vegan baking | beach house kitchen

Posts Tagged With: vegan baking

Wholegrain Soda Bread Muffins – Vegan

Posted on February 12, 2019 by leroy watson

Vegan Soda Bread Muffins, it’s all about the buttermilk!

Home-baked bread in no time at all!!

Perfect with a nice bowl of soup.

I’ve been busy away from the blog recently, so it’s great to be back! Thought I’d get started again with something simple and hearty.

I love soda bread, good bread doesn’t need to be fiddly or take ages to make. These muffins are wholesome, have a great flavour and texture from ingredients you’ve probably got tucked away in your cupboards right now.

Soda bread is easy when you know how. We don’t want to taste any soda (bicarbonate that is) so we balance it with the flavour of the buttermilk. That’s the art of soda bread. The acid in the buttermilk help the loaf to rise. We use plain flour here to give the soda bread lighter texture. Soda bread is unique!

WHY MUFFINS?

I do like a muffin! We make fresh loaves everyday so it’s just changing things up a little. These will be paired with a nice Winter Roots and Lentil Soup at the minute.

I think with a muffin like this, it’s also about the crust. It’s a wrap-around crust! Crust all over. This is a definite bonus when it comes to muffins or rolls.

You can add all kinds of herbs (rosemary and thyme), nuts or seeds and spices to this bread. You can also bake it in a loaf shape, just add a little more time to the bake.

Simple Vegan Soda Bread – Ready in 45 minutes.

Making vegan buttermilk is very easy and ideal for baking. I like to use vinegar as the acid, and soya milk. But you can experiment with acid’s like lemon/ lime juice and other plant milks, like almond. But other plant milks may not curdle as well.

We need loads of hearty and warming dishes at this time of year, I hope you like these muffins. Do let us know if you make them and feel free to ask any questions or give feedback in the comments below.

Happy cooking!!

Recipe Notes

You can go wholegrain 100% here if you fancy. Just replace wholegrain flour with the white flour. The texture will be a little more dense, but tasty.

Make sure you give the mix a good stir, this helps to create a nice texture.

Vegan Soda Bread – A simple and satisfying Beach House Kitchen favourite

Wholegrain Soda Bread Muffins – Vegan

The Bits – For 12

Dry

150g plain white flour

300g wholemeal bread/ strong flour

2 tbs brown sugar

2 tbs rapeseed or olive oil

1 teas bicarbonate of soda

1 teas salt

Oats (for sprinkle)

Vegan Buttermilk

325ml soya milk

2 teas apple cider or white wine vinegar

Do It

Stir the vinegar into the soya milk and leave to sit for 10 minutes. It will form a buttermilk texture.

Preheat a fan oven to 180oC.

Place all the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl then mix in the buttermilk. Mix well for a few minutes, I like to use a wooden spoon.

Lightly oil a muffin tin and using two dessert spoons, this is the easiest way, spoon the dough into the tin. Make the muffins roughly equal in size.

Sprinkle with oats or a little more flour and place in the oven. Bake for 14 minutes.

Once baked, they’ll be nice and golden on top. Leave the muffins to sit for a couple of minutes in the tin and then remove onto a wire cooling rack.

Best enjoyed warm with a nice bowl of soup. Also nice with your favourite jam and vegan creme fraiche.

Beautiful views in wintery Snowdonia

Foodie Fact

Wholegrain flours are less, or not, processed at all. Wholegrain flour is much higher in fibre than white flour, fibre is essential in our diets for loads of reasons. Good levels of fibre in our diets will help our digestion, can lower blood cholesterol and even help to lose weight.

Wholegrain flour has roughly six times more fibre per serving than white flour. Wholegrains are low GI, meaning they’re great fuel for our bodies, releasing sugar slowly into our bloodstreams. We’re also talking vitamins; some vitamin B’s, folate, riboflavin.

Go wholegrain!

Categories: Baking, Cooking Holidays, healthy, Nutrition, photography, plant-based, Recipes, Vegan, Wales, Winter | Tags: vegan baking, vegan buttermilk, vegan food | 3 Comments

Banana & Peanut Butter Muffins with Date Caramel

Posted on September 27, 2017 by leroy watson

Most of the time, the simple things are the best. Like these muffins. They take a few minutes to make and I love the combination of banana, peanut and dates. It’s like these flavours were created for a muffin! This is a recipe that I keep going back to again and again, I’m really chuffed that I’ve finally got around to sharing it.

These muffins are loved by kids especially, I’ve seen some amazing reactions from kids when faced with these. They disappear quickly and I think the caramel is a real favourite. They are also pretty healthy, but kids are in no way put off by that, they just love them because they’re yum. I’ve found kids are a good jury for muffins, they are perfectly honest and normally have an interesting point or two to make.

I have used a little white flour here, but you could go fully wholemeal if you’re feeling that. Also, buckwheat flour is a lovely addition to these muffins, adds a real depth. The key here it to not over bake them, they will go dry quickly. Get them out when they are still soft in the middle, but a skewer comes out clean (a little stickiness is fine) and they will firm up when cooled.

The date caramel is so, so easy and can be used on all kinds of desserts and as a go to icing and filling, it’s just a superstar recipe with three ingredients only!! These muffins also make for a great, super quick breakfast option.

These muffins use such simple ingredients that almost anyone can jump in their kitchen right now and give them a go!

Recipe Notes

Get some nice big muffins cases here. Little cup cake cases won’t do. Preferably without frilly patterns on. I’m against frilly patterns in this case. I like plain brown or white, however Jane has talked me into a pink muffin case in the past.

If you’re feeling chocolaty, add a few tbs of cocoa/ cacao to the mix, the results are amazing!!

I like coconut oil, but normal vegetable oil is also fine.

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Banana & Peanut Butter Muffins with Date Caramel

The Bits – 10 muffins
3 ripe bananas
70ml coconut oil (melted)
65g light brown sugar
100g self raising flour
120g wholemeal flour
1 teas bicarb
1 teas cinnamon
3 tbs peanut butter

Date Caramel

175g dates
3 tbs peanut butter
3-4 tbs water

Topping

1 handful toasted peanuts (roughly chopped)
10 pieces dried banana/ banana chips

Do It
Preheat oven to 180oC, place 10 muffin cases in your muffin tin.

Mash the bananas in a mixing bowl, mix in peanut butter, oil and sugar, then the flour, bicarb, cinnamon. Mix well until a lumpy batter form.

Spoon the mix into your muffin cases, so they’re ¾ full. Pop in the oven and bake for 20 minutes. Leave the muffins to cool in the tin.

Caramel – Place all in a blender and blitz until smooth. This will take a few goes. Drizzle in more water to thin out to a spreadable consistency.

Spread your caramel over cooled muffins, sprinkle with peanuts and stick a banana chip on top for a final flourish!

Foodie Fact

Peanuts are nutritional powerhouses, like most nuts. A handle full a day is a great idea. Packed with minerals, antioxidants and protein, they are the ideal snack, rich in good fats and fibre. Peanut butter is a great way of adding peanut power to smoothies, dressings, curries/soups/stews. The hype is that nuts are fattening, but it has been shown that adding nuts to our diets can actually help us loss weight.

Jane and I have been enjoying them boiled, something we’d not tried until we went to China. Great added to a stir fry or tossed with a Chinese Style dressing in a salad.