I went to the Northern Vegan Festival in Blackpool on Saturday with a few buddies, one of which was my uni-friend and fellow blogger, the Boltonian Vegan.

We had a good time but although the venue was absolutely stunning, I couldn’t help but think that the event lacked some of the atmosphere I experienced at the North West Vegan Festival that I went to in Lancaster earlier in the year.

Perhaps it was the lack of a beer stall…which I did moan about. A lot. But I still enjoyed myself, especially when I got chatting to the lovely people at Harper’s Bizarre and Homemade by Erica Jayne. These ladies are crazy and I love them! It’s the second time I have visited their stalls and both times I have bought something. Delicious tasting chutneys and fabulous smelling candles… I can’t resist either!  I just hope my purchases made up for my foul dialect 😉 *has no internal filter*

I also bought a book from a really really nice gentlemen of whom I could have chatted to for a lot longer had other customers not turned up. Unfortunately I forgot to take down the name of his stall. Looking at the Northern Vegan Festival website, he may have been “Cruelty Free Cookbooks”. Hopefully I will find out for sure at the next event.

The highlight of the day however had to be the big fat dirty burger I bought from the Vegan Grindhouse.  I’ve been DYING to try one of these guys’ burgers and I was not disappointed with my quarter pounder with cheeze, onions and burger relish *drools*.

Anyway, a while ago (like years ago, before I turned vegan) I made some brownies for work, which had they not have contained dairy milk chocolate, would have been SFV. I was reminded of my recipe when I was flicking through a free copy of LABL magazine. Inspired by this article and also by a piece of pecan pie that I sampled at the festival (courtesy of The Homemade Vegan) I routed out my recipe and simply swapped the chocolate for a dairy free version. In fact I used a bar that I got in my Vegan Kind box this month, which for the record was gorgeous! Creamy with a hint of coconut:

                                               

The best part of this recipe is that brownies are super easy to make!

Pecan and chocolate chunk brownies

Ingredients:

125g	Plain flour
175g	Caster sugar
35g	Cocoa powder
125 ml	Oil (I used sunflower)
125 ml 35g 35g 1 tsp 1 tsp	Water Dairy free “milk” chocolate (broken into chunks) Chopped pecan nuts Baking powder Vanilla extract

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180^oC.

Then, simply mix the flour, sugar, baking powder and cocoa powder together, before adding  the oil, water and vanilla extract. Mix thoroughly until a smooth glossy batter is formed. Then fold in the nuts and chocolate chunks.

Pour the mix into a lightly greased 7 x 7” baking tin and bake for 20 mins. I turned the tin around after 10 mins to ensure an even bake.

Allow to cool before cutting into 8 triangles.

Enjoy with a nice cuppa 🙂

Flash-Gordonette….X

Tweet