Happy Love Day!

Homemade gluten-free shortbread (crumbled)
topped with berry coulis and a cashew nut
(to be eaten with a heart spoon, of course!)

xxx

Little bites of chocolate heaven

This recipe is adapted from Martha Stewart's Chocolate Charm Cookies. I have tried it twice: The first time, substituting the 2 cups of flour for a pre-made mix of gluten-free flour (Nature's Choice GF Cake Flour); and the second time, I used 1.5 cups of rice flour (Entice Rice) and 0.5 cups potato flour. Both versions worked. Both tasted yummy.

If you want flatter, crisper cookies then chill the dough for less time. If you want ones that are puffier and more cake-like (similar to the pics from Martha Stewart's recipe site), then chill the dough for an hour or more. Personally, I prefer a crunchier cookie.

Funny thing about this recipe: regardless of which type you want, all you do is roll the dough in a ball and put it on the cookie sheet. The temperature of the dough BEFORE you put it in the oven determines how flat/puffy your cookie will come out. Cool, right? :-)

Born-up-a-gluten-free-tree!

Chocolate Charm Cookies
Adapted from Martha Stewart
Makes 36 - 40

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
  
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup butter (2 US sticks = 226g)
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla essence (optional)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 175 degrees Celsius, with rack on the bottom quarter of the oven (one notch below the middle).
   
2. Sift flour, cocoa, salt in a bowl.
3. Beat butter and sugar in a seperate bowl till fluffly.
4. Add vanilla and flour to butter/sugar. Mix till just incorporated and dough sticks together.
5. Chill for 15 mins (flatter cookie) to 1 hour (puffy cookie).
6. Form balls and place on a lined baking sheet.
   
7. As soon as you put the baking sheet in the oven, put the temperature down to 150 degrees Celsius for the duration of the baking time for that baking sheet. When you take it out, turn the oven back up to 175 while you put your cookies on the cooling rack and roll more dough balls. Then turn it down again to 150 as soon as the new sheet goes in. You'll find a rhythm (Like the granny said from the movie Strictly Ballroom: "Feel da rhythm, don't be scared.")
   
8. Bake for approximately 13 minutes and then put on a wire cooling rack.
9. Dust with cocoa powder for prettiness.
10. Store in an air-tight container at room temp for 5 days.
    
11. Note: The original recipe says 20 - 25 minutes ----- this would be a bad thing unless you like your biscuits burnt! It also says to turn the cookies halfway through the baking time ---- this is not necessary. It also says you can store these for up to a week, but by day 6 they are tasting a bit stale, so I don't recommend pushing it past 5 days of storage.
    

Julie and Julia

Highly recommended!
I never expected to enjoy it as much as I did.
Incredible how Meryl Streep managed to capture
Julia Child's mannerisms.
Oh, and LOVE the pink, heart-shaped Le Creuset
pots available in shops
(they focus on the round, orange one in the movie).
Pity they are so darn expensive though!

*sigh*

A flower from my liebchen

I filled-in for my boss today who teaches English and Afrikaans at the school I'm employed at. I had forgotten how much fun teaching English poetry could be!

We analysed Edmund Spenser's Sonnet nr. 75 in preparation for a critical appreciation essay the students had to write, and I have to say, I think my scientific brain got it's heiney kicked for an hour or so while I luxuriated in the romanticism of English once more.

Sonnet 75
One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
Vain man, said she, that doest in vain assay
A mortal thing so to immortalize,
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eke my name be wiped out likewise.
Not so (quode I), let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name.
Where whenas Death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.
(Edmund Spenser)

Tres romantic, n'est-ce pas?

On that note, have a great weekend in the month of lurve ;-)

Bryanston Organic Market

• Thursdays and Saturdays from 9:00 to 15:00

• Live music

• Directions

Pagoda-ish stalls...

Trees to sit under and stare at the world...

Lots of different types of munchies, clothes and crafts...

Well-behaved dogs are welcome too...

Recommended:
Masala dosas from Chai's Place (stall 39)...

And some chai too, of course!

Cheese Scones

Recipe
Gluten-Free
Adapted from my Mom's recipe
(Makes 12)

Ingredients:

• 250ml flour (I used 3/4 rice flour + 1/4 potato flour)
• 250ml cheese (cheddar/feta/etc.)
  
• 185ml milk (if you use potato flour, you'll need 200ml milk)
• 1 tsp baking powder (1/2 tsp bicarb + 1/2 tsp creme of tartar)
• pinch of salt/pepper/mixed herbs

Method:

• Mix all ingredients together (no mixer/whisk necessary).
• Spoon into a greased muffin tin.
• Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 12 - 15 minutes.

Chocolate Fudge Icing

Since being bitten by the baking bug of late, I have become more and more aware of how the correct tools make the job so much easier. One of the ironies of having been a professional chef is that, because I had access to any possible kitchen implement as part of my job in industrial kitchens, I never really bothered to buy any for home use. Also, the last thing I usually felt like doing when getting home from a sixteen hour split-shift was cooking/baking, thus adding to my lack-of-basic-baking-implement chagrin.

So for Christmas 2009, I bribed close family with the promise of baked goods if they bought me some nifty kitchen gifts. Subsequently, they obliged, and I made out like a bandit garnering:

• a rustic Jamie Oliver cookbook from my hubby;
• a hardcore Soehnle digital kitchen scale from my parents;
• a workhorse Philips electrical hand mixer from my brother/sister-in-law;
  
• a funky Boston Warehouse Cake Walk Lazy Susan shaped like cupcakes from my aunt and her partner.

On Monday, I treated myself to a trip to Binuns for the first time, which sells all manner of catering equipment, and was shocked at the price of things! For instance, a chiffon cake pan was close to ZAR400 (roughly USD52)! So I drooled (metaphorically) up and down the aisles, and eventually walked out a half hour later with a blue spatula, a little cake skewer and a little (and relatively economical at ZAR50) non-stick cake pan (pictured below) which I think is just the cutest thing!


I found a cheaper shop around the corner where I managed to buy a well-priced plastic cake storer/carrier, a baking sheet and one round/one oblong wire cooling rack.

Obviously, I just HAD to try out my new toys! I made a chocolate cake using this recipe (FYI: the recipe turned out one cake and 10 cupcakes), substituting a mix of rice flour/potato flour instead of the pre-mixed gluten-free flour. It turned out beautifully moist and uncracked.


Then, as the title of today's post suggests, I decided to play around with the icing and made the following:

Chocolate Fudge Icing
Gluten-Free

Ingredients:

• 50g butter
• 3 level tablespoons cocoa powder (without anti-caking agent)
  
• 3 tablespoons milk
• 200g caster sugar (without anti-caking agent)
  

Method:

• Melt the butter and caster sugar over low heat on the stove.
• Add the milk and cocoa powder, and continually stir the mixture until a thick and fudgey consistency is reached.
• Ice your cake immediately before the fudgey topping sets (this made enough for a thick layer on the cake, as well as a thinner layer on all 10 cupcakes).
  

Quick, easy and ever-so-yummy! As ever, born-up-a-gluten-free-tree, and have a great weekend :-)

Chocolate Cupcakes

When I was little, my mom baked cupcakes like crazy - for birthdays, for bible club, for sunday school, for scripture union, for school, for friends, etc. They were delicious little vanilla things, to be sure, but the problem was that I have always been a chocolate lover of note.

Enter celiac disease, and my taste for chocolate grew even more rapidly because, before there were fantastic gluten-free flour mixes (the correct ratio of gf flours is paramount for a successful outcome), there were excellent Lindt chocolates that were gluten-free.

Times have changed in recent years, with a greater variety of finely-milled gf flours available in South Africa. Therefore, more and more often, I find myself turning my hand to baking as a weekend hobby, as well as a healthier option to store-bought sweeties (I figure, at least I know what I'm putting in it and how much!)

It was with great joy that I stumbled upon a blog called He-Eats while googling for chocolate cupcake recipes, and boy did I hit the mother load! Obviously, I had to de-gluten them, but nevertheless, these cupcakes came out so moist and chocolatey that it's difficult to do them justice in terms of a description (and they get even yummier if stored in an airtight container overnight in the fridge).

So now I get to have my (gf) (chocolate) (cup)cake and eat it too!

Chocolate Cupcake Recipe
Gluten-Free:
Adapted from an online Martha Stewart recipe
(made 21 cupcakes)

Cupcake Ingredients:

• ¾ cup (187.5ml) cocoa powder
• ¾ cup (187.5ml) flour (Nature's Choice GF Cake Flour works reliably)
• ½ tsp (2.5ml) baking powder OR ½ tsp (2.5ml) bicarb (acidity of sour cream/yoghurt is sufficient to activate the bicarb)
  
• ¼ tsp salt
• ¾ cup (1½ US sticks = 169.5g) unsalted butter at room temp
• 1 cup (250ml) caster sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1 tsp (5ml) vanilla extract
• ½ cup (125ml) sour cream OR full-cream yoghurt (I have made a batch using each option, and the change to yoghurt does not affect the moistness of the final product)

Method:

• Preheat oven to 350F / 175C. Line 12-Cup muffin pan with cupcake liners.
• Sift together the Cocoa, Flour, Baking Powder and salt into a medium bowl; set aside.
• Using a mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
• With the mixer on low add the flour mixture in two additions alternating with the sour cream .
• Divide the batter into cups filling about 1/2 full. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean (original recipe says 20-25 mins, but mine only took 15 mins at 175 degrees Celsius!)
• Cool in the pan for 5 minutes then transfer the cakes to cool completely, on a wire rack. Ice the cupcakes with ganache or your icing of choice once fully cooled. Typically, ganache is dark chocolate (50 - 70% cocoa solids) and cream in a 2:1 ratio, slowly melted over a very low heat, sometimes finished with a dot of butter for a nice sheen.

Pre-icing...

Post-icing & dusted with cocoa powder...

Lemony Goodness

I love the versatility of lemons. From salad dressings to lemonades to cakes, these yellow beauties never disappoint in dispersing their characteristic zing.

Lemon Yoghurt Cake Recipe
Gluten-Free:
Adapted from a recipe out of The New Cook by Donna Hay
(serves 8)

Ingredients:

• 125g butter
  
• 1 cup caster sugar
  
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
  
• 1 cup thick, plain yoghurt
• 3 Tblsp lemon juice
• 1 Tblsp lemon rind, finely grated
• 2.5 cups gluten-free flour
• 0.5 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Method:

1. Place butter and sugar in a bowl, and beat till light and creamy.
2. Add eggs and beat well.
3. Stir yoghurt, lemon juice, lemon rind, flour, and bicarb into the butter and eggs. Mix lightly to combine.
4. Spoon into a greased (or lined) 20 - 23 cm round cake tin. Bake at 175 degrees Celsius for 45 minutes (inserted skewer must come out clean).

Ingredients for Lemon Syrup:

• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup water
• 3 Tblsp lemon juice
• rind of 1 lemon, finely grated

Method:

1. Place ingredients in a pot and stir over a low heat till dissolved.
2. Simmer for 4 minutes then pour over the cake while it is still hot and in the cake tin.
3. Allow cake to stand for 5 minutes and then remove from the tin.
4. Serve with a dollop of thick, plain yoghurt.

Born-up-a-gluten-free-tree!

Good Things: T - Z

Tea

Umbrellas

Verandahs

Wellington boots

Xmas

Yams

Zucchini