English Muffins

English muffins were always our saviour, a safe breakfast or bun option that was mostly readily available. Sadly over time , the safe brands have all started to add milk to their ingredients and now all of the easily available ones contain milk. Sad days for us, as it is yet another product we can no longer depend on being able to buy. I also find it a bizarre time for companies to start adding milk to the ingredients when there is an increasing interest in dairy-free and vegan is the new big thing!

So it was time to either miss out or start making them myself, and I obviously went for the making them myself option. I just can’t stop baking and cooking! It’s not the same, and ideally it’s nice to have some products we can buy, but needs must.

I have to say they’re pretty easy to make, the results are shop worthy and they freeze beautifully, so maybe we can return to the days to always having English muffins on hand.

English Muffins


makes 8-10 muffins

400g plain flour

1 tbsp fast-action dried yeast

1 tsp salt

1 and 1/2 tbsp caster sugar

100ml dairy-free milk

25ml sunflower oil

125-150ml water

polenta for dusting, plus a little more flour

  1. Place the flour, yeast, salt and sugar in a bowl.
  2. Pour in the oil, milk and 125ml water. Mix to form a dough adding the extra 25ml water if needed.
  3. Knead until smooth, bouncy and silky. About 10 minutes by hand, 5 minutes by machine.
  4. Place into a bowl, cover and leave to rise for at least an hour. You want the mixture to have basically doubled in size.
  5. Knock back. Dust the kitchen surface with flour and polenta and roll out to a thickness of about 2 cm. Cut out circles using a cutter any size from 8 -12 cm.
  6. Rest on a floured/polenta covered board whilst you heat the pan.
  7. Heat a heavy bottomed frying pan on low until it has an even heat, this will take a good 5-10 minutes.
  8. Cook the muffins until golden on each side and no longer doughy in the middle which will take up to 10 minutes on each side.
  9. Store in an airtight container or freeze once cool for extra freshness,

Fudge Brownies





Fudge Brownies


makes 9 good sized brownies

100g dairy-free chocolate

60g dairy-free margarine

110g soft brown sugar

100ml dairy-free milk

1 tbsp cornflour

1 tsp vanilla

100g plain flour

4 tbsp cocoa powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

  3. Stir in the sugar.

Easter Biscuits


Easter is such an exciting time of year; spring is finally upon us with all it’s delights of cheeping birds, frolicking lambs and beautiful flowers and it feels like everything is just starting again after the fallow winter months. Easter seems to literally put the spring into everyone’s steps, and we start to look forward again. I feel this in terms of cooking as well as nature, suddenly fresh inspiration hits and there are so many more options open to me. I can’t wait to use all those spring flavours in the next few months. 🙂

I have many Easter themed recipes on my blog, and not surprisingly lots of them feature a lot of chocolate. However, even though they’re a personal favourite, I’ve never made traditional Easter biscuits. These customary cookies are a celebration of Easter time combining a subtle ‘hot cross bun’ spice with pretty decoration or dried fruit. These biscuits lend themselves equally well to the addition of the traditional juicy currants and crunchy caster sugar topping, or the somewhat fancier crispy yet soft cover of pretty pastel hued icing. Serve these to make a nice change from the chocolate overload and everyone will be happy come Easter weekend!

Easter Biscuits



makes lots, at least 20 large cookies

300g plain flour

2 tbsps cornflour

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking powder

115g vegetable fat (I used Trex)

115g dairy-free margarine (Pure)

225g sugar (either caster or granulated)

1 tsp mixed spice

1 tsp ground cinnamon

60ml dairy-free milk

60g currants (if making fruited variety)

  1. Sift together the flour, cornflour, spices, salt and baking powder.
  2. In another bowl whisk together the fat, spread and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the dairy-free milk and whisk again.
  3. Add the flour mix and carefully combine. Stir in the currants if using.
  4. Roll out and cut out shapes with cookie cutters. Place on a lined baking sheet and bake at 180 degrees for 10-12 minutes, or until lightly golden round the edges
  5. Cool on the sheet before moving to a wire rack.
  6. if making the fruity variety, sprinkle with caster sugar whilst hot.

for the royal icing:

3 tbsps aquafaba (water from a tin of beans or chickpeas)

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

3 cups icing sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

dairy-free milk to thin the icing

food colouring as desired

  1. In a stand mixer, or an electric whisk, whisk together all the ingredients until a smooth thick paste is created.
  2. Colour as desired. I split the mixture into two, and then coloured each with natural food colouring.
  3. Thin each colour with a splash of milk to make the icing a good consistency to coat the biscuits (thick, but thin enough to pipe!)
  4. Pipe as desired
  5. Let set but leaving at room temperature for a good few hours. If you dare, return the iced biscuits to the oven for a couple of minutes for a smooth shiny finish and then leave to set.

Tarte aux Framboises (Raspberry Tart)






Tarte aux Framboises



make one 12 inch tart

for the pastry case:

1 recipe shortcrust or 1pack of shortcrust pastry


for the creme patisseriere:


1/2 cup corn flour (cornstarch)

2 cups dairy-free milk


1tsp vanilla paste or extract or seeds from I vanilla pod

Salt, a pinch


for the nappage (glaze):

1 tbsp apricot jam

1 tbsp water

  2. Brush over the fruit whilst hot

to assemble:

  3. Leave to cool before eating.

Mini Chocolate Chip Cookies

In response to my cookie loving Instagram followers, here is the keenly awaited mini chocolate chip cookie recipe. 🙂

I have many many cookie recipes on my blog, but I haven’t created a new one for a while. I seem to keep going back to old favourites such as my amazingly delicious chocolate sable cookies, which unfailing get requested every few weeks. Even though those sables are hard to beat, sometimes a slightly less intense chocolate cookie is required, and this inspired me to get creative with a standard chocolate chip mix.

There are so many finishes to a chocolate chip cookie; some like them chewy, soft, crunchy, or crispy that it’s hard to know what makes a perfect variety. However, these mini chocolate chip cookies are pretty awesome with a deliciously more-ish soft and chewy texture with a crispy edge, almost hitting all the requirements of a an ideal chocolate chip recipe in one biscuit. My top tip is that the key is caster sugar for crisp and soft brown for chewy – combine the two and you have perfection!

I’ve made these mini, because it immediately makes them cuter, more desirable and well you can just eat more mini cookies which can only be a good thing when they’re this good 😉

Perfect mini chocolate chip cookies



makes about 30 or so

100g soft brown sugar

75g caster sugar

125g dairy-free margarine

1/2 tbsp vanilla essence

225g self-raising flour

pinch of salt

80g chocolate chips

1 tbsp dairy-free milk

  1. Cream together the margarine and sugars until light and fluffy
  2. Add the vanilla, flour and salt and mix well to form a soft dough. Stir in the milk and chocolate chips.
  3. Wrap and place in the fridge to firm up
  4. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade/gas mark 4. Line two baking sheets with parchment.
  5. roll the dough into olive sized balls and place a little apart on the lined baking sheets.
  6. Bake for 8-10 minutes until puffed up and golden.
  7. Cool on a wire rack.


Devil’s Food Cupcakes




Devils Food Chocolate Cupcakes



makes 12-18

150g self-raising flour

100g caster sugar

50g cocoa powder

200ml sunflower oil

150ml dairy-free milk

1/2 tsp lemon juice

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

pinch of salt

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

  4. Add the bicarb to the wet ingredients and stir.
  7. Cool on a wire rack.

Devils Food Icing



enough to cover 12 cupcakes

2 tbsp dairy-free spread

1/2 tbsp dairy-free milk

1/2 tbsp golden syrup or maple syrup

1/4 cup icing sugar

50g dairy-free dark chocolate

  2. Spread over the cupcakes and leave to set.