Long Time No Blog!

Well! What an eventful few months it has been.. Few months? Hmm.. Possibly a year.. huh! 

I thought I'd come back on here more as an outlet for everything that I have been doing recently, and possibly put up a few fancy recipes I've been working on lately. 

My life has changed significantly since I last posted. My partner and I split, I moved to a new house, and met some of the most amazing people in the world! 

I also went overseas (England, Scotland, Wales, and back to Hungary!), and have started a new relationship with a fantastic person. 

Before you ask, yes I still get to see my dogs (Suzie and Radley), though my ex has custody, we are still good friends, which allows me to spend as much time with them as I like. I do have custody of Domino (unfriendly cat), who has taken to living with Kate and myself, as she is now being fed double. 

I am still working at the vegan bakery, though I have been given an amazing opportunity to do some catering for another cafe in Canberra. Which means my own recipes, and much better hours! 

The amazing people I've met include the beautiful Katie, who has become one of the most important people in my life. She is definitely the one person I think I can tell anything at all without judgement. She let me cry at her after my break up with Travis, she helped me to get over that with lots of whisky and gin, and she even let me dye her hair blue (what a trooper)! She is an extremely smart lady who can play nearly every instrument you throw at her, and can drink most people under the table. 

The other amazing person in my life is Seb. 

Seb and I met a few months after the split, and it just so happened that he was working in the bar that I frequented with work colleagues while I was drowning myself in liquor to numb any feelings of loss and pain (mostly due to the loss of Suzie and Radley). He caught my eye immediately, though I hesitated to act due to the fact that he was now my barman (and nobody liked to screw things up with a good barman), and so I let my little infatuation go for a while. 

Then a while later I got very drunk.

Possibly drunker than that. 

Then drunker. 

And I (very indelicately) hit on him. 

He reciprocated, I stalked him on Facebook, and the rest is history! 

We've only been dating for ten months, but things seem to be traveling along smoothly. My parents adore him, he is extremely smart (studying industrial design at the University of Canberra), hard working, and an amazing person to talk to. Katie loves him too, which means our dates are frequently crashed.. 

Needless to say, I love him. 

OK! Well it seems we're mostly caught up! If I think of anything else, I'll be sure to put it up, but for now I'll start collating some of my new recipes for putting up! 

xox

Vegan Brioche Recipe (with pictures)

So school has really been trying to make life hard for me.. Since I refuse to buy anything non-vegan, and I have to make most of the things we bake at school, at home, I basically have to try my damnedest to make these very NON vegan recipes, vegan :-S

Last week it was croissants, which you can check out here (they turned out BEAUTIFULLY!)

So this week I decided, as my last week of having to bake using yeast, to make brioche. Now i'm not sure if you're familiar with it, but if you aren't (as I wasn't before baking in class), it is a french pastry, traditionally made of many eggs and LOTS of butter, which make it basically a really unhealthy form of bread.. YUM!

At school this meant using a lot of butter, and lots of eggs to make this gloopy dough, which when baked turned into a very very very fatty muffin (not sure why, but they made us bake it in muffin tins).

This is how I made my home-made vegan brioche (which I divided into smaller amounts, as a larger one would likely give you a heart attack):

BRIOCHE RECIPE:

Tools used: 

• Kitchen Aid
• Dough hook
• Scales
• Oven @ 180C
• Scraper
• Muffin tin
• Stainless steel bowl (or other)
• Cling wrap
• Tea towel

Ingredients:

• 250g Flour
• 3.5g  Yeast
• 5g     Salt
• 50ml Milk (I used rice)
• 140g Soy yoghurt / egg replacer / flax seed & water (I used soy yoghurt)
• 15g   Sugar
• 150g Vegan butter (I used Nuttelex) - Softened
• Canola spray oil

Method: 

1. Combine Flour, Yeast, Salt and Sugar in the mixing bowl
   
2. Slowly add milk and yoghurt/egg replacer. 
   
3. Add in the butter gradually, and make sure it has been softened (so not straight out of the fridge).
4. Make sure each piece of butter has been well incorporated before adding the next piece. 
5. Let the dough mix on high until combined. NB if you're having issues with the dough being too wet, or too dry, feel free to add a little more flour/milk/butter slowly with the mixer on low, and let the dough mix a while before adding any more to make sure it doesn't go the other way :-P 
   
6. Once combined, take the mixture from the bowl and place on a lightly floured bench top.
7. Knead a little to get it into a ball, then place into an oiled bowl and cover for 45 mins to an hour to rest. (It should hopefully double in size)
   
8. Once the dough is well rested (hah!), turn it out onto the bench again to knead (or knock back). Knead it for a minute or two. 
9. Divide the dough equally into the muffin tin (or you can use a loaf pan, whatever suits you!), and round the little dough mixtures in your hands, so they are smooth over the top.
   
10. Spray the balls with some canola spray, then place somewhere warm to prove. 
11. Put in the oven when the dough is springy, and bounces back to shape when you poke it with your finger. 

    

    Looking a little tired

12. Remove from oven once the tops are golden. 
    
13. Et voila! Brioche! :) 

Mmmmm Choc filled deliciousness! 

Drool! 

Fillings:

So we like these plain, or with some Nuttelex, but you can fill them with so many things! We put some Sweet Williams chocolate pieces inside some, cut some open and buttered them with chocolate spread, peanut butter, Tofutti Better than Cream Cheese, the possibilities are endless! 

At school they made savoury spreads for them, so you can always make something yummy out of the cream cheese! 

Birthday Surprises and an Amazing Gift

1 week ago I turned 25…. It was devastating! I can't believe how quickly it snuck up on me!

My darling boyfriend decided to conspire with my sister and mother to have them spring a surprise visit on me. It was so beautiful! I hadn't seen my family in a few weeks, so this was quite emotional for me.. 

Travis took me out to lunch at a local vegetarian eatery (My Rainbow Dreams), we sat down, I ordered a yummy juice, and perused the menu. 

I looked up at Travis (blank face - he should play poker), who said "Surprise", and my sister and her partner grabbed me by the shoulders!!! 

2 minutes later my mum and step-dad sauntered up casually. 

I love my family.

We all spent a lovely lunch eating delicious vegan lunchables and enjoying each others company (and some scrummy brownies). 

After lunch my amazing family gave me my birthday present:

Cream Kitchen Aid

Are they not the best??? Is this not the BEST???

This is something I had been whinging and whining about for months to Travis, and basically anyone who had ears.. So I was (and obviously still am), so excited by this little beauty. 

Vegan Baking

So as I mentioned in a previous post, I have started a patisserie course here in Canberra.
It is pretty amazing. So far we have completed 5 weeks of baking with yeast.
Some photos below of some of the (non vegan) products we've made so far:

Baguettes

Chelsea Buns, or Cinnamon Scrolls depending where you're from ;-)

A little tin of smiling chelsea buns

Un-cooked little croissants - how adorable are these??

Finished products - Croissant

Cherry and apple danish

Aren't they cute? It has been SO much fun learning how to bake properly, in a proper kitchen, with proper equipment!

Here are some photos of some VEGAN goodies that I baked at home, so that Travis and I didn't feel so deprived after looking at all my scrumptious goodies from school:

Some basic bread rolls

Choc-chip peanut butter biscuits

Hot Cross buns (i didn't have a piping bag handy, so the "crosses" are a little skew-iff)

 My piping practice on some delicious chocolate cupcakes