Recipe: Vegan Vanilla Custard Slice

The combination of sweet pastry and vanillary fillings was always a favourite in our pre-vegan household so veganising this was almost first on the long list of treats that my family demanded a vegan version of, like, yesterday. This is a very basic vanilla custard slice but you could do all sorts with this recipe. Perhaps change the flavour of the essence or drizzle with chocolate. 

 

Custard Slice Ingredients

Ingredients:

  • Ready roll puff pastry
  • Plant milk of your choice
  • Custard powder (Birds Custard Powder and many stores own brands are vegan)
  • Cornstarch
  • Vanilla essence
  • Castor sugar
  • Icing sugar

Method:

  1. Cut your ready roll puff pastry into two halves.
  2. Place both slices onto grease proof paper pricking them all over with a fork to prevent them rising and cook for roughly 15-20 minutes on 180 until it is lightly browned.
  3. Leave the pastry to cool.
  4. Make a pint of custard as per the instructions on the tin with an additional dessertspoon of cornstarch powder added to the paste.
  5. When you add your boiled milk to the paste you should notice it almost instantly starts to thicken and go stodgy. Do not place back on the heat as your custard instructions might tell you to. If your custard doesn’t go stodgy then DO return to the heat stirring constantly until it does.
  6. Stir in your vanilla essence to taste.
  7. Cut one of the layers of pastry into squares or rectangles. You should be able to get either 12 rectangles or 16 squares.
  8. Spread your custard on the uncut layer of pastry and then place your cut pieces on the top.
  9. Sprinkle with icing sugar.

 

Recipe: Vegan Banana Bread

vegan banana bread

Banana Bread is a long time favourite of mine and I must confess I find that when I make it I suddenly seem to be eating Banana Bread for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. The ingredients are for the basic cake but as with many of my recipes you can dress them up however you like. Use any nuts, seeds or fruits in the cake and on top or even add some cacao powder to the cake for a chocolate banana sponge. 

Continue reading “Recipe: Vegan Banana Bread”

Recipe: Lemon Cake

I love this lemon cake! Not only is it very easy to make but it tastes absolutely lush. If you’re new to vegan baking this would be a great cake for one of your first attempts as there is no fancy ingredients or methods. Its almost as simple as chuck it all in a bowl and mix it together!

Continue reading “Recipe: Lemon Cake”

Recipe: Easy Peasy Vegan Carbonara

easy vegan carbonara

If you look around the internet you’ll find an abundance of Carbonara recipes and i’ve tried and tested them all over the years. Then my daughter moved to Italy to a town with one of the most famous vegan restaurants in the country. With a little Italian persuasion they convinced the chef to part ways with his secret ingredients and after a few weeks of experimenting with quantities (the chef wasn’t going to tell them everything) they finally cracked the recipe. Their final recipe is so simple and requires hardly any ingredients compared to the recipes you’ll find online. In fact she even said when they were looking her Italian family were highly amused at what these recipes were calling a Carbonara and genuinely couldn’t understand what half the ingredients were for!

So, if you want to eat an authentic Italian Carbonara – that quite frankly will be the easiest one you could ever make – then keep reading. And maybe finally now I know the recipe my daughter will stop telling me off for calling “Pasta Alfredo” or “Pasta Bianco” a Carbonara! Oh, and believe me I know that curry powder sounds weird… but she really wasn’t lying when she said that’s the “secret ingredient” as I watched her make it last night and it was the damn best Carbonara i’ve ever eaten. 

Continue reading “Recipe: Easy Peasy Vegan Carbonara”