Guess who's back, back again...

 

Well, it appears that once again I have managed to completely abandon this blog.

Once again, I'm gonna try and un-abandon it.

So hello! It's been a while. A very long, blogless while. But hopefully, that's going to change. 

I recently discovered that I have a gluten intolerance, and to be honest I don't think I've ever taken any news more badly because there's nothing I love more than a slice of cake or an overly-buttered croissant. Naturally, my immediate response was to go home and bake this cake with my wheat-free tears.

The selection of GF cakes and breads in supermarkets are good, but they all seem to play home to the same dry, crumbly, brickish texture. Bleh.

 I was determined to play around with some recipes to get something more cloud-like and appetising, and this is what I came up with!

 

Strawberry, Rhubarb and Ginger Gluten Free Cake

 Ingredients: 

1 cup softened butter 

1 cup caster sugar

4 eggs

1 cup plain gluten free flour

1tsp gluten free baking powder

2tsp runny honey 

1 cup sliced strawberries

1tbsp rhubarb conserve (+ extra to glaze the cake)

Handful of chopped crystallised ginger

 

Method:

Start off by spreading the strawberry slices across a baking tray, and baking them at 200*C for ten minutes, until they're caramelised. 

Whilst the berries are being blasted in the oven, cream the butter and sugar together. 

Next, separate the eggs. Drop the yolks into the sugar and butter, and the whites in a separate bowl. Mix the yolks, sugar and butter and smooth and fluffy. Whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks are formed. 

Sieve the flour and baking powder into the butter and sugar mixture, and mix in well. 

Take the strawberries out of the oven, and dab off the extra moisture with kitchen roll. Turn the oven down to 180*C.

Add the strawberries, chopped ginger, honey and rhubarb conserve into the mix. 

A little at a time, fold in the whipped egg whites until combined. 

Pour into a greased cake tin, and bake for 20 minutes. 

Once baked, glaze the top of the cake with rhubarb conserve whilst the cake is still hot. Top with remaining ginger and strawberries. 

 Om nom nom. 

Whisking the egg whites made this cake beautifully light and fluffy, and gave it a gorgeous crumb texture that a lot of guten free cakes tend to lack (if I do say so myself). 

Try it out and comment your thoughts!

xoxo

 

 

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Ice Ice Baby

Blackberry, Honey & Vanilla Ice Cream

Guess who's back (back again)

So one of my New Years' Resolutions was to blog more...but I guess that ship sailed.
Buuuut I guess it's never too late to turn things around!

It's been such gorgeous weather over the past few days, so naturally I locked myself inside and made some ice cream. This was my first attempt at making ice cream, and I'm so chuffed with the turnout! It's super easy to make as this is a no-churn recipe (you can make it without an ice cream maker). I do have an ice cream maker, but no instructions to show my tiny brain how to use it which is kind of a set back.

Aaaaanywaaay! I'll cut the jabba and get right to it. This recipe makes one big tub of super creamy decadent blackberry, honey and vanilla ice cream.

Ingredients:

You will need...

• 1 tin/ one cup of condensed milk
• Two cups of heavy whipping cream
• Two punnets of blackberries
• 3/4 of a jar of honey
• A generous pinch of sea salt
• 1tbsp vanilla extract

Method: 

Firstly, pop the blackberries into a bowl and mash them up until the berries are totally squashed and resemble something straight out of Hannibal Lecter's kitchen. Noice.

Next, put the cream, condensed milk, honey, vanilla and salt into a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer until stiff peaks are formed. 

Once you've achieved this whipped perfection, fold the pummeled blackberries into the mixture, and voila!  

Pour the mixture into a large Tupperware container and leave to set in the freezer for at least five hours, or ideally overnight. 

This ice cream is so beautifully easy, and so crazy delicious!

                                              

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Perfect Pretzels (I couldn't think of better alliteration, okay?)

Hola! So last night, I decided to get my Paul Hollywood on and bake pretzels. I'd never made them before so this was completely new to me, but I was dead chuffed with the turn out of them! I adapted this from Paul Hollywood's pretzel recipe, (that's not blasphemy, is it?) and made it a fair bit simpler. The ingredients are almost definitely lying in the back of a cupboard somewhere in your house, which makes them pretty cheap and easy in that department.
They were quite finicky to make, but sooo satisfying and totally worth it! I definitely have a lot of respect for people who work at Mr Pretzels now because shaping them really is a pain! (Although saying that, I have zero hand-eye co-ordination skills so that's probably why my tiny brain was so baffled by this)

Already a bunch of people have asked for the recipe, so I thought that this would make a nice first post of the New Year (I'm going to try and actually write in this this year because I'm totally useless at committing to things like this)

AAAANYWAY

Here's my super simple pretzel recipe, I hope you guys enjoy it and if you have any questions about anything make sure to comment at the bottom!

Ingredients

• 500g white flour
• A small pinch of salt
• 7g (one packet) of easy bake yeast
• 40g softened butter
• 280ml milk
• 50g of bicarbonate of soda and a jugful 
  of boiling water
• Oil for greasing the bowl
  
  
• An extra spoonful of butter 
• Rock salt and pepper
  (both to finish off)
  
  

Method

First of all, add the flour, salt, yeast and butter into a large mixing bowl, and rub the fat into the flour like you would if you were making scones in Miss Irwin's third year HE class. There shouldn't be any lumpy bits of butter (gads) in the flour mix, and it should resemble really fine bread crumbs. 

Next, add in the milk a little bit at the time, stirring it with a metal spoon (it wont stick to the dough as much as a wooden one would) to incorporate it. 

Once it becomes too stiff to stir, work it with your hands until a rough, dry dough is formed and your hand looks gross. The dough shouldn't be wet and sticky, and should have a play dough like consistency (I'm really making this sound delicious, huh?)

Once the dough is ready, move it onto an un-floured surface and start beating the cra- I mean kneading it. Pretend it's the SQA or Professor Umbridge or something, really go at it. Do this until the dough is smooth and has a light shine to it.

* Ta daaaah*

Once the dough has been satisfactorily pummeled, oil up your bowl (if your mum is one of those weirdos who only uses fry light spray, I feel your pain and that works too) and put your dough in it, covering it with a clean tea towel. Put it in a dry cosy area like an airing cupboard or a teenage boy's bedroom and leave it to prove for an hour. 

After the dough has finished proving and has doubled in size, put it back on the board or surface you were using earlier (still un-floured) and cut it into 12 pieces.

Once the dough has been dismembered, years of making Plasticine sausages will finally pay off. Take a piece of dough, and roll an even sausage shape. If you want to be like super duper precise, measure the sausages with a ruler, but I just made them the same length as my board. Once rolled, chop off the ends, and shape the pretzels. 

The easiest way to do this is to lift the dough up into a U shape, and quickly cross it over into a double twist and flip it back onto the board, using a small dab of warm water to stick the tapered ends into shape. 

Put the bicarb in a large jug or bowl, and top it up with hot water, whisking as you pour. 

Drop each pretzel into the water-bicarb potion for exactly five seconds, and this will help to develop the golden brown exterior synonymous with pretzels. Once dipped, lay them all on a baking tray and sprinkle them with the rock salt and pepper, then bake for 25 minutes at 200*C.

Once the pretzels are cooked, melt the butter and gently brush over the pretzels, because hot butter 

makes everything better, right?

VIOLA!!!! 

I'm not gonna lie, these are the bomb. They were so easy to make and are totally delicious.

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It's a marshmallow world in the winter...

Yo, So this is my first proper post! 

I'm currently sitting stuffing my face with marshmallows and belting "Let it Go" out at the top of my lungs, because...well...I'm home alone and can do what I want. 

I've always wanted to try making these delicious sugary treats, and last night I finally stopped procrastinating and actually did something. So here is my epic journey to Marshmallowdom documented so you can try them too! This recipe is really simple, gluten and dairy free, and the total cost of ingredients comes to around £5, so would make a really thoughtful and cheap Christmas present dressed up in a jar. 

Ingredients:

• Two sheets of gelatin
• 8 tbsps of cold water
• 2 cups of granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup of cold water
• 1/4 tsp of salt
• 2tsps of vanilla extract
• Icing sugar for dusting and coating the tin
• Something funky to shake your groove thang to whilst you're making them (there's a link to one of my playlists at the bottom)

Method:

In a small bowl, soak gelatin in 8 tbsp cold water, and set aside.

Combine granulated sugar and 1/2 cup of water in a large heavy saucepan. Cook and stir over medium heat until dissolved.

1. Add gelatin and bring to a boil.

1. Remove from heat. Pour into a large mixing bowl and let stand until partially cool. This should take long enough to send a message to your friends telling them how cool you are because you're making marshmallows, but not long enough that they can send a reply back telling you that you will never be cool, and look ridiculous in an apron. (thanks guys)

1. Add salt and vanilla extract.

1. Beat with an electric mixer until soft and doubled in volume, much like you would do when making meringue. This should take about 10-15 minutes.

1. Sprinkle a square cake tin with icing sugar, and pour the marshmallow mix in to it, at about 1/2 an inch thick, and set to cool until it will not stick to your finger.

Once they're set, cut them out into little squares and remove them from the pan, then put them in the kitschest Christmas jar you can find.

These turned out really well, and are ridiculously easy to make (minus the struggle of trying to clean melted sugar off of almost every surface in the kitchen, sorry mum). This is a really good base recipe for adaption, which is really fantastic for Christmas presents. The flavor possibilities for these are endless, but here are a few ideas...

• White Russian mallows- replace the vanilla essence for 2 tsps of Kahlua 
• Gin and Tonic mallows- replace vanilla with 1 tsp of gin, and 1 tsp of lemon or lime juice
• Raspberry mallows- replace vanilla with 2 tsps of fresh mashed up raspberries (this can be done with most other fruits too)

https://open.spotify.com/user/10enicol/playlist/0ok4dVVG51mRWxlTntCyMw

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