Waffles

This one might be more for my American readers, unless you have a waffle maker tucked away somewhere. Fussy Five found my waffle iron (my dad bought this back from a business trip to Holland about 30 years ago) in the cupboard so we had a quick experiment halloween morning before heading out for the day. 

Sorry, no pretty picture on a plate with toppings, with 2 hungry (or greedy, this was second breakfast!) boys, they didn't even make it as far as a plate!

A great crispy waffle and a nice change from pancakes.

1 cup wheat free white bread flour

1 tsp egg replacer

1 tsp baking powder

1 tbsp caster sugar

1 1/2 tbsp vegetable oil

1 cup oat milk (or other milk substitute)

1 tsp vanilla

Heat waffle iron on a medium heat.*

Put dry ingredients in a bowl and mix together.

Slowly beat in the rest of the ingredients with a balloon whisk or wooden spoon until a thick smooth batter is formed.

Brush (or spray) waffle iron with a little oil.

Pour batter into hot waffle iron and cook. If, like me, you are not using an electric one, turn  over frequently and continue to cook until it stops steaming.

Remove from waffle iron and put on a plate while you continue to cook the rest of the batter. The above recipe makes about 4 rounds on my waffle iron. 

Serve with chopped fruit and maple syrup for breakfast or pudding. Pop in a packed lunch box in place of bread. Toast and serve with spread or jam. Just eat them in place of biscuits...

*I have been reliably informed that the absence of a waffle iron is no barrier. A griddle pan also does the trick:

Thanks @Angelscout

National Sausage Week

With National Sausage Week this week, gives me the perfect opportunity to mention some of the Milk, Egg, Soya and Wheat free sausages available at the moment (If you know of any others, please comment at the bottom to let others know):

Remember ingredients change from time to time so ALWAYS double check the pack before  buying - these are correct at time of print (November 2012)

Chef and Farmer (available at Tesco): 3 varieties - Pork, Pork Chipolatas or Pork, Apple and Sage. These sausages use polenta (corn) as a filler.

I was surprised by the 'may contain nuts' so emailed the company who said this:

'Many thanks for your email about Chef and Farmer sausages and we are so pleased that you enjoyed them.

We do use nuts in our factory on an ad hoc basis but we comply to the legislation that ensure we wash down and segregate our nuts thereby reducing the risk but of course we still inform our customers that we do use nuts.'

They must have then forwarded my email to their parent company Walkers, who emailed me this response:

'Regarding your recent query on the “may contains nuts statement” on our products. We don’t actually have this statement on our products, although there may well be similar statements on other sausages in the range.

For 11 months of the year we don’t have any nuts on site, and at Christmas when there is a risk of some being used in the more elaborate recipes, we manage their use sufficiently not to warrant a “may contains” statement. The cleaning standards that we employ on site are validated and verified to ensure that all traces of allergen are totally removed.

I hope this answers your question sufficiently.'

Hmmm, he clearly hasn't checked the labelling on this product...

Waitrose 12 Pork and Herb Chipolata's - I don't have a pack at the moment, but here's a link to the website for ingredients (please note Ocado have wrong ingredients list online). These don't contain any filler, so have a meatier texture, but as they are thin, they are still easy for someone new to chewing.

Marks and Spencer: I know they do another variety as well, but I can't remember which the other is

Gressingham: (my mum found these in her Tesco, but I haven't seen them locally) very juicy and tasty, but my husband did find a bit of bone in his...

Try more than just Sausage and Mash (although this is always a good option... don't just stick to potato though, it's a great way to sneak in extra veg)

Sausage Traybake - great for the lazy cook - put sausages and chopped veg in a roasting tin, toss with a little oil and roast until sausages browned and veg soft - the veg take on a different flavour cooked in the sausage juices, might even encourage fussy kids to try them - works well with root veg, fennel, potato, butternut squash, beetroot, courgette, peppers, aubergine etc).

Sausage casserole

Sausage bolognaise - cooks much quicker than mince for an after work quick tea - squeeze sausage meat out of the skins into a hot pan, squash with the back of a wooden spoon to break up into smaller pieces. Add finely chopped or grated veg and cook until browned and veg soft, add tinned tomato, passata, ketchup etc

Sausage rolls - roll out wheat free pizza dough to a rectangle - I used Hale & Hearty for this - spread with tomato sauce and sausage meat, roll up and cut into 1cm slices. put on tray and bake - great fresh out of the oven, or next day in packed lunch or picnic

Sausage and pasta - slice left over sausage into pasta sauce

Sausage sandwich - put into a roll - try DS soft white rolls or Barkat ready to bake rolls - or between a couple of slices of suitable bread.

vanilla fudge

This is more of a crumbly, old fashioned, fudge than the squishy cubes they seem to mass produce these days. For any Scottish readers, almost Tablet, but not quite...

 (I only wanted to make a small amount to try so this is half quantity of the recipe I adapted, just double up if you want to make more)

225g Caster Sugar

45g Dairy free spread

160ml can Coconut cream (just tried it with oat cream too, not quite the same creaminess, but good alternative if you can't use coconut - and once cold, set very hard...)

1/2 tsp Vanilla Paste

1. Put sugar, spread, and coconut cream into a heavy based pan and heat gently, stirring frequently, until the sugar has dissolved. Do not boil until sugar completely dissolved.
2. Bring to the boil without stirring.
3. Continue boiling (stirring occasionally to stop it sticking and burning) until a temperature of 116°C (240°F) is reached on a sugar thermometer. If you don't have one of these, you can test if the fudge is at this temperature by spooning a small amount of the syrup into some iced water, it should form a soft ball.
4. Remove the pan from the heat, add the vanilla extract and beat the mixture with a wooden spoon until thickened.
5. Pour a tray lined with lightly oiled foil, and leave for 10-15 mins or until almost set. It will set quicker in the fridge (if making larger quantity you can just use an oiled square tin and get nice neat sides).
6. Mark the fudge into squares with a sharp knife and leave to cool completely.

Toffee Apple Cake

With National Apple Day this weekend, seemed like a good excuse to do something a little more exciting than stewed apples and custard. This is roughly (very roughly) adapted from a recipe in this months (November 2012) BBC Good Food Magazine. The basic gingerbread recipe I've now made a couple of times using Dove's farm white bread flour and Orgran All Purpose Plain Flour without having to adjust the fluid. I love a basic recipe you can adapted lots of ways, have now done this as gingerbread, banana cake (for mini monsters birthday cake) and now toffee apple cake. Don't be afraid to experiment! Be warned, this is a very wet batter and looks as if it won't work!

3 Eating Apples
30g Caster Sugar (melted to form a caramel - how to video ) or light muscovado sugar to sprinkle
75g Dairy and Soya Free Spread
60g Caster Sugar
200g Golden Syrup (or 100g syrup plus 100g caramelised sugar as above)
1 tsp Ground Cinnamon
1tsp Vanilla Paste (or extract)
100mls Milk Substitute
1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
150g Plain Flour or Wheat Free Plain Flour
1 tsp Egg Replacer 

Thinly slice 2 of the apples and pour over caramel (or sugar), stir and set aside (the moisture from the apples will stop the caramel setting).

Melt sugar, syrup and dairy free spread gently in a pan until dissolved and leave to cool slightly.

Add vanilla, cinnamon and milk substitute to syrup mixture.

Grate remaining apple into a bowl and mix with the rest of the dry ingredients.

Stir in syrup mixture until well combined.

Pour into greased, lined tin (approx 18x25cm)

Top with apple slices and pour over remaining caramel/sugar.

Bake for 30-35 minutes at 180ºC.



Serve with Oat Cream, Custard, Toffee sauce (see sticky toffee pudding recipe), or natural yogurt (CoYo or Wot No Dairy).

Custard Creams

I bought the Mar/April 2012 Issue of Jamie (Oliver) Magazine after it boasted a 'Bake For Everyone' free-from section with Gluten free and Vegan recipes. Great, I thought, Wheat, Milk and Egg free already, just need to substitute the Soya. Unfortunately, many of the Gluten-free recipes used Spelt Flour which, not only is a form of wheat, but also contains Gluten! They did print an apology in the next issue...

I think he missed a trick. The same issue had a 'classic biscuit' section which is easy to adapt and much less complicated than the special free-from section. 

I don't have the fancy cutters, but they work pretty well any shape. Don't have step by step pictures for these as rushed late one night this week when I was feeling rough (2 weeks of school being back and already sniffles doing the rounds). While the biscuit itself was good, I think the filling could have done with a little something else. I think next time I will add a little vanilla (didn't stop Mini Monster and Fussy Five demolishing the lot in less then 2 days).

Makes about 20 biscuits (depending on size of cutter and thickness of dough)

175g Plain Flour (or Wheat free bread flour)

1 tsp Baking Powder

3 tbsp Custard Powder

3 tbsp Caster Sugar

100g Dairy and Soya Free Spread

50ml Oat Cream (or milk substitute)

1 tsp Vanilla Paste (or extract)

Filling (this makes a lot, you probably only need to do half quantity!)

200g Icing Sugar

4 tbsp Custard Powder

100g Dairy and Soya Free Spread

Put Flour, Baking Powder, Custard Powder and Sugar in a bowl.

Rub in Dairy and Soya Free Spread with your fingertips until it resembles breadcrumbs.

Stir in Oat Cream (or Milk Substitute) and vanilla with a knife until it begins to come together (if using plain flour, you may need a splash more milk substitute).

Using your hand, kneed lightly to form a ball. Cover and chill for 20-30 mins.

Roll out on floured surface to 2-3mm thick (remember it's a double, triple including filling, layer so you don't want it too thick) and cut into shapes.

Place on a tray lined with greaseproof paper and bake for 12-15mins at 180ºc. Cool on a wire rack.

Meanwhile, to make the filling, cream together all the ingredients until light and fluffy. Add 2 tsp of boiling water and mix until smooth. Cover and set aside until the biscuits are cool.

Sandwich biscuits together with as much or little of the filling as you want!

Bourbons, Jammie Dodgers and Jaffa Cakes to follow!

Mezzaluna

Ok, so this is another example of rescuing a mistake. Might still have another go at how they should be...

I found a recipe, that looked easy to adapt, for Biscotti alla Vaniglia (Vanilla Biscuits to you and me) in an Italian cooking magazine I bought back from a recent trip (I'm sure I used to bring back food and alcohol, not sure what went wrong). 

Unfortunately, I wasn't paying much attention and put in the equivalent fluid for a whole egg instead of a yolk! Ended up with a very soft mix more like cake. Tried microwaving for 30seconds, good texture cooked, but spread too much. Added a bit more flour and a little raising agent et voila (or ecco la if you prefer the italian).

50g Sugar
80g Dairy and Soya Free Spread
1tpn vanilla paste (or extract)
40mls Oat cream or other milk substitute
50g ground pine nuts* 
Grated zest from an unwaxed lemon (optional)
125g GF bread flour
1tsp egg replacer
1/2 tsp baking powder
icing sugar to decorate (optional)

* Original recipe used ground almonds, but I thought pine nuts would likely to be tolerated by more of you. You can either put them in a food bag and bash them with a rolling pin, they don't need to be evenly or smoothly ground, or whizz them in a blender. They are much oilier than almonds so you are more likely to end up with a paste as you can see in the photo below.

Put sugar, vanilla, spread and oat cream  (and lemon zest, if using) in a bowl and whisk until pale.

Tip in rest of ingredients and fold in with spatula or spoon.

Spoon into piping bag (disposable ones are readily available now and cut down risk of cross contamination, but I've always just used a bit of rolled up greaseproof paper. I was going to include instructions, but it's very difficult to photograph and roll and fill! Fortunately Iced Gem Bakes has instructions on her blog). 

Pipe crescents onto greaseproof paper.

Bake in pre-heated oven at 180ºc for 10 minutes or until lightly browned on the edges.

Cool on wire rack and dust with icing sugar before serving.

Empanadas (fried meat pasties)

Ok, so I know it was a long time ago I promised recipes of what to do with the rich wheat free bread dough , here's the first one!

Going away for the weekend isn't easy with allergic kids, even when I'm not taking them with me! Heading up north for my school reunion, I found myself spending my day off work having to stock up the freezer with potential picnic food so my husband could take the kids out. I'm sure he would have coped anyway, just didn't want them to think they could do without me...

I had intended to just make ham rolls (will post that recipe too eventually) as they are already a firm packed lunch favourite, but only had enough ham to use half mix. I know the dough fries well, so experimented stuffing it with cooked mince and vegetables (I used a fairly dry mix just in case they split). I think they'd probably work filled with anything not too wet, but probably better with pre-cooked filling so you only need to cook the outside and don't need to worry about cooking out the middle.

To make 8 empanadas:

1/2 quantity of rich wheat free bread dough

8 spoonfuls of filling (I fried off some lamb mince with grated carrot, courgette, and sweet potato until browned and veg not visible to Fussy 5, added garlic, a spices (cinnamon and cumin) and possibly a bit of tomato paste (can't quite remember). 

1 tsp of corn flour mixed to a thin paste with 2 tbsp water

Oil to fry (I know olive oil is supposed to be no good for frying, but it's the only thing I had) - I used about 1cm in the base of a small heavy based pan.

Divide dough into 8 pieces.

Roll into balls and flatten to about 3mm.

Place spoonful of filling in middle.

Wet edge of dough with corn flour mixture (easier with finger than pastry brush).

Fold dough over and pinch edges together until sealed all the way round.

Flatten slightly to form a semi-circle (makes it easier to fry).

Fry in hot oil for a couple of minutes until browned, then flip over and repeat for the other side. 

Remove from oil and drain on kitchen paper.

These freeze well and unlike wheat free pastry, won't break up when traveling!