Tag Archives: gluten free

Vegan gluten free fairy cakes

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Filed under egg free, Gluten free cakes, Vegan cakes, Vegan gluten free

vegan gf fairycakes

My daughter loves home made cakes.  As a coeliac who’s allergic to eggs (and very fussy) she has limited choices when it comes to cake so I’m  constantly trying to create the perfect baked good for her. I’ve been experimenting with all sorts of different types of flour recently in an effort to eliminate the claggy, chalky texture that you sometimes get in gluten free cakes and I’ve really fallen in love with Kinako, made from roasted soya beans and which tastes like caramel peanuts. I’ve used it here, but you can easily omit it (I give you that option) as it’s fairly hard to get hold of. I also often add ground almonds to a gluten free cakes as they also help with the texture. I’ve included them here but if you can’t eat nuts just  omit them and make up the weight in gf flour.

These little cakes, which are sort of a cross between a fairy cake and a cupcake came about because  we have friends coming for lunch on Monday (a bank holiday) and their youngest daughter can’t eat dairy. I still wanted to treat everyone to something indulgent so I decided to try making  vegan gluten free fairy cakes with chocolate frosting. I used the recipe on the back of the Doves Farm flour packet as my starting point and added a few tweaks (the Kinako for one), plus my own icing which is based on the Hummingbird Bakery frosting recipe and is amazing. I think they turned out really well – light but moist with a beautiful caramel undertone. I think my kids liked the frosting best, but then they always do.

Ingredients:

  • 100g dairy free spread  [I recommend using ‘Pure’ sunflower spread. It tastes and bakes the best of the most commonly available dairy free spreads. Pure also do a soya and olive version but don’t get those they don’t bake well]
  • 100g caster sugar
  • 1 teaspoon of baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon of vanilla paste or extract
  • 50g gluten free self raising flour blend (I use and recommend Doves)
  • 25g ground almonds
  • 35g Kinako flour (or omit this and just use 85g Self Raising Doves flour blend). You can buy Kinako from Souschef.com or from JapanCentre.com
  • 25g chickpea (or ‘gram) flour mixed with 4 tablespoons of water (this replaces the egg)
  • 3 tablespoons of dairy free milk. I use Koko coconut drink; you could use soya milk or almond milk. I think the Koko cooks best and you can’t taste it in the finished result.

Method:

  1. Pre-heat your oven to 180 fan
  2. Cream together the sugar and dairy free spread (I use a free standing mixer)
  3. Mix in the chickpea (gram) flour mixed with the water
  4. Mix in the dairy free milk and then the vanilla
  5. Mix in the flours, baking powder and ground almonds (I should tell you to sieve the flour but tbh I rarely bother)
  6. You could add some dairy free chocolate chips at this point if you fancied
  7. Half fill 12 cupcake cases with the batter
  8. Bang the baking tray down on your work surface a couple of times
  9. Cook the cakes for 18 minutes or until golden and an inserted cake tester comes out clean.

For the frosting:

Beat together (I use a free standing electric mixer with a paddle attachment but you can use a hand held electric whisk) 100g of dairy free spread (again I use Pure sunflower), 300g of icing sugar ad 40g of gluten free cocoa powder (I used Green and Blacks). If you’re using a free standing machine set it on medium slow until the mixture comes together then turn it down to slow and add 40ml of dairy free milk one tablespoon at a time. Then turn the speed up to high and beat the icing until it’s light and fluffy.

Pipe the icing onto the cooled cakes with a swirly flourish and serve.

vegan gf fairycakes 2

Gluten free white chocolate blondies with dark chocolate chunks

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Filed under Baking, chocolate, desserts, egg free, Egg free desserts, Gluten free, tea time treats, white chocolate

blondie

It’s late, I’m tired, I’ve been to Manchester and back to today and have only just finished working, but I promised someone I’d blog this very tasty blondie by tomorrow and at ten o’clock tomorrow morning I’m going to deepest, darkest Devon with no wifi or phone signal (the reality of this is just sinking in..) so it’s now or never. As you know the daughter has coeliac disease; she’s a very fussy eater; she likes chocolate (no fussiness with that foodstuff – what a shocker) and she’s also allergic to eggs. I’ve developed a blondie recipe that she can eat and actually doesn’t taste like it’s gluten AND egg free (it’s not crumbly and it has a decent rise) so here it is. (I made it with my new miracle egg replacer discovery – whipped chick pea brine, but I’ll give you directions for using the real thing too). It’s yum. When I left this morning the whole cake was intact as per the photo above; on my return this evening there were a few crumbs left. Mr Arabella Cooks and three lively children had demolished almost all of it (and I’ve just polished the rest off).

blondie 3_edited-1blondie 4

Ingredients:

  • 1 x 150g bar of gluten free white cooking chocolate (I use Green and Blacks) broken up.
  • 200g unsalted butter, cut up into small chunks
  • 150g of caster sugar
  • 1/2 a teaspoon of baking powder
  • 1/4 of a teaspoon of salt
  • 150g of gluten free plain flour (I use Doves)
  • 50g of gluten free BREAD flour (it has xanthan gum added to it which helps to bind your bake)
  • Half a bar of dark gluten free cooking chocolate (I use Green and Blacks)
  • 200 ml of milk (full fat)
  • 9 tablespoons of aquafaba (the liquid left when you drain a can of chickpeas), whipped to stiff peaks OR 3 large eggs

Method:

  1. Pre heat the oven to 180 (160 fan) degrees
  2. Grease and line a square 18cm/7 inch cake tin with baking parchment
  3. Melt the chocolate and the butter together in a large bowl over a small saucepan with a small amount of water in it, on a low heat. White chocolate (which isn’t really chocolate) does not react well to being heated too quickly or too much so watch it.
  4. Whisk your aquafaba to stiff peaks with a hand held or free standing mixer; if using eggs, whisk them to soft peaks then add the sugar and vanilla extract and beat until it looks like mousse.
  5. (With aquafaba): Mix the flours, sugar, salt and baking powder together in another bowl.
  6. Make a well in the centre and add the melted chocolate and butter mixture. Stir to combine.
  7. Fold in the whipped aquafaba using a metal spoon (you want to try and retain as much air as you can; it’s difficult as the aquafaba collapses more easily than real eggs).
  8. You want a nice ‘dropping consistency’ batter, so now add as much of the milk as you need to achieve this.
  9. Add the dark chocolate chips to the batter and stir. Add the batter to the prepared tin.
  10. Bake. In my oven it took 45-50 minutes to cook. All ovens vary so test it with a cake skewer at 25 minutes in and then every 5 minutes until it’s done. It’s OK for this to be a bit gooey in the middle – the best brownie/blondies are; it’s better for them to be under than over baked, but you don’t want too much floury taste left (esp as it’s gluten free flour) so make sure it’s got a good colour on the top and is done sufficiently.
  11. Remove from the oven; allow to cool in the tin then remove very gently and leave to cool completely on a wire rack.
  12. If you’re using real eggs to make this:
    1. You’ve melted the butter and white choc; you’ve whisked the eggs and added the sugar.
    2. Add the butter and choc to the eggs and keep whisking.
    3. Add the flours and baking powder directly to the egg and chocolate mixture and fold it in.
    4. You shouldn’t need to use the milk if you’re using eggs, but if your batter is too thick, add a little to loosen it
    5. Stir in the chopped up dark chocolate
    6. Spoon into the prepared tin and bake in the oven. I didn’t use eggs so couldn’t say for sure how long to cook it for but I’d say between 25 and 35 minutes; check it after 25 minutes as above..

Enjoy x

blondie 2

Gluten free fish and chips: tempura battered fish with triple cooked chips

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Filed under chips, Dinner, fish, Gluten free

toby chips 3

We’ve been on holiday to Devon. We had three lots of friends to stay at various points and I (happily) did more cooking than I ever remember doing before in a two week period: roast chicken with mash, black pudding and orange glazed carrots, salted caramel chocolate cheesecake, chicken and prawn paella, raspberry ripple and pistachio parfait, dark chocolate mousse, bbq Moroccan lamb burgers, tabbbouleh with pomegranate and mint, freekeh with coriander and feta, lemon mousse and lemon pastry biscuits, Mexican pulled chicken with homemade coleslaw and bbq corn on the cob, hot chocolate mousse (the one I made on Masterchef), meatballs with tagliatelle, chocolate, nougat and pistachio semifredo, cheesy pasta bake with the leftover mince from making the meatballs, Korean Bulgogi chicken skewers, garlic prawns, Chinese Char Siu stiky ribs and rice noodle salad with sesame dressing, gluten free fish and chips, chocolate cornflake crispy cakes and gluten free birthday cake (Mr Arabella Cooks and I have the same birthday and it fell on the penultimate day of the holiday).

The brilliant joviality of the evenings and far too much wine) meant that I stupidly forgot to photograph much of the food. I also nearly sliced off the tips of two of my fingers whilst making the coleslaw. There was a disproportionate amount of blood (rivers of the stuff). The friends staying that night assured me this was because I’d thinned my blood with alcohol. Luckily that also served to numb the pain and anyway it wasn’t really serious so I didn’t need to have them stitched. Also luckily I did have the wherewithal to start taking photos at around the lemon mousse evening so I do at least have a few recipes to share with you. The one I got the most excited about was the fish and chips because Delilah (the coeliac) had been asking if she could have some fish and chip shop fish and chips (which of course she can’t) so I had promised to make her some at home. I found a cute retro chip serving kit in John Lewis to authenticate the experience and she couldn’t get enough of them. Triple cooking chips makes them gorgeously crispy on the outside and fluffy and light on the inside.

lilah chips 3      lilah chips 5

She was less enthusiastic about the fish because she is without doubt the fussiest eater on the planet, but she gallantly ate almost a whole goujon before admitting she’d probably prefer a gluten free mass produced fish finger. Mr Arabella Cooks and I had a whole battered fillet each however and they were delicious. Gluten free flour works so well for this because you don’t actually want any gluten in your batter. Recipes for it warn you not to overwhisk the mixture and release the gluten in the flour as that would make it heavy and tempura batter needs to be fairy light and crispy. Frankly I don’t know why everyone doesn’t just use gluten free flour in the first place. Don’t be put off that this isn’t a big butch beer batter – the lovely light tempura batter is gorgeous.

Gluten free tempura battered fish ingredients (serves four):

  • 4 white fish fillets (sustainably sourced cod, pollock etc)
  • Oil for frying (choose one with a high smoke point like sunflower or groundnut)
  • 100g corn flour
  • 150g gluten free plain flour
  • 10g baking powder
  • 1/2 a teaspoon of table salt
  • enough iced sparkling water to make a batter that will coat your finger (or more importantly your fish or whatever you want to fry. Don’t deep fry your finger, obviously). About 150ml.

Method:

  1. Heat your deep fat fryer, or oil in a heavy bottomed pan (no more than half full) on the stove top.
  2. Mix the flours, salt and baking powder together in a large bowl.
  3. Slowly add the iced water, stirring gently (DO NOT overstir).
  4. Make sure your fish fillets are bone dry. When the oil has reached 180ºC dip the fillets one by one into the batter. Make sure they are completely covered. Lower each fillet slowly into the hot oil. When the bottom of the fillet is submerged in the oil, wave it around from side to side, gently, for a few seconds, before letting go. Don’t splash yourself.
  5. The fillet is cooked once it’s turned a beautiful golden brown, usually about 3-4 minutes. Don’t overcrowd your pan or fryer as that will lower the temperature of the oil (which needs to stay nice and hot at 180ºC). I did all mine separately. Use a slotted spoon to remove the fillets from the hot oil once cooked if using a pan and drain on kitchen paper.

Triple cooked chips ingredients (serves four):

  • 800g Maris Piper potatoes, peeled and cut into chips (roughly 2 × 2 × 6cm)
  • Groundnut or vegetable oil for frying
  • Salt

Method:

  1. Rinse the chips for a few minutes to remove the starch
  2. Put the potatoes into a large saucepan with enough cold water to cover them. Bring the to the boil and simmer for about 10 minutes until tender. Heston Blumenthal recommends 20-30 minutes until the potatoes are almost falling apart but I couldn’t wait that long.
  3. Carefully drain the potatoes and dry them on a cooling rack (not on kitchen towel or they’ll go soggy). Put them in the freezer for as long as you can (Heston says an hour; I didn’t have an hour more like 20 minutes and they still worked).
  4. Heat a deep-fat fryer or a deep pan no more than half filled with oil (around 10 centimetres) to 130ºC.
  5. Fry the chips in small batches until crisp but not coloured (about five minutes), remove from the oil and drain on kitchen paper.
  6. Put the potatoes back onto the cooling rack and back in the freezer. Again, Heston says for an hour. I didn’t have that long (who starts cooking chips three hours before they want to eat them?). Half an hour would be good. I think I waited about 10 minutes.
  7. Heat the oil in the fryer or pan to 180ºC and fry the chips until golden (approximately seven minutes). Remove from the oil, drain on kitchen towel and sprinkle them with salt. Mr Arabella Cooks had some cider vinegar on his too. Eat. Yummo!

lilah chips 4    toby chips 2

Gluten free mocha chocolate ice box cake

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Filed under cake, chocolate, dessert, Gluten free, mocha, pudding, Sweet things

cake 3

A friend of mine is poorly so I made her a cake. This is a spectacularly easy way of making an impressive and delicious gluten free dessert, but it can be gluten free or gluten containing in the blink of an eye. It just depends what kind of biscuits you use. It’s based on the principle of an Italian tiramisu – flavoured whipped cream layered with biscuits. You put it in the fridge overnight and it hardens the cream and softens the biscuits (into ‘sponge’) et voila: cake/pudding/breakfast/whatever. Top it with something delicious and yum to the max, frankly.

Ingredients:

  • 4 packets of Maryland double choc chip cookies (if you don’t need to go down the gluten free route) or 5 packets of gluten free double chocolate chip biscuits (Kent of Fraser or Doves are good) to make it gluten free.
  • 600ml double cream
  • 100g caster sugar
  • 50/60ml of cold espresso coffee
  • 1 teaspoon of good vanilla essence
  • 350g mascarpone
  • 2 tablespoons of cocoa or cacao powder
  • Optional extra if not making for children: (60 mls Kahlua)

Method:

  1. In a large bowl, whisk together the cream, mascarpone, sugar, cocoa/cacao, cold espresso and vanilla (and Kahlua if using), until it forms firm peaks.
  2. Take a high sided, loose bottom cake tin (you don’t need it to be springform) and put a layer of biscuits on the bottom. You’ll need to break some to make the jigsaw of biscuits fit with as few gaps as possible (it takes practice; by the last layer I was brilliant at it).
  3. Spread a thin layer of the cream mixture over the biscuits. Put another layer of biscuits on top (again assembling it like a jigsaw) followed by another layer of cream and so on until you have run out of biscuits and cream/come to the top of the tin. You should end up with around 5 layers, with the top layer being cream.
  4. Cover with clingfilm and refrigerate overnight (or all day if making in the morning to serve at night. It needs at least 6 hours).
  5. When ready, take it out of the fridge and run a small sharp knife around the outside of the cake and push the bottom up and out (I used Mr AC to help me with this). On the top I put some caramel and Belgian chocolate popcorn (for texture and flavour) and then shaved some Lindt Swiss Classic Double Milk chocolate bar (which is my current favourite cake decorating secret) with a vegetable peeler on top of that. I should mention though that the Lindt chocolate is not gluten free (my friend didn’t need a gf option) so if you can’t have gluten use something else to decorate).
  6. Serve cold, in wedges.
  7. Store it in the fridge and eat quickly as it won’t keep for very long (no matter though as you’ll want to eat it all immediately anyway because it’s Y U M!).

cake 4   cake 5

Gluten free ‘petticoat tail’ shortbread biscuits

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Filed under Baking, Biscuits, Gluten free, Sweet things

final biscuit

My mother does not approve of shortbread. It is the fact that it is entirely comprised of butter, sugar and flour. She prefers her homemade biscuits to have oats, seeds and dried fruits in so as to offset their calorific burden with a nutritional bonus. But my children and I care little for that and find the particular synergy of fat and sugar in a shortbread biscuit a sheer and utter delight. And it works wonderfully well in a gluten free format so we make it a lot. Delilah has a ‘tribe’ fundraiser at school tomorrow. There is to be some biscuit decorating going on so I’ve made some petticoat tails to send in with her so she doesn’t miss out on the fun.

One thing my mother and I do agree on is the use of salted butter in baking. She never uses unsalted butter, reasoning that if you’re going to add a pinch of salt to the mixture anyway, why go to the bother of buying separate butter? I didn’t have any unsalted butter in tonight so I used salted and it works wonderfully well here, not least as you sprinkle them with delicious golden caster sugar anyway, and isn’t everything sweet ‘salted’ in some way these days? It really does enhance the flavour.

One word of warning, these biscuits will spread A LOT whilst baking so go with it when I say make the dough cake thick; it needs it or they melt away to nothing and you want a shortbread biscuit that you can sink your teeth into. It is a fabulous recipe though, the cornflour makes them wonderfully light, and gluten free or not they are a damn fine biscuit. In my humble opinion.

You could of course just make them into rounds (each to their own) but the kids and I find their triangular heart shapedness particularly pleasing.

Ingredients:

  • 230g gluten free flour
  • 110g cornflour
  • 110g icing sugar
  • 230g room temperature butter (salted or unsalted), cubed

Method:

Pre-heat your oven to 180c (fan)

1) Sieve the dry ingredients together into a large bowl

2) Rub in the chopped butter with your fingers

3) When all the butter is rubbed in, press it all together to make one big ball of dough:

shortbread dough

4) Wrap the ball in clingfilm and put it in the fridge for 20 minutes or so.

5) After 20 minutes roll out the dough on a lightly gluten free floured surface. Be careful, as it will crack so you need to be very gentle with it and shape and form it with care. You want to end up with a nice thick round cake shape, 2 cm high by 18 cm in diameter:

dough cake

6) Take a sharp knife and bisect the cake 4 times to demarcate 8 triangles. Then take a fork and with the tines facing down, gently impress the ends of the tines against the edges of the dough like so:

dough cake 2

I used the index finger of my other hand to press the edge of the dough in whilst pressing down with the fork as it is quite crumbly.

7) Then cut the triangles out and place them onto two baking trays lined with baking parchment (4 on each, with lots of space between so they don’t spread into each other):

triangles

8) Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes.

9) Take out and after a couple of minutes transfer to a wire cooking rack and sprinkle them with golden caster sugar (or regular caster sugar if that’s what you have). They will be very crumbly whilst still hot, but once cooled they do firm up.

cooling cookies

They’re probably best eaten the next day/later in the afternoon once completely cooled and firm. Yum!

Bank holiday gluten and egg free pancakes

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Filed under Breakfast, egg free, Gluten free, Sweet things

stack

We travelled back from Wiltshire today and ended up having a very late lunch, so all I could be bothered to do for the kids’ tea was pancakes. These pancakes are great. They contain no gluten or egg so my daughter can eat them, but the whole family love them. They’re light and fluffy, simple to make and really tasty. And you don’t need to leave the batter to rest so if you want to make them on the spur of the moment, you can.

The main ingredient is buckwheat flour (I use a brand that is labelled gluten free, just to be on the safe side), but the secret, I think, is to add a bit of gluten free bread flour, because it has xanthan gum in it. Xanthan gum is often used as a binder and thickener in gluten free recipes (gluten is what makes the stuff it’s in sticky) and having it already mixed into your flour saves a lot of faff. I also use a branded egg replacer called, originally, ‘no egg’, to really ensure a nice thick consistency. And just for good measure, a tablespoon of Flaxseed because I read somewhere that it can be used as a binder to replace eggs. You could probably leave it out, but at the very least it replaces some of the Omega 3 that real eggs would bring to the dish, plus it contains calcium and iron, so I like to put it in.

Ingredients:

  • 130g gluten free buckwheat flour. I use Doves.
  • 70g gluten free bread flour. Again, Doves is good. If you can’t find bread flour just use gluten free plain flour.
  • 1 teaspoon of baking powder.
  • 2 tablespoons of golden caster sugar.
  • 1 tablespoon of Flaxseed mixed with a tablespoon of water. I sieve the Flaxseed so there are no husks in the batter and Delilah (that’s the daughter) can’t detect its presence (she is monumentally fussy).
  • 2 teaspoons of Organ ‘No Egg’ mixed with 1 tablespoon of water.
  • 1/2 a teaspoon of regular table salt.
  • 200ml milk (any kind; I use full fat) and 150ml natural yoghurt (I usually use a nice thick Greek one) mixed together.

Method:

  1. Sieve the flours and baking powder together into a bowl.
  2. Add the sugar and salt and make a well in the centre.

flour for pancakes

3. Mix the milk and yoghurt with the egg replacer and Flaxseed, and stir into the flour.

mixing flour

4. If the mixture is too thick, thin it with more milk. You need it to be fairly thick though; it should  look roughly like this:

batter consistency

5. Heat some sunflower or groundnut oil in a frying pan over a medium high heat. Add a spoonful of batter. Because it’s a thick and sticky mixture, you’ll need to shape and form it a bit in the pan.  I find this sort of ladle really helpful:

ladel

6. When you can see little air bubbles in the top of the mixture in the pan, flip the pancake over and cook the other side:

bubbles in batter  pancake cooking 2

7. Put the cooked pancakes onto kitchen paper to absorb excess oil then serve with your choice of topping. Diggy likes maple syrup, Delilah prefers Nutella:

diggy eats pancakes  delilah eating pancakes 1

I like lemon juice, a sugar substitute and chopped fruit. Yum!

berriespancakes

Salted caramel nut brittle

Posted
Filed under Gluten free, Sweet things

image

It’s half term. It’s a bank holiday weekend (woo!). We’re off to visit friends in Wiltshire tomorrow and I’ve made some chunky nut brittle to take as a gift. I’ve therefore burnt my arm because I always, ALWAYS burn myself when I boil sugar. Be warned. But it’s worth it. This salty, sweet, nutty chunk of deliciousness is one of my favourite things to nibble with coffee after dinner. And it’s perfect for wrapping up in cellophane with a nice bow and giving as a present. Just make sure you wait until it’s completely cold before you try any. Tempting though it may be, molten sugar is bloody lethal.

Ingredients:

  • 150g caster sugar
  • 80g roasted salted peanuts (or cashews if you prefer)
  • 80g  almonds (unroasted)
  • 80g walnuts or pecans (also unroasted)
  • 2 teaspoons of sea salt
  • 1 teaspoon of regular (fine grain) salt

Preheat the oven to 200C/180C fan.

1) Toast the nuts on a baking tray in the oven for about 8 minutes until they are golden and beautifully scented.

nut brittle 4

2) Put some baking parchment onto a baking tray or large wooden chopping board.

3) Tip the sugar into a large heavy bottomed saucepan, along with 3 tablespoons of water. Swirl the pan to get all the sugar wet (add more water if necessary).

4) Heat the sugar on a highish heat until it dissolves. Don’t, whatever you do, stir the sugar, just swirl the pan every now and then (more so towards the end). nut brittle 3

5) Once the caramel has turned a lovely clear golden brown (probably after about 6-7 minutes) take the pan off the heat and stir in the nuts and sea salt. nut brittle 2

6) Pour out onto the prepared baking parchment. Use a large spoon or forks or whatever you have to hand to spread it out as evenly as you can. You’ll need to move fairly swiftly as it sets really quickly. Sprinkle over the regular (fine grain) salt.

7) Leave to cool and set hard. Then break it up as gently as you can into bite sized pieces.

Yum!