Vegan chocolate is much cheaper in bulk!

Posted: May 22, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

(Relatively speaking, that is.)

If you are a vegan/milk-avoider who enjoys chocolate you’ll know that it’s usually not cheap. It’s possible to buy 100g of plain Value/Basics chocolate for around 30p, but most of those contain milk (I’m told Morrisons sell a bar without milk listed in the ingredients) but when I tried a non-milky one several years ago I was not at all impressed with the taste. If you’re going to have a luxury food, it has to actually be a pleasure to eat, or what’s the point?

I’ve always been a fan of Plamil’s range of dark chocolate chips. If you buy a small pouch of their diary-free chocolate drops they’ll cost over £3 for 175g (you might think that’s reasonable if you only want a small amount, especially if you have allergies, as they’re made in a dedicated dairy and nut-free environment), but if you look at their bulk options the price gets a lot more attractive. They will sell you a kilo of organic, fairtrade baking chocolate drops for £8.63, so 86p per 100g. If you buy over £25 worth of goods, they don’t charge for postage. They also offer 10% off for first time orders, and once you’ve registered your email address with them (and this is what prompted this post – hey, direct mailings do sometimes work!) they also offer 10% off deals throughout the year, such as for this Bank Holiday weekend.

Where the savings really come in is when you start buying their catering packs of 7.5 kilos. At the moment they are selling  ‘Free From’ Baking chocolate drop Catering Packs of 7.5kg, 53% cocoa, for a reduced price of £45.89. Take 10% from that and it will cost £41.30, so 55p per 100g, for something that actually tastes nice eaten straight up. (NB – If you want 10% off you must either be a first-time customer or buy this weekend or the next time they run an offer!)

If you want fairtrade organic, the 7.5 kilo bulk boxes are £52.13 for the 53% stuff, which is £46.92 with 10% off, making 100g cost 62p.

It’s quite a bit of money to find in one go, but if you’ve got a cool dry place to store it chocolate will last for a long time. You can also split the cost of an order with one or more friends or neighbours.

I know I sound like a blaring advert for Plamil. I swear I am not affiliated with them in any way, I’ve just ordered from them several times and I’ve always been pleased with the service and pleased that I splashed out the money. That amount of chocolate will keep me going for more than a year and is brilliantly handy for making gifts for birthdays and festivals. When you consider how much a 100g bar of allergy-friendly chocolate normally costs, this seems a much better option in the long run.

Very easy chocolate muffins (vegan)

Posted: May 22, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | 3 Comments

I don’t remember posting this recipe before, and that’s strange because it’s the easiest cake recipe I know and my go-to most of the time. Maybe I didn’t think it was worth posting because there are a huge number of vegan muffin recipes out there already, who needs another one, right? But this has been my favourite for many years because it’s so easy to remember the ratios that I never have to look it up. It’s also very pantry-friendly in terms of ingredients and it tastes good and chocolatey.

Very Easy Vegan Chocolate Muffins

The recipe below makes about 15 or 16 cupcake-sized muffins. (I quartered the recipe this evening and made 4 cupcake sized muffins by using a 1/4 cup but following the measurements as if it was a cup – it’s the ratio of ingredients that counts, that’s why you can make this recipe anywhere. I’ve made it with teacups or empty hummus containers before!). I guess this is similar to many wacky or dump cake recipes, but without the vinegar.

Ingredients:

  • 1 1/2 cups self raising flour (or use plain flour and add a heaped teaspoon of baking powder)
  • 1/2 cup cocoa powder
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 1/2 cups water or non-dairy milk of choice. (Water lets the chocolate flavour shine through, milk mellows it.)
  • 1/2 cup neutral oil (I used canola/rapeseed)
  • pinch salt
  • vanilla extract/chocolate extract to taste. Suggest at least a teaspoon.
  • 1/2 cup add-ins – chocolate chips, walnuts, sultanas etc. (I used walnuts this time and sprinkled a few chocolate chips over the top)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180/350/gas 4

Line a muffin tin with papers or get your silicon muffin cases ready.

Add flour to a suitably-sized mixing bowl. I usually dig the first cup of flour out of the bag using the cup measure, dump that into the bowl, pour 1/2 cup flour into the measure and then top up with cocoa powder until the top of the measure is reached. Use the same cup to measure the sugar and add into bowl on top of the flour. Mix together with a dessert spoon.

Using the same, now-empty cup to save on washing-up, about half fill it with oil, then top up with water/milk. Add that on top of the dry ingredients. Fill the cup again with water/milk and add it in. Chuck the extract and salt in, and your nuts/chips/fruit. Mix it up with the spoon until you can’t see dry ingredients any more.

Spoon mixture into your cases about 3/4 way up. Bake for around 20 minutes (check after 15 to make sure they’re not burning, and that they’re all baking evenly. Turn the tray if necessary).

Leave to cool, then eat, preferably on the same day they were baked. Or eat them warm if you prefer, but they’ll stick to the cases!

chocolate muffin

(P.S. I don’t know if the previous title of this post will continue to show up on the WordPress feed. In case of confusion, I changed it because I suddenly realised I might be unintentionally insulting other bloggers, which was not my intention at all!)