We are still here!

I thought I'd just write a quick post to explain the lack of posts over the last week;

Things have been pretty hectic here with two ill children, half term week etc so I haven't had much free time, I'll be making up for it soon with excellent new recipes in the works along with more still to come from the old site and numerous reviews.

Watch this space :) 

On a different note I was amazed to see that we came very close to 2000 unique views last month which is incredible considering the new site has only been up for a few weeks and I haven't done any promotion work yet!

What's more whilst about 80% of those views were by people here in the UK we also have regular visitors from a few other European countries, North America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and even China! 

Thanks for visiting and please do leave comments and share photos of recipes you have tried!

Gluten Free Lemon Drizzle Cake

Time for another old recipe originally from 2007, like many of our recipes this one was inspired by my nan's old 1940's 'Good Housekeeping Guide' although the recipe had to be adapted quite a lot to get the texture right.

Preparation time -  ~15 minutes
Cooking time - ~45 minutes (less for a fan assisted oven)
Makes / Serves - 8-10 average sized scones
Child friendly - 3/5
Difficulty rating - 1/5

Ingredients:

225 g gluten-free self-raising flour alternative
225 g caster sugar
225 g butter (or good quality spreadable)
3 eggs (lightly beaten)
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
lemon zest - from two lemons

Drizzle:

100 g caster sugar
lemon juice - from two lemons

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C / 350 F / Gas Mark 4 and prepare a loaf tin by lining with baking paper (not necessary if using a silicone loaf mould).
2. In a large bowl combine the flour, sugar and xanthan gum, mix well.
3. Add the butter and eggs, mix until smooth either by hand or using an electric hand mixer.
4. Add the lemon zest and mix well by hand.
5. Pour the mixture into the loaf tin and bake in the centre of the oven for 45 minutes or until golden brown and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
6. Leave in the tin to cool slightly whilst preparing the drizzle.
7. In a bowl or small jug combine the lemon juice and caster sugar, mixing well.
8. Using a skewer or fork prick the cake all over and then pour the drizzle over the top.
9. Leave the cake in the tin to cool completely, the lemon juice will soak in and once cooled the sugar should leave a nice crisp topping.
10. Carefully remove the cake from the tin and serve!

Tips:

1. Remember - the cake should still be warm when the drizzle is poured over!
2. If you fancy something a little different this recipe also works with oranges, just replace the 2 lemons with 2 average sized oranges and only use around half of the juice! When making an orange drizzle cake the flavour benefits from also adding 20 - 25 g of ground almonds in step 2.

Review - Tesco Free From Pasta

For this review I'll be looking the three variants of Tesco Free From pasta shown below, penne, fusilli and spaghetti. All three are available from most Tesco stores and come in 500 g packs, which is the usual weight for dried pasta.

Firstly lets consider the pricing, at the time of writing all three packs cost £1.40 each which when put in perspective is actually very reasonable, here are some prices of 'normal' pasta for comparison:

Tesco fusilli / penne / spaghetti 500 g (standard range):   £0.85

Napolina fusilli / penne / spaghetti 500 g:   £1.30

Other branded fusilli / penne / spaghetti 500 g:   £1.30 - £2.09

Other branded fusilli / penne / spaghetti 500 g:   £1.30 - £2.09

So as you can see from the figures above although they are significantly more expensive than the standard Tesco pasta varieties they are priced very much at the lower end of standard branded pasta, which I think makes the pricing very reasonable.

Now lets move on to the products themselves. 

All three varieties are made with a blend of rice flour and maize flour, which is a common blend for gluten free pasta, though one notable difference is that the colour of this pasta is fairly 'normal' rather than having more of an orange colour like many other gluten free brands.

Cooking times are slightly shorter than 'normal' pasta but only very slightly, meaning that if your cooking a family meal you can cook both 'normal' and gluten-free pasta at the same time and not have to worry about different cooking times.

We found that both the penne and fusilli were very good quality and once a sauce is added they are almost indistinguishable from 'normal' pasta taste wise, they do have a slightly different texture but the difference is small enough that it doesn't take long to forget about it completely, in fact many people may not even notice. You do need to be careful not to over cook them by more than a couple of minutes though as they go extremely soft and start to fall apart. The fusilli also lends itself very well to pasta bakes where it is oven cooked from raw, it cooks evenly and takes up the flavours of the sauce as well as 'normal' pasta. One final point worth mentioning is that a little salt in the water is essential to stop the pasta sticking together whilst boiling!

The spaghetti is a little different, whilst it is also very good taste and texture wise we have found it all but impossible to cook it without it clumping together to some extent. Like the other two varieties a little salt is essential, otherwise you will end up with it all sticking together, but unlike the other two great care needs to be taken to prevent clumping even with salt added. We haven't been able to stop it clumping completely but we find that breaking the spaghetti in half and stirring the pan every 20 seconds or so during cooking minimizes it, not an ideal solution but from what we have experienced it is a common problem with gluten free spaghetti in general.

Our conclusion...

All three pastas are good value for money. The penne and fusilli are perfectly good alternatives for people on a gluten-free diet and can be used for anything you would use their 'normal' versions for. The spaghetti on the other hand is comparatively difficult to work with and whilst it tastes good you will have a difficult time preventing it from clumping together whilst cooking, a problem that seems to plague every gluten-free spaghetti we have tried.

Tesco Free From Penne 500 g              9/10
Tesco Free From Fusilli 500 g             9/10
Tesco Free From Spaghetti 500 g       7/10

Gluten Free Sweet / Teatime Scones

This is a sweet twist on the new cheese scones recipe we posted last week and perfect for a picnic or cream tea, just add some fresh cream and jam!

Preparation time -  5 minutes
Cooking time - ~15 minutes (less for a fan assisted oven)
Makes / Serves - 6 average sized scones
Child friendly - 3/5
Difficulty rating - 1/5

Ingredients:

200 g gluten-free plain flour alternative
25 g caster sugar
40 g butter (or good quality spreadable)
100 g natural yoghurt
50 ml milk (plus extra for brushing)
1 tablespoon gluten-free baking powder
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum (optional)

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 230 C / 450 F / Gas Mark 8 and prepare a baking tray by lightly greasing or lining with baking paper.
2. In a large mixing bowl combine the flour, caster sugar, baking powder and xanthan gum, mix well.
3. Add the butter and rub into the dry ingredients with your fingers until it has a consistency similar to breadcrumbs.
4. Add the milk and yoghurt, then use a spoon to blend everything together into a dough.
5. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and kneed gently until it reaches a consistency that can easily be rolled out.
6. Roll out the dough to a thickness of around 2-3cm and cut out the scones with a 5 cm round cutter (or similar), re-rolling the left over dough and cutting out more until you run out of dough.
7. Arrange the scones on your baking tray, leaving as much space between them as possible, and brush them with a little milk.
8. Put the baking tray near the top of the oven and bake for around 15 minutes or until risen evenly browned.
9. Leave on the tray to cool for a few minutes before transferring to a rack to cool completely.

Tips:

1. If you do not have a suitable cutter just improvise with an upturned ramekin, small glass, or something similar!
2. This recipe can be easily adapted to make traditional fruit scones by adding either 80-100 g of halved or quartered glacé cherries or 50-60 g of sultanas.

Photos & Feedback

If you have made one of our recipes and taken a photo we would love to see it, with your permission we will share it on here and might even update that recipe to include it!

Also if you have any feedback on our recipes, a suggestion or a request then we would love to hear from you, you can either leave a comment on one of our posts or e-mail us at the following address:

admin@coeliacfriendly.co.uk

We look forward to hearing from you!

Gluten Free Coffee and Walnut Cake

This is another recipe from the old site, originally posted in 2008, and another one adapted from my Nan's old cookbook. Like our other sponge based recipes we have now tweaked it to include xanthan gum which although optional definitely results in a better sponge, whether you are on a gluten-free diet or not this is one very tasty cake!

Preparation time - under 30 minutes
Cooking time - 30 minutes (slightly less for a fan oven)
Makes / Serves - serves ~10
Child friendly - 3/5
Difficulty rating - 2/5

Ingredients:

150 g gluten-free self-raising flour alternative
110 g softened butter (or good quality spreadable)
110 g golden caster sugar
75 g walnut halves
2 eggs (lightly beaten)
1/4 teaspoon xanthan gum (optional)
3 teaspoons warm water
2 teaspoon good quality instant coffee granules

Icing & decoration:

175 g softened butter (or good quality spreadable)
350 g icing sugar
4 teaspoons warm water
4 teaspoons good quality instant coffee granules
75 g walnut halves

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 170 C / 330 F / Gas Mark 3 and prepare a cake tin by greasing or lining with baking paper (unless using a silicone cake mould).
2. In a large bowl combine the flour, sugar and xanthan gum, mix well.
3. Pour the water into a small bowl, add the coffee granules and mix with a spoon until completely dissolved.
4. Add the butter, eggs and coffee mixture to the bowl, mix well either by hand or using an electric hand mixer.
5. In a small bowl crush the walnut halves into small pieces and then add to the mixture, mix well.
6. Pour the mixture into your tin / mould and bake in the centre of the oven for 30 minutes, or until evenly browned and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Leave to cool in the mould / tin for at least 15 minutes before transferring to a rack to cool completely.

Method (icing):

1. Pour the water into a bowl, add the coffee granules and mix with a spoon until completely dissolved.
2. Put the icing sugar and butter in a separate bowl and mix well.
3. Add the coffee mixture to the bowl and mix well.
4. Spread the icing evenly over the top of the cake and decorate with the walnut halves.

Tips:

1. If catering for someone with a nut allergy you can just remove the walnuts from the recipe, it works well as just a plain coffee cake!
2. Remeber that the xanthan is optional, if you don't have any the recipe still works fine without it but will have a slightly drier, firmer consistency.
3. If you do not have golden caster sugar you can just use normal caster sugar instead, their is only a small difference in taste and colour.

Abigails Gluten Free Cheese Scones

We came up with this recipe just a few months ago when Abigail needed an alternative recipe for her cooking class at school, we were amazed at just how well they came out and only had to make a couple of minor tweaks to the recipe!

Preparation time -  5 minutes
Cooking time - ~15 minutes (less for a fan assisted oven)
Makes / Serves - 6 average sized scones
Child friendly - 3/5
Difficulty rating - 1/5

Ingredients:

200 g gluten-free plain flour alternative
40 g butter (or good quality spreadable)
100 g natural yoghurt
40 g mature cheddar cheese
50 ml milk (plus extra for brushing)
1 tablespoon gluten-free baking powder
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/2 teaspoon salt

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 230 C / 450 F / Gas Mark 8 and prepare a baking tray by lightly greasing or lining with baking paper.
2. In a large mixing bowl combine the flour, baking powder, xanthan gum and salt, mix well.
3. Add the butter and rub into the dry ingredients with your fingers until it has a consistency similar to breadcrumbs.
4. Add the cheese, milk and yoghurt, then use a spoon to blend everything together into a dough.
5. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and kneed gently until it reaches a consistency that can easily be rolled out.
6. Roll out the dough to a thickness of around 2-3cm and cut out the scones with a 5 cm round cutter (or similar), re-rolling the left over dough and cutting out more until you run out of dough.
7. Arrange the scones on your baking tray, leaving as much space between them as possible, and brush them with a little milk.
8. Put the baking tray near the top of the oven and bake for around 15 minutes or until risen evenly browned.
9. Leave on the tray to cool for a few minutes before transferring to a rack to cool completely.

Tips:

1. If you do not have a suitable cutter just improvise, for the scones pictured Abigail actually used a small glass ramekin!
2. You could easily adjust this recipe to your taste, for example you could use a different cheese, add 3 teaspoons of dried onion, 1 teaspoon of dried herbs, a combination of these or something completely different, be creative!

Gluten Free Banoffee Pie (No Cook)

This is a personal favourite of mine that we first posted on the old site in 2007. Ingredient wise it's not really that different to a standard banoffee pie but we came up with the proportions and method one afternoon without using a recipe and have stuck to doing it this way ever since!

Preparation time -  20 minutes + chilling time
Cooking time - 0 minutes
Makes / Serves - 8-10
Child friendly - 3/5
Difficulty rating - 2/5

Ingredients:

150 g gluten-free shortbread
150 g gluten-free digestive biscuits
65 g butter
110 g caster sugar
1 tin (397 g) Nestlé Carnation Caramel
3 average sized bananas
400 ml double cream
10 g icing sugar
2 teaspoons cocoa

Method:

1. Place all the biscuits in a large bowl and crush into a crumby consistency (we use the end of a wooden rolling pin), or alternatively use a food processor.
2. Heat the butter in a medium sized pan over a low heat until completely melted.
3. Remove the butter from the heat and add to the crumbled biscuit, mix well.
4. Press the mixture evenly into a 24-28 cm tart tin with a removable base, then place in the fridge and leave to chill for  at least 20 minutes before continuing.
5. Remove the tin from the fridge and transfer the base onto a serving plate.
6. Spread half of the caramel evenly over the biscuit base.
7. Cut the bananas into thick slices and press evenly into the caramel layer, the top of the banana slices should ideally be just below the height of the bases edge.
8. Carefully spread the remaining caramel over the banana slices and into the gaps between them.
9. In a jug mix the cream and icing sugar and beat until it forms soft peaks, be careful not to make the cream too thick if using an electric hand mixer.
10. Spread the cream evenly over the top of the caramel and base, then sift the cocoa over the top.
11. Chill for a minimum of 40 minutes before serving.

Tips:

1. Rather than using cocoa you could melt around 100 g of dark chocolate and drizzle it over the top of the cream, just make sure you let the melted chocolate cool slightly before drizzling.
2. For a base with more crunch reduce the amount of butter by 5 g and instead of refrigerating it in step 4 cook it in the oven for around 10 minutes at 180 C / 350 F / Gas Mark 4, allow to  completely cool before continuing to step 5.

Gluten & Dairy Free Sponge Cakes

We originally developed this recipe in 2008 for a primary school party. We needed a completely allergen free recipe to cater not only for Abigail but also for a child with a dairy intolerance and after a few days tinkering we came up with this one, it has changed a little since then though with the optional inclusion of xanthan gum to improve the texture.

Preparation time -  15-20 minutes
Cooking time - 15-20 minutes
Makes / Serves - 1 large cake, 12 small cakes or 6 muffins
Child friendly - 4/5
Difficulty rating - 2/5

Ingredients:

120 g gluten-free self-raising flour alternative
110 g caster sugar
 1/4 teaspoon xanthan gum (optional)
3 eggs

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C / 350 F / Gas Mark 4 and prepare your cake tin/s or cases.
2. Place the eggs in a large mixing bowl and beat until thick and pale, this can take a very long time by hand an so using an electric hand mixer is highly recommended, even by this method it will  take at least 6 minutes but is essential for a good texture.
3. Gradually add the sugar (around a quarter at a time), beating the mixture well after each addition.
4. If using xanthan gum then combine this with the flour in a separate bowl and mix well.
5. Add the flour to the eggs and fold into the mixture. Sifting rather than pouring the flour can make it easier to get a smooth mixture, you shouldn't use the electric hand mixer at this stage unless you have problems getting a smooth mixture.
6. Spoon the mixture into your tin/s or cases, gently smoothing the top if making a large cake and dividing equally between the cases if making small cakes of muffins.
7. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes if making a large cake, or 15 minutes for small cakes or muffins. Or until the cake/s appear golden brown and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
8. Leave the cake/s to cool in the tin/s for a minimum of 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Tips:

1. This recipe is perfect for parties as it caters for both gluten and dairy free diets and is tasty enough that everyone can enjoy it. A large one is the perfect base for a birthday cake, which you can decorate however you want or small ones can be turned into fairy cakes, cupcakes, or decorated in any number of other ways, be creative!
2. This recipe is the perfect base for any number of cake and muffin types, replace 20 g of the flour with cocoa to give it a chocolatey twist, or add chocolate chips, fudge chips, glacé cherries, dessicated coconut or any other ingredients that takes your fancy, once again.. be creative!

Gluten Free Battered Fish

A new recipe for 2013 this is a heavily updated batter recipe for coating which we have tweaked to perfection over the last few months, to suit your personal taste or to coat other foods, for example sausages, you might still want to vary the amount of flour a little (10-15 g less or more depending on desired consistency).

Preparation time - ~5 minutes
Cooking time - ~5-8 minutes
Makes / Serves - makes enough batter to coat 4 average sized cod fillet portions
Child friendly - 1/5
Difficulty rating - 2/5

Ingredients:

130 g gluten-free plain flour alternative
80 ml warm water
50 ml milk
1 tsp baking powder
extra flour for coating
vegetable or sunflower oil for frying

Method:

1. Put the flour and baking powder into a jug and mix well.
2. Add the water and milk and beat until a smooth mixture is obtained, set aside.
3. Put some extra flour onto a plate. Dredge both sides of each fish portion in the flour, shaking off any excess but ensuring a thorough coating, and place to one side.
4. Heat your oil, testing the temperature by dripping in a little batter, the batter should instantly start to give off bubbles and cook to golden in 2-3 of minutes. If using a deep fat fryer a temperature of 180-190 C should be used depending on the model and capacity of the fryer.
5. Dip each fish portion into the the batter one at a time, quickly placing them into the oil, you may need to cook them singularly or in pairs depending on frying method.
6. Cook each portion for around 5-8 minutes or until golden brown all over.

Tips:

1. This is a great all purpose coating batter but you will possibly need to make it thicker or thinner for coating different foods, for example the recipe works as is for for most fritters but needs to have about an extra 10-15 g of flour added for sausages.
2. You don't need a deep fat fryer or pan full of oil to cook this! A good quality deep frying pan with around 1 cm of oil, over a medium-high heat, works very well, you will need to turn the fish roughly every 3 minutes using this method and cooking times will be 1-2 minutes longer overall.
3. If you want a lighter, more bubbly, batter you could use sparkling spring water instead, just make sure the water is at room temperature and not chilled. Likewise you could also use warm 'gassy' beer  instead of water if you prefer a beer batter.