Gingerbread Men (Gluten-, Dairy-, Yeast-, Egg Free)

From now on, I'm going to include a legend in my blog for what each recipe is free from and contains. I think it'll make communicating how dietarily friendly each recipe is for each person's individual needs. Here's what it looks like. This recipe is:

FREE FROM
☑ Soya
☑ Dairy
☑ Egg
☑ Gluten
☑ Yeast

CONTAINS
☒ Nuts (almonds)
☒ Refined sugar products (golden syrup)

Having a friend with a very strict diet has recently brought out my experimental streak for another airing. I missed being this fearless with my cookery!

INGREDIMENTS

For about 20 or so biscuits, depending on size

• 1 ounce (30 grammes) ground almonds
• 3 ounces (85 grammes) cornflour
• 5 ounces (140 grammes) rice flour
• ¼ teaspoon xanthan gum
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon ground coriander
• ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
• 4 ounces (115 grammes) vegetable margarine, at room temperature
• 4 ounces (115 grammes) brown sugar
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) golden syrup, or treacle
• 2 teaspoons of water
• Pinch of salt

For icing:

• 5 ounces (115 grammes) icing sugar, sifted
• Juice of half a lemon, roughly 1½ tablespoons (20 millilitres)

HOW TO

• Preheat your oven to 170°C (325°F, Gas Mk.3, or very moderate). Lightly oil your baking tray(s).
• Sieve the flours, xanthan gum, ground almonds, spices and salt together into a large bowl to mix together consistently; set aside.
• In another bowl, cream the margarine, sugar, and syrup or treacle until pale and fluffy with a wooden spoon, spatula or electric hand mixer. Add the water and beat again until smooth.
• Add in half of the dry ingredients and beat until fully mixed but still soft, then add in the remaining dry ingredients. You might need to use your hands to mix in the remaining dry ingredients.
• Sprinkle the work surface with flour and roll out the dough to your desired thickness. For me, about 1/4 inch (6 millimeters) works well for soft, cakey biscuits, and 1/8 inch (3 millimeters) makes nice crispy biscuits.
• Cut out the biscuits and put on the trays. Bake for about 15 minutes, or until set on the outside and ever so lightly browned around the edges.
• Remove from the oven and leave to cool for about 5 minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.
• Mix the icing sugar and lemon together to get a thick, pipeable icing and decorate as you wish.

And there they are! And they taste and feel pretty much exactly like normal gingerbread... who'd have thought it?

Gluten-, Egg- and Dairy-free Adventures (plus 2 Biscuit Recipes!)

The other day, I got a phone call from a friend who has been suffering a lot with a large variety of medical complaints for a few years now. Having endured countless tests, retests and arsing around from the HSE, she finally received some manner of positive step forward on the route to recovery: she had a food allergy test done, and tested positive for intolerances to dairy, egg, gluten, soya and a plethora of other things, including potatoes and tomatoes. Basically, the poor girl can eat nothing that traditionally appears in baking.

Despite the extent of her food allergies, she was happy to have some closure on at least a few of her difficulties, and asked me to help her out with shopping and cooking for her new diet. Meals on a free-from diet are pretty straight forward, but baking is a different story altogether.

Now, for years I've been developing wheat-free recipes to cater for my own intolerance, and occasionally dabbled in completely gluten-free baking with varied results, but now I was faced with a whole new challenge: baking with no gluten, dairy, or eggs. To further complicate matters, I couldn't use potato flour or anything containing soya lecithin.

Because her new diet is basically that of a coeliac vegan, I checked out a bunch of vegan recipes and found a few recipes, varying from promising to frighteningly awful. But after a few hours of researching I thought screw this, let's experiment!

I made up two different recipes (not writing them down, of course, which would have been clever) by just throwing stuff together until it looked right, and the results were pretty tasty! Such is the genius of xanthan gum.

LEMON SHORTBREAD

INGREDIMENTS

• 2 ounces (55 grammes) rice flour
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) cornflour
• ¼ teaspoon of xanthan gum
• Pinch of salt
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) vegetable margarine (check for soya lecithin)
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) icing sugar
• 2 teaspoons of grated lemon zest.

HOW-TO

• Preheat your oven to 160°C (320°F, Gas Mk.2½, or very moderate).
• Sieve together the flours, salt and xanthan gum onto a piece of grease-proof paper. Set aside.
• In a mixing bowl, beat the living daylights out of the vegetable margarine until soft and creamy. Use a wooden spoon: it needs more elbow grease, but you have much more control over how soft you make your margarine.
• Pour in the icing sugar, and cream until light and fluffy. Then add the dry ingredients and mix until the flour is combined; you may need to use your hands as the dough gets very stiff.
• Lightly sprinkle the work surface with rice flour and roll out the dough to a ¼ inch (about 5 millimeters) thickness. Cut into little shapes and transfer carefully onto an un-greased baking tray.
• Bake in the oven for about 10 minutes, until dry but still pale. Cool on a wire rack.

GINGERNUTS

INGREDIMENTS

• 2 ounces (55 grammes) ground almonds
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) rice flour
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) cornflour
• 1½ teaspoons ground ginger
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon ground coriander
• Pinch of ground cloves
• Pinch of salt
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) soft brown sugar
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) golden syrup
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) vegetable margarine
• Caster sugar, for rolling

HOW-TO

• Preheat your oven to 180°C (350°F, Gas Mk.4, or moderate), and brush ½ teaspoon of sunflower oil on a baking tray.
• Sieve the ground almonds, flours, spices and salt into a large mixing bowl and set aside.
• In a small saucepan, melt together the margarine, sugar and golden syrup. If you can't find golden syrup, use maple syrup or honey.
• Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and pour in the melted mixture. Combine with a wooden spoon.
• Take teaspoons of the mixture and roll into balls, then roll each ball in caster sugar. Place on the baking tray 2 inches (5 centimeters) apart and flatten out with a fork, making a criss-cross pattern.
• Bake in the oven for about 10 to 12 minutes, or until set and firm around the edges. Remove from the oven and cool on the trays until firm enough to transfer to a wire rack, about 5 or so minutes.

My friend and mother told me that these tasted very good, and there almost indistinguishable from normal biscuits. So, it seems throwing things from around the kitchen together with gay abandon worked pretty well! Now to tackle gluten-and-soya-free-vegan-friendly cake!