Skip to main content

Vegan sweet bites




Mango Agar Agar Flowers



Mango pudding is a staple at home, and the kids like to take it to school for lunch. For the lunch boxes I usually cut it into squares, but just for fun this time I used some little flower cutters. Agar agar is easier to shape and cut than jelly, and it is healthier too. The basic recipe for mango agar agar pudding is here.


Hazelnut Gold Chocolates




Toast some hazelnuts and remove the skins, then drop into some melted dairy free chocolate, the darker the better. Collect 3 hazelnuts at the time and let them set together (I also spoon just a little more chocolate on top to make it more like a proper chocolate). I had a very little edible gold paper left from an old job, so I sprinkled some on the chocolates. It didn't give it any particular flavour, I must say (maybe I had too little?), but it looked pretty and sophisticated :-). Unfortunately is was dark by then and the photo is not too clear, the flash also made the chocolate look less dark that it actually was. Still, everything got eaten pretty happily!



Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Comments

  1. They looks soo cute and adorable..

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yeah, I definitely need to buy more cutters :-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ecco, io, golosa come sono, mi lancerei subito sui cioccolatini invece che sul più dietetico e salutare mango. Quando vedo cioccolata non ci capisco più niente!
    Per rispondere alla tua domanda... in Italia fa ancora caldo ma siamo nella norma, non più i 42 gradi della settimana scorsa.
    A proposito dello Spitzkohl, ho scoperto che esiste anche in New Zealand con il nome di Cabbage 'Early Jersey Wakefield'.
    Ecco dove puoi trovare i semi online:
    http://www.westcoastseeds.com/productdetail/vegetable-seeds/Cabbage/Early-Jersey-Wakefield/
    ma magari scopri che te li può reperire anche il tuo negozio di fiducia!
    Un forte abbraccio e a presto, Ale!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anch'io amo la cioccolata, pero' preferisco il mango, che e' il mio frutto preferito :-).

    Grazie anche per l'indicazione, vedro' se trovo i semi, per ora ho comprato dei semi italiani, ma e' ancora troppo freddo per piantarli. Sono qui che aspetto!!!!

    Ciao
    Alessandra

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to make Rose Turkish Delights (Lokum), and Sweet New Zealand

Rose Turkish Delights (Lokum) Before I start I would like to say that I don't have a sugar thermometer, essential if you are really into confectionery, and that I didn't use much sugar for these Turkish delights. Many recipes use much more sugar, and it is not that I wanted to make a low sugar treat here (it is still pretty sweet), it is just that making it at home really makes me realize how much sugar there is already in my diet, and if I can have something with a little less... well, why not! This method is 'home friendly' i.e. these can be made at home with very little effort and equipment, and the recipe comes from my book  Sweet As...  where I also have the recipe for lavender and orange blossom Turkish Delights. Ingredients 1 l water 300 g sugar 2 tbsp lemon juice 100 g cornflour 1 tbsp frozen raspberries 1 tbsp rose water icing sugar (very little) and cornflour (lots) to dust. In a pot put hal

Home Made Marzipan Sweets

This is another recipe from my book Sweet As , and something that I love to make for Xmas. I would like to say that for marzipan you should get the best almonds around, natural, but here in New Zealand the almonds taste different from the ones in Italy. They are imported, not sure where from most of the time, but they are not top grade almonds. Still, with a few tips, you can make your marzipan taste great even with 'regular' almonds! Buy them natural, not blanched, you need to blanche then yourself or the result will be too dry. To blanch them you need to put them in boiling water for a couple of minutes, and then add cold water and take the skin off, one by one. For this recipe you will need: 200 g almonds 100 g icing sugar 5 apricot kernels. As I was saying before, the almond here have little taste, so I like to collect the stones from apricot and get the almonds out. They are a real pain to crack! In the photo above you can see apricot stones and kernels. The apricot kernel

Kamo Kamo Maori Squash and Italian Borlotti Beans

A crop which gives me great pleasure is borlotti beans, not only for their flavour but also because I love the idea of growing protein food! I eat fresh borlotti, or I dry them and then use them to make nice soups and stews; in particular I like soups with pumpkins, but since this year I am traveling on, I will not enjoy the pumpkins that are growing in my garden. So I tried a different 'pairing'. A friend gave me some kamo kamo, the traditional Maori squash, and told me that the way to eat it is to boil it (skin on) and then cut it and spread it with butter (or olive oil...) salt and pepper, and scoop the flesh out with a fork. I had two kamo kamo so I boiled one (as a was told) and cut the other and sauted with a drop of olive oil and other vegetables from my garden: red onion, and celery. Then I added the beans and some water, salt and pepper, and cooked everything until the beans were soft. I added water little by little, when necessary, and I thought that this would be goo