Passionate about wholesome food, packed with nutritious ingredients, Vanessa McNiven has launched Saintly Foods, offering a tempting array of luscious vegan desserts based on classic British puds

When it comes to desserts, vegans are traditionally presented with uninspiring and decidedly lacklustre options. So, while their dinner party peers tuck into voluminous plumes of sugary meringue or rich sticky toffee pudding, floating in a pool of butterscotch sauce, they’ll have to settle with a simple bowl of fruit (with a scoop of dairy-free ice cream, if they’re lucky).

It’s a sad state of affairs – but one that has been firmly addressed by trained Natural Chef Vanessa McNiven, who is leading a flavour revolution, thanks to her range of indulgent vegan puds.

The mum-of-two from Cambridge launched Saintly divine desserts this summer, offering a range of delicious tarts inspired by classic British puddings, made without artificial additives, preservatives, palm oil, dairy or animal products.

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“We have a lot of friends who are vegan or dairy intolerant and could never find nice desserts for them, so I saw an opportunity,” explains Vanessa, 47. “I wanted to make the type of classic desserts you might see in a patisserie in France, but that weren’t packed with refined sugars. Desserts that not only taste really great, but that people can feel good about eating, with a short list of ingredients, using only natural whole foods.”

The result is five delectable tarts, handmade in Saintly’s purpose-built vegan kitchen in Cambridge, using ‘saintly’ ingredients, including ancient grains, coconut sugar, coconut oil and fresh fruit, locally sourced where possible (the oat flour is from Glebe Farm, near Huntingdon, for example).

Talking us through the delicious medley, Vanessa enthuses: “We’ve got a dark chocolate – because we are all chocoholics in my house! It contains raw cacao, so you can get that lovely double chocolate flavour. Then there’s chocolate and salted caramel, which is very indulgent and rich. There’s a sweet almond and raspberry, which is a little bit like a Bakewell, with almond frangipane, a lovely raspberry conserve on the bottom and fresh raspberries on top; that’s my husband’s absolute favourite! My favourite is our blackberry and apple crumble, which is just like a real crumble, but in tart form. The last is the British apple tart made with a homemade Bramley Apple compote, with slices of British dessert apples on top. So they are all classic flavours, but with a slightly modern take.”

Vanessa and her husband, who is a co-director, may have officially launched Saintly Foods this summer, but the idea has been in fruition for many years.

Since childhood, Vanessa has had a slow-burning passion for baking, her mum Pat Meakin, a renowned local food writer and accomplished baker, known for her elaborate confections. “Growing up with a Mum like mine, baking was always part of our lifestyle. I still can’t hold a candle to Mum’s cakes. I swear if we did a bake off and both had the same set of ingredients her cakes would always turn out twice as tall as mine – I don’t know how she does it!” Vanessa laughs.

At University, whilst her fellow students were surviving on bland pasta, doused in salad cream, Vanessa – who turned vegetarian, aged 14 - would be whipping up fresh, tasty stirfries. “In the end I was the one cooking for most of them just to make sure they were eating properly!” she smiles.

Alongside her love of cooking, Vanessa’s interest in health and nutrition began to burgeon whilst living in Seattle.

“My eldest child Maddy developed absolutely dreadful eczema so I started looking into the effect of diet. In Seattle there is a big naturapathic university called Bastyr, so I talked to them about food and nutrition, what might cause eczema, and how to reduce inflammation in the body,” she explains. “Seattle is a very progressive area - there were lots of amazing health food stores and I was buying the kind of things you can probably get here now, but 10 years ago weren’t so common.”

Largely eliminating dairy and animal produce from Maddie’s diet did help the eczema to clear thankfully.

Whilst in Seattle, Vanessa completed various cookery courses, then once back home, worked at Cambridge University (she’s a trained manufacturing engineer), teaching on the Masters programme in manufacturing engineering. “I’d regularly take students out to factories, so as a result I got to see the way so many food products are made - it also really shaped my thinking as to what I would and wouldn’t buy,” she explains. “I’m an inveterate label reader so will spend hours in the supermarket picking products up, looking what is in them, then discarding things when they contain funny chemicals.”

Vanessa went on to train as a natural chef at the College of Naturopathic Medicine in London. “We learnt about using food and nutrition to promote health, but more than anything learnt what to eat to feel good!”

A summer internship at Cambridge vegan restaurant Stem + Glory followed, and simply fed into Vanessa’s desire to create something truly wonderful in the vegan domain.

“We started formulating the recipes for the vegan desserts – and took samples along to the Speciality & Fine Food Fair at Olympia, to get feedback and it was an overwhelmingly positive response,” she explains. “Initially when we’d ask people if they’d like to try a vegan dessert they’d look at us slightly suspiciously, then you’d give them the sample and they’d say ‘oh wow, that’s really amazing, I wouldn’t know it was vegan’ and that is the whole point. We are making desserts that taste great and that you want to eat, but just happen to be vegan.”

Saintly’s tarts – which are frozen, to lock in flavour, and can either be defrosted (in the case of the chocolate varieties) or oven cooked to crisp pastry perfection (the fruit tarts) – have already got the seal of approval from Vanessa’s inner circle. “It was lovely to be able to offer a dessert that our friends who are vegan or dairy intolerant could all eat; and the response has been really positive,” she smiles. “I was quite nervous when Mum tasted them of course, but she loves the fruity varieties, so that was a relief!”

The tarts – which are packaged in recyclable FSC board cases, printed in vegetable inks – are being stocked at various local outlets, up-to-date details of which can be found on Saintly’s website.

“We’re starting selling in Cambridge, and want to scale up slowly so we can maintain the integrity of the product, before looking further afield. We are registered with the Vegan Society, so we’ve been absolutely transparent about where our ingredients are sourced,” Vanessa explains.

“Looking to the future, I hope Saintly Foods can become a trusted brand, so customers can walk into a shop, see our products and know they don’t have to scour the label for ingredients. That is my grander aim, then in terms of stockists we will start with independents then talk to wholefood stores, and perhaps Ocado, down the line. For now, I’m really excited to have Saintly desserts stocked locally. The day that I can walk into a shop and see our products on the shelf will be so exciting!”

Saintly Foods, rrp £4.99 for two individual tarts. Find out more at saintlyfoods.com

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