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

Good Things: O - S

Olive Oil

Paternoster

Quasars

Red Shoes

Scarves for Dogs

Good Things: J - N

Jamie Oliver

Kisses

Love Letters

Masala Dosa

Nutella

Good Things: F - I

Foxenburg Estate's Goat's Milk Strawberry
Fromage de Chevre

Greenness

Hats
Ixia

Good Things: A - E

Awesome views

Butterfly tablecloths

Cacao nibs
Dachshund bookends

Eccentric toys

More cinnamon please...

This has got to be one of my all-time favourite healthy gluten-free breakfasts/desserts/snacks, which when made by my sweetie-pie hubby always tastes a million times better than if I had to make it myself (it must be the love).

It consists of:

• slices of organic banana;
• lots of cinnamon;
• crushed pecan nuts; and
• a dollop of double-cream plain yoghurt.

Go ahead and try it - you might just be pleasantly surprised at how tastily it destroys sugar cravings!