TRAVELLING VEGANS: Basel, Switzerland

Just before Christmas we travelled to Basel, Switzerland intending to meet up with friends from London and see the traditional Christmas Markets. Unfortunately due to the snow our friends flights out of London were cancelled and they couldn’t make it sotThat meant Mike and I were left to explore Basel on our own.

Basel is an interesting town as is right on the border of Germany and France yet it has its own unique style and accents, which let you know you’re not in Germany anymore. The old town is also very steep and alleyways will turn a bend and you’re suddenly hiking up a massive hill, not so great for high-heels in the snow.

Basel is also the only town with access to a port with the river Rhine going straight through the middle of it.
But enough of the travel information and on to the food!!!!
Surprisingly Basel has a good selection of food for vegans. There are only a couple of places but considering the size of the town this is more than we could have hoped for (considering we live in Frankfurt am Main, which is approximately 6x as big with no vegan restaurant, cafe’s or well… anything!).

Tibits

Before we travelled to Basel we did some research and found this vegetarian restaurant chain that has several restaurants across Switzerland. Basically you pick what you want from the buffet and pay on the weight of your plate. So we emailed them to see if they also do vegan options and got this amazing response, which sums up their offerings perfectly:
‘The heart of tibits is our food boat with over 40 hot and cold dishes, freshly cooked every day. All the ingredients in our products are clearly declared. On the labels at the food boat and on the counter the following abbreviations tell you about specific ingredients: V = vegan, O = egg, L = lacto, N = nuts, S = celeriac, G = gluten. About 90% of our cold dishes are vegan. The hot section consists of 12 different menus, snacks, side dishes and vegetables of which four to eight are vegan every day. Besides fresh fruit we have a small but exclusive selection of four to five desserts. Apart from our freshly baked vegan Apple Turnover you will find two guaranteed vegan desserts on our food boat.’
They are open every day from early morning to quite late which is great fro travellers! As you can see from the photos below we had a range of options available. Our favourites were the pakoras, onion rings, tofu salad, lentil salad and wild rice salad. They also have a beautiful Rooibos tea with vanilla, which we bought a packet of to take home with us!!!

Hirscheneck

We found this place on Wiki Travel and decided to check it out even though it is not vegan or vegetarian exclusively anymore. They do have a couple of organic meat options on the menu but are primarily vegetarian and always have vegan options of their daily changing menu. It was described on Wiki travel as a Traditional left-wing / punk-run restaurant. This place was packed all weekend long and the meals were pretty good!

Night One

Entrees

Giant Mushroom with oven vegetables


Borschtsch (white cabbage beetroot soup with pureed smoked tofu)

Mains 

Filo pastry triangle with sweet and sour sauce
Seitan schnitzel with mashed potato, red cabbage and cognac sauce

Night Two

Entree

Hummus and roasted eggplant wrap

Mains

Avocado and chickpea patties with vegetable rice and tomato currant chutney

Sour Lentils with spätzle and tofu wieners

Choco.loco

Another shop we discovered on Wiki Travel was a specialty dark chocolate shop. I knew we had to go! Here is a photo of our tasty loot!

Christmas Markets

There isn’t much on offer at traditional Christmas markets for vegans but we did manage to find these babies. Organic Marzipan and Viennese/German nougat (which is essentially a chocolate and nut, usually hazelnut, praline and vegan…. and 100% yum).

	tibits Basel Stänzlergasse 4, 4051 Basel http://www.tibits.ch/e/restaurants-take-away/basel/
	Restaurant Hirscheneck Lindenberg 23 4058 Basel http://www.hirscheneck.ch/das-restaurant.html
	Choco Loco Spalenberg 38a, 4051 Basel http://chocoloco-shop.ch/

CHOCOLATE CHEESECAKE

Mike has been asking me to make a cheese cake for a while now. Unfortunately vegan cream cheese isn’t easily available here and I have to order it online. The other catch is that it is expensive. A 225g tub of Philadelphia like cream cheese costs 4.49€, it’s expensive stuff! I know a lot of people just use silken tofu but I like the cream cheese flavour this product gives. Anyway I bought some cream cheese and decided to make a chocolate cheesecake. I was going to try this recipe again before posting it but the more I ate of my cheesecake the more I liked it. I modified this recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking as I didn’t have and couldn’t afford the amount of vegan cream cheese required. To be honest though, the cake is so rich, I think a thinner layer of cheesecake is actually a plus (I know less cake = better, I must be nuts). It allowed you to enjoy a reasonable slice without it becoming too heavy. I also served this with Vegan Whipped Cream (that the online store sent me for free) which was a nice touch as it added a lightness and sweetness to the cake.

Did you know:

• Cheesecake was already a popular dish in ancient Greece before Romans adopted it with the conquest of Greece. The earliest attested mention of a cheesecake is by the Greek physician Aegimus, who wrote a book on the art of making cheesecakes. So Mike is not the only cheesecake fanatic who ever lived.

Ingredients

• 100g vegan cookies
• 1/4 cup melted vegan margarine
• 2 tsp cocoa powder
• 3 tsp egg replacer
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup non-dairy chocolate chips
• 1 tbsp dark chocolate spread (optional)
• 450g non-dairy cream cheese
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Directions

1.	Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F) and lightly oil an 8 inch springform pan.
2.	In a food processer crush the cookies until they resemble fine crumbs. Once crushed add the cocoa powder and stir through. Now add the melted butter until combined. Spread and press into the prepared springform pan. This makes just enough to cover the bottom of the pan so go slowly and gently to make sure the bottom is fully covered.
3.	In a small bowl combine the egg replacer and water and whip until light and fluffy. I do this by hand but you could use an electric handheld beater. Set aside.
4.	Melt the chocolate chips the way you like. You can use the microwave or a double broiler but I just bring a saucepan of water to the boil and place a heat proof bowl on top. Make sure the bowl does not get too hot. Stir until the chocolate is melted, then stir in the chocolate spread.
5.	In a eclectic mixer bowl combine the cream cheese, sugar, and egg replacer mix. Beat until light and fluffy, scraping down the edges when necessary. Add the melted chocolate and vanilla essence and blend thoroughly.
6.	Pour on top of the prepared base. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until the centre barely jiggles when tapped. You could bake it for a little less but I like the chewy crust that forms. Remove from the oven and leave to cool completely. Transfer to a serving plate (I remove the sides of the pan), cover and place in the fridge to cool for 1-2 hours.

 

This recipe was modified from: The Joy of Vegan Baking: The Compassionate Cooks' Traditional Treats and Sinful Sweets by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau. This post uses material from the Wikipedia article Cheesecake.

CHERRY RIPE CUPCAKES

Now that MoFo is over I still want to get into a routine of posting. I think I will aim to post at least once a week, maybe twice a week (I’ll try). Anyway, to start off my new posting regime I made these cupcakes. I used to love Cherry Ripe Chocolate bars! Dark chocolate with cherry and coconut, yum, can’t really go wrong right?

In creating these cupcakes I had to make some decisions. I needed to combine all those flavours the way I remembered them without one flavour out shining the others!  With that in mind I went with a coconut cupcake rather than a chocolate one. When I looked on the web it seemed that everyone went with a chocolate cupcake but I didn’t like this for two reasons. 1) it seemed too much like Black Forest Cupcakes; 2) if I used a chocolate cupcake how was I going to make the coconut stand out against that dominant chocolate taste? I also thought that if I used a coconut cupcake I could use a Dark Chocolate Ganache for the chocolate component. That way you get that authentic chocolate taste like a cherry ripe, which wouldn't be achievable with a sweet chocolate frosting. For the cherry component it was easy. I was going to shove the coconut cupcake full of a sour cherry jam. Sour cherries were my choice to offset the richness of the dark chocolate and sweetness of the coconut cupcake. So all the elements were there – sweet, rich and tart. YUM.

These cupcakes turned out incredibly moist (like a cherry ripe) and delicate, so you need to serve them in their wrapper or wait a few hours for everything to set.

Coconut Cupcakes

(Adapted from Vegan with a Vengeance)

Ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour

• 1/2 tsp baking powder

• 1/2 tsp baking soda

• 1/4 cup canola oil

• 1 cup coconut milk

• 2/3 cup sugar

• 1 tsp coconut essence

• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence

• 1 cup shredded coconut

Directions

1.	Preheat oven to 180°C degrees. Line a twelve-cupcake tin with paper liners, set aside.
2.	Sift together the flour, baking powder, and baking soda.
3.	In a separate bowl combine the oil, coconut milk, sugar, coconut essence and vanilla essence.
4.	Pour the dry ingredients into the wet and mix until smooth. Fold in the shredded coconut.
5.	Evenly fill each muffin tin and bake for 20-22 minutes; the cupcakes should be slightly browned around the edges. Remove them from the muffin tin and place on a cooling rack. Allow to fully cool before filling and topping.

Sour Cherry Ripe Filling

This is my go to fruit filling formula (adapted from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World) for any fruit filling in a cupcake.

Ingredients

• 140g  frozen sour cherries, thawed

• 2 tbsp sugar

• 1 tbsp arrowroot

• 3 tbsp water

Directions

1.

In a saucepan over medium heat, combine thawed cherries and their juice, and sugar. Stir till mixture starts to simmer. Whisk together arrowroot and water  in a small bowl,  steadily pour into the cherries, stirring constantly. Keep stirring; the mixture will rapidly thicken. Remove from heat and allow to fully cool.

Dark Chocolate Topping

(from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World)

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup soy milk

• 120g dark chocolate (at least 70%), chopped

• 2 tablespoons maple syrup

Directions

1.	Bring the soy milk to a gentle boil in a small sauce pan. Immediately remove from heat and add the chocolate and maple syrup. Use a rubber heatproof spatula to mix the chocolate until it is fully melted and smooth. Set aside and cool to room temperature.

Cherry Ripe Cupcakes

Ingredients

• Fresh Cherries

• Coconut Cupcakes

• Sour Cherry Ripe Filling

• Dark Chocolate Topping

Directions

1.	Make all the components separately, allowing the cupcakes and filling to cool completely and the chocolate topping to cool to room temperature.
2.	With a small spoon or knife gently dig out a cone from the top of each cupcake, leaving a hallowed out centre. These cupcakes are delicate so be careful. The cone will crumble so you can either throw it away or eat it, I’m pretty sure you know which option I went for. Fill each cupcake with as many cherries as you can, at  least 1, from the Sour Cherry Ripe Filling. There is no need to put a cupcake top back on as the chocolate ganache topping will act as the ‘lid’.
3.	Spoon a large dollop of chocolate topping on top and use the back of the spoon to spread the topping over the cupcake. Gently press a fresh cherry on top into the topping to hold when the chocolate sets.

 

 This recipe was created by Vegan Gourmet Caravan combining and modifying recipes from:

	Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World: 75 Dairy-Free Recipes for Cupcakes that Rule by Isa Chandra Moskowitz  and Terry Hope Romero
	Vegan with a Vengeance : Over 150 Delicious, Cheap, Animal-Free Recipes That Rock by Isa Chandra Moskowitz