Gluten Free Carrot Cake or Auntie Yvonne’s Passion Cake

Posted on May 22, 2012 by rubyophelia

This is one of those family-loved, tried and tested recipes. It’s gone from auntie, to niece, from mother to daughter and from friend to friend. It’s the recipe we dig out whenever it’s someones birthday and they haven’t specified a cake, or the one we turn to when we have guests coming round and know they’re coming round in advance (this one is best served a few hours or a day after making)

I love making this recipe as it’s so full of nostalgia and the baking process brings back a lot of good memories of eating in my Aunt’s big kitchen, with the parrot squawking away in the background and the AGA heating the place through… even if it was the middle of July and we were all draped around the kitchen after running riot on the beaches. It also brings back later childhood memories of birthdays at my grand’ma’s and parties in our own backgarden, of my sister as a baby and mum making this cake sometime around us having lots of cooing family members around (it has dawned on me that she is super-mum… 2 children under 6, a family of madness and friends popping in… and my own birthday to contend with, but she did it!)

I’ve posted a picture at the top of one of the ‘passings on’ of the recipe… mum wrote it down on a postcard and saved it in one of my favourite things in the kitchen… a ‘cordon bleu’ recipe file that contains all the secrets of her kitchen! I love it! The ‘Happy Anniversary’ picture is the front of the recipe and just shows how much of a celebration this cake symbolises to our family.

I’m honestly not sure why it’s called a Passion Cake… we’ll leave that one up to Aunite Yvonne… but it tastes like love, friendship and brings a smile to everyone’s face who eats it… so maybe that’s where she was going with that one? Anyway, enjoy baking, eating and the reactions you will get for baking this cake.

PS. Sorry for not converting the Oz… I just couldn’t resist leaving them as they are (we have ‘old-fashioned’ scales or as my cousin calls them ‘scales from the Olden Days’ so we have the luxury of being able to leave Oz recipes exactly as they are. You can always find a very useful conversion site here… http://southernfood.about.com/library/info/blconv.htm

PPS. I haven’t made this one healthy… it’s good as it is, but feel free to do the necessary alterations to adjust this to for health-conscious self.

Ingredients

8 Oz Butter

8 Oz Caster Sugar

4 eggs, beaten

8 Oz Gluten Free Self-raising flour

1 Tbsp Kirsch (optional)

8 Oz Carrots, finely grated

4 Oz Ground Almonds

Icing/Decorating (once the cake has cooled)

3 Oz Cream Cheese

Juice of 1 lemon, to be added tsp by tsp

2 Oz Icing Sugar

Chopped Walnuts for decorating the top

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 180 C

1. Grease and line a 20.5cm (8 inches) round cake tin.

2. Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy.

3. Add the egg a little at a time, beating well after each addition.

4. Sift the flour over the mixture and fold in with the lemon rind and juice, reserving 10ml (2 Tsps) juice.

5. Stir in the carrot, almonds and kirsch.

6. Spoon the mixture into the tin and level the surface.

7. Bake in the oven fo 1 hour and 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and cover the cake with foil and bake for a further 15 minutes.

8. The cake is cooked, I promise. Even if a skewer is inserted and comes out with a bit of the mixture on it, it’s cooked, it’s the moistness of the carrots that means you won’t get a clean skewer. Any longer and you’ll ruin the texture of the cake (believe me, I’ve tried it, and those extra 15 minutes you think the cake needs can really ruin it for you… I sound like a woman carrot-cake possessed!!)

9. Leave the cake in the tin for 15 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack until it is cooled. Once cooled, transfer to a cake tin or box and leave overnight before icing (if you have time, if not, it’s no problem, just give it an hour or so before you slather icing on your just-cooked cake!)

10. For the icing – sift the icing sugar into a bowl, beat in the other ingredients until soft and creamy and spread over the top of the cake with a palette knife.

Your cake is ready to enjoy! Over the years, we’ve found the ‘leaving the cake to rest’ parts are invaluable, and, if your cake lasts more than the day you bake it, it tastes better the next day too! So you’ll be eating delicious carrot cake for a few days (if it’s still around!)

Enjoy!

Rubelle’s Moon

No pictures of the cake as I need to get some taken… before anyone eats it next time!

The Foodmentalists Gluten Free Bread Mix

Posted on March 4, 2012 by rubyophelia

What a life saver is all I have to say of this! We were on a family shopping trip yesterday afternoon which seemed to extend to a supermarket trip, which naturally turned the day trip into an early evening one and of course, we were all shattered by the time we were home! One of the things I love about being home is that I get to cook for my whole family, and last night was my night for cooking. I’d offered to make a homemade pizza and also some tear and share garlic bread to go with it. The only problem… time (in all honesty when isn’t this the main problem?!) But, thankfully I had a trusty bag of gluten free Foodmentalists Bread Flour in and I knew exactly what I was going to do.

Also, as I’m now training for my 40 mile bike ride, I’m trying to fit training into my days, so the proving time for the dough provided me with a much needed second (yes second on a weekend!!!) bike ride of the day – granted it was on the exercise bike, so I wasn’t out battling the elements, but I am extremely grateful of any opportunity I have to hop onto my bike. So, all in all, this saviour of a bag of flour provided two wonderful points last night – a happy family as I was able to make some delicious bread to go with the gluten free homemade pizza I made (I made a soya and gluten free plain flour base with sun-dried tomatoes, paprika, ham, mozzarella and pineapple topping).

The only addition to the bread was some melted (my dad will go mad for me saying that as he always implores that butter does not melt, it ‘clarifies’) butter and chopped, home grown garlic. I used three cloves and put them into the butter as it was melting. Then, layered one half of the dough onto a greased tray, poured over a little of the garlic butter, pushing it through the dough at points. Layered on the other half of the dough and repeated the garlic butter drizzle. Then baked in the oven at 200 C for 30 minutes. Delicious!

I served the pizza and garlic bread with salad, coleslaw (gluten free!), beetroot (my absolute favourite at the moment) and a glass of wine! What a wonderful way to round-up a very busy Saturday! Thank you Foodmentalists for your wonderful bread mix! Now… I need to stock up on some more. Here’s where you can get some too…

http://www.foodamentalists.co.uk/

Enjoy!

Rubelle’s Moon

CHALLENGE 4 – Gluten Free Puff Pastry

Posted on November 10, 2011 by rubyophelia

I’ve been wanting to make gluten free puff pastry for SOO long now. And now I realise why it takes so long to make! Wow! But, it is totally worth it, and i’m looking forward to perfecting my recipe! There are some tweaks, bumps and hiccups along the way, but I really enjoyed today as it felt like one of those points where you achieve something! So i’m really happy.

The puff pastry day…

Rubelle’s Moon‘s Puff Pastry:

Dough:
1/2 Cup Sweet rice flour (see my photo for what the packet looks like)
1/2 Cup Flaxseed
1/2 Cup Soya flour
1/2 Cup Gluten Free Plain Flour
1/2 tsp Salt
2 x tsp Xanthan gum
3/4 cup cold water

Here are the flours (in order of the list)

Butter:
3/4 Cup Unsalted butter (take it out the fridge when you set out your ingredients, so it’s somewhere between cold and room temp.)
1 x tbsp Sweet rice flour (see my photo for what the packet looks like)

Instructions:

The Dough-

1. Sift all of the flours into a large mixing bowl with the gum and salt.

2. Make a well in the middle of the flours (etc.) and pour in a little water at a time like this – pour water, gather together, pour water, gather in flour and so on, until you have a dough. Then knead it all together into a ball (don’t over-work it though! This isn’t bread, it just needs gentle encouragement). Tip – keep your hands cold during this so the dough doesn’t become claggy (clogged up/sticky/whatever word your area of the world uses?)

3. Once you’ve got a ball of dough, cover it in cling film and put into the fridge for 1 hour.

The butter:

1. Take a sheet of greaseproof paper about 30x30cm and sprinkle the flour onto it. Place the butter straight on top (not cutting or flattening, it just needs to be a pile o’ butter – see picture). Sprinkle more flour on top of the butter.

2. Put another piece of greaseproof paper on top, take a rolling pin and in stages, flatten down the butter (I gave this lovely task to the boyfriend who enjoyed – I think – this part as it was obvs the most manly part of making puff pastry!!). One flattened to about hand size, remove the top sheet of paper, fold the butter in half on itself and repeat the flattening stage. Repeat this process until you have a finger-thick pat of butter.

3. Shape the butter so it resembles something like the picture below, wrap in clingfilm and chill for 10 minutes maximum – you don’t want the butter to get too cold or too hard! If you make the butter too soon before the pastry is done, just leave it out and then put it in in the last ten minutes (I speak like a pro on this part as this is what we did… I got way too over-excited for the pastry!!)

Assembling the dough and butter:

1. Roll out the dough to 1cm thickness (the pic is halfway through rolling).

2. Put the butter pat into the middle of the rolled out dough and score around it.

3. Cut into the dough up to the corners.

4. Fold the pieces over the butter (be careful as the dough is a little crumbly!)

5. Smooth down the edges.

6. Smooth down the edges of the parcel some more with a little water (that’s floury water there in the shot glass, not murky vodka! Come on!!! This was tricky, but not that bad!)

7. Roll out the pastry – be really careful about this (the butter peeking through the dough is where I was testing to see how much force I could put on the dough, and it really is hardly any, so be so careful and do the rolling little bit by little bit, gradually moving up the dough rather than going from top to bottom!! Bet you’re glad I tried it as now i’m expecting perfect pastry from you!)

8. Finally, fold the dough in three as you would a letter, wrap in clingfilm and put in the fridge for one hour.

9. Remove from the fridge and roll out to 1cm thickness, then fold over three times again. Wrap back in clingfilm and put back into the fridge for one hour. Repeat this three more times. On the final time after rolling, leave in the fridge for two hours or overnight (I think overnight would be best as mine was still a little crumbly after a few hours!)

My notes:

1. Try different flours (need to find a sweet one so think i’ll go to the Chinese Supermarket)

2. No flaxseed – think this made is crumble too much

3. Try to use cornflour for a different texture

3. Leave overnight in the fridge (we only had a day to make this, so I would like to try it again for the time-scale)

The recipes that I researched:

http://www.tarteletteblog.com/2010/04/recipe-gluten-free-puff-pastry.html

http://glutenfreegirl.com/gluten-free-rough-puff-pastry

Here’s the first recipe I tried out with my puff pastry (which I really wish of left in the fridge for longer, but i ran out of time on Sunday -it was already last dinner time- so I’m hoping when I try out the other half it will be better after a night in the fridge):

Beef Wellington

So, it’s a little uneven? So it isn’t all golden and shop-bought-fantastic? I’m proud of my gluten free puffed up pastry! It tasted yum! And i’m going to get better!

I used the recipe from Gordon Ramsay aka Chef Ramsay on the Channel 4 website. Here’s the original recipe:

http://www.channel4.com/4food/recipes/chefs/gordon-ramsay/beef-wellington-07-12-21

I then adapted this recipe to be gluten free by making a few changes! It was absolutley delicious! I know my pastry needs some work, which I’ll be working on soon, but at the moment, i’m happy with my first attempt as it was light and crispy on the outside and soft on the inside (I got that tip from watching the Britain’s Best Dish section on Saturday Kitchen!) So, give it a go! Definitly one to serve up on a Sunday as an alternative to a roast beef.

Gluten Free Changes:

1. Gluten free puff pastry

2. Gluten free mustard

Serving tips:

1. Served with veg as I thought any potato dish would have been too heavy, and i’m glad I did this as I was full but not too full.

2. This dish serves two with veg or I think 4 if you did potatoes and all the trimmings!

Enjoy!

Rubelle’s Moon

Cup(of Honey Nut Loops)Cakes

Posted on October 20, 2011 by rubyophelia

Here’s the recipe that i’ve been harping on about all day. This can be made in a cupcake maker if you have one. They’re good, but I still love making my cupcakes in the little paper cases in the oven – call me old fashioned?

Do you remember Honey Nut Loops? This is my recipe that conjures up the taste of them in one mouthful! Also – i’m doing this recipe in grams because this is a recipe I have committed to memory from being a little girl and making cakes

Ingredients - The Vanilla Cupcakes

150g self-raising flour

100g dairy free margarine (Vitalite or M&S do a great one)

100g caster sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

1 tsp baking

Ingredients - The Golden Syrup Icing

1 tbsp dairy free margarine (see above)

1 cup (yes i’m back to cups again) of icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

1tbsp golden syrup (but have more to hand incase you have a mega sweet tooth like me)

Ingredients - The Crunchy Nut Topping

2 x handfuls of chopped almonds

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

Make time: overall including cake batter, icing and nuts, around 30 mins
Bake time: 20-25 mins

Makes: half a dozen big muffin sized cakes, 12 fairy cakes or as many bath as will go through your cupcake maker (we had 3!!)

Instructions- The Cupcakes

Preheat the oven to 180 C and line a cupcake or muffin tray with the relevant amount of paper or silicone cases

1. Cream together the margarine, caster sugar and vanilla essence in one bowl. (Tip- you should always cream essences and extracts into the margarine/butter and sugar as this pushes the flavouring into the mixture and infuses it better than if you added it with the flour).

2. In another bowl whisk the eggs until they are light and fluffy, do not bang the bowl around as this will knock the air out!

3. Gradually sift the flour, xanthan gum and baking powder over the creamed sugar and margarine, adding a little egg with each amount of flour you sift in. Stir slowly in a figure of eight to make sure you combine everything, again, be really careful not to knock the bowl around too much!

4. Scoop the mixture into the prepared cupcake cases or into the cupcake maker.

5. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes and check on your cakes (don’t be tempted to open the door part way through or you will allow cool air into the cake and it will deflate) if they’re not quite there then give them 5 minutes and check again, test using a cool knife or a skewer/toothpick!

If using a cupcake maker, bake according to the instructions and don’t worry too much about the cakes going golden as they would in an oven as it’s a different way of cooking!

6. Once golden on top/ you’re sure the cakes are baked, remove from the oven and leave in the tray for 5 mins. Then transfer to a wire cooling rack while you prepare your icing and nuts.

Instructions- The Golden Syrup Icing

1. Make up butter cream icing by adding one cup of icing sugar to one tbsp of dairy free margarine. Add one tsp of vanilla essence into this mixture and combine everything together until a smooth creamy icing is created. Feel free to add in more sugar or margarine as you feel is right, I find buttercream is down to personal preference (I’ve found this through the various people I’ve baked with).

2. Add in 1tbsp of golden syrup and mix it all up again. Add more syrup of the taste isn’t quite there for you, but don’t go overboard as it will quickly go from being a delicate hint to being sugar-overload!

3. Once the cupcakes have cooled, place a tsp on icing on top of each cake. Leave to rest while you prepare the nut topping.

Instructions - The Crunchy Nut Topping

1. Preheat your grill to the top temperature.

2. Place some foil onto a baking sheet.

3. In a bowl, coat the nuts in the spices and sprinkle the whole lot onto the foil covered baking sheet.

4. Place under the grill for one minute!!!! (this is so important otherwise you will have these vile tasting bitter lumps of coal and no one likes that… well… maybe someone does?! But I don’t and I really don’t recommend this if you are planning on showing off your gluten free cooking skills – which by the way I cannot say without saying it like SKILLZ… cause for some god unknown reason i’ve taken in something that is on a football programme the boyfriend watches and sadly it has entered my poor, un-football-ised female brain) So yes… UNO MINUTE and then give your tray a little shuffle/shake/shimmy (entirely up to you and highly dependent on your mood and what msuic you have on, but by this time, if you’ve tasted the syrupy icing as much as you should have, then you’ll be sugared up and dancing on the ceiling – yay…)

5. Remove the nuts from under the grill, and while stll warm, sprinkle a 1/2 tsp of them onto the top of each cake.

6. EAT!!! Go enjoy! These need nothing more than a good cup of tea to be enjoyed… or just munch while the tea is being made and then have another with the tea… whatever, we can’t all have self-control…

Enjoy!

Rubelle’s Moon

Gluten Free Peanut Butter CookieScones

Posted on October 17, 2011 by rubyophelia

Do you want a cookie? Or a cake? A scone maybe? This is the recipe for you! This was something I made accidentally-on-purpose during my second year at uni. I was on the hunt for something that would satisfy my sweet craving but that I didn’t have to rush out and re-stock the shelves to make. So after a bit of researching on the internet, as usual, I couldn’t quite find what I was looking for, and so, the CookieScone was born…

You just need to grab the ingredients, throw them in a bowl and after a few minutes in the oven, you’ll have warm cookiescones that are SO nice with a cup of tea or pot of coffee. They’re great to have in and can be frozen so when you have unexpected guests around and you need to impress them with your home-cooking, just grab a batch from the freezer, warm them in the microwave for a couple of minutes, pop them in the oven at 150 C for 10 minutes and you will be the hostess with the mostess in no time (or host with the most… whichever, you’ll impress people whether they can eat gluten or not).

Also don’t feel like you have to use peanut butter, you can sub in gluten free chocolate spread, almond butter, or go experimental, I even put half peanut butter and half jam in once – YUM! PB&J cookies in no time. Or, make the cookies with a little well in the middle and when they’re on the tray, spoon in half a tsp of jam and you have another variaton of PB&J. Add in raisins, nuts, choc chips, blueberries… whatever, this is your chance to go crazy on the experimenting because it is the easiest, most inexpensive recipe ever!

Dairy – use milk

Dairy free – use orange squash (gives a zingy orange taste, but isn’t overpowering)

Make time: 5 or 10 mins (the challenge is set!)

Bake time: 15-20 mins

Ingredients

1/2 cup margarine

1 cup caster sugar

1/2 cup peanut butter (smooth or crunchy, your choice but I use smooth…)

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 cups flour

1 cup diluted orange squash (make it like you would make a cup of squash for the ratio)

1 tsp xanthan gum

1 tsp baking powder

Preheat the oven to 180 C

Instructions

1. In a bowl add the margarine, sugar and vanilla essence. Cream the ingredients together until smooth in texture and cream in colour.

2. Add the xanthan gum and baking powder to the creamed mixture and stir in.

* Here ^ I used Muscovado Sugar as M&S didn’t have any caster sugar in, so I chose this one and it worked really well, so I’d recommend this if you fancy a change! *

3. Add in the flour and stir until the mixture becomes really difficult to mix. At this point begin to gradually add in the orange juice to create a batter, don’t make it pancake like tho! It needs to remain dough-like so be careful with how much juice or milk you add. If you add too much, just add more flour.

* featuring help with stirring from the boyfriend… it gets really tough to stir (or i’m really weak… i’d been at work all day… that’s my excuse and i’m sticking to it!!) *

* the texture of the cookie dough *

4. Grease a large tray.

5. Take a tbsp (or more, depending on how big you want your CookieScones) full of the mixture and roll it on a surface into a ball, place onto the tray and squish down into a 1.5cm thick cookie. Repeat until the mixture is used up.

6. Place the tray in the oven and bake for 10 minutes.

7. Remove the cookies from the oven and flip over. After they have been flipped, flatten down once again.

8. Bake for a further 5-10 minutes until the CookieScone is baked.

9. Remove from the oven and leave on the tray for 5 minute to get a crunchier outside.

* check out how the brown sugar has crystallised a little ^ so yummy *

10. Serve up with tea, coffee, pour custard over the top, dip into your yoghurt, spread some raspberry jam onto your CookieScone or… use the CookieScone to scoop more peanut butter out the jar (I did not tell you to do this…!!!!)

Enjoy!

Rubelle’s Moon

Student Cooking and Baking Week (rubellesmoon.wordpress.com)

Gluten Free Chocolate Fridge Cake

Posted on October 12, 2011 by rubyophelia

It’s Chocolate Week… Big excitement, smiles all round and women up and down the country sending out the men to grab us chocolate? Not.even.exaggerating! If you’re anything like me, the minute you hear about chocolate you want it then and there. But that’s where I’m a little different because I only like and can only tolerate the dark kind (anything else is too much dairy for me and I won’t feel good… Defeats the chocolate eating object!) so I have to send out the search parties for a proper gluten free, dark chocolate mission (call me picky…?).

So with Chocolate Week in mind and my only focus being how much dark chocolate can I fit inside my body in one week, I’ve decided to post up the ultimate indulgent recipe.

Chocolate? Biscuits? Butter? Sugar? Yes to all!!
Warning – this is NOT low fat (not sure how you would even begin to make it that way really…) so eat in moderation or share with your fellow chocolate lovers!

Rubelle’s Moon Chocolate Fridge Cake

Time to put together- 15 mins
Time to leave in the fridge- as long as you can bear to wait but it’s best over the 1 hour mark (I’ve honestly waited this long)

You will need:

2 x large bars of your choice of chocolate (200-250g bars are perfect)
1 cup of margarine or butter
1 cup of icing sugar
2 x packets of Gluten Free digestives (or if you’re going choco-crazy then use choc-chip cookies)

Instructions:

1. Crush up the packets of digestives in a bowl/with a rolling pin/in a folded tea towel/ throwing (closed packet) on the floor?! Whatever your method, get the biscuits broken into little chunks and crumbly bits (great stress reliever too…!)
2. In another bowl break up all the chocolate into small chunks
3. Place a heat proof bowl into a pan of water, fill the bowl with half the broken up chocolate and half of the butter and turn on the heat, stirring the buttery chocolate until it is completely melted
4. Turn down the heat to low and add the icing sugar to the pan
5. Remove from the heat, add the buttery chocolate to the bowl of crushed biscuits and mix everything together immediately
6. Pour the mixture into a greaseproof paper lined brownie tin, press in firmly with the back of a spoon and place into the fridge
7. Now melt the remaining butter and chocolate in the bowl, in the pan of water
8. Remove the tin of biscuit mixture from the fridge, pour the melted buttery chocolate onto the biscuit mixture and place back into the fridge for at least one hour
9. Cut into bitesized chunks and eat while fresh from the fridge

To take with you on the go, wrap in foil and keep cool.

Will keep in the fridge in foil or a tin for 5 days (before the biscuit gets too soft) but don’t keep it in a plastic container as it will sweat (not nice…!)

Enjoy!

Rubelle’s Moon

No gas = No pie… almost!

Posted on October 7, 2011 by rubyophelia

I am ridiculously happy it is Friday, because it means a whole weekend ahead of chilling out, movies, exploring and generallyre-charging my batteries.

This weekend I plan on cooking up some delicious recipes including mussels, prawns and white wine spaghetti, garlic butter dough balls and some kind of spicy dish (undecided although it could be an old favourite of home-made gluten free flour and corn tortillas and fajita mix).

Last night I made my pie with leeks and quorn. It’s a dish that always seems to warm me up and puts a smile on mine and my boyfriends face as it is something I can make on auto-pilot (and if needs be have a glass of wine in the processs) and pop in the oven and have a half hour chill out while it cooks.

Doesn’t that sound idylic? Yepp, I thought so too, until I discovered the gas had gone out! My poor housemate had tried to load the card up on the reader, but as it was her first time to do it, she didn’t quite get it, so after both myself and my other housemate trying to amend the meter, we were back up and running (literally as I am the top flat, so it was a lot of running up and down the stairs). So, the leeks, onions and quorn were all steamed in the microwave and I was so close to making my cheese sauce in the microwave too (something that can be done, but I was quaking in my boots at the thought of doing as, call me old fashioned, I like cooking on a gas oven-top!).

So with all my ingredients prepared using about 5 times more bowls than necessary what with the huge amounts of leeks vs. the tiny microwave oven and the way I cook in general – everything into a separate bowl Blue Peter style – I was away and ready to bake my pie!

The special addition to last night was the use of a Mrs Crimble’s pastry kit – AMAZING. I would definitly get this again as it made everything so easy, the pastry didn’t really need chilling (although I popped it in a plastic food bag and chilled for literally 5 mins) and rolling it out was a dream.

TOP TIP FOR PASTRY ROLLING:

1. take a sheet of greaseproof paper larger than the size you want the pastry to end up and place the pastry in the center

2. place another sheet of greaseproof paper of the same size on top

3. roll to the required size

4. voila, no sticky mess, no need to flour surfaces and the best part – no washing up, just recycle the paper in the paper bank and your rolling pin is clean as it hasn’t touched anything but the paper!

In the end, the pie was yummy, we were both super-happy and warm inside after a day of being freezing with air con still functioning on full in most places after last weeks ‘heatwave’. And we have left overs for dinner tonight!

I hope you all had a more successful start to cooking your dinner than I did! But sometimes, slightly crazy episodes in the kitchen can add to the fun (except for when the fire alarm goes off… but that’s another story…)

Recipes will be loaded up this weekend!

Ruby