Pumpkin Spice Vegan Fairy Buns

Today I have made my first attempt at vegan cupcakes, or fairy buns as I want to call them.  Fairy buns because I have made them mini, although they look deceptively larger in the photos – they are in fact made in petit four cases.

I have a good friend whose little girl turns 5 next week, and tomorrow she goes to a wonderful school in a small wood, set up by her mom. Sadly my friend is really unwell at the moment and asked if I could make cupcakes for her to take to school with her.

What’s baking? Chard and Brie mini savoury muffins

I’ve spent the last hour cooking, which is a real treat.  I have attempted to make chard and Brie mini muffins from Alice Hart’s Vegetarian book – hers look a lot more attractive, I shall have to imagine she had a fantastic food stylist making hers look beautiful, but they taste really nice.

Always good to find a meat-free savoury snack, these are pretty good.  I’d like to try out some other different ingredient combinations within these tiny savoury muffins.  Any suggestions?

Homemade flatbreads cooked on the barbeque

Last weekend we celebrated the fine weather with our first barbeque of the season (hopefully not the last!).  We had tiny buffalo koftas from Laverstoke Park Farm, asparagus, new potatoes baked in the embers, and homemade flatbreads.

This was a new adventure for us – attempting to make our own flatbreads – and I was desperately worried they would go all crispy, and not soft and doughy like I was hoping.  If there was anyone I was going to put my trust in, it was Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

Mini tea and chocolate chip scone ring

Isn’t this miniature food ring so cute?!  I love this one with its tiny cup of tea and mini chocolate chip scone – so sweet.  You can find them here at the SouZouCreations shop on Etsy.

Made-up mini meatballs with spaghetti and tomato sauce

Spaghetti bolognese and variations of it are one of Mr Rigg’s favourite meals.  I’m not so keen on spaghetti bolognese as we know it in this country, made with minced beef – I would rather make a sauce of slow cooked meat.

So whilst trying to be a good girlfriend, last night I used some leftover minced pork to make tiny meatballs to sit on a bowl of pasta and served with lashings of homemade tomato sauce.

I say they were ‘made up’ meatballs, because I just added bits and pieces as I saw fit.  The ‘bits and pieces’ included breadcrumbs, fresh sage, grated Parmesan, an egg and seasoning of salt and pepper.  I mixed this all together and started to make my meatballs.

I made them quite tiny – like a large marble size – and popped them on a tray and into the fridge to firm up for a bit.

Next I fried them in a little oil to brown them – and set off the smoke alarm…which is a regular occurence in our house – our neighbours must think we are terrible cooks!

Then the final stage of cooking them was to pop them into the oven covered with foil whilst the pasta cooked. 

I popped the cooked meatballs on top of the pile of steaming pasta and then ladled over some of my homemade tomato sauce.  Topped with a little grated Parmesan and plenty of black pepper for me, they were scrumy.