Another new feature I’ve dragged out for the depths of my imagination (which, judging by my groundbreaking titles is more like a puddle than a never ending abyss of creativeness).
As you probably gathered from the highly innovative concept, each edition will feature one ingredient used two different ways. The two recipes featured here came about after I was sent the Dietary Specials new recipe Shortcrust Pastry.
I must preface this now by saying this is NOT a sponsored post, I just really love this product.
We all know by now that I am a total lemon slut. I love anything with/near/like lemon and as a result I perhaps post more lemon recipes than any other. I had promised that I wouldn’t do anymore lemon containing recipes for a while, but after I converted this one from the The Hummingbird Bakery book I knew it was far too yummy not to post it on here (despite it being a doppelganger of one I posted last year)
After you’ve finished yakking after reading my vom worthy ‘Daddy Cool’ post I thought you might like to indulge in a yummy-o, calorific Apple Upside Down Cake (the point being you turn the cake upside down,not eat it whilst upside down…but you knew that already). I wouldn’t have ever attempted an upside down anything due to my innate ability to pretty much drop anything I pick up, but my Dad found it while flicking though my new Rachel Allen cook book (a barginlicious £5 from W H Smith) and I had promised him a dessert of his choice for Fathers Day and this was what he chose, and blow me if it didn’t actually come out pretty much perfectly!
Scones are one of those things that are hard enough to get right when they’re not gluten-free, and they’re even harder to re-produce when you take gluten out of the mix (literally). This recipe is one that I’ve adapted from a Phil Vickery recipe. Phil uses his own flour mixes, but I find the Doves Farm flour mixes are brilliant and work great for this recipe.
Ingredients
300g Self raising gluten-free flour (we need to give these bad boys a fair chance at rising!
Ingredients
100g Cream cheese (Philadelphia) 200g Plus x2 25g caster sugar 175g Cranberries (I used frozen cranberries defrosted ) 1 Tsp vanilla extract 2 Eggs 2 1/2fl Sunflower oil (don’t be tempted to use olive oil,it will make the muffins taste vile!) 200g Plain flour (Doves Farm,Glutafin) 2 Tsps Gluten-Free Baking Powder Makes 12
Extras
12 Muffins cases 12 Hole muffin tray Small pan Method
Pop the oven up to Gas mark 5 and get on with beating 25g of sugar into a bowl with the cream cheese, mix well until its all combined and whack it in the fridge until you need it later.
So here we go a lovely gluten free macaroon recipe you can get your teeth into. Make sure you make these on a day when you have no appointments/things to do/people to see/sleep to be had. The times I’ve had to ring up and cancel appointments because my macaron’s aren’t ready.. The original recipe is gluten-free anyway, but I couldn’t resist twiddling with the recipe and changing the lemon curd around so I could use my own recipe for it.
An ability to produce homemade mince pie’s is a skill in other people that I greatly admire, and at the start of the year I decided I wanted to be one of these clever people and endeavoured to make my very own mince pies, from scratch, from the pastry to the mincemeat, every last bit of it would be made by my own fair hands. I talked about the hitch I had with the mincemeat, but luckily I found a Gluten-Free mincemeat recipe (god bless Nigella) which I made at the very start of November, and finally this week I decided the time was right to unite mince with pie and bake a batch.
I harked on about Snicker-doodles in yesterdays post, but actually failed to explain what they are. According to Nigella they’re sort of like an oven baked doughnut and a cross between a cookie and sponge, they remind me of those massive sweet pretzels with the cinnamon sugar, and everyone knows I’m a slut for cinnamon. They’re the sort of thing that could be varied in so many different ways, but for now I’m going to give you the original recipe without any variations.
Ingredients Makes 12
125g/5oz Butter (softened) 125g/5oz Caster sugar 125g/5oz Gluten-Free self raising flour (Doves Farm, Glutafin) 2 Eggs 2 Tsp’s instant coffee + a few drops of water 1 Tsp of vanilla essence (or extract, whichever your prefer) For the frosting
125g/5oz Full fat cream cheese (lite or half fat versions work just was well) 50g/2oz Softened butter 300g/ 10 1/2oz Icing sugar 1-2 Tsps instant coffee Method
Thankfully I’m already totally in keeping with the Pink Campaign by Breast Cancer Care with my oh-so-pink blog. And here’s another oh-so-pink and shamelessly girly Pink Cupcake recipe in honour of breast cancer awareness month. Make as many as you want, hundreds if you got the time and the man power (or woman power, depending on your household demographics). Take them into work, school, college, uni, your reading circle, anywhere you please and ask everyone to make a donation per cupcake, they look so scrummy no one could possibly refuse and you’ll have a tidy sum to send off to Breast Cancer Care, plus everyone will remember you as the pink cupcake extraordinaire, it’s win win!
For all my fabulous followers! This is a twist of the normal Victoria sponge recipe and has a lemon curd layer between the sponges as well as lemon frosting! The lemon in the cake mix makes the sponge nice and light and moist, and the tartness of the curd balances out the sweetness of the frosting.
Ingredients
For the sponge
200g Caster sugar 200g Soft butter 200g Self raising flour (try Doves Farm and Glutafin) 1/2 Tsp vanilla essence Grated zest of two small lemons / For the lemon curd
I’ve recently decided to commence a period of frugal-ness. For anyone who has met me and knows me well will know that previous attempts to ‘make do and mend’ and money saving schemes haven’t lasted the time its taken for me to declare a bout of frugality,but I’ve got a fab holiday to Florida to save for so fingers crossed for the big Frugal Florida Fund.
This blogpost and the accompanying recipes were meant to be part of a Frugal Friday recipe post that I was planning on doing, but I lost track of the days and I suddenly remembered today that it was Sunday, so its now a Sunday-Saver recipe post.
Blimey, if I see one more blog solely dedicated to cupcakes I think I’ll go mad! The world has gone cupcake crazy, the cupcake industry in the UK alone is worth 7.3 million (blimey!) and in the past few years lots of bakeries and cupcake shops have popped up all over the place. But nothing is more frustrating to a cupcake lover who cant get hold of a gluten free cupcake!
