Month: October 2017

Gluten Free Halloween Biscuits

~ Cakes by Noah ~ 4 Comments

Love this time of year 👻🍁🍂🎃 (I might have said that before 😀😀)

These rather ghoulish biscuits are a great gluten free treat for any party or after getting back after some Trick or Treat’ing.

Gluten free biscuits can be a bit hit and miss, in terms of recipe and baking. Many a time I have tried a recipe only for the finished bake to be one big puddle of dough.  It’s all in the lack of gluten, there isn’t anything to hold it together. So I tend to look at a mix of flours, rather than alternative binding agents.

These can be put together relatively quickly and require no ‘resting’ or putting in the fridge.

100g soft butter

180g Caster sugar

1 large egg

200g Rice flour

160g cornflour

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Green, black and red colouring

Pre-heat your oven to gas 5/180c/170c fan.

Line 3 trays with greaseproof

Beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy and then beat in the egg, then essence.

Sift together the 2 flours and then stir into the fluffy mix, until you can bring the whole lot together to form a soft but firm dough ball.  Divide the mix into 2 and add you colouring as desired.

Roll out to your desired thickness, roughly the thickness of a pound coin, 2-3mm and cut out the shapes using your desired cutter.

Depending on the size of your cutter, this recipe will make approx 20-25 cookies/biscuits.

Place the raw cookies on the lined trays and bake, one tray at a time, for approx 8-10 minutes. Leave to cool before removing from the tray.

I decorated with red coloured glacé icing, but you are of course free to decorate as you wish.

 

Gluten Free Movie Cake

~ Cakes by Noah ~ 4 Comments

Before I go too far, I do take my hat off to those bakers that make themed cakes for a living. It is a skill and an art. It takes a lot of patience and time. Practice is what I definitely need. But I did have some fun 😀😀😀

I started a couple of days before baking the actual cake. Which for an Anniversary.

Using Renshaws Modelling Paste, I rolled and cut the box sides out for the popcorn box and the sides of the cake decoration that will make up the camera film. Oh, and the film reel. Also using red modelling paste, to use as the red stripes on what will become the finished popcorn bag, once rolled and cut they were left for 2 days to dry out.

Once set firm, I spray painted the film reel using Dr Oetker Gold Shimmer spray (both sides) and left to dry out again.

The day before decorating I made the cake;

The basic recipe is for 2 x 7″ round cake tins and making a basic sponge;

– 200g soft butter

– 200g caster sugar

– 4 eggs

– 2 teaspoons vanilla essence

– 200g gluten free self raising flour

Either make this as using the all in one method, or use the creaming method. Either way, make and bake your sponge and leave to cool.

Once ready to cover, the cake was filled with vanilla buttercream and jam and then covered in buttercream also. Some much-needed kneading of the packet of ready to use fondant was required with a tube of Dr Oetker black colouring.  Once the desired tone is reached, it was rolled out and the cake was covered and smoothed.

It was here that I needed to find some patience and stick the bits on the cake! Using a small paint brush and a dob of water the dried modelling paste pieces were attached to the cake – the film reel top and sides.

I had already covered the cake board in fondant and added some gold sugar pearls for extra decorations.

The tricky part was sticking the popcorn box together…. and with a little more patience and some melted white chocolate I eventually succeeded. Left to dry, the popcorn box stands on its own on top of the cake.

The popcorn was added just before the reveal as it would have gone soft.

 

 

Gluten Free Halloween Cake

~ Cakes by Noah ~ 4 Comments

I think I secretly love this time of year. The ghosts and ghouls, the dark and devilish. Not sure about all the blood and gore! But it is rather fun. Certainly had a bit of fun with this cake – a wonderful centre piece for the Halloween table – and its gluten free!

Halloween has been gathering some momentum over here in the UK for the last 10 years. Not sure I had heard about it when I was little, Noah now loves this time of year (I think it’s the sweets when he goes Trick or Treating)

A chocolate cake with a buttercream filling with a gluten free chocolate krispies as the brain, decorated with Schar Cookies and chocolate buttons.

Based around a 7″ cake tin recipe, the first thing will be to make the ‘brain’. Which you could also make using white chocolate coloured red for extra goriness.

Prepare the night before to allow for the krispies to set;

  • A bowl that fits the base of your 7″ cake tin
  • 110g gluten free rice krispies
  • 180g melted chocolate

The curve of the bowl will form the curve of the head of the cake and fits nicely onto the finished cake prior to icing. Mix the krispies with the melted chocolate, pour into the bowl and press down with the base of the cake tin, then leave to set.

 

Pre heat the oven to Gas 4, 180c or 160c fan and line 2×7″ cake tins with greaseproof paper.

  • 100ml sunflower oil
  • 100g melted butter
  • 200g caster sugar
  • 4 large eggs
  • 50g cocoa (I use Food Thoughts)
  • 180g gluten free self raising flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Beat all the ingredients together, I used the paddle beater with my table top mixer, for about 5 minutes.

Pour the batter evenly into the 2 cake tins and bake for about 30 – 35 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out clean. Remove from the oven to cool, then take out of the tins.

Buttercream and topping;

  • 200g soft butter
  • 400g icing sugar
  • red food colouring
  • splash of milk
  • flavouring – optional
  • 1 packet of Schar cookies
  • 1 packet of chocolate buttons
  • 1 packet of ready to roll fondant icing

Beat the butter until its light and fluffy, then mix in the icing sugar before beating further until the buttercream is spreadable.  At this point add the colouring and any optional flavour and beat this in.

Carefully slice each cake in 2 and build using the buttercream – a couple of tablespoons of buttercream should be enough for each layer. Pop the set krispies on top and cover the whole cake with the buttercream. Smooth the buttercream ready to cover. Leave a little over as you can use this to stick the cookies to the cake.

Roll out the fondant icing, you’ll need to roll it fairly thin in order to cover the cake and leave enough extra to give the covering the ‘ghost’ like base.

Cut the cookies so that there is the cream like filling on one side and a plain biscuit on the other.

Use the buttercream to stick a chocolate button on the cookie, then to stick the cookie onto the cake.

 

Gluten Free Lemon and Blackcurrant Tart

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There is a theme running here somewhere?  There may well be, but when you have some ingredients that need using up, better to bake than waste.

The idea for the tart came from a recipe by Raymond Blanc found here on the Stylist.co.uk website, but with my little twist or two of gluten free. It is wonderfully light and fresh. Apologies for the Lego, Noah is currently loving the toy in its many guises, and it seems every known surface is covered in the stuff.

To make the pastry, for an 8″ flan case;

  • 200g gluten free plain flour
  • 100g diced, cold butter
  • 2 tablespoons icing sugar
  • zest of 1 lemon
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 1/2 teaspoon xanthum gum
  • cold water to bind

I used a food processor to blitz the flour, xanthum gum and butter into fine breadcrumbs. You could of course use your finger tips to do the same, using them to rub the flour and butter together. It just takes a little longer. Once you have achieved the breadcrumbs, stir in the egg yolk, lemon zest and sugar and enough cold water to bring it to a dough.  When adding the water I would suggest mixing this in a separate bowl and use your hands to bring the dough together.  I make the dough a little sticky as the flour will absorb some of the liquid. Once mixed together and you have a dough ball, wrap in cling film and pop in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

Pre heat the oven then to gas 4, 170c, 160c fan

To then make the filling;

  • 4 large eggs
  • 160ml double cream
  • 160g caster sugar
  • zest and juice of 2 lemons
  • 1 small tin, drained, of blackcurrants in juice, about 120g

Whisk the cream, eggs, sugar, juice and zest together and leave to infuse a little whilst you then remove the raw pastry from the fridge, roll out, line the flan case, prick the base, fill with greaseproof paper and baking beans and bake blind.  Bake with the beans for 10 minutes, remove from the oven, remove the lining and beans and then bake for another 20 minutes.

Remove from the oven and cool the pastry – Turn the oven down to gas 1, 160c, 140c fan

Trim your pastry if that is your thing and slowly pour in the egg and lemon mix.  Scatter and evenly distribute the blackcurrants around the creamy mix. Return to the oven to finish the bake for 25-30 minutes. The mix needs to be just set.

Cool and set for another hour before serving or leaving to go cold and serving later.