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From March, wild garlic will sprout from the ground here. Many are familiar with wild garlic, but are wondering: what can you do with wild garlic? We show delicious wild garlic recipes and have tips on how best to prepare wild garlic.

Wild garlic is also called “wild garlic”, but you harvest the leaves and not the bulbs. As soon as the first rays of sunshine tickle the forest floor in March, the green, garlic-scented leaves sprout out of the ground. And with the start of the wild garlic season, it is also time for sophisticated wild garlic recipes.

5 simple wild garlic recipes

Three important tips first:

If you want to collect wild garlic yourself, you should be careful what you pick. Read this in advance: Recognizing wild garlic and not confusing it with poisonous plants.
Most of the aroma is in the leaves as long as the wild garlic is not in bloom. Depending on the region and the weather, wild garlic dishes only taste good until the end of April, or the end of May at the latest.
If you want to eat dishes with wild garlic outside of the wild garlic season, the wild vegetables can be preserved well, preferably frozen. Read more: Freezing wild garlic and preserving it – this is how it works.

Cook wild garlic – the basics

Wild garlic replaces garlic, onion greens or chives in the kitchen in spring. It contains the most flavor when it is not heated and eaten raw. That is why many wild garlic recipes use it cold or only lukewarm in herb butter, cream cheese or pesto.

If you want to use the wild vegetables for hot dishes, such as a soup, be careful not to heat them for too long in order to preserve as much of the aroma as possible.

Preservation tips:

With a long-lasting wild garlic paste as a basis, you can also enjoy the delicious wild garlic aroma in pesto, soups, sauces and for seasoning in other seasons. More on this in the basic recipe for wild garlic paste.
If you dry it, it loses a lot of its flavor and that would be a shame. Better to freeze then.
By the way: The garlic aroma is less persistent than that of “real” garlic, so you don’t have to worry about a “garlic flag”.

Basic recipe for wild garlic paste

Oil and salt preserve the wild garlic and its aroma for several months if you keep the paste tightly sealed and in a cool, dark place.

For a small jar you will need:

150 g wild garlic leaves
3 tablespoons olive oil
½ teaspoon salt
This wild garlic recipe is vegan and is ideal for preserving wild garlic for a long time.

Important: With all ingredients, we advise you to pay attention to organic quality if possible. The EU organic seal is a good guide, the cultivation associations Naturland, Bioland and Demeter have even stricter ecological criteria.

Wild garlic recipe with dumplings

You can do much more with wild garlic than preparing wild garlic soup or pesto. If you like, you can serve the dumplings with a sauce seasoned with wild garlic paste.

Wild garlic recipe for about 8 dumplings

100 g wild garlic
4 stale rolls
1 onion
2 eggs
150 ml organic milk (alternatively plant milk)
some butter (alternatively margarine) or oil
pepper and salt
Cut the stale rolls into small cubes, about 1×1 cm. Mix milk and eggs and season with pepper and salt. Finely chop the onion and fry in a little butter or oil until translucent. Mix the egg milk and onions into the bun cubes and set aside.

Wash and finely chop 100 g wild garlic leaves. Put on a large saucepan with salted water. Knead the roll mixture with your hands or a hand mixer until all the ingredients are well combined and you can form dumplings. Form eight dumplings, place in the boiling water and leave to simmer for about 15 minutes over a low heat.

You can serve the dumplings however you like, for example sprinkled with grated cheese or with a fruity tomato sauce; with fresh spinach vegetables; with wild garlic sauce; with a crisp salad or colorful vegetable dishes.

Tip: If the rolls were too fresh, it may be necessary to thicken the dumpling mass with a little extra flour or breadcrumbs.

Wild garlic recipe for filled muffins

These muffins are ideal as finger food or as a main course with a salad. If you don’t have muffin tins, you can also put two paper cups inside each other or bake the small cakes in other containers, such as well-greased coffee cups.

Wild garlic recipe for 12 muffins

170 grams of flour
1 teaspoon Baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
50g Parmesan
75g butter or margarine
2 eggs
250 ml buttermilk
80 grams of cream cheese
1 bunch of wild garlic
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp thyme
4 sun-dried tomatoes (in oil or soft tomatoes)
Cut the wild garlic and sun-dried tomatoes into small pieces for the filling. Set aside about half of the wild garlic, mix the other half with oregano, thyme and the dried tomato pieces.

For the dough, mix flour, baking powder, baking soda and parmesan. In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter and eggs, then gradually add the buttermilk and flour mixture. Finally, stir in the second half of wild garlic.

Fill the muffin tins with about a tablespoon of batter, covering the bottom. Using two teaspoons, place the wild garlic filling in the middle. Cover with about 2 tablespoons of dough so that the filling is completely covered.

Bake at 180 °C for about 30-35 minutes until golden and enjoy lukewarm.

Wild garlic recipe for feta cream

Make sure that the cheese used is made from sheep’s and/or goat’s milk and not cow’s milk. The protected designation of origin PDO has existed in the EU since 1997, after which only sheep and goat milk products from Greece are called “Feta”. Cheese made from cow’s milk that looks similar tastes and has a different name. The wild garlic cheese cream tastes wonderful on fresh toast, baguette or flatbread.

Wild garlic recipe for one portion that fills two people

150g feta
1 bunch wild garlic (approx. 100 g)
2 tablespoons cream cheese
1 tablespoon olive oil
chili flakes
Crumble the feta with your hands and place in a shallow soup plate. Using a fork, fold in the cream cheese and oil until you have a creamy, fine-grained mass. Then mix in the chopped wild garlic leaves and season with chili flakes.

Harvest wild garlic in nature

In some regions (e.g. Brandenburg or Hamburg), wild garlic is listed on the Red List as “endangered”. It is also endangered in Bremen and Schleswig-Holstein. In general, you should be careful not to harvest it in nature reserves, unless the local protection ordinance allows it.

Wild garlic also enjoys a certain degree of protection outside of nature reserves, which prohibits collecting it for more than your own personal use. The wild harvest of wild garlic outside of nature reserves is fine for the occasional wild garlic soup. However, if you want to build up a large supply, you should switch to cultivated wild garlic from the trade or grow wild garlic in the garden yourself.

Grow wild garlic in the garden

Of course, it is also possible to grow wild vegetables, also known as “garlic spinach”, in the garden. It needs a rather shady and moist location, because when it occurs wild in nature, it usually chooses alluvial forests, shady stream edges or moist ravines.

For the seed to germinate, it needs cold, so it needs to be sown in the fall to sprout in the spring. Sometimes the seed takes more than a year to germinate. So be patient and let yourself be surprised in which spring it makes you happy.

If you have already seen the “witch onion” in nature, then you know that it usually occurs there in large “carpets of wild garlic” – and so the wild vegetables will also spread in your garden! If you don’t want that, you should regularly put it in its place by plucking it out – or build a rhizome barrier that prevents it from spreading.

Quarantine, power outage or worries about the political situation: Many are considering stocking up on emergency food in case of an emergency. The Ministry of Agriculture has created a corresponding shopping list with recommended foods – we have looked at them.

An emergency supply can feed you for a few days if new groceries can’t be delivered or you can’t leave the house.

However, panic and excessive hamster purchases are not appropriate. Since the first lockdown, we have known that the food supply is working well. According to the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL), however, it is still advisable to stock up on emergencies, regardless of the threat posed by the corona virus.

Apocalyptic scenarios are not understood as emergencies. A widespread power failure lasting several days can mean that supermarkets can no longer be supplied and the water supply is impaired.

But other unforeseen events such as natural disasters or epidemics can also mean that we suddenly no longer have access to fresh food. For these cases, the Federal Ministry has published a supply table with food that could feed a person for around ten days.

Emergency supplies: shopping list for cereals and potatoes

The list only includes products that do not need to be cooled, as it should also be valid in the event of a power failure. Therefore, frozen foods are not recommended. The ministry assumes a daily calorie intake of 2200 kilocalories per person. In addition to the “normal” table, which contains fish and meat, there is also a vegetarian shopping list. A vegan version does not yet exist.

In the cereals and potatoes category, the Ministry recommends the following foods for an emergency supply per person:

710g wholemeal bread
180g rusks
710g crispbread
280g pasta (raw)
180g rice (raw)
540g oats or other cereal flakes
710g potatoes (raw, without skin)

Emergency supplies: fruit and vegetables

With regard to fruit and vegetables, the ministry recommends using canned goods for the most part. Because they have a long sell-by date. Your shopping list should include:

570g green beans
640g peas/carrots
500g red cabbage
500g sauerkraut
290g of asparagus
290g corn
290g mushrooms
290g pickled cucumbers
290g beetroot
400g cherries
180g pears
180g apricots
250g tangerines
250g pineapple

The quantities always refer to the drained weight. Of course, canned food and well-travelled tropical fruits like pineapples are not exactly sustainable. The BMEL is primarily concerned with the list of shelf life and sufficient calorie intake. In order to improve the ecological balance of these foods, you could boil, pickle or ferment the fruit and vegetables yourself and use them to create a crisis supply.

Some dried fruit, nuts and fresh products are also on the BMEL’s emergency stock list. These are:

360g fresh onions
140g raisins
250g prunes
100g hazelnuts
710g fresh fruit (e.g. apples, bananas, pears, oranges)

Milk, eggs, substitutes, and fats on the shopping list

In the standard table, the Ministry recommends, among other things, canned tuna, sardines in oil, herring, corned beef, bockwurst or veal liver sausage. We think: Even in a temporary crisis situation, such food does not have to be. Tuna is heavily overfished, and canned sausage and meat products usually come from industrial factory farming.

The calories that the products are supposed to provide can also be consumed in other ways – without having to accept animal suffering. These products have been replaced by vegetarian alternatives in the vegetarian emergency stock list. The following foods can be found in this category:

200g tofu
150g vegetarian patties
230g vegetarian sausages
250g vegetarian spread
200g vegetarian salami
265g eggs (weight without shell)
Regarding dairy products, fats and oils, these products are on the list:

2l UHT milk (3.5 percent fat)
500g hard cheese
180g fat spread or butter
180g margarine
150ml cooking oil
To further reduce animal products, you can replace the UHT milk with oat milk or another plant-based drink. Make sure that it is a plant-based milk that does not need to be refrigerated, lasts as long as possible and has around 50 to 60 kilocalories per 100 milliliters.

Beverages and other items in emergency stock

For a 10-day emergency supply you need 20 liters of mineral water. This includes both the recommended drinking quantity of 1.5 liters per day and water for cooking pasta, rice and the like at 500 milliliters per day. For people over the age of 65, it is advisable to have even more water available, as they should drink around two liters of water a day.

In addition to mineral water, the following products are on the list in this category:

140ml lemon juice
180g coffee powder or instant coffee
90 grams of black tea
In addition, there is a table with other foods that are listed without a specific quantity. This includes:

sugar
sweetener
honey
jam
chocolate
iodized salt
ready meals
Dried potato products (e.g. mashed potatoes powder)
flour
cocoa powder
hard cookies
Pretzel Sticks

Create your individual emergency supply

The Ministry points out that this shopping list is only an example and must be adapted to individual needs such as allergies, intolerances and diets. Some foods are definitely not necessary for most people, such as artificial sweeteners or canned asparagus.

If you want to create a completely vegan emergency supply, you can rely more on legumes, which are not yet included in the ministry’s list. Lentils, chickpeas, beans and the like also provide you with important nutrients that keep you full for a long time. You can use both dried and canned products.

You can get dry groceries in bulk shops and thus avoid packaging waste. You can also reduce packaging in large containers and often save money at the same time.

Preparing biryani vegan is not difficult: You simply add some vegetables to the Asian rice stir-fry. We will introduce you to a biryani recipe and explain what you should pay attention to.

Biryani is a rice dish that comes from Asia. The dish is particularly popular in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. The word “biryani” comes from Persian and means something like “fried”. The rice stir-fry is often prepared with meat, but you can make biryani vegan by adding your choice of vegetables, nuts or tofu to the rice.

We recommend looking for organic quality when buying the ingredients. This is how you avoid chemical-synthetic pesticides. Rice often comes from Southeast Asia and uses a lot of water to grow. Then there are the long transport routes to Europe. Rice that was grown in Europe (e.g. in Italy) is therefore ecologically more advisable. If you do use rice from countries further away, we recommend looking out for the fair trade seal. In this way you guarantee that manufacturers have observed human and labor rights during the production process and the long delivery routes.

Vegan Biryani: Recipe for the rice dish

Ingredients:

300 ml water
200 g basmati rice
1 tsp salt
1.5 tsp curry spice
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp paprika spice (sweet)
1carrot
1Zucchini
1 piece ginger (thumb size)
1 clove(s) garlic
1red onion
2 tablespoons oil
50 g cashew nuts

Directions:

Start cooking the rice. Put it in a pot with the water. Add salt and the spices. Let it gently simmer for five to ten minutes. It shouldn’t be raw anymore, but it shouldn’t be fully cooked either.
While the rice is cooking, you can grate the carrot and cut the zucchini into pieces.

Place the vegetables in a bowl and pour boiling water over them. Let it steep for five minutes. This will lightly pre-cook the carrot and zucchini so that the vegetables are not fried raw. Then drain the water again.

Now cut the ginger and garlic into small pieces as well. Then place the pieces in a mortar and grind them into a paste. This unfolds even more flavors. Tip: If you don’t have a mortar at home, you can also chop the ginger and garlic very small with a knife and press into a paste with the bottom of a spoon.

Gradually add the vegetables and finally the half-cooked rice.

Biryani with peanut sauce

As a dip for biryani, you can stir together a quick peanut sauce. The nutty taste goes very well with the dish. You need the following for this:

2 teaspoons fresh ginger, finely grated
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
65 g peanut butter without additives
2 tbsp sesame oil
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tsp maple syrup (alternatively rice syrup or date syrup)
Juice of half a lime
1 pinch cayenne pepper or chilli powder
2 teaspoons water, as needed
First chop the ginger and garlic. Then mix all the ingredients together and stir them into a smooth sauce. You can garnish the sauce with peanuts or fresh herbs.

Soy sauce also goes well with the rice dish. You can simply pour it over the rice on the plate.

Possible variations for the Biryani

You can not only prepare the rice pan with zucchini and carrots, but also with other types of vegetables. Well suited are, for example, broccoli, peppers or mushrooms. It is best to buy seasonal vegetables that do not come from overseas but grow regionally or within Germany. This protects the climate and reduces CO2 emissions. Our seasonal calendar can help you with that.

In Asia, biryani is often prepared with meat. As a vegan alternative, you can use smoked tofu, for example. Cut the tofu into cubes and fry it in a pan or bake it in the oven at 200 degrees Celsius with top and bottom heat until crispy. Later you can sprinkle it on top of your biryani as a topping.

You can also replace the cashew nuts with other nuts. Peanuts, almonds or walnuts go just as well in biryani. Many nut varieties cannot be grown in Europe and are therefore imported from Africa, among other places. There they are sometimes grown under poor, inhumane working conditions. In order not to support this, you should look for a Fairtrade seal when buying the nuts.

In March, the wild garlic season finally begins again. Wild garlic spaetzle are perfect as a fresh and delicious spring dish. We’ll show you how to prepare the spaetzle.

Spaetzle are a typical Swabian dish. They are served as a side dish, but often also as a main course. Wild garlic spaetzle taste unique and are filling at the same time. You can prepare them relatively easily and quickly with just a few ingredients. The wild garlic season is from mid-March to mid-May. During this period you can buy wild garlic regionally and freshly or pick it yourself:

Make sure that your food is organic if possible, especially animal products. An organic seal confirms species-appropriate animal husbandry. In addition, it is also worth buying eggs without chick shredding. In this way you ensure that the male chicks are also raised.

Wild garlic spaetzle: Spring recipe

Ingredients:

100 g wild garlic
400g flour 4 eggs
1 pinch(s) of salt
50 ml water 2 onions
1 tablespoon neutral vegetable oil

Directions:

Wash the wild garlic, spin dry and then chop very finely.
Place the flour, eggs, and salt in a bowl and use a mixer to mix the ingredients into a smooth batter. Gradually add a portion of the water while stirring until the 50 milliliters are used up. Stir the batter until it bubbles.
Stir the chopped wild garlic into the batter. Then let the dough rest for at least 30 minutes.
Peel the onions, halve and cut into thin slices. Then fry them in a pan with neutral vegetable oil over low heat until golden brown.
Then bring salted water to a boil in a saucepan.
As soon as the water boils, rub the dough into the boiling water using either a spaetzle strainer or a spaetzle press. It’s easiest if you pour the batter into the strainer or press in batches and scrape or press into the water.
If you don’t have a spaetzle sieve, spread the dough very thinly on a board. Hold the board against the edge of the pot, use a long knife to pry off small strings from the dough and slip them into the water.
Remove the spaetzle as soon as they float to the surface and place them in a bowl of cold water. That way they don’t stick together.
Mix the finished spaetzle with the onions and season with pepper and salt. The delicious, homemade wild garlic spaetzle are ready.

Wild garlic spaetzle: Vegan variant

With a few small changes, you can also prepare the wild garlic spaetzle vegan. The eggs are omitted from the recipe. For the dough, you need a little more water, soy flour, and a little turmeric for the yellowish color. The rest of the steps remain the same.

Use in step 2:

  • 250 ml water instead of 50 ml water
  • 3 tbsp soy flour or egg replacer instead of eggs
  • 0.5 tsp turmeric (for the color)

Korean pajeon are savory pancakes with spring onions and are popular as a side dish in Korea. Here you will find a vegan and gluten-free recipe for the crispy vegetable pancakes.

The Korean name Pajeon is composed of Pa, which means “spring onion” in Korean, and Jeon, which means pancake. The crispy pancakes are both vegan and gluten-free and are usually served as an accompaniment to vegetables and tofu. But Pajeon are also very suitable as a hearty snack between meals.

When buying the ingredients for the Pajeon, make sure that they are organic if possible. In this way you support ecologically more sustainable agriculture that treats the earth’s natural resources with care. Products with the organic seals from Demeter, Bioland and Naturland are particularly recommended. These seals specify stricter criteria than, for example, the EU organic seal.

Pajeon: Savory pancakes with spring onions

Ingredients:

1 bunch spring onions
3 cloves garlic
80 grice flour
40 gbuckwheat flour
25 g cornstarch
0.5 tsp salt
1 pinch(s) of Kala Namak
160 ml water
1 tablespoon rapeseed oil
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 tablespoons coconut oil

Directions:

Cut the spring onions into fine rings. Chop the garlic.
Combine the rice flour, buckwheat flour, cornstarch, salt, and kala namak in a medium bowl.
Then add the water, canola oil, and soy sauce. Mix everything with a whisk to form a smooth batter. Fold in the spring onions and garlic.
Heat the coconut oil in a pan and fry the pajeon on both sides until golden brown. Complete!

Korean Pajeon: Possible Variations

You can easily modify the Pajeon. They are also good for using up leftover vegetables, for example, and thus avoiding food waste. Simply cut carrots, zucchini and/or peppers into fine pieces and mix them with the pancake batter before frying.

You can also add dried chili flakes to the Pajeon batter for even more flavor.

Wild garlic dumplings are a hearty, vegan dish that you can easily prepare yourself in spring. You can find out here what you need apart from fresh wild garlic.

Wild garlic dumplings or dumplings in general are a dish from southern German and Austrian cuisine. The round treat traditionally consists mainly of old rolls, eggs, milk and wild garlic. But it’s also easy vegan. You can serve them with a side salad or eat them with a sauce.

You can pick wild garlic yourself in many forests in Germany in March and April. It is important that you are able to recognize wild garlic and do not confuse it with the poisonous lily of the valley – these look very similar to wild garlic.

Important: Buy the ingredients for the dumplings with an organic seal. This is how you avoid chemical-synthetic pesticides.

Wild garlic dumplings: recipe with step-by-step instructions

Ingredients:

400 gilte rolls, cut into cubes
2 small onions
6 tbsp vegan butter
225 ml plant drink
4 tsp locust bean gum
200 g fresh wild garlic
salt, pepper and nutmeg
possibly some flour or breadcrumbs

Directions:

Place the bun cubes in a bowl.
Peel and chop the onions.
Heat two tablespoons of the vegan butter in a pan or saucepan and sauté the onion pieces in it until translucent.
Add the sautéed onion to the bun cubes.
Then add the plant-based milk and the locust bean gum and mix everything together roughly with your hands or a wooden spoon. Let it swell for half an hour.
In the meantime, wash the wild garlic, chop it up and mix it into the bread roll mixture.
Season the dumpling dough with salt, pepper and nutmeg. If it is too soft or runny, you can add some flour or breadcrumbs and knead it in.
Bring salted water to a boil in a large saucepan.
Use your hands to form round dumplings from the dough and add them one by one to the boiling salted water. Turn the heat down and let it steep for about 15 minutes.
Lift the dumplings out of the water and let them drain.

You don’t have to be vegan to want to give up eggs. Substituting them isn’t difficult, but which vegan egg substitute is best for what? Foodnerdy has put together a range of foods and products that you can use to easily replace eggs.

In principle, vegans do not consume any animal products – and of course no eggs either. But many vegetarians or omnivores also want to consume fewer or no eggs. There are numerous reasons for this: On the one hand, there are the problematic housing conditions for laying hens. On the other hand, both changing nutritional recommendations and regular egg scandals unsettle us as to whether eggs are really that healthy.

6 ideas for vegan egg substitutes

If you are looking for a vegan egg substitute for the kitchen, you have many options. Only the “classic” boiled egg cannot be conjured up with plant-based alternatives. For everything else there are – among others – the following tricks and products.

Fruit puree from avocado, banana, apple sauce replaces eggs

As a binder when baking, fruit puree is ideal as a vegan egg substitute. Pureed avocados are preferred in savory dishes as “vegan eggs”, mashed bananas or apple sauce in baking.

Fruit purees are one of the easiest ways to replace eggs: after all, you can buy fruit everywhere and you can easily make applesauce yourself.

When it comes to quantity, it means experimenting a bit. The amount of fruit puree you need to replace an egg depends on the other ingredients and the method of preparation. Generally speaking, half a mashed banana or a tablespoon of applesauce replaces one egg. While you can often taste bananas as a vegan egg substitute, applesauce is relatively tasteless.

Incidentally, an “egg” can also be prepared with avocados as a topping for bread: For this, you need the Indian salt “Kala Namak” for the avocado, which contains hydrogen sulfide and therefore tastes like eggs. You can find it in health food stores or health food stores. This salt is also suitable, for example, to create an egg taste in the salad – or even to prepare vegan “scrambled eggs”.

Tip: If the recipe calls for egg whites, then there are (at least) two options: either a mixture of sparkling water, oil, flour, and baking powder – or “aquafaba”, chickpea water.

Linseed as a vegan egg substitute for savory pastries

Flaxseed is a suitable vegan egg substitute for bread and other savory pastries. Linseed is available in health food stores and health food stores, but also in the bakery section of the supermarket. About one tablespoon of flaxseed mixed with three tablespoons of water equals one egg.

Chickpea flour and soy flour mixed with water (two tablespoons of flour to two tablespoons of water) are also suitable as binding agents in baked goods.

Tofu – egg substitute also for vegan “scrambled eggs”

As a tasty egg substitute, tofu is suitable for the preparation of vegan “scrambled eggs”. There are countless different ways to do this. The type of tofu used and the other ingredients depend on individual taste.

To replace an egg in the batter when baking, puree about 75 grams of silken tofu and mix it into the batter. Pureed silken tofu is also suitable as an egg alternative in quiches or casseroles, as it sets like real eggs. You can even use it for cream desserts – but then you should balance the grainy soy taste with something sour.

Tofu is now available in almost every supermarket, but you can definitely buy it in all sorts of variations in health food stores and health food stores.

“Scrambled eggs” made from chickpeas and pasta

This vegan egg substitute is a bit more complex than just using tofu:

To do this, puree the cooked pasta until it is chunky.
Then you puree chickpeas with turmeric until a creamy mass forms.
You mix both and season the mass (very important for egg taste: Kala Namak).
Then you fry the whole thing in a pan with onions and vegetables as “scrambled eggs”.

Tip: Without heating it is more of a vegan “egg salad” (vegan mayo is also suitable).

Vegan egg substitute powder: the all-rounder?

You can get powdered vegan egg substitutes in many health food stores, organic shops or online shops. You can find a large selection of organic egg replacers at Vekoop, Vantastic Foods or Amazon, for example.

In our taste test, you can find out how vegan egg substitute in powder form can taste in the end using Greenforce’s “Easy to mix vegan egg” as an example.

Mix the powder with water, depending on the amount you need, and then add it to the other ingredients. This egg substitute is suitable for both sweet and savory dishes.

If you want an egg substitute powder, we at Utopia recommend organic products. Because organic cultivation protects soil, water and biodiversity. Incidentally, some products contain ingredients from palm oil (e.g. monoglyceride), which we also view critically. In a test, the consumer advice center also criticized the fact that most egg substitute powders contain hardly any nutrients. They contain all sorts of additives such as thickeners, emulsifiers and acidifiers.

Egg snow without eggs

By the way, you can use chickpea water (the water from a glass/can or the water that is left over after boiling dried chickpeas) to make vegan beaten egg whites – it will be just as firm as real ones. All you have to do is froth the chickpea water with a whisk or hand mixer and add a little baking powder or locust bean gum. The whole thing is called aquafaba – or vegan egg snow.

The vegan egg is “none”

Incidentally, it doesn’t always have to be an egg or a vegan egg substitute: We’ve found that in many recipes that call for an egg, you can simply omit the egg entirely or replace it with oil or a plant-based drink at the end, especially with the Bake. Just try it!

A raisin mare is a delicious Easter pastry made from yeast dough. We present a recipe that you can use to easily bake a raisin mare yourself.

Raisin mares are also known by other names depending on the region. In any case, it is a large, bread-like pastry made from a medium-heavy yeast dough. It contains a relatively large amount of fat and sugar. If you like it less sweet, you can also reduce the amount of sugar.

Make sure the ingredients are organic. This is particularly important with ingredients of animal origin, because you can support more species-appropriate animal husbandry.

In general, by buying organic products, you support agriculture that does not use chemical-synthetic pesticides and thus protects the environment and health.

A recipe for raisin mares

Ingredients:

500 g flour (+ something for dusting the mold)
0.5 tsp salt
50 gsugar
50 g butter (+ something to grease the mold)
250 ml milk (+ something for brushing)
1 pack(s) fresh yeast (42g)
1 egg
150 g raisins

Directions:

In a bowl, mix the flour with the salt and sugar. Make a well in the middle.
In a small saucepan, melt the butter. Add the milk and warm it to lukewarm. Add the yeast in small pieces and stir the mixture until the yeast has dissolved.
Pour the yeast milk into the flour well. Gently stir in a little flour with a fork. Let the mixture sit for five minutes.
Add the egg. Using your hands or the dough hooks of a hand mixer or food processor, knead everything together for about 5 minutes until you have a smooth dough. Add some flour or milk if needed. The dough should pull away from the bowl easily and be neither very firm nor very sticky.
Cover the bowl with a clean kitchen towel, put it in a warm place and let the dough rise for about 40 minutes. It should roughly double.
Grease a loaf tin (about 30 centimeters long) with some butter and dust it with flour.
Add the raisins to the dough and knead it again for five minutes.
Shape the dough to fit your baking pan and place it in the pan. Cover and let rise in a warm place for another 45 minutes.
Brush the dough with a little milk for a nice browning and shine. Bake the raisin mares at 170 degrees Celsius for about 40 minutes.

This is how you can vary the raisin mares

If you don’t like raisins, you can replace them with other dried fruits. Dried cranberries or dried cherries are suitable, for example. Fresh fruit is not suitable because it loses too much liquid and the dough then becomes mushy.

You can use plant milk of your choice instead of milk. You can easily replace the butter with margarine.

With 500 grams of flour, the recipe results in a fairly large mare of raisins. It stays fresh in a bread bin for two to three days. You can use leftovers to make French toasts.

Alternatively, you can slice the raisin mares and freeze them. Then you can defrost individual slices. They are particularly tasty if you toast them briefly.

Baking wild garlic bread yourself is easy with this vegan recipe, even as a baking beginner:in. You can pick the spicy herb yourself in many parks and forests during the wild garlic season.

The vegan wild garlic bread with spelled flour not only tastes good for dinner, but is also an excellent accompaniment to a cream soup. The recipe is not very complex, but needs a bit more preparation time due to the rising time.

Wild garlic bread: recipe and preparation

Ingredients:

0.5 cubes of fresh yeast
150 ml lukewarm water
500 g spelled flour (type 630)
10 g salt
5 gsugar
150 ml oat drink
2 tbsp olive oil
50 g fresh wild garlic leaves

Directions:

Dissolve the yeast in the lukewarm water.
Put the spelled flour in a mixing bowl and add the salt and sugar.
Pour in the yeast water, the oat drink and the olive oil and mix all the ingredients together well.
Knead the dough with the dough hook of a food processor or a hand mixer until it gets a smooth and silky surface. This can take ten to 15 minutes. The longer you knead, the nicer the structure of your wild garlic bread will be later. Tip: If you don’t have a food processor, you can also knead the yeast dough by hand. You should take at least 15 minutes to do this.
Cover and let the ball of dough rest in a warm place for about 60 minutes. During this time, its volume should double.
Towards the end of the resting time, wash the wild garlic leaves and chop them roughly.
Knead the bread dough thoroughly with the chopped wild garlic and divide the dough into four parts.

Shape each of the pieces into a roll 10 to 12 inches long. Twist two rolls of dough together and place them on a baking sheet greased with olive oil.

Bake the two wild garlic breads in the oven at 220 degrees Celsius top and bottom heat for 20 to 30 minutes until light brown.
Allow the wild garlic bread to cool before serving.

Wild garlic bread: tips for preparation

With just a few changes, you can easily vary the recipe for wild garlic bread:

If you use dry yeast, you need a whole packet for the wild garlic bread.
As an alternative to the simple twisted braid, you can also bake the wild garlic bread in a greased and floured loaf tin.
Finally, knead a handful of sunflower seeds into the dough, then the wild garlic bread has a bit more bite.
Sprinkle the wild garlic bread with sesame seeds before baking. Not only does it look pretty, it also tastes delicious.
For a Mediterranean flavor, chop a handful of sun-dried tomatoes and mix them into the batter.
Depending on the season, you can use other herbs instead of wild garlic, e.g. rocket, basil or herb mixtures.
Use up your bread as quickly as possible – it tastes best fresh!

Tip: Your freshly baked wild garlic bread tastes best if you spread it with homemade wild garlic butter.

Ingredients for your wild garlic bread

Depending on the region, the wild garlic season in Germany begins in early to mid-March. Wild garlic is one of the most popular wild herbs in local cuisine. The leaves contain valuable essential oils, as well as vitamin C and minerals such as iron, manganese and magnesium.

It is best to harvest wild garlic yourself and process it fresh. Wild garlic wilts quickly and tends to mold, which is why you rarely find it in the supermarket. Alternatively, you can buy it at the farmer’s market or from regional direct suppliers.

Use organic spelled flour for the wild garlic bread: It is free of pesticides and you support ecologically sustainable agriculture. Also pay attention to regional cultivation: products from the region have shorter transport routes and are therefore better for the climate.

Tip: Wild garlic bread can also be frozen well. It’s best to freeze it in slices, then you can thaw them individually in the toaster or on the grill and roast them until crispy.

Torta Camilla is the Italian version of the classic carrot cake. Here you will find a vegan recipe for the fluffy and juicy carrot cake.

Torta Camilla is a moist carrot cake that is very popular in Italy. Ground almonds and the juice and grated zest of an orange give it its special aroma.

When it comes to the ingredients for the Torta Camilla, make sure that they are organic if possible. You are supporting ecologically more sustainable agriculture that uses natural resources sparingly and, for example, does not use chemical-synthetic pesticides. The organic seals from Demeter, Bioland and Naturland are particularly recommended, as they specify stricter criteria than the EU organic seal.

Torta Camilla: A vegan recipe

Ingredients:

200 g carrots
1organic orange
40 mlsunflower oil
20 g ground almonds
80 gsugar
1 packet(s) of vanilla sugar
180 g spelled flour
0.5 pack(s)cream of tartar baking powder
1 tbsp powdered sugar

Directions:

Wash the carrots thoroughly. Then grate them as small as possible with a kitchen grater.
Grate the zest of an organic orange and squeeze out the juice.
In a medium bowl, combine the carrots, orange zest and juice, and sunflower oil.
Add the sugar, vanilla sugar, spelled flour and cream of tartar and mix all ingredients into a smooth batter. Tip: If the dough is too tough, you can simply stir in a sip of water.
Grease a suitable cake tin with some sunflower oil and pour in the batter.
Bake the Torta Camilla at 180 degrees for about 40 minutes. The chopstick test shows you whether the Italian carrot cake is ready.
Dust the Torta Camilla with some powdered sugar before serving.

Torta Camilla: tips and hints

You can also easily make the Torta Camilla gluten-free: replace the spelled flour with the same amount of brown rice flour.

You can also halve the cake horizontally and fill it with jam if you want an even fruitier result – for example with orange marmalade.

The Italian carrot cake will keep in the fridge in an airtight container for about 4 to 5 days.