Muffins, jaffa puddings and more Afghans

Phew that was a busy Friday Baking Club, I've only just finished it! A pattern seems to be emerging with early mornings where I'm usually in the kitchen by 6:30am preparing for the day's socialising. I needed bread, muffins and Afghans by about 11am to take to lunch with friends, do the shopping for dinner and prepare for dinner with guests arriving at 7pm. There was hope for an afternoon nap but it was difficult to squeeze it into the tight schedule to avoid getting slightly manic by the end.

Anyway with a loaf of sunflower seeded bread in the oven I thought it was time
to tackle the first adaptation for the day. After making the Afghans last weekend I had a quick hunt around on the net for a few different recipes and pictures for comparison and from what I saw the recipe I tested was atypical with its highly spreadable flat biscuit. Although it was still rather tasty and chewy, I thought I'd try to make one that had a bit more depth. I was thinking that by playing with the ratio of flour to butter with a bit less baking powder and sugar with the addition of a nut might still produce a very tasty biscuit but more in-line with the kiwi tradition. So here's what I came up with.

Meg's gluten free Afghans
makes approx 30
190g butter, softened
1/2 c brown sugar
3/4 c rice flour
1/2 c tapioca flour
1/4 c potato flour
3 Tbsp cocoa
1 tsp bicarb soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 c gluten free cornflakes
50g dark chocolate melted
walnuts broken into small pieces

1. Preheat oven 180C and line 3 baking trays
2. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy
3. Sift flours, baking powder, bicarb and cocoa and mix in with creamed butter
4. Stir in lightly crushed cornflakes.
5. Use a teaspoon to roll dough into small balls and press down with a fork, bake for 8-10 minutes. Cool on trays before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.
6. When biscuits are completely cooled, drizzle chocolate over the top of biscuit and place walnut piece on top.

Things to note about this Afghan recipe is that they may not keep as well as the other biscuits, they go rather crumbly with moisture so they are best eaten within a couple of days, which isn't too hard if you've got a few friends to share with. Also if anyone tries the recipe with a bit of Xanthan gum let me know how it goes - that might help bind them together.

After cooking all the Afghans I turned myself to the task of creating the perfect
Carrot, sultana, walnut and orange muffins. I've been trying to re-create this recipe for a while, keeping in mind my Mum's Carrot cake that I wanted to make into a muffin which I grew up baking and eating. Its taken me a while to get it to a stage where I'm happy to share and invite comment. The ones I made on Friday morning were better than my two recent attempts however they were still a bit crumbly and dense, where I was looking for a more springy tasty texture. Not to mention I got the quantities wrong with too much liquid and extra flavourings such that batter filled 15 muffin tins rather than the normal 12.

So this evening I tried to scale back the ingredients and correct the ratios while also adding xanthan gum and a little more oil to help with the binding and springiness. This seems to have done the trick, the resulting muffin is springy and not so crumbly, although it does tend to have a slightly odd flavour I tend to associate with pre-made GF flour mixes so its a bit of a trade off, maybe its the Xanthan gum. Anyway they seemed to have passed the 'Neil' taste test and I'll take them to work tomorrow for further comparison, and at least one colleague will be able to compare the two as well as she was at lunch on Friday. Anyway here is tonight's recipe for the muffins.

Carrot, sultana, walnut and orange muffins
Makes 12
½c brown sugar
2/3c grated carrot
1/3c sultanas
1/3c walnuts, broken into small pieces
50g potato flour
175g rice flour
1½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp xanthan gum
1tsp mixed spice
1tsp cinnamon
1tsp nutmeg
2/3c vegetable oil
½ c orange juice
2 eggs

1. Preheat oven to 180C and line 12 hole muffin tin.
2. Mix sugar, carrot, sultanas, orange rind and walnuts together, stir in sifted dry ingredients (flours, baking powder, spices & xanthan gum).
3. In a mixing jug, lightly beat vegetable oil, orange juice and eggs and pour in with above mixture. Stir until just combined and spoon into prepared muffin tin.
4. Bake for 20-25mins, cool for a couple of minutes before removing from to cool completely.

Although I haven't iced the muffins to minimise the sweetness, a orange cream cheese frosting would go nicely with them!

Now back to Friday's baking and the final adaptation challenge which was to take the Women's Weekly Self-saucing Jaffa Pudding and adapt it to serve 6 individual puddings. Luckily this was surprisingly easy and quick to do. Now although this recipe is not one that can be pre-prepared before your guests arrive, you can however assemble two parts to mix together about 30-40 mins before you want eat! And even a slightly tipsy person can do this without coming too undone! I put the butter, milk (or dairy free alternative), sugar, vanilla essence and rind in a bowl that can be microwaved just before mixing and sifted the flours and cocoa powder ready in another bowl so its just a matter of whisking the two together and popping in the oven. And, if like me you had some left over melted dark chocolate from icing the Afghans, you can add that to the mix as well. Another tip to remember is to place the oven proof dish (or ramekins) on a tray to avoid any overflow for ending up on the oven floor. (It can make a smokey burnt mess which is hard to clean!)

Self-saucing jaffa pudding (The Gluten-free Cookbook by Australian Women's Weekly)

60g butter

1/2c milk

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

3/4c caster sugar

1/2c rice flour

1/3c soya flour

1/3c GF SR flour

1tsp baking powder

2Tbsp cocoa powder

2tsp grated orange rind

1/2c brown sugar

2c boiling water

1. Preheat oven 180C. Grease 1.5 Lt ovenproof dish

2. Melt butter with milk and extract in medium saucepan (or microwave). remove from heat and whisk in caster sugar, then sifted flours, baking powder, half the cocoa and rind. Spread mixture into dish.

3. Sift brown sugar and the remaining cocoa over mixture, gently pouring the boiling water over the mixture.

4. Bake pudding for about 40 minutes. Stand for 5 minutes before serving.

Individual servings: grease 6, 1 1/2c ramekins, divine batter equally, sprinkle with brown sugar and cocoa and pour boiling water to 2/3 height of ramekin. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Be careful that they don't over flow.

They go splendidly with cream and/or ice cream! I've served this recipe two Friday nights in a row, once as a single pudding and once as individual servings and all the guests loved them and had no idea they were gluten free. So a winner all round and I particularly like the individual servings as its nicer to plate up. Unfortunately no photos are available at present... we're too focused on eating rather that recording the moment.