Icing for Gingerbread Cookies

My last post was about making Gingerbread Cookies. Here's how we ice them.

Icing in a makeshift piping bag
Ingredients
Icing mixture
Water
Food colouring (if desired)
Plastic snaplock bag (sandwich size is good)
Rubber band

Method

1. Mix icing mixture and water until a thick paste
2. Add food colouring as desired. Be careful - a little goes a long way!
3. Place icing into a snaplock bag. I find it helps to line a cup with the bag and flip the bag over the edge so the cup holds the bag and there's a nice big space to put the icing in.
4. Push the icing into one corner, squeeze out the air and seal the bag. For extra help, put a rubber band just at the top of the icing. This will help stop it escaping and make it easier to push out the bag.
5. Cut a tiny, tiny hole in the corner for the icing to come out. Make sure you don't make too big a hole or it becomes very messy.
6. Decorate!

Here are pictures of Omnivore Girl doing some piping, to compare using the rubber band & without. It still works, but it's harder to control without the band.

Egg-free and Dairy-free Gingerbread Cookies

One of my sister's rituals is to decorate gingerbread cookies with Omnivore Girl. I couldn't leave Vegan Carnivore out of the action this time, so this was a recipe for him.

Egg-free and Dairy-free Gingerbread Cookies
Ingredients
1/3 cup canola oil
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup treacle or molasses
1/4 cup plain soy or oat milk

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour or all-purpose flour (or a mix of both)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

spice blend:
1/2 teaspoon each ground nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger

Method

1. In a large bowl beat together oil and sugar for about 3 minutes. Add treacle/molasses and soy milk. The treacle/molasses and soy milk won't really blend with the oil but that's ok.
   
2. In a separate bowl, sift together all the other ingredients.
3. Add the dry ingredients to the wet in batches. Mix together with a firm spoon or spatula until well combined. You should have a pretty stiff dough.
   
   
   
   
   Flatten the dough into a disk, wrap in cling wrap and chill for an hour or up to 3 days in advance. (If you chill longer than an hour you may want to let it sit for 10 minutes to loosen up a bit before proceeding).
4. Preheat oven to 180 C / 350 F. Lightly grease your baking trays or line them with baking paper.
5. On a floured surface roll your dough out to a little less than 1/4 inch thick. You can do this in 2 batches if you don't have the space. Cut out your shapes with your cookie cutters and gently place on cookie sheets. Bake for 8-10 minutes.
6. Remove from oven and let them cool for 2 minutes on the baking sheet then move to a cooling rack. They will still be a little soft, but they will firm up a bit as they cool. Wait until they are completely cool before icing.

Cookie Notes

• This recipe is quite sweet, it is good to cut down the sugar.
• I am lazy so I roll out my dough between sheets of baking paper so it doesn't stick and it's less messy. I also line my baking trays with baking paper. My sister uses cling wrap for rolling.

See my next post for how to ice the gingerbread.

Egg- and Dairy-free Pancakes

Vegan Carnivore's dear auntie made pancakes on Christmas day, but they weren't ones that he could eat. So I thought we should try making some egg-free and dairy-free pancakes for him. They were a real hit, even with the Carnivore's dad, who said they were just like "real" pancakes :)

Modified from Kylie's Blog

Egg-free and Dairy-free Pancakes
Ingredients
1 cup Plain Flour
1/2 teaspoon Bi-carb Soda (Baking Soda)
2 teaspoons Baking Powder
1/4 teaspoon Salt
2 Tablespoons Sugar
1 cup Soy Milk (or other cow milk substitute)
1.5 Tablespoons Vegetable Oil

Method
1. Sift flour and baking soda/powder and salt.
2. Add sugar.
3. Add Oil and half the soy milk. Whisk together.
4. Gradually add the rest of the soy milk until thick pouring consistency. If it's too thick, add more. (I did, but I'm not sure how much extra I added)
5. Heat Frying pan – needs to be reasonably hot. I used vegetable oil. Oil/spray for each pancake – they do stick otherwise.

Edit (24/3/2012): The other week we tried this, but I forgot to read the instructions and dumped everything in the bowl together. Don't worry, it still works!

Thumbs up for McDonald's!

Ok, I never thought I'd say it, but well done to McDonald's. I was reading up on the failsafe diet and they mention that McDonald's has an excellent list of items that may cause food sensitivity. Naturally, I thought I'd check it up, and sure enough, there it is, 27 pages worth!

So it turns out that the Vegan Carnivore can eat:
- Junior Burgers
- Mini Crispy Chicken Snack Wraps without mayonnaise (but not the Seared one)
- French Fries
- Salad with italian dressing (not balsamic)
- BBQ sauce
- Ketchup
- English muffin with strawberry jam, honey or vegemite
- Hashbrown
- Hotcake syrup (no hotcakes though :( )
- Mcsausage muffin with no cheese

Unfortunately for us, of all the non-breakfast items, he only likes french fries!

Soy ice-cream

The weather is finally warming up, so I thought I'd better buy some ice-cream for the Vegan Carnivore. I got a tub of the So Good vanilla (soy) ice-cream. Luckily he can't read, so he has no idea about it yet.

I've waited for him to go to bed and just given it a try. The verdict? It's fairly good. Nice texture with a slight soy milk taste to it. I think the little boy will wolf it down.

Next time I will try chocolate!

(Note: image is from the sanitarium website, linked)

Pie!

I never thought I would be able to eat a pie with my Vegan Carnivore until he outgrew his allergy, but Egg- and Dairy-free Dad and Omnivore Girl made egg- and dairy-free pastry!! I am still so thrilled about this, even though the pie was made almost a week ago.

Since I didn't make it, I can't tell you how to make the pork & mushroom filling, but I can give you Egg- and Dairy-free Dad's description. As you can tell, he's not really very fond of Nuttelex.

I used this pie recipe as a basis

http://www.vegfamily.com/vegan-recipes/desserts/vegan-pie-crust.htm

but there's not that much to it. what I really did was mix 3 cups of flour, about half a container of nuttelex <yecch> and a teaspoon or so of salt in the food processor. I added a tiny bit of cold water, but then it instantly felt like just a bit too much. It needs more salt.

 

Omnivore Girl helped to roll it out and prick the base, she just loves to cook. And then she loves to eat! As did her little brother and the rest of the family. There's nothing better than lovely crisp pastry. :o)

Egg- and Dairy-free Chocolate Cupcakes

Time for a family celebration, so I made some chocolate cupcakes for the vegan carnivore with the help of the carnivore's big sister. It rated pretty highly on bestrecipes so I thought it would be a safe enough experiment. And sure enough, it worked! I made half the recipe and made 20 small cupcakes.

Got to love recipes that work first time and don't need an egg beater! A nice one to cook with kids.

http://www.bestrecipes.com.au/recipe/Egg-and-Dairy-Free-Chocolate-Cake-L6971.html

Ingredients (half-batch)
1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
1/3 cup cocoa
1 cup caster sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup water
1/3 cup canola oil
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Method

1. Line cupcake tin with patty pans and pre-heat oven to 160° Celsius fan force (or 180°C bake)
2. Sift flour, cocoa, caster sugar and salt into a large bowl.
3. Add remaining ingredients and mix well (a spoon will do).
4. Pour mixture into a prepared patty pans.
5. Bake for 20 minutes or until cooked through.