Hazelnut Crumb Cupcakes with Homemade Dulce De Leche and Vanilla Icing

These cupcakes are awesome and hide a surprise of yummy caramel in the center! Full of Dulce De Leche caramel and hazelnuts these are just the thing for the upcoming Easter holidays! The vanilla yoghurt in these give a lovely acidity that cuts through the caramel and the buttery flavour of hazelnuts perfectly, and make for a indulgent treat!

Ingredients:

Cup Cake Batter:

2 Cups of White Plain Flour
1 Cup of Organic unrefined Sugar
1/2 Cup of Chopped Hazelnuts
2/3 Cup of Canola Oil or Sunflower Oil
2/3 Cup of  Soya Milk or Hazelnut Milk
2/3 Cup of Vanilla Yoghurt (Alpro or Provamel)
1 tsp of Baking Powder

Dulce De Leche:

1 Carton of Coconut Cream (Blue Dragon)
1/4 Cup of Organic Unrefined Sugar
Pinch of Salt

Vanilla Icing:

4 Cups Of Icing Sugar
1 Tbsp of Margarine
1/4 Cup of Vanilla Yoghurt

Heat your oven to 200c and line a cupcake tin with cupcake cases. In a sauce pan bring to the boil the carton of coconut cream, sugar and salt. Once at the boil reduce to a medium heat and stir. Meanwhile add to a bowl your flour, sugar, hazelnuts, oil, milk, yoghurt and baking powder and mix with a hand held mixer until smooth and glossy. Spoon the mixture evenly into the 12 cup cake cases and place in the oven for 15-20 minutes until golden brown on top and a knife inserted into the cake comes out clean.
Meanwhile stir your dulce de leche mixture, it should now becoming more opaque and thick and will not easily run off your spoon, it takes a good 10-15 minutes to reach this point. Once it is thick and has a light golden colour, place to one side and make your vanilla icing.
In a bowl add the icing sugar, margarine and yoghurt. Mix with a hand held mixer until thick and stiff and will hold peaks. If it doesn't, add a little more icing sugar to thicken.
Now time to assemble! Take each cupcake and with a knife cut a small hole in the center of the cup cake. Then gently pull out the small piece of cake you have just cut, out of the hole. Fill the hole with a teaspoon of the dulce de leche caramel and then press the piece of cake back in to cover the hole.This will make for a lovely surprise when you eat the cake and find caramel inside! Then fill a piping bag (with a large smooth nozzle) with the icing and pipe a swirling pattern on top. Finish with a sprinkle of chopped hazelnuts. You can also wet a spoon and make a mini scoop of dulce de leche on top to finish! Enjoy! X

Black Pepper Breaded Aubergine Slices

It's true I love breadcrumbs. Anything from a pasta bake to Mac and Cheeze, I savour the golden, crispy bread crumbed morsels, and will always make an excuse to add extra to a recipe if they are required! There are alot of bread crumby fake meat slices out there and although I love them they aren't especially good for you being usually high in salt and processed. So I thought I would get my fix and bread crumb some aubergine slices, and they turned out great! Once again use a good non-stick frying pan or you could bake these in the oven making sure to turn them frequently to get a nice golden crust.
There a lot of people who 'salt' their aubergines to remove bitterness and their water content, but I tend to be in the non-salting prep camp. I have never had a bitter aubergine and I enjoy the moist middle of these slices, so see no point in wasting salt and having to wait an hour to do this mythical aubergine salting. You can do it if you like but they will work beautifully without this preparation.

Ingredients:
Dry Mix:
2 Cups of Fine Bread Crumbs ( 4 or so slices of bread whizzed up in a food processor)
1/4 Tsp of Black Pepper
1/2 Tsp of Mixed Herbs
Pinch of Salt

Wet Mix:
4 Tbsp of finely milled Linseed or Flaxseed
1/4 of a Cup of Hot Water
2 Tbsp of Nutritional Yeast

1 Aubergine cut into Slices (about 1.5cm thick)
Olive oil for frying

Heat a non-stick pan and turn your oven on to 190c. Put the bread crumbs, black pepper and mixed herbs on a plate add a pinch of salt, and mix with a fork. In a bowl add the flax and hot water and mix to form a thick gluey gel! Add the nutritional yeast and pour the mixture onto another plate. Then dip your aubergine slices (both sides) in the flax gel and then into the bread crumb mix. Gently pressing on the bread crumbs to help them stick and then place in the hot pan with a little olive oil. Fry gently until golden and then flip over to fry the other side. This should be a couple of minutes each side. Depending on the size of your pan you should be able to get at least a couple of slices in the pan frying at a time. Once golden on both sides, pop into an oven dish and place in the oven to continue cooking while you finishing frying the rest. Remember to add drizzles of olive oil to the pan each time you start frying a new batch so that the bread crumbs don't burn. Once they are all golden, plate up with a lovely salad with new potatoes and avocado! Yum!

Deerly Beloved Bakery's 2nd Birthday Today!

Deerly Beloved Bakery is 2 years old today! It seems like only yesterday I would sit drinking cups of tea with my friends and dream and chat about my bakery! Now it is two years since I started the blog, and the bakery quickly followed a month later! Thank you so much to everyone who supports us, comes to our stalls, comes to our vegan get togethers, orders cakes and bakes and reads our recipes! You all rock and we love ya deerly! X

Easter Range!

Easter is fast approaching so I thought I would share the Deerly Beloved Easter Range with you all!

The Deerly Beloved Easter Celebration Cake is a rich chocolate cake sandwiched with a chocolate buttercream inside and then covered with white icing. It is then topped with beautiful handmade daffodils and mascari flowers! Our Easter cake comes in two sizes  4.5'' and 10'' round cakes and serve 2, 16 (respectively) generous slices. All Deerly Beloved Bakery cakes can be made gluten free and although we have a strict cross contamination policy, please bear in mind we do use gluten flour in our kitchen. All ingredients are local, seasonal, organic and fairtrade where possible and 100% cruelty free! They are freshly made to order, no cakes hanging round waiting to be sold here! They can either be collected from the bakery or delivered in the Norwich area for a £3 charge. Ordering can't be simpler! Email your order to deerlybelovedbakeryvegan@gmail.com and you can either pay by cheque or I can send a PayPal invoice to your email address. Once I have received your payment I will send you an email confirmation and your cakes will be freshly made, ready for you to collect or be delivered in the Norwich area.

4.5'' Two Layer Mini Cake £13 Gluten Free £15

10'' Two Layers Sandwiched with Vegan Buttercream £39. Gluten Free add £5

4.5'' Serves 2. 10'' Serves 16.


Deerly Beloved Easter Whoopie Pies!

The Deerly Beloved Bakery Easter Whoopie Pies are two delicious daffodil hand painted vanilla biscuits with a chocolate center which is a flavour combination that the whole family will enjoy! We can also do larger boxes, just ask! Ordering can't be simpler! Email your order to deerlybelovedbakeryvegan@gmail.com and you can either pay by cheque or I can send a PayPal invoice to your email address. Once I have received your payment I will send you an email confirmation and your whoopie pies will be freshly made and sent! 

•  Two Whoopie Pies in a presentation bag £3.50 + £4.50 p+p

• They can also be collected from our bakery 

Deerly Beloved Bakery's Easter Spring Chocolate Collection! 

The Easter spring box is naturally gluten free and of course vegan! It contains:
2 Blueberry and camomile truffles. Fresh home-made macerated blueberry sauce is mixed with organic camomile flowers to create this smooth truffle with organic and fair trade 72% chocolate.
2 Lemon and Pine Nut pralines. Fresh lemon juice and zest stirred into 72% chocolate with home-made chunky pine nut paste.
2 Pistachio Nut Caramels. Home-made thick caramel with chopped pistachios and a hint of sea salt encased in 72% organic and fair trade chocolate.

Ordering can't be simpler! Email your order to deerlybelovedbakeryvegan@gmail.com and you can either pay by cheque or I can send a PayPal invoice to your email address.

• £7 for a box of 6. Can be posed anywhere in the UK for £4.50

• They can also be collected from our bakery

The Deerly Beloved Hot Cross Buns!

These delicious Hot Cross Buns contain vanilla, currants and lemon zest to create a more indulgent spin on the normal easter treat!

Ordering can't be simpler! Email your order to deerlybelovedbakeryvegan@gmail.com and you can either pay by cheque or I can send a PayPal invoice to your email address.

• Box of Three £2.50

• Collection from our bakery only so they reach you perfectly fresh from our oven!

Deerly Beloved Bakery must receive payment in full (all cheques cleared) before we will send out any orders.  all orders must be received by 25th of March to guarantee your order arrives in time for the holidays!