Gluten Free Sticky Orange Tart

Posted on March 12, 2012 by rubyophelia

This could have been a complicated title… it’s orangey, it’s an oaty shortbread, it’s got mincemeat in it and the topping is orange streusel (made it up and ohmylife it works sooo well!!). But let’s keep things simple, let’s call it Sticky Orange Tart and we’ll all know what goes into the making of this (even more so if you make it… just try not to eat the mixture as you go! Hard I know, but delicious if you wait!)

How do you make this tray bake? Easily!! Despite all the things the recipe seems to be made up of, it really is an incredibly simple bake and one that I made and baked in under 3/4 of an hour! Perfect for a Sunday Afternoon bake, ready to have with your Sunday Roast. Amazing to make on an evening and take to work the next day, or you could make it up at the start of the week, cut it into bars and have it as a yummy alternative to flapjack for lunch boxes and hungry, busy people!

As with the majority of my recipes, it is relatively low-fat, naturally it is gluten free, but this one is dairy free too! Win!

When Caleigh mentioned making an orange recipe, I wondered how I would come up with one in such a short space of time, but I realised I had one recipe in my head that I’ve been mulling over for a good month or so, so it seemed like high time to ‘premiere’ this recipe right here for the wonderful ‘Orange’ theme of this month’s ‘Gluten Free Recipe Challenge’.

You’ll need mincemeat for the recipe, which you can either buy (but make sure the one you do get is glutenfree and if you’re a vegetarian that it’s suet free too) or you could make your own, following this fab recipe that I used over Christmas (click this link). The mincemeat I’m using in this recipe is from my Christmas batch would you believe?! It’s lasted this long/I made so much plus mum got given some from people in her class too, so we have a lot in the house! And, let’s face it, March is not the time to be mince pie making… too many confusing smells and sights for my brain to get round… mince pies are for December. Any other time and I start getting Holiday Confusion (I also get this when the January sales go on too long/bikinis start being sold in February/Easter Eggs are placed next to Christmas decorations!)

Orangey-Oaty Biscuit Base

Ingredients

130g Gluten Free Porridge Oats

50g Gluten Free plain flour, plus extra for dusting

75g Low Calorie Sweetener

1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda (make sure it’s Gluten Free)

1/2 tsp Lo Salt

110g Dairy Free Margarine

Zest of half a large orange

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 160 C
1. Whizz the oats with a hand blender until you have a fine oatmeal texture

2. Add the remaining ingredients and blast with the hand blender again until the mixture is just starting to come together and add in the zest of half a large orange.

3. Then take a spatula or spoon and continue to bring the comes together… you’ll need to put quite a bit of effort into this as the oats are a little more tricky than flour to bind (but remember it’s all worth it for the end taste, promise!)

4. Press into the prepared baking tin and bake for 10 minutes or until the biscuit base has begun to firm up. Remove and allow to stand while you prepare the streusel topping (this needs to stand as the base needs to cool a little before the topping is added).

5. Leave the oven on but turn it up to 180 C… you’re going to need it in a few moments time…

Orangey Streusel Topping

Ingredients

2 tbsp Gluten Free plain flour

4 tbsp Golden Caster Sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

30g Dairy Free Margarine, chilled

Zest of half an orange

Instructions

1. Put all of the ingredients into a bowl, and stir continuously until a paste is formed, you need to work it quite a lot and a silicon spatula is the best tool for the job!

Assembling the tart…

1. Take the tray of baked orangey-oaty base and cover with mincemeat, don’t be too liberal with your coating, this isn’t a pie filling, it’s a topping and remember that mincemeat spreads when it’s cooked! So use your best judgement and take a look at my pictures for an idea of how much!

2. Using two spoons, scoop the orangey streusel topping onto the mincemeat so that it is completely topped with it. Don’t worry about little gaps as the streusel also spreads so these will become engulfed in the syrupy orange goodness.

3. Put the tart into the oven and bake for 15 minutes at 180 C then turn the oven down to 130 C and bake for another 10 minutes.

4. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tray for half an hour and then turn out onto a plate and served cool or leave in the tin and serve up!

Enjoy!

Rubelle’s Moon

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

Gluten Free Red Velvet Cupcakes

Posted on March 4, 2012 by rubyophelia

When I was doing my MASSIVE BAKING MISSION for my sister’s birthday last week, I decided to make quite a few different cakes and eats and treats for all the people who were round! I had to account for all the allergies and intolerances in attendance, so, along with the Berry Cheesecake I made, I also decided that (because I’m a ridiculously good sister or because I am ridiculously obsessed with baking… your choice…) I needed to make two more cakes! Granted the other cupcakes were the delicious Mrs Crimbles cake mix, made into vanilla cupcakes, but this one, this one is my own adaptation of a well known and widely replicated Red Velvet Cupcake recipe.

Now, before I go ahead and tell you the recipe, I’ll let you into a secret that will probably define me as ‘freak’ among many of you – I haaaaate chocolate cake. With a passion. Like… if it’s there and it’s the only sweet thing, I won’t have dessert and if someone requests a cake for their birthday and then requests chocolate, I will do everything I can to convince them otherwise. So, why I hear you ask is it that I’ve gone for the Red Velvet cupcake?!?! You’re crazy, I can tell you’re thinking. But no, I am not crazy (well maybe a little, but not on this one), I just know that once upon a time, the boyfriend surprised me and brought me a Red Velvet CupCake home in it’s own little box and it was theeee most delicious thing ever! So, with that fond memory, I decided to make some of my own!

This recipe is a low calorie version as I was making so many cakes I thought I’d do my bit for the old waist-line!! But if you want to make it ‘full fat’ then drop me an email and i’ll help you on your way! The original recipe called for a baking time of 20 minutes, but if I’m honest, I would take them out at 15 and leave to cool as I like a moist cake, and for me that is the main hold back from chocolate cake!! Anyways… on with the recipe…

Ingredients

120g I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter, Light

300g Sweetener

2 eggs

20g cocoa powder (make sure it’s gluten free!)

40ml red food colouring

1tsp Vanilla Essence

240ml Low Fat Natural Yoghurt

300g Gluten Free plain flour (I used Asda‘s Free From)

1tsp salt 1tsp bicarbonate of soda

3tsp white wine vinegar (Make sure it’s gluten free!)

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 170°C

1. Cream together the light butter and sweetener with a wooden spoon and then beat together using a whisk until it is really smooth and light.

2. In a small bowl, combine the cocoa powder, red food colouring and vanilla extract to make a paste. I used a small teaspoon and really pushed the colour into the cocoa powder to ensure an even spread.

3. Add the coloured paste to the butter mixture and using your whisk, mix thoroughly until the red colouring is blended evenly through the butter mixture. As you mix, have a spatula to hand and keep scraping down the sides to make sure you have an even distribution of colour.

4. Grab your wooden spoon again slowly pour in half the buttermilk. Continue mixing, and as you do, add in half the flour. Mix really well until everything is incorporated. Now add in the other half of the buttermild and flour and continue to mix slowly, using the same technique of scraping down the sides every so often to keep all the mixture in the bowl!

5. Once all the ingredients are folded in, really mix it up to beat through the air. Into this mixture, you need to add the salt, bicarbonate of soda and vinegar (if you’re baking with children they will love the ‘fizz’ at this point in the recipe! Or if you’re a big kid like me, you’ll love it too!!)

6. Beat until well mixed, then give the mixture one last, really big mix (this is an arm-toning recipe too!! My arms were accccching afterwards!! You can use your food mixer if you have one, but you will not have arms of a mixing queen like me! I don’t… I still need to go to the gym…)

7. Spoon the mixture into the paper cases until two-thirds full and bake in the preheated oven for 20–25 mins, or until the sponge bounces back when touched. A skewer inserted in the centre should come out clean.

8. Leave the cupcakes to cool slightly in the tray before turning out onto a wire cooling rack to cool completely.

Frosting

The original recipe, and most Red Velvet recipes to be honest, call for cream cheese frosting, but as I was catering for someone who cannot cheese and wasn’t sure about Lacto-free or Dairy Free cream cheese, I thought it would be best to go with a buttercream frosting. So just make up a standard amount of buttercream frosting and use that to decorate your cupcakes once they are completely cooled.

Red Sugar

To make the red sugar that I used to decorate my cupcakes, I added 3 drops of red food colouring to 3 tbsp of caster sugar (you can use granulated if you want!), mix it up until all of the sugar is coated and is red. Then, store in a container if you have leftovers. This will last for ages, so don’t worry if you don’t use it all!

Assembling the Cupcake Stand

Here is my cupcake stand being assembled. I really recommend getting one if you have a party to cater for. It looks great and they collapse back down again for easy storage! Plus, if you look around, you can probably get one for under £10!

Enjoy!

Rubelle’s Moon

Gluten Free Pink Lady Apple, Cinnamon and Oaty Cookies

Posted on February 5, 2012 by rubyophelia

I baked these for my sister to photograph. She’s really keen on Photography after getting a wonderful camera for Christmas, and since then we’ve been meaning to collaborate our interests and this recipe was the perfect excuse! We both love Pink Lady apples, so rather than using the suggested Cake Days ingredients of Granny Smith apples, I switched to the Pink Lady ones! The hope was that this would produce a sweet and soft cookie.

The wheat and gluten free oats were from Sainsbury’s. I’ve tried theirs and Asda‘s ones and both have been fine and not given me any bad reactions, so in my opinion, you could use either. If you have any Free From oats suggestions, please shout out!

Ingredients

100g Dairy Free Margarine

35g Apple Sauce

80g caster sugar
80g sweetener
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla essence
100g Gluten Free Plain Flour

90g Super Fine Rice Flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 Pink Lady Apples, (peeled, cored and grated, then squished so that all the juice is removed and discarded – or drunk! V yummy! – set these aside)
60g Gluten Free Oats

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 170 c

1. Cream together dairy free margarine, caster sugar and sweetener with a balloon whisk. Add in the egg and vanilla essence and continue whisking (or use a stand mixer/hand held electric whisk to really get the air in)

2. Add gluten free plain flour in two batches, sieving in each time to keep the mixture light. Add in the salt, ground cinnamon and bicarbonate of soda as you sieve the flour.
Keep mixing until you have a dough.

3. Take the apples you peeled, cored, grated and drained (just squish down on the grated apples until all the juice is running out!)

4. Add the gluten free oats and the grated apples to the dough and stir in really thoroughly using a spoon. Use a spatula from time to time to scoop the mixture down from the sides!

Here’s some pictures of the making process…

5. Line two baking sheets with baking paper and then take two tsp sized balls of the dough, roll it into balls (flour your hands first!) and place on the trays with 4cm space between each cookie. Pat the cookies down a little, but don’t flatten completely!

6. Place into the oven and bake for 15-20 min or until the cookies are a light golden brown.

7. Leave to cool and set for about 10 min before transferring them to a wire rack.

Enjoy!

Rubelle’s Moon

Gluten Free Coffee and Chocolate Cake

Posted on January 24, 2012 by rubyophelia

Please don’t be put off, this is not coffee tasting AT ALL! I’m sure you could add a really strong coffee, but I was a little dubious so didn’t go for full-on coffee flavour, and this suited the whole family and friends who got to try a bit too! Yummy and not too dense, I feel like my cake-baking is getting better even after these few Cake Days recipes… we shall see once I start decorating!

I didn’t do any extra flour additions for this one, I just used a straightforward bag of Gluten Free Plain Flour from Doves Farm and went with it. I think another time I’d like to try making my own flour mix as I found that this was a really great way to become familiar with all kinds of alternative gluten free flours, and it gives a different texture to what you might be expecting. So… keep a look out for my recipes with different flour mixes, like my gluten free Apricot and Almond cookies… soo moreish… I made THREE batches each with a different mix and they got munched in no time!

This recipe is also great for a quick(ish… it does need one hour to bake) one to do as, all the ingredients get blended up, put in a greased tin and then once it’s cooked, you let it cool (if you can wait that long!) and that’s it… no icing required! I love it when a simple recipe is really great tasting!

Coffee and Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

190g Dairy Free Margarine

130g Gluten Free Plain Flour

190g Soft Light Brown Sugar

3 Eggs

60g Cocoa powder (make sure it’s gluten free!!)

1 Tsp baking powder

20ml milk – soya, skimmed or whichever milk you usually use!

1 tablespoon strong coffee (brewed and cooled… I made up a mug of coffee and made it really strong then took a spoon of coffee out of it… I hope this was right, but there wasn’t really any guidance on how this was best done. I think it you want a stronger coffee taste, just make a reeeeeally strong cup of coffee!)

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 170 C

Spritz some spray oil into the loaf tin (I used a silicon one after a lot of recommendations) and then sprinkle some flour into the ‘tin’ and give it a shake so that the inside is lightly coated.

Cream together the butter and sugar (take it from this point onwards that I will be creaming and mixing by hand until further notice… I am still awaiting the arrival of my birthday and hopefully, fingers crossed a mixer of some description will be winging it’s way to me… we shall see)
Scoop down all the mixture from the sides with a spatula, then gradually beat in one egg at a time into the mixture. Between each egg, be sure to keep scooping down the mixture as it will hit the sides and you’ll end up with an uneven mix!
Sift the flour, cocoa and baking powder into the mixture, pour in the milk and coffee and mix everything in really well with a spatula – make sure you mix until everything is cocoa coloured and be really exact with this as their tends to be cheeky bits of un-cocoa-ed batter and that is not the look we are going for here!
When the batter is smooth, tip it into the loaf tin you greased and floured earlier on, then bake in the oven for 1 hour or until a knife/skewer comes out clean from the centre. A tip if you’re using a silicon loaf tin is to stand it onto a tray as, because the silicon is flexible, it can be a nightmare to get in the oven, so it’s good to stand it on a tray and slide it in, also it means the loaf tin won’t fall in the slats (is this the right word??) of the oven shelf!
Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and allow to cool completely (if you can wait that long…)

Best enjoyed with a cup of tea and a good book!

This one went down really well with my gluten-eating family, although by now, they’re pretty much loving all of the gluten free alternatives I bring home as they find they taste a lot lighter.

Enjoy!

Rubelle’s Moon

HomeMade Bread Day – CornBread

Posted on November 18, 2011 by rubyophelia

Here’s the corn bread recipe I looked at (it seemed pretty similar to the one I used before, so I went with this as the start-off):

http://www.dietandfitnesstoday.com/recipe.php?recipeid=279

And then, I went ahead and made my own up! Woop!

Ingredients

2 Cups fine Cornmeal (check the label as some are now showing allergens!!)

2 Cups Dove’s Farm Gluten Free Plain White Flour

6 tsp Baking powder

1.5 tsp Salt

2 Eggs

1 and 3/4 Cup Milk (I used Skimmed, but i’ve made it with soya before and it’s fine!)

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 170 C and spray a deep baking tray (A brownie baking tray is the best way I can describe the size and depth) with spray oil (my top tip at the moment to avoid messy greasing of trays!)

1. Sieve in the cornmeal, plain flour, baking powder and salt into a large mixing bowl and stir through with a fork to combine the ingredients.

2. Break the eggs into the dry mixture, pour over the milk and mix it all up.

3. Pour the mixture into the prepared baking tray.

4. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes.

5. Remove and either enjoy warm with my Vegatable Chilli or with my homemade Chilli Jam.You can also serve it re-heated! I don’t recommend it cold as it is a little dense, so either warm in the microwave for a minute or back in the oven at 50 C to warm through.

Additions

1. Add a small chopped chilli to the mixture for a spicy kick.

2. Add a tbsp of red pesto for an italian twist.

3. Add 3 or 4 chopped sundried tomatoes for a really delicious addition.

4. Add your own and let me know about it!

Enjoy!

Rubelle’s Moon

Gluten Free Piccalilli

Posted on November 16, 2011 by rubyophelia

I had to have a go at making my own Piccalilli… it’s one of those things you’ve just got to do! Yes it might be cheaper to buy it in the supermarket, but to be honest, nothing is as satisfying as having a jar of something you’ve made to hand! And now, I can add piccalilli to my growing list of homemade jars of deliciousness!

I put the question of what else could I put into my hamper to my lovely followers on Twitter, and a lot of chutney and biscuit suggestions came in, but one that stoof out to me was the Picalilli one from Caleigh (@glutenfreek). Here is the original recipe:

http://gluten-freek.blogspot.com/2011/08/pickling-party.html

Substitutes and notes

1. As I couldn’t find Arrowroot anywhere, and I had my mum’s original Piccalilli to hand, I was able to use 1tbsp gluten free plain flour with a 1tbsp of cornflour to make a substitute!

2. Because it’s natural colouring, don’t expect to see that god-awful highlighter yellow colour you see in the jars you buy in the supermarket.

3. The texture will also be different from your average supermarket jar of piccalilli so don’t expect a gooey, thick sauce when you jar it up!

Here’s a picture of some of the vegetables I added… love the colours and love them even more when they’re all covered in turmeric and in their jars…

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

Birthday Banan-za Cake

Posted on November 7, 2011 by rubyophelia

I made a gluten free birthday cake this weekend! This is one of my favourite things to make as, before I had to cut wheat and gluten out, I always wanted to be a good cake baker, but could never seem to get my cakes to rise! But now, whether it’s down to practice or age, I don’t know, but it seems my gluten free cakes rise every single time! Happy days!!

Anyway I made this cake and, as a special request it was a banana cake but since I made my Cheeky Monkey cake a few weeks ago, I thought i’d change it up and add in some gluten free Coco powder, use ground almonds in the recipe and also add in dark chocolate – yum! My favourite is dark chocolate (i’m on a quest to find my favourite at the moment, so suggestions would be brilliant!) so I thought dark chocolate and banana go really well together and I came up with this recipe (I used a few of my existing cake recipes mixed with some useful hints and tips from other books and blog to get the quantity right/double-check my idea would actually work):

Birthday Banan-za Cake

Ingredients

1 and 1/2 cups Gluten free plain flour
1/4 Soya Flour (this is available in health food shops)
1/4 Ground almonds
1 x tsp Gluten free baking powder
1 x Cup Dairy Free Margarine
1 x Cup Caster Sugar (I like the organic one from M&S – it’s got a nice, natural golden colour to it)

2 x tsp Vanilla Essence
4 large, beaten eggs

1/2 cup Gluten Free Coco powder

1/2 cup Gluten Free dark chocolate based up into chunks (or use choc chips if you prefer tiny pieces)

2 small ripe bananas – mash these up to a puree

Instructions

Preheat oven to 200 C and grease a loaf tin

1. In a large bowl, sieve together the flours, ground almonds and baking powder four times to fully incorporate the baking powder (I read this somewhere and thought ‘Who has time for this?!’ But I made time, and it really shocked me how many tiny pieces of almond weren’t sifted through each time! So i’m glad I did it as it made the flour-mix so light when I mixed it in.)
2. Place the vanilla essence, the margarine and caster sugar into another large bowl and cream together (by this stage I think my arms were about to give in after all the baking of the day, so I got the boyfriend to give it a good mix, alternatively, if you do not have a man hanging around your kitchen because a)no rugby b)no F1 c)no football or d)they have smelled food cooking so are on hunter-gatherer alert, then feel free to cream the margarine and sugar in the more conventional – and less demanding – food mixer)

3. Start to add the beaten eggs into the mixture and slowly beat the eggs into the creamed mixture. (Don’t worry if it looks like it’s separated, it’s because of the margarine, but I wanted this to be lower in fat in terms of butter use and also with my bloody Sinusitus, I need to cut back on the dairy side of life…)

4. Add in the chunks of chocolate (or chips) and the mashed banana, sieve in the coco powder and fold these ingredients into the egg and creamed margarine mixture.

5. Finally, fold in the flour until everything is completely mixed in (avoid banging the bowl at this stage to keep as much of the air in the batter as possible. Pour the cake batter into the cake tin and bake for 40 minutes.

NOTE: I’d recommend checking the cake after 30 mintues and t

hen turn the heat down if it is cooking too quickly on the outside (the banana makes the cake cook much slower, and a knife stuck into the cake will not come out clean straight away as the banana and chocolate make for a gooey cake that need to ‘rest’ for a while in the tin when it comes out of the oven.)

Once the cake is removed from the oven, leave it in the tin on a wire cooling rack for up to 1 hour or until the tin is cool to touch.

Let me know how you get on!

Enjoy!

Rubelle’s Moon

Cheeky Monkey Cake (rubellesmoon.wordpress.com)

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