Uncle Howard’s Chocolate Ganache Tart: The Best Vegan (and healthiest) Dessert You Will Ever Eat

I made this (very un)sinfully delicious tart yesterday. For a taste of something decadent without the horror ingredients I’d urge anyone to try this 🙂 Made with walnuts, avaocado, coconut oil, cocoa, dates and I used honey as a sweetener – topped with a wee bit of cream it’s perfect.

Gluten Free Gus

Okay, gave you Chocolate Mousse with ginger crust, a dessert with traditional ingredients.  You’ll have fun trying this whether you eat a vegan diet or not. British brother-in-law Howard (check out his music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKO24MPVF7c) made it for us last summer, twice in fact, because it was so popular!  Trust me, it is rich and delicious enough to become a favorite.  Last night I texted the recipe to son Nathaniel who reported it was “insanely good.” I smiled when I checked the text to write this: my iPhone had autocorrected one of the ingredients: 1 Tablespoon vanilla “extravehicular.”  And so:

Vegan Chocolate Tart

7-9” tart pan with a removable bottom, lined with a circle of parchment paper.  The width of the pan will determine the thickness of the tart.  Straight sides work better than fluted.

Click Here To Print Recipe

INGREDIENTS

Crust:

8 oz. pecans, walnuts or almonds

6 oz…

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Lemon Poppy Seed Cake and Raspberry Clafouti

You could be forgiven for thinking we only eat sweets here – the following two recipes are a cake and a dessert. I am way behind in my posts, this cake was made a fortnight ago 🙂

Lemon Poppy Seed Cake:

4 tablespoons poppy seeds

1/4 cup milk

juice of 1 lemon

Soak the poppy seeds in the milk and lemon juice for 10 minutes.

200 g butter

1 tablespoon grated grind

1 cup sugar

3 eggs

2 1/4 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup sour cream, greek yogurt or milk

Preheat oven to 375 deg. Beat the poppy seed mixture, eggs, softened butter, lemon rind, sour cream and sugar till well blended. Add to the sifted flour and baking powder and pour in to a paper lined or well greased cake tin. Bake at 375 deg approx 35 minutes, till cooked and golden.

Syrup:

1/4 cup each of water, sugar and lemon juice.

Simmer in a pan 5 minutes then spoon over hot cake. 

Raspberry Clafouti:

I had been wanting to try this for a long time and found a bag of raspberries lurking in the freezer. This is so simple and sooo good.

500 g or 2 cups berries (any sort)

2 tablespoons sugar

125 g cream cheese or greek yogurt

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup flour, sifted

1 tsp vanilla

3 eggs

1/2 cup milk

Preheat oven to hot 200 deg C, 400 deg F. Put berries in the base of oven dish and toss with the first measure of sugar.

Beat cream cheese, sugar and flour till smooth. Gradually add combined vanilla, eggs and milk and beat till smooth. Pour over berries. Bake for around 20 – 25 minutes or till golden. Sprinkle with icing sugar (I didn’t have any).

Fruit Crostata with Sweet Cheese

Have to reblog this and try it one day when our berries are back in season, it looks very yummy.

Mastering The Art Of Pigging Out - My Life In Food - John C. Picardi

I was going to a friend’s house for dinner tonight and I wanted to make something traditional for dessert, but with a twist…something slightly different… I’ve been craving Cheese Cake lately, but thought it too heavy since the weather has been hot & muggy and plus cheese cake can be rather filling after a meal. What to do?

I contemplated for a second– –I had some fresh cherries, blueberries and peaches, but I really wanted that cheesecakes taste…so this is what I came up with and it definitely fulfilled my cheesecake cravings and it gave this Fruit Crostata a whole new dimension.

Sweet Cheese Filling
½ cup cream cheese
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
Beat everything together until well blended and put it to the side.

Clean, cut, and peel your fruit. I used cherries, blueberries and peaches slices. I had four cups of fruit. I mixed…

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Lemon Delicious pudding

Recipe and photo courtesy of http://www.taste.com.au.

I had to use their photo as my kitchen is too dim on winter evenings. This is, as the title suggests, delicious. It has a light, fluffy sponge on top and lemony sauce on the bottom. I added a little more lemon juice and rind to mine.

• 150g unsalted butter, melted
• 2 teaspoons finely grated lemon rind
• 1/3 cup lemon juice
• 1 1/2 cups caster sugar
• 3/4 cup self-raising flour, sifted
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 4 eggs, separated
• icing sugar mixture, to serve

Preheat oven to 175 deg C. Cream the butter, sugar and lemon rind. Add egg yolks and beat. Add milk, lemon juice and flour and mix on low speed. Beat the egg whites until stiff (but not dry) and fold into the mixture. Pour into greased oven proff dish which is sitting in an oven dish with hot water in. Place all in oven and bake for around 50 – 60 minutes till golden on top and sponge is set. Cool a little and dust with icing sugar, serve with cream or ice cream.

Easy Berry Pie

I make this quite a bit and last night added fresh cranberries. This was divinity on a plate!

One thing I never mind paying for is pastry, any sort – because mine is just never good and food should be enjoyed, not suffered lol

31/2 – 4 cups mixed berries (fresh or frozen)

1/2 cup sugar

2 good tablespoons cornflour (corn starch)

1 tsp lemon rind, or juice

1 quantity sweet shortcrust pastry

Preheat oven to 200c. Toss berries with other ingredients in bowl, mix well to combine. Turn into pie dish, cover with pastry and prick with a fork. Bake around 15 – 20 minutes till golden.

We use whatever berries are in the garden and quantities are not important. The addition of strawberries is always very nice and this one last night had raspberries, strawberries and cranberries. My husband commented it was absolutely the best ever. Even dried cranberries added to whatever else I expect would be very similar.