Category: recipe

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Gluten Free Red and White Cake

This is a tasty but colourful loaf cake.

The recipe is based on the weight of two eggs

Ingredients

      • 3 standard eggs
      • Take the same weight of two of the eggs of soft butter
      • Take the same weight of two of the eggs in caster sugar
      • Take the same weight of two of the eggs in self-raising gluten-free flour
      • Vanilla essence
      • Yellow food colouring
      • Red food colouring

Cream the sugar and butter until you have a smooth consistency.

Beat the eggs, add some vanilla essence. I then added a little yellow food colouring to brighten the cake mixture.

Stir the eggs into the creamed butter and sugar with some of the flour, until the mixture is smooth and consistent.

Then fold in the remaining flour until it is combined with the rest of the mixture.

Spoon half the mixture into one side of a loaf tin. Then in the mixing bowl add some red food colouring to the remaining mixture and stir it carefully until you have a nice consistent coloured mixture. Spoon the rest of the cake mixture into the loaf tin.

I do use loaf tin liners in my loaf tin. Makes getting the cake out of the tin much easier.

I then used a knife to gently swirl the two coloured mixtures together, you’re trying to achieve a swirly effect, not to combine the mix.

The bake the cake in a 180º normal oven or 160º fan oven for 30-35 minutes or until a metal skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Cool and then serve in slices.

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Rocking the Gluten Free Rocky Road

During the lockdown I have been making gluten free rocky road a fair bit.

In a large pan, gently melt 150g of dark chocolate, 50g of butter and 3 large spoons of Golden Syrup. The key here is gently, too harsh then the butter and chocolate will burn. Once it has melted then leave for 15 minutes. You need to leave it to cool down otherwise when you add the marshmallows they will melt.

Crush some gluten free biscuits. I usually use a 160g pack of gluten free digestives, but have used a 120g pack of Schär Viennese Biscuits as well (though these are a lot more crumbly than the digestives. You easily make your own biscuits instead. I also add 50g of gluten free chocolate rice cereal as well, for  added crunch. Then add 50g of small marshmallows. 

This mixture is then stirred carefully to ensure that all the ingredients are coated in the chocolate mixture.

Spoon the mixture into either a greased lined baking tray or a foil tray. Press down into the tray and ensure that it is evenly spread.

Then sprinkle the top of the rocky road with decorations. I use small marshmallows, white chocolate stars and fudge pieces.

Chill in the fridge and then cut into squares or slices.

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Mushroom Tortellini

Mushroom Tortellini

This is a warming pasta dish that has a somewhat autumnal feel to it, but you can eat it at anytime.

I generally make this sauce (and variations of it) for a range of different pasta, but as I quite like tortellini, this time I had the sauce with filled pasta.

I use fresh tortellini, one day I might get round to making some by hand, I have made fresh pasta before, but then my pasta machine broke, and I haven’t replaced it. This was a spicy sausage tortellini from a supermarket which takes a few minutes to cook.

To make the sauce, in a large frying pan add a splash of olive oil. I also sometimes use truffle oil, which has a real flavour boost to the sauce. Then add some diced pancetta. My personal favourite of the moment is the pancetta from Aldi, however I also quite like buying it (when I can) from an Italian Deli and dice it myself. One the pancetta has started to cook, add chopped red onion and red pepper. Once the onion and pepper have softened, add some (well a fair bit) of sliced mushrooms. I usually add some butter as well at this point to help with the mushrooms cooking. I prefer using chestnut mushrooms, but also throw in some of the Woodland mushrooms from Morrisons as well. 

Stir.

When the mushrooms are nearly cooked, add a small bag of baby spinach. This will wilt down and should be stirred in.

I then add some creme frache mix into the mushrooms.

At this point I cook the pasta, which only takes a few minutes, drain, and add to the sauce. I then generously grate some parmesan into the sauce and pasta along with some freshly ground black pepper. 

Serve and add more parmesan to taste.

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Gluten Free Loaf Cake

loaf cake

This is a tasty plain loaf cake.

The recipe is based on the weight of two eggs

Ingredients

      • 3 standard eggs
      • Take the same weight of two of the eggs of soft butter
      • Take the same weight of two of the eggs in caster sugar
      • Take the same weight of two of the eggs in self-raising gluten-free flour
      • Vanilla essence

Cream the sugar and butter until you have a smooth consistency.

Beat the eggs, add some vanilla essence.

Stir the eggs into the creamed butter and sugar with some of the flour, until the mixture is smooth and consistent.

Then fold in the remaining flour until it is combined with the rest of the mixture.

Spoon into a loaf tin and bake in a 180º normal oven or 160º fan oven for 35 minutes or until a metal skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.

I do use loaf tin liners in my loaf tin. Makes getting the cake out of the tin much easier.

Cool and then serve in slices.

I used some yellow food colouring in the recipe, as we like to eat bright cakes….

To make a Maderia Cake version of this recipe, add the grated zest of one lemon to the egg mixture as you add the vanilla essence. Add 50g of ground almonds when you add the flour.

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Time for a salsa

salsa

Actually I am not sure if this is a salsa or not, as I didn’t follow a recipe nor did I check what making salsa entails… 

This was made using my new kitchen toy I got for my birthday, a mandolin,  (other similar models can be had on Amazon).

Ingredients for the salsa.

      • Red pepper (half)
      • Orange pepper (half)
      • Small red onion
      • Cucumber (quarter)
      • Sweetcorn (half a small tin)
      • Olive oil (splash)
      • White wine vinegar (slightly smaller splash)
      • Salt and Pepper
      • Chilli flakes (to taste)

Using the fine dicer, I diced the peppers, onion and cucumber before stirring them. I then added the sweetcorn, the olive oil and white wine vinegar. Add seasoning and the chilli flakes to taste. This was then thoroughly stirred and covered for a hour or two.

Serve with barbecued meats or with tacos. 

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Pan fried Gnocchi

I quite like gnocchi, but though I buy fresh gnocchi, my usual cooking method is to simmer it in boiling water for a few minutes. I have seen people fry gnocchi on the television in cooking shows, but not tried it myself. They always appeared to fry gnocchi they had made themselves. I wasn’t sure how using shop bought gnocchi if that would work out.

So doing some browsing recently I was interested to see they had the Rana pan fried gnocchi on sale. So I bought a pack to try out.

Pan-fried gnocchi are crispy on the outside, but soft and fluffy on the inside,

It had been in the fridge for a while when I decided to cook them.

I cooked some pancetta, onion and mushrooms and then removed these from the pan. I then added some butter and pan fried the gnocchi for five minutes.  Once the gnocchi was cooked I added the cooked pancetta, onion and mushrooms.

I did enjoy the dish and hope to cook this again soon.

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Gluten Free Homemade Pizza

I have to say that the gluten free Pizza Express pizza you can get from most supermarkets are pretty good, as are those you can get from most high street restaurants.

Being on lockdown though means that going out for pizza isn’t going to happen, also we were avoiding unnecessary trips to the supermarket as well.

So we decided to make our own pizza. This was somewhat of a challenge, as though we had yeast, we had no bread flour, so we decided to use gluten free plain flour.

      • 225g strong plain flour (we used plain flour)
      • 1 tsp fast acting yeast
      • ½ tsp salt
      • 150mls of hand hot water
      • 4 tablespoons of tomato puree
      • 85g hard cheese
      • Selection of toppings

Mix the yeast with the flour and add the water.

Mix into a dough.

These were then rolled and flattened into pizza shapes on a baking tray.

We then put them in a warm place to rise. I think we should have left them for longer to enable them to rise further, but we were short on time.

I think it might have worked better if we had bread or strong flour.

The last time we did this (we used bread flour) the toppings were cooked well before the base was done. I don’t have a pizza oven or a pizza stone. Previously when making “homemade” gluten free pizza, we have used ready to go bases. So this time I part baked the bases to ensure that they were cooked properly. 

We then used tomato puree for the tomato base. I would have preferred to use passata but the family don’t like it very much, it can also make the dough soggy, works better in a proper pizza oven.

We then added a range of toppings including pepper, mushrooms, red onion and ham.

We only had cheddar cheese in the fridge, I would have preferred grated mozzarella, but all we had was the cheddar. 

Overall, it was nothing like Bella Italia or Pizza Express, however they were delicious and were finished off in double quick time. Lots of conversations about was our food okay and did we want to see the dessert menu.

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Gluten Free Puffy Pancakes

pancakes

This is a quick and simple method to make puffy pancakes. There are various names for these kinds of pancake.

I take a cup of self-raising gluten free flour, a cup of milk, one egg, a large spoon of sugar and some vanilla essence. For flat pancakes, I would normally use plain flour.

Whisk the ingredients together until you have a smooth batter.

I have a specialist small pancake pan which I can use for cooking these. I brush the pan with some sunflower oil and pour Not too much) of the batter into the pan.

You have to take care to ensure that the pancakes cook all the way through, but isn’t overdone (or even burnt) on the surface. I do find turning them can be quite messy, so be careful.

Serve with maple syrup.

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Gluten Free Chocolate Loaf Cake

Gluten Free Chocolate Loaf Cake

This is a tasty rich chocolate loaf cake.

The recipe is based on the weight of two eggs

Ingredients

3 standard eggs
Take the same weight of two of the eggs of soft butter.
Take the same weight of two of the eggs in caster sugar
Take the same weight of two of the eggs in self-raising gluten-free flour.
Two large spoons of cocoa powder.
Vanilla essence.

Cream the sugar and butter until you have a smooth consistency.

Beat the eggs, add some vanilla essence.

Stir the eggs into the creamed butter and sugar with some of the flour and the cocoa, until the mixture is smooth and consistent.

Then fold in the remaining flour until it is combined with the rest of the mixture.

Spoon into a loaf tin and bake in a 180º normal oven or 160º fan oven for 35 minutes or until a metal skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.

I do use loaf tin liners in my loaf tin. Makes getting the cake out of the tin much easier.

Cool and then serve in slices.

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Homemade Gluten Free Sausage Rolls

I have used Jus-Rol puff pastry in the past and have been pleased with the results, so I was intrigued to see their gluten free puff pastry and wondered what it would be like to use.

Jus Rol Gluten Free Puff Pastry

It comes as a ready rolled sheet which I sliced in half and filled with some sausage meat before rolling it up and placing on a baking tray. I made slices in the top of the pastry and brushed with beaten egg.

This was then baked in a hot oven for around twenty minutes.

Homemade Gluten Free Sausage Rolls

They worked very well, the pastry I think it needed to be a bit more flakey, but it was really easy to use and tasted very nice.