nigella's chocolate cake

I have made this cake a few times now and it is always a hit.

It came about because I was having guests over to dinner and was considering what to make for dessert.

 A couple of days before I wasn't feeling well and was in my bedroom having a rest and was watching TV. Nigella Lawson came on and cooked this fabulous cake and also some coffee ice cream. 

I had a aha moment and knew this was my dessert.

It was a hit, and I have now made it a couple of other times when I have needed to take something.

It is great because it is gluten and grain free and dairy free.

It has however got nuts in it, but if you need to avoid nuts Nigella says you can substitute the almond meal for normal flour, though I haven't tried this.

Nigella's Chocolate Cake with Olive oil and Almond meal

Ingredients:

2/3 C light olive oil

6T good quality cocoa powder

1/2C boiling water

2t best vanilla extract (I have substituted instant expresso coffee here for a change)

1 1/2 C almond meal (or 125g plain flour)

1/2t bi-carb soda

pinch salt

1 C superfine sugar (I use coconut sugar)

3 large eggs

Method:

Preheat your oven to 170 C. Grease a 22cm springform pan with a little oil and line base with baking paper (you can use any pan really lined with baking paper)

Measure and sift the cocoa into a jug and whisk in the boiling water until smooth (should be just runny). Whisk in vanilla then set aside.

In another smallish bowl, combine the almond meal (or flour) with the baking soda and pinch of salt.

Put the sugar, olive oil and eggs into the bowl of a freestanding mixer with the paddle attachment (or other bowl and whisk arrangement of your choice) and beat together vigorously for about 3 minutes until you have a pale-primrose, aerated and thickened cream.

Turn the speed down a little and pour in the cocoa mixture, beating as you go, and when all is scraped in you can slowly tip in the ground almond (or flour) mixture.

Scrape down, and stir a little with a spatula, then pour this dark, liquid batter into the prepared tin. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until the sides are set and the very centre, on top, still looks slightly damp. A cake tester should come up mainly clean but with a few sticky chocolate crumbs clinging to it.

Let it cool for 10 minutes on a wire rack, still in its tin, and then ease the sides of the cake with a small metal spatula and spring it out of the tin. 

Dust with icing sugar.

Serve as a dessert with ice cream or for morning tea with whipped cream.

Enjoy!

raw chocolate raspberry cheesecake

This recipe comes from Sarah Wilson's I quit sugar blog.

I saw it and thought it looked good, I liked the fact that it was gluten free, in fact it is grain free, it is also sugar free and dairy free. 

It is raw- so no cooking involved- great for summer! 

It is however not nut free, in fact it is chock full of nuts in both the base and filling- so needless to say I will not be making this when my niece comes to visit!

But on other occasions I will certainly make it again. 

I bought the nuts, but then it took me a few weeks to get around to trying it, mainly because I try to only cook this sort of stuff on a weekend and then weekends can get busy, and it needed 2 hours to set so it couldn't be a last minute kind of thing. I was easy to make and gave my food processor a workout.

I ending up making this for the family, when my big boys came home from their week at Ag camp. 

I thought the occasion deserved a special dessert.

Everyone liked it and no-one noticed that there was no sugar or dairy in it, it was still sweet and delicious.

Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake

Crust:

• 2 cup pecans
• 1/4 cup cacao powder
• 1/4 cup rice malt syrup
• 2 tablespoons coconut oil, melted
• pinch of sea salt

Filling:

• 2 1/2 cups of raw cashews
• 1/2 cup cacao powder
• 1/2 cup rice malt syrup
• 1/4 cup coconut oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla powder
• 1-2 tablespoons of coconut milk (or milk of your choice) I used a little more than this to get a nice smooth consistency
• pinch of sea salt
• 1/2 cup frozen raspberries

METHOD:

1. To make the crust, line the base of a round spring form cake pan with baking paper.
2. Process pecans in a food processor until chunky crumbs form. Add remaining ingredients and process until just combined. Pour mixture into prepared pan. Press into base to cover evenly. Place in freezer to set.
3. To make filling, process cashews until fine crumbs form. Add remaining ingredients except milk and raspberries. Process until mixture turns into a smooth and creamy batter. Add milk as necessary to smooth out mixture. Once smooth, fold through raspberries and pour mixture over base in pan.
4. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

 

Enjoy!

apple crumble ice cream

If you have been hanging around this blog long enough or know me personally you would know that I have a thing for ice cream!
I love eating ice cream no matter what the weather is, I love making ice cream and I love trying new flavours!
 A while back I picked up the Sweet Poison Recipe book and I have been trying a few recipes here and there.
One that immediately caught my eye when I bought it was a rhubarb crumble ice cream.
So I bought some rhubarb to make it and then life got in the way and eventually the chooks got the mouldy rhubarb and I never got to try the ice cream.
The other week I was thinking about what ice cream to make for ice cream sundaes on Sunday,
I have been incredibly slack busy lately and we have either not had ice cream or shock horror have had bought stuff with all the junk in it!
As I had a box of apples I thought I might try this ice cream with apples instead.
 It was delicious and everyone in the family enjoyed it.
 I was a little worried as they use sour cream in the recipe and I thought they might notice the slight tartness in the flavour but apparently that didn't make any difference to their enjoyment of it.
Like all my recipes this is sugar free (fructose free), if you still use sugar just change it out 1:1.

 
Apple Crumble Ice Cream

2-3 apples chopped

1 cinnamon stick- or teaspoon cinnamon

1 1/4 cup dextrose (you can use sugar if you prefer)

1 cup cream

1 cup sour cream

1 cup milk

vanilla pod or essence to taste

3 eggs (or you can use 6 egg yolks)

Crumble mix

1/4 cup ground almonds

3/4 cup plain flour (I used GF)

1/2 cup dextrose

90 g butter melted

Heat oven to 160C, line a tray with baking paper, mix crumble ingredients together in a bowl until resembles course breadcrumbs, spread on tray and bake for 15-20 min or until golden brown- set aside to cool.

Put the apples, cinnamon and 1/4 cup dextrose into a saucepan and cook for 5 or so minutes until soft but not mushy, set aside in a bowl to cool, if you used a cinnamon stick take it out before adding to the ice cream, I added an extra sprinkle of cinnamon to the apples before putting them in.

Put the cream, sour cream, milk and vanilla into a heavy based saucepan. 

Bring it almost to the boil, meantime whisk the eggs and 1 cup dextrose in a bowl, gradually whisk the cream mixture into the egg mixture.

Transfer it back to the saucepan and cook over medium heat stirring constantly (8-10 minutes) or until thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon- do not let it boil! 

Strain into a bowl cover loosely with plastic and refrigerate until really cold. 

Churn mixture in your ice cream maker, add the apples to mix through just before the end and let mix until well combined. 

Place ice cream into a container and then spread crumble mix on top. 

Freeze for a couple of hours until firm. 

I had a little extra crumble mix so when I served it I just sprinkled it over the top so everyone got a nice amount of crumble with their ice cream. 

Enjoy! 

You could use other berries in place of the apple, but you may wish to add a little more dextrose, the original recipe used 1 cup dextrose for the rhubarb, but because apples are quite sweet I didn't need to use as much.

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bbq chook in the crockpot and a new quinoa salad to try

Deary me, I have been a bit slack on this old blog lately!

I just haven't been able to get my act together.

A couple of times I sat down to write something and couldn't decide what to write, nothing seemed interesting enough or I couldn't be bothered to take some photos to post or whatever, 

so they just didn't get written.

But last night we had something new and yummy for tea so I just had to come and share it with you.

I have had these recipes pinned for a while and I thought I should go through my boards and have a look for something new and inspiring to cook.

As it was my cooking day yesterday,

(what I don't cook everyday!- no I don't but that is probably a whole other post that I should write soon!)

I thought I would try a couple.

The first part was a crockpot recipe for rotisserie chicken.

Now here in Australia we would probably call it a BBQ chook or cooked chook.

We often used to buy one of these for a quick lunch on the weekend from the supermarket but at $10+ each they work out a little exe.

So I started buying a few extra chooks when I did my grocery shop.

I would get one out on a Friday to defrost and then cook it up in the oven for over the weekend.

Or if we had a roast chicken I would do two and we would have one ready for another meal- either a salad or sandwiches or something else super yummy like a chicken pie.

I buy the fresh chickens from Woolworths, they are around 1.5kgs in size and cost a little over $5, so basically half of what I was paying for a cooked chook.

1.5kg is just enough for our family with no leftovers, but not a huge amount of meat each, 

sometimes we might break into a little of the extra chook if we need to.

So back to last night's dinner.

This recipe cooked the chicken in a slow cooker or crockpot and I thought I may as well give it a burl!

Because I have a very large crockpot I could fit 2 of these chickens in and now we have one for lunch today.

I must say I was surprised at how much this tasted like a bought BBQ chook, minus the stuffing which I can't eat anyway, and goodness knows what junk they put in it or on it as the case may be.

It got the thumbs up from the family, so I think it will become a summer staple.

Great when you don't want to turn on the oven and heat up the house on a hot day!

 I will write the recipe out as I found it and then write in my adjustments.

 Crockpot BBQ chicken

1 whole chicken (1.5kgs)

2T paprika

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (optional) - I didn't!

1 1/2 t onion powder

2T garlic powder or 3 cloves garlic

1t salt

1/2t black pepper

Place all of your ingredients in a small bowl  and stir in water by the teaspoon until a paste forms.

Rub it on your chicken inside and out.

Spray your slow cooker with spray oil and place your chicken in slow cooker (now the recipe says to place it breast side up, the picture actually shows the breast down, now I have been told that if you place the breast down you will get a moister chicken as the fat runs down into the breast- so that's what I did).

Put the lid on and cook on low for 6-7 hours or high 3.5-4.5 hrs.

Make sure the thickest part of the thigh registers 180degrees- now I presumed this meant Fahrenheit as it is an American recipe and as my food thermometer has both I didn't bother to convert. 

Now I just need to tell you that I cheated a little on the ingredients.

I didn't have any onion powder or garlic powder so instead of that and salt I used an Olssons Sea Salt Rub. I actually have no idea if you can buy these in the supermarket as VCH deals with Olssons for his business and we get heaps of these given to us.

The one I chose is called Wild Thing and contains juniper berry, thyme, onion, rosemary and Australian sea salt.

Now when I checked after 6 hrs on low there was lots of liquid in the bottom, so I tipped it out into a bowl.

I have since put into another container in the fridge and will use as a stock.

I thought it might be just fat but as it is now cool it doesn't look that way at all.

I then just left the chickens in there with the crockpot turned off until we were ready to serve, but I think I could have left it on low if I wanted them really hot or were leaving them for a long time.

Now of course to go with the chicken I thought I would have a nice salad or two - so I made a coleslaw and this lovely quinoa salad with blueberries, strawberries and watermelon.

Here is a link to the recipe:

They served in on individual plates but I just put it on one large platter.

I also used frozen blueberries and not fresh- I just tossed them through the slightly warm quinoa frozen and they were nicely defrosted by the time we served it. 

I also think you could get away with half the amount of quinoa (mine is a combo of white and red), 

when you look at the photo on the original recipe they don't seem to have as much quinoa either.

We have plenty left over for tea tonight.

I think this would be lovely to take to a shared meal.

Again all the family liked this even the ones not overly keen on quinoa!

You may also notice this new button on my sidebar.

I was invited to join this sight because they were impressed by the quality of my recipes- imagine- I was a bit chuffed!

Have a great weekend everyone- I have some custom orders that I need to get finished for a cafe that is

opening soon!

butterfly cupcakes and a sideboard

 A while back I pinned a picture of some cupcakes with cute strawberry butterflies on top.

Wednesday when I was getting fruit and veg I saw some strawberries for a reasonable price as the Qld ones come into season, so I bought some.
Yesterday, when was deciding what to make for morning tea, I thought some cute cupcakes with strawberries on them might be nice.

So I hunted up the picture and tried to get to the website to see how they made them and found that whoever pinned it pinned an image (don't you hate that!) and I was in too much of a hurry to go back and find said website. I ended up printing out the photo and played around with the strawberries to make some butterflies from how I thought they did in the photo.
After when I had a bit more time I found the website and the instructions and I wasn't too far off the mark.

 The recipe I used was one from my new Sweet Poison Quit Plan cookbook.

I made the cupcakes with GF flour and instead of their method, I melted the butter and stuck it all in to mix together, they turned out great.

My only reservation was that they tasted a little but Gluten Free - though no one else complained.
It may have been because I used vanilla powder rather than vanilla essence.
I find that sometimes, something with little flavouring, like a scone will taste like this but I have never found it in cakes before, most of the time you can't tell the difference, next time I will make sure I have some essence on hand or add extra vanilla powder- go here to find out how to make your own.

 I spread a little sugar free jam on top then I whipped up some cream and piped it onto the cake before adding the strawberry butterfly.

The kids were suitably impressed with the fancy cakes they got for morning tea.
After I finished photographing them of course!

The cake stand is one I made for "redeemed" from some mismatched plates and I put it out a couple of times at markets, it hadn't sold and loved it so much I decided to keep it instead!

I used some cute little ladybird liners that fit nicely into my beautiful copper patty cake tin that I stole inherited from my mum a good few years back, when I only had a couple of little ones.

I like to make the smaller cake size as I think the muffin tins most people use these days are just too big, especially for kids.

 
Before we get to the recipe I thought I should show you what I was photographing on.
 This gorgeous sideboard was a friend of mine's parents and as she had no where to put it she kindly gave it to me.

It has some water damage on the front and side, so I put it in the house until,
I have finished some other projects and have room to work on it,
I like having it where it will eventually end up, so I can decide how I am going to redeem it.

 I thought I may as well dress the top, this is what it usually looks like, minus the cupcakes on the cake plate of course!

I also have the extra large chalkboard here, I put it up by measuring another piece of furniture I thought was the same height as my sideboard before VCH had gone to collect the sideboard,
the only problem was that I didn't count on the little mirrored back.
I will fix it one day, if the chalkboard doesn't sell first.

   Fructose Free Vanilla Cupcakes with Strawberry Butterflies

Ingredients:
120g butter (melted)
1C dextrose
2 t vanilla essence
2 eggs
2C self raising flour (I used gluten free)
1C milk

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180C, line your tin with paper cases.
2. Place all ingredients into bowl of a mixer
3. Mix until well combined 1-2minutes
4. Place spoonfuls of batter into cases
5. Bake for 15-20 minutes until skewer comes out clean.
6. Cool on wire rack until ready to ice

You can just top with jam and whipped cream like I did (put a little dextrose and vanilla in the cream) or

you can make a conventional icing or substitute dextrose for icing sugar to make a butter cream icing.

To make the strawberry butterflies: remove stem from strawberry, slice strawberry into 4, cut the two middle pieces in half to form the wings and cut slivers from the side bits to form the body. 

Eat any leftover bits. 

You will get 2 butterflies from one strawberry.

spinach and cheese rolls with gf puff pastry take 2

You may remember me mentioning a little disaster I had in the kitchen the other day when trying to make my own gluten free puff pastry.

Yesterday, being an overcast-threatening-to-rain day I felt the pull of a warm and cozy kitchen and some baking. 

Anything to avoid cleaning up my sewing room!

 Inspired by the Great Australian Bake-Off on Tuesday night I decided to bake Anne's easy orange cake, substituting in GF flour, turning them into cupcakes and icing them with a little chocolate ganache- they were delicious, 

if a little rough, I should have smoothed the tops before baking!

Then I thought I would try the Spinach and Cheese Rolls again, 

I went looking on pinterest and found this recipe for gluten free puff pastry.

When I made my Chicken and Mushroom Pie the other day I used my usual short crust pastry on the bottom and then in a moment of inspiration I rolled the top half and put chunks of butter through folded and rerolled several times. 

It worked reasonably well and came out puffyish (is that a word?), so thought I would make it again doing the same thing for the spinach and cheese roll recipe I came across in a magazine, that I was keen to try.

Of course deciding to change the recipe half way through led to its ruin.

 

So here we are at take two.

I followed the recipe and think the pastry turned out well inspite of the butter coming through towards the end of my folding and rolling.

Now making the filling was not so simple because somewhere between Saturday and today the recipe page has gone walkabout!

Inspite of an extensive search including the bins it didn't turn up, so I had to wing some of the measurements, trusting my very short memory - but it seemed to work out OK.

The kids absolutely loved them and have requested I make them again. 

 

With plenty of silverbeet in the garden it shouldn't be a problem!

This is a red stemmed silverbeet or kale as it is sometimes known, something else has has a little nibble, 

but a thorough wash and all is good!

Ingredients: 

1 quantity of gluten free puff pastry (see link above) I made the first part in my food processor - no getting sore fingers rubbing in for this girl! 

If you are not GF use frozen puff pastry (from memory 2 sheets) 

or you can buy a GF frozen puff pastry ($9 for 3 sheets, it is exie and not that puffy!)

Filling:

1 bunch of silverbeet

1/2 bunch spinach (I used a handful of baby spinach leaves)

2/3 cup ricotta cheese

1/3 cup fetta crumbled

1/3 cup cheddar grated (this is my addition)

2 eggs + one extra for pastry glaze

1 tablespoon of fresh dill chopped

1 tablespoon chives chopped (I used parsley as my chives have been overpicked)

salt and pepper to taste

Parmesan for top of rolls

Method: 

Make pastry and set aside.

Chop silverbeet (including stems) and spinach finely and place in boiling water for 2 minutes, drain and press all excess water out, cool.

Mix all other ingredients (except extra egg and Parmesan) in bowl.

Halve pastry and roll out, cut into a 25cm x 15cm rectangle approx.

Spread about a quarter of the mixture down the middle of the long side. 

Brush along one edge with beaten reserved egg, roll up like a sausage roll.

Cut into 2, 4 or 6 depending on how big you wish to serve them (I did 4)

Place on tray (I used foil here because I was out of baking paper) brush top with egg and grate Parmesan cheese over the top as pictured.

Repeat with remaining pastry and mixture - I ended up with 18.

Bake in a 200-220C oven for 20 minutes.

Serve warm or cold- enjoy!!!!

These would be great for morning tea, lunch or party fare.

I often get asked what gluten free flour I use, I used to always use Orgran GF self raising or plain flour and even bought 10kg boxes through our local wholesaler, but I have found now that the Macro brand (Woolworth's health food brand) works out cheaper, even cheaper than the bulk price for the Orgran, though the size of packets is a little small when you use a lot- I just buy about 5 or 6 packets of each every month.
I never usually have a problem with it and most recipes work well by just substituting normal flour for GF, but sometimes you may find you need to add a little extra liquid to cakes.

orange almond cake with chocolate ganache

 I have been baking this cake for many years, in fact it would be over twenty.

Well before it became trendy, well before I became gluten free.

The original recipe I had, which came from a Home Beautiful magazine, served it with whipped cream and chocolate sauce.

I found this recipe online when looking for a sugar free version and changed out 

the agave syrup (which is 90% fructose) to rice malt syrup.

I either make it with flaked almonds on the top (I love toasted flaked almonds) and dusted with icing sugar, or with a chocolate ganache as pictured here, for that delightful jaffa hit!

This particular cake was supposed to travel with me to a friend's place 1.5hrs away on a little overnight excursion and we were going to eat if for dessert.

I was almost half way down to her place when B2 rang me and asked if I was supposed to take the cake that was sitting in the fridge with me!

I ended up buying a pavlova when I got there.

The good thing though was that I got to play and take some photos with it, 

when we had it for morning tea after I returned!

 Ingredients:
2 oranges
4 eggs
3/4 c rice malt syrup
2 c of almond meal
1/2t celtic sea salt
1t baking powder

Method:
1. Wash oranges and place them whole skin and all in a saucepan of water- boil for 1.5 hrs- keep an eye on it and top up water as needed.
2. Place whole oranges in a food processor and process until smooth.
3. Add other ingredients and process until well blended.
4. Pour batter into a greased 20cm cake tin- I use a spring for pan with baking paper on the bottom.

If you wish to top it with flaked almonds- now is the time to do it.

5. Bake at 170C for 45-50 minutes, until skewer comes out clean.
6. Cool in pan for 2 hrs or overnight - I like to wrap it all in a clean tea-towel
7. When it is cold you can top with Chocolate Ganache if you wish.

Chocolate Ganache:
100g 70% dark chocolate (this keeps the sugar count down low- for even lower use 85% but my kids find it a little to dark for them)
100mls cream
splash of Grand Marnier -optional adult version.
Heat cream on stove until boiling, remove from heat and add chocolate broken in pieces, stir until smooth, set aside to cool.
The cooler it is the thicker it will become. I find it easiest to ice when it is still slightly warm but not cold.

 Serve with lashings of whipped cream for the ultimate treat!

All Gone!

Delicious!