New gluten free products

As regular readers of my blog will know, I was diagnosed with Coeliac disease in 2009 and as such, I need to follow a strict gluten-free diet.  I'm always trying new ways of converting recipes and meals into gluten-free versions, and giving new gluten-free products a go.

Recently I'd heard of a company called Ilumi, who offer a range of "free-from" food choices that are gluten-free, nut-free and milk-free, and I was pleased to receive some of their products to try out.  The Ilumi approach is to make tasty dishes with British ingredients, using naturally allergen-free recipes rather than substituting ingredients with alternatives that often affect the end result.  As this is the type of cooking I adopt at home, I was intrigued to try the range.

Chicken Cacciatora | Ilumi

The Ilumi dishes I tried were tasty, packed with flavour and contained plenty of chunky ingredients.  The packaging was clear to understand, with the ingredients list set out on the front of the pack - once you are diagnosed with a dietary condition, you become very skilled at reading ingredients lists thoroughly!  I was also pleased with the convenience of the products - it is very rare that I eat out of the house for fear of cross-contamination or accidental gluten-poisoning, so the last time I went to my sister's house, I took my own lunch with me!

Tom Kha Gai Soup | Ilumi

I only need to worry about gluten-free as part of my diet, but I can imagine that having a nut-free and milk-free range of options to choose from must be fantastic for those who need to follow those dietary restrictions as well.

Sweet Chilli Stir Fry Sauce | Ilumi

The Ilumi website, www.ilumiworld.com, contains lots of interesting and useful information as well as the opportunity to buy the products online for home delivery.  I noticed that they are also offering an introductory discount of £10 off when you spend £20 or more (until the end of June) - I ordered a stock for myself and everything arrived, securely packaged, a couple of days later.

Best wishes
Debbie

Chocolate and Black Cherry Cake

I've been planning this creation in my mind for some time and at the weekend I finally got the baking tins out and came up with this - Chocolate and Black Cherry Cake.  Not quite a Black Forest Gateau, due to the absence of any alcohol, but deliciously chocolatey with fresh cream and black cherries.

My "secret ingredient" on this occasion (i.e. cheat ingredient!) was a tin of black cherries in syrup.

I made a simple gluten-free chocolate cake mix cooked in two 8-inch sandwich tins.  Then I layered together with fresh whipped cream and some of the syrup from the cherries.  I spread another layer of cream over the top and piped swirls of cream all around the edge before filling the space in the centre with cherries and syrup.

I sprinkled crushed chocolate Flake all over the top, too.

I had leftover cherries and syrup, so I made individual versions - chocolate cupcakes topped with fresh cream, cherries and syrup and chocolate flakes.

Delicious!

We took the large cake to my mums for after dinner and needless to say within a couple of days all traces of this cake were completely gone!

Best wishes
Debbie

Success! Chocolate Truffle Cake...

After two days of tears and tantrums, I finally managed to come up with a Chocolate Truffle Cake to be proud of.  This cake took a lot out of me - it was the first time I had attempted the recipe and after my failure on Thursday I was determined it wouldn't get the better of me.  Yesterday I took my time, followed the recipe to the letter and here is the finished result!  This was my first time icing a cake with chocolate ganache, so it took a bit of practise with the palette knife - but I got there in the end.

You can buy fancy icing turntables to help you when you're decorating cakes.  I have a "lazy susan" that I use for icing mine (you can see it in the photograph below) - I picked it up second-hand in the charity shop for a couple of pounds and it has been such a fantastic addition to my stash of cake-making equipment.  I found it particularly useful on this occasion as with the ganache, I needed to turn the cake often to get as smooth a finish as possible.

The recipe for this cake came from the Great British Bake Off "Showstoppers" book, which I received from my lovely husband for Christmas.  I replaced the flour with gluten-free flour and added a little baking powder too for good measure.  My first attempt used real butter, but for my second I used Utterly Butterly spread - who knows if this made any difference, but my second attempt certainly worked out better!

I had dowels left over from making my wedding cake back in 2011, so I used those to stack the 6" cake on top of the 8" cake and finished off with a final layer of ganache.

The birthday party is today - I'm sure my Nana will love her birthday cake.  You may remember the parcel cake I made her last year.  Each birthday I like to try something bigger and better!  Goodness knows what I'm going to do next year for her 80th!!

I've certainly had enough of baking for a while after two days in the kitchen stressing over this - so there will be no more cakes for a while!

Best Wishes
Debbie

Spicy Carrot and Coriander Soup

It's been a while since I shared a recipe, so here's my version of Spicy Carrot and Coriander Soup.  This soup is delicious and easy to make, it freezes very well and costs very little for the ingredients.  With the cold weather we're having, a bowl of warming, spicy soup does the trick at lunchtime!

 Ingredients

Olive oil
2 onions
1/2 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp dried crushed chillies
2.5 litres of chicken stock
1kg carrots
Handful of fresh coriander leaves

Peel and finely chop the onions then fry gently in a little oil for about five minutes, until softened.  Add the garam masala and dried chillies and fry for a further minute or so.  Peel and chop the carrots and add these with the stock to the onions.  Bring to the boil and simmer for about twenty minutes, then allow to cool slightly before blending to a smooth consistency along with the fresh coriander leaves.  Taste and season before serving!

These quantities will make around 8 large bowlfuls- I like to make a big batch like this and put half in the fridge for another time.

Thanks so much for all your lovely comments and emails following my news last week that we're expecting another baby - it's very kind of you indeed to share best wishes and to follow our journey.  The support from strangers has been so overwhelming over the highs and lows of the last year - it means a lot to me indeed, thank you!

Best Wishes
Debbie

Mini Naan Breads

Ever since I was diagnosed with Coeliac disease back in 2009, I've spent a lot of time mastering gluten-free cooking and baking.  I make a LOT of gluten-free cake; but of course, everything else I make is gluten-free too - I just don't blog about it as often!  Gluten-free options are available in supermarkets but these tend to be expensive, so I prefer to have a go at making my own.  This week, I've made naan breads (twice!) and I managed to photograph this batch (the last lot were demolished before I could get my camera out!).  These naan breads got the thumbs-up from the non-Coeliac members of my family, too.

Ingredients

13oz gluten-free plain flour
2 tsp dried yeast
1 tsp xanthan gum
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1oz melted butter
80ml warm milk
150ml natural yoghurt
1 egg

Add all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.  Melt the butter and warm the milk - I add these together in a microwaveable bowl and heat for a few seconds or so until the butter is melted.  Then beat the egg and add this and the butter/milk mixture to the dry ingredients.  Mix with a fork to start with and then use floured hands to bring the mixture together into a dough.  Knead the dough on a floured surface for a few minutes then divide the dough into balls - I aim for around 8-10 balls.  Flatten the balls into teardrop shapes and leave to rest on sheets of tin foil (the size of a baking tray) in a warm place for about 45 minutes.

To cook, simply slide the sheet of foil holding the naan breads onto a baking tray, and cook for a few minutes under the grill on it's highest setting.  Turn over once one side is done and give the naan breads a few minutes on the other side too.  Keep an eye on them the whole time whilst they're cooking - they cook quickly, and you don't want them to burn!

Once cooked, brush the naan breads with melted butter and add a sprinking of salt and pepper, then leave on a wire rack to cool slightly.  Eat whilst still warm, or leave to cool completely then freeze in food bags.  These can be re-heated from frozen under the grill - although I tend to pop mine in the toaster!  These naan breads go great with curry, but are also delicious with homemade soup for lunch.

I make mini naan breads so they are the perfect size for one person, but you could make larger ones to tear and share.  You could add flavours to the naan bread - garlic, mushroom, herbs and spices - please do share the varieties you come up with!

Enjoy these - they are very tasty and so easy to make!

Best Wishes
Debbie

Birthday Cupcakes

I love making homemade cakes as a gift.  On Saturday I went to a friend's house to celebrate her 40th, so I made cupcakes to take with me.  Pink sparkly cupcakes, of course!

I used fairy cake cases rather than cupcake cases, to keep the cakes a reasonable size - sometimes I find that cupcakes made in larger papers, although they look impressive, are really too much to eat in one go!

I used a standard vanilla sponge mix to make my cakes, and baked them for around 15 minutes or so until golden.  I only half-filled the cases so I would have a reasonably level surface at the top of the papers.

I made 20 cupcakes in total and spent a lot of time adding sparkles, hearts and stars.

My latest toy is this set of star-shaped cutters!  I used these to stamp out stars from white and pink coloured fondant icing.  I'm sure these cute little stars will be popping up frequently in my baking in the run-up to the festive period!  I'm planning on covering my Christmas cake in red and green stars.

I had great fun making these cupcakes - can you tell?!

Best Wishes
Debbie

Cherry Bakewell Cake

Recently I have been experimenting with cake flavours (not a banana in sight!) and my latest obsession has turned to almonds and cherries.  I love cherry bakewells, and there is a gluten-free version available to buy in the supermarkets - but £2 for four little bakewell tarts is very expensive and I always prefer to make things at home!  I've yet to try making bakewell tarts (although they're on my list!) so in the meantime here's my adaptation - Cherry Bakewell Cake.

Cherry Bakewell Cake

Ingredients

4oz self-raising flour
4oz butter
4 oz sugar
2 eggs
1tsp baking powder
almond essence
strawberry jam
icing sugar
glace cherries

This is so easy to make!  In a large bowl, beat the flour, butter, sugar, eggs, baking powder and almond essence using a hand mixer until light and smooth.  Add a little milk if necessary.  Pour the mixture into a lined 2lb loaf tin and bake for approximately 25-30 minutes (I used 160c fan).  When cooked, transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Slice in half and spread generously with jam.  Re-assemble, and decorate with glace icing and glace cherries.

A delicious cake that has all the flavour of cherry bakewells in a light, fluffy sponge.

Enjoy!

Best Wishes
Debbie

Chocolate Cake

It's not often I make a chocolate cake.  I prefer to make vanilla sponge, as it's my favourite!  But a special request from the children for chocolate cake resulted in this birthday creation.

I made up a sponge mix as normal using 8-8-8-4, but replaced one ounce of flour with one ounce of cocoa powder.

The chocolate frosting recipe came from my Twitter friend Kirsty (@curlyb56) and it was delicious!

Ingredients

350g milk chocolate
225g unsalted butter
1 tbsp milk
250g icing sugar

Beat the butter, milk and icing sugar together until pale and fluffy.  Melt the chocolate in a separate bowl, then add to the butter and icing sugar mixture until thick and creamy.  Use this frosting to sandwich and top the cake.

I used giant chocolate buttons to decorate the top.

Best wishes
Debbie

Slow Cooked Chilli Beef

As the weather turns colder my cooking changes and we return to comforting, warming foods in our house.  The slow cooker is brought out from the back of the cupboard and I feel the urge to eat a lot more stews and casseroles.

I make chilli con carne all the time, but I found a recipe in Lisa Faulkner's book Recipes from my Mother for my Daughter that I thought I'd adapt to become Slow Cooked Chilli Beef.

Ingredients

400g diced beef
400g lean steak mince
200g chorizo, sliced
2 onions, chopped
4 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp paprika
1 dried red chilli, chopped
2 tins of chopped tomatoes
1 tbsp tomato puree
2 tbsp tomato ketchup
3 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp sugar
1 tin of kidney beans, drained
1 tin of baked beans, rinsed
salt and pepper

I browned the diced beef and the mince first and added to the slow cooker.  I cooked the chorizo and used the oil from that to soften the onions and garlic.  I added these and all the other ingredients to the slow cooker, gave it all a good mix round and left to cook on the low setting for 10 hours.

We ate the chilli beef with rice and tortilla chips.  Spicy, tasty and warming on a blustery, wet autumn evening!

My little lady turned 7...

Last week we celebrated Lizzie's 7th birthday.  Wow, 7 years old - how did that happen?!  Blink, and you'll miss it. It's very true indeed; enjoy your children, every day, as they grow up far too quickly.

Last year's birthday cake was probably more technically challenging, but this year's is perhaps more visually impressive!  These are edible rice paper butterflies (I bought them on eBay) and I applied them to the cake using pink royal icing.  Lizzie was certainly impressed - and that was the most important thing.

I made this with vanilla sponge, strawberry jam and buttercream filling, and fondant icing.

Ingredients

6oz self-raising flour (I used gluten-free)
6oz caster sugar
6oz butter
3 eggs
1 tsp baking powder
vanilla essence

Combine all the ingredients using a hand mixer and add milk as necessary to achieve a smooth, dropping consistency.  Split the mixture between two lined, 8" cake tins and bake for around 25 minutes (I use 160 degrees in my fan-assisted oven).  Once cool, add the filling and then the fondant icing.  Decorate as you wish!

Best Wishes
Debbie

Garlic Breaded Turkey Escalopes...

There's not many gluten free-breaded products available to buy in the supermarkets.  Fortunately, it's easy and affordable to make these sorts of things at home, and probably a lot healthier too!  Yesterday I came up with these: Garlic Breaded Turkey Escalopes.  I made mine gluten-free, but of course you could use any type of breadcrumbs you like.

Here's how I did it!

Ingredients

• Breadcrumbs
• Dried parsley
• Garlic salt
• Salt and pepper
• An egg
• Flour
• Turkey breast steaks

I made my breadcrumbs by hand; I grated a gluten-free roll into a bowl using a hand grater.  I added seasoning, parsley and garlic salt for flavour.

Then I beat the egg into another bowl and set up a third bowl with some gluten-free flour in it.

I dipped each turkey steak into the flour, then the egg, then the breadcrumbs, ensuring they were evenly coated at each stage.  Then I placed the steaks on an oven tray lined with tin foil.

I baked these in my fan assisted oven at 170C for 15-20 minutes until golden.

There were five turkey steaks in the pack, so I prepared them all and the remaining three have been frozen for another day; I'll cook these direct from frozen as required.  Tip: open-freeze the escalopes on a chopping board first - this keeps them flat, so they can then be wrapped individually or stored in food bags until needed.

We served ours with potatoes and vegetables on this occasion.

Tasty, healthy and easy to make!  And a real treat to have breadcrumbs when you have coeliac disease!

Best Wishes
Debbie

Pineapple Upside Down Cake...

I bought a fresh pineapple last week and yesterday we had a go at turning it into Pineapple Upside Down Cake at the special request of my husband.  My daughter helped out with the photography for this blog post - and of course she licked the spoon afterwards!  Well, she is only six!  I'm sure you'll agree, she did a great job snapping away whilst I did the mixing and making.

Here's how we did it!

Ingredients

• Rings of pineapple
• Glace cherries
• Golden syrup
• 4oz sugar
• 4oz butter (we used Flora Light today)
• 8oz self raising flour (we used Glutafin white mix)
• 1 tsp of baking powder
• Splash of vanilla extract
• 2 eggs, beaten

We greased an 8in cake tin and drizzled golden syrup over the base, before arranging the pineapple rings and cherries.  Then we simply whisked together all the cake ingredients using an electric hand mixer, and poured this carefully over the fruit.

We baked the cake for 30-40 minutes in the centre of the oven - 160C (fan assisted).

Once cooked, we sliced the dome off the top to give a level surface.  We tasted this "spare" piece of cake for quality control purposes (of course!).  Then we carefully tipped out the cake onto a cake stand and left it to cool.

The syrup at the bottom of the cake tin made the top of the cake and the fruit caramelised and sticky.  Yum!

The final result - sweet and delicious with a lovely light and fluffy sponge.  Delicious and so easy to make!

Best Wishes
Debbie


Updated: Glutafin liked my recipe so much, they added it to their website here! 

Banana and white chocolate muffins

My mum gave me some bananas that were too ripe for her.  My first thought was "banana bread!" but since I make this all the time (recipe here), I decided to give banana and white chocolate muffins a whirl.

This is how I did it; although I made it up as I went along to be honest!  The muffins ended up more cake-like in texture than muffin-like - but still, perfectly delicious nonetheless!

Ingredients:

2 very ripe bananas, mashed
6oz soft butter/margarine (I used Flora Light)
6oz sugar
2 beaten eggs
100g bar of white chocolate (I used Tesco Value)
8oz-9oz self raising flour (I used Glutafin gluten free white mix)
1.5 tsp baking powder

To make the cakes:

I creamed the butter and sugar together and added the two beaten eggs a bit at a time along with some of the flour.  My little lady mashed the bananas with a fork whilst I did this!  Then I added the remaining flour, the baking powder, the mashed banana and the chocolate, which I'd cut up into small chunks.  My daughter mixed this all together for me.  You may need to add extra flour depending on how wet your bananas are!

From this mixture I filled 12 muffin cases and 12 fairy-cake cases (muffins for the adults, fairy cakes for the kids!).  I baked them in the centre of my fan assisted oven at 160C for about 20 minutes.

After they cooled, I melted another 100g bar of white chocolate and added a dollop to the top of each cake.

The only downside to these muffins - the white chocolate chunks sunk to the bottom; not that this was a huge problem, but next time I think I'll chill the bar of chocolate first, and grate it rather than cutting into chunks, to see if this will allow the chocolate to be more distributed throughout the cakes.

Very tasty!

Best Wishes
Debbie

Iced banana cake...

I'm a big fan of banana cake and have made it many, many times in different forms - as regular readers of my blog will know!  If you missed it first time around you can read about my other efforts here - Banana muffins and Banana loaf cake. Today I made a banana cake in a square cake tin rather than a loaf tin, and I drizzled some icing on top once it had cooled.  The end taste is pretty much the same, but as I was planning to take this to work I thought I'd enhance the presentation!

This is the recipe I used this time.  All quantities are doubled, as I made this in an 8in square tin - but you could easily halve the quantities and use a 2lb loaf tin instead.  I opted for the bigger cake as I had a lot of bananas to use up!

4 very ripe bananas, mashed with a fork
2 large eggs
300g self-raising flour
2tsp baking powder
110g butter
200g sugar

The whole lot goes in a big bowl and is whisked together with an electric hand mixer before pouring into the cake tin.  An hour in my fan-assisted oven at 160C did this cake just nicely.  I left it to cool before drizzling over some plain glace icing.

As always, I made a gluten-free version, so I used white mix in place of flour, along with gluten-free baking powder.  The white mix I'm using at the moment is supplied by Glutafin - it's great for Coeliacs as it's fortified with calcium and folic acid.  You can read about the product here in more detail if you'd like to know more - one of my readers enquired about this mix the last time I mentioned it.

The butter I used on this occasion was Aldi's "Beautifully Butterly" - their version of "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" - simply because the last food shop I did was at Aldi!  Generally I buy whichever butter spread is on offer.

After my husband and I had completed the necessary "quality checks" and were satisfied that the cake was fit for consumption by others (not that I ever really doubted it would be) I split the cake in two and boxed them up, ready for one to go to work with me. 

Every now and again I like to take in treats for my colleagues!

Best Wishes
Debbie

Simple Supper: Pasta with Mature Cheddar and Spring Onion

After a busy day yesterday, a quick dinner was in order.  I whipped up some pasta with cheese and onion sauce, with garlic bread on the side.  Delicious - and so quick and simple to make!

First I made up the garlic bread.  I always keep a tub of homemade garlic butter in the fridge - just using Utterly Butterly or whatever butter spread I happen to have, I mix some of this up with chopped garlic, parsley and seasoning and leave it in a tub in the fridge until I need it.  The tub is clearly labelled of course to avoid any garlic-on-toast mishaps!

For my garlic bread today I used a mini gluten-free part-baked baguette - sliced up, spread with garlic butter and wrapped in foil, then popped in the oven.

I put the pasta on to cook and then in a frying pan I added some frozen spring onions.  I regularly check out my fridge, and anything that looks like it's going to go past its best before I get the chance to use it, gets popped in the freezer.  As was the case with the spring onions - chopped up and frozen in a food bag for another day.  On a low heat I melted into the pan a dollop of Philadelphia cream cheese along with a splash of milk, a handful of grated mature cheddar and some seasoning.  I stirred until the lot was melted together into a lovely, creamy sauce - this only took a couple of minutes.

Then I drained the pasta and popped it into the sauce, mixing the whole lot through together.

I had extra cheese on mine... with the garlic bread on the side.

This is a very easy way to make a gluten-free cheesy sauce, as there's no flour to think about.  It's lump-free, too!

Best Wishes
Debbie