Black Olive Tapenade

1 tin (350g) pitted black olives, drained and rinsed
1 tbsp olive oil
1 small clove garlic, crushed
1 tsp dried mixed herbs
black pepper to taste
2 tbsp tomato puree

1. Add all ingredients to the bowl of a food processor. Cover and blend until the mixture holds together. You want some texture in it, so the olives should be in very small bits, not completely blended. Can be stored in the fridge for a couple of days in a sealed container.

Spicy Peanut Dip

10 oz (280g) peanut butter
8 floz (230 ml) boiling water
2 tbsp soya sauce
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tsp chilli sauce – we use Encona
3 tsp curry powder
2 tsp lemon juice
2 cm fresh ginger, grated – optional
1 tsp toasted sesame oil – optional

1. Put the peanut butter into a bowl and add the boiling water. Stir until the peanut butter has dissolved and you have a smooth mixture.
2. Stir in the remaining ingredients, adjusting to taste. Leave to cool. Can be stored in the fridge for a couple of days in a sealed container.

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At first glance this looks complicated but each step is quite simple. And if you have some cake ready to pull out of the freezer you can save time.

Prepare in advance to give the jelly time to set and the custard and cream a chance to cool.

Ingredients
Quarter of this vanilla cake – ice the leftovers and eat or they will freeze well
–
8 oz (225g) fresh fruit, mixture of finely sliced bananas and pineapple
–
1 packet vegan jelly mix, i.e. Just Wholefoods, their lemon flavour works well in this recipe
–
1 pint (570 mls) custard (vegan custard powder, 1-2 tbsp sugar to taste and 1 pint soya milk)
–
Cream, the recipe below is from the Cake Scoffer by Ronny, or use our recipe
2 slightly rounded tablespoons cornflour
10 fl oz (280ml) soya milk
2 tsp vanilla essence
4 tbsp icing sugar
4 oz (120g) margarine
–
2 oz (55g) flaked almonds or chopped nuts or fruit to decorate

Method
1. Make the sponge for the base.
2. Slice the cake into the bottom of a trifle dish. Chop the fruit and place it on top of the cake. Put the banana in first and then the pineapple. That way the banana all gets covered by the jelly, this will stop it going brown.
3. Make up jelly as per instructions. Pour it over the sponge and fruit.
5. Make up the custard according to the instructions on the packet* and let it go cold. *Note that when making custard with soya/rice/oat milk you’ll need to use extra custard powder, use about 1½ x the amount it says on the packet.
6. When the jelly has set, spread the custard over the top. Place in the fridge.
7. Make the cream. Put the soya milk and cornflour into a pan and mix well. Heat, stirring all the time until it goes thick. Allow to cool slightly. Blend the vanilla essence, icing sugar and margarine into the cooled mixture by beating with a fork, whisk or electric mixer.
8. Scoop onto the trifle, then sprinkle nuts on the top. Leave in the fridge for at least an hour. Just before serving sprinkle the nuts on top or decorate with fruit and serve.

Note
Use a recipe for vegan palm oil free butter or instead of margarine use an extra 1.5 floz soya milk and 2.5 oz coconut oil. Add the coconut oil to the soya milk in step 7 as soon as it comes off the heat. Stir in until the oil melts, leave the mixture to cool slightly and proceed as per the steps above.

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This recipe makes a light, moist cake. You can vary the flavourings to get lemon, lemony vanilla or chocolate flavour. Variations are given at the end of the recipe.

You’ll get a good result without the soya flour and ground flax seed, which are harder/more expensive to get hold of.

15 floz (400 ml) soya milk
1.5 teaspoons vinegar
5 floz (150ml) vegetable oil
9 oz (255g) caster sugar
3 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 slightly rounded dessertspoons ground flax seed, optional
9 oz (255g) plain white flour
2 oz (55g) cornflour (for best result replace 1oz of this with soya flour)
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon baking powder

1.  Place the soya milk, vinegar, oil, sugar, vanilla and flax (if using) in a large bowl and whisk thoroughly.
2. Measure out flours, bicarbonate and baking powder. Give a good stir to combine, then sift into the wet ingredients. Again mix well to combine. Whisk if necessary – we always whisk.
3. Pour into a lightly oiled 10 x 8 inch tray and bake for 40 minutes at 175°C or until a cocktail stick comes out clean.
4. Cool and ice using our palm oil free vanilla icing (scroll down to step 8) or use your own favourite recipe.

Variations
Lemon – add 2 tablespoons grated lemon zest from an organic or unwaxed lemon. Use 1 tsp vanilla essence, not 3.

Lemony vanilla – add 2 tablespoons grated lemon zest from an organic or unwaxed lemon.

Chocolate – replace 1.5 oz (45g) of the plain white flour with cocoa powder.

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At Fairfoods we are working to cut down on/remove palm oil from our products, and have removed about 90% so far. All our cakes are palm oil free, and most of our savouries. All our products are also vegan.

(Read more about our reasons for wanting to remove palm oil here).

The ideas below are based on the steps we have taken. These are work in progress – we continue to experiment with palm oil free vegan butter and palm oil free vegan pastry, among other things. Your feedback is welcome, in the comments box underneath each post.

The Steps

One – Identify products containing palm oil

We identified the main products that contain palm oil – that we use in our dishes – so that we could replace them. They were: margarine, peanut butter, some vegan cheese, some vegan meats, vegetable stock, pastry and cake icing.

Two – margarine (or vegan butter)

We have come up with various solutions for replacing margarine. All UK-based vegan margarine has palm oil in it at the current time so it’s a tricky one.

In pastry – replace with homemade vegan butter (ours is based on this recipe) or rapeseed oil. For more details see point 7.

In icing – replace with a blend of coconut oil, rapeseed oil and soya milk. For more details see point 8.

In other dishes where margarine is called for, we use a variety of solutions which depend on the dish:

• Use homemade vegan butter, based on this recipe
• Replace with rapeseed oil
• Replace with coconut oil

When replacing margarine with rapeseed oil or coconut oil, we’ll use a smaller amount: they contain a higher percentage of fat (100%!) than margarine does.

Three – peanut butter and nut butters

The following peanut butters are palm oil free:

• All Meridian peanut butter (available from most health food shops). Their almond and cashew butters are also palm oil free.
• Peanut butter & co (available from supermarkets including Sainsbury’s).

Four – vegan cheese

We found that the following vegan cheese is palm oil free:

• Melty Sheese and soft Creamy Sheese by Bute Island
• All vegan cheeses by Vegusto
• Parmesan Cheezly by Redwoods

We have switched over to Melty Sheese. It is worth noting that Redwoods and Bute Island are actively working to make more and more of their range palm oil free.

Five – vegan meat

We found out the following:

• Frys – whole range is palm oil free
• Vegusto – whole range is palm oil free
• Redwoods – the following are palm oil free: Falafel, Lincoln sausage, Sage and marjoram sausage, chorizo, fish-style steak, salmon-style slice and fish-style cakes
• Linda McCartney – none are palm oil free as far as we are aware. When we contacted Linda McC they said that their products contain palm oil and did not specify any that are palm oil free

So we focus on using products that we know are palm oil free.

Six – vegetable bouillon

We sometimes use Marigold organic vegan vegetable bouillon powder (red tub). It does contain palm oil, but Marigold have assured us it is not from ex-rainforest land. We reckon that no other bouillon comes close to Marigold. Not only that, all the others we have found contain palm oil anyway.

Vecon is a vegan vegetable stock which is palm oil free (it looks like yeast extract). We are experimenting with it as well.

Seven – pastry

Here are the two main versions of palm oil free pastry that we use. Each version works for different things.

a. Regular shortcrust pastry made with vegan butter. This works well, but is time-consuming to make because of the time required to make the vegan butter. It is versatile: use wherever shortcrust pastry is required. Our vegan butter is based on this recipe.

b. Pastry using rapeseed oil (recipe below). This works well in almost every instance. The only caveat is when making mini-quiches – it tends to go a bit tough and chewy.

Easy Pastry

This pastry is easy to make because it uses liquid vegetable oil so there is no rubbing in of the fat into the flour. You can use any ratio of white to wholemeal flour, but you’ll probably need to adjust the amount of water. The amount of water also varies depending on the brand of flour you use, and US flours sometimes need more water to hydrate them then UK flours do, so bear this in mind and experiment until you get the right feel.

125g plain white flour
75g plain wholemeal flour
½ tsp salt
60 ml rapeseed, sunflower or canola oil
100 ml water

Sieve flours and salt into a bowl and stir to combine. Mix in oil and water with a butter knife until it starts to form a dough. Put your hands in and bring the mixture together to make a soft dough which is not sticky and holds together well.

Wrap dough in cling film and leave to stand at room temperature for half an hour before use.

Often this pastry is a bit soft to start with – if so put it on a floured surface and knead a couple of times before rolling out – this should make it easier to handle. Alternatively try using a bit less water. If the dough starts to spring back, let it rest for a few minutes on the floured surface.

Eight – cake icing or frosting

Our icing uses a blend of coconut oil, rapeseed oil and soya milk, combined with icing sugar (powdered sugar) and flavourings.

The rapeseed oil can be replaced with any other oil which is mild in flavour and liquid at room temperature. Examples are sunflower oil or corn oil.

Coconut oil makes the icing firm enough to use.
Rapeseed oil makes the icing flexible and not too sticky.
Soya milk thins out the icing – it can be replaced with rice milk. You could probably replace it with other vegan milks or water: we have not tried this however and welcome your feedback.

Vanilla icing

This icing is thick. We use it on mail order cakes so it needs to be thick to withstand travel. If you want to pipe with it, you could try adding a bit more soya milk. We have not tried this however and welcome your feedback if you try it.

This icing thickens up a bit after a few hours because of the coconut oil. Bear this in mind when you are making it and don’t worry if it is slightly too thin.

1 oz (30g) coconut oil
2 dssp rapeseed oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
3-4 tsp soya milk
6 oz (170g) icing sugar. sieved

Melt coconut oil over a very low heat until it is only just melted. Remove from the heat and mix in rapeseed oil, vanilla and 3 tsp soya milk with a fork. Add icing sugar and mash until everything is thoroughly combined. If you want it a bit thinner, add tiny amounts of soya milk until it reaches your desired consistency.

We always make our icing in a food processor, but you can do it by hand if you are making small quantities such as the recipe above.

Will cover 6 large cupcakes.

In conclusion

These are some of the ways we have worked to cut our use of palm oil. We hope you find them useful and welcome your tips, tricks and feedback – please post in the comments below.

If you know of any other vegan and palm oil free products please post them as well!

4.5 oz (130g) plain white flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
Pinch salt
8 floz sweetened soya milk
1 tablespoon vegetable oil, e.g. rapeseed or sunflower
Extra vegetable oil for frying

1. Sieve the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl and mix with a whisk. Add the soya milk and vegetable oil to your mixture and whisk until smooth.

2. Put half a teaspoon of oil into a non-stick frying pan and place over a medium heat until it starts to get hot.

3. Spoon three tablespoons of pancake mixture into the pan. Immediately tilt so that the batter spreads around the pan. Cook until the pancake is starting to set and the underside is golden brown – this usually takes a minute or two but keep an eye on it. Loosen the edges with a spatula and carefully flip the pancake over. Cook for 30 seconds or until the pancake starts to brown a little.

4. Repeat steps 2 to 3 with the remaining mixture.

Makes 3-4 pancakes.

Tip.
1. You’ll need slightly more oil with your first pancake, about 1 teaspoon. After that, add ½ tsp of oil before cooking each pancake and if desired mop of any excess with a kitchen towel.

2. This mixture is fine cooked as soon as you have made it, unlike some mixtures which need to sit in the fridge for a while. However you’ll still get a good result if you need to make the mixture an hour or even a few hours in advance.. cover and leave in the fridge.

3. If you don’t have sweetened soya milk, add 1 tsp sugar to the mixture when you add the soya milk and oil.

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“The choc boxes were a SUPER HIT ! we have never had such delicious vegan cakes or choc’s .Even the non-vegan’s enjoyed them. Thank you so much, we will definitely be returning customers .”

Mel Hayward, Hemyock.

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Valentine’s range

We have put together a range of cakes for Valentine’s Day, just click through the links below for more details or to order. All are suitable for vegans and vegetarians. Cakes and cupcakes are dispatched Weds 13 Feb to arrive Thurs 14 Feb. Chocolate bounties dispatched Mon 11 Feb to arrive Tues 12 Feb. If you would like delivery before Valentine’s Day, please put a preferred date in the ‘Instructions to Merchant’ box when you are checking out.

7 inch cakes

£25.97 – includes delivery.
Flavours: ultra chocolate or strawberries and cream.
For cake details and ordering click here.

Cupcakes
£24.50 for 12 standard – includes delivery.
Flavours: ultra chocolate, chocolate mint or strawberries and cream.
For cupcake details and ordering click here.

Bounty bars
£12.50 for 8
For bounty bar details and ordering click here.

Packing

We take the utmost care packing our cakes and cupcakes. Here is how they are packed..

Cakes

1. Stand the cake on a cardboard disk. Put a double collar around it and fasten securely.
2. Cover the cake, disk and collars with cling film.
3. Line the packing box with biodegradable bubble wrap, then place the cake in the box and pull the bubble wrap up around it.
4. Gently but firmly place bubble wrap around the cake and in the corners to firmly secure the cake in the box. Place a layer of bubble wrap on top of the cake.
5. Close box and sellotape the box over the top twice so that all sides are secured. Sellotape around the sides.

Cupcakes (extra packing for all Valentine’s cupcakes)

1. Wrap cupcake in cling film.
2. Place in compostable cup with biodegradable bubble wrap to pad out the cup.
3. Line the packing box with biodegradable bubble wrap, then place the cups in the box and pull the bubble wrap up around it.
4. Add extra bubble wrap to pad the box.
5. Close box and sellotape the box over the top twice.

Look at our main website here.

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• You are free to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the content.

• You are free to remix – to adapt the content (but please keep it vegan!)

• Credit is not required, but is appreciated. And ideally, a link back to the original.

Please note.
Content means photos as well as written word.

In the future we are going to produce some booklets for sale. These may or may not have some copyright conditions. You’ll find it stated on the booklets in question, as and when they are released.

We have written these guidelines to encourage the free sharing of information and to spread the vegan message.

If you want recipes for any of the food that we provide via Fairfoods, please get in touch. If there is a written recipe, we’re more than happy to email it to you. If we don’t have a written recipe, we can still give you a rough idea how it’s made.

Inspirations:

http://www.theppk.com/2008/02/on-sausages-and-community/

http://zenhabits.net/open-source-blogging-feel-free-to-steal-my-content/

Took part in free vegan food fairs in Plymouth, Taunton, Northants and Truro.

Teamed up with Taunton Vegans to organise Taunton Vegan Fair.

Provided catering for seven weddings.

Won the award for best vegan catering service 2012 in the UK vegan awards.

Removed palm oil from the majority of our products.

Worked with Exeter Friends for Animals to arrange Exeter Vegan Pledge 2012.

Sent out around 500 cakes for Blue Lotus and started selling cakes on our website.

Started working on our own range of breads, starting with homemade pizza bread which is now available on our menu.

Held a vegan outreach table in Exeter for World Vegan Day. Lots of food tasters and vegan information given out.

A few of our plans for 2013

Pop-up cafes in Devon/Somerset ~ Vegan fairs ~ E-recipe booklet ~ Exeter vegan pledge 2013 ~  Expand our homemade bread range ~ and more..

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I tried out some Indian recipes last week at an early Christmas meal. Here are three that came out well and the tweaks I made. Dosa is often vegan at Indian restaurants, but coconut chutney and naan are not so it was a real treat to have them as extras.

Coconut Chutney

The first was a delicious fresh coconut chutney recipe given to me by a friend. The original contained: 4 oz fresh coconut, 4 oz fresh coriander, fresh chilli, 1 small onion or 2 shallots, 1 inch fresh ginger, 2 garlic cloves, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 1 teaspoon coriander seeds, 2 cloves, 1/2 inch cinnamon stick, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp sugar.

I used:
2 oz (55g) desiccated coconut
2 oz (55g) creamed block coconut
2 oz (60g) fresh coriander
1 small red onion
1 fresh red chilli
1 inch of fresh ginger
2 cloves of garlic
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
2 tsp ground coriander
pinch ground cloves
1/3 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1 tsp agave nectar

1. Chop the block coconut, fresh coriander and onion. Place into the bowl of a food processor with the desiccated coconut.

2. Remove the seeds and white bits from the chilli unless you like it mega-hot. Finely chop the chilli, ginger and garlic. Add to the food processor, together with all the remaining ingredients.

3. Blend to a thick, coarse paste.

4. Keeps for 24-36 hours, covered in the fridge. Can also be frozen.

The result was delicious and flavoursome: rich from the coconut, fresh-tasting from the coriander leaves, tangy from the lemon and ginger, hot from the chilli and sweet from the agave.

I tried one batch without fresh ginger and then concluded that the fresh ginger is a key ingredient which makes a huge difference. On the other hand, go easy with the onion unless you love raw onion. It was quite hot with one chilli, adjust to your taste.

Dosa

The coconut chutney was served with a delicious dosa recipe that I found. I made some slight changes:

• Replaced the sweet potato with extra potato
• Used mild yellow mustard instead of mustard seed in the potato mixture
• In the batter I used gram flour as stated, but in place of the ‘flour’, used rice flour

The only thing I would change is to use less mustard seeds in the batter. The dosa was served with coconut chutney and minted vegan yogurt, but it would have been fine with just the chutney.

The spicy potato centre surrounded by crispy pancake was comforting, tasty and filling. The chutney added extra zing to an already delicious dish.

Naan bread

This recipe is recommended by Vegan Dad and it was perfect fresh out of the oven with the other food. Where it said yogurt, I used vegan yogurt. We don’t have a pizza stone, so the naan went on a tray at the bottom of a very hot oven. Also I didn’t brush the top with anything, but no doubt 1/2 teaspoon melted coconut oil or a drizzle of olive oil would do the trick.

Your favourites

What are your favourite vegan Indian recipes? Let us know in the comments and feel free to post links.

Flashback to Hackney, August 2004 and Pogo Cafe was set up in Clarence Road. It was an exciting and inspiring time. A much-used handwritten recipe book was found in one of the drawers, perhaps from the previous (veggie) restaurant.

It just so happened to contain some awesome vegan and veggie recipes, and this nut roast is inspired by one of them, since Clare from Fairfoods was lucky enough to be involved in the setting up of Pogo.

We have removed a couple of things from the recipe, and added in roasted hazelnuts, sheese, carrrots and mushrooms to make a nut roast which is great for Christmas day – or any other time – with lots of gravy and veggies.

Available to order for Devonians
If you are local to Tiverton or Exeter, and don’t feel like making it, you can also order the nut roast from Fairfoods and pick up on Christmas Eve from Reapers in Tiverton or Seasons in Exeter. More details here.

If you want a gluten-free roast, try our creamy cashew roast and replace half of the cashews with roasted hazelnuts.

Here are some other recipes that we love and that go well with nut roast.

• Rich gravy – also nice with red wine added to it
• Yorkshire pudding – a vegan version

Roast hazelnut, cheese and cashew roast

4 oz (115g) cashew nuts
5 oz (140g) roasted hazelnuts
6 oz (170g) bread, cubed
3.5 oz (100g/½ pkt) vegan cheese*, grated
½ teaspoon basil
1 teaspoon thyme
generous pinch black pepper
7 fl oz (200ml) boiling water
1 oz (30g/1 round dessertspoon) yeast extract**
2 tbsp vegetable oil
8 oz (225g/1 large) onion, finely chopped
4 oz (115g/1 medium) carrot, grated
4 oz (115g) mushrooms, finely chopped
1 clove crushed garlic, optional
2.5 oz (45g) wholemeal flour

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/Gas Mark 5.

2. Chop nuts in food processor and put them into a large mixing bowl. Add bread to processor and process into breadcrumbs. Add to the chopped nuts along with the cheese, herbs and black pepper and stir together.

3. Measure the boiling water into a jug and add the yeast extract*. Stir until it dissolves in the water. You’ll use this in step 5.

4. Heat the oil in a large saucepan. Add the onions and carrots and cook and stir over a low heat until the carrots start to soften (7-10 minutes). Add the mushrooms and garlic and cook gently for another 5  minutes.

5. Take off the heat and mix in the wholemeal flour. Then gradually stir in the water and yeast extract mixture – you may need to whisk it to get rid of any lumps. Put the pan back on the heat and bring to the boil. Take it back off the heat and add the dry mix. Thoroughly mix the two together.

6. Place the mix in an oiled baking tin, about 8 x 10 inches, and flatten down with a fork. Place in the oven for 45-60 minutes or until it is nicely browned on top. Serves 6

* We use Bute Island mild cheddar melty sheese as it is palm oil free, the Vegusto range of vegan cheeses is also palm oil free.
** Replace yeast extract with 2 dessertspoons soya sauce if desired.