By Alice | Published:
January 13, 2013
I hope it is not too late to post these pictures! After a very relaxing Christmas it is taking quite a while to get back up to speed. I cook the turkey and vegetables, others in my family cook and bring the ham, the Christmas pudding, and the Christmas cake.
Gluten-free Christmas cake made by my aunt.
My Christmas sandwich, THE sandwich of the year. I look forward to this all year. It is ciabatta bread with every element of the Christmas meal inside.
Working with clay and paint with my sister (and Beep).
New Year’s Eve soba noodles with my dad as is traditional in Japan. Just Hungry has a good explanation and recipe of the tradition in this post on Year-End soba.
A friend’s decorations
New Year’s day was lovely and bright and sunny.
Also posted in Cooking, Savoury, Yum |
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.
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.
