james test

August 15, 2015 Hot on the heels of that cocoa crackles recipe , I've got another melt-and-mix rice bubble treat to share. I stirred this one up in 15 minutes to take along to a crafternoon, where I helped decorate my friend's exciting new recycling venture . This slice comes from the indolent cook . I replaced the original honey with barley malt syrup for vegan-friendly convenience to good effect. I toasted the rice puffs and walnuts in a pan as directed, but somehow that dulled their fresh crunch, and I wouldn't repeat it. The slice's dark and glossy finish suggests that this is will be an intensely sweet and chocolatey experience, but actually the flavour is dominated by tahini. It could be a fleeting disappointment, but ultimately it's a nutty, fudgy delight. Tahini rice puff squares (slightly adapted from a recipe at the indolent cook ) 3 cups brown rice puffs 1/4 cup walnuts, chopped  1/2 cup tahini 1/4 cup barley malt syrup 1/4 cup cocoa  1/4 teaspoon salt...

August 9, 2015 We were invited to celebrate the first birthday of our youngest friend last weekend. Her party had a rainbow theme, and the savoury food was provided by the wonderful Las Vegan Catering (I ate so much pizza ). A week ahead I asked how I could help, and I was enlisted to make chocolate crackles. Chocolate crackles are always vegan and very nearly gluten-free, but these ones have the 2015 treatment. There's coconut oil instead of copha, of course, and coconut sugar instead of regular icing. I even had gluten-free brown rice puffs on hand instead of Kellogg's bubbles. This version appeals to 2015 me much more than the original recipe - although it's a little crumbly, it's got a stronger cocoa flavour and none of the greasiness of copha. The party wasn't exclusively new age mama mania - there was plenty of lurid colouring in the vegan-friendly Skittles and the spectacular six-layered rainbow cake prepared by a pro. Cocoa crackles (slightly adapted from a...

May 23-24, 2015 Last weekend we joined in on a big party for a little girl's birthday. Much of the food was expertly catered by the Las Vegan crew, and another guest prepared a cake decorated with fairies and fondant mushrooms. I brought along a tray of hedgehog slice, a fairly common treat from my own childhood. I don't have a family recipe, but I knew Vegan About Town posted one that I could draw from and adapt to suit my pantry. The whole hedgehog deal was really just a plot to use up two packets of LEDA gingernuts , and it served to polish off some walnuts, cashews and dried cherries too. Best of all, it's an oven-free melt'n'mix method easily accomplished in 20 minutes. The slice has a great fudgy texture and a much darker chocolate base than the non-vegan versions I've known before. On reflection, it was probably too rich and bittersweet for the kids. In fact the little tackers barely took an interest in the savoury selection or the birthday cake once th...

After my baking disaster on Wednesday night, I called for my Mum. But it wasn't quite the desperate and childish plea you might think - I just wanted the no-bake slice recipe that I so enjoyed as a kid. I figured it'd salve my sore ego, fill the snacking void left by the muffins, and use up some of the rice bubbles I recently bought . What I've made here only bears a passing resemblance to my Mum's version, which itself bore only a passing resemblance to the original recipe that she emailed to me. It began as some kind of muesli bar slice, with toasted muesli and seeds. I think the toasted muesli may have been phased out of Mum's, and I don't ever remember encountering seeds. For my texture-intolerant brother, there was the bare-basics version: just rice bubbles bound together with the molten butter/peanut butter/honey/sugar mixture. I liked dried apricots in mine, and for an occasional after-dinner treat, it would be spread with a top layer of dark cooki...

My first set of chocolate clusters were transformed into a sweet spread and the leftover ingredients from my ginger-cashew clusters received the same treatment. This time I blended the cashews, glace ginger and chocolate with Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese to smooth it out. The 'pesto' was a success equal to my first attempt and I found some even better biscuits to team it with! These are Arnott's Lattice biscuits , pastry squares that are like sweet glazed SAO s. I haven't had them in years, though I do remember some incredible passionfruit vanilla slices made with them when I was growing up.

Michael arrived home from his conference late on Wednesday night. There was no need to keep dinner warm for him but I wanted to prepare a little welcome-home treat. Previously, he loved the quick-and-easy crunchy chewy chocolate clusters I cobbled together and so I set about creating a new flavour combination: dark chocolate with cashews, glace ginger, shredded coconut, a small slosh of Cointreau and a pinch of salt. (Thanks to Mary/Beppo for the Cointreau idea !) These were at least as addictive as the cherry-pistachio version. I probably added a little too much salt, and this ramped up my compulsion to eat cluster after cluster after cluster. Michael shared this compulsion, though I'm not sure that had anything to do with the salt quotient. If you'd like to put yourself at risk of a chocolate frenzy, just follow the rough quantities I used previously and try your own crunchy-chewy combination.

Here's my new invention on a stay-inside Saturday afternoon - dessert pesto. This is not much more than a blended version of the chocolate clusters I recently made, with a bit of cream cheese to bind it together in a spreadable consistency. It's not quite as chocolatey as it looks: the blended dried cherries also added a rich dark taste, texture and colour. I spread it on plain dry (but slightly sweet) biscuits and was in afternoon tea heaven. It was really just an experimental attempt at using up my last small portions of pistachios and dried cherries, but I can see myself pushing this idea further with other fruit and nut combinations: dried apricot and almond, maybe, or dried apple and cashew with white chocolate...? Dessert pesto Throw about 2 dessertspoon-fulls of dried cherries in a blender and pulse until mushy. Add an equal volume of pistachios and pulse briefly to break them up a bit. Next add about 20g of dark cooking chocolate and pulse again. Finally, add...