Gluten-free malt loaf (just like Soreen!)

Soreen malt loaf is one of our family's favourite things so I've been wanting to master a making a gluten-free version that my son can eat. Malt extract is made from barley, so I have instead used rice syrup, available from health food shops (you could also use date syrup, for a darker colour and depth of flavour.) I have done a couple of experiments to get this recipe exactly right (I found for example that using treacle made it too rich, but adding a couple of spoonfuls of hot chocolate powder and a little maple syrup and vanilla extract help to achieve the perfect flavour; I also tried using dates and dried figs but it was too heavy a texture, so have instead stuck to a combination of lovely golden sultanas and the kind of dried fruit with mixed peel). This version nails it! 

Gluten-free granola

My son Mostyn is a big fan of granola but as he is gluten-free, we make our own using gluten-free oats (although they are naturally GF, wheat is often used in the rolling process so you need to make sure you buy oats specifically labelled as gluten-free). You can mix up the recipe as much as you want, varying the choice of nuts, seeds, dried fruit and even the type of oil, sweeteners (I like a mixture of honey, brown sugar and maple syrup, but golden syrup also works really well) and spices (which you could leave out altogether if you so wished).

Apricot, pistachio and maple energy bars

A vegan, gluten free, no-bake recipe I invented for my stall at the Allroots Festival.  These are really quick and easy to make, and would be great for breakfast or a mid-morning snack to take to work.

Maple, pecan and cranberry granola

I've been using lots of maple syrup and cranberries recently, inspired by their autumnal flavours to make comfort food as we head towards Christmas. This granola recipe was such a winner I had to include it on the blog - the combination of maple syrup with dried cranberries and ground pecan nuts, tossed together with a little honey, oats and golden linseeds makes a brilliant wintery breakfast, but is also great to have in a jar in the kitchen to eat by the handful as you're passing!

Maple and honey beer bread

This is a brilliant and super-quick bread, which uses beer instead of yeast - no kneading or proving required, just mix it all together and pop it in the oven in a loaf tin. I used a honey beer, and added a spoonful each of maple syrup and honey. It has a fantastic crunchy crust and is deliciously soft in the middle. It has a very slight after-taste of the honey and hops of the beer, and is quite sweet so could be eaten with honey or jam, but we had it with a beef and beer casserole and it went perfectly.

Cranberry, apple and maple pudding cake

Since it's Thanksgiving today, I thought I'd use up the last of the cranberries I had left over from my cranberry and clementine loaf cake-baking at the weekend and make something American-inspired. What better pairing than maple syrup, apple, cinnamon? This was inspired by a recipe which also contained cornmeal, another very American ingredient, and although I had some in the pantry from when I made cornbread, I have to confess none of us were that keen on its slightly grainy texture - so I decided to go for ground almonds instead! The result was a lovely warming dessert, somewhere between a pudding and a cake.

And as it's a time of giving thanks, I just wanted to say a great big THANK YOU! to all of you who've visited and enjoyed reading my blog. Today I hit the 20,000 visitor mark - something I'd never have dreamt would happen when I first started this to record my recipes. It's lovely getting feedback from those of you who have tried baking or just enjoyed looking at the cakes I've invented. Come back again soon!

Cream cheese blinis

It's Shrove Tuesday so we decided to have a whole pancake feast for supper this evening!  For a main course I made normal pancakes (Delia Smith is my go-to pancake recipe) which I filled with a garlicky mushroom and cream cheese filling, rolled up and baked with a sprinkle of cheese on top.  Then I made these cream cheese blinis - we had them as a savoury starter with smoked salmon and cream cheese, and then also as a sweet dessert, with blueberries, clotted cream and maple syrup.

Coffee, maple and ginger cake with maple-caramelised pecans

Today I went to visit my very pregnant friend Lucy for a cuppa and a catch up.  Her favourite cake is coffee cake, so I made this coffee cake with a twist - the flavour is intensified with fresh ginger and maple syrup, so it tastes like a gingerbread latte!  I iced it with a coffee and maple buttercream and decorated it with pecan nuts caramelised in a pan of bubbling maple syrup.

The sponge cake base is loosely based on Dan Lepard's recipe for coffee and ginger cake, but I forgot to add oil - it turned out fine though, I think because I added maple syrup and didn't include ground pistachios.  I also made it more moist by making a coffee syrup which I poured over the hot cake skewered with holes and left it to cool in the tin (inspired by Delia Smith's Austrian coffee and walnut cake, but I also added maple syrup and a little ground ginger).  Rather than Dan Lepard's lemon-cream cheese frosting or Delia's coffee mascarpone frosting, I opted for a simple buttercream flavoured with maple syrup and espresso.

Spiced berry maple betty

Tonight I cooked dinner for our friends Cath and Gregg – a lovely recipe for thyme-roasted belly of pork from Diana Henry’s amazing book, Food from Plenty.  I served it with yellow, orange and purple heritage carrots, purple sprouting broccoli, balsamic roasted red onions, and celeriac, mustard and parsley mash. Not bad, even if I say so myself!  Anyway, in browsing through Diana Henry’s book, my attention was grabbed by her recipe for blackberry, apple and maple brown betty.  She describes it as “a great, down-home American dessert that’s even easier to make than crumble.”  Anything described as “down-home” sounds good to me!

This is my adaptation of that recipe, but I used mixed frozen berries instead of apple and fresh blackberries.  Apart from that, and the addition of a little cinnamon, I’d followed her recipe exactly when I made this, which included so much sugar (mixed with the cake crumbs, and also mixed with the fruit before maple syrup is poured over them) that it was unbelievably sweet.  So here I’ve written the recipe without any extra sugar, as I’m sure it’s completely unnecessary.  Apart from that, it’s amazing – it feels a bit wrong to use cake instead of a crumble mixture, but wow it’s delicious – it’s so moist and soaks up lots of the fruit, so it’s a bit like a hot SummerPudding (which is my all-time favourite dessert)!