Pastry Part II and mini cheescakes

I'm excited to share with you a bit of a revelation that I had this weekend about pastry, I think I've worked something out! Anyway as usual it all started on Friday morning, after boxing with my gym buddy down at Bronte Beach, I had to make a few things for lunch with the Friday mummy club. I'd put my hand up to make bread for us sensitive ones as well as a quiche and adapting an old favorite mini honey macadamia cheesecakes. The bread and the cheesecakes should be easy while the quiche was a little daunting since my previous savory pastry failures.

I'd scoured my gluten free baking books for a quiche recipe but didn't come across anything however I did find an old print out from the 'Taste' website for a gluten free bacon and spinach quiche - just what I was looking for. Only thing was the recipe used a pre-made flour mix. I was in a quandary on whether to make up my own flour mix or to use a pre-made one I had in the cupboard. I ended up going for the pre-made mix. One thing I noticed was that the mix was quite lumpy - even after I'd whisked it and it didn't absorb the butter as well and needed hardly any water to make it into a dough and it had quite a grainy texture. Needless to say when the case had come out of the over after its blind bake it was soft and crumbly to touch. Doh! However I decided to press on as it would hopefully have a yummy filling and you could eat around the pastry! And I must say it looked pretty good once it came out of the oven but the pastry just didn't stand up to cutting and serving that well and it wasn't that good tasting. Oh well, I decided to have another crack it the next day when I had a bit more time. I had to press on with making the mini cheesecakes.

Now its been a while since I made a honey macadamia cheesecake and I've not done it gluten free, but I didn't think I'd have any problem substituting gluten free biscuits for the base. Now my very kind sister-in-law had put me onto a nice mainstream biscuit that was gluten free when we were back in WA for our honeymoon - Arnotts Rice Cookies and they worked perfectly. Thanks Ros! The only other fiddling to be done would be convert a 22cm cheesecake to at least 7 mini cheesecakes and my only limiting factor was that I had 250gm of cream cheese. So this meant I halved the recipe, other than the eggs where I used two instead of three. It was quite surprising how much mixture the recipe makes, there was enough for 12 mini cheesecakes using a standard 12 muffin tin! Brilliant there were a few extras for Neil and I for dessert over the weekend. Anyway here is the recipe.

Mini Honey Macadamia Cheesecakes (from http://www.taste.com.au/)

makes 12
3/4 cups macadamia nuts, roughly chopped
100g sweet plain GF biscuits (such as Arnotts Rice Cookies)
50g unsalted butter, melted
1tsp mixed spice
250g cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup caster sugar
3Tbs honey
2 eggs
1/3 cup sour cream
Method
1. Preheat oven to 160°C. Line 12 hole muffin tin. Place macadamias on a baking tray and roast for 8 to 10 minutes or until light golden. Set aside to cool.
2. Crush biscuits until finely chopped (either using food processor or by hand). Add butter and process until well combined. Press biscuit mixture into base of muffin holes. Refrigerate until required.
3. Combine cream cheese, sugar and 2Tbs cup honey until smooth. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing until well combined. Add sour cream and mix until just combined.
4. Spread two thirds of the macadamias over biscuit bases. Drizzle with remaining honey. Carefully pour over cheesecake filling. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Turn off oven and open oven door. Allow cheesecake to cool completely in oven. Cover and refrigerate for 3 hours or overnight, if time permits.
5. Place a split macadamia on each mini cheesecake and drizzle with honey, if desired.
Note: to make a 22cm whole cheesecake, double the ingredients except for the eggs, use three. Baking takes about 50 mins.
Source; Super Food Ideas - September 2006, Page 78, Recipe by Janelle Bloom

 

Well the Friday mummy club was very polite and didn't complain about the crumbly funny tasting pastry although they were quite vocal about the cheesecakes, I think they were a hit. Luckily I had enough to go around otherwise there might have been tears! And of course its always great to catch up with friends and their new bubs. Although just quietly I'm not too sure about the birth stories, they have me crossing my legs and singing to myself, la la la la I can't hear you!

 

Anyway on Saturday morning after an early morning bike ride to La Parouse and a chai with my cycling buddy I was back in the kitchen determined to give the quiche another go. This time I intended to use the same pastry as for the Lemon Custard Tart (see archives for the 10 August) but to omit the three tablespoons of sugar and replace them with rice flour. So it was when I was sifting and whisking the flours and xanthan gum that I noticed the difference with the pre-mixed plain flour mix. This mix used rice, cornflour soy flours and it was a much finer mix that didn't clump at all. It also absorbed the butter and water easily so the ratios where more in proportion. And when it came out of the oven after its blind bake it wasn't soft or crumbly to touch. So I think the trick is to be careful with using pre-mixed flours and their texture as it really affects absorption of butter and water as well as the crumb and taste when baked. So here is my amalgam of recipes, pastry from Sue Sheppard's Gluten-free Kitchen and Taste.com.au/Fresh Living Nov 2004.

Bacon and spinach quiche

makes a 23cm fluted tart

oil

1 onion finely chopped

100g rindless bacon, cubed

100g baby/English spinach

4 eggs

3/4c cream

1/2c milk

1/3c grated cheese
salt and pepper to taste

optional extras: 1 small zucchini cubed, 1/4 red capsicum diced, 4 mushrooms diced, 2 shallots diced, 1 clove of garlic crushed.

pastry (The Gluten free Kitchen by Sue Sheppard)

30g fine rice flour

75g cornflour

45g soy flour

1tsp xanthan gum

3Tbs rice flour extra (or for sweet pastry caster sugar)

160g cold butter

120ml cold water

Method

1. Sift flours, and gum into a bowl and whisk to mix well. Process flours, sugar and butter in a food processor. Or if you don't have a processor rub butter with your fingertips into the flour and sugar mix until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

2. Continue processing, adding 1 Tbs of water at a time until a soft dough forms. Or mix by hand with a knife. Turn onto a board and knead for 3 minutes until smooth. Wrap in cling wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes (15 minutes in a freezer).

3. Grease a 23cm fluted tart pan. Roll out pastry between to sheets of baking paper to a thickness of 3mm. Ease into the tart pan and trim the edges, then refrigerate for a further 30minutes. (Or 15 minutes in the freezer).

4. Preheat oven 170C

5. Line the pastry case with baking paper and fill with baking beads or rice. Blind-bake for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown (this may take longer if its been in the freezer) remove from the over and set aside to cool.

6. To make the filling, heat oil in pan brown onions and bacon, then add any extras as desired and cook for 5-10 mins.

7. In a small jug whisk together egg, milk and cream (and diced shallots if desired)

8. layer bacon and onion mixture with spinach into the blind baked pastry case, then transfer to oven and at last minute pour in egg mixture and sprinkle with grated cheese. Bake for 30 mins.

Well a couple of slices of the quiche went with Neil and I to the 50's Fair at Rose Seidler House for lunch on Sunday and was eaten cold with salad. Yum!  I even took a slice to work today were I warmed it up a bit in the microwave and the pastry didn't go too soggy. Yum. And I'll probably have another slice for lunch tomorrow as well so its doing quite well as a lunch treat!

Now just one final note on pastry and the recipe from Sue Sheppard's, Gluten free kitchen - be careful of oven temperatures. To date I've assumed that my oven is the same as that used to create these recipes, however cooking times have been longer. So I've made minor adjustments on the assumption that the GFK uses a a fan-forced oven and cooking times are quicker, so I've adjust my oven temp accordingly - 170 degrees fan-forced equates to 190 degrees un-fan forced. I also remade the Lemon Custard Tart this weekend too and even at the adjusted temperature the tart took about three times as long to cook - ie. closer to an hour than 15-20mins. So I'm going to make a note on this recipe and invest in an oven thermometer to better gauge oven temperatures more accurately! Thanks Matt for that suggestion.

Happy baking!

My four favorite ingredients: chocolate,almond, orange, and ginger

This weeks baking was on my mind all week, even at work where I was in a meeting nibbling away at one of my favorite chocolates, Lindt 'ginger intense'. My colleague had mistakenly bought it instead of  Lindt 'orange intense', which is also up there for the top dog of chocolate. So either way I would have been happy!That night I was dreaming of fudge and once again the theme of the choc-orange and choc-ginger was prevalent. This then got me to thinking of my favorite cupcake, 'orange and almond' by Ghermez cupcakes which I think is just a mini chocolate version of the Jewish passover cake made of whole oranges and almond meal. So there you have it my four key ingredients for this weeks' baking, chocolate, almond, orange and ginger. It took a little further research for recipes to try and come up with the right combination. Although I didn't find exactly what I wanted, I did come up with two recipes that I thought I could adapt to what I wanted.

So on Friday I decided to tackle the first idea, choc-ginger and almond fudge. I never realised how easy it can be to make fudge with chocolate fudge being the easiest. Chocolate fudge is a simple combination of chocolate, butter, condensed milk and a splash of vanilla which is all melted together and poured into a slice tin to set in the fridge. More melting rather than cooking! Anyway this recipe easily lent itself to being adapted with any of your favorite lollies, fruits, nuts or spices, in my case ginger and almonds. So here it is!

Choc-ginger and Almond Fudge

500g dark chocolate

75g unsalted butter

400ml tin condensed milk

1tsp vanilla essence

2-3Tbsp ginger, fresh finely grated

150g almonds roughly chopped

1. Line slice tin with baking paper

2. In a medium saucepan or microwave, melt chocolate and butter, mix until combined. Stir in condensed milk and vanilla. Then add ginger and almonds, mix until well combined.

3. Pour into prepared slice tin, cover and refrigerate, until well set. Cut into small square and store in an airtight container in the fridge to be eat cool. Yum!

That was all the baking I intended for the day as I also wanted to head over to Leichhardt to check out a new shop that had been profiled in Tuesdays' Good Living - "Healthy Feast" a bakery dedicated to gluten free baked goods! I decided it was research mission to go check out there products and to get ideas for future baking challenges. Its a busy small little shop front with a wide variety of gluten free treats made on the premises and sold around Sydney at various fresh produce markets. I came away with two litte custard filled profiteroles, a raspberry and almond tart and a steak and vegetable pie. The profiterole didn't last long - a very tasty mouthful. Neil and I shared that tart that night after dinner.  Not too bad but it needed a bit of cream or ice-cream to go with it. And the pie was mine for lunch the next day. Ah so that's what good gluten free pastry tastes like! Firm, buttery and definitely not crumbly! Hmm I'm definitely going to have to give pies another go sometime soon. That and profiteroles too! Here's the link to check out the store and their products. http://www.healthyfeast.com.au/

Saturday morning dawned and I was up early to take the second idea of choc-orange and almonds to bake up my version of choc-orange almond cupcakes. These cupcakes and some of the fudge were destined to be consumed by a gaggle of women at a friends baby shower. Everyone likes chocolate based treats don't they? And at least that way I'd know that there'd be something gluten free that I could eat. Inspiration for this recipe came from Maeve O'Maera's Food Safari cookbook and recipe by Batia Slater  for Orange and Almond cake. It only needed a couple of tweaks to add chocolate and convert it to cupcakes rather than a cake. In addition, I intended to use LSA - linseed sesame and almond meal instead of almond meal as I didn't have the later. Anyway here's the recipe I came up with.

Choc-orange almond cupcakes (Adapted from Orange and Almond Cake, by Batia Slater, Food Safari)
Makes 12
1 orange
125 g caster sugar
3 eggs
100g dark chocolate melted
2Tbsp cocoa
125g almond meal/LSA
1/2tsp baking powder

1. Simmer orange in boiling water for 2 hours, drain, cool and puree whole orange.
2. Preheat oven 190C, line 12 hole muffin tin
3. Beat eggs and sugar well, until thick, light and fluffy. Stir in orange puree and mix well. Add melted chocolate and mix well. Followed by meal, baking powder and cocoa.
4. Spoon into prepared muffin tray and bake for 15mins. Cool on rack.

I'm a bit lazy, so I only dusted the cupcakes with icing sugar to finish them off but they could easily be made extra special with an orange ganache. Maybe another day, maybe when I had more time and  chocolate. Not to mention, when I turned up at the baby shower and there were copious quantities of lovely treats including several gluten free options for me - chocolate meringues, cheese balls made with tapioca flour and little cornflour sweet biscuits. Yum! So the ganache wasn't missed. To balance the sugar hit I'd also made up a Moroccan spice carrot dip to eat with rice crackers. Tasty indeed. Anyway a good time was had by all and I even got a few new ideas for future baking experiments!

Well that's about it for this week. Let me know if you've got any comments or suggestions. Happy baking.

More in-season inspired baking: pumpkin fruitcake and pizza

True to my word I took a more relaxed approach to Friday baking club this week. I didn't end up in the kitchen until 1:30pm after going to the gym, shopping and a long walk down to the beach to check out the large surf! Wow big swell and a strong SE winds made for a very dramatic ocean! Anyway after lunch I was in the kitchen cutting up fresh pumpkin for steaming and mashing ready for the pumpkin fruit cake. The mash was rich in colour and texture and gives the fruit cake a lovely golden colour with flecks of orange. And like the beetroot brownies the pumpkin helps to keep the cake moist.

To adapt Mum's recipe to be gluten free I've just swapped the 2 cups of SR flour with my version of gluten-free flour using a mix of rice, potato and tapioca flour with additions of baking powder and xanthan gum. I also chose to pre-soak my own mix of dried fruit and walnuts for a couple of nights in brandy to help plump up the fruit. I also used brown sugar rather white sugar as I like the flavour brown sugar adds which complements the golden syrup! Mum's recipe also recommended cooking for 1 1/2hrs but my mix didn't look overly runny so I checked the cake after an hour and it was well and truly done, so it might be worth checking it earlier. I have a feeling that GF flour and xanthan gum might soak up more moisture than normal flour. Anyway the cake is still moist a couple of days later, especially in the middle and tasty enough that Neil snuck a piece with morning coffee before breakfast! Be warned, this makes a rather large cake so make sure you've got a few friends to share it with or like me take some to work to share with others! Hopefully it'll get the thumbs up from these critics as well. It should keep for a week stored in an airtight container.

Pumpkin fruit cake (adapted from Jan Ewings's recipe)

500g mixed fruit (eg.diced dates, prunes, apricots, cranberries mixed peel; whole raisins, sultanas)

100g walnuts or almonds, chopped
splash of brandy
125g unsalted butter
1c brown sugar
2 eggs
1c hot mashed pumpkin
1Tbs golden syrup
2c SR flour (1 1/4c rice flour, 1/2c potato flour, 1/4c tapioca flour, 4tsp baking powder, 2 tsp xanthan gum)
1tsp mixed spice

1. If soaking mixed fruit and nuts: mix diced fruit and nuts in a bowl with a splash of brandy and cover overnight or a couple of days.
2. Preheat oven 180C. Line and grease a large square or round cake tin
3. Cream butter and sugar, add eggs one at a time. Add golden syrup then hot mashed pumpkin.
4. Sift in flour and mixed spice and mix. Then lightly fold in soaked mixed fruit. Pour into a greased and lined tin and bake in a moderate oven for 50mins-1hr.
5. Cool for 5 mins in tin before turning out onto a rack to cool fully.

It was nice to be able to have a bit of a rest after finishing the cake before having to tidy up before friends came round for a casual catch-up over pizza and wine. I was excited to trial out the Springhill Farm Real Bread Mix to make pizza dough. The packaging even included directions on how to make the dough, basically the same with just 200ml less of warm water which was all easy enough. The reduction in water made the dough much drier and easier to handle which was good.  After a 30 min rise I punched down the dough and split it into three and rolled it onto trays, forking it ready for topping. Meanwhile Neil and our guests were busy chopping up toppings of tomato, capsicum, chorizo, speck, mushroom, olives and basil to go on either a pesto or tomato paste base and then all topped with mozzarella, cheddar and parmesan. The pizzas were then baked in a preheated oven at 220C for 20-25 minutes and two out of three came out with a thin and crusty base.Unfortunately we forgot to take pictures until we were on our last piece but at least you get the general idea. And if I do say so myself, I thought they were better than our two local pizza joints that offer gluten free pizza. Not to mention they got rave reviews for our guests, bless their little cotton socks! With complements like that they can come round again!

More mid-week musings

After last Friday's baking, that once again spread over the weekend, I've decided to simplify things a little by only trying to cook two gluten-free treats. And hopefully I'll be able to post up the outcomes by Sunday night, fingers crossed! Also inspiration this week has been a bit more forthcoming even if I'm continuing on with last weeks theme of using in-season produce in my baking. I've also been keen to dip into my Mum's recipes again and adapt one of my old favorites, pumpkin fruit cake which is full of juicy fruit and the colour and flavour of a wedge of Jap Pumpkin. Although I might deviate from Mum's recipe by making up my own mixed fruit using raisins, sultanas, apricots, mixed rind, dates, prunes and cranberries which I'll soak with some walnuts in a little bit of alcohol to add an extra moistness. Yum!

For the other treat, I'm going to go savory again, this time I'll give making my own pizza dough a go using the 'real bread mix' as the base flour. As I've previously posted, this mix makes great tasty bread and the makers have suggested that it also works just as well for pizza dough. Although more and more pizza parlours are offering gluten- free options, even our local pizza joint, nothing quite beats a home made pizza full of your own favorite toppings. This will make for an interactive dinner for our Friday night dinner guests, where pre-prepare a couple of bases that we can all dress with our favorite toppings and pop them in the oven. It'll go perfectly with red wine, crusty bread and salad. Mmmm!

Anyway tune in later in the week and find out how it all goes! Happy baking.

In-season inspired baking

Ideas for baking this week were a little slow in coming, a bit like this post! I had vague notions of doing something with in-season produce to utilise some of the fresh fruit and veg we regularly get in our weekly organics box, including lemons, rhubarb, apples and beetroot. Inspiration finally began to form on Thursday night while out with work colleagues for drinks and dinner. I was chatting with one colleague's partner about our mutual love for all things sweet, especially brownies and rhubarb cake. Which made me think of a beetroot brownie I had a couple of years ago which led to some internet surfing in search of recipes. Apparently the beetroot is used as a sweetener while also keeping the finished product moist, however I never got round to trying out any of the recipes. Result test 1 found! 

Then as I lay awake early Friday morning, before psyching myself up to go down the beach to box with a friend, I was running through two other baking ideas in my head. As I didn't have all the ingredients for the rhubarb cake, I was thinking of other options like muffins. Also my new baking book "babycakes" uses fruit purees so I thought about combing apple puree as a natural sweetener and rhubarb to come up with a tasty muffin recipe. Not too hard I thought, test 2 found. Then I pondered whether I was game enough to have another go at pastry to make a lemon tart for our dinner guests that night. I thought I'd give it a shot and if it didn't work I was bound to have the brownies or muffins as back up! And that was all I had time for, I had to get up and go meet my friend and box as the sun rose. Such a lovely way to start the day!

As soon as I got back from the beach I was in the kitchen, sifting and whisking flours, chopping up fruit and mixing up eggs, milk, oil and yogurt in bowls. Finally the batter was spooned into the muffin tray and popped into the oven. I was excited to try resultant muffin for a breakfast treat. As the buzzer went off I peaked into the oven and I was a little disappointed to see pale flat muffins. Hmm what had gone wrong? I tested them for springiness and they were OK so must have been cooked but why oh why were they so flat? I mentally ran through what I'd done in mixing up the batter. Maybe I'd over worked it? Was I being to tricky splitting the mix and adding extra sugar and coconut for a crunchy topping? And then it dawned on me, I'd forgot to mix in the baking powder with the flours! A trick to remember when not using pre-mixed self raising flour. I never cease to amaze myself with the stupid mistakes I make, I blame it on lack of breakfast! Here's hoping its not a mistake I'll make again. Anyway I didn't have enough ingredients or time to make them again that day as I things to do and people to see so I just crossed my fingers that either the brownies or tart was going to work for dinner!

Anyway after a lovely lunch down the beach I was back in the kitchen steaming beetroot, melting chocolate and mixing eggs for the beetroot brownies. The recipe I used was one I'd found during my previous research from by Indigo House, however I can't seem to find the on-line recipe anymore - just as well I printed it out! It doesn't use an sugar but then it has plenty of chocolate and a spoonful of honey as a sweetener. Nor does it have much fat, just a small dollop of butter oh and yes plenty of chocolate. And hardly any flour so its bound to be a winner and it is! It tastes great with crunchy walnuts and juicy plump raisins, it keeps well with all the moisture from the beetroot but whats the best is the rich dark colour with a purple tinge which is fantastic! So I do hope you can enjoy.

Gluten-free Beetroot Brownies (Indigo House 2007)

500g beetroot, peeled, cubed
220g dark cooking chocolate
20g unsalted butter
2 eggs lightly beaten
1tsp vanilla essence
1/2c gluten free self raising flour
1/4c cocoa powder
1 dessert spoon honey
1/2c walnuts (or cashews) roughly chopped
1/2c raisins (or 1 orange rind)

1. Steam beetroot until tender (10-15mins). Allow to cool then blend to make 1 cup of puree
2. Preheat oven 180C. Line large slice tin with baking paper.
3. Melt chocolate, butter and honey in heatproof bowl over a saucepan or in microwave, stirring until smooth. Allow to cool slightly
4. Whisk eggs and vanilla extract. Add beetroot puree and mix well.
5. Sift flour and cocoa powder into large bowl. Add beetroot mixture, then the chocolate mixture. Mix until just combined. Stir in nuts and raisins. Pour into slice pan and smooth surface.
6. Bake for 20 minutes or until top is firm and crumbs cling to a skewer. Cool completely in tin before slicing.

With the beetroot brownie made the pressure was off to make the Lemon Custard Tart but I was determined to give it a go and try and stick to the recipe this time! And luckily enough this time it worked even if I was a little stressed at the time as I was a bit behind schedule. One tip is that you can use the freezer rather than the fridge to rest and cool the dough between rolling and baking which cut the two resting times in half. I also managed to get a good crumb with the butter and flour, rubbing it in by my fingertips rather than using a processor which we don't have without too much time lost either. The base was in the oven before the guests arrived for a blind bake and looked good. I'd also pre-prepared most of the filling which would just need a last minute combination and pour into the base once it was cooled. Although it was a bit of trial and error with the setting of the filling taking an extra 10-15 minutes over the recommended cooking time but it all worked out in the end. One thing to note is that this is not an overly tart tart which according to a couple of the guest is a good thing and more in line with it being a custard tart! It went down a treat with cream and ice cream. Thankfully my trust in my pastry making skills has been partially restored for now! So here it is.

Lemon Custard Tart (The Gluten Free Kitchen by Sue Sheppard)

Serves 10
130g rice flour
75g gluten-free cornflour
45g soy flour
1tsp xanthan gum
3Tbsp caster sugar
160g cold unsalted butter
120ml iced water
Lemon Filling
2c milk
3 eggs
1/3c lemon juice
3Tbs grated lemon zest
1/2c caster sugar

1. Sift flours, and gum into a bowl and  whisk to mix well. Process flours, sugar and butter in a food processor. Or if you don't have a processor rub butter with your fingertips into the flour and sugar mix until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
2. Continue processing, adding 1 Tbs of water at a time until a soft dough forms. Or mix by hand with a knife. Turn onto a board and knead for 3 minutes until smooth. Wrap in cling wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes (15 minutes in a freezer).
3. Grease a 23cm fluted tart pan. Roll out pastry between to sheets of baking paper to a thickness of 3mm. Ease into the tart pan and trim the edges, then refrigerate for a further 30minutes. (Or 15 minutes in the freezer).
4. Preheat oven 170C
5. Line the pastry case with baking paper and fill with baking beads or rice. Blind-bake for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown (this may take longer if its been in the freezer) remove from the over and set aside to cool.
6. To make the filling, pout the milk into a medium saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium-low heat. Remove from the heat. Place the eggs, lemon juice, lemon zest and sugar in a jug and whisk with electric beaters on low speed until just combined. Increase the beater speed and whisk the hot milk into the egg mixture.
7. Pour the filling into the cooked pastry case and bake for 15-25 minutes or until firm to touch. remove from the oven ans set aside to cool. Dust with icing sugar if desired and served with whipped cream and/or ice cream. Yum!
NOTE: Temps on this might be for a fan forced oven... so 190C for normal oven. Also note it may take closer to 40min- 1 hour to cook and set properly.

Saturday dawned and I was ready to try the muffins again. This time I wasn't going to try and get fancy by trying to get a crunchy top and separating the mix. The coconut and rhubarb would go through the whole mixture. Although this time I did stew up my apples with a bit of honey and lemon juice just for something different. And of course I would remember to add the baking powder and try to cook for an extra minute or so to get a bit of colour on top. However this was a bit of a trade off as the base was more cooked and stuck a bit to the patty papers, but they looked more appetising! Oh well, here it is, another Meg creation.

Rhubarb and coconut muffins (Meg Hinds!)

2/3c vegetable oil
1/3c natural yogurt
1/2c milk
1/2c stewed apple
2 eggs
50g potato flour
170g rice flour
1 1/2tsp baking powder
1/2tsp xanthan gum
1tsp cinnamon
1/4c brown sugar
1/2c shredded coconut
1c rhubarb chopped

1. Preheat over 180C. Line 12 hole muffin tin
2. In  a measuring jug mix wet ingredients (oil, egg, yogurt, milk, stewed apple)
3. Sift flours, gum, baking powder, cinnamon and sugar in a large bowl, whisk to combine. Add wet ingredients and mix with a spoon. Reserve 12 chunks of rhubarb and gently fold in remaining rhubarb and coconut into mixture. Spoon mix into muffing holes and place a rhubarb chunk on top of each.
4. Bake for 18-20 minutes until springy to touch and lightly golden. Cool for a couple of minutes before removing to cool on rack completely. Store in an airtight container for up to three days

Well that's it for last weeks baking - sorry for the delay in writing the tests up! Hopefully this week won't be so busy so I can be a bit more efficient with my posting. Also just a reminder that I'm really keen to read any comments or suggestions that you might have with these or any other recipes.

Happy baking!

Dates, walnuts and pastry

Well this Friday's baking has once again spread over the weekend and has had mixed outcomes. I think I'm going to need quite a bit more practice before I can bring you some fine examples of gluten free short crust pastry worthy of using in sweet and savoury pies. Just as well there are many more Friday's to come! Anyway I shall share with you my success's with dates and walnuts.

As you may remember I was waxing lyrical about my Mum's date slice so on Friday morning I pulled out my old collection of Mum's recipes that she'd typed up and printed out many years ago. Back when they had dot matrix printers and I was still at high school! I'm not exactly sure of the origin of these recipes but they are mostly likely a collection of old hand written recipes that have come from various old cook books or have been handed down from my Nan or other people that Mum decided to type up.

Well what I remember as being called 'date slice' was actually 'date meltaway' and it didn't have any walnuts or a recipe for the lemon icing. Not to mention the recipe was a bit vague on details like the temperature of the oven and how long you might cook it for. Also it seems that Mum also liked to tweak recipes as well. Hmm maybe that's where I get it from? The notes indicated that Mum did one and half times the pastry recipe but didn't say how to use one and half eggs! Mum also increased the date mixture to a packet of dates, although I'm not too sure what size the packet was. I thought her substituted lemon for sugar was a great idea as it would go well with the lemon icing. Anyway I gave it a go, substituting self raising flour for gluten free SR flour with a dash of xantham gum. Unfortunately, I only had about 300g of dates so I added some walnuts but I think mum would have used a 500g packet of dates. I also tried substituting Nutalex for butter and soy milk for milk to make the recipe dairy free as well which seem to work OK although it looked paler. Anyway here is what I came up with.

Date and walnut slice with lemon icing (Adapted from Jan Ewings's recipe for Date Meltaway)

500g pitted dates , roughly chopped

3/4c walnuts broken pieces
juice and rind 1 lemon
1 1/2 cup water
pastry
2 1/4 c GF self raising flour
2 tsp xantham gum
3Tbs butter (nutalex)
3Tbs milk (soy milk)
3Tbs sugar
2 eggs
lemon icing1 1/4 c pure icing sugar, sifted
30g butter melted
1tsp lemon rind
lemon juice

1. Preheat oven 180C, oil slice pan
2.To make date and walnut filling, in a saucepan cook dates and walnuts with water, juice and rind until a thick paste is formed.
3. To make pastry, sift flour and xantham gum and whisk in sugar. Melt butter and milk, mix in lightly beaten eggs. Stir wet mix with dry mix to form a dough.
4. Split dough and roll slightly larger half to line base and sides of slice pan. Spread over date mix and roll other slightly smaller half of dough to form a top to the slice. Press edges together and brush top with milk.
5. Bake in moderate oven until golden, approximately 20-25 minutes. Pastry should have come away from the sides of the pan. Cool on a rack.
6.To make icing, mix melted butter into icing sugar and rind, add lemon juice to form a slightly runny/spreadable icing.
7. Spread over cooled slice and allow to cool completely until icing is set. Cut into small pieces and store in an airtight container.

This evenings attempt at another recipe for pastry in a hope to make a medium sized chicken pie with the remaining filling were foiled by a mistake I made early on. I had intended to scale down a Maggie Beer recipe but had got confused with the quantities of butter. Unfortunately attempts to get things back on track didn't work as ingredients were added out of sequence and its important to get them right, especially when using xantham gum as a binding agent. Such a shame and a waste of ingredients but alas it's bound to happen on occasion. Anyway hopefully its not a mistake I'll be making again! But we'll leave that for another baking day, but not this week as I think it needs a bit of time and patience to get it right. Oh well we had the chicken filling with rice, not quite the same but edible anyway. Well that's about it for this week. Enjoy!

Well I had intended to have little chicken pies for lunch but the finished product was terrible. Rather, the pasty was appalling but the filling was tasty but because they were small pies with a large amount of pastry to filling they were inedible. So the untasted pies got throw away. Ah if only we had chickens! And the leftover filling was saved for another attempt at a pie over the weekend.

This Friday we'd taken the evening off from entertaining and instead used a wedding gift, a gift voucher for a French restaurant in Avalon, to have an evening out together. Yum ,I had Morten Bay bugs in a creamy garlic sauce, Duck Confit with roast vegetables while Neil had a Goat's Cheese Souffle and a creamy rabbit casserole all finished of with espresso and Creme Caramel. Very tasty indeed although I think we both weren't used to such rich and creamy food. Anyway its given me plenty of inspiration for french inspired gluten free dishes indeed, such as a gluten free souffle.

This morning I was back in the kitchen to make a loaf of bread. This time I was inspired by the date and walnut slice that I made on Friday and decided to make a loaf of date and walnut bread. On the way back from my swim I picked up some more dates and walnuts to add to the Real Bread mix, about a cup of each. The resulting loaf is a bit darker in colour and rather tasty indeed, especially while still warm and spread with a bit of butter. Two slices went down a bit too easily for morning tea!