Recipe Test: Bannoffee Buffins

Well I know this blog was meant to be “occasional” but I never intended the occasions to be spaced quite so far apart! The truth is I simply don’t bake much anymore – like many people, I try to eat more healthily these days so baked goods don’t feature highly in my repertoire. I do, however, still have lots of cookbooks so a long-overdue couple of weeks off work, coupled with some overripe bananas languishing on the kitchen worktop, led me to try out a recipe from a book I’ve had for a while now:

Howard Middleton was in Series 4 of the Great British Bake Off. But I’ll let you into a secret: I’ve never watched GBBO. Why torture myself watching people make lots of food I could never eat? Add to that the comment from Nadiya Hussain “I don’t do fat-free, sugar-free, gluten-free, because that means flavour-free and I like flavour.” Well, let’s just say I’m not a fan of the dismissive Ms Hussain.

So to come across Mr Middleton’s book one day was a revelation – now HERE’S someone who doesn’t dismiss large swathes of the population who have no choice about their diet! There are dozens of recipes, all written with a little touch of humour, ranging from sweet to savoury, special occasion cakes to herby Yorkshire puddings. Which is where the overripe bananas come in (no, not the Yorkshire puddings!). A recipe called Bannoffee Buffins caught my eye, made with said overripe bananas & based on oat flour (i.e. gluten free porridge oats blitzed to a flour). As usual, I didn’t have all the right ingredients so I substituted a couple of teaspoons of psyllium husk for the required xanthan gum, rice bran oil for the olive oil & sultanas soaked in Tia Maria for the banana chips.

The mixture looked very runny & I thought they might not work but as you can see from the picture above they are, without doubt, a triumph. Husband & son declared them to be delicious & that they won’t last long!

This may have been the first recipe out of the book that I’ve tried, but it won’t be the last.

Coffee & Walnut Muffins

I bought some Trex a LONG while ago to use in baking but it had languished, unloved, in the fridge, for quite some time until I came across this recipe over on the Trex website. Of course that isn’t a gluten free recipe but I find that when I adapt a non-GF recipe, Doves Farm flour seems to work most times as an almost exact replacement.  I used a handheld mixer because I couldn’t get the mixture smooth enough, but it looked pretty good once I’d done:

I didn’t have two 6 inch cake tins to make the cakes so decided to make muffins instead. Other than swapping the flour, I added an extra tablespoon of the coffee mixture (an espresso made with a Nespresso coffee & vanilla flavoured pod) as gluten free flours usually need a little bit more liquid; on this occasion I also added some chopped walnuts.

 

 

Gadget Test: Cuisinart Sandwich and Waffle Maker

I love gadgets of any sort, but crafting & cooking gadgets in particular. Yesterday I bought the Cuisinart Sandwich and Waffle Maker which was on offer at Costco, so today I decided to have a go at the gluten free waffle recipe from the book. The only substitution I made was Almond Dream milk instead of skimmed milk to make the waffles dairy free.

The waffle maker was really easy to use; it cooks two waffles at a time and they only take 3 or 4 minutes to cook. The bottom plate cooks the underside of the waffles more quickly than the top so you need to be careful they don’t burn. The recipe made the exact quantity it was supposed to make (is it me, but recipes often don’t make the quantity they’re supposed to?), and what’s more, they tasted delicious with a little maple syrup & some blueberries!

Sage Scraper Mixer Pro Test – Raspberry Cupcakes

For a long time now I’ve wanted to buy the Sage Scraper Mixer Pro; yesterday, I noticed it was on offer in Lakeland so I finally got my wish! This morning I put it to the test on one of the starter recipes included in the instruction leaflet for Raspberry Cupcakes. As I always bake gluten free (for me) and dairy free (for my son), I used Doves Farm Self Raising Flour, Pure Sunflower Spread and plain rice milk for the equivalents in the recipe. Not that the flour is listed in the ingredients, they somehow managed to miss that out – nice one Sage! I only realised this as I was already part way through making the cakes (note to self: read the recipe first!) so I looked on the Sage website, thought I’d found the recipe but then realised that the quantity of sugar was different;-)  Hey ho, too late by then.

The scraper mixer is designed to prevent you needing to scrape the sides of the bowl down, and I found that worked really well, although it did seem to take longer than the recipe stated to reach the stage where the sugar had melted. However, this may be because I wasn’t using butter. This was the mixture after the Pure & sugar had been creamed. I  hadn’t needed to scrape the sides down at all:

And this was the finished mixture, which came together really quickly:

I found they took about 25 minutes in the oven, but as you can see they rose really well & they taste delicious!

GF Pancakes

 

The last few weeks have been crazy, so baking hasn’t been top of my priority list for quite some time. But an unusually lazy Sunday morning after a late night made me crave pancakes, and this recipe is loosely based on several that I’ve seen around the internet.

• 130g* Doves Farm GF plain flour
• 25g sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 230ml milk*
• 1 egg
• 40ml rice bran oil

*You can use almond or rice milk if you can’t tolerate cows’ milk. If you use rice milk, as I did, this quantity of flour makes for a very runny mix. I suggest adding maybe another 10-20g of flour to give a better consistency.

Most recipes tell you to mix the dry ingredients in one bowl & the wet in another, then combine the two. I can’t quite see the point in creating extra washing up so I sit the bowl on my add & weigh scales, put the dry ingredients in the bowl first then carefully add the wet ingredients one by one. Finally I used a small whisk to ensure a lump-free consistency. The end result was a pretty thin mix:

Time to try out the new pancake pan my father-in-law treated me to, which worked beautifully without needing much oil. This recipe was meant to be for what we Brits call Scotch pancakes which are quite thick, but the rice milk meant they turned out more like crepes:

 

Still, they were delicious smothered in maple syrup with a few raspberries so I could kid myself I was being healthy!

Gluten Free Lemon & Blueberry Loaf

 

Okay, confession time: I left this in the oven just a little bit too long while I was getting ready to go out so I hastily made a lemon icing to drizzle over the top & the sugar didn’t dissolve! Hence the strange-looking white blobs on the top. But my colleagues on the school’s governing body, who this was made for, declared it delicious – so much so that I wasn’t able to get any photos of it sliced.

This is my own recipe, adapted from many others out on the internet to make it gluten & dairy free. It takes about an hour from start to finish. Don’t let the long ingredients list put you off, I don’t do difficult!

Ingredients:
175g Pure Sunflower spread
100g golden caster sugar
5g powdered Stevia
2 eggs
Finely grated rind of 1 lemon
Juice of 1 lemon
½ tsp lemon essence
100g ground almonds
100g fine cornmeal/polenta
50g Doves Farm gluten free plain flour + extra for blueberries
½ tsp gluten free baking powder
50g blueberries

Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 4, 180°C, 350°F. Line a 2lb loaf tin (9”x5”) with parchment or a loaf tin liner.

Cream the sunflower spread, sugar & Stevia until light & fluffy.

Beat in the eggs, lemon juice, rind & essence. Don’t worry if the mixture looks a little curdled at this stage, it sorts itself out in the next stage.

Fold in the almonds, cornmeal, flour & baking powder, making sure it’s all mixed together well.

Sprinkle a little extra flour over the blueberries – this helps to stop them sinking – and gently fold them into the mixture.

Carefully tip the mixture into the prepared loaf tin and level the surface.

Bake for about 50 minutes until a skewer through the centre comes out clean.

Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before removing & placing on a wire rack to finish cooling.

Enjoy!

A pdf version of this recipe is available here: Lemon_Blueberry_Loaf.

Book Review: Mug Cakes by Mima Sinclair

Well, what else, given my current fascination with them? I was browsing in The Works yesterday when I spotted this book by Mima Sinclair. After a quick look my son decided I HAD to buy it, as it included a recipe for a Rocky Road mug cake. Although it isn’t a gluten free cake book I simply use Doves Farm gluten free flour as a direct replacement for the ordinary flour.

The book starts off with a description of mug cakes, the ingredients and – importantly – how to test if the mug you want to use is suitable for cooking a mug cake in. Then there is a list of dos & don’ts, followed by 40 recipes which will have you raiding your larder for the ingredients before you’ve reach the back of the book! They’re divided into four categories: Classics, including Carrot Cake & Gingerbread; Occasions, which includes Halloween Ghost & Red Velvet Cake; Happy Hour – Pina Colada anyone? – and Treats & Puds such as Chocolate Fudge S’Mores. The pictures really made me want to try them, so without further ado that’s just what I did!

I didn’t have all the ingredients needed for the Rocky Road cake so my son had to settle for the Chocolate Brownie cake. You can see from the picture below that this turned out beautifully & was demolished in minutes. It is, however, very high in sugar for one person (9 teaspoons), so I reduced this by substituting powdered Stevia for some of the caster sugar.

As it was 9pm when I was cooking these, I decided my husband & I could share a “Baileys on the Rocks” cake from the Happy Hour section. Again, I substituted some of the 9 teaspoons of sugar for Stevia. You can see how it looked at the top of this post, and here’s how it looked straight from the microwave:

 

Both cakes were delicious & I’m looking forward to trying more recipes from the book. They would need to be saved for treats though, as they are all very high in sugar.

Recipe Test: Raspberry Oat Muffins

I’ve had this recipe pinned on my “Recipes to Try” Pinterest board for a while now. So as the gluten free porridge oats languishing in the back of the cupboard were edging ever-closer towards their use by date, I decided that today was the day.

Firstly, this is an American recipe, so I dug my cup measures out of the drawer. For those who are interested, though, the amount of Doves Farm GF plain flour I used was 225g, although I substituted 2 tbsp of GF oat bran for the equivalent amount of flour.

To make these dairy free I used rice milk instead of the buttermilk, adding 1tsp of apple cider vinegar and leaving it to sit for 5 minutes before adding the oats & letting those sit for the same time.  I used rapeseed oil* (which is known as canola oil in the US) and I also used about a teaspoon of vanilla extract instead of the cinnamon because that’s what I’d prefer. The recipe didn’t specify the type of brown sugar to use, so I used light brown soft sugar, a little less than the recipe stated as I prefer cakes less sweet, and I can kid myself that they’re healthier. Lastly, of course, here in the UK baking soda is bicarbonate of soda.

The finished mix was VERY runny, and I was far from convinced that it would work – you can see what I mean here:

Undeterred, I spooned the mixture into the lined muffin cases & baked them for 20 minutes until I thought they looked done. The original recipe doesn’t recommend how they should be left to cool but I decided to cool them on a wire rack rather than the tin, although I did test one whilst it was still warm – well, you have to, don’t you?

The verdict? Delicious! Soft, moist muffins without any hint of the porridge oats within. As this was such an easy recipe I would definitely make it again.

*Edited to add: I don’t recommend rapeseed oil for this recipe. The following day, I opened the box these were stored in & the smell of the oil was overpowering so I threw them out for the birds – who promptly ate the raspberries but left the cake!

Recipe Test: Gluten Free Bread

I’m constantly amazed that some people go gluten free when they don’t have to. Why deprive yourself of wonderful, soft bread to dunk in soup; hot buttered toast, preferably smothered with jam; bread & butter pudding? In my case going gluten free was a necessity.

But I miss bread, and the commercial gluten free replacements just aren’t the same. So in common with many gluten free cooks my constant quest for a gluten free loaf which is like REAL bread – not cake – continues. I came across this recipe which looked really easy & didn’t require a food mixer – essential because I don’t (yet) own one. If you’re reading this though, Heston, I’d love a Sage Scraper Mixer Pro with an ice cream bowl!

As this was my first attempt at this recipe I didn’t want to make too much of the flour mix, so I worked out the equivalent of 3 1/4 cups of flour in grams to make the maths easier! The finished mix I used was 130g sorghum flour, 130g tapioca flour, 65g potato starch and 65g almond flour. I used 3tsp xanthan gum and added a heaped teaspoon of Isabel’s Gluten Free Baking Fix.

I’ll apologise now for the variable quality of the photos, it’s very hard to take photos in natural daylight when there simply isn’t any!

The liquid ingredients came next and it looks like a lot when you first add it:

Although it took some mixing it really wasn’t difficult to turn it into this:

The instructions didn’t say what to cover it with but I used greased cling film & put it in the fridge till the next day. About 18 hours later this is how it looked:

As I’d seen other GF bakers do, I added ice in a baking tray at the bottom of the oven to create steam & keep the bread moist. After 30 minutes the top was starting to burn so I covered it loosely in foil & added more ice to the baking tray. Thirty five minutes later, et voila!

Okay, so it looks a little lopsided but it tastes delicious smothered in butter! Here’s the finished article sliced, you can see I probably should have given it slightly longer in the oven as the bottom is quite dense. But I can honestly say that this is the most bread-like bread I’ve had since going gluten free although I’m sure the Baking Fix helped with that. My non-gluten-free son love it, too! This recipe does require you to be organised (which I am) and patient (which I’m not) but I would definitely make it again.

Mug Cakes!

Mug cakes; until a week ago I’d never heard of them – where have they been all my life?! There are times when only cake will do, but there simply isn’t the time to make one. Mug cakes are, without doubt, the answer to a cake addict’s prayers!

A quick search of the internet turns up many gluten free varieties. This is my version of a not-too-sweet, gluten free, dairy free, chocolate variety which serves 2 not-too-greedy people.

Ingredients:

• 3 tbsp Pure Sunflower Dairy Free spread
• 4 tbsp Doves Farm SR gluten free flour
• 2 tbsp coconut palm sugar (but any sugar would do)
• 1 medium egg
• 2 tbsp cocoa powder
• 3 tbsp rice milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Melt the Pure spread in the microwave for about 30 seconds. Once it’s melted, beat in the egg then add the rest of the ingredients, mixing them in really well – most recipes say “don’t overmix” but if you’re not careful you end up with marble cake because the cocoa powder isn’t mixed in properly or – worse! – a poached egg at the bottom! This is what mine looked like before it went in the microwave:

The blurry pic below was quickly taken part way through cooking; it shows how much it rises before sinking down to its final, delectable gorgeousness! In total mine took 2 minutes 10 seconds in my ancient 650w microwave. I doubt anyone has a microwave less powerful than mine, but if yours is more powerful then you’ll need to reduce the time accordingly.

PDF version of recipe: choc_mug_cake

Another tried and tested recipe is Raspberry and Almond, which I made last night but substituting 1 tablespoon of golden syrup for 2 tablespoons of honey to make it FODMAP-friendly. I also used rice milk just because that’s what was in the fridge. I didn’t have fresh raspberries but I did have raspberry coulis from Sainsburys so I threw a tablespoon of that in too. Two minutes or so later I was tucking into my delicious cake.

Easy peasy – I’m hooked!