Banana and Gin Loaf

Alrighty folks, here's a recipe that worked AMAZINGLY!! And tastes pretty good too!! I made this for our celebration of Independence Day - yet another pot luck dinner!!

Only one problemo: I've used American measurements. It's not as hard as you think! Go to a cheap dollar/pound shop, look in the baking and utensil section and find some cups! It cost me approximately $5 (£2.50 to you), so it's not exactly breaking the bank - and now you can bake with all international recipes! This recipe is altered from a fancy flavoured gin and blueberries recipe - but I'm living on a budget and the recipe is only really using 90ml of gin anyway!!

There is a syrup and icing you're supposed to make too, and I'll give you the recipes for both, but I really don't think they're necessary.

Banana and Gin Loaf

Ingredients!!

The cake itself

2 cup + 1 tbsp flour (separate measures)
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
2 tsp lemon zest (grate 2 lemons)
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/3 cup gin (I used Gordon's)
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3 bananas, mushed

Method to the Madness:

Pre-heat the oven to 180C. Grease and flour your loaf tin on the bottom and all four sides. Combine the flour (2 cups only), baking powder and salt in one bowl. In a second bowl, toss the bananas with the 1 tbsp flour. In a 3rd bowl (sorry for dishes!), mix the butter, sugar, eggs (whisk separately first), vanilla, oil and gin.

Slowly, mix wet and dry ingredients together - electric whisk or by hand. Fold in the fruit and lemon zest by hand. Pour the mixture into your loaf tin and bake for 30-55 minutes or until a knife comes out clean. I say this big gap in time because mine was ready in 35 minutes due to an already roasting hot oven. Move the cake from the sides of the tin with a spatula - your loaf should come out easily when the tin is tipped upside down. Cool on a baking rack if possible.

For the syrup

2 tbsp fresh lemon juice (remember those 2 lemons?)
3 tbsp gin
1/3 cup sugar

Dissolve all ingredients in a pan over a medium heat, then cook for 3 more minutes. Poke holes in the top and sides of the cake once cool and pour the syrup in. Allow syrup to cool completely and harden before adding the icing.

For the icing

1 cup icing sugar
3-4 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp lemon zest

Icing: Mix ingredients together thoroughly before pouring over cake and letting the icing drip off the sides. Let icing dry before serving!

Yum!!!

I hope it turns out as good for you as it did for me!! We are still, miraculously, eating our way through my cake! (Could be because we've still got extra chocolate cake and jelly) Let me know how you get on!

Kirsty xx

Easy-peasy Chocolate Cake

I know, I know! I haven't written in AGES! But I have been cooking and experimenting and I will put everything up in the next week or so! With pictures.

This is a chocolate cake I've sort of made my own. I've tried it twice, and both times was praised enormously! Everybody loves chocolate, don't they! Anyway, I made one that's completely dairy free :) So here goes... Sorry it's a bit simple sounding, I wrote it out for my Chinese friend Magie who says she can't cook. I don't believe her of course, but it's easy to understand even for those who believe the same!

Easy Chocolate Cake

30 minutes preparation time

1hr - 1hr15 minutes cooking time

READ ALL INSTRUCTIONS BEFORE STARTING! Make sure you have all ingredients and equipment before starting too!

For the cake:

225g/8 ounces (oz) Self-raising flour

350g/12.5 ounces caster sugar (or demerara sugar)

85g/3 ounces cocoa powder

2 medium eggs

250ml/9 fluid ounces milk

125ml /4.5 fluid ounces vegetable or sunflower oil

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

250ml/9 fluid ounces boiling water

For the icing:

175g butter

125g cocoa powder

650g icing sugar

150ml milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

What you need:

A large mixing bowl and a wooden spoon or electric mixer.

A fork. A mug. Baking paper. A sieve. A hand whisk. A knife. A butter knife (a knife that is smooth rather than sharp). Some weighing scales. A measuring jug with liquid measurements on the side.

Two low-sided cake tins, around 20cm x 8cm. Square or circles, your choice! Or one high-sided tin. Grease them with butter (best way is with your hand in a plastic bag so you don't get covered!). Line it (if you can) with baking paper, and then butter the baking paper too.

Pre-heat the oven at 180C/350F/Gas 4

How to make the cake:

Measure out all of your ingredients. Shake all the dry ingredients through the sieve into the bowl: flour, sugar and cocoa powder. Make a hole in the middle of the bowl, and slowly mix the milk and oil into the dry ingredients. Crack the eggs into the mug and beat with the fork. Add the vanilla and the eggs into the mixing bowl the same way. Boil a kettle and measure out 250ml of water in the jug. Make sure your main mixture is all combined before you add the water. Add the water, mix with the wooden spoon – not the electric mixer if you have one as the boiling water may burn you.

Pour the completed mixture into the baking tin(s) and put into the oven. The cake should be in the oven on the middle shelf for around 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes. Check the cake around 30 minutes in to check it's rising okay. After 55 minutes, poke the cake with a knife. If it is ready, the knife should come back out clean. With this recipe, it is okay if there is still some cake on the knife as this then gives the cake a nice brownie like consistency.

After they are ready, take out and leave on a cooling tray or wooden board until the tins have cooled. Take a knife and cut around the edge of the cake, making sure none of it has stuck to the sides. You may have to use a spatula to loosen the bottom – but be careful not to rip the cake. Tip the cake up-side-down. The cakes should drop onto the board. Leave to cool completely. At this point, you can make the icing!

How to make the icing:

Wash the mixing bowl! Make sure your butter is at room temperature before using (leave out the ingredients while you make the cake maybe!). Measure out your ingredients. Whisk the butter in the mixing bowl until light and fluffy looking. Stir in the cocoa and the icing sugar til smooth-ish. Slowly add the milk and vanilla until the mixture is smooth. You may want to add more icing sugar to make a thicker paste.

Wait until the cake is completely cool. Dollop some icing on each half of cake. Pour some boiling hot water into a mug and put the butter knife in it. Spread the icing around the top of the cake with the hot knife. Every time you think it's sticking too much to the knife, dip it back into the hot water. This should make it spread more smoothly. When both layers are covered, put one on top of the other, cover the sides if you can/want, and leave to set!

Cake can be kept for up to a week if leftover pieces are put in an air-tight storage container, not necessarily in the fridge. Icing can be kept a few days. I always have too much left over so offer it up as sauce!!

It should look, something, like this: Good Luck!!

Enjoy!!!

Kirsty xx

Fruit n Nut Carrot Cake

Hello!

I've been in NZ now for just over a week and for the past 6 days I've been staying at a farm - volunteering in exchange for free food and board. My hosts are very nice but also very quiet. The wife, Deborah, works Monday to Friday and so for the past week it's mostly been myself and Glenn, her husband/partner, working quietly away together. Two nights so far, I've made dinner. First my vegetarian chili and then, nice and original, spag bol, of which I actually had leftovers on toast today, yum! When I made spag bol, I also made carrot cake. I'm making it again tonight, because Glenn was enquiring after more at lunch today. I make it with a egg supplement called "No Egg" as Glenn's allergic, and it's with oil anyway. It says vegetable oil in the recipe and I usually make it with sunflower, but my first try was with rice bran oil and this time with coconut oil. So, you can basically substitute it with any oil that you fancy!! Just maybe not extra virgin olive oil.

Fruit N Nut Carrot Cake

Ingredients

250g self raising flour (or plain with a tsp of baking powder)
4 eggs (or 4 tsp "no egg" and 8 tbsp water, mixed)
350ml vegetable oil
2 tsp ground cinnamon
350g grated carrots (blender is fastest)
150g mixed fruit and nut. I've been using sultanas and chopped walnuts, usually about 60:40.

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 180C. Prepare a square tin with baking paper and oil.

Sieve flour and cinnamon into a bowl. Add the eggs and oil to the flour mix. Mix well.

Peel, cut and blend the carrots. Blend the walnuts. Add the nuts and fruit to the carrots. Add the carrot mix to the flour/oil mix. Make sure everything is fully covered. Put the mix into the tin and into the oven. The cake should take about 40-60 minutes, depending on your oven. Check with a knife after 40 minutes, knife should be clean when taken out.

When ready, leave to cool in the tin. Once cold, take out the tin and onto a resting mat. Best served still slightly warm with ice cream.

Pastry Experiments

Hello all, I've been experimenting. You don't have to follow this one if you don't want to, but I have to admit, although it looks burnt (and it is a bit because I was washing up and forgot about it) it tasted amazing!! The original idea came from my flatmate, Catie - and you could say her idea influenced me!

First things first... please note that all of these ingredients were leftovers in my fridge and apart from the tomato puree and pastry, you can use ANYTHING YOU WANT!

Ingredients:

Olives, any kind, any flavour oil, whizzed
Salami or Pepperoni
Cherry tomatoes, halved
Leftover Vegetable Chilli (see Thursday 5th September post)
Tomato Puree
Jus-Rol pastry


You will need: a shallow baking tin - even a cake half tin will do. Sprinkle a little flour on the tin, this will stop the pastry sticking completely to the bottom.


Method:

Roll out the pastry onto your tin. If it doesn't fit, tear off extra bits from the corners and make it up to the sides of the tin. Pastry like this molds like clay, so it's very easy to use. Pre-heat your oven to 180C.

Jus-Rol comes pre-rolled, but if you are using a block of pastry (actually, like I did), all you need is a rolling pin with some flour on it and a sheet of baking grease-proof paper so that you can roll it out fully. You'll want your base at least 1cm thick at it's thinnest.

Pinch the edges of your pastry so that there is a small wall all the way around. This will keep any ingredients from running off the sides.

From the tube, squish out some tomato puree and spread with a knife. Try use a butter knife or even a spoon, just in case the knife cuts into the pastry. Make sure the puree covers the entire base, like a pizza.

Now - on top of this, you can add anything, like I said. Anything you like. So I added the leftovers of my chilli, with some olive paste, leftover salami and some cherry tomatoes.

Put the entire thing in your now hot oven on the middle-high shelf for around 20-30 minutes. Check about 20 minutes in, some ovens are different time wise. Your pastry at the edge should be golden brown when it's ready. If you do put meat on it, make sure it's cooked before you take out the oven.

I hope you all enjoy it and don't burn it like me!!


TIP: You can use this idea with a sweet pastry too! Instead of savoury ingredients and tomato puree... use nutella and bananas instead!
Kirsty x

Chocolate Tiffin

Happy New Year everyone!!

This was something I made for my friends' Hogmanay party last night. It wasn't initially for them, but my friend and flatmate made a Maltesers one earlier on and I thought, I can do a dairy-free version. And I managed it!

Chocolate Tiffin, serves 8 (at least). Takes about 15 minutes to make, if that!

You need: a small square tin, buttered.

200g chocolate, broken into small pieces (I used 2 x 100g bars of Tesco plain chocolate, 30p each)
100g butter
230g biscuits, broken into small pieces (I used Hobnobs - completely dairy free as made with oil)

Optional: currants, raisins, sultanas, cherries, marshmallows, golden or maple syrup. Plus, you can always put an extra layer of chocolate on top once the tiffin has cooled in the fridge for a few hours.

Method

Melt the butter on a low heat on the hob, one melted, break the chocolate into small pieces (easiest to do by breaking it up while in the packet - same with the biscuits) and throw into the pan. Remember to continually stir the chocolate as otherwise it'll burn.

Once melted, take off the heat, throw in the biscuits and stir well. Once all covered in chocolate, spread out in the square tin with a spoon. Stick it in the fridge for about 4 hours and ta-dah! Done! Cut into small pieces and serve! It's really rich because of the plain chocolate, and exactly what we needed at 11pm before the bells for a bit of extra energy!

Again - no picture sorry, it was eaten too quickly!



I hope you all had a good night!!

Product Cheats + Mushroom Soup

Hello everyone.

I realise I am writing about once a month and I feel, for those of you who don't know me all that well, why my mind is not on the blog. I am going to New Zealand!! That's right, folks, in two months today, I will be heading off to New Zealand with one of my best friends, on an adventure of a lifetime for a whole year. Or as she tells it, a six month extended trip. I will try update my blog as much as I can, probably with all the Kiwi recipes I'll try out! 

For now, however, I've got a big stinking cold so my appetite has gone and I've done no cooking since... last Friday! So, I'm just going to give a little list here of things I have found that are dairy free, and not listed as dairy free on any supermarket website. These things I have found under recommendations of others and by reading the backs of packets really carefully!! Be warned - although some of these are dairy free, they are not necessarily gluten, wheat, egg or soya free!

I realise most of things I've listed are sweet things, but when you go to a posh restaurant or wedding and they realise you have allergies and go, "how about a fruit salad?", don't you feel a little bit annoyed?

Sainsbury's (Own) Jaffa Cakes
Jammy Dodgers
Tesco Value Plain Chocolate (100g is only 30p!!)
Scotmid Apple Pies (big ones)
Sweet Popcorn
Meringues
Mrs Crimble Coconut Biscuits
Nairn's Dark Chocolate Oatcakes
Nairn's Raspberry pieces Oatcakes

Don't Go There! (things to avoid which you think SHOULD be dairy free)
Check the packaging EVERY TIME
Chorizo (sliced and the bigger wedges from supermarkets)
Sausages (read the information; some do, some don't)
Mayonnaise (again, some do, some don't)
Pate (see above)
Most Ready Meals
Pre-prepared Fish with "special herb crusts"
Bread (white bread is the worst culprit)
Smoothies


And lastly... yes, a recipe. I gave my friend a recipe last January, which I had completely forgotten about. She told me just now that she's making it, so I thought I'd let you see the recipe too. This is altered from a Jamie Oliver recipe, who went on about truffle oil and fancy mushrooms! Tastes just as good without the posh nosh!


Dairy Free Mushroom Soup (Winter Warmer) Serves 4

2 medium Onions
Olive Oil (I used sunflower)
1 veg/chicken stock cube
1/2 bunch fresh thyme (or 3 teaspoons dried thyme)
2 cloves garlic (chopped)
300g mushrooms (any kind)
100g basmati rice
1L boiled water
Salt + Pepper

Method

Peel, halve and finely slice the onions and put them in a large pan or pot with 2 tbsp of oil. Crumble in the stock cube, add a pinch of salt, the thyme and the garlic.

Tear in the mushrooms by hand, add the rice and cook for a couple of minutes. Add the boiling water and boil for 10 minutes or until the rice is cooked.

Use a hand blender to reduce the soup to a thickness you like and season to taste.
As not everyone reading this is dairy free, you can add a bit of single cream or milk to finish if you like. But it's not needed. Really. A warning to the wise, this soup can be really thick if you want it to be, so, along with it being quite filling, you may not need bread along side, but this is up to you!

This picture is taken from 'Taste Inspired' on Wordpress as I still have no camera.

  Enjoy!! If you have any comments or recommendations, as always, leave me a wee message!!

Chicken & Ginger Stew/Soup

Hello all,

Hope you all enjoyed my last post! This is another warming recipe and since my camera is still broken, there is no picture, but I'm going to see if my flatmate can take a picture for me later! It's a stew and/or a soup because, well, I'm sure it can be both! It's also dairy and gluten free! Feel free to add any carbs if you like, I'm sure it'd go pretty well with noodles!

Chicken & Ginger Stew/Soup, serves 3-4 large bowls

1/2 (leftover) Chicken, taken off the bone with your hands, shredded a little.
Thumb sized piece of ginger
2 large garlic cloves
1 tin sweetcorn, drained
3 medium sweet potatoes, washed and chopped into little chunks
1 chicken stock cube (I used a Kallo organic one)
2 medium onions, peeled and cut into slices
1 litre of boiling water (at least)
salt & pepper
sunflower oil

Method

Put your sweet potato onto a baking tray and sprinkle in oil, put in the oven at 180C for 20 minutes. While they cook, do your veg prep. Peel the garlic and cut into little bits (not tiny or crushed), do the same with the garlic. Cut your onions and start taking the meat off the chicken. Don't put in too much skin, unless your chicken skin has some flavour to it (like herbs, mine was just plain).

Heat up some oil in a pot on the hob until hot, then throw in the onions. Make sure you stir these as to not burn. After a few minutes add the ginger and garlic (keep stirring). Check on the sweet potatoes, make sure they're soft before you take them out of the oven - and put them in your pot too. Add the shredded chicken and the sweetcorn and mix well. Boil your kettle! Squish your stock cube in it's packet and then throw it in, dry, and mix well. Add the hot water, mix well, and boil on a low heat for around 15-20 minutes, until the soup/stew is thick yet still watery. 

Make sure you test your mixture before you season with salt or pepper. Because of the salt in some stock cubes, it may not be needed. I'm not a salt-loving person, so I didn't put any in.

Ladle into bowls while still not, and serve!! Enjoy!!