First try gluten free bread was never going to be perfect. Or was it? Gluten is the thing that makes bread so fluffy, puffy and stretchy. Hence, my bread was relatively flat and dense.

However, in those heady days before my diagnosis, when I had horrible, gut wrenching pains in my stomach, but got to eat exciting things like croissants and bread rolls, I ate a perfectly tasty sourdough loaf much like this. While I expected failure, I am gradually being convinced that it was rather successful.

I filled it with all the seeds I could find (sesame and sunflower) and when I ran out of those, I threw in some chopped almonds, quinoa and some cumin for a spicy note. This proved to be a good move, at least in my book. 

Most interestingly of all, I ground my own brown rice flour. Yes, I have the best food processor in the world.

Mixture of seeds

100g brown rice flour

200g buckwheat flour

200g gluten free all purpose flour

2 Tbsp psyllium

2 tsp yeast

1 tsp salt

30g olive oil

500ml warm water

30g honey

Combine all ingredients and knead. The dough should still be quite sticky.

Place dough into two greased loaf tins, cover with plastic wrap and place in a warm place to leaven. This warm place could very well be an oven set to 50C. When dough reaches the top of the tin (mine didn’t quite get there, but this is the ideal), heat oven to 200C and bake for 30-40 minutes.

I am actually very pleased with this stuff. The slices may be shaped like a strange, small rectangle, incapable of making a sandwich, but as toast, as a dipper for soup, it is rather superb. 

This cookie dough is amazing. I love the sly way that the recipe (found here) has been toyed with to change a brand’s classic packet recipe into something with real character. The browned butter flavour is so good, the chocolate almost gets in the way. Almost. These cookies take a little longer to make than usual. The browning of the butter, cooling it, chilling the dough, rolling the balls and chilling again, before baking…but as you don’t actually have to do any work during these little interludes, it is less of a marathon and more of a gradual process that you can do when you don’t know if you’ll have time to finish the biscuits, but you still want to make them anyway. As it gets later in the evening, and I only have my dough in the fridge, I figure that I may just leave the baking until tomorrow afternoon.

The good thing is, it is really quite easy. The great thing is, I discovered that cake flour, which the original recipe uses, is the one kind of wheat flour with the least amount of gluten. Thus, I am reassured that this will work well as a totally gluten free recipe.

250g butter

1 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed

1/2 cup white sugar

3 tsp vanilla essence

2 eggs

2 1/4 cups gluten free plain flour mix

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp sea salt flakes

250g chocolate chips (I used a block and chopped it up, because it’s better quality chocolate, and I threw in a bit of white chocolate, too, just for fun)

Add up to 1 cup of nuts, if so desired.

Melt the butter very slowly over low heat. As you keep heating, it will go through stages, first bubbling, then foaming. Finally, under the foam the butter will start browning, and a lovely, nutty aroma will come with that. I had a fair bit of brown sludge in the bottom of mine (I think it was the salt from the butter), but threw it in, it’s all part of the flavour). Allow the butter to cool. 

Place the sugars and vanilla in a mixer. Combine the flour, baking powder, soda and salt in a separate bowl.

Add the butter to the mixer, and mix on a medium speed for 2 minutes.

Add the eggs, one at a time.

Mix in flour, gradually. 

Add chocolate and stir to combine.

Chill mixture for 30 minutes or so in the fridge.

Roll into small balls and chill again, for a couple of hours. I wouldn’t be too afraid of even freezing these to bake at a later date. 

When ready, space out the balls of dough to allow for spreading, sprinkle with sea salt flakes and bake for 11-12 minutes. Cool on the trays for a couple of minutes before transferring to a wire rack.

Mung in. 

But do the finished biscuits taste as good as the dough? I just ate a hot one out of the oven. By which I mean, I ate it straight off the tray before it had even a moment to cool. Not the best idea. Breathe. Wait. Oh, shoot. I forgot to sprinkle them with salt.

Ok, better. Mmm. Chocolatey, crisp crunch, the salt…Mm, that browned butter nuttiness deepens the flavour and oh, they are still a bit chewy, but that crackling crunch practically sizzles. I overcooked my first tray just a little, and the flavour is richer when they’re more undercooked, so be sure not to go past 12 minutes, when they come out they should still be very soft. Delicious. Husband approval.

They look lovely, too. That rich, golden brown colour hints at the secret ingredient, and the sprinkle of salt looks pretty, too.

Photos are pending, hopefully, but our camera was borrowed for our friends’ wedding (they just got friends to take their photos, and as we were in the bridal party, we couldn’t take them ourselves). Hopefully we get it back before we eat all of the biscuits.

I know a no-picture post is ludicrous, but this one got eaten so fast I didn’t have time to snap it. Actually, that’s not true. We had friends over for a impromptu barbecue, and everyone was so full after dinner I left it a while to serve, until one unsubtle guest felt he had to ask ‘did the apple crumble get thrown out?’ I’m just not so rude or pretentious to take a photo of so simple a creation in the presence of others.

It is the perfect dessert to throw together when you don’t have much in the way of time or ingredients and you don’t want to put in much effort. The hazelnuts were a last-minute addition, but really made the flavour of the crumble. 

This works excellently with gluten free flour, and said grumbly guest said it was the best gf crumble he’d ever tasted.

Here we go:

Peel, core and slice about 6 apples (I have a machine that does this for me, so if this takes you a while, you’ll understand why it didn’t bother me that much in time-takingness)

Toss those in a pan with a dash of lemon juice, one teaspoon of cinnamon and a dob of butter. Cook on a medium heat for about 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until tender.

For the crumble, take one cup each of plain flour, desiccated/shredded coconut and brown sugar. Mix together in a bowl, then add 125g melted butter and stir to combine. Chop 1/2 cup hazelnuts and mix those in as well. 

Place the apples in a hided casserole dish/brownie tin or similar, or individual ramekins if you’re feeling dainty. Scatter some raspberries over the top, and press in (I used frozen). Cover with the crumble and bake for 15 minutes on 180C

Enjoy with just a splash of thickened cream poured over, with whipped cream, ice cream, or whatever you feel like.

This recipe served 8.

Wait a second. I didn’t explain why this recipe is audacious. Is it really all that bold and out-there? Well, I would argue that it is. For me, at least. I have made apple crumble the same way so many times. I just use the same recipe as the base of my caramel slice. The addition of butter to the apples, the raspberries and especially those hazelnuts in the crumble made it that little bit different. I might go further, next time. I could add some nectarines, peaches or plums, or even some chilli powder to the crumble! Now that would be adventurous…

I just got back from my first day of work, smelling like meat pies and craving dessert. I work at a bakery, as a waitress, and although I’m surrounded by flaky pastry, whipped cream and custard tarts all day, as a celiac I can’t really eat anything. But even if I could, I love the irregularities of home baking; the crumbs, the hard edges off the brownie slab, the cream off the edge of the cake plate, being able to say ‘I’ll be good’ and take the small slice (or do the opposite)…Mmm, brownie edges…

Today I discovered this lovely blog:

We’re having friends over for dinner tomorrow night, which means I can justify making dessert. This girl’s blondie-brownies sounded like a fantastic idea. Add to this Nigella’s chocolate peanut butter fudge sundae sauce and perhaps minds will be blown. 

I have done some major messing with this recipe, especially the measurements, because I like metric! Sorry Americans, but you’re stuck in the dark ages. I also made it significantly larger, because I wanted more brownies.

Blondie layer:

1 1/2 cups flour 

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

125g butter

200g white chocolate

1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar

2 eggs

A handful of raspberries

Preheat oven to 160 C and line a 20cm square baking tray with baking paper. 

In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, salt, and baking powder together until combined. Set aside.

Melt butter and chocolate in a medium pot over low heat. Take off the heat and gradually add in the sugar, then the egg and vanilla and mix well. Using a rubber spatula, fold the dry ingredients into the mixture until just combined. Pour into the pan, smoothing the top with a rubber spatula, then set aside.

Brownie Layer

1 cup plain flour

1/3 cup self raising flour

1/4 cup cocoa

1 tsp salt

125g dark chocolate

125g butter

2 cups sugar

4 eggs

In a medium bowl, whisk the flours and salt together until combined. Set aside.

Melt butter and chocolate in a medium pot over low heat. Take off the heat and gradually add in the sugar, then the eggs, one at a time, then the vanilla and mix well. Add the flour mixture in 3 additions, folding with a rubber spatula until the batter is smooth. 

Spread brownie batter evenly over blondie batter. Bake 30-35 minutes, less if you like them gooey. Cool on a wire rack to room temperature, then slice into 10cm squares.

These taste awesome, all chewy and gooey. Next time I’ll add some chocolate chips for those little bursts of flavour. Now, this is great on it’s own, and I greatly enjoyed nibbling on the edges, but with the sauce that follows, it is amazing!

Nigella’s Chocolate-Peanut Butter fudge sauce

I didn’t measure out any of these ingredients, so you can find the real recipe at Nigella’s Website. Essentially all you need to do is melt some chocolate, add some cream, golden syrup (but I used maple) and a dollop of peanut butter. Mix it up. It is absolutely fantastic. 

This is a classically Thanksgiving dessert of the North American South…which doesn’t mean much to those in the Australian and Tasmanian South. I haven’t actually tasted a ‘real’ pecan pie, so whatever this tastes like may not be authentic. Perhaps this what makes it presumptuous. There is also the fact that when I decided to make this pie I had no recipe, no pie tin and it had no real audience I had no set plans for who to feed it to. 

However, we compulsive bakers are resourceful. I found a friend with a pie tin, belonging to the lovely Emma - who encouraged my first recipe post with her exhortations of deliciousness. The recipe I found through Nigella’s website, and freely modified. I then rounded up a group of friends after church and lured them home with offers of coffee and pie…this was harder than you would think, as last time we did this we had planned to serve the birthday cake Oliver’s sister had made him. This ‘cake’ was, in fact, a sponge of the foam variety, that she had coated in icing. We had to make do with dip and crackers that time.

Pecan Pie

1 quantity Dad’s shortcrust pastry

250g flour (I used gf, and added 1Tbsp psyllium husks to help it stay together)

75g sugar

150g butter

Combine in a food processor and blend until it comes together

1 cup brown sugar, packed

2/3 cup Golden Syrup

2 Tbsp maple syrup

1 Tbsp baileys (supposed to use rum, didn’t have any)

55g butter

3 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

¼ teaspoon salt

2 cups pecans 

1.  Dust flour on a bench and roll the dough into a large circle about 3mm  thick. Fit it, without stretching, into a buttered 23cm pie pan. Trim off all but a 2cm border of the excess dough and fold this border down along the rim of the pan

 2. Chill the pie shell for a while. In a large saucepan, combine the sugar, golden syrup, maple syrup, baileys and butter. Bring to a boil over medium heat.

 3. Boil for about 1 minute, stirring constantly and scraping back any foam that clings to the sides of the pan.

 4. Remove the pan from the heat. Stir in the cream and set aside to cool. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 150C, with a rack in the lower third.

5. Beat the eggs until creamy. While still beating, pour in the cooled syrup.

6. Blind bake the pastry for 5 minutes on 150C, then turn up to 180C

7. Stir in the vanilla, salt, and two thirds of the pecans, chopped roughly. Arrange the rest in a pattern over the top. Pour the filling into the pie shell. Bake until the filling is set but still slightly wobbly in the center, about 50 minutes. Cool the pie completely on a wire rack.

This looks delicious. The pecans on top are a little singed. To avoid this, you could probably just mix all of the pecans in to the filling.

The gluten free pastry was very fragile. I rolled it out about ten times before I finally got enough of it spread over the pan to patch together. Some of it also broke away from the edge as I took it out of the pan.

This is beautifully rich, with caramel ooze and the crunchy nuttiness of the pecans. We shared it with a group of seven friends, served with lattes, whipped cream and strawberry slices…instead of lunch. This is the last piece, the only one left.

Today I’m wearing my Japanese doll apron, so today must be…baking day! 

Let’s combine some of my favourite things; gluten free treats and etymology lessons! 

While looking for an adjective for this recipe, I stumbled upon the word ‘dastardly’. These rustic looking biscuits are definitely a bit mischievous, with their sweet chewiness disguised by crunchy cracks and that rough exterior.

According to the dictionary, the word dastard (meaning a coward) has come to encompass all manner of nasty behaviour, but still essentially means “one who avoids all personal risk”. It is rather a stretch, I know, but as a coeliac, I can appreciate the fact that this biscuit contains no flour of any kind, and are therefore no risk to me.

The idea behind them, of course, is Nutella. The ‘sandwich spread’ that I always resented being put on bread, which I ate with a spoon when no one was looking. In primary school, I bought the little snack packs of it at the canteen, eating them with the little plastic spatulas, and loved it when it was a hot enough day and it would melt. I also got my education about what metal does in the microwave when I put the jar in with a bit of foil still stuck to the rim. I do go to great lengths to melt my food sometimes…

Ingredients:

2 3/4 cups hazelnuts

3 cups pure icing sugar

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup dark chocolate, chopped, or chocolate chips

4 large egg whites, at room temperature
, or whatever.

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

(Makes about 36)

Preheat the oven to 180C, and prepare some biscuit trays with baking paper, and give it a grease with spray if you want to.

If you buy hazelnuts without their skins on, you can just give them a light toasting. If not, lay out on one of the lined trays and pop in the oven for 5-10 minutes, or until you can see that the skins have cracked. To peel them, put hazelnuts onto a clean tea towel, wrap them up and rub them. This should get the skin off most of them, and the rest will be fine as they are.

Chop the hazelnuts coarsely. Probably not like this, which was the result of 1 second (I kid you not) on speed 9 of Thelma the Thermomix. They still turned out nicely, but if you want to get more of a nut crunch and thinner biscuits, you can do it a more gently. I will be more cautious next time.

Sift together the icing sugar, cocoa and salt in a large bowl and combine with a whisk.

Add the egg whites and vanilla. Whisk until it’s all incorporated, but don’t beat it too hard, or you will hurt it’s feelings and it will go stiff.

Switch to a spoon and stir in the chopped hazelnuts and chocolate.

When putting biscuits on a tray, if the mixture is too wet to use hands I like to cornel them, just to get a nice shape. This just means taking two spoons, scooping some up with the first one, then flicking it from spoon to spoon until it’s roughly round. 

The first ones I made were huge, so unless you want monsters like this, spoon out only a level dessertspoon (or whatever size the bigger spoon is in an ordinary cutlery set). Leave a good 5cm between each one (I did 6 per tray of these smaller ones).

Two trays will do, once you get those in the oven you can relax a bit until the next rotation. Bake for 12-14 minutes. The tops should be glossy and lightly cracked. 

The biscuits should come off the paper easily once they’re baked, but just in case, slide the whole sheet of paper and biscuits onto a cooling rack. 

Let me tell you how they eat. There is a crisp, satisfying crunch before the chewy centre, the earthy nuttiness balances the sweet…just like Nutella really, but better, a kind of caramelised Nutella praline. Straight out of the oven you get a gooey hot chocolate chip hit, which would have been a lot better if I hadn’t had to use up normal chocolate chips and used 70% cocoa chocolate instead. Next time. Definitely good enough for a next time.

I first learned about arancini from my old boss (who called them telephona, due to the telephone wire effect of biting in and stringing the mozzarella from your mouth). She bought my family’s restaurant and allowed my family to finally escape it. Apart from me, of course. I stayed working there for five years, while at school and my first two years of uni. While she never really gave me the recipe for these, the idea is really quite simple, and endlessly adaptable.

First, make a risotto. So many flavour choices here! I recently did some with roasted pumpkin and mushrooms, while another batch had red curry paste. You can start with just a basic risotto recipe and add things as you go. While a lot of risottos have cheese, it would probably be overkill here, as you are going to stick a gob of mozzarella in the centre.

You’ll need:

1 cup arborio rice

1 1/2 litres of hot stock, or stock powder and boiling water

1 onion or 5 eschallots, finely chopped

1 clove garlic, crushed

20g butter or 2 Tbsp oil

Herbs, spices and sauces to taste.

200-300g mozarella, cut into 1cm cubes

Bread or rice crumbs

Oil for deep frying

Today I added:

2 tsp paprika

1 tsp tomato paste

1/2 cup white wine

2 spring onions, thinly sliced

1 Tbsp ginger

2 tsp salt

1 Tbsp soy sauce

1/2 cup sundried tomatoes, chopped

1 cup frozen peas

Heat the butter or oil in a medium sized pot over medium heat. Add the onions and fry until soft and browned.

Add the rice and cook, stirring, until translucent. Then add the stock, a ladleful at a time, ensuring that the rice is kept wet. Keep stirring all the while.

When the starches start to release, the rice will come together. Add any spices or flavourful things while you’re waiting. Taste it, and keep adding the liquid until the rice is cooked. It should be sticky, so that the balls will hold together later.

Put the risotto into a container and leave to cool in the fridge for a few hours.

Put some rice crumbs (for gluten free) or breadcrumbs in a bowl. Take tablespoons full of the risotto, place a cube of the mozzarella in the centre and roll into a ball. Messy. Then roll in the crumbs.

Heat the oil in a pot (the bigger the pot the quicker you’ll get through them, but you’ll also need more oil). When the oil is hot (between 175-190C, or enough to create some sizzle), place the arancini in carefully, with a slotted spoon. Cook until crisp and golden, then lift out and place on paper towel to drain off the excess oil.

After a minute to cool, you should be able to taste and see that string of cheese.

If serving these for a party, you can put them away after rolling in the crumbs, and fry later. However, it is much easier to fry them straight away (I like to do it in a production line, while still rolling) and just let them crisp up in the oven for a few minutes when it’s time to serve.

I’m making these for a friend’s party, so I’ve let them stay a little bit paler in preparation for their second baking.

Put them alongside some sweet chilli sauce or a tasty aioli and om nom nom.