Some of our common ingredients explained
ROASTED GARLIC
You’ll find that some of our recipes suggest using roasted garlic. I know this might seem like extra work but cooking the garlic like this gives it a lovely sweetness, which adds a gentle mellow flavour to dishes rather than the sometimes harsher flavour of the raw cloves. We roast a batch of bulbs/cloves when we’ve got the oven on and keep them for the next time we’re making a hummus, dip or falafel – they’ll be fine stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week.
To make them simply preheat the oven to 200ºC (fan 180ºC). Separate the cloves, peel them and place on a baking tray – you can bake them dry or use a little drizzle of olive oil. Roast for 10 minutes, then leave to cool before storing.
TOASTED NUTS AND SEEDS
As with the garlic, it may sound like extra work to toast your nuts and seeds but it really does bring out their flavour. It makes them crunchier too, which we love as it adds texture.
Preheat the oven to 200ºC (fan 180ºC). Place the nuts you are toasting on a baking tray in the oven for 5–10 minutes, until they go golden. We tend to cook flaked nuts for 5 minutes and whole nuts for 10 minutes.
APPLE CIDER VINEGAR
This is a key ingredient for us, both for dressings and salads to add tang, and in baking. The acidity of the cider vinegar helps make the batter fluffy and, because it’s made from apples, it’s sweeter than other vinegars. We also find it has a milder flavour, so your cake won’t end up tasting like a salad but it will be a little lighter and fluffier.
ARROWROOT
Arrowroot is used as a thickener. We use it in baking mostly for things like glazes, although it can also be used as a way to thicken soups, stews, gravies and sauces. You can buy it online or in big supermarkets, or try using tapioca or cornstarch instead.
BUCKWHEAT/BROWN RICE/SPELT/PLAIN FLOUR
These are the four flours that we use most in our cooking, alongside polenta in things like our corn fritters and corn bread. The buckwheat and brown rice flours are gluten-free, but the spelt isn’t – you can swap it for a plain white flour (we use a gluten-free one at the deli). Likewise, some people find the flavour of buckwheat flour to be strong and this can also be substituted for plain white flour.
Cacao butter is a pale-yellow fat that is extracted from the cocoa bean. We melt it down and mix it with other ingredients, then, as it cools, it sets and solidifies. It’s great in things like our peanut butter cups for creating a thick chocolate layer.
CACAO POWDER
Raw cacao powder is made by cold-pressing unroasted cocoa beans, whereas cocoa powder is raw cacao that’s been roasted at high temperatures. We find the raw cacao has a stronger, richer flavour so if you do swap it for cocoa powder you may find that you need to up the quantity.
CHIA SEEDS
These are often used instead of eggs in vegan baking to help thicken and bind mixtures, as they expand up to ten times in size when added to liquid. We use them in cakes, muffins, puddings and jams.
CHICKPEA WATER
Chickpea water sounds strange, but it is used in vegan baking to replace egg whites. When whisked, it works in a similar way to egg whites, helping to create lightness and fluffiness.
COCONUT YOGHURT
We use a pure coconut yoghurt and have found the brand COYO to work best when it comes to baking, especially when making a fluffy icing. You could swap the coconut yoghurt for plain yoghurt or a different brand of coconut yoghurt in most recipes, but for icing we’d really recommend using COYO.
FREEZE-DRIED RASPBERRIES
We use these in a few recipes as they have the most brilliant colour and flavour. We buy them either from Amazon or Whole Foods and, while a bag is expensive, you only use a very small amount each time.
MEDJOOL DATES
Medjool dates are big and juicy, and often a little sweeter than other varieties of dates. We find they’re normally the stickiest ones too, which really helps in vegan baking. You can swap them for other types of dates, just make sure they’re equally sweet and sticky – soaking them in boiling water helps with this too.
We normally use brown rice miso paste, which is made from soybeans fermented with brown rice. It deepens the flavour of your dish and adds richness. We use it in our hot dishes, marinades, sauces and dips.
OATS
Throughout the book we use porridge and jumbo oats. Porridge oats are the finely-milled oats that absorb liquid the quickest. They retain less of their texture than jumbo oats and create a creamier consistency. Jumbo oats are bigger, plumper and retain more texture when cooked.
PLANT MILKS
We tend to use almond milk in most of our cooking, but if you have a nut allergy we’d recommend swapping this for oat milk, which has the most similar taste. Coconut milk is great in recipes that benefit from its sweeter flavour, but it doesn’t work in everything as its flavour can be overpowering. We use the tins of coconut milk when we want to make something very thick and creamy.
POMEGRANATE MOLASSES
We use this in a couple of our dressings. It’s a thick, dark-brown coloured syrup, which has a great mix of sweet and sour.
RICE SYRUP/MAPLE SYRUP/COCONUT SUGAR
These are the three sweeteners that we tend to use. Rice syrup is thick and very sticky – it works really well for binding mixtures, and can be swapped for honey in that instance, but we wouldn’t recommend swapping it for maple or coconut sugar. We use maple for recipes where there is already something helping to bind it, and coconut sugar when we want a more traditional sugar consistency, so you could swap this for brown sugar.
TAMARI
Tamari is a fermented soy sauce, and unlike soy sauce it’s wheat free. We use it to add a rich, savoury, salty flavour to dishes. It can be replaced with soy sauce for a similar effect.
