By Alice | Published:
October 17, 2012
My sister made these really cool paper decorations for my aunt’s birthday! I don’t know if you can tell but the stars are stuck on a window. I made this pear and hazelnut flourless cake (which was gluten free). I doubled the mixture because when I had tested out the recipe on work colleagues it had vanished extremely fast. The holes in the top are where the pears are. This recipe is now my favourite gluten free cake recipe, it was very tasty.
Edited to add: My sister says these are the instructions she used: Make Your Own Christmas Decorations
By Alice | Published:
August 15, 2012
My sister knitted my dad some birthday sushi!!
I keep mentioning it but the Elizabeth David chocolate almond cake is THE gluten free cake, you can’t go wrong with it. I went over the top here making two tiers, really you only need one. The cream was folded with apricot compote.
My family are my inspiration when it comes to color and pattern.
:)
By Alice | Published:
June 4, 2012
This was one of the most well received gluten free cakes that I have made for my family, and I have made quite a few! I had done an early trial at a friends BBQ where I made a buttercream icing, but I found it a bit too rich and not really the style I like so instead for this version I kept it casual looking and I folded some lemon curd into whipped cream and filled the cake with that. It was quite a sharp lemon curd and the result was very tasty. I would imagine that the lemon cream filling would have been nice on its own with fruit too.
This is the lemon cake recipe. It is a very simple cake to make and quite inexpensive too. The time consuming bit is that you need to boil the lemons for two hours so that they get lovely and soft. You can do this the day before and then keep in the fridge until ready. I would recommend using lemons that haven’t been waxed. Using the whole lemon gives a more grown-up lemon cake taste than something like a lemon drizzle (which I also love). If a different filling was used this cake could also be dairy free, so all-in-all a good cake to know about.
Also posted in Cooking, Gluten Free |
By Alice | Published:
April 15, 2012
I got fixed on the idea of coming up with a grownup striped jelly recipe that I could make both for my sister’s birthday, and the wedding of two friends where they were having a pudding competition. I experimented over about two months. Striped jelly (or ‘jello’) isn’t particularly a new thing but I didn’t want to use packet jelly. I did many flavour experiments by mixing juice with gelatin: grape, mango, pear, spiced blackberry, apple, strawberry, cherry, and probably more I can’t remember. It seemed to be that the more acidic fruits wouldn’t set that well, and some of the combinations were a bit odd. I also experimented with my jelly mould and bought this swirling shape cake tin
. It is one of those Nordic Ware pans, I really covet the village
, the trees
, and the acorn pan
too :)
This is the first experiment in the mould, strawberry and cream layers.
After all the experiments we decided the best flavour was cherry and condensed milk, here it is at my sister’s birthday, we had it with local G&D’s ice cream. It went down well and was gluten free as is needed for half my family. I left it in the fridge until the last minute and it was difficult to get out of the tin so the bottom layer got a bit damaged but I don’t think that mattered.
And here at the wedding. It was really fun to try the other desserts too, the really professional looking green cheesecake is by my friend Emilie, so tasty!
I don’t have a recipe to share per se as the instructions would vary depending on what the juice and setting agent of choice is, the basic idea is that the stripes are done by alternating two different jelly flavours, waiting for each layer to set before adding the next. There are however some tips that I do have:
Use a little more of the setting agent than the packet suggests if you need it to hold an unusual shape.
Leave lots of time! Each layer needs to be pretty solid before the next layer can go on.
Don’t pour the next layer on but instead use a ladle or spoon. If you just pour the impact can damage the layer below.
Grease the inside of the mould lightly with a flavourless oil to help the jelly come out of the mould.
If the jelly won’t come out of the mould hold the mould in hot water for a few seconds. Note that this may mean some of the jelly will melt so upend the jelly over a sink.
By Alice | Published:
January 30, 2012
1. Beep likes to snuggle.
2. One friend reading another friend’s Soviet joke book
, a lot of laughs ;)
3. Beep enjoying cat grass that I grew from a kit I was given at Christmas.
4. Ira.
5. The weather lately.
6. IPAD!! I have been loaned one and I love it. It’s my kind of gadget! I like to read lots of visual type sites about photography/design/cookery/art/gardening etc and this is perfect for that, much better than a computer. For the first time I am almost caught up with my RSS subscriptions. I am using the ‘Perfect RSS’ app which caches your feeds so you can read when not on a WIFI connection. My dilemma is about a case, there are so many ugly and expensive ones. The roll of fabric is there because I am trying to decide if I should make one.
7. Dinner at my mother’s house. Always nice! For dessert I brought over ice cream and made these brownie roll-out cookies dusted with a little bit of icing sugar. Tasty and I thought they were nicest the next day.
8. Pub. A crowd of us saying goodbye to a friend going back to Australia.
