Viennese Whirls (Wheat Free)

I've been in a bit of a baking funk these last few weeks. I suffer badly from mood swings, and sometimes I get stuck in ruts for weeks at a time, and my baking and pretty much everything else suffers for it.

But do you know what is guaranteed to make me feel instantly better? Afternoon tea treats. Even just looking at them makes me instantaneously joyous. As such I recently went to the shop and coveted the Mr Kipling section. I love Mr Kipling cakes so much, especially the French Fancies, but unfortunately he doesn't make gluten free versions because he's a dietist!

So, I thought I'd see if I could make my own versions of his classics! This is a recipe for the basic biscuit of the Viennese Whirls. The Mr Kipling version is sandwiched with chewy jam and buttercream, but when you make them yourself you can sandwich them with anything you like, including my most recent pash orange chocolate spread.

FREE FROM
☑ Soya (check for soya lecithin)
☑ Yeast
☑ Wheat
☑ Eggs

CONTAINS
☒ Gluten
☒ Dairy (use ingredients in italics for a dairy-free version)
☒ Refined sugar products

INGREDIMENTS:

• 4 ounces (115 grammes) butter or block margarine
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) icing sugar
• 4 ounces (115 grammes) white spelt flour or gluten-free plain flour with xanthan gum
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) cornflour
• 1 to 2 teaspoons of water, if needed

HOW TO

• Preheat your oven to 180°C (350°F, Gas Mk.4, or moderate). Line one or two baking trays with non-stick baking paper.
• In a mixing bowl, beat the butter or margarine until smooth and creamy, then beat in the icing sugar.
• Add in the cornflour, and beat again until smooth. Add in the spelt flour, and beat until
  it becomes a thick mixture.
•  If the mixture looks too thick to pipe, add a teaspoon or so of water and mix again, however add no more than 2 teaspoons of water in total.
• Using a ½ inch (1 centimeter) closed star nozzle, pipe little rosettes, about an inch (2½ centimeters) apart. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until lightly browned.
• Transfer to a wire rack and cool completely before either eating or sandwiching with jam, if wanted.

And there you have it! Go on, give this recipe a whirl! (cue, badum-dum-tsh!)

Substitutions: Gluten-Free Flour

It's amazing how mass-production of Christmas cakes scuppers any other baking endeavour! I've been so busy making the same thing over and over, and had a few experimental failures. However, while I'm going through this bakery journey of learning, I'm going to write a few little theory lessons.

As I said in previous posts, I have a few friends who have even more strict diets than I do, such as one of my friends who can't eat gluten, eggs, yeast or dairy which are all very important in baking. As such, in the last two months or so, I've been experimenting extensively and researching furiously to find out how to substitute what for what; and now I'm going to share my knowledge with you all.

Let's start with flour.

Why wheat flour works: Baked goods, over hundreds of years of development, have only ended up as marvelous as they are because of wheat-flour. The same way that risottos are only the way they are because they're made of rice, and polenta is the way it is because of maize, cakes, bread, biscuits and other flour-based products are only the way they are because of the properties of wheat. Wheat flour provides baked goods with three key components that make them all work: substance, starch, and gluten.

• When the grain is ground into meal, the meal provides the body of the baked product. It provides the bricks to make the baked good with, the substance of the cakes or biscuits or whatever.

• Inside the grain, there is starch. Starch is a complex carbohydrate that when cooked becomes sticky. The starch provides the cement or mortar between the bricks.

• Then finally gluten. Gluten is a protein, that forms long strands that hold everything together. Moving away from the builder's yard analogies, gluten is like a stretchy net that holds onto the substance, the starch, and all the other ingredients in the baked good, like sugar, butter, eggs etc. When gluten is worked and stretched, it becomes elastic and is able to hold onto more things, which is the key principle of kneading bread to allow it to rise (hold onto gas built inside the dough).

All these things must be kept in mind when replacing wheat-flour, which is the key ingredient of all baked goods.

How to replace wheat-flour: To replace it, you need to add substance, starch and protein, or something equally gummy. So! This is how you do it:

• You make your quantity of flour using two-thirds any of the below substance flours, that is whole grain flour.
• The remaining third any of the starchy flours.
• Then add 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) xanthan gum for every 8 ounces (225 grammes).

So, here are the lists.

Substance Flour
brown rice flour
corn meal
sorghum flour
sweet potato flour
mesquite flour
millet flour
oat flour
quinoa flour
buckwheat flour

Starchy Flour

potato starch
tapioca flour
white rice flour
arrowroot flour
cornstarch/cornflour
potato flour

Example: you need 8 ounces (225 grammes) of flour for your recipe, so you add 5½ ounces (155 grammes) brown rice flour, 2½ ounces (70 grammes) cornflour, and a teaspoon (5 millilitres) xanthan gum. Done and done!

The Search for Perfect Homemade Ice-Cream without a Machine

Ever since I was a very little girl, I've always wanted to perfect homemade ice-cream. In the early noughties, my parents bought an ice-cream machine for making homemade frozen delights, but it wasn't fantastic: the bowl of the churn was too small, and it was very expensive. It took an early retirement in the shed. Since then, making ice-cream at home without the aid of a churn has proven to be an elusive skill to master.

Over the last few months, I've spent hours and hours researching blogs, articles, watching videos and television programmes, and even read many scientific documents on how ice-cream freezes, the properties of the individual ingredients, and how best to make the perfect soft ice-cream at home. Homemade ice-cream runs the risk of being grainy, icy and rock solid on freezing. Scientifically, the faster the ice-cream is frozen, the smoother it will be, hence why Heston Blumenthal likes to use dry ice to instantly freeze the custard while it's mixing.

I've so far found a way of making a very tasty ice-cream mixture, that is nice and rich and creamy, but on freezing it becomes rock solid, grainy, icy and has an overall unpleasant mouth feel; I just can't work out how to get it right!

Now, through research I've learnt that the key to nice soft, creamy dreamy ice cream is the inclusion of things that don't freeze at conventional freezer temperatures, such as fat, sugar and syrups, alcohol, complex proteins and stabilisers, and air. The recipe I have developed is high in fat (double cream), uses a sugar syrup that won't freeze, and is stabilised with cornflour slurry, but incorporating the air throughout freezing is proving to be my biggest challenge yet.

Any suggestions? Or do you think I might just have to invest in a machine or in some dry ice?

The Grand Christmas Cake Creation of 2013 Starts (plus Wheat-free Fruit Cake Recipe - Part 2)

And I'm back with part two of the Christmas cake creation! Click here for part one where I made the fruit preparation.

So, my fruit has been marinating/macerating/steeping/lacing/whatever for about a week now, and it has drunk up all the lovely alcohol and sugar. It's proper nice, I can tell you that for nothing! The smell of the sherry, rum and fruit together is just magical!

Now the time has come to mix the fruit with the cake mixture. The cake is a standard creamed sponge cake, known as a Victoria sponge or pound cake, and mixed in equal parts with the fruit preparation. You should have a pound in weight (450 grammes) each of cake mix and fruit mix, which are then combined and baked. My first cake of the year came out very nicely!

The cake mixture is as follows.

FREE FROM
☑ Soya (check for soya lecithin)
☑ Yeast
☑ Wheat

CONTAINS
☒ Dairy (use ingredients in italics for a dairy-free version)
☒ Nuts (use ingredients in italics for a nut-free version)
☒ Eggs

INGREDIMENTS
Makes one 8 inch (20 centimetre) round cake

For the cake mixture

• 3 ounces (85 grammes) butter or block margarine
• 3 ounces (85 grammes) soft brown sugar
• 3 medium eggs
• 4 ounces (115 grammes) white spelt flour or gluten-free flour mix
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) ground almonds
• For a nut free version, just replace this with an extra ounce of flour
• 2 teaspoons ground mixed spice
• Pinch of salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence or almond essence
• 1 pound (450 grammes) of fruit preparation

HOW-TO

• Prepare your cake tin. Grease and flour the inside, and then double line the bottom and sides with baking paper. Preheat the oven to Preheat your oven to 160°C (320°F, Gas Mk.2½, or moderately cool) and set the rack in the centre of the oven with plenty of room to spare from the rack above it.
• In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and creamy with a wooden spoon or electric hand mixer.
• Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until fully incorporated. Add the vanilla or almond essence, and then the ground almonds.
• Sieve in the flour, spice and salt and mix in until the flour has just disappeared.
• Add the fruit preparation and combine thoroughly.
• Pour the cake mixture into the tin and bake for 1½ hours. Half way through cooking, reduce the oven temperature to 150°C (300°F, Gas Mk.2, or moderately cool).
• Start checking for doneness after about an hour and a quarter. The cake is baked when a skewer inserted into the thickest part - usually the middle - comes out completely clean. If it isn't, continue cooking but don't cook for more than 1½ hours in total; it'll be dry and chewy.
• Once cooked, allow to cool completely in the tin before taking out and transferring to a wire rack.

This of course is covered with marzipan and icing, but that's for closer to the time... be patient...

The Grand Christmas Cake Creation of 2013 Starts (plus Wheat-free Fruit Cake Recipe - Part 1)

To skip the inane ramblings, scroll to the bottom for the recipe

Today is the day where I begin making the Christmas cakes! I love this time of year: I love autumn and winter more than any other season, as we have warm, comforting dinners, long evenings and Halloween. I get so excited when August happens (as here in Ireland, autumn starts in August) and my excitement grows as the autumn months turn into winter months. I feel at my most creative and productive during this time of year...

And yes, I know it's September and that we shouldn't even be thinking of Christmas yet, but I'm all in favour of forward thinking, especially when cake is involved. But mainly, I'm starting on the Christmas cake now because it's the way it's done traditionally.

So let's get traditional up in this:

A Christmas cake should be a rich fruit cake, which is a cake that has a 50% weight of dried fruit, ie. once you make up your cake mixture you mix in the same weight of prepared dried fruit. Any less of percentage fruit is seen as light fruit cake which, due to its higher amount of cake versus fruit, can't be preserved as easily or for as long. This rich fruit cake is made months in advance using the dried and preserved summer and autumn fruits.

After the cake is baked slowly for a long time it can be fed, which is where the baker of the cake sprinkles it with an alcoholic spirit or fortified wine, such as sherry, once a week until it needs to be decorated. This was devised as a preservation technique, back when folk didn't have airtight containers or fridges, as the sugar an alcohol in the cake would make it inhospitable to mould and bacteria, allowing it to keep for longer. Using a fruit cake makes traditional decoration - with marzipan and royal icing - easier, as it won't go stale as you allow the marzipan and layers of royal icing to dry over a few days.

Making a rich fruit cake more preservable wasn't just for Christmas, but also for wedding cakes: back in the day, the small top tier of the couple's wedding cake would be kept until for the baptism of their first child, which back then would've usually been within a year of marriage. Of course, once upon a time, these kinds of cakes were just for the wealthy.

But nowadays we live in a different world. Access to butter and dried fruits and berries is easier (you can just nip down to Tesco), and the more traditional and natural methods of preservation are no longer necessary. In fact, if you freeze a rich fruit cake, after wrapping it in foil and greaseproof paper, it can be kept for up to three years, which is good news for nowadays couples who leave the babies until a few years after marriage, if at all. However, people still do it the traditional way just out of taste: people like booze.

Now, out of moral choice, I don't drink alcohol, and I also try to avoid desserts made with or including alcohol. As such, I don't feed the cake with alcohol over the months, but making it ahead of time allows the flavours in the cake to develop and mature, making for a way tastier cake when you cut it open on December twenty-fifth. As for preservation, I just keep it in an airtight box, and any left over is frozen.

So, how do I make the cake?

The way I make Christmas cake has been commented on as being 'bizarre' or 'unconventional', because I make a whole pile of fruit preparation in one go... in a bucket.

Yes, into a plastic bucket I throw a pound each (450 grammes) of currants and raisins, half a pound each (225 grammes) of prunes, glacé cherries and sultanas, and quarter pound each (115 grammes) of mixed peel and slivered almonds. This amounts to exactly 4 pounds (1.8 kilogrammes) of dried fruit, however when I do it there's probably more: if there's any little bits of leftovers in the packets, I just throw them in too... no point them languishing in the back of my cupboard forever. To the fruit I add 4 ounces (115 grammes) of brown sugar and 1 bottle (70 centilitres) of dry sherry and a miniature bottle (5 centilitres) of rum, and the alcohol will cook off during the cake's stint in the oven. This sits and soaks for a week, stirring daily.

This is a ridiculous quantity of fruit, I know, but I mass produce Christmas cakes because I give them away - fully decorated - as gifts for families. Last year I made six cakes, and all bar one got a home (as for the one that didn't, it was supposed to go to my boyfriend's family, but our relationship didn't make it to Christmas).

But enough theory, onto practise! This is how to make enough fruit preparation for 1 8 inch (20 centimetre) round cake.

FREE FROM
☑ Soya (check for soya lecithin)
☑ Yeast
☑ Wheat

CONTAINS
☒ Alcohol (use ingredients in italics for an alcohol-free version)
☒ Nuts (use ingredients in italics for a nut-free version)

INGREDIMENTS
Makes 1 8 inch (20 centimetre) round cake

For the fruit preserve:

• 4 ounces (115 grammes) dried currants
• 4 ounces (115 grammes) raisins
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) sultanas
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) glacé cherries
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) candied mixed citrus peel
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) slivered almonds
• For a nut free version, simply replace that ounce (30 grammes) of almonds with another fruit of some sort.
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) brown sugar
• 1¾ fluid ounces (50 millilitres) rum, spiced or plain
• 5 fluid ounces (150 millilitres) cheap sherry
• For an alcohol free version, just use 7 fluid ounces (200 millilitres) cold strong tea instead of the rum and sherry.

HOW-TO

First mix all the fruit preserve ingredients together in a glass or ceramic bowl. Mix thoroughly, and leave somewhere cool (but not in the fridge) for a week before preparing the cake, stirring daily. For best results, the cake should be made at least a month before serving, so by extension the fruit mixture should be prepared about a month and a half in advance.

Stay tuned for part two next week where I assemble the cake, using cake mixture and this fruit preparation!

Chocolardiac Arrest Cake (Wheat Free)

This is my go-to for any birthday celebration. It's basically a Death by Chocolate cake, using a name coined by the geniuses behind Homestar Runner which sits at number three on Strong Bad's Bottom 10 List. This name couldn't be more appropriate.

I made this cake for the first time when I was about twelve years old, and over the years it has evolved into something truly beautiful, and now wheat-free!

There's a lot of making in this cake, but trust me: it's totally worth the whole few hours/overnight wait!

FREE FROM
☑ Soya (check for soya lecithin)
☑ Yeast
☑ Wheat

CONTAINS
☒ Gluten
☒ Dairy (use ingredients in italics for a dairy-free version)
☒ Eggs
☒ Refined sugar products

INGREDIMENTS:

For two 8 or 9  inch (20 or 23 centimeter) round sandwich cakes

• 5 ounces (140 grammes) spelt flour
• 3 ounces (85 grammes) cornflour
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) cocoa powder
• 1 tablespoon (15 millilitres) ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 5 medium eggs, at room temperature
• 2½ ounces (70 grammes) soft brown sugar
• 5 ounces (140 grammes) caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 2½ ounces (70 grammes) sunflower oil
• 2½ ounces (70 grammes) butter or block margarine
• 5 to 7 tablespoons (75 to 105 millilitres) warm coffee

For filling and crumb coat:

• 4 ounces (85 grammes) butter or block margarine, softened to room temperature
• 11 ounces (310 grammes) icing sugar, sieved
• 1 ounces (30 grammes) cocoa powder
• 1½ tablespoon milk or water, or more if needed
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence

For chocolate fudge glaze:

• 6 ounces (170 grammes) milk chocolate or dairy-free chocolate, finely chopped or grated
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) butter or block margarine
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) caster sugar
• 2 fluid ounces (60 millilitres) milk or milk substitute

For assembly (optional):

• Hundreds and thousands, or coloured sugar

HOW-TO:

First, prepare the cakes:

• Preheat your oven to 180°C (350°F, Gas Mk.4, or moderate).
• Prepare the cake mixture as per the basic sponge recipe, and pour into two greased and floured 9 inch (23 centimeter) cake tins. Cook for 20 to 25 minutes until ready. Allow to cool completely in tins.
• Once cold, cut each cake in half horizontally, and cut the domes off both cakes. Decide how you will assemble the layers, making sure the bottom layer of one cake, bottom side up, is on the top of the pile.

Then, fill and crumb coat the cake:

• Cut a circle of card that's the same size as the bottom of the cake.
• Make the chocolate buttercream icing following this recipe 
• Smear a little buttercream on the card circle and stick the bottom layer of cake to it.
• Spread the bottom and middle two layers with two thirds of the filling. Assemble the layers and chill for about half an hour.
• Once chilled, use the remaining third of the icing to spread the top and sides with a thin layer of icing to lock in the crumbs. Chill for at least an hour.

Next, prepare the chocolate fudge glaze:

• In a medium sized saucepan, heat the milk and sugar over medium-low. Stir to melt in the sugar, and once melted in bring to the boil and boil for two minutes.
• Take off the heat and stir in the butter and chocolate. Once fully incorporated, return to the heat and cook gently for a further minute.
• Remove from the heat and cool until thick but still pourable.

Assemble the masterpiece:

• Cut a large piece of non-stick paper, and set a wire rack on top of it.
• Put the cake on the rack and pour the glaze over it, allowing the excess to drip onto the non-stick paper.
• Once the dripping has stopped, put onto a serving plate and, if you like, sprinkle hundreds and thousands over the top.
• Chill in the fridge for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight.

And that's it! Like I said, fiddly but worth it! I hope to have better photos when I get my hands on my Dad's camera: he took photos of this cake that was being eaten as part of birthday celebrations I could not attend.

The Making of Videos (and Subsequent Technical Difficulties)

I've decided, after many months of umming and aahing, to make some instructional videos to accompany my blog. This is half of my new YouTube strategy, which includes one channel of cooking videos, and one channel of other endeavours such as music and filmmaking.

For years and years I've been attempting to establish an identity for myself on YouTube that I'm happy with, but I've never been truly satisfied. I'm too much of a perfectionist to just shove any old video up; it has to look and sound good. As such, I've been abstaining from uploading until I could create quality content. Also, years of struggling with illness does put a spanner in the works somewhat.

I set up my first channel in 2007, and my second channel in 2011, and the first one only has 2 public videos. It has, however, a bunch of stuff which I uploaded - pleased with it at the time - only to make private because I didn't feel it accurately represented me anymore. I've just not known what I've wanted, to be honest.

But now, I'm going to just upload stuff and not give a care. So I recorded some videos the other day... only to discover when it came to editing that the sound was almost inaudible. I'll have to do them again, again. In a way, this gives me the opportunity to fine-tune the concept I had already and do a better job of it.

So, sorry for the lack of recipe today! I haven't made anything new or interesting this week except for my sister's boyfriend's birthday cake, which I'll upload on Thursday.