Individual Apple and Ginger Upside Down Cakes

We've had a few visitors lately so I've been making a few more dessert things than normal. Some have been gluten free - some have not been. This was my latest little treat and it did work a treat. I made it gluten free, dairy free and by chance it also happens to be egg free as well.

I love doing things in little individual portions..makes them seem a little bit more special!

This recipe made 9 little cakes - in a standard size muffin tin.


Individual Apple and Ginger Upside down Cakes.

2 T brown sugar
1 Apple
2 c gluten free flour
2 t ground ginger
100 g dairy free margarine
1 c sugar
2 T golden syrup
1 t baking soda
3/4 c soy milk
1 T lemon juice

Preheat oven to 170 degrees celsius. Grease your muffin tin. Sprinkle the muffin holes with the brown sugar. Arrange apple slices to cover the bottoms of the muffin holes. Sift flour and ginger together. Mix in the margarine, sugar, golden syrup. Gently warm the milk and dissolve in the baking soda and then mix this into the flour mix...the warmed milk will help to melt the margarine and with a gentle stirring this will make a smooth batter. Add the lemon juice. Pour mixture over the apple pieces in the muffin holes. bake for approx 15 - 20 mins. Cool and then carefully turn out of the tin.

Can be made a big cake if desired by doubling the recipe and using a 20cm cake tin, and baking for 60 mins.

Enjoy warm.

Microwave Butterscotch Self Saucing Pud

I trialled this gluten free/ dairy free for the first time the other night. We've had a week of ferocious weather - torrential rain, hail, thunder and lightning...so needed a good rib-sticker kind of pud to help 'batten down the hatches'. It worked quite well...a little too stodgy for my liking but I put this down to the flour mix I was using...nearing the last of my 'Horleys' mix which I am pleased about.

The recipe -
1 c self raising flour
50 g melted butter or df marg
1/4 c sugar
1/2 c gf soy milk

Add melted butter and milk to flour and sugar. Spread into a microwave ring pan. Stir sauce ingreds together until butter/ marg has melted (2 T golden syrup, 25 gm butter or df marg and 1 1/2 c boiling water). Pour over the mixture in the ring pan. Cook on high for 7 mins to start with, and then more if needed. I double the mix so needed to cook it for a further 4 mins.

The rest of the family had it with vanilla ice-cream.

Different Soy Milk...not all ok....

I have been gluten free since December, then I had to go Dairy free in February as well....I discovered the hard way that not all soy milk is gluten free. Unfortunately most cafes and restaurants use a soy milk that, although it 'stretches' well, has gluten in it. That's the Vitasoy Creamy, in the red box. However, the Vitasoy Lush Vanilla is ok and I now use that in my coffee and sometimes on cereal. I have another brand called Soyfresh for my drinks of tea and for general other use. For some reason I can't stand the So Good brand...must just be my crazy tastebuds.

So - much to my friends amusement...if I am going out and about and know there might be a coffee stop involved along the way, I now take my own little flask of milk along..then I too can 'do coffee' and be safe!

After a long lapse....

So. After not writing anything for ages I feel very convicted and am going to try to keep on keeping on. Its not that I haven't been baking and cooking...I have just been distracted by other things and uninspired to blog about my efforts. No longer!!

This week's gluten free, dairy free baking for me was chocolate brownie. Yum. I adapted an Annabelle Langbein recipe..it came out well.....
Any brownie recipe could be used you just need to substitute butter for dairy free margarine and use a gluten free flour mix (this time I used the Horley's flour mix...I prefer the Healtheries Simple one though). One other thing to consider...not all dark chocolate is gluten free. The Cadbury's Energy is not - is has added malt syrup to it. Whittakers is good...no gluten and no dairy in their dark choc.

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.