*New Section: Q and A*

I've received a lot of questions regarding allergen-free living, products and recipes specific to the South African context over the years of this blog's life. I don't know why it hasn't occurred to me to start a Q & A section ages ago (?!) but now that has been rectified and here it is:

Q and A

The questions and answers listed here are directly related to my recipes listed on this site. I will add questions I've been asked on a broad range of foodie topics in the coming months. 

Martha Stewart's Banana Bread (Gluten-Free)

This comforting and more-ish banana bread stays moist for days; something of a feat for many gluten-free breads. The original, gluten-filled recipe can be found at marthastewart.com.

This was the first recipe where I didn't substitue cup-for-cup with gluten-free flour. Instead, I went and found a site which lists what the weight of a cup of rice flour is versus a cup of normal cake flour (btw, it's quite a bit heavier), and so modified the recipe accordingly. This handy trick allowed rice flour to stand alone as the flour of choice without dragging the recipe down to a heavy end-product. You live and you learn, right.

OR = Original Recipe

Ingredients:

• 113g/1 stick butter (room temp)
• 75g sugar (OR: 1 cup)
• 2 large eggs
• 195g rice flour (OR: 1 and a half cups of cake flour)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 cup mashed bananas (very ripe)
• 125ml/half cup buttermilk (OR: 125ml sour cream)
• 1 tsp cinnamon (OR: 1 tsp vanilla)
• 125ml/half cup chopped pecans (or walnuts)
  

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 175 degrees Celsius (OR: 350 fahrenheit).
2. Butter a loaf pan.
3. Cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy.
4. Add eggs and beat.
5. Add flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and mix till just combined.
6. Stir through bananas, buttermilk and nuts.
7. Pour into the prepared loaf tin.
8. Bake for around 1 hour 10 minutes, but start checking from 40 minutes.
9. Remove from the oven when a cake skewer comes out clean, rest in the pan for 10 minutes and then turn out to cool.

Substitutions for eggs and nuts:

My thanks to Rahel from TX on her wonderful feedback and tips! Here they are:

- 2 heaping tablespoons of condensed milk in place of the eggs; and

- reducing sugar to 3/4 cup if using the condensed milk; and

- leave out the nuts!

Butter Bean Brownies

I created this recipe on a day that
I just didn't feel like baking with gluten-free flour.

When I bake a cake, I like to strike a balance
between sweet and less sweet.
Personally, I detest a sickly sweet cake with an equally sweet icing.
The solution? Balance them out.

In this case, I went for a slightly less sweet cake base
with a sweet and runny icing.

Ingredients & Method:

1 tin (240g drained weight) of butterbeans zoeshed in food processor with 100ml buttermilk

2 egg whites beaten to soft peaks

2 egg yolks mixed with 6 Tbsp sugar

- Add 2 Tbsp cocoa powder, butterbean/buttemilk mix, 2 Tbsp oil, 1/2 t bicarb, 1 tsp creme of tartar to egg yolks and sugar. Mix together.
- Stir through the egg whites.
- Bake at 180 Celsius for 25 mins.


Icing:

1 Dsp coconut oil

2 tsp honey

2 Tbsp cocoa powder

1 pinch of vanilla seeds

- Mix liquid coconut oil with liquid honey (heat slowly over a very low temp. if your oil/honey has set).
- Stir through the cocoa powder & vanilla seeds (once off the heat if heating is required).
- Ice/Glaze cake and decorate with pecan nuts.

Scotch pancakes with a twist

After walking past it for weeks, I finally bought myself a non-stick pancake pan the other day. Good thing too since two days later, they were gone off the shelf.

Its inaugural use was actually for an omelette while I was sick and avoiding sugar, but today they served their true purpose - and what a grand and far easier purpose it was!

Gluten-free Scotch pancakes

Ingredients:

• 240ml potato starch
• 5ml hemp protein powder
• 5ml cocoa powder
• 125ml buttermilk
• 1 large egg
• 0.5ml bicarbonate of soda
• 0.5ml creme of tartar
• coconut oil (for the pan/griddle)
• For the variation: coconut flakes and agave syrup
  

Method:

1. Mix the ingredients together very lightly...
really, just enought to get rid of any flour lumps.

2. Oil the non-stick pan lightly and pour the desired
amount of batter into the pan on medium heat.


3. When it bubbles on the top, it is ready for flipping over,
and then it just needs about 30 - 40 seconds depending on the heat.


4. Variation: Once the batter has been poured into the pan,
sprinkle the batter with coconut flakes and drizzle with agave syrup.
Once flipped, watch it carefully else the coconut/agave will burn.


5. Enjoy with the jam/fruit preserve/syrup of your choice.

These aren't the prettiest looking pancakes but they shape well, they're quick to make and they sure do taste nice!