Helen's Cream Cheese Topping

This a recipe provided by someone who’s been working on it for a while. She uses it on carrot cake. The ingredients and method are hers and you’re welcome to contact her with any queries by leaving a comment on this post. It sounds good to me.

For this recipe you will need an electric hand [...]

Review of Dairy-free Ice Cream

Somehow or other I seem to have missed this essential part of family pudding time off the site. Major oversight! I shall put this right over the next few posts.

There are some dairy-free ice creams out there and some of them are good, but they can be hard to find. Some are also very expensive. [...]

Sojade Blueberry Yoghurt

My local health food shop has managed to produce a pot of the blueberry version of Sojade’s soya yoghurt. I can now report that it’s good, but not quite as good as I’d hoped. The flavour is fairly well rounded, but it’s not as much better than Alpro’s stuff as the plain version is. There [...]

Review of Non-dairy Cream Cheeses

I am always on the look-out for a plausible alternative to cream cheese.

Original Creamy Scheese

Having tried this on my sandwiches today, I’m sad to say this isn’t it! There’s nothing wrong with it as a food substance, it just doesn’t taste anything like cream cheese. The texture is quite good (not as firm as some [...]

Curried Parsnip Soup

This is very easy to prepare. The parsnips have a lovely sweetness which goes really well with the spices. If you use a pressure cooker, this is ready to eat in under 20 minutes!

For this recipe you will need either a pressure cooker or a large, heavy-bottomed pan/flame-proof casserole (eg. Le Creuset) and a hand-held [...]

Sojade Natural Yoghurt

I found a new variety of soya yoghurt in my local health food shop this week and I’m pleased to say it’s a good thing.

The flavour and texture are good. It is similar to the real thing. As ever with soya yoghurts, it lacks the sharpness which is so distinctive in dairy yoghurt, but [...]

Spiced Apple Punch

This is totally alcohol free, but has all the flavour of an alcoholic punch. I have had people unable to believe that it really is completely safe for the drivers at a party.

You will need a large preserving pan for this.

Recipe: Spiced Apple Punch

Summary: A non-alcoholic fruit punch

Ingredients

4 boxes of apple [...]

Sticky Fingers

To make these treats you will need a heavy-bottomed saucepan and a shallow baking tray. A swiss roll tin would do fine, but remember that you are going to be cutting the fingers up in the tin, so don’t use a precious, non-stick tin.

Recipe: Sticky Fingers

Summary: Delicious, sticky little treats

Ingredients

4oz (110g) Tomor
4oz [...]

Green Pea Soup aka Clanger Soup

This is one of my daughters’ favourite lunches. It has the huge advantage that you can make it from scratch in about 20 minutes … which is about how long it takes to heat the oven and bake off some part-baked baguettes to go with it.

For this recipe I use my faithful Le Creuset casserole [...]

Christmas White Sauce

This goes superbly with Christmas Pudding and is really fairly straightforward.

For this recipe you will need a heavy bottomed saucepan which is NOT non-stick, a pint jug and a balloon whisk.

Recipe: Christmas White Sauce

Summary: What would Christmas pudding be without a traditional rum sauce?

Ingredients

2 tbsps cornflour
1 tbsp demerara sugar (MUCH better than [...]