Tuesday 23 February 2016

African cooking

Recipes for mandazis here. I haven't thought about these yummy deep fried treats for years...

Gluten-free seed crackers

Mix together:

100g each sunflower, pumpkin and sesame seeds
60g linseed (flax)
3 tablespoons psyllium husks (or gluten-free flour)
400 ml water
1 tsp salt.

Soak for 15 minutes.

Spread out on 2 silicone baking sheets as thinly as possible.  Bake for approximately 1 hour 20 minutes at 150 degrees C, perhaps turning over for the last 10.  Cool, break into pieces.

Sunday 21 February 2016

Gluten free cakes

Searching for cake recipes, I came across this one from Nigella. I didn't make the full quantity, adjusting the amounts by weighing the eggs and calculating from there: it seemed to work:

Lemon Polenta Cake

"200 grams soft unsalted butter (plus some for greasing)

200 grams caster sugar
200 grams ground almonds
100 grams fine polenta (or cornmeal)
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder (see note below)
3 large eggs
zest of 2 lemons (save juice for syrup)
for the syrup
juice of 2 lemons
125 grams icing sugar


More recipe inspirationEASTER SPRING ITALIAN GLUTEN-FREE CAKE

Method
Line the base of a 23cm / 9inch springform cake tin with baking parchment and grease its sides lightly with butter.
Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4/ 350°F.
Beat the butter and sugar till pale and whipped, either by hand in a bowl with a wooden spoon, or using a freestanding mixer.
Mix together the almonds, polenta and baking powder, and beat some of this into the butter-sugar mixture, followed by 1 egg, then alternate dry ingredients and eggs, beating all the while.
Finally, beat in the lemon zest and pour, spoon or scrape the mixture into your prepared tin and bake in the oven for about 40 minutes.
It may seem wibbly but, if the cake is cooked, a cake tester should come out cleanish and, most significantly, the edges of the cake will have begun to shrink away from the sides of the tin. remove from the oven to a wire cooling rack, but leave in its tin.
Make the syrup by boiling together the lemon juice and icing sugar in a smallish saucepan.
Once the icing sugar’s dissolved into the juice, you’re done.
Prick the top of the cake all over with a cake tester (a skewer would be too destructive), pour the warm syrup over the cake, and leave to cool before taking it out of its tin."

There was also a lovely apple puree cake to try and this chocolate truffle cake:

Ingredients:

1 cup whipping cream
2 1/2 cups high quality semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips*
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter
2 tablespoons bourbon vanilla extract* or see notes
7 organic free-range eggs
1 cup light brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
Organic cacao powder with maca, for dusting

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Line the inside bottom of a 9-inch Springform cake pan with a circle of parchment paper. Wrap a large piece of foil around the outside of the pan, covering the bottom and sides, to catch any leaking drips. Set aside. 

In a medium sauce pan, gently heat the cream over low heat. When the cream is fairly hot, melt the chocolate chips by adding them slowly to the pan as you whisk. Add the butter, in pieces. Whisk until the chocolate and butter are melted. Add the vanilla extract. As soon as the mixture is melted, smooth, and glossy remove it from the heat.

Using a wire whisk attachment, beat the eggs, light brown sugar and sea salt until the eggs are foamy and doubled in volume, roughly 3-4 minutes. (This is where a KitchenAid stand mixer comes in handy.)

Slowly add the cooling chocolate mixture to the eggs, and beat gently until combined.

Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan.

Bake in the center of a pre-heated oven for one hour, until the cake is set and cracked. It will still appear a bit loose in the center, underneath. This is fine.

Place the cake pan on a wire rack to cool. When the cake is close to room temperature, lightly cover and chill the cake overnight.

Before serving, gently loosen the cake from the sides of the pan using a thin flexible spatula. Release the Springform clasp and remove the ring. Place the cake on a cake plate.

Dust the cake with a sifting of cacao powder with maca. 

Cook time: 1 hour

Yield: 18 thin slices- this cake is super rich!  Recipe Source: glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com

And, finally, a vanilla cake using gluten-free flour. Very simple:

2 cups sugar
1 cup butter, melted
4  eggs
4 teaspoons gluten-free vanilla
3 cups Gluten-Free Flour Blend (see below)
2 teaspoons gluten-free baking powder
1 cup milk


Heat oven to 350°F. Grease 12-cup Bundt or 10-inch angel food cake (tube) pan; sprinkle with gluten-free flour blend. Set aside.

Combine sugar and melted butter in bowl. Beat at medium speed, scraping bowl often, until creamy. Add 1 egg at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla; beat until well mixed.

Stir together gluten-free flour blend and baking powder in bowl. Gradually add flour blend mixture alternately with milk to butter mixture, beating at low speed until well mixed.

Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 50-60 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pan.