Upside Down Caremalised Pear and Almond Cake (Gluten Free)

Yay! Its coming into winter over here in Albany Western Australia and pears are appearing in the supermarkets and various farmers markets around the place.  I love pears. They lend themselves to so many different recipes both sweet and savoury.  I bought some gorgeous russet and gold coloured Beurre Bosc pears yesterday and then I went searching for a recipe for them. Something pudding like but that my husband Jason , who has severe gluten intolerance, could also enjoy.

I found this lovely recipe written by a lady by the name of Shaina Olmanson from her blog Food For My Family. Here is how I interpreted it and I stayed faithful to her recipe. It looked a lot taller in her blog photos but it really is more like a flan in depth. Very yummy!

First assemble your ingredients and grease and line the base of a  20cm(8 inch) cake tin with baking paper

 

Ingredients

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

3 tablespoons brown sugar

1 pinch of salt

1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence

1-2 Beurre Bosc pears

2 eggs, separated

1/4 cup granulated sugar (I used raw caster sugar)

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

3/4 cup of almond meal/flour

2 tablespoons arrowroot powder (I used cornflour)

1/4 teaspoon of ground cardamom

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 F).

In  a small saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the brown sugar and pinch of salt and stir, cooking till the edges bubble and the sugar is dissolved.

Remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla. I forgot to do this (adding the vanilla) and the end result worked just fine 😀  Immediately pour the caramel over the baking paper and spreading it out until it coats the base entirely.

Slice the pear in half, de-core it and slice into 1/8-1/4 inch pieces. Arrange the slices over the caramel, fanning them out from the centre.

Beat/whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form. You should be able to hold them upside down like I have in my picture and not have them fall out 😀

In a separate bowl, beat egg yolks till thick and pale yellow then add sugar, almond extract, almond meal, arrowroot or cornflour, and the cardamom. The mixture will be quite thick and lumpy.

 

Gently mix in half the egg whites until they’re incorporated, then fold in the remainder of the egg whites. Don’t worry if the batter is streaked with white, its all good :). Do not over mix.

Pour the cake mix over the pears, spreading into an even layer fully covering the pears.

Bake for 25-30 minutes until the top is golden brown and center of cake is set.

Remove from oven and invert onto a plate while still warm. Serve warm or at room temperature.

 

I have to say it tasted divine! I ate it standing at the kitchen bench whilst it was still hot 😀

It would also lend itself to the addition of some unsweetened clotted cream as it really is sweet.

Bon appetit!

Butter chicken with red lentil dhal and rice.

Hello friends 🙂

Yesterday I made a rather delicious meal for our tea.  I actually found it in the state newspaper (The West Australian) in the recipes pages. This recipe was compiled by one of the duos that appeared on the MKR (My Kitchen Rules) TV show and I have to say it turned out very well for a first time try.

This amount will serve 4.

First assemble your ingredients.

For the Marinade,

400gm can of crushed tomatoes

190gm yoghurt (I used Goats milk yoghurt)

4 garlic cloves

90gm ground almonds

2cm piece of ginger, grated

6 cardamom pods, bruised

2 tablespoons brown sugar

2 teaspoons garam masala

1 cinnamon quill

1/2 teaspoon  ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon chilli powder

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1 pinch saffron threads

salt and pepper to season

1 kg boneless, skinless chicken thighs, halved

125gm Ghee

1 onion, diced

For the Red Lentil Dhal,

2 teaspoons vegetable oil ( I used Ghee again as I am in love with it!)

1 onion, diced

1 long green chilli, chopped

1 + 1/2 teaspoons cumin seeds

1 + 1/2 teaspoons black mustard seeds

1 + 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin

1 + 1/2 teaspoons ground coriander

1 teaspoon ground turmeric

3 curry leaves

1 tomato, diced ( I forgot to use it so I make this optional :D)

200 gm red lentils, rinsed, drained

400ml can coconut milk

250ml water

To make the marinade, combine all of the ingredients down to and including the salt and pepper in a six cup capacity baking dish.

Add the chicken and rub marinade all over it.

(Trust me, there is chicken in there!)

Cover and refrigerate for one hour to marinate.

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Melt ghee in a small frying pan over medium heat, add onion and cook, stirring for about 3 minutes or until softened.

Add to chicken mixture, cover dish tightly with foil and bake for 40 minutes. Remove foil and bake for a further 15 minutes or until chicken is very tender. I like cooking till those yummy caramelized bits form on top of the chicken 🙂

Meanwhile, to make the dhal, heat oil/ghee in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and chilli and cook, stirring for about 3 minutes or until softened.

Stir in seeds and spices. Cook for a further 1 minutes or until fragrant.

Stir in remaining ingredients and the water.

Bring to a simmer, then simmer, partially covered and stirring occasionally, for 25 minutes or until lentils are cooked and have absorbed all the liquid. Season with salt.

Divide rice between serving plates and top with chicken. Spoon dhal to the side and tuck in!

That is my appreciative husband Jason 😀

This recipe is completely gluten free, including that Naan bread you see in the picture. So happy to have found that the local supermarket (Coles) stocks the Livewell brand for Coeliac sufferers.

Bon appetit!

Rich Chocolate Cake

Hello dear readers. I’m back after a long break due to IT issues and general work type business 😀 . I made this cake for a work colleagues morning tea as she was getting married on the weekend. It was actually not a very sweet cake at all and even though I didn’t make it gluten free, it could easily be made so by substituting the flour with gluten free flour. I’m actually going to try it again just using almond meal or hazelnut meal with no flour at all and see how that goes! I might just need a small amount of baking powder instead. I am giving this post a go using my iPad so hopefully all my photos should come through ok as well.

Here is the recipe that was meant to go with the following pictures! I cannot believe none of the words between pictures appeared, nor the recipe!

Rich Chocolate Cake.

250gm dark couverture chocolate, chopped

1/2 cup of buttermilk

250gm soft, unsalted butter.

220gm (1cup) caster sugar (I used raw caster sugar)

6 eggs, seperated

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

125gm (1 cup) ground almonds

150gm (1 cup) plain flour, sifted (or gluten free)

First, assemble everything you will need and grease and line a 20 cm square cake tin. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

.

Combine chocolate and buttermilk in a small saucepan and stir over low heat till chocolate melts, then remove from heat and cool.

Using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar in a large bowl till light and fluffy, then add egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each.

Stir in vanilla and chocolate mixture, then fold in combined flour and almond meal until just incorporated.

Using an electric mixer, whisk egg whites till stiff peaks form, then, using a large metal spoon, fold into chocolate mixture until just combined.

Spoon cake mixture into the prepared cake tin and bake at 180 degrees for 40 minutes. Reduce heat to 160 degrees and bake for a further 20-25 minutes until cake is cooked by testing it with a cake skewer.

 

Cool cake in tin for 5 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack to cool.

NOTE: I found that after 40 minutes my cake was cooked so did not bother with the  rest of the time stated in the recipe. Your oven may be different so please check at the 40 minute mark.

This cake is meant to be eaten as is just dusted with Dutch-process cocoa and some blueberries. I ended up covering it with a whipped chocolate ganache as i found the cake was rather dry.

Chocolate ganache

200ml pouring cream

250 gm dark chocolate chopped.

Heat cream in saucepan till nearly boiling then pour over chocolate. Whisk till smooth then you can either pour this directly over the top of your cake or leave it to cool and thicken and beat it with electric beaters till it is like a whipped chocolate mousse and ice your cake with it.

Apologies once again for the lack of any relevant information with my original blog. I wish someone had told me it was missing  😀

Gluten Free Carrot Cake.

This recipe was found whilst looking for gluten free recipes for my fiance who has coeliac disease amongst other auto-immune diseases. It is a really good carrot cake and he loved it. I found it in Donna Hays latest magazine at the back. Very nice.

Assemble your ingredients

5 Eggs, at room temperature

1 and a half cups brown sugar

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Half a cup of Oil, I used Rice Bran

3 and a half cups of Almond Meal (440gm)

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

Half a teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 teaspoon GF baking powder

400gm finely grated carrots

1 cup of shredded coconut

Half a cup slivered almonds (recipe says roasted but I didn’t, no point unless you like the taste of roasted)

Half a cup of currants

Add eggs, sugar and vanilla in an electric mixer (or hand held electric beaters) and beat for 15 minutes or until thick and tripled in volume. It should look like this,

Place all the other ingredients in another bowl and mix thoroughly to combine while your egg mixture is whisking away.

I wasn’t sure if the recipe was telling me to fold this through the egg mixture or fold the egg mixture through the other ingredients so I tipped the mixture into a bigger bowl and poured the egg mixture over the top and folded in gently till it was all combined.

Spoon this mixture into your prepared tin and bake for 1 hour,20mins to 1 hour, 25 mins or until a skewer inserted comes out with a few crumbs attached. In my oven, fan forced, it seemed to be cooked by an hour so I just popped some cooking paper on top for the last few minutes, just in case.

Looks too full doesn’t it! If you have a higher sided cake tin, use it but it didn’t overflow the tin that I used. I did put it on another tray just in case 😉

When cooked, allow to cool completely in the tin then refrigerate still in the tin for 2-3 hours or until firm. I left it in the fridge overnight.

To ice this cake, run a knife around the edge of the cake and remove from the tin, spread with the following cream cheese icing recipe.

Cream Cheese Icing

250gm cream cheese, chopped and at room temperature

Half a cup of icing sugar

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Beat the above ingredients all together for 5 minutes then spread over the top of the carrot cake.

When cut by me, it looks like this 😉

Obviously, a profressional would not have left cream cheese icing down the side of the slice but I ate this for breakfast! Hahahaha!

Give this recipe a try. It is one of the nicest gluten free cakes I’ve made.

Bon appetite.