Gluten free Parkin.

Tis the season for all those lovely Christmas flavours to be swirling around the house. So far I’ve made 9 Christmas puddings and two Christmas cakes. My refrigerator is groaning with cake and pudding. Two of the puddings and one of the cakes are gluten free for my dearly beloved and I and the rest are all gifts for family and the odd friend. I made a non gluten free version of Parkin for my end of year work party which went down well so I made another one for my husband that he could eat without gluten or the rolled oats. I was more than a tad concerned about what to substitute for the oats and settled on quinoa flakes as they looked very similar in structure.

First assemble all that you’ll need to bake with.

  
Ingredients.

200g butter

1 large egg

4 tablespoons milk

200g golden syrup

85g treacle

85g light brown sugar

100g quinoa flakes

250g gluten free self raising flour

1 tablespoon ground ginger

Heat your oven to 160C or a bit less if fan forced. Grease a deep 22cm/9in square cake tin and line with baking paper.

  
Gently melt the syrup, treacle, sugar and butter together until the sugar has dissolved. 

 
Remove from the heat. 

 
Mix together the quinoa flakes , the GF flour and ginger.   

 
Stir in the syrup mixture, followed by the combined egg and milk (lightly beaten together).

  
  
  
Pour the mixture into your prepared tin and bake for 50 mins to an hour until the cake feels firm and a little crusty on top.

  
Cool in the tin then wrap in more baking paper and foil and keep for 3-5 days before eating if you can as it apparently becomes softer and stickier the longer you leave it, up to two weeks. 

  
I had to eat this as it smelt so lovely. It worked really well using the substitute quinoa flakes. The flavour is the same as is the texture.  Well worth making but I don’t know how your meant to leave it for a few days. That just won’t be happening 😂😂😂😂😂.

Bon appetit!

 

Spiced honey cake, gluten free.

I’m always on the look out for a tasty recipe that my husband can eat as well. Even though this wasn’t originally designed to be gluten free, I made it this morning by substituting the regular flour out and replacing it with a commercial brand of gluten free plain flour and it turned out just perfect 😋

It is from the latest issue of delicious.uk I think and I thought I’d give it a go. 

Spiced Honey cake.

Ingredients

200g unsalted butter

100g light brown (muscovado) sugar

100g golden caster sugar

175g clear honey

2 medium eggs, beaten

260ml milk (I used buttermilk)

325g plain GF flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp each of ground ginger, ground cinnamon, ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp caraway seeds

50g candied mixed and chopped peel

Finely grated zest of 1 lemon and 1 orange (optional) I didn’t  use it.

Preheat the oven to 150 C/fan forced 130-140 C and lightly butter and line a loaf tin (22cm x 12cm x 7cm)

Put the butter, sugars and honey in a pan and stir over a low heat until melted. Leave to cool slightly, then stir in the beaten eggs and milk. I used a Pyrex jug in my microwave on high for 2 minutes which worked just as well. Give it a good stir.

  
  
  

Sift together the flour and salt, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder and all the spices. Add the  caraway seeds and candied peel and make a well in the centre.

  
  
  
Add the butter mixture and beat until smooth. You can add the zest of the lemon and orange here if using.

  
  
Pour the batter into the loaf tin, then bake for 1 1/4 hours or until firm to the touch and a skewer pushed into the centre comes out clean. Cool in the tin for 10 minutes then turn onto a rack to cool completely.

  
  
This recipe comes with a honey glaze topping which I haven’t used but the recipe follows.

Honey glaze.

1 tbsp clear honey

1 tbsp milk

60g icing sugar

Warm the honey in a small pan. Mix in the milk and icing sugar until smooth. Brush over the cake, then leave to cool completely.

  
It is really delicious and I believe it would also be nice served with butter as well. 

Bon appetit! 

Fish Stock

Wow! Time sure does fly when your busy doing other things. This is a shortish post showing you all how to make one of the best fish stocks from scratch. I’ve followed the delectable Maggie Beers recipe and couldn’t quite relate to how short the time is that it takes to cook. 😍. My chicken and beef stocks take up to five hours to make to leach the most flavour out of those bones but fish stock is very quick to make. I use this in my Thai Green Curry risotto, fish stews, anything else that requires a fish stock base 😊.  Ingredients. 1kg snapper heads 1 large onion, finely chopped 1 leek, finely chopped 1 carrot, finely chopped 1/2 stick celery, finely chopped 2 tablespoons butter 1/2 cup dry white wine (125ml) 1.5-2 litres cold water 10 stalks flat leaf parsley 1 sprig of thyme 1 bay leaf    Clean all blood and innards out of the snapper head and discard the gills also. Rinse the head and wings thoroughly. As you can see, I’ve used one massive snapper head and the set of wings that came with it. I love my local Fishermans boatshed market on a Sunday 😍    Put all the chopped vegetables into your big stock pot with the butter and sweat them over a low heat for 2 minutes, do not allow them to brown.     Add the fish head/s and wings ,if using, and sweat them for a minute more. (As my fish head and wings were so huge, I cut the joined wings in half to fit them in)    Increase the heat to high, pour in the wine and boil vigorously for a few minutes. Pour in the cold water, then add the herbs and simmer gently over low heat for 20 minutes, without allowing the stock to boil at any stage. It will become cloudy if allowed to boil.     I cooked my stock for 30 minutes but only because I wanted to make sure I got everything out of the huge fish head and wings.  Strain the stock through a fine sieve or muslin to give a good clear stock. I used both. Allow the strained stock to cool, then freeze or refrigerate if you are not going to be using it that very day.     I bagged my stock up into 500ml bags with a little left over in a 400ml bag and froze it flat for ease of defrosting when I need it 😀. As I bagged it the day after I made it, it had become all jelly like. Yummy!    You can freeze this stock for up to three months. Enjoy making those lovely soups, stews, risottos and Asian dishes .

Cornish Fairings.

One thing my coeliac sufferer of a husband misses in a biscuit is ginger nuts. Those rock hard but ever so dunkable ginger biscuits. I’m not sure how I got onto this recipe but it is seriously divine even after I made it into a gluten free recipe. It is from the delightful River Cottage website originally. According to Hugh’s site, Cornish Fairings were traditionally sold at Cornish fairs.

First assemble your ingredients.

You will notice if you look carefully that I seem to have two containers of cinnamon in there. I discovered it before I put extra cinnamon in instead of ginger!

Ingredients.

4oz GF plain flour. I used Bobs Mill 1 for 1 .

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp bicarb soda (Recipe originally said 1 teaspoon but it was too much the first time I made these)

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp mixed spice

2 oz brown sugar

2 oz butter

2 tablespoons golden syrup

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Mix the flour, baking powder,bicarbonate of soda and spices in a large bowl. Rub in the butter until it resembles breadcrumbs, then add the sugar.

Next add the golden syrup and mix together, using your hands as its easier, until its a smooth paste.

Roll into balls about walnut size and place on a baking sheet.

Cook for 15 minutes at 180c until biscuits have cracked on top. Then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Hugh’s recipe said to first cook them for 15 minutes at 180c then lower temp to 150c and bake a further 5 minutes. I did this the first time I made these and they burnt! I’ve changed  the recipe to suit my oven but I believe its best for everyone to learn where food cooks best and at what temperature their ovens work best at.

Jason loves these. They are very similar to a gingernut, but I think they taste a lot like those glorious dutch biscuits Speculaas. Bobs Mill 1 for 1 flour is brilliant as it already has the xantham gum added so you can just measure it out like your normal flour for any recipe. You can’t imagine how happy I was when I found this in Solomons Merchants grocery store this morning.

However you make these glorious little biscuits, enjoy them with something you can dunk them in 😀

Goats Cheese and Onion Tart

I have been watching a television show called The Incredible Spice Men and love their style of cooking with spice. I’ve had a go at their caramelised onion and goats cheese tart with a few exceptions. I was unable to source caraway seeds at my local supermarket so unfortunately had to leave them out. I also didn’t have any balsamic vinegar but used Apple cider vinegar instead and it was more than fine 😄
Get all your ingredients together first. I had some lovely gluten free pastry left over from a madras curry pie from the other night and didn’t want to waste that. The extra lactose free cheese you see here wasn’t used in the end as it had mould in it 😝 I hadn’t noticed before assembling the tart. I was just going to sprinkle it on top for an extra cheesy taste. It certainly wasn’t needed.

Make your caramelised onion jam first so it can cool down.
I used,
1-2 tablespoons rice bran oil
85 gm unsalted butter
500gm red onions, sliced
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1-2 heaped tablespoons soft brown sugar
80ml Apple Cider vinegar
I added the oil and butter to the pan till it was foaming then added the onion and a good pinch of salt flakes and ground black pepper and stirred for 5 minutes. Then I added the sugar and the vinegar and mixed in well. I covered the pan and cooked on a medium heat for another 15 minutes. I then uncovered the pan and let the juices evaporate for a further 15-20 minutes till it had reached that lovely jammy consistency.

Bake your pastry case. This was a lovely gluten free pastry from the wonderful blog GF and Me. Best gluten free pastry I’ve tried yet. Recipe is as follows. It is called Mary’s Magnificent Pastry.
Pastry
2 cups of gluten free flour (I used Bobs Redmill all purpose flour)
2 teaspoons xantham gum
1 cup/250gm butter , cubed and cold
1/2 cup sour cream
Pulse in a food processor or rub in with fingers the butter and combined flour and xantham gum until dough comes together in pea sized balls. Add sour cream and pulse until dough holds together.
Knead slightly and make into two balls, wrap in cling wrap and chill for an hour or so.
This amount was what I used to make my madras curry pie and I had some left over that I used a couple of days later for this tart. It kept really well in the fridge.
Line your pie tin, preferably one with a removable base for ease of removal. Prick the base with a fork.
Add baking paper and top with pie beads or beans and blind bake for 15 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius . Remove the beads and bake for another 10 minutes. Now a word of warning here. This pastry is very short and will brown faster than your normal non gluten free pastry. Mine looks well browned but in the final bake with filling I popped foil around the rim of the tart to stop it browning to black! It still tasted lovely but next time I’ll take it out sooner.

Now we assemble the tart!
For the filling you’ll need,
200 gm of goats cheese, crumbled or sliced
2 large eggs
200ml of pouring cream
The onion jam you’ve made earlier.
Layer your onion mix in the base first. Crumble or layer the goats cheese over the top. Then mix together the eggs and cream and pour over the top.

I baked the tart for roughly 30 minutes on 160-180 degrees Celsius but I checked it at 20 minutes as well. I thought it turned out rather well, if a little too brown 😄

The taste was spot on with the sweetness of the onions and the saltiness of the goats cheese melding together nicely. This would be lovely with a nice watercress or mustard greens salad to go with it. Just nice for a spring lunch.
Bon appetit!
PS apologies for the layout of the pictures. For some reason my iPad puts them out of order to what I choose when I choose multiple photos! I’ll have to work out how to fix that.

Gluten free Couscous

I have been surprised and delighted to discover that there is such a thing as gluten free couscous! Jason (Chucky) found it in our local small IGA supermarket (independent grocers association, I think) the other day along with lots of other weird and wonderful GF substitutes for everyday foods he always seems to miss out on. We can’t find it in the two major supermarket chains here in Albany, Australia which are Woolworths and Coles. They have gluten free stuff too but not this. I made some up last night to have with the GF chicken kievs Jason made for our tea. It was super yummy! It’s made out of maize flour and water and has a definite taste of corn, other than that it responds just like wheat based couscous and should go well in salads etc.

To make one serve,
2/3 cup water
2/3 cup GF couscous
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt to taste
Butter

Heat the water in a saucepan till boiling. Add oil and salt.

Turn off heat source and pour in GF couscous whilst stirring.

Cover saucepan with lid and leave to absorb water for 5-6 minutes. When time is up, fluff the couscous up with a fork and mix in a tablespoon or to taste of butter.

I served this yummy couscous with the chicken kievs and it went well with the garlicky chive butter oozing from the chicken.

In a way, it’s probably a fluffy polenta but was texturally exactly the same as it’s non GF relative. Well worth a try 🙂
Bon apetit!

Sweets for my sweet, sugar for my honey….

I follow a most sublime blog called “GF and me” which was created by a wonderful lady with her husband when he became a coeliac sufferer. I  eagerly await each of her posts as she has created wonderful recipes and gluten free pastries that have bought me back from the brink of despair at ever making decent gluten free pastries ever again for my partner who is also a coeliac sufferer. Here is a link to her blog and her delightful recipes 🙂

http://gfandme.wordpress.com/2013/10/05/pumpkin-pie-cheesecake/

Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake

For the base.

1 1/2 cups of Gluten Free biscuit crumbs

( I used a packet of Butterfingers Gluten Free Macadamia Shortbread and a half packet of Freelicious brand Frollini Italian milk cookies)

1/4 cup Butter (or non dairy equivalent if you need)

1/4 teaspoon Cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon ground ginger

Mix the biscuit crumbs and spices together and add the melted butter and mix till combined. Press into a 9 inch (I used a 22cm) spring form pan. Refrigerate base whilst making filling.

 For the filling.

750gm Cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup of sugar (I used Raw caster sugar)

3 Eggs

1 cup of Pureed Pumpkin

1/8 teaspoon Nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit ( Equals 170-176 degrees Celsius)

Blend cream cheese and sugar till lump free. Blend in eggs, one at a time, then spices and pureed pumpkin.

I took the step at this point of fitting my whisk attachment to my Kenwood Chef and gave the mix a good whipping to eliminate any white lumps and then poured the filling over the top of my crumb base. The cheesecake rose up like a souffle on cooking and was extremely light and fluffy on eating 😀

Bake your delicious cheesecake for 50 minutes or until just set.

Yes, it will crack on cooling but only a little and it certainly didn’t affect the taste in any way.

Leave it to cool completely before refrigerating. Tastes great left till next day but we couldn’t wait that long 😀

This is even better served with Pecan nuts either toffee or just roasted and a dollop of cream but we like it just as is.

Bon appetit!

Gluten Free Citrus Kisses.

I’ve been trialling recipes out of the local newspaper recently and found this one for Citrus Kisses. I have adapted it for my partner who has Coeliacs disease and it still turned out really well. I think they’re similar to melting moments in texture.

First get all the ingredients you’ll need prepped. There are not many to find  😀

180gm butter, soft

100gm icing sugar, sifted

1 lime or lemon zest

100gm GF cornflour

180gm Gluten Free Self Raising flour

NOTE : The ingredients also list the juice as well which is why you see it in this picture, however, the recipe didn’t feature it at all so I left it out and it didn’t affect the texture at all.

Butter icing

120gm unsalted butter, soft

140gm icing sugar, sifted

Juice and zest of lime or lemon

Preheat your oven to 170 Celsius and line two baking trays (I used one long one) with baking paper.

In a clean bowl, beat together the butter, icing sugar and zest until pale and fluffy, about 3-5 minutes.

The recipe said to use a spatula to fold in the flours but after trying this and finding it wanting, I just used the electric hand mixer to combine everything in quick time 😀

Roll dough into walnut sized balls and place 5 cm apart on your baking tray and bake for 20-25 minutes or until the edges start to turn golden.

I like fork marks on top of these style of biscuits so I lightly press the back of a fork into the top.

Remove from oven and allow to cool.

To make the butter icing, beat the butter and icing sugar together with the zest (and a little juice if needed) in a clean bowl until light and fluffy.

Sandwich two biscuits together with a generous dollop of the icing and try not to eat them all with a cuppa. They made 10 full biscuits all up though my walnuts must be bigger than the original recipe makers walnuts which came to 15! I think she must have been sizing macadamia nuts 😀

Bon appetit.

Gluten Free Coffee and Pecan Cake.

I have always had a fondness for a nice coffee cake. Especially with walnuts. I went shopping for walnuts the other day and could only find pecans at the local IGA so I jiggered this recipe around (wasn’t hard) and used walnuts and made it gluten free for my beloved who is gluten intolerant.

First thing is to assemble all your ingredients.

2/3 cup (70gm) pecan nuts

125gm butter, unsalted and chopped

1 cup (220gm) raw caster sugar

1/2 cup milk

2 tablespoons instant coffee powder (use a nice one)

1 1/3 cups (200gm) Gluten Free Self Raising flour

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

2 eggs beaten lightly

Pre-heat your oven to moderately slow  (160degrees or 140 degrees celcius fan forced) and grease and line a 11cm x 25cm loaf pan with baking paper.

Chop the pecans reserving half. Combine the butter, sugar, milk and coffee in a small saucepan;stir over low heat until melted. Remove from heat.

Sift the flour and cinnamon into a bowl; stir in beaten eggs, butter mixture and half of the chopped pecan nuts.

Pour mixture into prepared loaf tin.

Bake in moderately slow oven for 15 minutes. Carefully sprinkle cake with the rest of the pecans then bake for a further 30 minutes or until cooked when tested with metal skewer. You could also just pop the reserved nuts on at the beginning and bake for 45 minutes as I don’t believe there would be any difference in the end product.

Allow cake to cool on a wire rack whilst you make the coffee icing.

For the coffee icing;

1 tablespoon boiling water

2 teaspoons instant coffee powder

1 cup gluten free icing sugar mixture

10 gm soft butter

Combine water and coffee in a cup. Sift icing mixture into a small heatproof bowl; stir in butter and enough of the coffee mixture to form a firm paste. Either place bowl over small saucepan of simmering water or zap it in the microwave at 10 second intervals (check every 10 seconds) until icing is of a thin consistency. Drizzle icing over cooled cake and allow to set befroe slicing.

Very enjoyable cake and it lasted about 1/2 a day 😀

Mix and match your nut preference or leave them out if you have a nut allergy and replace them with raisins soaked in coffee liqueur. I will try that next time.

Enjoy friends.

Spiced Crackle Cookies.

These yummy little morsels are Spiced crackle cookies and I found the recipe in the Better Homes and Garden magazine. They could easily be made gluten free by simply substituting the Plain flour with gluten free plain flour. I’ll be making a batch of these for my gluten intolerant partner on the weekend but these were for my work colleagues so I used the real mccoy 🙂

First assemble all the ingredients and do use a set of scales to weigh things with.

Spiced Crackle Cookies.

125gm unsalted butter

350gm brown sugar

1 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 eggs

1 egg yolk

75ml milk (I used pouring cream :D)

75gm dark chocolate, melted (I used Lindt 75% Dessert choc)

350gm Plain Flour (or Gluten Free plain flour)

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

2 teaspoons Baking powder (gluten free)

1 teaspoon mixed spice

100gm walnuts, chopped

1-2 cups icing sugar (Pure, gluten free)

Pre heat your oven to 180 degrees celsius. Line 2-3 oven trays with baking paper.

Put butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer. Beat on medium, using paddle attachment for 5 minutes or until pale. Beat in vanilla, eggs and egg yolk.

Beat in milk and melted chocolate. Sift in flour, cocoa, baking powder and mixed spice. Fold in walnuts. Chill the mixture in the frideg for 30 minutues until firm.

Shape tablespoonfuls of the chilled mixture into balls and roll in the icing sugar.

Arrange on the baking trays spaced evenly apart and bake for 20 minutes or until well risen and firm.

Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Enjoy these. They are very hard to stay away from!

I actually had a really healthy Thai beef salad made by my beloved for my tea.

Bon appetite!