trinity Street, that aims to cater for all diets, including vegetarian and vegan.
I supply them with vegan cupcakes (and the occasional muffin), throughout the week.

I am also currently trialling supplying 2 canteens (Zest and Blues) at the University of Essex!  So if you know any vegan (or non-vegan!) students at the uni please let them know about my cakes, and be sure to tell them to let the catering staff know how happy they are to see sweet vegan treats on sale!!

Hello all!

I am afraid I am bearer of bad news this evening! (You may have already read this on Facebook..)

Unfortunately the Treehouse café are having to call time on their vegan market stall, for the time being at least…

 Here is a message that they posted on facebook earlier today…

“Dear lovely people of Colchester, we've got some good news and some bad news for you.

First off the bad news - due to full time day jobs, essays, studies and other things we'd rather avoid (but can't) we're going to be taking a break from our regular Saturday stall. It turns out the pressure of moving, starting studies and full time xmas work means we can't spend all our time working on or at the stall, as much as we love it.

We know this means some of you will miss out on your weekend fix of vegan treats, BUT - and now for the better news- we still want to prepare food for you.

We'll be taking orders which can be delivered in town centre at weekends, for which we'll be posting a menu up soon, so if you do want to order anything, all you have to do is let us know by Thursday evening!

Also, we're still available for catering, so get in touch if you have any parties or events coming up.

Lastly, it's not all over for the stall - there's a possible (and exciting) opportunity for us to expand soon - though we can't say too much about it - and the stall will be back in the new year!

Thank you all for your support so far, it's been great to meet you all and we hope to see you all again soon!”

 So there we are!

 I’d like to extend my thanks too to everyone that supported the stall and bought my cakes; I was really blown away by the response, and I’m really sorry that I won’t be able to make you any more for the time being.

Don’t forget that cakes/cupcakes are still available for private order, and can be collected from my address (down East hill) -Just email!

(I know it’s not as convenient as stopping by the stall, but at least an option is there..)

 I’ll keep you informed on here of any other places that I may end up selling in the future (I’ll have sent some of you around the whole town looking for vegan cakes soon! -Sorry about that!), and I’ll also email my mailing list with any developments regarding The Treehouse.  -Don’t forget you can also follow them on their facebook page where they will post any updates.

Hopefully I will have some better news to report in the near future!

Many thanks as always
Jen

 

I was quite excited this morning to discover that “ps..it’s vegan!” has been nominated in the “best cakes” category at the UK vegan awards! So if you like our cakes, and have a moment to spare, perhaps you could cast a little vote our way! (it would be much appreciated!) http://www.veganmidlands.org.uk/festival/veganawards.html

Also..just a little update..in case anyone is wondering what is happening with Guntons…reluctantly I think I will have to stop supplying them on Saturdays for the foreseeable future..as 1, it’s not overly practical for me to be selling in two places on a Saturday…and 2, I am guessing that most of my customer base probably head to the market stall on Saturdays anyway, since there are more vegan goodies on offer! (Hence they are selling much better!)  But thank you if you did buy cakes from there in the past..perhaps one day in the future I will return! (if they would have me!)

So..after 2 successful trial runs (thanks for the support folks!) The Treehouse market stall has decided to sign up for a regular pitch :)

But-first there was an ultimatum to be had! The choice was...either return to the original (nice) pitch where the stall was launched (Culver street) but NOT sell cupcakes, or, move to Long Wyre street (not so nice a pitch) and continue selling cupcakes.

The reason for the whole cupcake debacle is basically that there are rules stipulating how many stalls can sell the same things in the same vicinity of each other, and there is another stall that already sells cupcakes on Culver street.  Now I know, and you know, that vegan cupcakes will more often than not, be bought by vegans, who wouldn’t have shopped at the other stall anyway.  But apparently that doesn’t matter…rules are rules.

So, after much deliberating we all decided for the future success of the stall that it needed a good pitch, and we all think Culver street is the best pitch.

Which means…no more cupcakes!  Now as scary as that sounds to me (I am a cupcake girl through and through) -I am trying my best to look at it positively and see it as a window for new cake opportunities (as this blog title suggests..”necessity breeds ingenuity” (hopefully..!))

The rules are very clear “no cupcakes".

But...cupcakes aren’t the be all and end all of culinary cake delights!

So let’s start new trends!

(Gather 'round close, here is the top secret plan..)

Instead of cupcakes lets try…

-Brownies! Chocolatey brownies, Nutty brownies, minty brownies, coffee brownies, fruity brownies!

-Tray bakes,cake slices,cake squares, in lots of flavours! Lemon?  Bakewell?! Date and oat?

-Cookies! Choc chip cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies ,espresso cookies-,coconut macaroons- every other kind of cookie!

-Whoopie pies! (I’ve yet to try them, but see here, they look awesome-like cakey buttecream sandwiches!)

-Mini sponge cakes!(maybe like these?-once I've bought the special tin!)

-Muffins! Coconut banana muffins, lemon blueberry muffins,double chocolate muffins, choc raspberry muffins,choc orange muffins,strawberry spelt muffins,apple muffins,no added sugar muffins...? Every other muffin!

-meringues?!

-mini loaf cakes?

-scones?

-baklava…!?

These are just a few ideas I’ve had so far..obviously I won’t be doing them all at once, but these are the sorts of things you can expect over the coming weeks.  I’ll try and have a good variety on offer each week (something chocolatey, something fruity, something (slightly) less sinful!)

I’m sorry if anyone is upset at the loss of the cupcakes! (they are darn cute and I will miss making them!) but I hope you will still support the stall and try my new goodies! Please let me know if you do, and let me know what you think, as I always appreciate good honest feedback! :) Also let me know if you have any ideas for new products, or if there is anything in particular you would like to see :)

And as a footnote…don’t forget you can still order cupcakes in any flavour or design, for collection from my house :) (so all is not lost!)

As always, many thanks for your continued support-it really is invaluable to me! :D

Kindest regards

Jen