Triple ginger freezer biscuits - gluten and dairy free

This sticky dough is easy to handle if rolled in clingfilm and frozen.  Slice and bake a few biscuits at a time for a warm spicy aroma in the house on a cold winter day and a lovely crunchy treat.

Ingredients:

200g ground almonds
200g flour (40%urid, 40%tapioca, 20% brown rice)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground clove
1 tsp ground ginger (add more if wanted- this gives quite a mild ginger flavour)
100g sugar
120g dark brown muscovado sugar
75ml oil
2 eggs
20g grated fresh ginger
75g crystallised ginger, chopped
belgian waffle pearl sugar or sugar crystals for topping if wanted.  The pearl sugar keeps it shape, is crunchy but not too hard.

Oven 170C fan, ten minutes from frozen, seven or eight from room temperature mix.  Cool on baking sheet for a few minutes before moving onto a baking rack.


Mix the dry ingredients together.  My muscovado sugar was a solid lump so I hacked off the right amount with a large knife and heated it in the microwave with the oil to get a slurry that was easy to mix into the flour.  If you do melt the brown sugar make sure the mixture is not too hot before you add it to the eggs - you don't want scrambled egg at this stage.

Mix liquid ingredients together and add to dry.  I used the food mixer for this as it was quite a lot of work to do by hand. Add in grated fresh ginger and chopped crystallised ginger and mix.

You can bake this in blobs on your lined baking sheet.  This amount of dough will make a lot of biscuits.  The dough holds its height when baked like this so flatten a bit with a damp spoon.

Alternatively lay on clingfilm in a log, wrap, put in freezer on a baking sheet until firm.  Once firm the baking sheet can be removed. There is a risk that the dough would sag around your freezer racks if you put it straight in unsupported and so get stuck in place.

When you want to bake some biscuits just slice off thin layers, sprinkle with sugar if you want to, and bake on a lined baking sheet.

Prune and almond chewy high-fibre high-protein cookies

These cookies are chewy and chocolaty. Cook them for less time for a softer chewy cookie, or leave in at a lower temperature for longer for a firm cookie.  I rolled them out and cut shaped cookies, but you can just make blobs and press them flat with your fingers, or cut them into bars.  They hold their shape well, are quiet to eat, and don't make crumbs, making them ideal to tuck into your bag for a trip. Increase the cocoa of you want a more chocolaty flavour - this is just enough to give a warm hint.  I haven't tried it but I am pretty sure you could skip the egg without much effect if you need egg-free recipes.

Ingredients
250g dried prunes
100 ml oil
1 egg
200g ground almonds
75g urid lentil flour
20g cocoa
40g ground flax seed
200g sugar
1 tsp mixed spice

Blitz the prunes in a blender with the oil and egg to make a paste.  Scrape into a bowl and mix in all the other ingredients.  The dough will be firm but malleable; I mixed this with my hands but if you have a food mixer use the dough hook to save effort.

Either take small blobs and press onto a lined cookie tray, roll into a log, chill and then slice into cookies, or roll out using more urid or other flour to stop sticking and cut into shapes.

Bake at 175C fan for six to eight minutes depending on how thick your cookies are and how chewy you want them.  You can always put them back in to the oven for further baking if they are too soft when they cool.

Slide the cookies on their lining paper onto a cooling rack and let them cool for a minute before trying to move the onto the cooling rack.  Stiffening slightly makes them easier to move.

This amount of dough made about 70 small cookies.

Waffles for breakfast

I fancied waffles for breakfast rather than our usual american pancakes.  It is almost the same mixture, but I beat the egg white to a stiff froth before stirring it in to the wet mixture.  The hard part about making waffles now is clambering into the roof-space cupboard to get the waffle baker, as the kitchen is too small to store intermittently used kit.

These waffles are light without being insubstantial, crisp on the outside and soft in the middle.  They freeze well so you can make a batch and have a few whenever you want.  If you have a toaster they can just be popped in frozen and come out ready to eat.

Ingredients
100g flour (this is my new mix avoiding corn - 40%urid, 40%tapioca and 20% brown rice flours)
1 tsp baking powder (this ratio of 1 tsp bp to 100g flour is my standard self raising flour)
1 tsp sugar
1 egg, separated
1 tsp oil
120ml rice or other milk

Prepare your waffle baker.  Set to a middle temperature setting.

Mix the dry ingredients together. Mix the egg yolk, milk and oil together.

Beat the egg white until stiff.

Fold the egg whites into batter.

Scoop the batter onto the baker, filling from the middle.  I find it better to have waffles that don't quite reach the edge than barge their way messily down the outside of the baker.

I found this mixture made one complete set of four waffles with a little left over.  Cook until golden brown and crisp.  Cool on a baking rack or send straight to plates.

Feedback on my flour mix and a great day

I haven't been blogging much lately.  Life just got a bit too weird and strange for even baking to be a panacea.  I do find that mood translates into cooking, and the few times I baked when I really didn't want to nothing worked.

However, in the mean time, I took a sample of my flour over to an artisan baker that runs a cafe in Bromyard, just west of Worcester.  He thinks with his hands, and I wasn't sure if I would hear what he thought.  He had needed a good pastry for quiches, and also wants some sourdough style bread for the farmers market in Stroud.  I took him enough flour for the pastry, and asked for a sample of the potato starch that makes gluten free breadmaking so much easier to be sent to him by Solanic.

Yesterday he phoned, while I was at my glass course, to say that the flour was great and you couldn't tell the end result from a wheat pastry.  That made me feel much better about all the effort I put into researching the blend.  Now just to hope Shipton Mill will get their new gf facility up and running and make the flour.  I must get on with the books!

So, a great day.  I enjoyed learning to paint on glass - firing the pieces to be leaded next week.  The flour comment was good.  And to top it all, I got to meet Harrison Lees, my brand new grandson, who arrived Thursday afternoon.

Quick microwave orange pudding, gluten and dairy free

Continuing my testing of puddings in the microwave (cheaper, quicker and easier) I made one with some fragrant zingy oranges.   Unfortunately not straight from a tree- yet another year where I haven't made it to Seville for the orange season.  I don't think this recipe is quite right yet - if anyone makes a variation on it that works well perhaps you could let me know.

I based the recipe on this recipe for self-saucing orange pudding.

Ingredients
zest one orange
juice 5 oranges (approx 250ml) - 40ml for batter, rest for sauce
100g self raising flour (40% urid, 40% tapioca, 20% cornmeal plus 1 rounded tsp baking powder)
80 g sugar - 40g for batter, 40g for sauce
40ml oil
1 egg

Mix the zest, oil, egg, 40g sugar and 40ml juice together.  Mix in flour.  Place batter in microwave safe bowl.

Mix remaining juice and sugar together.  Heat to dissolve sugar then bring to the boil.  Pour carefully over the pudding; it looks weird but that's what you do.

Cover in clingfilm, and cook on medium for 8 minutes.  Leave to sit for a few minutes, covered.

This pudding is quite fluffy but has a texture which reminds me slightly of dumplings.  The original recipe asked for melted butter, and a larger amount, which might have given a better texture.

Tastes good, worth doing again.

double ginger biscuits- gluten, nut and dairy free

I based these crisp chewy biscuits on this recipe.  I didn't have any bicarbonate of soda and didn't want to use butter, and of course I was using my gf flour mix rather than wheat.  I also added chopped crystallised ginger for an extra bit of texture and flavour.

Ingredients
100g flour ((40%urid, 40% tapioca, 20% cornmeal)
2 tsp baking powder (twice as much as my usual for self raising- perhaps a bit much)
2 tsp ground ginger
75g sugar
30g crystallised ginger, chopped
1 overflowing tsp of golden syrup
1 egg
40ml oil
sugar crystals to sprinkle on top

Mix the dry ingredients together except for crystallised ginger
Mix egg and oil together
Mix dry and wet ingredients together thoroughly then add the syrup and ginger pieces.  Stir to mix.

Place dollops on baking sheets, lined with parchment paper. Leave plenty of room as they spread.  Sprinkle with sugar crystals if you have them.  Bake for about ten minutes at 175C fan.  Keep an eye on them and remove from the oven when they are a lovely golden colour - similar to the colour of the syrup.

Cool on a wire rack on the paper for a few minutes to begin to harden. They are too soft to take off the sheets immediately.  If you haven't used paper they will take longer to harden as the tin will hold the heat.

These biscuits are crisp and chewy, spicy and sweet.  My patient taster says they are among the best ginger biscuits he has ever tasted.

Banana butternut and choc chip muffins

The grocers were selling bags of over-ripe bananas today, so I set out to make some muffins.  I had a large butternut squash in the fridge and no dried fruit so I used the squash as part of the sweetener for the mixture.  I did add a little sugar as the bananas were not as ripe as I had hoped and I had only cooked the squash in the microwave so the sweetness didn't develop the way it does when it is roasted.

These are quite dense muffins.  I use them as handbag food so I like a nutritious non-messy muffin that can be eaten discretely and will keep me from feeling hungry for several hours.  If you want this lighter add some water or fruit juice to make the batter thinner.

Makes 18 muffins
Oven at 175C

Ingredients
400g over-ripe bananas (4 medium)
350 cooked butternut squash ( peel, chop, ten minutes in microwave)
350g flour (40%urid, 40% tapioca, 20% cornmeal)
6 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp mixed spice
2 tsp cocoa
100g ground almonds
150ml oil
50g sugar or other sweetener
100g chocolate chips (I used dark to avoid the dairy)

30g sugar crystals plus 1/4 tsp mixed spice for topping

Smash the bananas and squash.
Mix the flour, baking powder and spices including cocoa together, whisk to ensure thoroughly mixed
Mix in almonds
Add oil, eggs and sugar to banana and squash mixture, stir well
Add dry ingredients to the banana mixture and stir thoroughly
Spoon into muffin cases

Sprinkle top with spiced sugar crystals if using.  Do this just before putting in the oven so that they don't dissolve before being cooked.

Bake for approximately 25 minutes if large, 17 for cupcake size

Cool on a wire rack. If you leave them in the tin you will get soggy bottoms.

These freeze very well.  Slip one in your bag in the morning, wrapped in plastic, and it will be defrosted for your mid-morning break.  They will keep for a few days in an airtight container.

If you can't eat nuts swap the ground almonds for more flour or just leave out for a lighter muffin.

crunchy nutty cinnamon tear-and-share bread

It is cold and windy and yet again the river is in flood.  I wanted the warm comfort of a sweet spicy bread.  I have been continuing to keep a bowl of yeast dough/batter in the fridge, using it most days for a pizza or foccaccia.  This evening I took a good dollop (about three heaped tablespoons) of the batter, stirred in a teaspoon of mixed spice, four teaspoons of sugar, and a small handful of cranberries.  I would have used raisins but don't have any in stock. I spread this on the non-stick pan, and then sprinkled the top with lightly crushed pecans, a couple of teaspoons of sugar crystals and a sprinkling of spice. I put a little butter in small pieces on the top - use plenty if you are ok with dairy and want it richer.

I put this to sit in the oven with a pan of boiling water in the base for half an hour.  The steam gives a warm moist environment and speeds up rising  I then set the oven at 175C and the timer for 22 minutes.  I left the dough in the oven so that it continued to rise as the oven got hot.

This bread is soft, light, sweet and very easy to eat.  It can be spread with butter or eaten plain.  As it has very little fat you don't get sticky/greasy fingers eating it, which is a bonus for those of us that like to take a little bit every few minutes.

The dough is 500g flour (40%urid, 40% tapioca, 20% cornmeal),
20g Solanic potato protein 301 (this makes the dough light and stops slumping).  The potato protein is not necessary for low-rise breads; it is very helpful if you are making a full size loaf or using a breadmaker.
about 700ml water
2tsp dried yeast
pinch sugar.

Mix yeast, sugar and lukewarm water, leave to get a little frothy so you know the yeast is live.  Stir the flour into the water and leave to rise.  Cover and keep in the fridge to use for up to a week as needed.

Dhosa - easy quick almost dhosas

I fancied some dhosa today  Dhosas are thin pancakes made from a fermented rice and urid lentil mixture, and are eaten in South India.  There the chefs make spectacular shapes when serving these, including giant rolls and fans.

Last time I made them I did the full process-soak urid lentils and long grain rice separately for a specified number of hours, grind utill smooth in the blender, mix and leave to ferment for several more hours.  Today I didn't feel like doing all of that and so simply mixed my usual flour (405urid, 40%tapioca and 20% cornmeal) with some brown rice flour- and I don't have any idea what type of rice this was.  The protein balance of different rice varies and it makes a difference in how the rice behaves in recipe. .

These dhosas weren't completely like proper dhosa, and the shorter maturing time meant that they hadn't fermented properly.  The acid flavour of the fully fermented dough is too strong for some so this milder version may be more palatable, although the nutritional value will be slightly less as the long fermenting increases bio-availability of some nutrients.

This amount serves two/three with some curry


Ingredients
125g rice flour
70g gf flour mix (40%urid, 40%tapioca, 20%cornmeal)
300g water

Mix until smooth and leave to sit for a couple of hours or more in a warm place.  The dough should be quite thin - like single cream.  If it is too thick add a bit more water.  You should be able to place a ladlefull on a cold crepe pan and swirl it around so that it is covered completely.

To cook
Start with a cold pan.  Place a ladlefull of batter on the pan and swirl so that you get an even thin pancake. Cook on a medium heat until the bottom begins to brown. You will be able to see this without lifting the pancake as it is so thin.

Lift off carefully and roll to whatever shape you want while it is warm.

Cool the pan under cold water until you can touch it without any discomfort.  If you don't let the pan cool between dhosa you will not be able to get the dhosa to be thin.  Instead they will be lumpy and thick.  I read up about making dhosa and this is how they are usually made.

Because the pan is cold at the start of each dhosa they take longer to cook than if you were making crepe in a hot pan.  Be patient.  You may find them difficult to make neat- but they taste just as good.  The one I photographed was about my sixth - I didn't quite believe the necesity for the cold pan to start with.

These dhosa are partially soft and flexible and partly crisp.  I ate mine served with spicy chickpeas.

Boozy cranberry and lemon gluten free cookies

I bought a bottle of sherry for a visit from my brother-in-law but it turns out he only drinks one variety.  What to do with a bottle of sherry?  What to do with the diminishing but still present stash of dried cranberries?  What to do for the Writer's Group party this evening?  Boozy cranberry and lemon cookies seemed the thing to try.  I soaked the cranberries in sherry so that they were plump and juicy. As I had run out of eggs these are an egg-free cookie.  The result?  A crunchy cookie with succulent berries and a good bit of zing.

200g flour (40% urid, 40% tapioca, 20% cornmeal)
2 tsp baking powder
80g butter
115g sugar
juice 2 lemons
rind 1 lemon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp mixed spice
100g cranberries - soaked in alcohol (or juice) of choice

Mix dry ingredients including zest
rub in butter (or stir in soft margarine if used)
Stir in lemon juice and cranberries.  Add more juice if needed to make the dough hold together.

Place dollops on a baking sheet or roll between your palms for a smoother shape. Makes about 40 cookies.

Bake for about twelve minutes at 180C fan.  Let them cool slightly on the baking sheet or baking parchment to make them easier to handle before sliding them onto a cooling rack.  If you want them crisper put back in the oven at a lower temperature - the same way you would make biscotti.

Gluten free cranberry and hazlenut biscotti

These hazlenut biscotti have a warm, complex flavour with a lighter texture than my usual biscotti.  They have a hint of cinnamon but if you want a spicier flavour just add more spice, perhaps with mixed spice or ginger as well as the cinnamon.  If you like an iced biscotti, making a glace icing with icing sugar and ginger wine would work well.

Ingredients
150g hazlenuts, toasted, skins scruffled off and lightly chopped
150g pine kernals, lightly toasted
150g dried cranberries
250g sugar
150g ground almonds
150g flour (40% urid, 40% tapioca, 20% cornmeal)
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla.

Set oven to 175C.

Mix the flours, sugar, baking powder and spice together.  Stir in the egg and vanilla.  It should make a stiffish dough.  Mix in chopped nuts, pine kernal and cranberries.  This can be hard work; I tend to just smush it all together with my hands.  If you are using a food mixer it should be easy but add the nuts with the machine on a very low setting or they will tend to fly out around the room.

Make four logs of the dough on two parchment lined baking sheets. Cook at 175C for about fifteen minutes.  The outside will be getting crisp but the middle will be gooey. Let the logs cool for a few minutes then cut into slices and rebake for another ten minutes or so. You can leave the biscotti between the two stages of cooking if that is more convenient- this will also make the biscotti more easy to handle.

Cool on a baking rack.  Store in airtight container.  These keep very well - I have kept them for a couple of months without any reduction in the quality.

Lemon, ginger and cranberry gluten free cookies

I woke up with a sore throat this morning.  Best cure I know for feeling a bit glum is to bake something scrumptious.  I have a stash of dried cranberries that need using, so had a quick look to see if I could find some crunchy cookies using these.  The first few recipes were oats with cranberries and didn't look that interesting.  Then I found these lemon ginger and cranberry cookies.  Lemon and ginger sounds like a cold remedy...so why not a cookie based on these.

The lemon flavour is the strongest when these cookies are freshly made.  I expect the ginger flavour will develop later - at the moment the ginger is just a lingering hint in the mouth after the cookie has been eaten. The cookie is crisp on the outside, slightly crumbly in the middle, and the juicy cranberries give a lovely contrast.  The whole house smells delicious - a bit of aromatherapy as well as the occupational therapy.

For people without a flour grinder, I recently asked the company I buy my urid lentils from whether their urid lentil flour still came with an advisory that it was milled in a factory that also handles wheat.  This no longer appears on the packaging so this should mean that they are safe for even those with extreme sensitivity.

The original recipe uses the creaming method.  I rarely plan ahead so don't have room temperature butter.  I rubbed in the butter to the flour by hand, but if you have a food processor just whizz until mixed into the dry ingredients.


200g flour (40% urid, 40% tapioca, 20% cornmeal)
2tsp baking powder (this is the mix I use as my standard self raising flour)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
80g sugar (add a bit more if you like extra sweet cookies)
80g butter
30g fresh ginger, grated
1 lemon, rind grated and juiced
2 eggs
100g dried cranberries

Set oven to 175C fan.  Line cookie sheets with baking parchment or use ungreased.

Mix all dry ingredients except the dried cranberries.  Mix in butter - rub in if cold, beat in if soft, or whizz in food processor.
Add in the eggs, beat, add in lemon juice and grated ginger.  Stir in dried cranberries.

Place on baking sheet in dollops.  I used two desert spoons for this, which gives  20 cookies about 7cm/3inches across.

Bake for 12-15 minutes until the edges are browning.  If you like very crisp cookies you can bake for longer at a lower temperature.

These are really good cookies, and will be part of my standard repertoire from now on.

GF seedy crispbread - urid, buckwheat and brown rice

Simple seedy crispbreads made with the new flour.  These crispbreads are made with a little yeast to encourage bubbles; I haven't run trials of different recipes with just plain flour, baking powder as the raising agent, or added oil.  I also don't know how long they will stay crisp.   A good shelf-life on crispbreads is useful so they can be a store cupboard staple.

150g flour (one third each urid lentils, brown rice and buckwheat)
5g poppy seed
5g linseed
10g sesame seed  (vary to taste)
c120ml water
1/4 tsp yeast

Mix yeast with water if needed.  Otherwise just mix all dry ingredients and then add the water.  You should have a firm but pliable dough.  Leave covered in a warm place for the yeast to begin to work.  I like a long slow fermentation for the flavour and digestive benefits, but I left these only a couple of hours.  The dough didn't rise much being so dry, just became a bit softer.

Roll out into whatever shape you want.  I made eight rough rounds about 12cm across. Place on ungreased baking sheets - I needed four to fit all the crispbreads on, but you could make a more space efficient set of crackers if you don't have four sheets handy.  Leave in a warm steamy place to rise a little.  They won't rise much as the dough is stiff and dry.  I put a small dish of hot water in the oven and close the door.

Bake at about 170C until just turning brown - 11 to 15 minutes.  The base of the crispbread that is in contact with the baking sheet will brown before the top.  Keep an eye on them so they don't burn especially if you have an uneven oven.  Put back into the oven if you think they need a bit more crispness.  You can do this anytime if they need crisping.

Cool on a rack and store in an airtight container.

Spicy Samphire and Chicken wraps

These wraps and succulent and spicy. The whole dish is made in a single frying pan so it would be good in a campervan or basic kitchen.  Serves two people with moderate appetites.

Wraps - I didn't weigh the flour or measure the water, I just took about about a cup of my new flour mix (1/3 each urid lentil, buckwheat and brown rice flours) and added water until I got a firm but not dry dough.  I rolled out six circles about the size of my frying pan - simply patting out with hands would have done but it is easier to get a thin wrap using a rolling pin.  I cooked these on both sides in a dry pan on a medium heat until they had little brown patches.  Keep them warm and soft in a clean tea towel until needed.

Chicken

I chicken breast, cut into six strips.  Marinade this for half an hour if possible before cooking.

Marinade

1 tsp gf soy sauce

2 tbsp  tomato and garlic pasta sauce (or 1 tbsp tomato paste and a tsp of oil if not available).

2 fat cloves garlic, crushed and chopped

fresh ginger, chopped finely - about a cubic cm

1 small chili, finely chopped

Cook the chicken strips on a medium heat in a little oil until browning and cooked through.  Be careful as the moisture in the marinade will mean the fat spits - I wear a long sleeved catering jacket when frying.  My pan was small so I had to do these in two batches.  Set aside on a covered plate to keep warm.

Wash and dry the samphire.  Cook this in the same pan, using all the left over marinade ingredients to coat the samphire.  

Place chicken and samphire on a wrap, roll and enjoy.  You could also add yogurt, mayonnaise, sour cream or avocado to add a creamy texture and moderate the spiciness.

new gf flour mix - pizza without corn or tapioca flours

More tests on a corn and tapioca-free flour mix made from a third each or urid lentil, buckwheat and brown rice flours.

Set oven to 175 and place baking tin into oven to get hot.

150g flour (1/3 each urid, buckwheat, rice)
1 tsp baking powder
water to produce damp dough

Mix ingredients together and then shape into circle on a sheet of baking parchment laid on a baking sheet. I just press the mix out to shape using my fingers  Cover with topping as desired.  I use a rich tomato and herb sauce, often with some chilli.  One my side I used sliced avocado (I am lactose intolerant so don't use cheese) grilled peppers..anything that I fancy.  The other side has mozzarella and pepperoni on.  As I am no longer a vegetarian we just have half the pizza each - otherwise make two small ones to solve the same problem.  And yes, sorry, it does have fresh pineapple on too.

Slide the pizza on its baking parchment onto the hot tin.  This process, though a bit awkward, means that the base is well cooked by the time the toppings have cooked and saves that dreary floppy bottom problem.

Cook for about 20 minutes until cheese is melted and crust golden.

The crust behaved well, and was possible to pick up as a slice if you like to eat it by hand.  I thought it a little less crisp than my usual pizza base, but my husband said he slightly preferred it.  A bit of millet would crisp it up if wanted.

really yummy accidental toffee biscotti- gluten free

I tried my usual biscotti recipe but using my standard flour a while ago.  I didn't like it as much as usual; the texture seemed rougher than usual.  Making my first batch of biscotti in my new flat I decided to go back to my usual mixture of urid, tapioca and almond for the biscotti. I went back to my source recipe, biscotti all a mandorle, in the River Cafe Cook Book Green, by Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers.  As my new kitchen is tiny, and the oven is too small for my baking trays, I reduced the recipe to needing only one egg.  I made the mistake of not writing down the quantities I would need, and what with dividing the flour quantity in two and then in thirds for the three flours I use, adding dried blueberries and cranberries, and generally getting in a tizzy because I couldn't find where I had put things like sugar, I made a mistake in the ingredients.  I forgot to halve the sugar.

When I mixed the dough I found I needed to add water to get a formable dough.  This was odd, as usually there is egg left over.  However, I added a bit of water and just carried on.  The dough took much longer than usual to cook, but was getting too brown on the outside.  With double the cooking time, then cooling, slicing and rebaking, it did take quite a while, and my initial impression was that the biscotti was too sweet to be pleasant.

However, the biscotti have matured into a delicious soft and slightly chewy biscuit with bursts of tart flavour from the dried fruit.  Sticky, toffeeish, and very tempting....I am not sure if I will be able to bring myself to make this recipe exactly this way again, but made as a mixture which is dolloped in small mounds on a baking tin and cooked long and slow, it may well become a standard favourite.

Recipe
75g flaked almonds (hadn't any of the usual whole almonds)
50g pine kernals
250g sugar ( I used granulated golden)
150 flour (50g tapioca, 50g urid, 50g almond)
1/4 tsp baking powder
50g dried blueberries
50g dried cranberries
1 egg

Toast the almond flakes and pine kernels for a few minutes until just going golden.  Move onto a new tray to cool before using.  If you leave them on a hot tray they may scorch and will take longer to cool.

Mix all the dry ingredients together.  Mix the egg and use this to make a batter stiff enough to mould into a log shape.  Add a bit of water if needed.

Place on a baking sheet in a log shape- I use a silicon liner or parchment to make the process easier..  Cook for about 25 minutes at 150C. I found that caramel oozed out around the mixture.  Leave to cool, slice and return to the oven until they are fully cooked.

Place on a cooling rack.  Store in an air-tight container when cool.

maple,apple and raisin bread - gluten-free

Warm spicy bread,with chunks of apple and raisins.  Good plain or toasted - sprinkle with cinnamon sugar for an extra special moment.


400g flour ( 40% urid, 40% tapioca, 20% cornmeal)
2 tsp yeast (pre-mix with water if necessary)
1 tsp cinnamon
4 tbsp maple syrup
400ml water
1 tsp vanilla
100g raisins (blitze some of these with flour in the blender to give a variety of sizes, or chop half finely)
100g buckwheat (flour or blitzed in blender)
1 large eating apple, cored and chopped ( c140g)
2 eggs
(5g Solanic potato protein 201 - not available in shops yet, I am trialling this.  It helps give gluten-free breads more uniformity and resist slumping.  Unless you try to make this as a single very tall loaf it won't be necessary to add this.)


Mix all ingredients together into a thickish batter.  Pour into prepared loaf tins (grease and line two one pound tins)  Don't fill more than two thirds full. Sprinkle a little water on top to help with the rise.

Let these rise in a warm moist place until nearly to the top of the tins.

Bake in a 170C oven for 45 minutes.  Turn temperature down for last ten minutes if it looks as if they were getting too brown.

chocolate chip cookies - gluten and dairy free

I made chocolate chip cookies for a writing group based on a recipe by Anthony Worrel Thompson.  I kept them dairy free as well as gluten free.  Simply substituting my flour for ordinary flour and soft vegetable margarine for butter led to a crisp flat cookie with no chewiness, so it needs a bit more flour.  It also meant that the mixture was of soft dropping consistency rather than one that could be rolled out.  Part way through the batch I added ground almonds to make a firmer batter and stirred in some flaked almonds.  This made the cookie thicker, crisp and chewy.   I also added a teaspoon of coffee granules as Ina Garten says adding coffee to chocolate recipes makes them taste chocolatier..thought it worth a try.  Note I have listed both flour options - pick one.

This recipe made 65 mid-sized cookies.

400g flour (40% urid, 40% tapioca, 20% cornmeal)
or   350g flour (ditto), 50g ground almonds, 25g flaked almonds
1 tsp bicarb of soda
225g dairy free baking margarine
175g caster sugar
175g soft brown sugar
2 eggs
35g chocolate chips ( I used Callebaut 53.8% cocoa solids - these say 'may contain milk', so not suitable for those with extreme milk allergy, but ok for lactose intolerant))
1 tsp instant coffee

Mix flours and baking soda - whisk or sieve together
Cream margarine and sugars together, then add eggs and coffee granules.  Mix to a smooth batter.  Stir in chocolate chips and flaked almonds if using.

Place on lined tins and bake at 170C for about ten minutes, until tinged golden.  Only put about five on a tray at a time as they spread a lot.  Cool for a few minutes before attempting to move them so that they harden a little and the chocolate is less runny.  I find that it is easier if I move the lining paper/silicon sheet onto the cooling rack while I dollop out more cookie dough onto the sheet.

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Baking experiments - gf bread in a Panasonic Bread Machine phase 2

The small loaf of bread I made yesterday worked very well.  I only used 200g of flour so thought I should see if it scaled up OK.  I made the same recipe with 500g of flour, the only difference was no seeds as I had run out.

Ingredients
500g flour (40% urid lentil, 40% tapioca, 20% cornmeal)
625ml water
50g buckwheat, partially chopped in blender
3 tsp yeast
1 tbsp date syrup
1 tsp cocoa
1 tsp oil

Mix all ingredients in a bowl and pour into baking machine pan

I set the process going, Rye 07 on the Panasonic, then part way through thought I should tell the machine I was making a large loaf (it has three settings).  It turns out that if you select the rye programme you can't adjust the size or colour settings.  Now, obviously, when I was studying the chart to start with I should have noticed this.  I didn't.

I am also not sure if I clicked the bowl with blade into place properly.  You can't test this by simply telling the machine to do a stir - a simple extra pulse button would be good.  I didn't look inside when it was in the kneading stage.  Yesterday, with the sunflower seeds in the bread, I could see in the finished loaf that the batter had been stirred as all the seeds were oriented by the blade in a circle.  I wondered because the blade was completely inside the loaf with I shook the bread out of the  tin.

I measured the temperature inside the loaf when it came out of the machine.  It was only 85C.  I waited until the loaf was nearly cold before cutting.  It is a little soggier than I would like so have put it back in the normal oven for thirty minutes. It would probably only have needed an extra ten minutes in the initial bake, but now it needs quite a bit of time to get back up to temperature.

When cooled I sliced the bread.  It is fine to eat but does show the slightly claggy layer at the bottom which shows that it didn't quite have the strength to hold the rise.  I would need to reduce the water.  The batter was very liquid.  I hadn't cut the liquid even though I had left out the seeds - I hadn't thought they would absorb liquid to any noticeable degree but it would appear they do.  The white blobs are the whole buckwheat grains - I didn't chop them as much as the previous loaf.

So, a bit more experimenting to do.  I don't think I would increase the loaf size given the dense base layer.  The loaf does produce a reasonable sized slice of bread.

The texture is lighter than a dense rye loaf but has some of the same moistness.  It holds together well and has a good flavour. It has enough integrity to make sandwiches and does not crumble when handled.

It sliced very easily and didn't disintigrate.  I have put the slices in the freezer in a polythene bag with non-stick paper between the slices.  The bread goes weird after two or three days at room temperature so is best stored frozen in individual portions.

Making lentil flour

I have been asked how to make lentil flour by MusicFoodLife

"Can you explain how to make lentil flour?  Do you need to cook it first, or do you just clean and grind it?


Thanks"


I don't cook the lentils first.  I am slightly ashamed to admit I never even clean it- I just tip the lentils straight from the packet into the flour mill!


There are three ways  to get the flour:

The first is to find a supplier that provides it ready ground.  The urid lentils I use are availailable from Indian retailers - often labelled Papad flour.  Southern Indians use this lentil flour in their dhosa and other fried/steamed foods.

If you can't find it pre-ground their are two ways to make the flour.

The traditional southern Indian way is to soak the lentils first and then grind them.  Soaking and the usual slow fermentation releases extra nutritional value in the lentil.  If you do this you need a good blender (or the traditional heavy flat stone and stone roller and lots of effort).  Just whizz with some of the liquid until you get a smooth paste.  You can then use this as the start of any recipe that has liquid in it, though it may be difficult to make pastry as that usually has very little water added.  I haven't tried that.

The third route is to grind it in a flour mill.  Again a blender used dry may work.  A coffee/spice grinder should work.  I have a flour mill which does an excellent job but this may be beyond most people's means.  I got one when I realised how awful the pre-packed gluten free four in the UK was, and I tried making flour out of anything I could think of.

I hope this helps - feedback from anyone who tries this would be useful.