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).

Three-tier wedding carrot cake

I made this three-tier carrot cake for the wedding of our friends Becky and Luke. It was a really moist and flavoursome cake, given texture with a mixture of plain and wholemeal flour and ground almonds, chopped pecans and rum-soaked raisins, and spiced with cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg. I topped it with a classic cream cheese icing, and decorated it with a colourful array of fruit to go with the rainbow colour theme of the wedding. 

Energy balls!

I spent a lovely weekend helping out at my friends Ellie and Ruadhan's yoga festival, and had a little stall selling vegan, gluten free energy bars and flapjacks. This recipe was the out-and-out winner, selling out in minutes! 

Banana, date and rum loaf cake - wheat-free, sugar-free and fat-free!

Our new year's resolution is to try to get healthy. We've started going to the gym (I know, I can hardly believe it myself) and watching the calorie counter on the cycling machines tell you that you've sweated for 10 minutes and only burned about five crisps is slightly soul-destroying, not least as it's made me feel guilty about eating cake.  One of the greatest pleasures in life!  So I have to find a way to make guilt-free cakes. This is my first attempt - it is a fat-free, sugar-free and wheat-free cake - and amazingly, it still tastes delicious!  Made with puréed dates, dried apricots and mashed banana, it's lovely and sweet without the need to add any extra sugar.  Instead of flour it uses a bit of cornmeal (or you could try polenta) to bind it together, and is full of pecans, dried cranberries and sultanas, and finished off with a good glug of dark rum (we all need a little naughtiness...).  As good as any fruit cake, and no guilt attached!

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!

Fruit cake (7 inch square)

I’ve been asked by my friend Debbie in work to make a three-tiered wedding cake for her friend Lorna’s wedding in October.  We’re about to go on holiday for a fortnight, so I decided to get a head start and make the fruit cake for the top tier before we leave.  I’m then going to give it to Debbie to cake sit for me, and feed it brandy every few days while we’re away!

Carrot, orange and almond cake (flourless)

This is another test recipe for Ellie and Ru’s wedding cake in Sark in June – carrot cake is Ru’s favourite so one of the tiers has to be carrot!  I thought as well as a vegan tier (my vegan lemon cake) I’d try to make a gluten-free cake for any coeliacs at the party.  Today we had a sunny bank holiday lunch on the waterfront in Cardiff Bay for my sister’s birthday (who is also a coeliac) so I decided to give it a whirl and we had it in our garden afterwards.  This is a version of a Venetian carrot cake based on a Nigella Lawson recipe, but I’m using orange instead of lemon, and almonds instead of pine nuts.  

Danish apple cake

I'm not sleeping well at the moment and this morning woke up at 3am, completely unable to get back to sleep. My recipe for insomnia? Baking of course! So I found myself in the wee small hours peeling apples to make a version of a Danish apple cake. Traditionally this would be made with ground almonds, but I didn't have any and couldn't pop to the shop at that time of night (or morning) so used ground walnuts instead. Either works well I think. Again I used some gorgeous jewel-like crimson raisins (I recently used them in my spiced rum, raisin and dark chocolate cookies) but normal raisins or sultanas would work just as well. I'm not sure it's traditional to soak them first either, but I always like raisins so much better when they've been soaked in something so they plump up and become lovely and juicy. My only tip with this would be to make sure you really test it for done-ness before taking it out of the oven - it's easy to underbake it because of the thick layers of fruit on top of the cake batter. Delicious for breakfast any time of the day or night!

Spiced rum, crimson raisin and dark chocolate cookies

This is my take on that classic flavour combination, rum and raisin. The addition of allspice to the dough plus some big chunks of Bourneville dark chocolate makes this taste like Old Jamaica chocolate - it would be lovely to use that with this recipe too. It'd also be nice with dried cranberries, but the crimson raisins I used have an equally jewel-like red colour. These are deliciously Christmassy and indulgent and morish!

Fanouropita – a Greek olive oil and orange cake for the patron saint of lost things

This week, we’re off on holiday to the Greek island of Symi, near Rhodes.  I’ve been reading Tessa Kiros’s lovely book, ‘Food from Many Greek Kitchens’ and I fell in love with the idea of ‘Fanouropita’, a cake traditionally made today, on August 27th, the name day of Saint Fanourios, the patron saint of lost things.

Women in Greek villages, particularly in Rhodes and the neighbouring islands, bring the cake to church, where the priest blesses it with a special ceremony. The congregation asks for the saint’s mother’s sins to be forgiven, and then make a wish to Saint Fanourios for help to find something – good health and happiness, lost items, lost relatives, peace, etc. It is also said to help unmarried women 'find' the name of their future husband. After the Mass, the sweet cakes are cut and everybody shares pieces with each other.

Fanouropita can also be made at other times of the year if someone wishes to ask Saint Fanourios to find something or someone for them, or once you have found something lost you can bake this cake to show Saint Fanourios appreciation for his help. To honour the tradition, you then also need to distribute some pieces of the cake to friends or neighbours.

The cake must be made with seven or nine ingredients, as the power of  7 or 9 is said to have prophetic or magical properties. The ingredients are pure and nutritional Greek ingredients like olive oil and orange juice, all of them suitable for the Orthodox fasting, so there are no dairy products like eggs or butter in the recipe. Although Tessa Kiros’ recipe doesn’t say so, other traditional recipes I’ve looked at say that, in keeping with the tradition of 'finding things', the cake batter should contain nuts and dried fruits, so that as you eat it, your teeth will 'find things' in it.

Here is my version of Fanouropita based on several different traditional recipes. Mine includes sultanas soaked in orange liqueur and a mixture of nuts – I used almonds and walnuts, as they are in keeping with Greek produce.

Carrot and ginger cake with orange ginger drizzle

Today is the funeral of my dear friend and first love, Will.  After the service we're all gathering for tea and cake, and so this is one of my contributions - a comforting carrot and fresh ginger loaf cake with a lovely orange and gingery drizzle. 

Carrot cake

A yummy carrot cake to shake off the January blues...

Welsh cakes

I made Welsh cakes for the first time ever yesterday, with my niece and nephew Casey and James.  I've always thought they wouldn't work without a proper iron griddle or hot stone, but I tried it in a heavy-based frying pan and it worked fine!  The trick is just to keep it on a medium heat as the Welsh cakes burn on the outsides quite quickly if the pan is too hot.  Now that I've realised how easy this is, I can't wait to try it with other variations - dried cranberries, cherries or apricots, vanilla sugar, ginger, white chocolate chips... Fantastic served warm straight from the pan with a big pot of tea on a chilly winter Sunday.