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Chewy almond cookies with a crisp edge and a gooey frangipane centre, topped with toasted flaked almonds. Can we legally call this a breakfast cookie?

My husband just came back from a work trip to Paris. Within three minutes of picking him up from the airport I had already asked “did you eat amazing things?” and “did you find any vegan croissants?” and most importantly “were any of them almond croissants??”. To my vicarious joy, the answer was yes, to all three. I’ll be honest, I’m not a huge croissant fan, even before I was vegan. It always felt like a rather convenient way to charge £6 for like 87% air. I understand that’s kind of the point, but I’m a bulk feeder - I need some weight in my pastries.

Almond croissants, however, are a whole different creature. They’re packed with frangipane and toasted almonds and baked twice for that extra golden vibe. That, to me, is what we call a pastry. I wasn’t about to whip up my own batch of croissant dough just to replicate husband’s Paris trip (I’ve done it before, it was good, but it took an entire week) but I was seriously hankering for something almondy and baked. So, motivated by envy, but hobbled by incompetence, I set out to make almond croissant inspired cookies. All the flavour, none of the labour.

I started by testing out the cookie dough. I knew I wanted this to be a similar texture to my Hot Buttered Toast Cookies, so I based the fat/sugar/liquid ratios on this recipe. I removed the toast crumbs, of course, and replaced with ground almonds. This took a few tweaks because they don’t behave exactly the same when baked, but we got there!

Then I got to work on the frangipane filling. I needed to make sure this stuff didn’t evaporate while baking (unfortunately this happened in my first few rounds of trials for my almond croissant focaccia…). I found that a little corn starch prevented this, perhaps by creating an emulsion between the fats of the almonds/vegan butter and the plant milk. But I’m no scientist, so we’ll probably never know.

I tried freezing the frangipane in little balls and using it to stuff inside the cookie dough, but it was very fiddly and didn’t even work out so well. The best results came from an “open-top” cookie, of sorts. I rolled the ball of cookie dough in sugar then used the back of my cookie scoop to create a little well in the middle. I then piped (or spooned) the frangipane into the well and sprinkled with flaked almonds and flaky sea salt before baking. Note, I like to use fresh almonds and to slice them into flakes myself, rather than buying store-bought flaked almonds. Both work fine, but I love the brown of the almond skin for contrast, and I find they toast up better than store-bought.

And that’s it! Oh, but because I know you love this stuff, I also freezer tested the cookies. Turns out the dough freezes beautifully and bakes from frozen (just tag an extra 3 minutes to the bake time) OR you can freeze them AFTER baking, in a ziplock bag or airtight container. They defrost on the counter in about 10 minutes and are just as crisp/chewy/gooey as the day they came out of the oven.

The full recipe for these Almond Croissant Cookies is at the bottom of this post. If you want to, you can upgrade your membership here. You’ll get instant access to this recipe and full archive access to every recipe and every newsletter I’ve ever posted to Substack. Oh I’ll also include a 30% discount code for pre-ordering my new book after the jump!

If you cant/don’t want to upgrade right now, that’s also totally fine. Just being here and reading my newsletters is massive and I’m so grateful you’re here.

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Now for a quick…

Bold Beans!

This week I went down to London to meet the lovely people at Bold Bean Co. I can’t tell you much just yet, but we’re collaborating on some bits and bobs surrounding my book launch. Bold Bean Co make the BEST jarred beans, including their super famous Queen Butter Beans. We shot a reel based on a recipe from my book and oh my lord. It’s nice to be reminded sometimes that your recipes are actually delicious - this was one of those moments.

Waxworks Day

My niece was taking part in waxworks day in school this week, where they pretend to be a famous person from the past. She was assigned Princess Diana, and she asked me to help make her a suitable costume. Immediately my mind started racing about whether my seamstress skills were good enough to make the “revenge” dress, but it turns out my niece wanted to go as landmine disposal Diana! This one

So I got to work! I made her the bomb vest, complete with flap-down groin protector (???) and my sister dug out her old covid visor! I even made her the iconic “danger mines” sign. I think all three of us nailed it, what do you think?

Dog Tax

OK, that’s it for now. Here’s Ripley in monorail mode on the couch.

Now it’s time for…

Almond Croissant Cookies

Makes 10-12 cookies

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Fluffy no-churn vanilla ice cream, swirled with ripples of tangy berry compote, studded with chunks of soft vanilla cake. Did I just crack the heatwave?

We’re having (another) heatwave here in the UK and my appetite is virtually non-existent. This happens to a lot of people in the heat, but it’s very rare for me. Husband asked me what I wanted for dinner last night and all I could think of was biting into a fridge-cold tomato like an apple.

Alas, the Substack show must go on - and you wonderful people need that weekly recipe! So I’ve wilfully tumbled head-first back into my no-churn ice cream obsession. Easy, cooling and delicious - it’s ideal for this week. It brings be comfort, despite the heat, knowing I have home-made ice cream just waiting for me in the freezer. And what’s more, this one is somewhat home-grown too!

Back when I used to run Blu Top (the ice cream sandwich truck I owned and operated in my previous life) one of my favourite flavours was tayberry ripple. I hadn’t heard of tayberries before my Mum started to grow them along her garden fence, up north in Chester, but I was hooked from the first taste. Genetically they are a cross between a blackberry and a red raspberry, but their flavour is way more than the sum of its parts. They’re sharp, sweet and much more floral and aromatic than either of their parent plants. And thanks to their tart kick, they work perfectly rippled through the mellow sweetness of a vanilla ice cream.

Obviously I’m not expecting you all to somehow source tayberries with zero notice. The great thing about this recipe is that it works with almost all berries. Berry ripple ice creams are one of the easiest to make, because you’re essentially just making a vanilla ice cream and a fruit compote, or syrup. By swirling them, rather than blending together, you’re not affecting the sugar/water ratio of the ice cream base, which would most likely end up way too sweet and icy if we did.

To make a simple fruit syrup or compote, you need to cook the berries with half their weight in sugar until they just start to lose their shape (any longer and you’ll start to destroy the acidity of the fruit, which is so important for that tangy flavour). Strain the cooked berries through a sieve and chill the syrup in the fridge before use. If you don’t fancy swirling it through homemade ice cream, you can drizzle it on top of store-bought, or even use it as a fruit cordial, with fizzy water and a slice of lemon!

But when it comes to a freezable, delicious fruit syrup, not all berries are created equally! You’ll want to avoid berries with low pectin and high water content, as they’ll cook down to a watery juice instead of a silky smooth syrup. I love when you lot go rogue with my recipes, so I’ve put together a little table to help you pick an alternative berry (see below) for this recipe. The obvious and classic choice is probably raspberry, but phwoar what about gooseberries or redcurrants!? My only suggestion is to steer clear of the bottom five berries in this table - I’ll come back to these guys another day and show you how to add them to ice cream (spoiler alert: it’s maceration!).

And because I love a baked element in all of my ice creams, I couldn’t just seal the lid on a boring old plain ripple now could I?? I’ve included chunks of deliciously soft, gooey vanilla cake in this one. The vibe is kind of pound-cake-y but because the cake is soaked in a vanilla studded syrup the whole thing almost takes on a baklava vibe, or even a gulab jamun vibe (literally drooling thinking about those guys). I know it seems like a lot of sugar, but remember, when stuff is frozen, it tastes waaay less sweet (think about a cold can of soda vs a warm can of soda - one is refreshingly sweet and one is sickly sweet). Sugar also acts as an anti-freeze, so when I decided to soak the sponge in syrup, it wasn’t just because I have a sweet tooth, it was also to make sure it doesn’t go rock-hard in the freezer. Instead, it remains gooey and cakey soft!

The vanilla “base” is my super simple no-churn vegan vanilla ice cream. It’s super simple and uses vegan whipped cream and condensed coconut (or oat) milk as the main two ingredients. If you can’t find a decent vegan double cream, don’t worry - just use my homemade one. And then it’s just as simple as layering everything up in a freezer-safe container and freezing it overnight!

The full recipe for this No-Churn Berry and Vanilla Cake Ice Cream is at the bottom of this post. If you want to, you can upgrade your membership here. You’ll get instant access to this recipe and full archive access to every recipe and every newsletter I’ve ever posted to Substack, AND at 30% discount code for pre-ordering my new book (UK only, for now!) all for the price of a nice cup of coffee.

If you cant/don’t want to upgrade right now, that’s also totally fine. Just being here and reading my newsletters is massive and I’m so grateful you’re here.

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Now for a quick…

It’s Been a Heatwave

We’re through the worst of it now, but this one’s been a doozy. It got up to the high 30s at one point and needless to say we all struggled. All dog walks took place in the early morning or right before bed and obviously involved lots of water.

Last night, as the heat broke, we suddenly felt a cool breeze rush through the house and then the rain just began pouring down. It was such a relief, I was overjoyed, and yes, I did spin around in the rain! Here’s Ripley staying cool in a lake.

THE Pizza of the Summer

This week I went to Purezza in Manchester to put the finishing touches to our big special menu! From 1st July, they’re going to be serving my Buffalo Tofu Pizza (the cover girl recipe from my new cookbook!) at all three of their restaurants (Brighton, London and Manchester), so I popped over to run through the recipe and shoot some content with their head chef Savario.

It starts with their signature sourdough base, followed by their delicious marinara sauce. Then we top it with buffalo marinated tofu and pickled jalapenos before baking in their traditional pizza oven. We then top with a housemade silken tofu ranch sauce, fresh chives and crispy onions. It’s been one of my favourite pizzas for years and to see it on the menu of of my favourite pizza place is going to be incredible! You’ll also find my Garlic Butter Potatoes with Romesco Sauce on the menu - the perfect side for this pizza (or maybe any pizza??).

The Poké Plot Thickens

As you know, I’ve fallen head-first down a pikachu sized rabbit hole, ever since I pulled my old pokemon cards out of my mum’s attic! Now I’m at the point where I’ve developed little hyperfixations WITHIN the hyperfixation, like the one I have for this Birthday Pikachu on the right of this picture.

I’ve been thinking about him for a very long time and then I spotted him in a shop last week. He was weirdly undervalued which meant he simply had to come home with me. This particular pikachu was released as part of a collection for the 2000 Sydney Olympics and was only sold at a particular pokemon shop in Australia. I find it fascinating, imagining how he made his way all the way over here to sunny Manchester!

Dog Tax

OK, here she is. This is Ripley refusing to get up this morning because it’s finally cool enough to sleep in her bed instead of the cool floor.

Now it’s time for…

Berry and Vanilla Cake Ice Cream

Fluffy no-churn vanilla ice cream, swirled with ripples of tangy berry compote, studded with chunks of soft vanilla cake.

Serves 8–10

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A buttery, tender olive oil pound cake scented with fresh lemon zest and finished with a glossy passion fruit icing. Exactly what I wanted for my birthday.

There are a lot of recipes out there that call themselves vegan poundcake. Trust me. I’ve probably tried them all. But the vast majority of them are lacking. Poundcake (or madeira cake, where I come from) is a pretty unique guy if you ask me (you didn’t) and I’ve been a massive fan for a really, really long time.

I actually have this very vivid memory of the time I fell for poundcake. I was visiting my Auntie Lillie’s house and I can remember literally staring at a slice of madeira cake in my hand, just marvelling to myself about how something that appears so boring can be so delicious. Auntie Lillie also famously introduced me to party rings, which are accidentally vegan, so it seems like she was onto something.

It’s cake, obvs, so it’s bound to be delicious, but there’s something special about that texture that is somehow both dense and light. There’s nothing else like it. I went on a bit of a recipe development journey a few years ago, in an attempt to recreate this exact experience but using vegan ingredients. It literally took me months, but we ended up with this very special cake.

For every iteration of that recipe, I used to perform something I called the column test. I’d take a thick slice of cake, then slice it again until it was a tall column with a square base about 2cm thick. I’d hold the column between my thumb and index finger (just like I did at Auntie Lillie’s) and watch to see if the slice of cake bent or collapsed under its own weight. Only real poundcake is dense enough to withstand the column test. This was only one of the rigorous trials I threw at the pound cake recipes. My own borderline obsessive quality control that ultimately led me to near cake perfection…until now.

Last week was my birthday (I know I know, I won’t go on about it) and I decided to make myself a very simple but special cake. The poundcake part was a no brainer; it’s my nostalgic fave, but I wanted to add a flavour to it. Specifically passionfruit. While away on my birthday holiday to Porto, I had a passionfruit sorbet which reminded that passionfruit is maybe my favourite fruit. It’s just so bloody delicious. I vowed to eat it more often - starting with my birthday cake. A passionfruit poundcake.

I started with the icing, because I knew this was going to be the main source of sharp passionfruit tang. I wanted it to have that soft crackle that you get on a slice of Starbucks loaf cake (yes I know Starbucks is the worst, and their cakes are never vegan, but they always look surprisingly good). I tried with pure passionfruit pulp but it was simply too many seeds to be a pleasant eating experience. Instead I juiced the pulp then added back a teaspoon of seeds for the perfect hint at that passionfruit crunch. The colour of the icing is like golden butter - it’s spectacular. Once the icing ratios were pinned down, I got to work on the sponge.

This part was simple, because I was adapting my classic pound cake recipe. However there are a few things to note. For this recipe I switched to olive oil for the fat. I find it helps to keep things so beautifully light without interfering with that pound cake density. I also like to use some cake flour in this recipe. Cake flour isn’t a thing here in the UK, but I did my research and instead I use Special Bun Flour from the Asian grocery store. It’s used for making beautiful white bao and buns, so it’s very finely milled and has less gluten than regular flour, meaning the final texture of the cake is perfectly light.

And that’s it! It slices up like a dream and that tangy, floral, tropical frosting is truly something else. If you know someone who’s born in June, please make this for them. They’ll love it.

Before I go, don’t forget to pre-order my book! It’s out on the 16th July but every pre-order helps my book to find stockists, so please grab your copy now rather than later if you can! I’ve put a bunch of retailer links here, so you don’t have to order from Amazon if you don’t want to!

Oh, and if you upgrade your substack membership here, you’ll also get a 30% discount code on your pre-order! The code is exclusively for paid subscribers and it’s down at the bottom of this newsletter, just before you get to the recipe! Thank you!

Now for a quick…

I Went On Holiday

OK I’m not ready to do my full Porto recap yet - I need to decompress a little first. But I CAN show you my two favourite eats. First up was this mushroom Tacu-taco from a vegan Peruvian restaurant called Ongo. Oh my god this thing was sublime. The whole meal was, but this stack of chickpeas and rice with fried crispy mushrooms was such a winner. Oh! And that drink in the background was something called a Chicha Morada, which is made from purple corn, fruit and spices and I genuinely can’t stop thinking about it.

Secondly, we have this kind of unassuming looking beauty from Venn. We did a vegan tasting menu there and this was one of the final main dishes. Here’s how they described it in their menu: Polenta, wild cultivated mushrooms (amanita, alentejo truffle, shiitake, morel), acorn flour tuilles, house treacle, brewers yeast ice cream.

I know, I know, that sounds insane. But trust me, this was one of the best things I’ve eaten in a long time. The ice cream was almost like marmite ice cream, and it felt like I was spreading cold umami butter onto my meal. Absolutely unbelievable.

My Top Four Tiles From Porto

Me and husband played a game while wandering the streets of Porto. It’s called “That’s My Favourite Tile”. You basically just see a tile you like and claim it as your favourite. Eventually we ended up with a bit of a collection, so here are my top four.

Dog Tax

OK, here she is having a paddle. Until next week!

Now it’s time for…

Lemon and Passionfruit Poundcake

Hello paid subscribers. Can’t thank you enough for being here, once again. Please use this link if you’re planning to pre-order my new book, and use the promo code “SUBSTACK30” for 30% off all pre-orders placed before 16th July! LOVE YOU!

International folks, please hang tight! I’ll update you about pre-orders outside the UK asap! Thank you for your patience!

Serves 10

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Crispy, pretzel-dunked, maple-mustard tofu in a soft bun with fresh broccoli slaw. It’s very possibly your new favourite sandwich.

I’m a believer that every cookbook (regardless of genre) needs a decent sandwich. So when I started working on Stress-Free Dinners (my upcoming new cookbook, have I mentioned it much? Naah surely not) I knew this one was going to be a bit of a load-bearing recipe. No pressure, but yeah, it had to be perfect.

You see, I’m a huge sandwich fan. If you make the right one, it can sit comfortably between functional/utilitarian and the most luxurious lunch of your life. They’re filling and practical, but also endlessly versatile. From square one, I knew I wanted this sandwich to hit all of those points.

So I started with the tofu. Not just plain old tofu, but gorgeous tofu fillets that have been marinated/battered in a maple and mustard dressing; tangy, hot and sweet (insert “I like my men like I like my tofu” joke here). Already these flavours felt like a vegan riff on a fried chicken sandwich, so I leant in with the textures. I considered using panko breadcrumbs, but the crisp was too subtle. I toyed with a cornflake crust, but the flavour was too sweet combined with the maple.

Then I landed on crushed pretzels (this sounds like I fell over with a bag of pretzels in my back pocket, but I mean it figuratively of course). They coat the marinated tofu beautifully and the salty crunch is unbeatable.

To balance out all that good stuff, I knew we needed something green in there. I had been working on another slaw recipe in the book and somehow discovered broccoli slaw. I’d never tried it before, but it seemed to be a good fit. Tangy, sweet, crunchy and just a little bitter.

This recipe is super easy to make but also super fun to prep-ahead. The coated pieces of tofu freeze perfectly and can be cooked from frozen in the air fryer or oven. The slaw lasts for a few days in the fridge too, so you can add this sandwich to your hyperfixation meal list and make it on repeat.

I’m sharing this recipe from the book with paid subscribers this week as a massive thank you. I’m honestly not sure if School Night Vegan would still be here without you at this point, so you deserve something in return for all your support. OH! And also I somehow managed to persuade my publisher Bloomsbury to give you a 30% discount on preorders via their website (the promo code is down with the recipe). So if you’re interested in the book, this may be the best deal out there. I know I bang on about this every time, but pre-orders are SO important to small authors like me.

Every pre-order counts towards the first week of sales, and the figures from the first week are what bookshops and websites look at when they’re deciding whether to stock a book or not. So you’re essentially deciding the trajectory of my life (OK, a bit dramatic, but you get the idea). Anyway, pre-order my book! PLEASE! And if you want that 30% discount code, you can upgrade your membership here and you’ll also get instant access to this recipe and full archive access to every recipe and every newsletter I’ve ever posted to Substack, all for the price of a nice cup of coffee.

Now for a quick…

I’m On Holiday

Me and husband rarely get a break together because our schedules are kind of all over the place. But luckily this little gap coincided with my birthday! So I’m writing this from a gorgeous hotel in Porto, Portugal!

We’ve just finished a day of wandering around the city and I even braved a very very tall bridge (I have a kind of terrible fear of heights…). Here I am trying not to look like I’m terrified…

Dog Tax

Keeping the update short this week as I’ll do a full trip breakdown of Porto next week! Plus it’s my birthday so I’m going to eat some olives and drink a very cold soda.

Here’s my girl with her best mate Roo.

Now it’s time for…

Maple Mustard Pretzel Crusted Tofu Sandwiches with Broccoli Slaw

Makes 4 Sandwiches

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Pillowy soft, coffee spiked rolls with a rich caramelised espresso filling and a tangy “mascarpone” style creamy topping.

You might know that I’ve made tiramisu on the blog before. Twice, actually. There’s the classic version over on schoolnightvegan.com, and then there’s the matcha version (which is OUTRAGEOUSLY good). I’ve also been deep in my cinnamon roll era on Substack. I’ve done the classics, I’ve done variations, I’ve put various fillings inside various rolls. The whole thing.

But this. THIS is the combination I genuinely can’t believe I didn’t think of sooner.

Tiramisu cinnamon rolls. I know. I KNOW.

The dough itself is already coffee-laced (there's espresso powder going in right at the start, so even the base of the roll has that deep, roasty flavour), the filling is a coffee-cocoa butter situation that goes EVERYWHERE in the best possible way, and the topping is essentially tiramisu cream in piped spiral form, finished with an extremely generous dusting of cocoa powder.

I tested these a truly embarrassing number of times before I was happy with them. The main thing I wanted to nail was the balance — too much coffee and it gets bitter, not enough and you might as well just make normal rolls. The espresso powder in both the dough AND the filling was the answer, because it gives you that layered coffee flavour without tasting like you’ve dunked your breakfast in a double shot.

A couple of things worth knowing before you bake these:

The dental floss trick for cutting the rolls is non-negotiable. I know it sounds bizarre if you haven’t used this trick before, but it’s a game changer. A knife compresses the dough and you lose all that lovely fluffiness, as well as the delicate spiral pattern on top. The floss cuts cleanly through and your rolls stay perfectly round. Trust the process. If you don’t have unflavoured floss, just use a strong piece of thin thread or twine.

Also, and this is important: let them cool COMPLETELY before you add the topping. I know the urge to frost them while they’re warm is overwhelming. I’ve been there. But the topping will slide off and pool in a puddle. Let them cool. Pipe the spirals. Dust with cocoa. It takes willpower but you will be rewarded. Oh and I’m calling this “topping” instead of frosting because I’ve really gone for something that emulates the mascarpone cream you get in a tiramisu.

It uses a combination of vegan cream cheese and vegan creme fraiche (or vegan cream as a sub). I strongly recommend using a vegan cream cheese which isn’t too savoury. Go for tangy, not cheesy. For me, this is the plain Violife variety, combined with Oatly creme fraiche. To replace the Oatly creme fraiche (if you can’t find it) use store bought vegan double cream OR my super simple recipe for homemade vegan cream.

Final thing! Don’t waste those end pieces! I always trim the ends off the rolled dough so that everything rises evenly and neatly, but these bits taste just as great as the proper rolls. Just pop them in a greased cupcake tin or two small greased pudding tins and bake for 5 mins less than the main tray of rolls.

The full recipe for these Tiramisu Cinnamon Rolls is at the bottom of this post. If you want to, you can upgrade your membership here and you’ll get instant access to this recipe and full archive access to every recipe and every newsletter I’ve ever posted to Substack, all for the price of a nice cup of coffee.

If you cant/don’t want to upgrade right now, that’s also totally fine. Just being here and reading my newsletters is massive and I’m so grateful you’re here.

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Now for a quick…

Come With Me To Greece

We’re about 4 months away from my next vegan adventure with The Getaway Co, this time to Greece! I don’t know if it’s the unpredictable British summertime or my craving for fresh capers, but I’m insanely excited about this one. I did it before, a few years ago (as you can tell from this photo of me below where I look no older than fourteen), but I’m so eager to see what’s new in Athens and Santorini.

If you’re looking for a vacation this year, why not join me on this fully vegan adventure? You can find full details here!

Exciting Pizza Developments

As you’ll know by now, my second cookbook is out on July 16th! As part of the celebrations, I’ve been working away behind the scenes to put together some really exciting collaborations for you. One of which started to feel very very real this week!

Here in the UK, the first name in vegan pizzas is Purezza. They’re a group of restaurants that started in Brighton, making easily the best vegan Napoli style pizzas you’ve ever experienced. They’ve won Italian pizza awards IN ITALY competing against non-vegan restaurants, I mean slay.

Anyway I can’t tell you everything just yet, but le't’s just say that you may soon be able to enjoy one of the recipes from my new book without having to cook it for yourself! Watch this space! Oh and if you haven’t already, pre-order my book please! All pre-orders count towards “first week” sales, which is what they use to decide how/where the book is stocked, so you’ll be helping me triple fold! I’ve put some pre-order links on my linktree for you!

Orchids!

Our local dog walk is suddenly full of orchids! Or at least I think they’re orchids - my wildflower obsessed mum says they are, and that’s good enough for me! It’s a massive field left to grow and it’s now full of meadow buttercups, ox-eye daisies and now these towering spires of purple orchids! It’s a genuine spirit lifter!

Dog Tax

OK, here she is. A very bashful, wet girl who spent the last three hours snuffling in the dewy shrubs of Mum’s garden.

Now it’s time for…

Tiramisu Cinnamon Rolls

Soft, fluffy cinnamon rolls swirled with a rich coffee-cocoa filling and finished with a light tiramisu-inspired frosting. Pipe the topping into neat spirals and finish with a generous dusting of cocoa powder for the full tiramisu effect.

Serves 12

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Somehow, feeling unworthy of Vienetta as a child appears to be a universal experience.

For a while I thought this was just me, but it seems that everyone I speak to about Vienetta feels the same way. As a kid, Vienetta was the dessert that you really had to earn. It was for incredibly special occasions, not just any old Tuesday night. So I suppose, if we’re going to psycho-analyse, we could say that this week’s recipe is my attempt to master something that always felt out of reach - paging Dr. Freud!

For the uninitiated, Vienetta is essentially layers of rippled ice cream separated by impossibly thin sheets of crisp chocolate, all formed into a long frozen loaf with decorative swirls running across the top. When you slice into it, the chocolate cracks and shatters into delicate shards. It's part ice cream cake, part semifreddo, part status symbol, which is weird for something which came from the supermarket freezer aisle.

It was launched by Wall's in Britain in 1982 and was originally intended as a Christmas dessert before becoming a year-round fixture in freezers around the world. The company came up with a patented production method to create those distinctive rippled layers and paper-thin sheets of chocolate. And honestly, that was the main challenge for this recipe: getting those textures as close to the original as possible.

I first had a go at making a vegan Vienetta in my first cookbook. It was a simple vanilla one and it was pretty bloomin magnificent. This version though, takes things in a slightly different direction.

Instead of vanilla, the ice cream is flavoured with espresso, barley malt extract and vanilla, creating something rich, creamy and just grown-up enough to feel like a proper dinner party dessert. This flavour was inspired by the amazing who posted a malted coffee ice cream last week. It popped up on my feed and immediatly the inspiration coggs started whirring. You’ll remember my excitement when I cracked that no-churn ice cream base from a couple of weeks ago, well this iteration of my ice cream mania was just as exciting.

I started with the chocolate shards. You’ll need a good, vegan dark chocolate for this, so look for something with around 54% cocoa solids and a nice snap to it. I melted this with a little vegetable oil (this prevents you from needing to temper the chocolate) then poured a little between two sheets of parchment laid inside a loaf tin. Repeat this process and freeze for a few minutes and you’ve got 8 paper thin leaves of dark chocolate in exactly the required dimensions.

Then it’s time for the malted espresso ice cream. If you’ve made any of my recent no-churn ice creams, you’ll already know the technique. Vegan double cream gets whipped until fluffy and a mixture of sweetened condensed oat milk, espresso, barley malt extract and vanilla is slowly streamed in while the mixer runs. No ice cream machine required.

The espresso brings bitterness and depth while the barley malt adds a rich toasted sweetness that somehow makes the coffee flavour feel even bigger. really nailed this combo.

Once the ice cream is mixed, everything gets layered together in the loaf tin. Ice cream mixture topped with a chocolate sheet, and repeat until you run out. If this sounds like a daunting process, I should mention that there is an easier option. You can simply layer the ice cream mixture into the loaf tin and drizzle melted chocolate over each layer before adding the next. It works brilliantly and tastes just as good. The only downside is that the chocolate layers end up a bit thicker, which means you lose some of that delicate snap that makes a Vienetta feel like a Vienetta.

Once frozen firm, we pipe on some extra vegan whipped cream to complete the Vienetta illusion, freeze again until firm and we’re done! Every slice cracks and fractures just like the real deal, and because you’re a grown-up now, you can choose exactly how wide your slice is.

I really hope you enjoy this one as much as I did. It’s that perfect combo of nostalgia and new flavour pairings that really makes a new core memory! The full recipe is at the bottom of this post. If you want to, you can upgrade your membership here. You’ll get instant access to this recipe and full archive access to every recipe and every newsletter I’ve ever posted to Substack, all for the price of a nice cup of coffee.

If you cant/don’t want to upgrade right now, that’s also totally fine. Just being here and reading my newsletters is massive and I’m so grateful you’re here. There are literally hundreds of free recipes over at my blog - I really hope you enjoy them!

Also! If you’re in the UK, my new cook book book is now available to preorder from Amazon, Waterstones and Bookshop.org. International preorders are coming later this year, I promise. I’ll keep you posted the second I have news on that front.

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Now for a quick…

I’ve Become Unhinged

A few months ago my Mum gave me a box of my childhood stuff from her loft. It contained a bunch of stuff, from baby clothes to my original gameboy. But nothing could prepare me for finding my massive box and binder of pokemon cards after TWENTY FIVE YEARS. I organised them, researched them and found out a bunch of them are actually worth something now.

Then, I fully spiralled out of control. I’m not FULLY DEEP in a pokemon obsession for the first time since I was 9 years old. I’ve started collecting the latest set and I genuinely cant explain the sense of childhood joy it’s brought this 40 year old man. So, whether you like it or not, I’m going to be sharing my favourite card of the week with you, until this obsession passes. This week: JUMBO ICE CREAM!

Payment From Mum’s Garden

Mum and Dad are away on a vegan vacation with The Getaway Co, and their beautiful garden has been struggling with the heatwave we’ve been having. So I’ve popped over a few times this week to give everything a good drenching. As payment, I’ve been taking some little edible bouquets! This one is some baby kale, beetroot leaves and fresh chive flowers.

Heatwave Dog Walks

Speaking of heatwave, it’s been intense over here. So dog walks have been centred around access to both shade and cool water. Here’s a pic from this weekend’s visit to Tatton park. The worst of the heat seems to have passed now, I hope you all coped ok!

Dog Tax

Here she is.

Now it’s time for…

Malted Espresso Vienetta

Serves 8-10

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Another recipe that didn’t make it into my new cookbook, exclusively for you!

There’s something deeply satisfying about taking a delicious but impractical recipe and making it doable on a Tuesday night. That’s basically the entire philosophy behind my new cookbook, Stress-Free Dinners. It’s packed with recipes designed to scratch the same itch as a long, slow weekend cooking project, but without requiring you to destroy your kitchen or sacrifice your evening in the process.

This week’s newsletter recipe is a great example of that idea. It’s a single serving sticky toffee pudding that takes six minutes to make. Six! Minutes! Which feels illegal, honestly.

Like last week’s recipe, this one was originally meant to live in the cookbook itself, but when you’re trying to fit over 100 recipes into a finite number of pages, some absolute gems inevitably end up getting cut. Thankfully I have this Substack, which means the rejected children still get their moment in the spotlight (I know I can relate).

Despite the shockingly short cooking time, this guy genuinely tastes like a proper sticky toffee pudding. Soft dates, malty brown sugar and the easiest toffee sauce hack you’ll ever come across.

Some people feel weird about microwaved desserts (yep, this is essentially a jazzed up mug cake) but trust me, the texture of this pudding is so unbelievably light, it’s simply not even worth pre-heating the oven. I’ll also never not be blown away by the fact that you can go from dessert-cravings to a fresh hot steaming pudding in SIX minutes!

Like with all recipes in my new book, I’ve also made sure that any ingredients used are easy to come across. The only slightly rare ingredient in this one is date syrup, however I did some research to be sure and have found it at four different supermarkets here in the UK, so I think we’re good! The date syrup guarantees that unique, mellow, sticky toffee flavour, and because it’s already in liquid form, it means we don’t have to melt any sugar to make our toffee sauce!

Almost all of the recipes in my new book are dinners, but for those who see dessert as necessary, not optional, I’ve also included a chapter for quick, easy and outrageously delicious desserts (just like this one). You’ll find recipes like my Spicy Mango Tamarind Sorbet (think scoopable mangonada!), Blueberry Paratha Pies (think the poshest, easiest McDonalds pie ever) and my Ultra Fudgy Instant Miso Brownie (think microwaveable death by chocolate).

If you’re in the UK, the book is now available to preorder from Amazon, Waterstones and Bookshop.org. International preorders are coming later this year, I promise. I’ll keep you posted the second I have news on that front.

Anyway, enough waffle. The recipe’s down at the bottom. This week it’s for paid subscribers only, to say thank you for keeping this newsletter going! If you’d like to subscribe or upgrade your membership, you can do that right here and you’ll also get access to my entire Substack recipe back-catalog.

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Straight to the recipe this week! Enjoy! (But obviously dog tax 🐶)

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Six Minute Sticky Toffee Pudding

Serves One

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I’ve reached into the vault and pulled out my favourite recipe that didn’t make it into my new cookbook. Because I love you.

Every cookbook has a graveyard. Not a sad, spooky one, obviously. No tiny tombstones for abandoned soups or candlelit vigils for underperforming traybakes. But somewhere between the first brainstorm and the final print deadline, recipes inevitably quietly fall away. Sometimes they’re unfinished. Sometimes they’re genuinely terrible. And sometimes, annoyingly, they’re actually really good.

This recipe falls firmly into that last category.

This week’s paid subscriber recipe is an incredibly simple one-pot pasta, spicy and creamy, topped with home-made vegan merguez (easier than it sounds). It didn’t quite make it into my new cookbook Stress-Free Dinners partly because I ended up using my homemade vegan merguez in another recipe in the book, and partly because we already had another one-pot pasta. But it illustrates the vibe of the book so beautifully, so I decided it was too good not to share with you.

If you missed my announcement last week, Stress-Free Dinners is all about recipes which are:

✓ Ready in around 30 minutes
✓ Minimal on the washing up
✓ Made with common supermarket ingredients
✓ Big flavour without loads of effort
✓ Nutritious and delicious
✓ Budget-friendly enough for midweek cooking

And this recipe, like a box of tricks, definitely does all of those things.

The first of said tricks is the “merguez”. Traditional merguez sausage is deeply spiced, smoky and rich with warming North African flavours. Here, smoked tempeh does all the heavy lifting instead. It gets grated coarsely so it almost resembles sausage mince, then fried until browned and slightly crisp before being tossed with smoked paprika, cumin, coriander, fennel, garlic and just enough cayenne and cinnamon to make things interesting.

Then there’s the sauce. At first glance this looks like a fairly classic tomatoey one-pot pasta situation: garlic, sun-dried tomatoes, tomato purée etc. But then right at the end comes the hidden-protein bit.

Instead of cream, the sauce gets finished with a blended mixture of silken tofu, plant milk and nutritional yeast. The tofu disappears completely into the sauce, leaving behind nothing but richness and body. No tofu flavour. No graininess. Just a glossy, creamy sauce that clings to the pasta properly.

And because silken tofu is secretly doing nutritional heavy lifting in the background, the protein content gets a massive boost without the recipe ever feeling like “high-protein food”. The fibre gets a nice little kick up the bum too, thanks to the tempeh and tofu combination.

So while this recipe didn’t quite make it into the cookbook itself, it absolutely belongs in the wider universe of recipes that inspired it. And honestly, I’m quite glad it ended up here instead. It feels like the right sort of recipe to keep exclusively for you all on substack: a slightly behind-the-scenes look at the cookbook process and a reminder that sometimes the recipes that get cut are still worth making immediately.

If this recipe has inspired you to pre-order my new cookbook, I’ve got exciting news for you! I’ve got a pre-order discount code that i won’t be sharing anywhere other than substack.

For a 20% discount, head to Bookshop.org today or tomorrow (16th or 17th May) and use the code PREORDER20 when you preorder my book! Every sale supports real independent bookshops across the UK!

(Sorry folks, this pre-order is only for UK customers - I’ll update you on international pre-orders next week!)

Pre-Order My Book Here

Now for a quick…

A Treat From Phil Khoury

My dear pal Phil Khoury (former head pastry chef at Harrods) sent over a gift to say congrats on the new book. Last year he launched his groundbreaking new chocolate company Khoury’s with a selection of filled chocolate bars inspired by cities around the world. They’re all plant-based and all ridiculously good.

I got treated to a Paris bar, filled with hazelnut praline and caramel. It was one of the most sensational things I’ve tasted in a very long time.

Movie Night with Nieces

We recently bought a couch from Omhu that is essentially just a huge stack of memory foam mattresses. They can be configured in all sorts of different ways, including a MASSIVE BED which is perfect for movie night! We watched practical magic of course.

Husband Cooks a Winner

If you’ve been around a while, you’ll know that my husband historically doesn’t love to cook. He finds it very stressful (one of my inspirations behind Stress-Free Dinners) but we signed up to Grubby (a vegan meal kit service) last year and his skills/confidence have gone through the roof.

This week he made me this “pork” schnitzel with homemade oven chips, apple slaw and dill-dressed cucumbers! The schnitzel was made by mashing vegan sausages and breadcrumbing them before frying. Genuinely genius!

Dog Tax

Here’s Ripley making a new chihuahua friend!

OK, don’t forget to pre-order my cookbook from Bookshop.org before midnight this Sunday and save 20% with the code: PREORDER20 Every sale supports real independent bookshops across the UK!

Pre-Order My Book Here

Now it’s time for…

One-Pot Vegan Merguez Pasta

Serves 2

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OK so this week is a little different, because I have an announcement…

No Recommendation Corner and no Weekly Wrap this time. Just me with some genuinely exciting news that I’ve been sitting on for longer than is healthy for a chronic oversharer.

I have a second cookbook coming out. A SECOND COOKBOOK!! I genuinely cannot believe I’m allowed to say that (after literally 3 years).

Before I tell you anything else, I want you to know that you are the first people getting this announcement. Not Instagram, not TikTok, not my mum (OK, yeah maybe Mum knew already). You lot, here on Substack, get it first. I’m not posting anywhere else until next week, so if you want to feel smug about something today, now’s your chance.

So for this week’s newsletter, let’s do a little virtual flip-through of my second-born book-child. If you like the look of it, next week I’ll share with you an insanely good recipe that didn’t make it into the final printed version.

The Book

Stress-Free Dinners: Delicious plant-based recipes for every night of the week is coming. It’s been a good three years in the making but it’s finally here and this week I held it in my hands! Opening that box and pulling it out felt like ripping open a pack of pokémon cards and finding a shiny Charizard.

Holding my first copy felt so amazing because this has truly been a very personal project. I didn’t just write this book, I tested all the recipes, I took all the pictures, chose all the props, basically even sang the theme tune. Obviously we’d be nowhere without my amazing food stylist Rebecca Woods and my publishing team over at Bloomsbury, but trust me when I say that there’s a piece of me on every single page of this book.

The UK edition drops on 16th July 2026 and for my US friends, you’ll be getting your hands on it in January 2027.

You can pre-order the UK edition right now on Amazon: Pre-order here →

Here’s the important bit. Pre-orders matter SO much more than people realise. They’re basically a signal to booksellers and publishers that my book deserves shelf space, so if you’re even a little bit tempted, now is genuinely the best time to do it. Thank you SO much.

Now let me tell you about what’s actually inside!

Pre-order Here!

What’s Actually In It

The thing I wanted to avoid with this book was the classic cookbook problem where only a handful of the recipes are technically useful for a normal person with a normal kitchen and a normal time schedule. So every single recipe in here is built around the reality of being a real-life person. For me this means:

• Every recipe takes less than 30 mins. Some as little as 10!

• No rare, unusual ingredients. Only ingredients available at your supermarket.

• No weird kitchen gadgets necessary. Standard kitchen kit only.

• Easy means easy. Absolute beginner level skills required.

• Every recipe a dinner. Besides a handful of desserts at the back, every recipe in the book is a full, complete evening meal.

Since every recipe is a dinner, I decided to structure the book a little differently. Instead of splitting it into chapters based on courses or meals, I’ve categorised the recipes according to which kind of evening you’re having. There’s a chapter for:

• Dining Solo - exclusively recipes that serve one.

• Make-ahead Meals - Dinners you can make in bulk and stash in the freezer so that Future You has already sorted dinner.

• Super Quick Suppers - Dinners that are on the table in under 25 minutes.

• Family Feasts - For feeding the whole gang (each recipe serves 4 or more).

• No-Cook Nights - For when you cannot face turning the hob on at all.

You’ll find a personal portion of Cauliflower Schnitzel with Caper-Butter Green Beans, a surprisingly speedy Roasted Tomato and Tamarind Dal, a prep-ahead Pho (just add boiling water) and a crowd-pleasing batch of Pretzel-crusted Maple Mustard Tofu Sandwiches with Broccoli Slaw.

My personal favourite bit of the whole book is the chapter I’m calling Dinner Dial Ups: simple, home-made, flavour-packed condiments and sauces designed to instantly take whatever dinner you’re eating and dial it up a notch. Think of them as your emergency flavour kit.

And yes, there are desserts. Of course there are desserts. I cannot help myself. But before you panic, they’re quick and weeknight-friendly. Think individual blueberry pies, made with frozen parathas instead of pastry for an extra flaky bite in a flash.

Why This Book Exists

Here’s something I haven’t talked about publicly before.

After my first cookbook (Anything You Can Cook, I Can Cook Vegan) came out, cooking stopped being fun for me. Not dramatically, not all at once. Just quietly, gradually, in the way that something you love can start to feel like a job without you really clocking it happening.

Every time I stepped into the kitchen just to make dinner for myself, there was this background hum of guilt if I wasn’t writing the recipe down. Every meal felt like it ought to be “content”. Every plate felt like it needed to be shot and posted and made into something. Cooking had always been my decompression, the thing I did at the end of a long day to feel like a person again. And suddenly it was another task on the list.

The first time I felt genuinely stressed standing at my own hob at dinner time, I thought: this is a problem.

I started talking to people about it and realised pretty quickly that this wasn’t just a me thing. So many people have a complicated relationship with cooking. The pressure to make something impressive, to not waste ingredients, to cook from scratch when you’re absolutely exhausted. It’s really common. And it’s a shame, because cooking doesn’t have to feel like that.

So I wrote the book I needed, in the hope that other people might need it too. No faff, no obscure ingredients, no technique that sends you to a YouTube tutorial mid-recipe. Just ridiculously good plant-based dinners that you’ll actually want to make on a Tuesday when you’re tired and the fridge is looking a bit sorry for itself. Writing this book genuinely gave me my kitchen back. I hope reading it does the same for you.

Supper Clubs!

One more thing (well, two things really, but they’re related). I really wanted to show you how good this book is by cooking you some of the recipes (what can I say, I’m a feeder), so I’m tentatively planning to host two supper clubs around the launch. One in London and one in Manchester. No dates yet but if the idea of coming to eat some ridiculously good plant-based food with a bunch of fellow kitchen nerds sounds like your kind of evening, let me know in the poll below. I’ll shout when I know more.

Right, that’s enough rambling from me! And please do pre-order the book if you can. It means the world and it makes a genuine practical difference to how it gets stocked and supported by book stores.

Pre-order Stress-Free Dinners (UK) →

US pre-orders: I’ll share the link with you as soon as my US publisher has this sorted - hang tight! I’ll shout when it’s live.

Come back next week for your free sneak peek recipe! It’s a special guy who didn’t quite make it into the final printed version!

Pre-order Here!

Hey, thanks for being here! My newsletter is entirely reader-supported, meaning it only exists thanks to people like you. If you want to help support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

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Soft baked vegan donuts with a proper pound cake crumb, bright with lime and finished with a glossy glaze. Sometimes donuts are literally a piece of cake.

OK, I’m putting the ice cream scoop down. For now. Three weeks of no-churn experiments has been an absolute joy (and your enthusiasm for the tiramisu one nearly broke me, in the best way) but I’m a man of variety, and this week I needed something I could eat with a cup of coffee at 11am without feeling like a complete liability. Enter: pound cake donuts.

If you’ve been around the blog for a while you’ll know I have opinions about pound cake. I rewrote my vegan pound cake recipe a couple of years back after the original went a bit viral and a few of you flagged that it could be temperamental depending on which vegan butter you used. The new version is oil-based, dead simple, and stays moist for days. So when I started thinking about a baked donut recipe (which, weirdly, I’ve never actually shared — every donut I’ve posted has been a yeasted, deep-fried affair) I knew I wanted to lean on that pound cake DNA.

The trick with a baked donut is that you’ve got no frying oil for a crispy shell and no yeast for that pillowy chew. What you’ve got, essentially, is cake batter in a ring-shaped tin. Which is fine! But it does mean the recipe has to work very hard on flavour and texture, because the form factor is doing none of the heavy lifting. So I’ve leaned into it: a tight, tender pound-cake crumb, a lot of lime zest and a thick glaze that sets to a proper crackly shell.

Lime, by the way, is a flavour I don’t reach for nearly enough. I’m a chronic lemon-baker (you’ve seen the lemon drizzle cake, the lemon poppy seed cake and the lemon blueberry focaccia — I am nothing if not predictable) and I sort of forget lime exists as a baking flavour. Which is mad, because it’s sharper, more floral and arguably more interesting in a sweet context. The zest is the workhorse here. We rub it into the caster sugar with our fingertips before anything else, which bruises the oil cells and perfumes the entire donut.

The batter itself is pretty straightforward. No stand mixer required (although I use one because I’m lazy). Plant milk for moisture with the added benefit of the lecithin — I bang on about this all the time, but it really does emulsify the batter and give you that even, tight crumb that makes a pound cake a pound cake. A glug of vegetable oil for lightness and that characteristic brown crust. Pipe into greased donut tins and bake for 14-ish minutes.

The glaze is where these step up a level. Icing sugar, soy milk, lime juice and even more finely grated zest. Dip the cooled donuts upside down, give them ten minutes to set, and you’re left with a glossy, citrus-flecked top that crackles slightly when you bite through it. The combination of soft, lime-perfumed crumb and that bright, zingy glaze is one of the most satisfying mouthfuls I’ve had in ages.

This recipe makes 12, which is loads. They keep for a day in an airtight container, longer if keot in the fridge, but are best eaten on the day they’re glazed. Which is, in my experience, very rarely a problem.

The full recipe for these Vegan Lime Pound Cake Donuts is at the bottom of this post. If you want to, you can upgrade your membership here. You’ll get instant access to this recipe and full archive access to every recipe and every newsletter I’ve ever posted to Substack, all for the price of a nice cup of coffee.

If you cant/don’t want to upgrade right now, that’s also totally fine. Just being here and reading my newsletters is massive and I’m so grateful you’re here. There are literally hundreds of free recipes over at my blog - I really hope you enjoy them!

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Now for a quick…

Huge Announcement (coming next week!)

I’ve done some hinting at this, but it’s finally time to share something more substantial… My second book is READY! It’s called Stress-Free Dinners because that’s literally what it’s all about! No buffer recipes, no snacks, no starters - just ridiculously easy, outrageously delicious, shockingly speedy dinners! (Ok, and some desserts because, you know me). I’m going to share full details next week everywhere, but I wanted to give you folks on Substack the first look. It’s out in July but you can preorder it now right here! Literally cannot wait for you to see it.

Glazing Week at Pottery School

My time at pottery school has unfortunately come to an end! MASSIVE sad face. That means this week was glazing week. It was such a weirdly counterintuitive process because the glazes turn into a totally different colour once fired, so hang tight to see the finished results.

Dog Tax

OK, here she is. Having a much deserved paddle in Tatton Park.

Now it’s time for…

Lime Glazed Pound Cake Donuts

Soft baked donuts with a proper pound cake crumb, bright with lime and finished with a glossy glaze.

Makes 12 (you’ll need 2 donut tins)

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Hey, thanks for being here! My newsletter is entirely reader-supported, meaning it only exists thanks to people like you. If you want to help support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

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Swirls of vanilla and coffee no-churn ice cream studded with espresso-soaked sponge and shavings of dark chocolate. Yes, the ice cream hyper-fixation continues. No, I will not be seeking help.

A few weeks ago I posted my no-churn vegan rhubarb crumble ice cream and you lot absolutely lit it up. It got me to number 9 in the Substack food charts which, frankly, I was not emotionally prepared for. So thank you. As a reward (for me, mostly) I’ve decided to keep going.

Quick context, in case you’re new here: I used to make ice cream professionally at my old company Blu Top, before going vegan and packing it all in. Now I’m back at the chest freezer with a vengeance, and the no-churn vanilla base I shared a few weeks back has turned out to be such a stable, flavour-friendly canvas that I genuinely cannot stop layering things into it.

Tiramisu felt like the obvious next move. It’s basically already an ice cream cake — sweetened cream, soaked sponge, coffee, cocoa, a bit of booze. The only real difference is the temperature. So I figured, let’s just take the lid off and lean in.

Now, tiramisu is one of those desserts where everyone has opinions. Marsala or rum? Sponge fingers or pan di Spagna? Mascarpone or no? I’m not Italian and I have no business wading into any of that, so I’ve sidestepped the discourse entirely by going with what makes the best ice cream rather than the most “authentic” tiramisu.

That means a soft, vegan sponge, soaked in a punchy mix of hot espresso, vegan coffee liqueur (Tia Maria do a Cold Brew one which is incredible) and sugar, then frozen into perfect bite-sized cubes that hold up beautifully when you scoop through them.

The “base” again is my super simple no-churn vegan vanilla ice cream, with that pillowy texture you get from whipped vegan cream and condensed oat (or coconut) milk. This time, though, I’m splitting the base in two: half stays vanilla, half gets a hit of instant espresso powder and a whisper of cocoa. Then it all gets layered up in the tub — vanilla, coffee, soaked sponge cubes, finely grated dark chocolate, repeat — until you’ve got something that looks like a geological cross-section of the world’s best dessert.

A light dusting of cocoa across the top finishes it, in proper tiramisu tradition. And the result is genuinely ridiculous. Every spoonful is a different bite. My mum said “it literally tastes like you’ve just frozen a tiramisu!”.

And remember, this recipe is no-churn, which means you don’t need an ice cream machine. An electric whisk will save your wrist when you’re whipping the cream, but that’s about as fancy as the equipment gets. The hardest part is waiting for it to freeze overnight, and I cannot help you with that.

The full recipe for this No-Churn Tiramisu Ice Cream is at the bottom of this post. If you want to, you can upgrade your membership here. You’ll get instant access to this recipe and full archive access to every recipe and every newsletter I’ve ever posted to Substack, all for the price of a nice cup of coffee.

If you cant/don’t want to upgrade right now, that’s also totally fine. Just being here and reading my newsletters is massive and I’m so grateful you’re here.

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Now for a quick…

Vegan Cacio E Pepe

This weeks recipe over at the blog is a vegan cacio e pepe. It’s one of those recipes I’ve been meaning to post for years but maybe I was gatekeeping a little. Anyway, it’s here now, and it’s bloody delicious. You don’t need any store bought vegan cream and we’re not soaking cashews or blending tofu. It’s so easy!

Trimming Week at Pottery School

Maybe the funnest week yet at pottery school! We got stuck into trimming our pots. This is where you tidy up any rough edges and shave off any imperfections. We also learnt how to make handles and stick them on things! I’ll have some nice things to show you in a few weeks!

New Plates! New Couch!

I ordered these blue bubble plates months ago but they were out of stock. This week they finally arrived and my tableware drawer is almost complete. Also our new couch arrived which is exciting because it dismantles to become a massive bed or a conversation pit!

Dog Tax

OK, here she is.

Now it’s time for…

No-Churn Tiramisu Ice Cream

A creamy no-churn tiramisu ice cream layered with espresso-soaked sponge, dark chocolate and ribbons of vanilla and coffee ice cream.

Serves 8–10

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Somewhere between a flapjack, a coconut slice and a Canadian date bar. Basically, the holy trinity.

I have a bit of a weakness for any bake that sits somewhere between a biscuit, a flapjack and a dessert. And that, gang, is exactly where we are today.

The original plan was apple crumble bars. A buttery oat base, a layer of soft cinnamon-spiked apples and a crumbly topping. I’d already mentally committed to them. I had the baking tin lined. I had the butter melting. And then I looked at the fruit bowl. There were two apples. Two. Not enough for a traybake, unless you’re baking for a small family of borrowers.

I briefly considered abandoning the whole thing but by this point I’d also realised I didn’t really have enough oats either. Which meant I was somehow simultaneously underprepared for both the filling and the topping.

However, tucked away in the cupboard I had a big box of Medjool dates and half a bag of desiccated coconut. The swap made a weird amount of sense.

The concept reminded me slightly of Canadian date squares. If you’ve never had them, they’re essentially a layer of soft date paste sandwiched between two layers of buttery oat crumble. They’re sometimes called matrimonial bars or matrimonial cake which is, frankly, one of the strangest names ever given to a dessert.

At the same time, I’d also been craving something with coconut in it. We’re talking toasted vibes, not tropical pineapple cocktail vibes. So instead of choosing between the two, I decided to combine them.

The first version of this recipe was essentially just a standard date square with some desiccated coconut thrown into the crumble mixture. It was fine. But only fine. The coconut got completely lost and the filling felt a little too heavy and sweet.

The next version was much closer. I toasted the coconut first before adding it to the crumble and suddenly the whole thing tasted nuttier and richer and much more deliberate. For the filling, I use Medjool dates because they’re soft and squidgy and melt down beautifully once heated. You roughly chop them then place them in a saucepan with water, apple juice and a couple of tablespoons of dark brown sugar.

The dates soften and collapse and the liquid reduces until the whole mixture becomes thick and glossy.

At this stage I use a silicone spatula to gently mash the dates against the side of the pan. You’re not trying to make them completely smooth. I like the filling to still have a little texture so you get the occasional chunk of date running through the finished bars.

While the filling cools slightly, you move on to the crumble mixture. The brown sugar gives the bars that lovely caramel flavour while the granulated sugar helps create a crispier, crunchier topping. The cinnamon isn’t there to make the bars taste overtly spiced. It’s just enough to make everything taste warmer and toastier. The baking powder might seem unusual in a crumble topping but it helps give the finished bars a slightly lighter texture instead of becoming dense and heavy.

Before it goes anywhere near the bowl, the desiccated coconut gets toasted in a dry frying pan for a few minutes. I really wouldn’t skip this step. Untoasted desiccated coconut can taste a little dusty. Toasting it transforms it completely. It becomes nutty and fragrant and gives the bars a flavour somewhere between a flapjack and a coconut macaroon.

Once the coconut is golden, everything goes into a bowl and the melted vegan butter is stirred through until the mixture forms soft clumps.

Two thirds of the crumble gets pressed into the base of the tin. I press it down quite firmly using the bottom of a glass because you want a solid base which will actually hold together once sliced.

The date mixture is then spread over the top. It can feel like there isn’t quite enough filling at first but resist the urge to pile it on too thickly. The best thing about these bars is the ratio. You want enough date filling to make everything soft and sticky without overwhelming the buttery crumble.

Finally, the remaining crumble mixture gets scattered over the top. I don’t press this layer down. Leaving it loose means it bakes into a rough, craggy topping with lots of crisp little clusters. It’s very similar to the top of a fruit crumble or those buttery streusel toppings you get on American coffee cakes.

Straight from the oven they’re far too soft and fragile. But once cooled, everything settles. The filling firms up, the base becomes sliceable and the crumble on top stays perfectly crisp.

The finished bars are sweet, chewy, buttery and just coconutty. The full recipe is at the bottom of this post, but heads up, this one’s for paid subscribers. If you want to, you can upgrade your membership here. You’ll get instant access to this recipe and full archive access to every recipe and every newsletter I’ve ever posted to Substack, all for the price of a nice cup of coffee.

If you cant/don’t want to upgrade right now, that’s also totally fine. Just being here and reading my newsletters is massive and I’m so grateful you’re here.

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Date and Coconut Bars

Makes 12 bars

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Pillowy soft swirls, spiked with lemon zest and crisp poppy seeds, drizzled with buttery lemon icing. They’re like cinnamon rolls but spring-time coded.

I make no apologies for my cinnamon roll problem. I bake them as often as I can and I can honestly say I’ve never regretted a single one. I’ve created variations on the classic, like my Miso Maple Pumpkin Rolls and my Apple Butter Rolls, but they’ve always felt autumnal and borderline festive. What am I supposed to do come spring? How do I enjoy a soft-baked bready swirl that doesn’t rely on heaps of cinnamon??

Enter the Lemon Poppy Seed Roll! They’ve got all the charm of a sweet slice of Lemon Poppy Seed Cake but with the ooey gooey pull-apart charm of a cinnamon roll. Let me talk you through them.

Firstly, I overhauled my dough recipe to make sure I wasn’t just switching up the fillings of my existing cinnamon roll recipe. I wanted it to be especially moist but still easy to work with when rolling out and filling the buns. I also wanted to make sure that the lemon flavour ran right through the rolls, so I did my favourite kitchen task and rubbed plenty of lemon zest into the sugar. From square one, the dough smelled bright and zesty, so I knew we were onto a winner.

Like with my Lemon Poppy Seed Cake, I found that the poppy seeds affected the hydration of the dough pretty dramatically. I’m not sure if they absorbed the moisture or gelatinised slightly (like chia seeds do) but once I’d accounted for this, I actually loved the feel of this dough. It was so easy to work with and the gluten developed super quick in my stand mixer.

For the filling, instead of the usual cinnamon butter, I again rubbed a load of lemon zest into some sugar then beat this into some softened vegan butter until I had a light, fluffy paste. I was concerned this would behave differently to the cinnamon butter because I used white sugar instead of brown, but I actually loved how it turned out, as it caramelised on the base and gave the rolls a beautiful crispness without being dry.

I’m a huge fan of the thread cutting technique, which is an absolute must if you want super neat rolls. This involves taking a strong piece of thread, working it under your rolled-up dough, then looping it over and pulling firmly until the thread has cut through the dough. You’ll never get slices this neat with a knife, plus it’s way less messy!

As always, be sure to use a baking pan that feels way bigger than necessary. The rolls will grow as they prove but also as they bake, and you want to avoid them popping out their centres as much as possible.

I saw a lot of similar recipes use lemon curd in the filling, which sounds delightful, but I avoided this for two reasons. Firstly, vegan lemon curd isn’t widely available in stores, so it would involve making a batch before even starting the rolls, which just seems like a lot of effort for rolls. And secondly, it seems SUPER messy. The wetter the filling, the harder it is to get a nice tight roll of dough, and trust me, slicing wet rolls is a panic attack waiting to happen (thread trick or no thread trick!).

I found that even without the curd, the middles of the rolls were moist and packed with flavour, while the granulated sugar bubbled out of the top and caramelised on the surface like little sweet crunchy crystals.

My last job was to ice the rolls. I toyed with the idea of a cream cheese frosting, which I’m sure would be delicious, but vegan cream cheeses are very hit-and-miss and they vary dramatically in taste and texture from brand to brand. I also wanted to keep these rolls feeling as close to a slice of lemon poppy seed cake as possible, so I stuck to a simple lemon icing (like the one you find drizzled over the starbucks lemon loaf, but obviously way better).

Pulling these rolls out of the pan with my fingers was one of the highlights of my week. They pull apart to reveal a pillowy soft inside, studded with poppy seeds and flecked with bright lemon zest. They’re so moist and absolutely dripping with flavour.

The full recipe for these Lemon Poppy Seed Rolls is at the bottom of this post, but heads up, this one’s for paid subscribers. If you want to, you can upgrade your membership here. You’ll get instant access to this recipe and full archive access to every recipe and every newsletter I’ve ever posted to Substack, all for the price of a nice cup of coffee.

If you cant/don’t want to upgrade right now, that’s also totally fine. Just being here and reading my newsletters is massive and I’m so grateful you’re here.

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Now for a quick…

Easter Sunday Treats

My family got together for a tailgate party of sorts. There’s a huge country estate nearby called Tatton Park and we often all pull our cars into a U formation to create a wind-break and set up camp for the day. We had vegan hot dogs and I baked some treats for dessert, including citrus drizzle cake and apple crumble bars.

Marry Me Tofu

This week’s recipe over at schoolnightvegan.com is for a long-overdue viral recipe that’s probably not even viral any more (what can I say, I’m nearly 40). But virality be damned! I’m obsessed with this recipe. It’s for Marry Me Tofu (my take on Marry Me Chicken) and it’s so so good!

It’s basically tofu in a creamy, sun dried tomato sauce but it’s so versatile. Since posting this recipe I’ve made versions with butter beans, chickpeas and store-bought vegan chicken!

Back 2 Pottery Skool!

This was my second week at New Dawn Pottery Studio. I’m really loving learning to throw and I’ve genuinely been dreaming about centering clay on the wheel (imho the trickiest part).

This week I made a salt dish with a lid and a garlic grater!

Dog Tax

Ripley had a haircut this week and she looks even more adorable. Here she is.

Now it’s time for…

Lemon Poppy Seed Rolls

Soft, fluffy lemon-scented rolls swirled with lemon sugar filling and finished with a tangy glaze.

Makes 12 rolls

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A no-churn vegan ice cream, swirled with sweet-tart rhubarb compote and studded with buttery crumble pieces. Clearly we’re deep into my ice cream hyper-fixation again.

A few weeks ago I posted my no-churn vegan vanilla ice cream recipe. You guys loved it as much as I did, which pleased me greatly, but I’ve got a feeling this one’s also going to be a crowd pleaser. Context, in case you missed it last time: I used to make ice cream professionally. It was fun but very, very challenging. Then I turned vegan and it all came to a close.

That vegan vanilla ice cream recipe from the other week was my first attempt at making ice cream in almost eight years. And now, I fear, I’ve opened Pandora’s chest-freezer. Back when I ran Blu Top (my old ice cream company) rhubarb crumble was my most popular seasonal flavour. Now that I have a simple vegan vanilla recipe that doesn’t even require an ice cream machine, how could I resist whipping up a vegan version of this best-seller?

Rhubarb is kind of a big deal here in the UK. Yorkshire is know for “forced” rhubarb, which is grown in near complete darkness, giving it a pinker, sweeter stem. Rhubarb is normally in season from early spring but forcing it means great, delicious rhubarb is sometimes available as early as late December!

Anyway, I grew up with this stuff, and it was often the fruit of choice for crumbles because its sharp, tart flavour cuts right through the buttery sweetness of the topping. The only thing better than rhubarb crumble is, of course, rhubarb crumble ice cream.

The “base” of the ice cream is my super simple No-Churn Vegan Vanilla Ice Cream, which uses fluffy vegan whipped cream and condensed oat (or coconut) milk for that perfectly light texture without the need for an ice cream machine. I figured out that this “vase” is so beautifully stable that we can layer it up in the tub with fruity swirls and other add-ins.

So I worked on an easy rhubarb compote which is designed to freeze and scoop beautifully without becoming too icy. This was layered up with scoops of the pillowy light ice cream base. Then I soft-baked a tray of classic fruit crumble topping and sprinkled that in too.

The result was this rich, vanilla-heavy ice cream, cut through with rivers of zingy rhubarb, studded with crumbly, brown sugary and cinnamon biscuity bits! This isn’t the kind of ice cream you put on top of a dessert, it IS the dessert. There are so many nostalgic flavours here, all working in harmony with some truly irresistible textures.

And remember, this recipe is no-churn, which means you don’t need to invest in an ice cream machine. You may need an electric whisk (to save your wrist when whipping the vegan cream) but that’s about as specialist as the required equipment gets!

The full recipe for this Rhubarb Crumble No-Churn Ice Cream is at the bottom of this post. It’s for paid Subscribers only but don’t worry - for this week only I’m giving away two weeks free subscription to anyone who wants it. This means you can access this week’s recipe for free, but also you’ll get access to my entire back-catalog. If you’re interested, you can sign up with your first 14 days absolutely free right here.

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Now for a quick…

First Recipe In Ages on the Blog

I’ve been neglecting my blog (schoolnightvegan.com) for a while now. This is the original (and spiritual) home of School Night Vegan but I’ve been ploughing my attention into Substack and my upcoming cook book for over a year now. As such, the blog has been on the back burner and I’ve not actually uploaded any new recipes there in ages. But that ends now! This week I posted a really delicious, super simple recipe for a Butter Bean Stew I’ve been making (kind of religiously) for lunch. It’s really easy, ready in under 30 mins and is kind of shockingly tasty. Give it a go!

Big Walk With Mum and Dad

Did a big, very windy walk with Mum and Dad up a very windy hill. We met a group of Roman centurions at the top and I thought perhaps I had passed out from the aerobic strain and lack of oxygen but it turns out they were doing a charity fun run. P.S. Look at Ripley - she looks so over the wind.

I Started Pottery School!

Last year I got a bunch of pottery school vouchers for Christmas from my family (after about four years of not so subtle hints) and so I booked onto a five week course at the adorable New Dawn Pottery Studio. This week was my first class and it was just as fun as I expected. It took so much upper body strength (which I wasn’t expecting) but I got a few decent first attempts out! My goal is to eventually make some salad dressing bowls with built-in garlic/ginger graters at the bottom. I managed something close to this but poked a hole through the bottom by accident.

Dog Tax

OK, here she is.

Now it’s time for…

Rhubarb Crumble Ice Cream

A creamy no-churn vanilla ice cream layered with sharp rhubarb compote and buttery cinnamon crumble.

Serves 8–10

This week I’m giving away two weeks free subscription to anyone who wants it. This means you can access this week’s recipe for free, but also you’ll get access to my entire back-catalog. If you’re interested, you can sign up with your first 14 days absolutely free right here.

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For the last few years I’ve let wild garlic season pass me by, but not this time!

The birds are chirping, the days are getting longer and dog walks are becoming fun again - which means spring is upon us. Sure, we’re not quite in shorts yet and the wellington boots are practically hermetically sealed to my feet, but small gains y’know? My dog is a type-A squirrel chaser, so I spend a lot of our spring-time walks in the local woods, which means I’m always very aware of the advent of wild garlic season. If you’re in the northern hemisphere, that season is now!

Last month we moved out of Manchester proper and into the surrounding countryside, so we finally have a garden! It turns out that garden is absolutely packed with wild garlic, which means I can no longer make excuses - I simply must use it to cook something delicious.

I toyed with the idea of a wild garlic pesto (delicious but you all know how to make pesto already!) and then I rolled around the idea of fresh pasta dough dyed green with wild garlic (which felt like too much work for a Tuesday morning). So instead, I made some scones. They’re cheesy and buttery, flecked with nutritional yeast for that punch of nuttiness and (most importantly) they are bursting with wild garlic.

For savoury scones I like to use a method I first learnt when making American style biscuits, to ensure that super flaky, layered structure. Firstly, we keep our dough teetering right on the edge of too dry. If you introduce too much liquid you’ll activate the gluten in the flour and end up with something closer to a bread roll. We introduce the butter already cubed and frozen to make sure the warmth of our hands don’t melt it. I like to stir the butter cubes into the flour mixture then pinch them into big wide flakes.

Then, we pat out our dough into a rough square and slice it into 4 smaller squares. These are then stacked on top of eachother and pushed gently into another rough square. What we’re doing here is layering up those bits of butter between the dough, like when you make pastry, which will melt and produce steam when the scones bake. This is what gives us nice, flaky layers. Repeat this process again, then roll the dough out into a 3/4 inch square.

Then, the bit that always pains me, we trim the edges with a sharp knife. It feels wasteful (don’t worry, it’s not) but we need cleanly sliced sides for our scones otherwise they won’t rise evenly. Take the remaining square of dough and slice into four large squares (or six small rectangles) and place on a lined baking sheet.

At this point, you can freeze the dough until you’re ready to bake the scones, or if you’re an insatiable scone hound like me, chuck them in the oven and watch them rise like a pop-up book! Golden brown herby scones, ready in no time.

The full recipe for these Wild Garlic Scones is at the bottom of this post, but heads up, this one’s for paid subscribers. If you want to, you can upgrade your membership here. You’ll get instant access to this recipe and full archive access to every recipe and every newsletter I’ve ever posted to Substack, all for the price of a nice cup of coffee.

If you cant/don’t want to upgrade right now, that’s also totally fine. Just being here and reading my newsletters is massive and I’m so grateful you’re here!

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Now for a quick…

Birthday Party For Jack

It was my nephew Jack’s birthday last week so I put my new house to the test and invited the family round for a bit of a party. I made vegan cheeseburger sliders and mac & cheese as well as a big sheet cake with homemade raspberry shortbread ice cream!

Some New House Bits

Speaking of new house, my Mum and Dad bought us some kitchen stools for our island and they arrived this week. They’re gorgeous and bring in some stainless steel as well as the colour moss green, both a part of our overall colour/texture wheel plan for the room (who have I become!?). I also grabbed 8 of these chunky, rounded plates because I’m obsessed with them. The chairs are from Cult Chairs and the plates are from Made.

Dog Tax

Along with the wild garlic, the wood anemones are out for spring, so me and Ripley had a little posing session in her favourite woods. Dawwwwww.

OK that’s it for now - here’s your recipe for the week!

Wild Garlic Scones

Makes 4 large scones (or 6 small ones)

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As a vegan, people usually think I’m joking when I say I used to “work in ice cream”, but it’s true.

Back in 2014 I made the decision to leave my job in academic administration (as thrilling as it sounds) and dive into my first food-based career. I bought a van, I did it up, I even went to ice cream school (more thrilling than it sounds) and I built an ice cream company from scratch. I never served vegan ice cream (I closed the company when I switched diets) but I feel like I might finally be ready to share the best vegan ice cream recipe you’ll ever come across.

If you’ll allow me, I’d like to describe the basics of how non-vegan ice cream is made to help you understand the challenges that go into making a vegan version. This sounds like exaggeration, but ice cream is a science, and in order to get that perfect texture, mouth-feel and flavour there are four very important factors that need to be considered:

• fat: the element that makes it an ice cream, not a sorbet

• water: the thing that allows it to freeze and, in turn, melt on your tongue

• sugar: for sweetness but also essential for a satisfying melting point

• protein: for bite and body

With regular ice cream, three of these come from animal products. Fat is sourced from milk, cream and egg yolks, water is present in the milk and cream, while protein usually comes from eggs or skimmed milk powder. These ingredients (combined with sugar) are cooked into a thick custard, of sorts, and then churned until smooth and soft-frozen. The churning, usually done in an ice cream machine, helps to freeze the ice cream without allowing large ice crystals to form. The soft-frozen ice cream is then transferred to a freezer where it is frozen properly to the final temperature/texture.

I’ve wanted to make a vegan vanilla ice cream recipe for so long now, but until today, I’ve never published one. Partly this might be down to the lingering PTSD of running a very un-profitable company that ultimately damaged my spine and also my will to live. But also, it seemed really hard to make a vegan version which could stand up against my really, really good non-vegan ice cream. UNTIL TODAY!

Here are the challenges I set for myself with this vegan vanilla ice cream recipe:

• It must be delicious and creamy with a satisfyingly melty texture

• It must not taste strongly of whichever milk/cream alternatives I choose to use (so no strong coconut, soy or almond flavours)

• It must be vanilla flavour, because once you’ve got vanilla down, the world is your ice cream cone

• And because I’m developing this recipe for you guys to make, it should be easy and shouldn’t require any fancy ice cream machines.

That last one’s important. I wanted to make sure you could whip this up without buying an appliance that you’ll use once and never take out of the cupboard again. I see loads of people buying the Ninja Creami or whatever it’s called, and that’s cool, but if you’re on the fence about investing, please try this recipe before you buy any new kit.

In order to achieve a recipe that’s insanely simple to make, I had to shift away from the custard method (mentioned above) and instead, rely on a whipped vegan cream in order to keep the final product light and free from large ice crystals. I’ve tried this recipe with three different brands of vegan whipped cream available here in the UK (Flora, Coconut Collaborative and Elmlea) and all three work perfectly. But here’s the exciting bit. If you live somewhere where these products aren’t available, I’ve also tested this recipe with my own home-made vegan whipping cream, also with great success!

This recipe also uses something called sweetened condensed oat milk. You can substitute this for sweetened condensed coconut milk, which can be easier to find, but which has a slightly more noticeable coconutty taste. The condensed milk is swetened, so it provides the sugar in our recipe but it also offers some of the protein that helps to give the final ice cream some body and “scoopability”.

I also recommend using a little glucose syrup in this recipe. Glucose is an invert sugar and therefore helps to manage the freezing point of the ice cream, without making it too sweet. The glucose isn’t essential, but without it, the ice cream will freeze quite firm and may need to be left out of the freezer for a few minutes before scooping. If you’re struggling to get hold of glucose syrup, you can sub for corn syrup, golden syrup or brown rice syrup. All of these are also invert sugars and will do the same job, but beware, golden syrup and brown rice syrup have strong flavours and will affect the taste of the final product.

As for the method, it literally couldn’t be any easier. First you whip the cream until stiff peaks form. Then you mix together all the remaining ingredients and gradually add to the whipped cream. Pour into a freezable container and stick in the freezer! And that’s it! Done and dusted! It usually takes a few hours (minimum 4) for it to be properly frozen and scoopable, so I recommend leaving it overnight instead.

The full recipe for this no-churn vegan vanilla ice cream is at the bottom of this post, but heads up, this one’s for paid subscribers. If you want to, you can upgrade your membership here. You’ll get instant access to this recipe and full archive access to every recipe and every newsletter I’ve ever posted to Substack, all for the price of a nice cup of coffee.

If you cant/don’t want to upgrade right now, that’s also totally fine. Just being here and reading my newsletters is massive and I’m so grateful you’re here.

No Weekly Recap this week but I would never leave you without a dog tax

No-Churn Vegan Vanilla Ice Cream

Makes around 6 scoops

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Today I woke up craving bagels and a small project, so I headed to the kitchen and got to work.

I want to preface all of this with a disclaimer. I am not, nor have I ever been, a trad-wife. When my child (who doesn’t exist but would probably be named Magabelle) asks for a nutri-grain, I do not start hand-milling ancient sorghum and fermenting single-origin stone-fruits. But, sometimes you just feel a bagel, and since I made home-baked soft pretzels last year, I have begun to feel slightly less intimidated by the process of making them myself.

I had a dream of making them heavy on the onion flavour, packed with caramelised onions on the inside and coated with a mixture of onion seeds and onion flakes on the outside (we’ll get into the success/failure of that later). But for now, here’s how the process went.

I started with the dough. This is a pretty simple bagel dough, which is made with standard strong white bread flour. However, I knew we were going to introduce some extra moisture with the French onions later on, so I dialled down the hydration a little. The dough felt stiff at first but after the proving process, it was much softer and easier to work with.

While the dough proved, I whipped up the French onions. There a loads of ways to make properly caramelised onions, but before you get started You must know one thing: it’s gonna take ages. If you’re expecting perfectly golden, deep caramelised onions in less than 30 minutes then you’ve got another thing coming. I used the deglaze method and it took 35-40 minutes and it was worth every second.

For the deglaze method, you basically fry the onions over medium-high heat until they start to brown, then you add a drizzle of water to “deglaze” the pan. Stir to shift everything around and repeat the process of browning, deglazing, stirring. Keep going until the onions resemble the ones above.

These guys will need to cool for a bit before including them in your dough, so spread them out on a plate to speed up the process. The best way to add them to your dough is to wait for it to finish the first proof then pour them on top. Push them in gently with your fingertips then repeatedly stretch the dough up and over the onions, rotating the bowl a little as you go. It’ll eventually look something like this:

Then it’s time to shape the bagels. The dough will be a little sticky, but should be easy to handle. You’ll want to divide the dough into 8 equal pieces and then roll them into balls by cupping your hand in a C shape and rolling the ball around on the counter until it’s lovely and tight on top.

Then, to make the classic bagel hole in the centre, dunk your index finger in flour and push it into the centre of the ball. Wiggle it around a little and stretch out the hole by a couple of centimetres then transfer to a square of greaseproof paper (this makes them easier to handle and transfer to the boiling water, which is the next step).

So, if the process is new to you, here’s the weird part. You have to boil the bagels before you bake them. This gives them their classic chew and helps to give them a shiny, golden brown exterior. You can add certain ingredients to the boiling water to help with this process, namely barley malt extract (or brown sugar if you’d rather) and baking soda. I think commercially they use lye (another name for sodium hydroxide) which I’m sure ALL of you have in your cupboards… right??

You literally only need to boil the bagels for a few mins, flipping them over half-way through. They’ll puff up dramatically and then you can dunk them in all sorts of toppings before baking. Here, however, is where I warn you of my mistakes. I wanted these guys to be super oniony, so I dunked them in dried onion flakes (the kind you get in the spice aisle of the supermarket) and in black onion seeds. Because these bagels require baking at a pretty high heat, we ran into some issues with some slight over-browning (aka burning) of the toppings. The onion seeds were totally fine but the onion flakes seemed to brown waaay too quickly (you can see in the baked photos).

So, besides that, I would bake these bagels the exact same way again. I’d keep the onion seeds and skip the flakes. Oh, and if you’re struggling to find black onion seeds, keep in mind that they’re often called Nigella seeds too. It’s the same thing. The texture of these bagels is perfectly chewy and the french onions throughout are such a bonus.

And that’s it! I recommend topping them with some vegan cream cheese, pickles, sauerkraut, vegan pastrami, whatever you like! The onion bagels work really well with fresh chives, so whip some of those into your cream cheese and you’ll be laughing!

The full recipe for these French Onion Bagels is at the bottom of this post, but heads up, this one’s for paid subscribers. If you want to, you can upgrade your membership here. You’ll get instant access to this recipe and full archive access to every recipe and every newsletter I’ve ever posted to Substack, all for the price of a nice cup of coffee.

If you cant/don’t want to upgrade right now, that’s also totally fine. Just being here and reading my newsletters is massive and I’m so grateful you’re here!

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Now for a quick…

I Did a Hyrox!

I’ve been babbling on about this for months (because I was terrified for months) but I DID IT! Me and my brother Tom did our first doubles Hyrox together and it was WILD! The race itself is insane - 8km run with 8 separate strength-based stations in the middle, including burpees, sled pushes, sandbag lunges, wall balls - you name it. But we nailed it! We got a time of 1 min 19 seconds but we picked up a 3 minute penalty because we did the course in the wrong order 😂. In our defence, the course wasn’t laid out chronologically, the stations were set out in a weird order that made it really easy to mess this up, but hey. I’m still really happy with our time. Lots to improve on, but I think I’ve officially got the bug.

I Got To Visit Suissi Vegan Kitchen

Our Hyrox took place in Glasgow, which is weirdly a city I’ve never been to! I asked the cloud brain (insta) where we should visit if we only had time for one meal and the resounding consensus was “SUISSI VEGAN KITCHEN". It’s a pan-Asian spot with such an insanely good selection of dishes. We were obviously SO hungry after our Hyrox so we basically ordered the whole menu.

We had:

• Soya miso ramen with tofu and enoki mushrooms

• Lions mane rendang with brown rice

• Salt and chilli chips (OH MY GOD THESE CHIPS)

• Satay tofu

• Tofu pad thai

• Banana fritters with jasmine and lychee ice cream

It was one of the best meals I’ve had in forever and even my non-vegan brother was SO happy.

Moodboard for New House!

Me and Husband needed some winding in since we’ve moved into our new house because obviously the temptation is to just buy loads of stuff and throw it all over the place and hope it looks great. This fills me with dread, so I made a mood board for us to try to stick to when decorating the main kitchen/living room space.

The colour scheme is burnt orange, baby blue, coffee and moss green. I think it hits that mid century vibe perfectly without being too…pastiche… but what do you think?

OK, Dog Tax

I know the real reason you all read this far. Here she is getting love off her uncle:

French Onion Bagels

Makes 8 Bagels

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People make cake to celebrate all sorts of stuff; weddings, birthdays, Hell’s Angels initiations, you name it. This one is a new home cake, but only if your new home is in Manchester.

My list of favourite nostalgic desserts is probably about as long as my arm at this point, but right up on the top you’ll find Manchester Tart. It’s been my favourite since I was a kid but it’s chronically ignored outside of the North West of England. It’s a pastry case layered with raspberry jam, set vanilla custard and toasted coconut. It’s pretty simple to make, which I guess is why it was a stalwart of 90s school dinners, but it’s also outrageously delicious.

Last week we finally bought a house and put down permanent roots in…you guessed it… Manchester! I’m originally from the North West so it was a bit of a homecoming for me, hence why I’m taking such a self-indulgent stroll down memory lane. Since this newsletter has become something of a very public journal (omg remember live journal!?) I’ve decided to mark the occasion by baking a celebration cake that’s inspired by the Manchester Tart!

It’s essentially a toasted coconut sponge (light, fluffy, fragrant) sandwiched with German buttercream (a whipped cloud of custardy fluff) and raspberry jam (tangy, fruity, sharp) coated in toasted coconut (you get the idea). Here’s how I made it.

I started with the sponge. I wanted something I could slice like a loaf cake and serve when guests came to visit over the course of the week, but I wanted something a little more elevated than a loaf cake. So I baked a sheet cake, trimmed the rough edges and divided it into 3 rectangles then wrapped them to keep them moist.

Then I started on the German buttercream. I’m saying that as though this is old knowledge to me (it’s very not) but German buttercream is essentially just a whipped custard. You make a rather sweet, thick custard, then pour it into a baking tray to allow it to cool. Meanwhile you whip some vegan butter until really fluffy and slowly (tbsp by tbsp) add the custard. The result is a super light, super fluffy, very stable alternative to buttercream. It’s way less sweet than buttercream and yet it’s still perfect for piping and for decoration (not that I did much of that because I’m notoriously HORRIBLE at decorating cakes).

You can use it straight away or you can store it in the fridge overnight if you need to make the cake over two days. Just let it come to room temp before using it in your cake, as it’ll become much stiffer in the cold.

Then it’s simply time to layer up! I am obviously no expert on cake engineering, so take this all with a pinch of icing sugar. I started with the bottom slice of cake and used a wide tip piping bag to get a nice flat layer of frosting across the entire top. Then I added a second sort of lip around the edge to hold the jam in.

I whisked the jam (because I was using store-bought and it was very firmly set - whisking it made it much more smooth and spreadable) and I plopped around a half of it into the frosting “well”. Spread it out then repeated the process with the next layer.

For the final layer, I frosted the outside with the same flat tip then pressed the toasted coconut onto the sides until the surface was evenly covered. For the top I used a smaller piping tip to decorate with a bunch of random squiggles, which i then filled in with more jam. Et voila! That’s it!

It sliced beautifully but I’d recommend popping it into the fridge to chill for an hour or so before you cut into it. It just helps to keep those layers nice and tidy (yes, mine are wonky, but still tidy!). This was probably the prettiest cake I’ve ever made (which is saying a lot about how ugly my cakes usually are), but honestly it would work just as well as a regular round two layer frosted cake, if you’re short on time or patience.

The full recipe for this coconut custard cake is at the bottom of this post, but heads up, this one’s for paid subscribers. If you want to, you can upgrade your membership here. You’ll get instant access to this recipe and full archive access to every recipe and every newsletter I’ve ever posted to Substack, all for the price of a nice cup of coffee.

If you cant/don’t want to upgrade right now, that’s also totally fine. Just being here and reading my newsletters is massive and I’m so grateful you’re here!

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Now for a quick…

New House Run-Down

Instead of the usual weekly recap, I’ll use this one to share some photos of the new house. It was originally built in 1967 but it was refurbed by the previous owners about three years ago. They did such a spectacular job on it and put so much effort into keeping that mid-century charm.

My favourite bits are the brick column fireplace in the open plan lounge and the open wooden slatted staircase. We’re still getting settled and we need to invest in some mid-century furniture to really bring it to life, but I’m already obsessed with the place. The cork flooring feels so nice and you should hear the way Ripley’s paws sound on it - it’s my very personal ASMR.

It’s the first house I’ve ever owned (which feels embarrassingly late at nearly 40, but I guess I must’ve been buying too many avocado toasts or something), but for it to also be this unique and gorgeous, it feels like a blessing.

And because I’d never short change you, even though she’s in both of the photos above, here’s your…

Dog Tax

Until next week! Here she is, enjoying her new garden!

Coconut Custard Cake (aka Manchester Tart Cake)

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Fudgy, rich and studded with glossy sea-salt caramel. In case you needed a reminder, I don’t do things by half.

I was talking to a friend last week about faded food trends. We were reminiscing about the rise and fall of the giants of 90s and 00s cafe culture. Pesto, paninis, caramelised onions, pulled pork to name but a few. I’m not joking, there was a point here in the UK where it was basically a legal requirement of all cafes to have a panini press. Why were they everywhere?? Why were they always so hot that their cheese and tomato filling would turn to molten lava and burn your mouth until only teeth and jawbone remained?? Literally nobody knows.

Anyway, it was a fun conversation, but then out of the blue, my friend (a woman for whom I care deeply and would protect with my life) chuckled “haha, and what about brownies. Another dead trend!” My neck snapped so quickly that my nose nearly broke the sound barrier. “Brownies!? DEAD!?” I yelled, immediately irate and irrational. And suddenly we were in a John Wick style choreographed fight to the death.

Just kidding, but obviously I couldn’t agree LESS! Brownies are timeless! Sure, they had their moment in the sun back in like 2005, but their light never faded. It just grew steadily brighter, and that’s a hill I’m willing to die on.

So for this week’s recipe, out of spite and also rage, I’ve developed a brownie recipe to prove the world wrong. These guys are beyond deep, rich and dark, spiked with chewy pockets of salted caramel. Obviously they’re as fudgy as is legally permissible in the United Kingdom because, no kink shaming but which sane person before a court of law would testify to enjoying a cakey brownie??

Also, it’s kind of a two-for-one because the recipe for the caramel pieces works as a stand-alone too. You can wrap them up in little squares of baking parchment, twist the ends and keep them in the fridge for a sweet, afternoon pick-me-up.

Vegan caramel that’s the perfect consistency is kind of tough to get right. I adore this recipe for a thick vegan caramel sauce, but it’s not ideal for topping a batch of brownies, so I made this new one specifically. The issue with vegan caramel is that it’s often too runny, suggesting it has too much water in it. For this reason, I stripped the recipe right back and replaced the coconut cream with the similarly named but very different “creamed coconut” (sometimes called coconut butter in the US).

This stuff is pure, shredded coconut flesh, with no coconut milk or cream featured. It adds the coconut flavour but also just the right amount of fat to make sure the caramel is rich and chewy. The fact that we’re not adding any extra water means we can be really specific about the final texture, just using a tiny bit of full-fat plant milk to guarantee a soft, stretchy texture. I know, this is a bit sciency for a Sunday afternoon, but just trust me, it’s the key to perfect vegan caramel.

Once baked onto the brownies, the caramel becomes stretchy, golden and chewy, matching that fudgy brownie texture just perfectly. The full recipe for these Coconut Caramel Brownies is at the bottom of this post, but heads up, this one’s for paid subscribers. If you want to, you can upgrade your membership here. You’ll get instant access to this recipe and full archive access to every recipe and every newsletter I’ve ever posted to Substack, all for the price of a nice cup of coffee.

If you cant/don’t want to upgrade right now, that’s also totally fine. Just being here and reading my newsletters is massive and I’m so grateful you’re here!

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Now for a quick…

Anniversary Meal (Noodle Alley!)

This wednesday marked eleven years since me and Husband met, so we had a celebratory dinner at my favourite restaurant in Manchester: Noodle Alley! It’s in China town and unfortunately it’s not entirely vegan, but their vegan options are INSANE! It’s my first recommendation to anyone visiting. Here’s what you should order:

• The smashed cucumber salad

• The wavy szechuan fries

• The ma po tofu (without the minced pork obvs)

• The hand-stretched peanut noodles

• The fresh lychee and raspberry lemonade

A Quick Holiday

My mum and Dad live on the Canary Islands for winter, and the cold/wet/dark was getting to me, so I hopped on a plane to pay them a surprise visit for a few days. It was also a surprise for my nieces, who were visiting that same week and also were on my very flight! Most fun ever!

Big Bro Training

You’ve probably heard me rattling on about this already, but I’m doing a hyrox race in march and it’s getting scarily close to the date! So me and Tom (my big bro) have been getting some serious training done. Unfortunately he got all the stamina, strength and determination. I just got the cooking gene.

Dog Tax

Until next week! Here she is!

Coconut Caramel Brownies

Note: For these brownies, we’re making our own caramel pieces. To get the right texture, you’ll need to use creamed coconut (sometimes labelled coconut butter in the US). This isn’t the same as coconut cream (the thick layer from a tin of coconut milk). Instead, it’s made from 100% ground coconut flesh and is usually sold in a solid block at room temperature.

Makes 9 brownies

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Soft-baked and chewy with toasted oats and a caramel-deep sweetness. It's like an oatmeal raisin cookie and a sticky toffee pudding met at a house party, and boy did they get along.

Dear Diary, it’s two weeks since I saw ’s sourdough toast cookies on the interweb. It’s been one week since I made my own vegan version, and yet for some reason I can’t stop thinking about cookies! Something about the way Lungi took my two favourite things (cookies and toast, obvs) and combined them… It made my hyperfixation say “what else can we combine within a cookie!?”.

Well, I’ll tell you what. We can combine the date-laden treacly joy of a sticky toffee pudding (easily within my top three desserts) with the chewy delight of an oatmeal cookie (easily within my top two cookies). My goal was to keep the texture of the oatmeal cookie (specifically a crisp outside, super chewy inside, irregular oaty crumb) but pack it full of sticky toffee pudding flavour. So my first question: what exactly is the flavour of sticky toffee pudding?

I looked at a bunch of sticky toffee pudding recipes, some non-vegan ones, some vegan ones, even my own Pumpkin Sticky Toffee Pudding and my Chocolate Sticky Toffee Pudding, and the common big flavour ingredients are:

• Dates (for that mellow fruity kick)

• Treacle, or molasses (for that deep, rich sweetness)

• Dark brown sugar (for the sticky caramel vibes)

So to begin, I tried a version of this cookie with all these things all up inside the cookie. The treacle and the dark brown sugar replaced the light brown and granulated sugar, and the raisins were swapped out for chopped dates. But it wasn’t to be. The various different kinds of sugar changed the texture of the cookie too much and made it caramelise more than I wanted. Plus, the chopped dates kind of disappeared…

So my next idea was to cook up a caramel from the treacle and the brown sugar, then make a well in the centre of each cookie and fill it up after baking. Aside from being WAY too much work, this just didn’t work. The caramel wouldn’t thicken enough to be reminiscent of an STP, and where be the dates!?

Finally, we reached this:

It’s a simple oatmeal cookie dough, spiked with just enough dark brown sugar and treacle to tweak the flavour without altering the texture. This is then swirled with a homemade date paste before being sprinkled with some flaky sea salt and baked to gooey, chewy perfection.

The date paste is super simple, and because it’s not cooked (like a caramel) it doesn’t over-caramelise and burn in the oven. Instead, it gives deep, rich swirls of malty sweetness, like each cookie has been injected with sticky toffee. To make the date paste, we just take some big juicy medjool dates (I just found a huge box of Palestinian ones in Tesco and obviously they’re perfect) and soak them in boiling water for 5 mins. Add some treacle and pulse in a food processor until you have a chunky paste.

To get that swirl, simply spread your cookie dough out into a single layer in a large mixing bowl, use a spatula to spread the date paste over the dough, then use your cookie scoop to form your dough balls. as you drag the scoop through the dough, it’ll become swirled with the delicious date paste. And voila!

I also highly recommend doing the counter tap method with this recipe. This helps to de-puff the cookies when they’re still hot out of the oven and keeps that texture Chewy McGooey instead of Cakey Jakey.

The full recipe for these Sticky Toffee Pudding Cookies is at the bottom of this post, but heads up, this one’s for paid subscribers. If you want to, you can upgrade your membership here. You’ll get instant access to this recipe and full archive access to every recipe and every newsletter I’ve ever posted to Substack, all for the price of a nice cup of coffee.

If you cant/don’t want to upgrade right now, that’s also totally fine. Just being here and reading my newsletters is massive and I’m so grateful you’re here!

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Now for a quick…

Byethday Cake

Our friend Max is moving away to Canada for a year so his husband threw a little farewell party that just so happened to be the day before his birthday (hence byethday). Max is famously ginger and is perhaps our second favourite ginger person (besides Ripley our dog) so I decided to make him a nice little slice of ginger cake for the occasion. This somehow snowballed and I ended up making an entire massive decorated cake instead. It looks kind of like a Fabergé house brick, which is kinda chic I guess.

It is a brown sugar ginger sponge, layered with apricot and ginger jam and stem ginger buttercream, studded with pieces of glacé ginger. I’m notoriously not a fan of decorating cakes, but I channelled my inner Gay Nigella for this one and I think it maybe turned out ok. It was certainly delicious. The question is, should I share this recipe on Substack?

K-Pop Sing Along

I went with my nieces to a K-Pop sing along. They thought I was there as an accompanying adult but really I was there purely so I had an excuse to sing along at full volume. Genuinely think I had more fun than they did.

New Shoes

Am I this boring now? So boring that my weekly updates include a pair of shoes that I bought? Yes, I am, and you’re either here for it or you’re out. The fact is, good, trendy vegan shoes are still hard to find in 2026, but these beauties from Hoka are fully vegan. No leather, no dodgy glues, no pork fat plastic! I needed something stylish enough to wear in the real world, but comfortable enough to not ruin my feet for an entire week. For any sneaker heads (or just vegans looking for decent footwear) these are the Hoka mafate speed 2 and I really like them.

Dog Tax

Until next week! Here she is!

Sticky Toffee Pudding Cookies

Makes around 12 cookies

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