Easter Gluten Freeness

I was trotting up the local high street yesterday and spotted eastery goodness in the bakers. Seeing all those cakes and yellow fluffy chicks reminded me how we used to make those cornflake and chocolate nests for Easter as kids. Well Kellogg's cornflakes, like a lot of Kellogg's products, have barley extract on them, so their brand of corn flakes are not gluten free. Whole Earth to the rescue! Whole Earth Organic Corn Flakes are naturally gluten free, and very nice too. The flakes are a bit thinner, but taste just as good. I'm going to give you the Easter nests recipe I used yesterday to make mine, but you can't go wrong really.

milk chocolate 100gms

dark chocolate 100gms

butter 25gms

golden syrup 1tbsp

gluten free corn flakes 200gms

Melt the chocolate, butter and golden syrup in a bowl over some hot water. Mix in the corn flakes. Mix very well till its all coated. Press into 12 little bun cases (pop these in a bun baking tray for support). Shape into nests a bit with a spoon and decorate with eastery things.

Traditionally at our house Cadburys mini eggs are used to decorate, which according to the website are gluten free, eggcellent!

I like easter a lot, its a lovely introduction to spring. All the bulbs are coming up, lambs are boinging around in the fields and the days are getting warmer. I don't have a massive sweet tooth, so often ask for a book or something instead of an egg at Easter. I have bought Dexter (our new baby) a totally unrelated gift of a bumbo seat for Easter. It's not like he can eat an egg anyway. Maybe we will have a turkey dinner, which is another tradition from home. Like a second Christmas really.

On the subject of Easter, apparently Sainsbury's are doing a gluten free Simnel cake for Easter, what a lovely treat! I think its the Trufree one.

Hope you all have a lovely gluten free Easter!

Gluten Free Ice Cream Toppings

I'm a massive ice cream addict. But ice cream can be tricky, fooling you into thinking no gluten could possibly be present, and then surprising you with an innocent sounding toffee ice cream that's packed full of nasties.

At home I keep us stocked with Kelly's Cornish Clotted Cream Ice Cream. Their recipes are gluten free, though they cannot guarantee no gluten in the supply chain, but it causes me no issues.

So, with just vanilla flavour in the freezer, toppings are necessary to jazz pudding up a bit. Here are a few of my favorite gluten free ice cream toppings: -

• A teeny cup of hot espresso (with some booze too if you like, try amaretto)
• Some crushed salted peanuts
• A home made chocolate sauce made from melted dark (or milk) chocolate (25gms), butter (10 gms), golden syrup (1tbsp)and a pinch of salt
• Grated chocolate
• Dulce de leche (caramel sauce - Nestle do it in a tin, Merchant Gourmet in a jar)
• Stem ginger from a jar, chopped with some of the syrup
• Bashed up cinder toffee (honeycomb)
• Golden or maple syrup (sets like toffee on the cold ice cream!)
• Raspberry puree and chopped peaches (peach melba)
• Homemade blackcurrant jam (make sure it's not too sugary)
• Homemade praline, roast a few nuts in a dry frying pan, bash up, melt sugar in a pan till caramel forms (carefully, megga hot!), tip in the nuts, pour out onto baking paper, then bash up when set. I sometimes add salt to the caramel too (salted caramel is dead trendy at the mo)
• The same nut praline but made with salted peanuts, incredible
• Good quality lemon curd (mmmmmm!)
• Rum soaked sultanas (I don't like raisins!)
• Tinned morello cherries in syrup
• Crumbled gluten free cookies, shortbread or biscuits
• Cinnamon stewed apple
• Crumbled meringue

Of course you can combo a couple of these items and make a yummy ice cream sundae. It's fun to think of a cake or dessert you like and make an ice cream sundae in its honour, or just match classic flavour combos, just like the 'jelly belly' jelly bean menu.

• Dark chocolate + morello cherries = black forest gateaux
• Cinnamon apple + crumbled shortbread = apple crumble
• Coffee + amaretto + grated chocolate = tiramisu
• Lemon curd + meringue = lemon meringue pie
• Coffee + bashed walnuts = coffee cake
• Marshmallows + chocolate sauce + bashed biscuits = rocky road
• Rum soaked raisins + cinnamon apple = apple strudel
• Cinder toffee + chocolate sauce = crunchie bar
• Crushed peanuts + caramel + chocolate sauce = snickers bar
• Caramel + pecans + crushed shortbread = pecan pie

I can't think of any more right now, if you have any ice cream sundae ideas that re-create classic puddings please let me know and I will add to the list!

I have seen for sale some marshmallow sort of spread from the USA, called fluff I think, which would be nice swirled in ice cream, possibly to make other meringue type sundaes, like a key lime pie.

I also have a thing for sorbets that are flavoured like my fave cocktails, you can make a mojito sorbet, magarita flavour, even champagne sorbet. But too much booze stops it freezing, so just a hint of booze is all that is needed, its not a frozen cocktail after all. More on this later perhaps.

On a totally different subject, I have some good news for 2010. Just before Xmas I had a little baby boy, hes super cute and a very good boy, so I'm not suffering from too much sleep deprivation. Hoping my time off work will mean I can blog much more this year!

Happy new year readers, hope you all had a lovely gluten free Xmas, lets all have a lovely gluten free 2010.

Gluten Free Scotch (or American) Pancakes

I just made some yummy pancakes for my brunch. This is my third go at making these and this time I think I have cracked it! Quite easy, just make sure you get your pan right and these will come out fluffy and golden. Sometimes in the UK these are called griddle cakes.

doves farm gluten free self raising flour 200gms sifted

runny honey 2tbsp (or caster sugar)

butter 2tbsp melted

salt a pinch

large free range egg 1 whisked

milk 300ml

Put all the ingredients in a bowl and whisk up by hand or with an electric whisk. The texture should be gloopy and your whisk should leave temporary swirly patterns in the batter. This should be much thicker than a french style crepe mix. Leave the mix to stand for 10 minutes.

Now heat up a NON STICK frying pan, don't even try these in a normal pan. Heat the pan slowly to a nice even medium heat and rub a little sunflower oil into the pan with a bit of kitchen towel, we are talking just a smear of oil here to coat the pan.

Using a ladle or a big spoon blob a little of the mixture in the pan, about a dessert spoon, it will spread slowly, aim for pancakes about the size of the bottom of a mug, don't go to big. You will get two or three in your pan without touching if you get good at the pouring out of the batter. They will end up about 5mm thick if you have your batter thick enough, if they are coming out of the pan too thin add more flour to your mix. Never press them down as they cook or you will squish the bubbles.

You can tell when its time to flip, with a spatula, as large bubbles will appear in the surface of the pancake and they will start to pop. This will take about 3 minutes. Also the uncooked batter on the top will start to loose its glossy look and go matt, starting at the edges. Flip carefully with a spatula, no crazy pancake tossing with two or three of these in the pan please!

The second side will only take you a minute or two, and you can take a peek at the bottom to check its golden brown. Don't despair if the first one goes wrong, it always does for me, and the last ones you make will be the best, that's just the way it goes with pancakes.

If you pile these up as you go they will stay warm to bring to the table, or just eat as they are made, which is how we had them as kids. Mum would keep making them until we stopped eating them.

I like mine with butter and jam, or runny honey, maple syrup, even bacon like they do in the USA. I do like to have butter and something sweet though, as I like the salt and sweet contrast. If you are feeling healthy why not have these with fruit and low fat yogurt, and just a drizzle of honey? You can also press fruit into the pancakes as you make them, a slice of banana or a few blueberries looks lovely.

If you make this batter without the honey it makes perfect blinis too for cocktail time.

Kiddies love these, and you can use a pastry cutter to cut into stars and funny shapes to add interest if you like, or if you are very clever you can drizzle the mix into the pan with a chefs squirty bottle, and make any shape you like right there in the pan!