Dairy Free Desserts Course
Psssst…
…did you know you can have the creamiest tastiest desserts without the need for butter, cheese, eggs or milk?
Yup, we’re talking cheesecake, trifle, panna cotta and banoffee pie.
I may cry right now. {Fanning face, trying not to ruin mascara} Don’t worry, it’s happy tears.
This weekend, I’ve just got back from Malvern where I learnt to make the best vegan and dairy free desserts.
Can you believe there isn’t a drop of dairy OR gluten in this photo worthy cheesecake👇
From lemon meringue pie to tiramisu, Lizzy’s got you covered.
Who’s Lizzy?
Lizzy is a dairy free godsend!
I adore this woman and, when you meet her, I think you will too.
She’s been teaching cookery for over 25 years and now runs her own cookery school in Malvern.
Before I got moo-free mad, here are the details:
Book here: Our Lizzy Dairy Free Desserts Course
Adaptable recipes: Yes. Everything I made was also vegan and gluten free #cowabunga! 🙌
Length: Full Day 10am – 3:45pm
Cost: £80 or 2 places for £155
Location: 59 Howsell Road, Malvern, Worcestershire, Midlands, WR14 1TH
The Cookery School
Lizzy runs over 20 odd different classes from her beautiful B&B where you can spend weekends cooking and relaxing.
With only 6 people on the course at a time, their’s ample space to whip up creamy vegan desserts.
Our day began with fresh tea, coffee and cake and a little time to get to know each other.
I had the most delicious gluten free sponge cake made with yellow pea flour – yummy!
Lizzy showed us some of the best dairy free alternative ingredients out there on the market and where to purchase.
Some I’ve never even heard of! This stuff, for instance, is PURE GOLD!👇🏻
Owemgee, it’s just like condensed milk! Hang on, better I’d say.
With only 5 of us on the course, we worked in groups. Me and hubby while the other 3 ladies worked together.
Velvety Smooth Panna Cotta
To start off with, Lizzy demonstrated how to make Panna Cotta with the perfect jiggle (unlike my wobbly bum).
You know as well as I do, it’s a tricky dessert to master.
Held together by faith and just a little bit of veg gelatin, truthfully, I had my doubts about this “fancy milk jello”.
Thanks to Mary Berry, I think she’s scared the bejeebers out of us all!
I’ve seen some quiver as you touch them and others SO blah!
Yet, Lizzy made it look easy, quick and practically foolproof.
After a good time in the fridge, now came the moment of truth…
Ta-dah! Panna Cotta lovers would be in heaven.❤️
Would Mary Berry approve?
Too right she would. Perfect jiggle and a super silky texture. #missaccomplished
I could not believe it !!!
No Bake. No Fake. Just Cheesecake
Our first hands-on task was to make a NO fuss dairy free cheesecake. Hello!
Super fluffy, melt-in-your-mouth dessert without turning on the oven.
Which is in my book, spells E-A-S-Y!
Now THAT’S what I call a Bobby Dazzler!👇🏻
I made my base with gluten free hobnobs, but for me, it was all about that dreamy creamy filling.
Dairy free white chocolate mixed with dairy free cream cheese. Heaven I tell you!
Calorie-laden, yes, but c’mon, everybody deserves a day off.
It’s was SO easy to throw together and with a little time in the fridge, it was ALL mine!
It’s no secret, my hubby LOVES cheesecake and he ain’t NO vegan! – we were literally fighting over it!
You have GOT to get on this dairy free desserts course and make this cheesecake.
SO simple and oh SO tasty!
Seriously, this cheesecake takes the cake, so to speak, for the most ridiculously delicious and downright addictive dessert I’ve ever made.
Vegan Gluten Free Banoffee Pie
I know I’ve been raving on about how stunningly fattening the cheesecake was…
But guys, this Banoffee pie was on another level.
Caramel + bananas + dairy free cream = THIS 👇🏻
Again, NO Fuss. NO Bake. Simples. Which is often how I like my desserts.
I used the same gluten free hobnob base for my banoffee pie.
After lining my tin with the biscuit mix, now came the best part…
Making dairy free toffee caramel.
A simple method of sweetened condensed coconut milk boiled together with soy milk and dairy free butter.
Once cooled, we poured this luscious toffee sauce into our pie cases and layered it with bananas and weighed down heavily with cream.
We then moved on to making dairy free meringue to top off our lemon meringue pies.
Dairy Free Meringue
I’ll let you in on a little secret. How do you make fluff like dairy free meringue?
Expert skills? Nope.
You just get egg replacer, slowly add sugar while whipping it to death with a mixer. It’s THAT easy.
I plastered my banoffee pie with my face-plant-worthy cream and behold…
A crumbly biscuit base, thanks to the hobnobs, an outrageously sickly delicious filling and a fluffy cream topping that makes other cream toppings look, well, rather blah.
I NEED to convince you guys that this is the best banoffee pie you’ll ever make.
Ahhh! I just can’t tell you enough. I want to shout it from the rooftops! THIS PIE IS AMAZING!
Light Lunch
By midday, it was time for lunch. Hello Carrot Pakoras!
Basically, Indian food is my religion, and I worship by eating some sort of curry, bhajis, samosas or Bombay beans daily.
So carrot pakoras were right up my street.
Drooling is a normal response for me to the mention of Indian snacks.
All agreed, these were the tastiest carrot pakoras, like EVER.
Yummy n crispy. My mouth was singing! 👅
You have GOT to try these.
You can find Lizzy’s recipe here >>> Vegan Carrot Pakoras.
With lunch over with, it was back to the sweet grind for us.
Lemon Meringue Pie
Ohh I LOVE fruit pies. Sharper the better.
Lizzy’s recipe for lemon curd was I N C R E D I B L E !!!
Again, ridiculously easy to make!
I think the only tricky part to this pie was making the gluten-free pastry.
While everyone else used wheat-based flour, I used yellow pea flour which I use quite a lot for making pastry at home.
I first became acquainted with yellow pea flour when I was on a gluten-free course at River Cottage Cookery School.
It makes an incredible pastry for pasties. You can read all about that here >>> River Cottage Gluten Free Course.
I “carefully” rolled out my pastry and lined my tin.
I admit, it needed a bit of patchwork, but c’mon, even Mary Berry patchworks her pastry.
So, into the oven it went for a blind date…I mean blind bake. 🙈
After 10 mins or so, I poured my zesty lemon curd in and topped with meringue.
Back in the oven it went to for a final bake-off.
The result?? Like I can’t even tell you!👇🏻
The sharp lemon curd cuts through the pastry base just lovely. And for the crispy n chewy meringue, well, that’s just a bonus!
LOOK at the spikes on this👇🏻baby! So chuffed.
So the question is, what do you do with leftover meringue?
Make meringue snowballs of course! They look SO cute 😘
Vegan Cherry Trifle
Not my favourite dessert if I’m totally honest, I’m not a trifle person. I actually hate Jelly. Yak, why bother.
Yet, it’s good to know how to make a vegan trifle, IF, in future, I have to make it. And that’s a BIG IFFF!
I hate trifle that much It wasn’t even photo worthy in my book. Soz!
Everybody else seemed to love it though.
Tiramisu
Coffee soaked cake that is ladened with cream and showered with chocolate shavings. A must for all coffee enthusiasts!
And did I mention it’s a NO bake?
Instead of sponge fingers, we used a dairy free sponge cake that Lizzy made earlier. Mine was gluten free also.
As Lizzy began making the expresso, we began cutting up the cake to line our dishes.
I loved this next part. Drenching my cake with expresso.
After a good soaking, I loaded the cream on and accidentally (wink wink) went a little overboard with the chocolate shavings.
Being the nation No 1 choc addict, it really is no surprise. No surprise at all.
If I was making this at home I would have gone one step further and scattered a bajillion raw chocolate mulberries on top. I know right?
Now I have a confession to make. I forgot to take a pic. 😭
Agggh nuts! Instagram-able death penalty right there!
But it’s not all bad. If you have an eagle eye (like me) when it comes to desserts, you’ll spot my fellow participants tiramisu in the pic below.
If you’re looking for an easy dairy free dessert for cake and coffee lovers, this one’s for you!
It tasted Ah-mazing!
Dairy Free Cream
I’ve never made double cream. When it comes to topping desserts, I’m more of an ice cream girl.
My hubby, on the other hand, will drown everything and anything in cream! Even his Weetabix (shhh! 🤫).
Lizzy quickly demonstrated how to make this thick creamy mass using ONLY 2 ingredients – YOWZA!
The best part? It comes together in about 5 minutes.
Perfect for smothering a hot sticky toffee pudding and curing those afternoon blues.
Did somebody say sticky toffee pudding?
Sinful Sticky Toffee Pudding
Even though I ate my weight in desserts on this course, I STILL had room for a piece of this sticky toffee pudding. And you will too #trustme.
We all joined in making this delightful pud and sickly sauce to go with it.
We use yellow pea flour which surprisingly makes a good sponge.
The combination of sticky dates and dark muscovado sugar is what makes this cake SO moist. That and a boatload of sticky toffee sauce!
At the end of it all, we all sat around the table with a cuppa and ate as much dessert as we could handle without being comatosed!
Funny how a banoffee pie can hypnotise the eyes👇😍haha!
No lie, I ate A LOT that day (#noregrets).
To sum it all up, If you haven’t been on this dairy free desserts course, you’re missing out my friend.
These entire desserts were so creamy, you’d find it hard to believe that there isn’t a drop of MOO in sight.
Right now I’m getting ready to head down to Plymouth for my next course which I’ll be learning the art of gluten-free Artisan bread making (fingers crossed).
Until then, eat cake and be happy! Oh, and watch the vid👇
