Falafel Dinner

I don't like to use packet mixes. I just don't like ultra processed foods and food that isn't fresh. However I weakened at the supermarket today and thought I would try a gluten free falafel mix that would do for the whole family. It was ok. Not terrific. Not super yum. Not awful. Just ok.

The packet was pretty good value for money I thought...five dollars something...for a meal that wouldn't be having meat. I heated up some pita pockets for the rest of the family and put their falafels in the pita pockets with a mixed salad and a mayo and I just had mine on a salad.

The falafels were easy to make. Just add water, mix, chill and then mould into shapes. Then pan fry. Quick. Easy. Blah food. Tasty but more of a rib-sticker type of meal, than a gotta have that again!

Make Your Own Gluten Free Baking Powder

From the cookbook 'The New Zealand Food Allergy Cookbook', by Ros Campbell and Jill Macfarlane for Allergy New Zealand. Published by Hodder Moa, Auckland, 2007.

1 part baking soda
2 parts cream of tartar
1 part potato four, arrowroot or similar starch to prevent clumping.

I have just read that to make your baked goods rise better you need to mix the baking powder mix with water or other liquid in the recipe before adding it to the other ingredients. Perhaps if I had done that my sponge would have been better. Perhaps.

Sludgecake aka Spongecake Disaster

I should have stopped when I realised there were no strawberries to be bought today. Wham bam just like that the strawberry season has ended. No warning - no nothing. One day we could buy mega punnets of the little gems and then the next day nada. Apparently the warm evenings are to blame. I guess we can't have it all can we? So anyway. What is a sponge cake without strawberries? I should have stopped. But no, I was in a cake making mood and being adventurous so I went ahead with my sponge cake mission.
I've only tried making sponges a couple of times before, and both were not memorable. But a friend of mine had said she makes sponges for a coeliac friend of hers..so I thought i would give it a whirl. I used the Edmonds recipe and exchanged the cup of normal flour for a cup of Bakels Gluten Free flour mix. And I used the gluten free baking powder mix from the NZ Allergy cookbook (see below for details). I don't know whether the ingreds are to blame or my method for the lack of height to the cake, perhaps it was a mix of both...but the finished result was a low level gluggy cake, ew. If I actually liked sponge cake I would work on my method using normal flour and try to perfect my sponge making ability...but I don't think it is worth it. Give me mudcake anyday!
As my husband says, at least the cream is fresh and tasty! And I found one last strawberry for it in our garden.