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!

Bouikos

I've been baking less and less with sugar recently. And trying to avoid flour. But these little babies - which I discovered in the award-winning Honey and Co book, have taken pride of place in my life. They are essentially little cheesy scones - so simple to make - bung the ingredients in a food processor, blend, press together and cut. They take less than 20 mins from start to belly. Most of that time is cooking.

I make them about three times a week for a speedy breakfast or lunch, sometimes with sliced beetroot, sometimes with baked beans, and sometimes just in my hand on the way down to collect the kids from school. I have (of course) adapted the recipe, to make it easier to remember without referring to the book and to use what I have to hand. Itmar's introductory story about them is worth the price of the book itself - as he recounts how he incurs the wrath of the Italian pastry chef each morning who threatens him with the mafia - because he steals them hot from the oven. Which is the best way to eat them.

I keep meaning to take a photo, but they're not photogenic, and have usually ended up in my belly before I can find my camera. So just I am very gratefully borrowing one from Rachel's kitchen

Makes 10 

Before you get your ingredients out, start preheating your oven to 170C (fan)

50g feta cheese
50g mature cheddar cheese
50g cold butter
100g plain flour
2 tbsp buttermilk (or sour cream) plus a little more for glazing
1 tsp nigella (black onion) seeds
1 spring onion cut into rings

Put everything into a blender and whizz for 20 seconds until it all comes together. If it's not coming together add a little dash more of your buttermilk.

Tip out onto a floured baking sheet, push the dough gently together with your hands, flattening it to about 1 inch thick.

Cut into triangles and brush with a little extra buttermilk.

Bake for 10-15 mins depending on how hot the oven is at this stage. They should be golden when ready. Leave to cool for a couple of minutes and then for sheer pleasure eat hot.

Lauren's Life Loaf (Gluten free, Dairy free, Sugar free)

Eating gluten free one of the biggest losses is nice bread. I have discovered bearable GF bread in the supermarket, which doesn't break the bank, but it's hardly a joy to eat. And not particularly good for you - full of highly processed starches etc. It does the job when an oat cake won't cut it, but that's it. It's a stop gap. A carby filler of misery.

And then my step-mother, Lauren, introduced me to THIS bread.

This has flavour and nutrition by the bucket load. And no artificial or processed anything. Just yummy goodness. She discovered it at My New Roots...

No mess, no kneading, no fretting and fast to do - very crunchy and smooth and rich


quantity for normal loaf tin:
1 cup/ 135grms sunflower seeds
1/2 cup/90 grams whole flax seeds
1/2 cup/65 grms hazelnuts halved
1.5 cups/145 grms rolled oats (like Flahavans)
2 tablespoon chia seeds
4 tablespoons psyllium seed husks (3 tablespoons if using powder)
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon maple syrup
3 tablespoons melted coconut oil
1.5 cups/ 350ml water


Line a loaf tin with parchment paper.
Combine all the dry ingredients mixing thoroughly.
Whisk the maple syrup, oil and water together then add to the dry ingredients mixing well until everything is completely soaked and the dough becomes very thick (if the dough is too thick to stir add a teaspoon or so of cold water until the dough is manageable).

Flop the dough into the prepared tin smoothing out the top with the back of a spoon.
Leave to sit on the countertop for at least 2 hours, all day or all night is better (sometimes I just do it for 5 minutes and it’s still good!). To ensure the dough is ready it should retain its shape when you lift the parchment.

Preheat oven to 175*C/350*F - or middle of aga - and even when on low heat

Place the loaf tin in the middle of the oven and bake for 20 minutes.
Remove the bread from the loaf pan and place it upside down directly on the greaseproof paper on the oven rack. Bake for another 30-40 minutes. Bread is done when it sounds hollow when tapped. Allow to cool completely before slicing.

Store in a container for up to 5 days.
Can freeze - slice before freezing so easier to take out a slice to toast.

White Chocolate and Raspberry Cheesecake

There are two sorts of people in this world. Those who believe the only cheesecake is a baked cheesecake... and the rest of us. I had FINALLY been converted to baked cheesecake, via an incredible recipe from Rose Berenbaum's Cake Bible, when I got the winter vomiting bug. At 7 months pregnant. I have never been so ill. Needless to say I will NEVER eat a baked cheesecake again.

But no bake cheesecake, AKA proper cheesecake... is still just fine by me!

This is a decadent dessert that requires no baking. Perfect for entertaining over the holiday season. I can be ready to eat in 1 1/2 hours and has most ingredients that you'd have to hand (bar the raspberries).


8 inch loose bottom tin

Base
250g crushed digestives/ graham crackers
120g butter melted

Topping
180g white chocolate
250 ml double cream
200g soft cheese (Philadelphia)
60g icing sugar sifted
1 tsp vanilla
1 punnet raspberries

Line the base of the tin with a circle of  baking parchment. Bash or blitz the biscuits to crumbs, stir in the melted butter. Pour into the tin, spread evenly and press down firmly. Put into the freeze for 20-30 mins to firm up.

Meanwhile get on with the topping.

In a bain marie melt the white chocolate gently, stirring and being sure not to overheat. Take off the heat and leave to cool slightly.

Whip the cream till stiff with an electric whisk, but don't overwhip. Add the icing sugar, vanilla and cream cheese, whisking for just a few seconds to incorporate. Fold in the white chocolate. Taste for sweetness, add a little more sugar if required.

Tip onto the base, smooth over, cover with cling film and put in the fridge to set. Decorate with the raspberries just before serving.

Buttermilk Donuts

I have a real thing for hot donuts - can you tell? I've shared several recipes over the years - Little Pieces of Heaven and No Fry Instant Donuts I have yet to attempt them gluten free... so these are full fat, gluten-loaded... and well worth the belly ache. I may sometimes even make them for breakfast!

These are my new big love, I've adapted them from Ruby Tandoh of Great British Bake Off fame, from her Guardian column mine are much softer and less cakey than hers. The nutmeg and vanilla in these give a lovely snickerdoodle kind of feel to them.

Makes 6
Oil for deep frying
150g plain flour
40g caster sugar
1  3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4  tsp bicarbonate of soda
Pinch of salt
Small grating of nutmeg
1 medium egg
120 ml buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Heat oil in a deep fat fryer or deep pan to 190C/350F.

While the oil heats, prepare the dough. Combine all the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix briefly. Whisk the egg, buttermilk and vanilla together in a jug and pour into the dry ingredients. Stir together to get a thick batter which drops slowly off your spoon.

Drop into boiling oil - a heaped tablespoon for each one. Cook for about 2 minutes on the first side, turn over and cook for just under a minute on the second side. They need to be mid golden to be sure they're cooked through.

Once cooked, put onto a piece of kitchen towel to soak up any excess oil, then, while they’re still warm, then put into a dish and sprinkle over a few teaspoons of caster sugar.

Eat warm!

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.

Chewy Triple Ginger Cookies

These are for the ginger lovers in the house.

My older girl had been on to me to make hideous looking goblin biscuits, AKA green gingerbread men, for Halloween last year. The recipe came from her hideous (IMHO) Rainbow Fairies Annual. I was going to use my fail-safe ginger bread recipe, which I've shared here before, but decided she'd enjoy the whole thing more if she read the recipe aloud from the book as we went.

So the kiddies had their lurid green goblins, and I adapted the other half of the mix to be adult-friendly, by upping the ginger and adding stem ginger chunks - and shaping as proper cookies.

Rather than bake a big batch, what I recommend is to make up the dough, and keep it wrapped in the fridge in cling film (saran wrap) and bake a fresh batch every couple of days as they go quite soggy on the day after they're cooked. Fresh from the oven they are crisp and chewy and very moreish

Preheat oven to 180C Fan

120g butter (melted)

1 egg (beaten)
270g plain flour

2 tsp dried ground ginger

8-12 lumps of preserved stem ginger in syrup chopped into small chunks - depending on size and your love of ginger!

2 tbsp golden syrup

2 tbsp syrup from the ginger jar

1  tsp baking soda (sieved)

170g light brown soft sugar

Mix the butter, sugar, ground ginger and syrups together well. Add half the flour, then the beaten egg, and the other half of the flour. Add the chopped ginger. Mix to combine, knead for a minute with your hands. Form into a log, the diametre you want your cookies.

Slice into 1 cm thick slices, place on a lined baking tray - do not over crowd - squash them slightly thinner with your hands.

Bake for 10 mins until rich golden, be sure the edges don't go dark brown or they will be bitter. Cool for 2-3 mins on the tray to harden slightly, then remove and cool on a wire rack. Best eaten warm!

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.

Snickerdoodle Apple cake

I love the flavours of snickerdoodles - a classic American cookie which I first discovered thanks to Nigella Lawson's How to Be a Domestic Goddess. For the non-US readers in the house, these have nothing to do with Snickers bars, there is not a peanut or chocolate in sight. Instead a simple, rather old fashioned mix of some of my favourite spices: vanilla, nutmeg and cinnamon. And they're all flavours that go superbly well with apples... so a new recipe idea was formed!

We are really lucky that my father in law is an incredible grower of produce... but often that means that at this time of year we have a bags of produce that we can't eat, that need turning into something when they're a little past their best. Apples are one of those - our kids love crisp juicy apples, but after a couple of weeks home grown apples are soft and a little fluffy. Or are starting to get brown bits here and there. 

This recipe is great for using up eating apples that have gone this way in, and almost everyone in the family loves it. My kids don't like cinnamon, so this is a way I can make a cake that both adults and kids love - you can just slice the spice top off for fussy eaters.

Ingredients

150g soft butter
170g caster sugar 
200g plain flour
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla
3 lg eggs
2 tbsp full fat milk
3 med eating apples, peeled, cored, brown bits cut out, and sliced into 1 inch chunks.

Preheat oven to 180C (170 fan)

Cream the butter and sugar with an electric whisk. Add the rest of the ingredients (except the apple) whisk till light and well combined. Stir through the apple with a spatula or wooden spoon.

Line a large loaf pan or 9 inch, deep cake tin. Tip in the mixture, Smooth it off. 

Cook for 15 mins, then cover with foil, and cook for an extra 20-30 mins - check after the second 20 mins with a skewer - to see if it's done, if not return with foil still on. Any wobbly or wet mix coming out on the skewer and it's not done.

When cooked remove from tin and sprinkle with 2 tbsp demerara or caster sugar or a mix. 5 gratings nutmeg and 1/2 - 1 tsp ground cinnamon depending on how much you like it.

Eat warm with ice cream. Or cold. Keeps 3-4 days well.

(Gluten Free Note: I have made this with my gluten free flour mix - see here - it's fine... but much nicer not GF, as it needs quite a long bake, which doesn't work so well for GF flours.)

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!

Queen of Puddings is Named One of the Top 50 UK Food Blogs to Follow

I was very honoured to be chosen as one of the Top 50 UK Food blogs to follow. Hurray!

Credit

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.

I'm BACK and baking!

Hi folks!

I'm back. Two things coincided - my writing career taking off... four books in two years... suddenly I went from hobby blogger, to professional writer, and needed to focus my time on my other blogs... and books. I was having to write all the time, for everything, I didn't have the time to bake, take pics, and WRITE. ONE. MORE. BLOG.

Another factor feeding into me not baking was discovering that I had a wheat intolerance. And cutting sugar right back. Suddenly the love of my life cake... and baking... was no more. For months I was in mourning. If I couldn't bake proper cake, then I wouldn't bake anything.

Next came months of experimentation with gritty, nasty, gooey, YUCK, gluten free recipes.

And now here I am... mainly wheat-free - except for the odd gluten loaded, I'll risk the consequences recipes of sheer delight.

And I missed this place. I missed food writing. Sharing recipes.

Teaching food blogging the past couple of years at the Ballymaloe Cookery School I felt a bit of a fake... because though I started off food blogging I had let the Queen of Puddings go. Sure I was Darina's blogging consultant - I get to live my food writing dreams vicariously through my work with her.

But MY CAKES... I miss sharing them.

It took my best friend ( a TOTALLY impartial critic) to tell me a few weeks back that she was just starting to work her way through my recipes here, and "oh, what a treasure trove of goodies you have there."

So I'm back. To share my recipes... and make this world a little better through my love of good cake. Don't set your watch by me... Don't count on perfect photos.

But the recipes.

You know you can trust them!

Harvest Cake

A cake to celebrate the season and our glut of apples. Gluten and sugar free cos that's how I'm rocking right now... But still want to bake and eat cake.

Can be dairy free too very easily

Fry 3 peeled sliced eating apples in 2 tsp of butter or oil,  5 mins till soft in a sauté pan that can go in the oven.add 1 tbsp honey and a punch of cinnamon.

Cake batter: 2 med eggs, pinch salt, pinch cinnamon, 11/2 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 4 tbsp sunflower oil, 180 g apple sauce(sugar free), about 60 g ground almonds, 50g rice flour. Mix all together till combined. Dont over mix. Add a little more ground almonds if needed to make it to a thickish but still runny batter, the texture of a good thick yogurt.

Pour batter over the apples, smooth over. Cook at 170 for 15-20 mins till golden. Loosen edges, turn over onto a plate like a tarte tatin, drizzle with honey. Delicious served warm with cream.

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.

And the winner is...

Many congratulations to Rea Halleran - who has won the pair of tickets to the Ballymaloe Garden Festival - see you there!

A GIVEAWAY that comes up smelling of roses!

Do you have a passion for roses? Then be sure to read to the end for a great giveaway... 

I make no secret of my passion for roses. Not the tight-lipped imported ones, but the big blowsy, highly scented old fashioned ones which have graced the gardens of cottages and castles for centuries. There is nothing more sensual, exotic and heavenly for me, than the scent of roses... they are my favourite flowers...

I have filled our garden with roses, light and dark pink,yellow, white... and even a rather odd lavender coloured one! But I don't celebrate them just for their visual beauty, or even their scent... but for their flavour. If you haven't discovered roses as edible magic then follow me on Pinterest and  check out my board on edible flower delights!

A couple of weeks back I shared my recipe for raspberry and rose sorbet (which resulted in a couple of friends knocking on my door asking if there was any left to sample!)

My son makes a divine rose petal lemonade. This summer I have been living off my own fairy flower tea of fresh lemon balm, rose geranium leaf and rose petals... and my favourite chocolates are... yup, you guessed it, rose creams!

Ha! I've just realised that my tea pot and tea cups and chintzy plates are all covered in roses too... ooops this is becoming a little obsessive!

I want to share my passion for roses with you in person, and offer you the chance to win a pair of tickets, to a very special event at the inaugral Ballymaloe Garden Festival in East Cork, Ireland. 

Bring a friend to hear award winning gardener, Helen Dillon, of The Dillon Garden in Dublin, & Rory O’Connell ex-head chef of Ballymaloe House for a sensual celebration of roses. Helen will talk about growing roses and Rory will talk about the many wonderful uses of roses in the kitchen. It's on Saturday August 31st from 11.30am to 12.45pm in The Grainstore, Ballymaloe House. You will also get to meet The Queen of Puddings in the flesh - that'd be me - I'll be wearing a pink rose in my lapel!!!!

The Ballymaloe Garden Festival is dedicated to sustainable gardening, and features names like Alys Fowler, Michael Kelly, Joy Larkcom and Darina Allen who will be joined by experts on rare plants to garden design, wetland systems, urban gardening, herbal medicine, through to flower arranging and watercolour painting. There will be a family friendly fringe festival of fun and food, plant stalls, and free guided tours around the Ballymaloe Cookery School Gardens. Tickets for individual events are available at the doors on the day, and day passes can be purchased from The Grainstore.

Click for a complete programme of events.

To enter the GIVEAWAY you need to:
1) LIKE the Queen of Puddings page on Facebook 
2) Share this post on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest
3) Leave a comment here or on FB to let me know you've shared.

The winner will be announced next Thursday, 22nd August by midday (BST). I will give you the tickets in person at the event! Good luck!

Any Season Fresh Strawberry Ice Cream

For me the quintessential taste of summer is strawberries. And the quintessential summer treat is ice cream. So this one combines the two of them, but with the added bonus that it can be made at any time of year, because it uses frozen strawberries. These are picked and frozen in their prime, so their flavour is captured at its height. I dare anyone to guess that it was made from frozen berries. My theory is - they're going to be frozen anyway, so what's the point in paying premium prices for fresh... and then have to do the work of hulling them?

This recipe was adapted from the Ballymaloe recipe which can be found in Darina Allen's book Ballymaloe Cookery Course

Ingredients

500g frozen strawberries

Syrup made with 250ml water and 220g sugar. Chilled in fridge for an hour.

300 ml whipping cream

1/2 juice orange and

1/2 juice lemon

Method

Put the sugar and water in a pan, stir to dissolve over a medium heat, remove from heat just before it boils. Chill in fridge for an hour.

Whip cream to just before soft peak stage.

Blend strawberries with cool syrup, so you have a fancy looking slush puppy! There is no need to sieve this.

Fold strawberries into cream, add lemon and orange juices. It should be slushy, so actually no need for an ice cream maker - if you have one it'll improve the texture a little.

Put into freezer tub. Stir once after an hour. Ready to eat after 2-3 hours.

Heaven served garnished with scented geranium leaves, as in the picture - the perfume from them exalts the flavour sensation!

Raspberry Rose Sorbet

Summer is well and truly here, we've been basking in a heatwave for weeks now, which is unheard of for Ireland. We have been living off ice cream, and so, after years of dithering, I finally invested in an ice cream maker. And mama are we having fun with it.

This was one of our first frozen delights. An intense ruby red sorbet which taste of pure summer. The tart juiciness of raspberries, mingling with the airy floral notes of rose. A match made in heaven.

We were looking to recreate a divine raspberry sorbet that we had whilst wandering the sweltering streets of Toulouse, France, on the first day of this month. I humbly think we bettered it!

Ingredients

1 pack frozen raspberries (350g) (about 4 1/2 US cups)

Sugar syrup made from 1 cup water and 1 cup granulated sugar

1/2-1 teaspoon rose water.

Method

First make the sugar syrup, by dissolving the sugar in the water in a pan, stir until fully dissolved and almost simmering.  Cool in fridge for an hour. Put the fruit in a blender, still frozen, pour over the cooled syrup and liquidise.

If the syrup is cold and raspberries frozen you should have a slush (this is very handy if you don't have an ice cream maker). Sieve. Discard pips. Add rose water, less is more, try 1/2 teaspoon first, then add more if desired. Remember it should taste over-sweet at the moment, it will seem less sweet when frozen.

Put in cream maker, (or straight in freezer tub and take out and stir once after an hour.) It should be ready to eat after 2-3 hours.