I Win at Veganism

I've decided.

Why?

This is why:

Clean up your drool. That, my friend, is caramel shortcake aka millionaire's shortbread aka nomtastic aka a-little-piece-of-my-childhood. As far as I'm aware it's quite a Scottish thing and is served in school canteens all over the country (we don't agree with our children having teeth apparently).

I started out with this recipe, which was okay but if I'd actually followed it, this would have probably been disastrous. It's quite unclear (for example it doesn't state what temperature to cook the shortbread at, so I had to guess), and quite a lot of it I just plain didn't agree with, so I changed. I somehow managed to remember most of the changes I made, and in an uncommon move on my part, I'm actually going to post the recipe. I know! How often do I do that?!


Caramel Shortcake/Millionaire's Shortbread

Shortbread
150g (6 oz) vegan margarine
75g (3 oz) sugar
175g (7 oz) plain flour
75g (3 oz) cornflour

Caramel
300g sugar
60g vegan margarine
6 tbsp soya whipping cream
2 tsp vanilla

200g of plain chocolate

Directions

1. Add the margarine and the sugar to a mixing bowl and beat together.
2. Mix in the flour and corn flour until well mixed and crumbly.
3. Press shortbread mixture into an oven proof dish (I only had a round cake tin and that worked fine, but for proper nostalgic slabs of cake, I'll need to get a rectangular one).This should be pressed in quite firmly, I used the back of a spoon to level it out.
4. Bake at 170 for 20 minutes or until just beginning to brown.
5. Let the shortbread cool.
6. While the shortbread is cooling you can make your caramel. In a large pan, melt the sugar BEING VERY CAREFUL NOT TO BURN YOURSELF ON THE MOLTEN SUGAR LAVA. Once all the sugar has melted, it should be a lovely golden colour. Add the rest of the caramel ingredients and stir through.
7. To tell if your caramel is ready carefully place a drop into a jug of cold water, and if it forms a soft ball between your finger and thumb then you're doing grand.
8. Pour caramel over your now cooled shortbread.
9. Melt your chocolate via whatever method you like and por over the caramel layer.
10. Put in the fridge until the chocolate sets.

I thoroughly reccommend taking it out of the fridge and letting it get back to almost room temperature before eating it as this is when the caramel should be optimally gooey.

Enjoy! If anybody has any questions, feel free to leave a comment or shoot me an email (I just added a link up on the top right hand side).

Teaching Boys to Cook

Well, just the one boy really. I've been working crazy mad all over the place hours recently and although I do enjoy the boy's tofu stir fry, it was getting a bit dull having it every day. So! We decided he needed to learn to cook, and as it turns out, he's actually rather good. Score!
This was spinach pasta with a light, lemony, creamy sauce, with kale, onions and pine nuts. On the side is pesto potatoes. It was absolutely blinkin gorgeous, and I got to have leftovers for lunch the next day.

Uber win.

No, you can't have him. No, he doesn't have a brother.

Also, just for good measure, here's a pepper I only went and stuffed the other night. Poor bugger, he never stood a chance.
It had tofu and rice and kale (oh my!), which are possibly three of my most favourite things in the world ever. Okay, so maybe those aaaaand my iphone.