Merīkurisumasu! Happy Christmas 2015

Merry Christmas to all my readers and faithful followers! It's been an interesting year, and one that I'm glad is over. Even if my professional and personal lives have been a mess, I will say that this year my blog reached over 9,000 views, and I have written nearly 200 articles.

I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who has been reading, commenting on, and supporting my blog and my Facebook page. It means a lot that my little cookery blog is nearing 10,000 views! In the New Year, there will be a lot more Sweetie Pie goodness, including a photographic exhibition in my home town and proper actual videos that aren't just promises this time! I know right? Amazing.

I hope everyone has a happy and blessed Christmas! Remembering those who will not eat, have a home, get any gifts, or who have lost loved ones, let us all be grateful for what and who we have. I know that even though this year has been very hard with job difficulties, health issues, depression, family troubles, and relationship breakdown, I am certainly very grateful for--

• having all of my siblings, both my parents, both my father's parents, my cousins, aunts, uncles, and a lot of very good and close friends; 
• the new people I met this year who have become important parts of my life;
• being able to eat well and indulge a very first-world hobby revolving around food; 
• employment even if it is challenging sometimes;
• somewhere comfortable, warm, and spacious to live
• all the opportunities I was giving through my job for networking, travelling (especially to Brussels), and experience;
• the great sense of community and achievement I get from being involved in Taekwondo, and for Mr Lenihan's great tuition to get me to third kup (three belts from Black).
• and finally, for having earned enough to have a nice amount of savings, so that next year I can have greater freedom in future choices of employment, education, leisure, and travel.

I hope that all my readers are grateful for things that have happened this year, too, and that I'll see ye all in the New Year!

Lots of love,

Sweetie Pie x

Gingerbread Pandas (Wheat Free with a Dairy Free Option)

For my little sister (well, not so little now: she is eighteen after all), I indulged in her somewhat avid fascination with pandas and made her some gingerbread versions!

This was my first foray into dipping in thinned royal icing. I had considered dipping them completely in white chocolate, but I thought I'd give royal icing dipping a go instead; I felt that dipped fully in white chocolate, then dipped in certain places in dark chocolate, would be super chocolate overkill. Besides, the crunchy sugary coating in these ones makes me think of ice, which is appropriate.

To make the bears, I used this dough recipe, using golden syrup and adding a pinch or two of ground nutmeg. I then chilled it for about an hour before rolling out to about a quarter inch (3 millimetres) thickness and cutting out with a bear cutter. I baked them for about 10 minutes, until they were a little browned around the edges

I used some royal icing that I had made to ice the Christmas cake (these days, blasphemously, I use packs of instant royal icing because it's so much more convenient), and thinned it out with some cold water, a teaspoon at a time, until it resembled melted chocolate; a nice, running consistency. I dipped the front of the bears in the glaze, let the excess drip off while gently tapping the hand holding the biscuit off the side of the bowl, then put in on a wire rack. I cleaned up any uneven edges with a cocktail stick.

It took about an hour for the glaze to dry, and I then used melted dark chocolate to add details: dark legs, torso, ears, eye patches, and facial features. I used some royal icing at piping consistency to add eyes.

I was very pleased with how these little guys turned out! I hope my sister thinks they're as cute as I do...

Poppy Seed Kołaczki

Sometimes, eating the same kinds of food every year for Christmas can get boring, so this year I decided to take last year's Polish experiment one step further and make some (almost) proper kołaczki (pronounced co-watch-key).

Of course, these aren't properly authentic: real ones are made with cream cheese pastry, of which I'm not a fan whatsoever. So, I make them with good auld shortcrust. Although, my shortcrust pastry is more like shortbread, with an addition of some icing sugar.

The poppy seed filling, called masa makowa in Polish, has an unusual flavour: it's somewhat peppery and aromatic. The filling is basically poppy seeds, milk, sugar or honey, dried fruits, and chopped nuts. It's not spicy in the sense that mincemeat is, that is with cinnamon and cloves and such, but it's definitely full of character.

FREE FROM

☑ Soya
☑ Yeast
☑ Eggs

CONTAINS
☒ Nuts
☒ Gluten
☒ Dairy (see ingredients for a dairy substitute)
☒ Refined sugar products

INGREDIMENTS:
Makes about 30 kołaczki

For the pastry,

• 12 ounces (340 grammes) white spelt flour
• 6 ounces (170 grammes) butter, cut into cubes, or margarine
• 3 ounces (85 grammes) icing sugar,
• Cold water, to bind
• Optional: zest of half a lemon

For the poppy seed filling,

• 3 ounces (85 grammes) poppy seeds
• 5 fluid ounces (150 millilitres) milk
• 1½ ounces (45 grammes) caster sugar, or honey for a more authentic flavour
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) raisins, cut roughly
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) nuts of your choice, chopped into small pieces
• 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) vanilla essence
• Zest of half an orange

HOW-TO:
The night before, make the filling:

• Put the poppy seeds into a food processor, a blender, or into a pestle and mortar in small batches, and grind them until powdery. Chop the dried fruit and nuts up into small pieces.
• Mix the ground seeds, nuts, dried fruit, and all the other ingredients in a bowl. Cover the bowl with clingfilm and refrigerate overnight to allow the seeds and fruit to absorb the liquid.

First, make the pastry:

• In a large mixing bowl, mix the icing sugar and flour together. Add the butter, and rub the butter and flour between your fingertips until it becomes a fine, crumbly mixture.
• Using the tip of a knife, mix in cold water a teaspoon at a time until it become a soft dough.
• Lightly sprinkle the work surface with more flour, and tip the mix out onto the surface. Gently squash the mixture together until it comes together as a dough ball. 
• Wrap up in clingfilm, flatten into a disc, then put into the fridge. Chill for about an hour.
• Once chilled,  preheat the oven to 170ºC (325ºF/Gas Mk. 3).
• Sprinkle some flour on the work surface and roll the dough out to a quarter inch (3 millimetre) thickness.
• Using a fluted pastry wheel, a pizza wheel, or a knife, cut the pastry into two inch (5 centimetre) strips down and across, to make squares.
• Put three-quarters of a teaspoon of filling in the middle of each square, wet the edges, then squash opposite corners together to make a little parcel.
• Place the parcels about half an inch (1 centimetre) apart on an un-greased baking sheet. Bake in the centre of the preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the filling has dried and the edges of the pastry have turned golden brown.
• Allow to cool and harden slightly on the tray before transferring to a wire rack to cool.

To serve, pile them up on a plate and dust with some icing sugar. Whenever I dust mince pies, I usually mix in a hint of ground cinnamon; you could do that if you like with any ground sweet spice you like.

Peanut Brittle (Dairy- and Gluten Free)

For more festive sugar craft: peanut brittle! A good and simple treat, made with only two ingredients (or three if you want a little buttery richness).

My oldest brother seems to subsist almost entirely on dry roasted peanuts, crackers, and the odd bowl of curry and rice. I have no idea how he is as alive and fit as he is, but he manages somehow. So, for this Christmas, I decided to make him some lovely sweet and crunchy brittle,

This is a very simple sugar craft project that even people who have never worked with sugar can make: only two ingredients, a frying pan, and no sugar thermometer.

FREE FROM

☑ Soya
☑ Yeast
☑ Dairy
☑ Gluten

CONTAINS
☒ Nuts
☒ Refined sugar products

INGREDIMENTS:

• 7 ounces (200 grammes) roasted salted peanuts
• 7 ounces (200 grammes) caster sugar
• 1 tablespoon (15 millilitres) water
• Optional: 1 tablespoon (15 millilitres) butter

HOW-TO:

• Cut out a large sheet of non-stick paper, about a foot (30 centimetres) long. Brush lightly with flavourless oil.
• Place all the ingredients in a large frying pan over low heat. Heat gently until the sugar has dissolved into the water and become a syrup; if using the butter, heat gently until the butter and sugar melt together.
• Increase the heat to medium-high, and cook while continuously stirring. The mixture will go through a few stages: first, the sugar will melt, then it will seize up into a crumbly mess, and then it will melt again, turning a golden brown colour. Please be patient, and don't think it's gone horribly wrong when it goes crumbly.
• Once the brittle starts turning brown, be very careful not to burn it. Cook it to a nice, deep, nutty brown colour, but no further: the sugar will burn, turn black, taste disgusting, and possibly catch fire. 
• Pour the mixture out onto the oiled paper and spread out thinly, making sure the peanuts are all touching off each other and compact. Neaten the edges into a rectangle. Do this quickly, because it doesn't take long to set.
• Score the brittle into squares or rectangles with a long blade sharp knife. Allow to cool completely and set; about an hour.
• Snap into pieces and wrap well in either clingfilm or cellophane, then keep in an airtight container; this brittle gets sticky quickly on exposure to air.

Homemade Chocolate Box Strikes Back: 8 Flavours!

For another Christmas gift, that requires good care and attention: homemade chocolate selection box!

As many of you may have guessed, I'm fascinated by chocolate boxes. When I was a small child, I remember watching the film Matilda, an American adaptation of a Roald Dahl classic. The villain, Miss Trunchbull, has a box of chocolates that only she can eat. I remember seeing that scene in the film and thinking "those look so nice!", and thinking that a box of chocolates was such a grown up thing to get.

Over the last few years, I've made a few different kinds of chocolate boxes: some that are dipped, some that are moulded, some that are vegan, some that are milk and dark, and all took a lot of time and effort. But one thing is universal for all the different kinds: chocolate is Hell to work with.

Chocolate is very fickle: if you don't melt it properly, or mix it too much or not enough, it sets as a soft, streaky mess. I've had good and bad luck with chocolate, and this time it was particularly difficult. Humidity, air pressure, and temperature all play a big part in making or breaking good chocolate tempering. The first batch of milk chocolates I made this time around bloomed horribly: all grey streaky and spotty, I was heartbroken.

First batch of milk from the mould bloomed a lot, which made it unusable.

Bloomed chocolate; disaster.

Tempering chocolate without a thermometer is a matter of patience: you must use a bowl over warm water, and 'seed' the melted chocolate with un-melted chocolate. There are many videos available on YouTube about this process, which I recommend that you watch.

To make the chocolate shells, I melted the chocolate correctly to keep it in temper. I half-filled each hole in the mould, then using the tip of the teaspoon, I spread the chocolate up the sides. Placing a sheet of non-stick baking paper underneath a wire rack, I then put the mould upside-down on the wire rack, allowing the chocolate to dribble out of the mould, coating the sides, the excess spilling onto the paper. Once the dripping stopped, I turned the mould right side up and scraped the excess chocolate off the surface of the mould with a palette knife. I allowed the shells to cool at room temperature before filling, because putting in the fridge would run the risk of blooming the chocolate. I filled the individual shells leaving about 2 millimetres of a gap to cap with chocolate.

This chocolate box includes 5 moulded and filled flavours (in both milk and dark chocolate), and 2 dipped milk chocolate flavours:

Soft Caramel
To fill these chocolates, I used the same caramel recipe that I used for my banoffee pie: 7 ounces (200 grammes) light brown sugar, 7 ounces (200 grammes) evaporated milk, 2½ ounces (60 grammes) of butter, and 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) vanilla essence. I mixed all the ingredients, except for the vanilla essence, in a medium saucepan, and cooked it gently over a low heat until the butter and sugar melted together fully, then brought it to the boil. I boiled it gently for about 5 minutes, until the mixture thickened into a creamy saucy consistency, and darkened slightly. I allowed it to cool before using it to fill the shells.

Pecan Nut Praline
To make the praline for the truffle filling, I put 2 ounces (55 grammes) of pecan nuts, 2 ounces (55 grammes) caster sugar, and 1 tablespoon (15 millilitres) of water into a frying pan. Over a low heat, I heat the mixture until the sugar dissolved, then increased the heat to medium-high. I cooked the mixture until the sugar became thick and dark brown. I poured this mixture onto some oiled non-stick baking paper, and let it set completely. I pulsed the praline pieces in a blender to a powder, then mixed it into some chocolate truffle mixture (see below) before using it to fill the shells.

Strawberry Fondant
I mixed some strained strawberry jam in equal weight quantities with icing sugar to thicken it slightly, and used this to fill the shells.

Lemon Truffle
To make the lemon filling, I used 1 ounce (30 grammes) of caster sugar, 1 fluid ounce (30 millilitres) of milk, 1 ounce (30 grammes) of butter, 3½ ounces (100 grammes) white chocolate, chopped into pieces, 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) vanilla essence, and the zest of half a lemon. I heated the sugar, lemon zest, and milk together in a saucepan over low heat until the sugar dissolved. I brought it to the boil and cook for about a minute or two until a little syrupy. I removed it from the heat and stirred in the butter, chocolate, and vanilla essence, then returned it to a low heat, mixing until smooth. I allowed it to cool before using it to fill the shells.

Coffee Crème
To make the lemon filling, I used 1 ounce (30 grammes) of caster sugar, 1 fluid ounce (30 millilitres) of strong coffee, 1 ounce (30 grammes) of butter, 3½ ounces (100 grammes) white chocolate, chopped into pieces, and 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) vanilla essence. I used the same technique to make it as the lemon filling, and allowed it to cool before using it to fill the shells.

Almond Marzipan
I made some marzipan using this recipe, and used it to make 1 inch (2½ centimetre) balls, pressing them into ovals, and dipping them in properly melted chocolate.

Turkish Delight
I made some Turkish delight using this recipe, and cut it into 1 inch (2½ centimetre) pieces, dusted very lightly with icing sugar (brushing off any excess) and dipping it twice in properly melted chocolate, allowing to set fully after the first dipping, and sprinkling on some coloured sprinkles.

White and Dark Truffle
These ones were a bit of an experiment, but they turned out nicely. I mixed equal quantities of melted dark chocolate and buttercream icing together until it became a thick mixture, then chilled it overnight. I allowed the mix to return to a cool room temperature before rolling into balls. I chilled them thoroughly before dipping in melted white chocolate. These ones were very tasty,

Egg-Free Marzipan

One of my all-time favourite bakery and sugar craft staples, and something I have touched on surprisingly seldom in my blog, is marzipan! I forget about it all year, and then Christmas comes around and I'm marzipan mad.

Marzipan is one of my most favourite things: I could eat blocks of marzipan until I felt very ill, and still like it. When I was in school, I had a good German friend who one year got a solid marzipan Easter egg from her father back home in Germany. She gave me some, and it was some of the nicest marzipan I had tasted; she told me it was by a company called Niederegger, and that the factory shop was in Lübeck, which was a town close to her own home. I visited her home in 2008 (my first foreign holiday) and asked her to take me to the shop, where I bought a nice amount of the delicious marzipan to nibble on and bring home.

Despite my love of marzipan, I'd never tried to make it before this year. In May, I made a circular Battenberg layer cake, which was my first attempt at making it. I never realised it was so easy! It is a little fragile because it lacks those good egg white proteins, but it's easily moulded like clay and sets quickly.

FREE FROM

☑ Soya
☑ Yeast
☑ Dairy
☑ Gluten
☑ Eggs

CONTAINS
☒ Nuts
☒ Refined sugar products

INGREDIMENTS:

• 7 ounces (200 grammes) ground nuts of your choice: almonds, hazelnuts, pistachios, etc.
• 7 ounces (200 grammes) icing sugar
• ¼ teaspoon (2 millilitres) almond essence, or to taste
• Cold water, to bind
• Optional: 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) lemon juice
• Optional: 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) lemon zest
• Icing sugar, for dusting

HOW-TO:

• In a large mixing bowl, mix together the ground nuts and icing sugar until well combined. Add in the almond essence (and lemon juice and zest if using), and stir with the tip of a knife.
• Continuing to mix with the knife, add in water a teaspoon (5 millilitres) at a time until it comes together in a soft dough.
• Dust the work surface with a little icing sugar, and turn out the marzipan. Knead and squash the dough together very gently until smooth; if you over knead it, it becomes oily and unworkable.
• You can use the marzipan straightaway, or wrap it in cling film and keep in an airtight container in a cool, dark place.

Marzipan is used very often in Northern European bakery and sweet-making: Denmark, Holland, and Germany all produce a lot of almond based delights. I will be exploring all of these things in the New Year.

Turkish Delight (Naturally Free From Everything)

Here's another recipe in the Christmas gifts series: Turkish delight!

I'm going to be honest: I really don't like Turkish delight. I think it's vile: flower flavoured jelly. However, I do know that my brother really likes it, and it's associated with the festive season. Even thought I don't like it, it's a good simple and quick homemade sweet to give to someone as a gift.

Traditionally, Turkish delight is made my boiling a sugar syrup to soft ball stage, while simultaneously cooking cornflour, lemon juice, and water in another pot until it becomes gluey. The syrup is added bit by bit to the flour, mixing all the time, and then when fully incorporated it is cooked on a low heat for about an hour until pale yellow. The long slow cooking allows the acid in the lemon juice to work on the cornflour, chemically changing the starch. It takes forever, and uses a lot of equipment. I had given up on making Turkish delight when I found out that it was so complicated. But then I found another way of making it in a manner which I didn't expect.

I follow a lot of Indian cookery blogs and YouTubers: what can I say, I love curry and Indian sweets. Usually, when I watch a video that's suggested to me on the YouTube homepage, I also end up watching a load of other related videos that are shown in the sidebar, even if I don't know what they are. I came across a video for Bombay Halwa, also known as Mumbai or Karachi Halwa, which is remarkably similar to Turkish delight, but a lot simpler.

Bombay Halwa has more cornflour than Turkish delight and also uses a lot of ghee, but a quicker technique that doesn't require a thermometer, sugar testing, or multiple saucepans. So, I used the cornflour to sugar ratio from the Turkish delight recipe, and the water quantities and cooking technique from the Halwa recipe. The results were very good!

FREE FROM

☑ Soya (check for soya lecithin)
☑ Dairy (use substitute in italics for dairy free)
☑ Gluten
☑ Nuts

CONTAINS
☒ Refined sugar products

INGREDIMENTS:

•  7 ounces (200 grammes) caster sugar
• 1 ounce (30 grammes; 4 tablespoons) cornflour
• 5½ fluid ounces (160 millilitres) water, or the syrup
• 8 fluid ounces (240 millilitres) water, for the cornflour
• 1 tablespoon (15 millilitres) lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon (15 millilitres) rosewater, or 2 teaspoons (10 millilitres) lemon zest if you don't like the rose flavour
• Red or yellow food colouring
• Icing sugar for coating
• Cornflour for coating

HOW-TO:

• Line a loaf tin with non-stick baking paper, and brush the paper with flavourless oil. Alternatively, you can use a sillicone loaf tin and brush it with oil.
• In a bowl, mix together the cornflour and the according water together until all the cornflour has dissolved and there are no lumps.
• In a large saucepan, heat the sugar, lemon juice, and the according water until the sugar dissolves . Once dissolved, bring to a boil and cook until it had slightly thickened.
• Remove the pan from the heat, and add in the cornflour slurry (making sure to give it a little stir first to lift any cornflour that's settled on the bottom of the bowl). Stir until combined.
• Turn the heat down to medium, and return the pan to the heat. Cook, gently but definitely bubbling, until the mixture has become transparent, thick, and gluey; about 20 minutes. You must stir often, otherwise it will burn.
• Once it has become thick and jellyish, take it from the heat and stir in the rosewater and enough red food colouring to tint it pink.
• Pour the mixture into the tin and allow to set at room temperature overnight, or at least 8 hours.
• Once set, mix some icing sugar in equal parts with cornflour (about 3 tablespoons (45 millilitres) each) and sprinkle some of this mixture onto the work surface. Turn the jelly out onto the dusted surface, peeling off any paper.
• Cut the jelly out with a long oiled knife. Coat each piece in the icing sugar and cornflour mixture. Keep in an airtight container with any leftover coating mixture.
• You can also coat the jellies in chocolate. Dust off any excess icing sugar, and then dip in tempered chocolate.

Dairy-Free Baileys

A repeat of last year's present to me good friend and camera assistant, Niamh, this year I have made another improved batch of dairy-free Baileys; a cream liqueur made with whiskey.

I have a lot of friends, family members, and acquaintances who have varying degrees of food intolerances and sensitivities, which is how I got into this kind of alternative cooking in the first place. Of all the sensitivities, however, I've found dairy the hardest to emulate.

I love dairy: milk, cream, butter, ice-cream, chocolate, toffees and fudges and all sorts are my favourites, and having a mug of hot chocolate before bedtime is part of my typical night time routine. My brother has a Pakistani friend, who tells him that many good stories of revelry in Pakistan begin with "We bought a load of ice-cream", the same way that Irish stories begin with "We bought a load of beer", and these are the kinda stories that I need more of in my life. As such, I find that dairy-free things just lack something: they lack that richness and sweetness that is associated with cow dairy products.

However, a close second to cow milk is coconut milk: it's rich, sweet, and creamy. Even though it's not the same, it's nice in its own way. This is what I use generally when I replace cow milk; although, I have heard that oat milk is an even better mimic of cow milk.

So, to make a dairy-free Baileys, I reached for some coconut milk. It turned out very well; a good second best to real Baileys.

FREE FROM

☑ Soya (check for soya lecithin)
☑ Dairy (use substitute in italics for dairy free)
☑ Gluten
☑ Nuts

CONTAINS
☒ Refined sugar products

INGREDIMENTS:

• One 14 fluid ounce can (400 millilitres) of full fat coconut milk
• One 14 fluid ounce can (400 millilitres) of light coconut milk
• 2 to 4 tablespoons (30 to 60 millilitres) light brown sugar, to taste
• 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) cocoa powder
• ½ teaspoon (3 millilitres) instant coffee powder
• Two pinches of ground cinnamon
• A pinch of ground nutmeg
• 3 to 5 shots (105 to 175 millilitres) Irish Whiskey, to taste

HOW-TO:

• In a large saucepan, heat the two coconut milks together, stirring, until smooth. Heat until gently steaming.
• In a glass, mix the cocoa powder and about 1 tablespoon (15 millilitres) of the heated milk together to a paste. Add this to the rest of the milk. This makes sure the cocoa powder dissolves properly.
• Stir in the coffee powder, cinnamon, and nutmeg, then start adding the sugar a tablespoon at a time. Once the mixture is sweet enough, remove from the heat.
• Add in the whiskey, one shot at a time, until it's the right strength for you. I know my friend likes strong liqueurs, so I added in a good bit of Whiskey.
• Allow to cool before bottling in a 35 fluid ounce (1 litre) glass bottle

Good quality Irish whiskey is expensive, so this is a very special present. If you only want to use a little whiskey, you can spike only half the mixture and keep the other half for making nice coconut hot chocolate.

Sweetie Pie's Top Baking Project Suggestions for Christmas

Last year, I got so busy around Christmas time that I ended up back dating all my Christmas cooking blog posts. I felt rather silly about it, so this year I thought I'd write up a nice list of all the Christmas themed things I've done in years gone by. After all, Sweetie Pie Bakes Stuff is looking at its third year running!

Here is my selection of 15 things to try this Christmas season (mostly gingerbread themed):

1. Traditional Christmas Cake
Moist, rich, dark fruit cake spiked with golden rum and flavoured with aromatic spices and Indian black tea.








2. Gingerbread House: Part I and Part II
Go German style with an ornately decorated gingerbread house. These two posts include the designing, recipe, cooking instructions, and assembly guidelines.








3. Gingerbread Stars (Egg and Wheat Free)
Little eggless gingerbread stars (or any shape you like) decorated with royal icing.




4. Chocolate Dipped Gingerbread Teddies (Wheat Free)
For that extra special gingerbread delight, shape it like a polar bear and dip it in white chocolate; because nothing says Christmas more than eating an tiny version of a giant carnivore.

5. Gluten-, Dairy-, Yeast-, Egg Free Gingerbread

For those who are vegan or intolerant to basically everything used to make gingerbread, here is a version for you.







6. Kołaczki Mince Pies (Wheat Free)
For those of you who like mince pies, but hate the effort of making them traditionally in a muffin tin, these are made in Polish style as little fold-overs.

7. Ginger Ale (No Brewing Required)

I always associate Christmas with a nice glass of ginger ale, and so should you. Have a glass of homemade and particularly fiery ale with your dinner for a proper Christmas experience.







8. Fairy Cakes with Buttercream (Gluten-, Dairy-, and Egg Free)
For those who are vegan or intolerant to basically everything used to make cakes. Vanilla and chocolate cakes topped off with dairy-free buttercream swirls.




9. Vanilla Fondant Fancies (Wheat Free; Dairy Substitute)
Little fluffsome and dainty morsels of sponge cake, filled with buttercream and glazed in glacé icing, if rich dark fruit cake doesn't take your fancy (see what I did there).

10. Ginger Nut Biscuits (Wheat Free)
Sweet and spicy little biscuits made with mixed spices and golden syrup, that can be chewy or crunchy to your liking.

11. Viennese Whirls (Wheat Free)
Melt in the mouth buttery biscuits, like those Danish butter cookies you get from your relatives every year only nicer.







12. Chocolate Truffle Box: Dark Raspberry and Milk Orange
Moulded dark and milk chocolates with a truffle and fruit jam filling.








13. Vanilla Fudge
Rich and creamy homemade fudge that can be flavoured and decorated however you like.

14. Neapolitan Coconut Ice
Traditionally boiled coconut ice with a white, pink, and chocolate layer.

15. Chewy Caramel
Rich, buttery, and tooth destroying caramels, fit for the season.






I hope this list will serve you well over the next few weeks! Be sure to keep an eye on my upcoming 2015 Christmas creations...

Christmas Pudding (Wheat- and Dairy Free), with Pressure Cooker Instructions

There's nothing I love more than good aul' traditional Christmas cooking: I love the meats, Paxo stuffing, and various incarnations of cooked potato that make up the dinner; I love mince pies, whether made in traditional or Polish style; and most of all, I love Christmas cake and pudding.

The difficulty of writing a blog about how to make Christmas pudding is that you can't unveil it until Christmas. As such, ye'll have to wait for photos; but ye all know what a Christmas pudding looks like anyway ^_^

PHOTOS!!

  

 My mother and I both have a wheat sensitivity, which is how I got into wheat-free cookery at all. My sensitivity comes and goes, but my mother's is permanent. This means she can't eat shop-bought traditional Christmas treats, and I've never once seen a wheat-free cake, pudding, or mince pie on sale ever. So for me, having the knowledge of how to do it myself makes this time of year incredibly busy...

Two key ingredients in a traditional Christmas pudding are suet and breadcrumbs. The tricky part of making a wheat-free Christmas pudding from scratch is trying to find suet that isn't dusted in wheat flour, and also trying to find something to use in place of breadcrumbs. Now the breadcrumbs is an easy swap, like I did in my treacle tarts recipe, by replacing it with ground almonds, but if there's still wheat flour in the suet all is lost. I did, luckily, find a way around this: I used block lard and grated it.

However, when one of your brothers is a vegetarian, you can't use normal lard, which is made of beef fat, you have to use vegetable lard. I found some eventually by scouring the fridges at my local supermarket. For those of you who don't know it by that name, it's basically a block of hard white vegetable fat; it's not soft like shortening.

FREE FROM

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

CONTAINS
☒ Dairy (use substitute in italics for dairy free)
☒ Gluten
☒ Nuts
☒ Eggs
☒ Refined sugar products

INGREDIMENTS:

• 1 pound (455 grammes) mixed dried fruit of your choice: currants, raisins, sultanas, candied peel, prunes (chopped), glacé cherries (chopped and thoroughly rinsed), dried cranberries, etc.
• 1 medium cooking apple, peeled, cored, and grated
• 1 shot (42 millilitres) spiced rum, or whiskey
• 6½ fluid ounces (185 millilitres) hot black tea, or stout for the adventurous
• 2 medium eggs
• 4 ounces (115 grammes) ground almonds
• ½ teaspoon (3 millilitres) ground cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon (3 millilitres) grated nutmeg
• ½ teaspoon (3 millilitres) ground ginger
• 4 ounces (115 grammes) vegetable fat in a block
• 2 tablespoons (30 millilitres) plain white spelt flour, or gluten free flour
• 4 ounces (115 grammes) light brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons (30 millilitres) treacle
• Grated zest of half a lemon
• Grated zest of half an orange

HOW-TO:

• In a large glass bowl, put the dried fruit, grated apple, hot tea (or stout), and rum (or whiskey) and allow to soak overnight, covered with a tea towel.
• The next day, put the flour and spices into a small bowl, and mix until combined. Grate in the block vegetable fat, tossing the shreds in the flour mixture with a fork between each run down the grater. This stops it from clumping together in a big mess.
• Beat the eggs one at a time into the soaked fruit, then add in the remaining ingredients, mixing well between ingredients, and making sure to add the flour and fat mixture last.
• Prepare a 2 pint (1 litre) pudding basin by greasing it well with butter or margarine, then pour in the mixture, smoothing out the top. Cut out a circle of greaseproof paper to cover the surface of the pudding, then put the basin's lid on.
• If the basin doesn't have a lid, get a piece of foil big enough to cover the top of the pudding basin. Fold a pleat in the middle, and then cover the basin, making sure the pleat ends up across the middle. Secure with twine, and make a twine handle to lift the pudding in and out of the steamer.
• Follow one of the cooking techniques below. Once fully cooked, remove from the heat and take off the lid (or foil covering). Replace the greaseproof paper cover with a fresh one, then put the lid back on, or cover with foil. Wrap the whole basin in cling film or foil, and leave in a cool dark place until Christmas.

To cook in a saucepan,

• Put a trivet or upturned saucer into the bottom of a very large saucepan. Lower the pudding basin into the pan, sit it on the saucer or trivet, and then fill the pan with boiling water to halfway up the side of the basin. Cover the pan, put on a high heat, and bring to the boil. 
• Once boiling, reduce the temperature to medium to maintain a steady but gentle boil, and steam the pudding for 5 hours.
• After 5 hours, remove the basin from the pan and uncover to check the doneness of the pudding: press the surface of the pudding with your finger, and it should spring back like a sponge. To test with a cocktail stick, stick it into the centre of the pudding, and if it comes out with a few sticky crumbs clinging to it, it's fully cooked.
• If it's not fully cooked, return to the pan and cook for a further 30 minutes.

To cook in a pressure cooker,

• Once you have filled the pot with boiling water as instructed above, cover and lock the lid, bring to full pressure, then reduce the heat to medium-low and steam for an hour.
• After an hour, release the pressure either naturally or with the steam valve. Check the doneness as above. If it needs a bit longer, cover and lock the pan and bring to full pressure once more, then cook for a further 10 to 15 minutes before checking again.

This pudding goes very well with custard, or with whipped cream; if you're feeling particularly adventurous, you could even have vanilla ice-cream. I've never been an eater of brandy cream, but I'm sure that'd also be nice.

Happee Birthdaee, Daddee: Coffee and Vanilla Gâteau (Wheat Free, with a Dairy Free Option)

The 16th was my father's birthday, but his celebrations were a little late this year because he and Mum went away to Kerry for a little birthday holiday. We all gathered yesterday instead to enjoy a Sunday lunch, and celebratory cake: coffee and vanilla cake.

I will admit, when you've been the primary birthday cake baker for over 10 years (which is over 50 cakes) you start to run out of ideas. For a few years I experimented with novelty cakes, making them funny shapes or giving them themed decorations, but after a while I realised I prefered good old traditional gateau style cakes.

The members of my family always want the same kind of cake, too: my mother an orange or lemon cake; my oldest brother a coffee cake; my older brother a chocolatey chocolate cake with chocolate on top; my father also coffee cake (or sometimes the very vague request of 'brown cake'); and my sister cheesecake. This year having a (now ex-)boyfriend to make a cake for was very refreshing, especially seeing as his favourite cake was Battenberg, which was a challenge I relished.

These very predictable requests make things quite, well, boring after a while. Usually now though I try and shake things up my adding in an extra flavour. For example, my oldest brother's usual coffee cake became an orange mocha cake, and my mother's usual lemon drizzle cake became a zingy lemon layer cake with lemon infused white chocolate icing. Needless to say, I have become very good at making layer cakes.

The unfortunate thing about this time of year in this country, is that is gets impractically cold in the kitchen: things curdle, split, and set too quickly if you haven't had the central heating on for the weeks (or months) before making the cake. That is what sadly made this cake so hard to make.

I went with the usual coffee cake as requested, and made a coffee infused white chocolate icing, but because the kitchen was so cold it kept separating. Two batches ended up being re-purposed as a mutant coffee fudge, and I soon realised a melted chocolate icing was not going to work.

Enter the saviour: traditional, staple buttercream icing. I don't tend to work with buttercream often because, even though it's an old favourite, it can be very tempramental if the atmospheric factors aren't all perfect. This time, though, it really worked and everything was saved. However, I will impress the importance of all the ingredients needed to make the buttercream being at least room temperature. Put your butter somewhere warm, or heat it on defrost in the microwave, and don't use hot coffee.

FREE FROM

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

CONTAINS
☒ Dairy (use substitute in italics for dairy free)
☒ Gluten
☒ Eggs
☒ Refined sugar products

INGREDIMENTS:

For the sponge cake:

• 4 ounces (115 grammes) white spelt flour
• 2 ounces (30 grammes) cornflour
• 2 teaspoons (10 millilitres) baking powder
• 3 medium egg
• 6 ounces (170 grammes) caster sugar
• 3 ounces (85 grammes) melted butter or margarine
• 3 fluid ounces (90 millilitres) strong black coffee
• 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) vanilla essence
• Optional: 1 tablespoon of ground coffee, for extra flavour and visual impact

For the buttercream filling and icing:

• 6 ounces (170 grammes) very soft butter, or margarine
• 12 ounces (340 grammes) icing sugar, sieved
• 2 tablespoons (30 millilitres) very strong black coffee at room temperature, or 2 teaspoons of espresso powder dissolved in 2 tablespoons (30 millilitres) of hot water, allowed to cool
• 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) vanilla essence
• Chocolate or coloured sprinkles, to decorate

HOW-TO:

To make the cake,

• Preheat the oven to 170ºC (325ºF/Gas Mk. 3) and grease and flour an 8 inch (20 centimetre) round tin.
• Make the cake batter following this recipe, substituting the oil for melted butter and the milk for coffee (as in the ingredients listed above). If using ground coffee, sieve in with the flours.
• Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until golden brown and springy to the touch.
• Remove from the oven, run a knife around the edge to loosen from the tin, then allow to cool completely in the tin.

To decorate the cake,

• Put the butter in a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric hand mixer until very soft and light.
• Add in the icing sugar in three additions, alternating with the 2 tablespoons of coffee and finishing with icing sugar. Make sure to beat well between additions. If the buttercream starts to split, it means it's too cold. This, however, can be easily fixed with a hair dryer.
• Cut the cake into two layers, using the top of the cake as the bottom layer. Fix the bottom layer to a plate or cake board with a little smear of icing, then fill the cake with a third of the buttercream. Put the top layer on, upside down, meaning that the flat bottom of the cake is now on top.
• Use the remaining buttercream to ice the cake (putting a crumb coat on first), and if you like you can use some to pipe decorations around the top and bottom edge.
• If you like, you can add some colour with sprinkles: I put a little splash in the centre.
• Allow to set for at least an hour before serving.

This was actually a very tasty confection, and a lot lighter and more delicate because it was only lightly flavoured with coffee, as opposed to being super coffee-tastic. This keeps well for up to a week in an airtight container.