YOU NEED

1 cup of fresh mango, peeled, seed removed

8 ginger biscuits

2 x tubs of Tofutti “cream cheese

4 heaped tablespoons of icing sugar (also known as confectioner’s sugar)

ground nutmeg

YOU DO

Line up 4 small, shallow dessert wine or martini glasses. Blend the mango and dribble about ¼ of it down the sides of each glass.

Roughly crumble 2 ginger nut biscuits into each glass. Set aside.

Blend the Tofutti Cream Cheese, icing sugar, and the remainder of the pureed mango. Pour equal amounts into each glass over the top of the crumbled ginger nut biscuits and cover each glass with glad wrap.

Place the glasses in to the fridge to set a little. This will also soften up the biscuits. I have served it as little as a couple of hours after making it but it’s nicer if you can leave it longer. Up to 8 hours is perfect.

Serve with a generous sprinkle of nutmeg.

Serves: Serves 4

Time: Takes About 15 minutes to make plus the fridge time.

Notes:  I use Macro brand Ginger nut biscuits because they are palm oil free. I get them in some Coles/Safeway in the health food section)

I have been known to use a lot more than 2 biscuits each for this recipe.

Tofutti Cream Cheese is available in Coles and is generally found with the dairy cream cheeses.

YOU NEED

250 grams of dairy free chocolate

vegan candy canes (you can get vegan candy canes online and from Sunnybrook Health Food)

YOU DO

Line a 20cm by 30cm tray with baking paper.

Break the chocolate into bite size pieces. Place in a bowl and melt 30 seconds at a time in the microwave, stirring the chocolate each time. Continue melting the chocolate 30 seconds at a time until it is completely melted.

While the chocolate is melting, chop or smash the candy canes into bite size pieces. Place in a bowl and set aside.

Once the chocolate is melted pour and spread it evenly across the lined tray. Definitely make sure that you spread it evenly across the tray so that you get even shards. You don’t want them to be too thick or chunky. Picture the thickness of thin tree bark as it is peeled away from a trunk. Scatter the candy cane evenly over the chocolate. Pop the tray on a flat surface in the fridge to set.

Once it is set gently break it into large shards. I do this by picking it up and holding it with one hand and gently breaking one piece off at a time with my other hand.

ENJOY!

Serves: Serves depends on the size you break the chocolate sheet up into. I get about 10 – 15 pieces.

Time: Takes about 5 minutes to prepare and about 20 minutes to cool in the fridge.

Freezing: Not suitable.

I am so thrilled to now be able to make gingerbread people with my little man now. And this is really really REALLY easy to make. It will be a tradition in our home from this day on and will be a gift I give to friends, family and neighbours.

I have a long way to go perfecting my decorating but it doesn’t seem to matter how you decorate them, they still have so much charm.

YOU NEED

65 grams of coconut oil

1 ½ cups of brown sugar

5 cups of plain flour

90 grams of apple sauce

½ cup of molasses (I use blackstrap molasses. You can pick up molasses from any well stocked health food store)

½ cup of Bonsoy or almond milk

1 teaspoon of bi carb (baking soda)

1 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of ground nutmeg

1 teaspoon of ground cloves

1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon

3 teaspoons of ground ginger

1 teaspoon of ground cardamom

# I have also made it with 2 ground star anise and/or 1 vanilla pod scraped

YOU DO

Preheat your oven to 180%

Sift all the dry ingredients (except the sugar) together into a large bowl

Mix all the wet ingredients together in a separate bowl

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and combine. Mix them together until you get a dough type texture. If the mixture is too wet just add more flour until you get the right texture.

Cut the “dough” into 4 and make squares, wrap each square in glad wrap and place in the fridge for an hour.

Remove and roll out one square at a time onto a well floured bench. Using cutters cut out whatever shapes you have chosen to make. Gently pull the scrap gingerbread away from your shape and using a spatula lift your shapes off the bench and place on trays lined with baking paper.

Cook your gingerbread for 8-10 minutes then remove from the oven and allow to cool. Once cooled decorate them as you wish. You can dust your gingerbread with icing sugar or pipe on it using dairy free white and/or dark chocolate, add sprinkles, decorate with veg lollies etc. This is the fun part so let rip with your creativity.

For rock hard icing…

YOU NEED

½ cup of icing sugar (also known as confectioners’ sugar)

1/8 teaspoon of cream of tartar

1 teaspoon of agave (or maple syrup)

1/8 of a teaspoon of xanthium gum (any well stocked health food store will have this)

3 teaspoons of water

YOU DO

Mix all the ingredients together. It needs to a consistency that you can pipe with….so firm but not rock hard. If it’s a little too wet add some more icing sugar. If it’s a little too dry add a little more water.

Separate into small bowls and colour as you wish and the pipe onto gingerbread people using a small nozzle and piping bag.

Serves: Makes 40 medium sized gingerbread men.

Time: I haven’t timed it yet. The gingerbread is not time consuming but I was quite slow with the decorating.

Freeze: Hmm maybe it would be suitable to freeze the dough but I wouldn’t freeze the cooked gingerbread.

I have tried some incredible raw cheesecakes in my travels. You would never know they were raw, nor without any dairy or animal products. They are sweet, creamy and decadent. The only noticeable difference has been that lack of that really oily texture you get on your tongue with a dairy cheesecake. Most of my recipes come from meals I cook for my family, working through all my old favourite recipes and removing and then replacing all the animal ingredients and doing the same to recipes I come across. But my interest in raw is growing, so over time I will attempt some raw recipes.

This is my 1st first attempt at a raw cheesecake, thanks to some advice from friends whom eat a raw diet. It was incredibly easy to make and assemble. The only time consuming part was the soaking of the nuts and time needed for cooling.

YOU NEED (FOR THE CRUST)

2 ½ cups of macadamia nuts

½ cup of extra juicy dried apricots

2 tablespoons of cocoa

YOU DO (FOR THE CRUST)

Blend the nuts till they are crumbly and start adding the apricots. Don’t add them all once. Just add a few at a time until you get a dough like texture. Eat any you don’t use J Blend until all ingredients are smooth and combined.

Scrape out into a spring form cake tin, lined with baking paper. Push the mixture evenly around the base of the tin and then push down onto the mixture with your fingers or by using the bottom of a glass, to make the base smooth and even.

Pop in the fridge to firm

YOU NEED (FOR THE CHEESECAKE)

3 cups of raw cashews

½ cup pure maple syrup

¾ cup melted coconut oil

2 cups strawberries, green tops removed

2 cups fresh cherries, pips and stalks removed

¼ cup water

¼ cup water fresh lime juice

3 heaped tablespoons cocao

YOU DO (FOR THE CHEESECAKE)

Drain the soaking cashews and discard the soaking water. Blend the cashews, maple syrup and coconut oil.

Add the strawberries, cherries water and lime juice and continue blending until all ingredients are well combined and smooth. The smoothness of the nuts and ultimately the cheesecake will depend on how long you soaked the cashews for and/or the amazingness of your blender. I have quite a small blender so had to do mine in batches.

Pour half the mixture into a bowl and sift the cocoa into it. Whisk till well combined.

Get your tin out from the fridge and pour a little of the chocolate mixture and then little of the cherry mixture to achieve a swirled result. Repeat until all the mixture is in the cake tin. Scrape out any mixture that is left on the sides of your blender or bowl.

Pick up the tin and bang it gently on the bench a few times to get rid of any air pockets then place in the fridge to set. I left mine over night but it seemed set after only a few hours.

Remove and serve topped with loads of fresh cherries.

Serves: A LOT. It’s a big cake!

Time: Haven’t yet recorded the time.

Note: I used a small and high cake tin (20cm diameter) because I wanted my cheesecake to be really high. If you use the same or similar size tin you could easily get away with halving this recipe.

This recipe was inspired by a vegan cherry ripe square I was given by a friend at a festival last year. I was just so impressed at how “just like the real” thing it was.

I had forgotten about it until I bought cherries the other day and whilst playing with other recipes my memory randomly clicked back to that first bite I took of that cherry ripe square.

I have never made cherry ripe slice or anything of the like but knew they contained 3 main ingredients, coconut, glace cherries and chocolate. I figured that’s all I needed plus a little something to add to the sticky factor for balling, so I added some pure maple syrup and a little coconut, a little cherries, a little more coconut until I reached the texture I was after. It was so easy and they are delicious! I’m guessing gluten free too?

I can see myself turning up to most events I attend in the future with these as an offering. This was one of those recipe creating moments where you finish and have a little skip in your step and really wish it was possible to patent your recipes.

YOU NEED

2 x 100 gram packs of glace cherries (ensure that they are suitable for vegans. Red colouring can be tricky)

1 ¼ cup of desiccated coconut

4 teaspoons of pure maple syrup

200 grams of dairy free chocolate (mine was a mixture of whatever I had in the pantry along with some Noble Choice Raspberry chocolate which was really lovely with these.)

YOU DO

Throw half the cherries, all the coconut and the maple syrup into a blender and blend until all ingredients are combined well and place into a large bowl

Chop up the remainder of the cherries and stir them through the coconut and cherry mixture that you just blended.

Ball the mixture into even sized balls. # If you start to get a lot of mixture stuck on your hands just give your hands a quick wash and continue balling. Pop the balls in the freezer for 15 minutes or so. Longer if you need to. This will make it easier to coat them in chocolate.

Place a sheet of baking paper on your bench.

Melt the chocolate and allow it to cool a little. Pick up a cherry rip ball and place a fork underneath it, drop the ball carefully into the chocolate. Gently roll it around a few times gently using the fork. Then once it is covered in chocolate retrieve it, with the fork. You do not stab it with the prongs of the fork, you sit the ball onto the fork so that it is cradled by the fork. Scrape the underside of the fork against the edge of the bowl to get the excess chocolate off and place it on the baking paper with as little excess chocolate as possible to set.

Repeat until all the balls are covered.

Serves: I made 18 balls but you could probably double that because my truffles were quite big.

Time: Aside from freezing time this took me about 10-15 minutes.

Freezing: May be suitable for freezing. Mine have always all been eaten 🙂

Notes:  Please also note that ingredient differ slightly from brand to brand so your balls may be slightly drier or more of a wet consistency than mine. If they are too wet, slowly add a little more coconut. If they are too dry add a little more maple syrup.

It’s difficult to have the exact amount of chocolate for this kind of recipe so scrape any surplus melted chocolate you have left over onto some greaseproof paper, let it set and place it in an airtight container for another recipe

The best part of being vegan is constantly discovering that you can veganise most anything. Dairy was such a favourite for me but the possibilities of recreating old creamy favourites is absolutely endless.

Just use your own trusted base recipe for this. I try to avoid Nuttelex in my cooking so am still experimenting with different oils and a biscuit that I am happy to use for bases)

I will play with some other flavours and versions of this in the future and will post them as I experiment.

YOU NEED

1 x 227 gram pack of Tofutti Better than Cream Cheese (available in most supermarkets and can be found next to the cow’s milk cream cheese)

1 x 250 gram package extra firm light silken tofu, drained (I use Blue Lotus brand)

3/4 cup sugar 1/2 cup dairy free milk (I used Australia’s Own rice milk because that is all I had but I would have used Bonsoy because it is much creamier in texture)

5 tablespoons of dairy free chocolate spread (You can find these in the Health Food section at most supermarkets. Oxfam does a nice one too which is Fair Trade)

the zest from 2 medium oranges

3 tablespoons of cornflour

YOU DO

Preheat your oven to 180c Prepare your favourite cheesecake base and press down into a lightly sprayed non stick spring form pan to form the base.

Blend the cream cheese, silken tofu, sugar, dairy spread, zest and corn flour until smooth and combined. Pour into the pan, onto your base. Place in the oven for approx 45 minutes. The cooking time will vary depending on the strength of your oven and the size pan you use to cook your cheesecake in.

Don’t allow your cheesecake to brown. The middle with still be a little wobbly when you remove it, which is fine as it will continue to cook even once removed from the oven. Once it is ready remove your cheesecake from the oven and allow it to cool on a bench for an hour. Then place it in the fridge for another few hours till chilled.

Slice and serve 🙂

Serves:  Yields 8 slices

Time: 1 hour plus chilling time

Freeze: Not suitable

Notes: I highly recommend a zester for recipes like this. They remove the zest from fruit so easily, don’t leave the bitter pith behind and you get really fine lovely zest, instead of course and chunky zest you get when you use a grater.