12 Days of Christmas: Cozonac (nut-free)


Welcome to 12 Days of Christmas. Starting from today, every day, at 11am GMT, we will be sharing a new recipe with you to help you prepare for this festive period. In this series, we will be featuring breakfast ideas, snacks, appetisers, main meals and desserts from various cultures in order to introduce you to new dishes as well as to give you a variety of options or plant-based meals you can make for yourself or your vegan/vegetarian loved ones. Some of the recipes will also be alcohol-free, nut-free and gluten-free for those with particular dietary requirements or preferences.

To kick this off, here’s our first recipe – a nut-free cozonac.

Cozonac is a Romanian sweet bread which is usually eaten during Christmas and Easter. Traditionally, it is made with eggs, milk and butter which enrich the dough. However, for this recipe, we have substituted those ingredients with suitable and affordable plant-based alternatives. We suggest that you do not substitute those alternatives with other alternatives such as flax eggs instead of aquafaba as that will change the texture and density of the bread.

The shape and shininess of this bread are so attractive and foretell the delicious taste experience offered by the bread. However, they hide the surprise inside the loaf which is the curving effect of bands of raisins and chocolate toasted oats, which is what we have used to replace the chocolate walnuts found in traditional cozonac in order to keep this bread nut-free whilst not compromising on a nutty flavour and texture.

Without further ado, here’s our nut-free cozonac recipe.

Poftă Bună!

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Garlic-Onion Infused Brazilian Cheese Bread


Pão de Queijo, Brazilian cheese bread, is an addictively delicious food. Traditionally, it is made using eggs, dairy cheese and milk. However, as we are keeping this recipe completely plant-based those ingredients were omitted. Nonetheless, these pães de queijo taste extremely cheesy and have a chewy centre enclosed in a thin pastry-like case.

For this recipe, we were inspired to use potatoes for several reasons. We retained the traditional tapioca starch used in making pão de queijo. However, as we were excluding three important ingredients, we needed an ingredient which could act as a binder that also would not make the final product too firm. We also needed an ingredient containing more starch for the chewy texture and the ability for the pão de queijo to still have a soft stretchy cheese-like interior when warm or hot. Finally, our decision to use potatoes, in particular, was because we knew it would serve the purposes we need it for based on research. From reading through the recipes of others such as a translated version of this pão de queijo de batata recipe, stretchy vegan cheese recipes and Japanese imomochi recipes, we realised that potatoes were our best option for experimenting to develop this recipe.

This recipe also includes an infusion of garlic and onions. Although these were flavour profiles we wanted to introduce. They ended up just contributing to the cheesy flavour of our pães de queijo making them even more addictive.

Without further ado, here is or vegan pão de quijo recipe!

Bom Apetite!

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Vegan Challah Bread


Challah bread is a beautiful, shiny, delicious and slightly sweet Jewish braided bread. Traditionally, this bread is made with enriched dough. This means that the dough contains eggs, and for Israeli challah, oil, which add to its taste, texture and appearance. Therefore, conventionally made challah bread is not vegan (to the dismay of those who have tried it before) although unlike European enriched doughs, it is parve (it does not contain dairy).

Today, we are going to share our tried and tested delicious challah bread recipe with you. It is beautiful, delectable, flavoursome and will be the perfect addition to your dining table at any time of the day. This is the one bread recipe that will have your friends and family thinking you are a pro-baker and asking for you to make bread especially for them.

We will not keep you away from this recipe much longer. So, here’s our vegan challah bread recipe.

Bon Appétit!

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Vegan Banana Bread


Banana bread is one of the most delicious breads we have tasted. It is moist, it is delicious, it has a higher nutritional content than the conventional bread, contains over 50g of protein (per loaf) and it does not require a topping such as butter or jam.

This bread works well for breakfast, as a snack and as a dessert. It can be frozen for later consumption and it keeps in the fridge for about a week (although it might harden a little when lower than room temperature).

Our banana bread recipe is perfect for any day and anytime so, without further ado, here’s our recipe.

Bon Appétit!

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