Gluten & Dairy Free Jaffa Cake ~ Great Bloggers Bake Off 2016

Hello Cupcakes! The Great British Bake Off is finally back! Which also means the very many GBBO obsessed bloggers, including myself, are back to try and bake along with this years contestants and share our bakes with the ever lovely Jenny who is hosting her bakes and the bloggers link up at her blog Mummy Mishaps, so do check it out!

Free From Apple Crumble Cake

This week was free from week on the Bake Off. I actually struggled with this one (believe it or not!) There were sugar free cakes (okay, refined sugar free cakes!) gluten free breads and a dairy free ice cream cake. I'm having to try and go with the bake that would be the cheapest on our food budget and this week proved hard. I couldn't afford the alternatives for the sugar I always put in cakes. I tried honey but I thought, yuck! I shoved in the sugar and made a sponge instead!

So this week I went with gluten and dairy free sponge cake with a topping of gluten free oats and crumble mix.

Recipe

Free From Apple Crumble Cake

A gluten and dairy free sponge cake with apples and a crumble topping. Perfect for autumn! (And when you can't chose between cake and crumble!)

Ingredients

• 150g Dairy free spread
• 150g Caster sugar
• 1 tsp Vanilla essence
• 2 Eggs
• 150g Doves Farm Self Raising Flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• Doves Farm Plain Flour
• Gluten Free Oats
• Dairy free spread
• Apples (enough for your chosen dish)

Instructions

First make a sponge cake how you normally would by mixing all your ingredients together making sure there are no lumps

Pour the sponge mix into your chosen dish (I used a long dish for pies!)

Slice your apples and place them on top of the sponge mix

In another bowl, add some flour and butter. Using your hands, make a crumble. I didn't measure this bit, I just judged how big my dish was. Make sure there's not more spread than flour.

Scatter your crumble mix over the apples and sponge, covering entirely just like you would an ordinary apple crumble

I used 2 handfuls of gluten free oats and some more sugar on top of the crumble to give it that crunch.

Cook time: 35 mins at 180'C 

Great Bloggers Bake Off 2014: Cherry Cake (Free From)

The Great British Bake Off is back! That means The Great Bloggers Bake Off is back too! Hurrah! This week the challenge was very simply, cake. Mini cakes, cherry cake and um cake.

I went for a cherry cake. Not a Mary Berry cherry cake just a big standard cherry cake with some butter icing. Yum yum. Just like last year all bakes are Gluten free, Dairy free and Wheat free.

I simply took a normal recipe for a Madeira cake and bunged in 200g of glacé cherries. I baked until golden brown and clear when tested with a butter knife at 180 and left the cake to cool. I mixed up a whole box of icing sugar with vitilite butter, added pink food colouring and refrigerated until I needed it. The pesky cake must have still been a little hot despite having over an hour to cool because I noticed my icing sliding a bit. Oh well!

I decorated with fresh cherries and voila, a free from cherry cake! I'm very pleased with my first bake it tastes good but is a bit too heavy, I'd prefer it a lot more softer but it's not too bad. The cherries didn't all sink either so that's a win!

Are you watching the Bake Off? Why not get your bake on too?

Cupcake Mumma

Gluten Free Soda Bread

I got my recipe for this gluten free soda bread from here, the Doves Farm website which is packed full of useful free from recipes I can't wait to try. I didn't need to substitute anything for this recipe which is why I won't be publishing it on my blog. I did use some gluten free oats I had in the cupboard to roll my dough on before placing in the oven (this added something extra to my loaf) and also this is a white bread, the recipe I have linked to is a brown bread- but that's all!

I found this really easy to make, really quick to make too which is handy. Unfortunately, due to both children deciding to play up at the same time, my loaf was left in the oven a bit too much longer than necessary and was a bit harder than I would've liked! All in all, the method works, the ingredients work and I had a nice supper of a couple of slices smothered in dairy free butter. Yum!

I'm linking this up with Jenny and Helen for our Great Bloggers bake Off. For this recipe, Tesco very kindly sent me some gluten free strong white bread flour. Very handy- thanks Tesco!

Banana and mixed spiced cupcakes

As part of my bloggers bake off challenge with Helen and Jenny, I was recently sent some mixed spices from Steenbergs to help create a wonderfully smelling and tasting bake. I am not the hugest fan of mixed spices and I will admit to doing two batches after having a reaction to the spices on my first attempt! I made a plain batch for myself and a mixed spice batch for anyone who wanted them. Both taste very nice indeed and I am actually a bit gutted to not be able to eat the spiced banana cupcakes.

Whether you'll be using just banana or the mixed spice as well, I hope you enjoy this recipe.

You will need:

110g Doves Farm self raising flour

100g Light Brown sugar

110g dairy free butter or vegetable margerine

2 eggs

Tsp Baking powder

Tsp Vanilla essence

1tblsp golden syrup

2 mashed bananas (best when slightly over ripe)

1/2 tsp of Steenbergs mixed spice (less really is more with this wonderfully flavoured mix)

Method

Cream the butter and sugar together until smooth

Add both eggs one after the other and mix well

Add the flour, baking powder and mix together until you have a nice smooth batter

Next, add the syrup, spice mix, vanilla essence and the soft mashed banana

Mix all the ingredients together before scooping into cake cases and baking at 180 for 15-20 minutes (my oven is slower than most but this is a standard time for cupcakes)

Once the cakes are cooked, pop onto cooling racks. These cakes taste delicious slightly warm so don't feel the need to wait for them to go cold to enjoy (as if you needed me to tell you that)

I hope you enjoy!

CupcakeMumma

Vegetable and Sundried Tomato Pasty

Where I live, the Pasty is something very important. Now I can't remember the last time I actually ate a traditional Cornish pasty because it's been some time thanks to my stomach! I've spent so long trying to get my gluten free pastry right and finally I have found what I am happy with.

I'm going to share my recipe with you (which should make you a couple of pasties) as part of my baking journey with Jenny and Helen but you may like to change a few things to make it work for you. The one ingredient you must not leave out in my experience, is the egg!

First you'll need a selection of vegetables. I chose:

Potatoes, thinly sliced and chopped

Mushrooms, chopped

Onion, finely diced

Salt and pepper to season

Optional: 1 jar of Sun dried tomatoes of which I used about 4 large tomatoes. You could use anything that takes your fancy plus more/different vegetables.

For the pastry:

200g plain gluten free flour

100g stork* margarine

Pinch of salt

1 egg

Cold water (just have this in a jug and add as you need to get your pastry to the right consistency)

Pre heat oven to 200

If you have chopped your ingredients up nice and small you won't need to cook before placing in the pastry. If you prefer, cook your potatoes and slice or mash before popping on your pastry.

• Put the flour and butter into a large bowl.
• Use your hands to mix the butter into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs.
• Add the egg and mix in (using hands or a spoon if you like) then stir in the water and quickly bring the pastry together until it's a sticky dough (This pastry tends to absorb more water than 'normal' pastry so add a few more drops of water if necessary)
• I like to lightly dust some cling film and roll out my pastry using this method to avoid it sticking to my work surface and then breaking
• Once rolled, transfer your pastry to your chosen flat tin. Make a 'guideline' to separate the top half of your pasty from the bottom. You can now add your filling to the bottom half before gently folding the top half over to cover your filling
• Crimp (or 'press down if you're anything like me!) and make 2 small slits/holes in the top of the pastry before brushing with egg yolk. Bake the pasties until they are a lovely golden colour and by inserting a knife gently through the pastry to see if the vegetables are cooked through.

I hope you have some joy with this gluten free pastry. It can take a little patience and a lot of practice but you should see some (and taste some!) good results. *I'd like to thank Stork for providing me with a pack of their very tasty vegetable margarine which seems to have made all the difference to my pastry baking.

Cupcake Mumma

Dark Chocolate Cake - Free From

I can't believe this week was the final of the Great British Bake Off but it was and so it brings me to my bake for the week: a single tier wedding cake.

The final saw 3 hopefuls battle it out to win the Bake Off title and one of these battles included a three tier wedding cake. Now, going for three tiers in this challenge would be wasteful on so many levels which is why I decided to stick with the theme but be sensible with the amount. Here's what I came up with:

A dark chocolate chip sponge cake which is, as usual, both gluten and dairy free.

This sponge is completely straight forward in that you use:

• 6oz doves farm self raising flour
• 6oz Caster sugar
• 6oz soft dairy free butter
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 3-4 tablespoons coco powder
• 1 packet of dark chocolate chips

I added all my ingredients together and stirred until I had a good, runny consistency. I placed my cake in two separate, greased sandwich tins for 20 minutes on 180 degrees.

To decorate, I used most of a packet of fondant icing to include my attempt at two little bird cake toppers! I used white icing to finish off the bottom of the cake and write 'Mr & Mrs' sadly not in the best handwriting I've ever done on a cake but it's not bad.

I've really enjoyed joining in with Jenny and Helen and I think there may be more baking on my horizon! I'll leave you with a photo of the cake after it got 'Little A'd!'

CupcakeMumma

Gluten & Dairy Free Carrot & Raisin Cake

This week I bring you a delicious gluten and dairy free carrot and raisin cake for week 8 of the Great Bloggers Bake Off with Jenny and Helen. It's not a novelty cake but it is a free from cake with a vegetable in!!

I wasn't sure I'd like this cake to be honest but it was SO GOOD! If you'd like to bake this cake then the recipe is below. Enjoy!

Ingredients

175g light muscovado sugar

175ml sunflower oil (I was caught out and used vegetable oil but luckily it was fine!)

3 large eggs

140g grated carrots (about 3 medium)

100g raisins

grated zest of 1 large orange

175g self-raising flour

1tsp bicarbonate of soda

1tsp ground cinnamon

Method

• Preheat the oven to 180C and line your cake tin
• Tip the sugar into a large mixing bowl, pour in the oil and add the eggs. Mix a little then stir in the grated carrots, raisins and orange rind.
• Mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda and spices. Stir all the ingredients but dont over mix. It should be runny but all nicely blended together.
• Pour the mix into your tin and bake for 40- 45 minutes, until it feels firm and springy when you press it in the centre.
• After the cake is cooled you can mix together some icing sugar and water to make a thick icing to drizzle over the top and sides.

CupcakeMumma

Gluten & Dairy Free Custard Filled Choux Buns

It's week seven of our Great Bloggers Bake Off challenge with Jenny and Helen and it's one I have been dreading. Gluten free and sweet pastry don't exactly fill me with confidence. Suet is hard to come by and doesn't really appeal to me. I wanted to perfect profiteroles but it just wasn't happening so this week I've gone for a dairy and gluten free choux pastry, which on the second attempt was a lot more successful. They didn't rise as much but I've just discovered my oven door doesn't close properly so that's not great!

Because of the rise (or lack of) and my stubbornness to not let this challenge defeat me, I used a dairy free custard piped onto the flatter side of the bun and sandwiched the two sides together. I then melted and drizzled dairy free orange flavour chocolate on the top of the buns. Oh my they oozed and tasted delicious. On this occasion I don't mind the buns not looking great because they were so nice and very moreish too

(I had 3!)

I give you: Gluten and Dairy Free Custard Choux Buns:

Ingredients

75g Doves Farm White Bread Flour

½tsp Caster Sugar

50g Dairy free Butter

150ml Cold Water

2 Eggs

Carton of dairy free custard

150g Cooking Chocolate

3tbsp Golden Syrup

Method

Sift the flour & sugar into a bowl.

Melt the butter in a saucepan, add water and bring to the boil.

Remove from the heat and quickly add the flour from the bowl into the water. Beat well to form a soft dough using an electric beater (or wooden spoon)

Beat in the eggs to form a smooth, shiny paste.

Put a teaspoonful of the paste onto oiled baking trays or pipe them on.

Bake your buns in a pre heated oven for 20/25 minutes at 200 degrees

Cool on a wire rack . When cold, pipe custard into the flat side and sandwich together with another half.

Gently melt together the chocolate and syrup, stirring to make a smooth sauce and

drizzle the sauce over your Choux pastry buns and DEVOUR!

CupcakeMumma

Gluten Free Petit Fours- Great Bloggers Bake Off!

Wow, so already it is week 3 of the Great Bloggers Bake Off. This was really hard for me. I didn't want to chance making dairy free floating islands (or more like I couldn't be bothered) and either the prep was too long or I had to buy extra things in (normally online!) to make the perfect and scrummy trifle. There's no messing with a trifle but it can be done both gluten and dairy free with some planning and patience- neither of which I've had this week.

I was about to give up when I thought going simple was better than not doing anything at all. So for week 3 I give you gluten and dairy free Chocolate Chip and Hazelnut Petit Fours!

To make the cake:

110g butte- I use Vitalite
110g caster sugar
2 Eggs
110g self raising flour - Doves Farm
25g Cocoa Powder
1tsp vanilla essence
1/2 tsp baking powder
1tbsp soya milk
Dairy free chocolate buttons/chips/crushed up chocolate bar

You simply mix all your ingredients together in the above order and pour the mixture into a baking tin. I used a small rectangular one as I wanted small squares. Bake at 180C (pre heated) and leave for 20 minutes.

Tip: Make sure your tin is greased AND lined and  don't open the oven door too early as your cake may sink!

After baking, allow your cake to cool before cutting it into small squares, as many as you can manage and decorate with some chocolate sauce or icing. Sprinkle a few hazelnuts on top and you have yourself a delightfully simple but yummy little chocolate cake! And I'm making it count!!

Do head on over to all the baking fun with Helen and Jenny! I'm off to look at some more tasty bakes and get ready for next weeks challenge!

CupcakeMumma