Peanut Butter Cookies (Sugar Free, Dairy Free, Wheat Free)

So I'm trying to type and eat at the same time.

These cookies are my new love.

Dangerous.

And good for you.

And one of my kiddos even eats them.

What more can I say.

Oh, they're raw... so they're instant. Mmm-hmmm!

To make 10

1/2 cup pitted dates and 1 tsb hot water, blitzed to a puree.
1/3 cup ground almonds
2 tbsp porridge oats
2 tsp ground hemp or flax seeds - optional, but oh so good for you - if you don't have them just use 2 tsp extra ground almonds
1 heaped tablespoon peanut butter (ours is sweetened already, if yours is not you may want to taste the mix and add 1 tsp maple syrup)
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp melted coconut oil/butter


Method? What method. You blitz the dates till smooth however you can - I managed it with a stick blender in a tall jug.
Stir.
Divide into balls and flatten.
Sure you can pretend that you need to know how long to chill them for, but you and I know they won't make it to the fridge!

Raspberry and Lemon Shortbread Rounds (Gluten free, dairy free, sugar free)

When the lovely Lucy here put out a call for "free-from" recipes I just knew I had to jump in. Not simply because I consider myself (in all modesty) a bit of an expert in the field of free-from baking (more on that later), but quite honestly, I have no other outlet just now for my creations (except my tummy). It's only fair to warn you, expert or no, that I have always been a haphazard baker. When I was about four I watched my Dad make drop scones without measuring any of the ingredients, and from there I never looked back.

Now, the only reason I measure when baking is:
1. If I'm using a mixture of ingredients I'm unfamiliar with, and
2. In retrospect when creating new recipes, in order to vaguely remember the formula for next time. There: you have been duly warned

I came to free-from baking in a long, roundabout way. I have always experimented with different ingredients that entice and excite me. But like most, it has also been an enforced health journey for me. I first gave up dairy, and instantly cured many congestive complaints. Then I gave up wheat, and finally gluten altogether - curing me of chronic fatigue and digestive upsets.

More recently I have experimented with giving up sugar (of all kinds) in a bid to kill a chronic candida overgrowth (terrifyingly common in today's culture of refined foods, and basely responsible for most chronic illnesses). Suffice to say most of my bakes and creations these days are dairy, gluten AND sugar-free, and often vegan too (beat that GBBO!). This makes them no less tasty (I am particular on that front!) and above all they are QUICK and EASY, because I like pretty instant results.

I created with the help of my 4 and 6 year-olds this weekend! Unusually for it doesn't contain chocolate (sorry about that) but I do use cacao butter. If you can't source cacao butter easily, feel free to substitute as you see fit

Ingredients:
Cookies
3/4 cup whole almonds
1/4 cup dessicated coconut
1 tbsp whole flaxseed
1/4 cup buckwheat (or other GF) flour
1 tbsp freeze dried raspberry powder (or other flavouring)
1/4 tsp GF baking powder
1 tbsp coconut oil
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp almond butter
1 tbsp honey or syrup
Zest & juice of 1/2 lemon

Icing:
1/3 cup cacao butter
1 tbsp freeze dried raspberry powder
1tsp honey/syrup
Few drops vanilla extract

To Make: 

Grind together the almonds, coconut and flaxseed to form a flour. Mix with rest of dried ingredients for biscuit dough. Gently melt the oils, almond butter and honey/syrup together over a bowl of hot water, then add in the lemon juice and zest. Pour over the dried ingredients and mix well to a dough.

Take spoonfuls of the dough and roll into balls, place on a nonstick baking tray (or greaseproof paper) and flatten out evenly into discs about 1/2cm thick.

Bake at 180C for about 10 minutes, until the biscuits begin to brown.

Cool on a wire rack and make the icing by gently melting together the cacao butter, honey/syrup, vanilla and raspberry. Allow to cool and thicken slightly before dribbling over biscuits. Enjoy!

If you liked these recipes do try out Zoe's first ebook, Real Food Raw, which contains lots of fun, quick and easy wholefood recipes especially created for a free-from diet. There's also lots of great tips and help in there to support you in transitioning between food habits, and how you can make it easy for yourself.

 Zoë Foster is a Life Energy Alchemist at LifeEnergyAlchemy.com, where she helps soul-driven women balance their natural energetic highs and lows and find their own rhythm - one that maximises both creative output AND self-care on a whole-person level. Zoë is also a writer and yoga teacher and lives on the edge of magical Dartmoor in Devon, UK with her young family.

 You can connect with Zoë on Facebook, Instagram, Periscope, Pinterest and Twitter at @ZoeKMFoster.

Marmalade Cupcakes (Gluten Free)

Adapted from the Breakfast of Champions column in the Saturday Guardian magazine. I loved the look of these prima ballerina's favourite breakfast muffins, but wanted to make them gluten free... and decrease the sugar load by quite a bit. They are light and fluffy, more cupcake than muffin texture, with a rich, tangy marmalade flavour. Paddington would most definintely approve!

80g cornflour
70g ground almonds
15g brown rice flour
5g potato flour (if you don't have it just use 5g more of cornflour)
1 tablespoon baking power
60g caster sugar

75g cooled melted butter
1 large egg
Zest and juice of one orange
75ml milk
130g marmalade

Makes 9

Heat the oven to 170C fan and put muffin cases in 9 holes of a 12-hole muffin tray.

Combine the dry ingredients, crumbling them together with your fingers, getting rid of any lumps.
Briefly whisk the wet ingredients together to combine, pour into the dry along with the marmalade, and mix briefly by hand until just combined (over-mixing makes for tough, dense muffins).

Fill the cases two-thirds full, and bake for 15-20 minutes until a tooth pick comes out clean.

These are DIVINE warm... they are quite grainy and dry the next day.

Raw Lemon and Cardamom Oat Cookies (Gluten free, dairy free, sugar free)

When the lovely Lucy here put out a call for "free-from" recipes I just knew I had to jump in. Not simply because I consider myself (in all modesty) a bit of an expert in the field of free-from baking (more on that later), but quite honestly, I have no other outlet just now for my creations (except my tummy). It's only fair to warn you, expert or no, that I have always been a haphazard baker. When I was about four I watched my Dad make drop scones without measuring any of the ingredients, and from there I never looked back.

Now, the only reason I measure when baking is:
1. If I'm using a mixture of ingredients I'm unfamiliar with, and
2. In retrospect when creating new recipes, in order to vaguely remember the formula for next time. There: you have been duly warned

I came to free-from baking in a long, roundabout way. I have always experimented with different ingredients that entice and excite me. But like most, it has also been an enforced health journey for me. I first gave up dairy, and instantly cured many congestive complaints. Then I gave up wheat, and finally gluten altogether - curing me of chronic fatigue and digestive upsets.

More recently I have experimented with giving up sugar (of all kinds) in a bid to kill a chronic candida overgrowth (terrifyingly common in today's culture of refined foods, and basely responsible for most chronic illnesses). Suffice to say most of my bakes and creations these days are dairy, gluten AND sugar-free, and often vegan too (beat that GBBO!). This makes them no less tasty (I am particular on that front!) and above all they are QUICK and EASY, because I like pretty instant results.

I'm going to share two biscuit recipes over the next month - because what's more British than a biscuit? One is raw (and a favourite of Lucy's!) and the other is a bake I just created this week. Unusually for me, neither contains chocolate (sorry about that) but I do use cacao butter. If you can't source cacao butter easily, feel free to substitute as you see fit.

 RAW LEMON & CARDAMOM OAT COOKIES
(Just like a posher version of the oaty biscuits in an orange packet)

 Ingredients:

1/3 cup GF whole oat groats/ flakes
1/3 cup whole almonds
1/3 cup dessicated coconut
1 cardamom pod (or more if you're feeling brave/in need of more zing)
1 tbsp honey or favourite syrup
1 tbsp sultanas
1/4 cup cacao butter (Lucy's note: this gives me migraines so I use half white choc and half coconut oil instead).
 Zest of 1/2 lemon
Pinch crystal sea salt

To Make:

Split open the cardamom pod and extract the seeds for use then grind together the oats, almonds, cardamom seeds and salt to a rough flour (not too fine).

Melt the honey/syrup and cacao butter together over a bowl of hot water then add in the lemon rind. Mix everything together to form a dough. Line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper and shape the dough into little cookies.

Freeze or chill until firm, then enjoy with your favourite hot beverage. These are particularly good dunked in my decadent Morning Macaccino.


If you liked this recipe, do try out my first ebook, Real Food Raw, which contains lots of fun, quick and easy wholefood recipes especially created for a free-from diet. There's also lots of great tips and help in there to support you in transitioning between food habits, and how you can make it easy for yourself.

 Zoë Foster is a Life Energy Alchemist at LifeEnergyAlchemy.com, where she helps soul-driven women balance their natural energetic highs and lows and find their own rhythm - one that maximises both creative output AND self-care on a whole-person level. Zoë is also a writer and yoga teacher and lives on the edge of magical Dartmoor in Devon, UK with her young family.

 You can connect with Zoë on Facebook, Instagram, Periscope, Pinterest and Twitter at @ZoeKMFoster.

Italian Almond Delights - Ricciarelli (Gluten free, dairy free)

These are my go to, GF baking indulgence. Super fast, from first craving to in your mouth in under half an hour, these little Italian confections use ingredients that I tend to always have in my store cupboard, make the kitchen smell divine and give you a great homemade sugar hit... and last for days.

Perfect for dainty afternoon teas, as a mid-morning coffee biscuit or an after dinner petit fours, they are grown up treats of understated elegance. I am not a fan of marzipan, but these, these... oh my. The vanilla and the lemon zest cut the almondy-ness... I have decreased the almond essence hugely... but if you hate marzipan, then leave it out altogether.

This is my version of Nigella Lawson's recipe from her How to Be a Domestic Goddess. She recommends leaving them to dry for 24 hours before baking. That has NEVER happened in our house.

2 large egg whites
225g caster sugar
zest of 1 lemon
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond essence
250g ground almonds (have an extra 50g on standby just in case the mix is too soggy)
icing sugar, for dusting

Line a baking sheet with baking paper.

With an electric mixer, whip the egg whites until they are stiff and then gradually whisk in the sugar. It will end up a bit like marshmallow fluff. Add the lemon zest, vanilla and almond essences. Then add the ground almonds, folding in with a spatula - it will become quite a dense mixture. If it is too wet to shape (see below) then add the remaining 50 g of ground almonds.

Shape tablespoonfuls into diamond shapes and place (evenly spaced) on the tray. It is a sticky mixture, and Nigella suggests dusting your hands periodically with icing sugar while you are shaping. Roll them in sieved icing sugar before putting on the baking tray.

Heat the oven 140C (slightly lower if yours is a fan oven), and cook for 20 minutes. They'll be pale and a little cracked when done. Check and see, if they are still very soft you will need to pop them back in for a little longer. Under done they are a moist and lightly chewy, the more they cook, the harder and chewier they become.

Cool and then dust with more icing sugar if you wish. They keep really well for several few days in an airtight container, but good luck getting them to last that long!

Lemon Drizzle Cake (Gluten free)

So... my first recipe... back in the saddle. I feel I should be charging for this. Or set up production.

It is my own creation... and you REALLY cannot tell that it is not PROPER cake... rather than gluten free.

It is golden, with a soft crumb, moist, bouncy, crumbly. JUST LIKE PROPER CAKE.

And best of all it's super flexible. I have used it as an all-purpose sponge mix for making:

• Vanilla Cupcakes
• Banana Muffins
• Upside Down Plum Cake
• Speedy Steamed Sponge Pudding
• And our favourite... Lemon Drizzle Cake

In fact you can replace this flour mix in pretty much any standard sponge cake recipe. And it works!

Every person who eats it cannot believe it's not real cake... and asks for the recipe.

So here it is:

Weigh your eggs (in their shells) - as with a Victoria Sponge. We will go on the average of 45 grams an egg.

So your flour mix for a four egg recipe - which is what we use for our Lemon Drizzle Squares.

70g cornflour

70g ground almonds

15g brown rice flour

15g tapioca flour

10g potato flour

Lemon Drizzle Squares

180g butter

170g sugar

180g of magic GF flour (above)

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp vanilla

4 large eggs

zest of one lemon finely grated

Cream butter and sugar with electric whisk, add other ingredients and beat. put into small roasting tray - 30x20cm. Bake for 20 mins at 180 C till golden, and a toothpick comes out clean.

When out, leave in tin, sprinkle over 2 tablespoons of caster sugar and pour over the juice of the lemon. Cut into squares.

No-bake PMS bars

So at a certain time of the month, the need for chocolate becomes as strong as our need for extra sleep. We women are wired for it.

Image credit: www.marksdailyapple.com

But if we're not careful we can load up on too much sugar and feel really crappy. Also concentration can be tougher premenstrually and we can be clumsier.

I am currently not eating wheat and sugar, but I wanted a snack to get me through the tunnel of PMS - and this one takes the biscuit! A recipe that needs no chopping or baking, and minimal work, which has no added sugar, but is nutrient rich with nuts, seeds and oats, giving you the nutritional boost you need premenstrually, without the sugar rush. And most importantly a rich, dark, deep hit of chocolate.

The only part of the recipe which requires a little vigilance is the first, toasting the nuts, seeds and oats. But it only takes about 10 minutes. So have a cup of tea and sit in stillness in front of the cooker. Or set a timer!

 Ingredients
2 cups rolled oats, not the powdery porridge ones
1 cup almonds (with skins on)
3/4 cup pecans
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds
200 grams 70- 75% dark chocolate
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 packed cup pitted dates

 Pre heat the oven to 170C (fan), about 350F.

Pour the oats onto one large baking tray, and the nuts and seeds onto the other. Pop them into the hot oven. Check after 6 minutes. If the nuts smell toasty and are a little darker, take them out. Toss the oats so the ones on bottom are now on top, and pop into the oven for another 5 mins. If about 1/4 are starting to turn golden brown then you can take them out, if not, toss again and put in for another couple of minutes.

Pour the nuts,seeds, oats and salt into a steel bladed food processor and grind until gritty.

Then add the pitted dates, vanilla and chocolate (broken roughly into pieces)for another minute until it is all brown and has come together, stop once or twice to push any stray oats down into the chocolatey mush.

Pour into an 8 inch square brownie tin which is lined with baking parchment. Cut into 16 squares and chill in the fridge for an hour or so before eating.

Thanks to http://www.brighteyedbaker.com for the original recipe inspiration which I have adapted.

White choc and raspberry blondies (the only butter in them is butternut squash)

I've tried a number of recipes from the super incredible Red Velvet and Chocolate Heartache cookbook which specialises in vegetable cakes: parsnip vanilla fudge, chocolate aubergine cake and two sorts of butternut squash cupcakes- one flavoured with orange and the other with ginger. All have gone down swimmingly well with adults and kids alike. No one can believe they are butter free and packed with veggies.  Oh, and gluten free too!!

There has only been one not great recipe - an orange, almond and saffron sand cake. It was very, very gritty.

But today's blondies (think squidgy brownie texture but no blonde, not dark!) were out of this world. I am not even going to try to share them with my kids! They are mine, all mine. Think a blondie, mated with bakewell tart, with a heady whiff of cinnamon.

I know, I couldn't quite get my head round them and nearly left out the cinnamon - it's not a natural bedfellow with raspberries and white chocolate. But please, just trust it!

The recipe is Harry Eastwood's but I have upped the chocolate and flaked almonds, and slightly downed the raspberries as round here they come in punnets of 125g.

Preheat oven to 180C (fan).
Line and lightly grease a 22cm square brownie tin.

3 medium eggs
120g caster sugar
250g peeled, finely grated butternut squash, no seeds!!
50g rice flour
100g ground almonds
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
150g white chocolate chopped into chunks.
125g punnet of fresh raspberries
40g flaked almonds


Whisk the sugar and eggs until quadrupled in volume and pale. Add in the finely grated squash, flour, ground almonds, cinnamon, salt and baking powder. Whisk briefly to combine. Pour 2/3 of the mixture into the tin. Sprinkle over the white chocolate and raspberries. Pour the rest of the batter over, push down any raspberries and choc chunks so they are submerged and don't burn. Sprinkle ove rthe flaked almonds.

Bake for 25 mins until risen and golden brown. Keep an eye on it to make sure the nuts don't burn.

Cool in the tin for about 15 mins before cutting into 16. Delicious served warm with vanilla ice cream!

No bake flap jacks

For Sarah

Five minutes start to finish. Plus an hour in the fridge. Sweet, squidgy and reasonably healthy. These met with the women's group stamp of approval!

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup honey
2/3 cup soft brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups rice crispies
3 - 3 1/2 cups porridge oats, NOT jumbo or rolled oats
1 handful each pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and unblanched almonds

Melt butter, sugar and honey gently in a largish pan, when sugar is dissolved let it come up to boil for 2 mins.

Stir in vanilla. Chop almonds into slivers. Stir in 3 cups of oats, the rice crispies and half the nuts and seeds. If it still seems too syrupy and sticky add more oats.

Turn into a brownie tin lined with baking paper. Press down and sprinkle remaining nuts and seeds over.

Chill in fridge for 1 hour then cut into 16 squares.

Choc-orange-cranberry-almond-oat bars!

These are crammed with goodness and easy as pie to make.No easier. Absolutely NO cooking skills needed. The original recipe come's from the speedily super Nigella Express  where she calls them breakfast bars- because that's what they really are - oats, milk, sugar and nuts and seeds. But I had to add chocolate. And orange. And change the nuts. So now they're all mine!

Do note the low oven temperature.
And the oats. DO NOT whatever you do use the powdery, crumbly porridge oats. You must use rolled oats, the thicker, jumbo oats that all keep their shape. Otherwise... yuck!

And be sure you have condensed milk - which is thick like syrup, not the runny evaporated milk.

No, I don't think you're stupid. It's just easy to skim read recipes. Especially easy ones!

Chocolate almond cake (gluten free)

This one's from my friend Rachael Tomkins, a regular Queen of Puddings reader. She had a winning discovery of this gluten-free chocolate cake, which uses almonds instead of flour. It went down a treat with her sister-in -aw (who is coeliac). There were no complaints from the rest of the family either apparently! It was, according to her "really easy and super yummy!!!" 

So I had to try it didn't I? And she also suggested it might be nice warm with ice cream - well what are friends for but to act on your every whim? That is my professional obligation, here at Queen of Puddings. Nothing goes on here unless it's been tried and loved first. So warm with ice cream it was. And I agree wholeheartedly. Super yummy. My two-year-old (nut hating child) is currently devouring it beside me! It also fills the house with a chocolatey fug for the whole day so you get to waft around feeling like a true domestic goddess, despite the sink stacked with washing up!

I am still on the look out for a dairy, egg and wheat-free cake for Andra - I have a great  vegan cake recipe, but it has wheat flour. Any suggestions dear readers?

Raspberry almond pudding cake

I had frozen raspberries and wanted to make a pudding for our roast chicken dinner. But didn't want crumble. So improvised this - a mix between my all time favourite River Cafe Plum and Orange cake with almonds, another fav, Nigella Lawson's Easy Almond Cake, and a remembered cake that my step mother brought over to celebrate the birth of my first daughter. We liked it, a lot. 3 adults ate 3/4 of it!

So what's it like? A damp, sweet, buttery, crumbly almond and citrus scented cake with a crisp caramelised crunchy almond topping and tart raspberries at the bottom.

Florentine Crispies

Dear friends, brace yourselves to reach heaven. Well, that is if you like white chocolate, and if you don't we may need to reassess this friendship thing. You also need to be a little nutty... (if you know what I mean!) And yes you need to like candied peel. Now I know that this seems to disqualify most of my close friends. But their loss. Myself, my husband, sister and step mother sit and gorge on these. There is a reason that I only cook them once or twice a year! that and the ingredients aren't that cheap. But boy are they a good grown up treat. Gorgeous as a snack, or an after dinner snapple.

These are grown up chocolate crispy cakes with a florentine vibe going on. Regular readers know that contains nuts= a health food in my book and it cancels out the less wholesome nature of any other ingredients contained therein!

With credit to Andrew Garrison Shot's divine book Making Fine Chocolates for the original version of this recipe.

Honey Cake

The sort of thing that Pooh Bear would eat, me-thinks! what is great about this one is that you can tell yourself that you can have another slice, because it's SO healthy! It has honey, unrefined nuts and brown flour. Except it doesn't taste worthy at all, it is buttery and with a light crumb and a praline nuttiness. Hidden under the guise of a boring looking, almost burnt crust. This is one that whispers seductively "never judge a book by its cover!" I dare you not to have a second slice, and maybe even a third.

With thanks to Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall for the original recipe (in his River Cottage Everyday  [GREAT book]) which of course I have tweaked!