Happy 3rd Anniversary!! + Cookie Dreams

I can’t believe it, Planet Manel is celebrating her 3rd anniversary! When I started 3 years ago I was feeling so motivated, because I finally found something where I could combine all my interests. I love creating.. I always did. As a child I was always drawing, making mood boards, writing short stories, designing.. With this many interests it’s sometimes hard to choose something. As I also really like animals, I studied ‘Animal Care’. After that I also did ‘Interior Design’. For both I have my diploma and for both things I’ve got a huge passion. Hence why I’m vegan, live in a van and design tiny houses for a hobby. My head is always full of ideas. Anyway.. before we get off the subject, I’m super proud that I kept blogging for the last 3 years. Some months I posted a lot and some months a little less, but I always kept going. I want to tank all my readers and people who followed my journey and parts of my life. Also all the people who made my recipes and a huge thank you for all the sweet messages. I couldn’t have done it without all of you. You are the best!

At the moment I can feel that I’m more focused and that the overall quality is improved. This motivates me even more, because it’s nice to see growth. Blogging is something I could only dream about. I tried it when I was a teenager, but without a real goal, I always gave up after a while. But this time the dream is bigger! I want to inspire you, make you feel happy, show you how easy it is to eat plant-based, to live with compassion and to just make the world a little better, starting with YOURSELF! Even when it’s only a little bit and it’s only changing 1 animal’s life at a time or when it’s your life.. to make you smile, to make you feel good and to let you taste yummy recipes. Talking about recipes. For the occasion I created these delicious vanilla, chocolate chip, cookies. To create the ultimate recipe I seriously baked 50+ biscuits. I had something in my head and I didn’t give up until I found the golden combination. I was so happy when I finally succeeded and I’m excited to share them with you! I called them ‘Cookie Dreams’, because they are a celebrations of dreams coming true.

COOKIE DREAMS

Makes: 6

1 cup plain flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 tbs corn starch
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup sunflower oil
1 tbs plant-based  butter
3 tbs plant-based milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
20 gr dark chocolate (chopped)

-Preheat the oven at 200C.
-Mix all the dry ingredients (except the chocolate) together in a mixing bowl.
-Add the oil, butter, milk and the vanilla extract and mix well, until you have a nice sticky dough.
-Divide the dough into 6-8 pieces and flatten them (until they’re about 1/2-1 cm) on the (with baking paper covered) tray. Leave 3-4 cm between each biscuit, because they will go a little bigger.
-Divide the chocolate on top and slightly push them into the dough.
-Put them in the oven for about 12 min.
-Let them all cool down before getting them off the tray.

Make you dreams come true beautiful people! Oh and please let me know what you think of the Cookie Dreams. I’d love to see your creations.. you can do this on Instagram, by tagging me or by using #PlanetManel. Thank you! X

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Dutch Style

Some might remember from 2 years ago, when I wrote about Sinterklaas. I created the recipe Sint Twist. Sinterklaas is a Dutch tradition. You can read about this in the Sint Twist recipe too. Sint Twist is a recipe, using the traditional little biscuits called ‘pepernoten’. This years Sinterklaas recipe is about how to make pepernoten itself. You can eat them just like that, as a snack, have them with a cup of tea, use them in cakes, ice cream, drinks.. they’re pretty awesome. Because of the lovely warming spices they’re great for the colder months too. The ‘speculaas’ spices are maybe a little hard to find in the UK, but take some with you when you’re in the Netherlands or google how to make the spice combination yourself. Might be rather fun to work with all these lovely smelling spices. The original recipe is quite unhealthy and that is why I made a recipe which is fairly healthy. I wouldn’t eat them instead of a carrot though, haha.. but looking at the ingredients, you hopefully get what I mean.

DUTCH STYLE 

Makes: 60

-1 cup spelt flower
-1/3 cup coconut oil
-1/3 cup palm sugar
-1 tbs agave nectar
-2 tbs oat milk
-1 tsp speculaas spices
-pinch of salt

-Preheat the oven at 170C.
-Put all the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix them up.
-Then add the wet ingredients and mix it until sticky. The best way is then to use your hands and knead it into a dough.
-Make 2 rolls (from about 2-3 cm thick) and put them in the fridge for about 20 min.
-Cut them into slices of 1/2 a cm thick.
-Shape them a little with your fingers if you have the time and put them on a baking tin (covered with baking paper).
-Put them in the oven for 15-18 min.

Who is going to make this recipe? Even though you do not celebrate Sinterklaas, they’re still super yummy. Please let me know when you’ve tried them. You can do this in a comment below. You can also tag me or use #PlanetManel on Instagram. Thank you! X