Cherry and Almond Biscuits

What’s this? A blog post? Outside of VeganMoFo?! Yep, that’s right. I’m as shocked as you. I made these biscuits and thought, hey, why not blog them! They came about quite by accident – I made a Bakewell tart and had leftover glace cherries and ground almonds, and thought I’d use those Bakewell flavours and make biscuits!

They’re pretty simple to make, with ground almonds and almond extract in the dough giving it that Bakewell flavour, and chopped up glace cherries folded through. Glace cherries are a little sticky to chop, but they are worth it!

The dough can be made in advance – it needs to chill for at least an hour, but will be happy left overnight if you like! This means you can just bake them at your leisure and have freshly baked biscuits ready for you. These are perfect with a hot cup of tea.

Cherry & Almond Biscuits

• Servings: 20 biscuits
• Print

Ingredients

• 125g vegan butter
• 150g white sugar
• 50g brown sugar
• 1 tsp almond extract
• 50g ground almonds
• 1 tbsp non-dairy milk
• 250g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 100g glace cherries, roughly chopped

Directions

1. Begin by creaming the butter and sugars in a bowl until light and fluffy.
2. Add in the almond extract, ground almonds, and milk, and mix well.
3. Stir through the flour and baking powder to form a dough.
4. Gently fold in the chopped cherries, making sure to distribute them evenly through the dough.
5. Place in the fridge for at least an hour to chill.
6. Preheat the oven to 180C/355F
7. Roll the dough into small balls and place on a baking sheet, giving room for expansion.
8. Place in the preheated oven for 10-12 minutes, until the cookies are golden at the edges.
9. Leave to cool on the baking tray, then eat!

 

VeganMoFo Day 30 – Kitchen Tour!

Ok, I know I’m a day late for this one. I just…ran out of time for it yesterday! I took the photos, but couldn’t get the post up. But here it is!

The last time I did a kitchen tour was back when my kitchen was considerably smaller and not anywhere near as fun to cook in. Now, I have more room, and more space!

First, we have an overview of the room – I love that we now have space for a little table! – and my chalkboard, which I thought was going to have cool drawings and inspiring quotes on, but has ended up pretty bare with a few temperature conversions. The shelf I also had high hopes for – it was going to house all my cookbooks – but it turns out the wall is just not strong enough for cookbooks!

Turning around, my little windowsill plant area! It’s actually pretty bare at the moment, but I grow lots of seeds there in the spring. On the left, my geranium – I got a pack of seeds for about 75p from Wilkos and they turned out great! – on the right, basil, which I split and repotted from a pack I got in the supermarket. In the supermarket, they cram lots of basil into one tiny pot, so you need to carefully split them and put them into bigger pots, and they’ll thank you by growing! In the middle are my mystery pots, I think one is lavender, as it smells of lavender, but I didn’t label my seeds so who knows. I labelled what I planted outside this year, but the rain washed my labels off, so I just have blank sticks which is no help…

I am so pleased we got a house with a gas stove. The oven is electric, but I find the gas hob much easier to control than electric. And these jars are really handy for keeping things in, and much nicer to look at than the usual bulk packaging.

Here is our main ingredients cupboard. We have a few premade jars of sauces, but most of the stuff we cook comes from scratch. We stock up on jars of beans, tomatoes, coconut milk etc – and as you can see, a giant tub of vegetable stock!

 

Herbs and spices! We have jars on the bottom, and bulk spices hiding behind the salt and pestle and mortar.

This is my snacks and drinks cupboard. It’s actually looking rather bare at the moment! I have a couple of types of tea – I got the PG tips “made for dairy free milk” one to try, but I can’t say I notice much different. Yorkshire tea is my favourite!

This is where those cookbooks that couldn’t go on the shelf ended up. Plus the slow cooker, the mugs, some soup bowls, and a few other bits.

Finally, the fridge! Which is also slightly bare at the moment – it usually has some baked goods in there, but I’m on a break after MoFo!

We also have the usual pots and pans and cleaning bits, but they aren’t so interesting!