Friday, 22 June 2012

Vegan Brownies

I came across this recipe a few weeks ago but haven't had the opportunity to try it out. The weather had been pretty favourable lately and with my mum up for a visit, the kids and I have been gallivanting around with her. After all sunny days are such a 'rare occurance' in Britain it just didn't seem right to waste the sunshine and spent it indoors baking! However I had the opportunity today what with the heavens generously showering us with rain and D having some sort of a stomach bug which had him throwing up half the night, it certainly wasn't a good day to take our itchy feet out for exploring. So to cheer myself and D up, I decided to make some vegan brownies.

The recipe seemed easy enough and I had most of the ingredients. Read some of the comments under the reviews and decided to do some adjustments to the recipe. Yeah, yeah ... my itchy head can just never seem to leave recipes alone. :)

Anyway here are the results and I was pretty satisfied with it. It wasn't too sweet and it wasn't dry although I lessen the amount of oil in the original recipe. J loved it but unfortunately D didn't seem to have an appetite. Poor little guy he must be feeling really awful as it was so unlike him to refuse something chocolatey.

Just out of the oven

Cooling on the rack

Brownies anyone?

The Recipe

Ingredients
200g gluten free flour
50g wholegrain spelt flour
55g stevia blend
75g vegan dark chocolate (chopped)
55g organic cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
100ml maple syrup
100ml oat milk
50g raw almond butter
125ml vegetable oil
1 tsp almond extract

Method
  1. Preheat oven at 160C
  2. In large bowl add flour, stevia, chopped chocolate, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Stir until it looks evenly mixed.
  3. Add in almond butter. Pour in maple syrup, oat milk, vegetable oil and almond extract. Mix well until the mixture looks evenly blended.
  4. Spread in baking tin (9x13 in)
  5. Bake for 15 mins until top is no longer shiny. Cool for 10 mins before cutting into squares.



Friday, 15 June 2012

The Pandan Project - Part 2

There is a saying 'Why change something when you know it works?' But then again why not? There was nothing wrong with Betty Saw's 'Never Fail Pandan Cake Recipe'. My only concern about it is that it is quite heavily laden with sugar!!! 300g is quite a lot in my opinion.Well if you limit yourself to just one piece a day it may not be that bad for you but try telling that to a 3 year old! There has to be a way round this. My ultimate aim after all was to try to give D a gluten-sugar-diary free diet as much as possible. Would the recipe work if I replace sugar with stevia blend and self raising flour with a gluten free version?

I did a search on the web and found that it was possible to make chiffon cake with gluten free flour if xanthum gum was added to the mixture. It was also possible to make it with stevia in combination with cane sugar (in this case a reduced amount of sugar was used). However I have not found a combination for a sugar free/gluten free version. Was it possible to create one?

Baking is pretty much a science like chemistry and to substitute ingredients we need to understand what part it plays in the baking process. From what I've read sugar does not only sweeten but also adds bulk and volume. Chiffon cakes depend on sugar for its lift and volume. Gluten in the flour serves to form the network which holds the cake together. If we took some of the sugar and gluten out of the equation and compensated the loss of sugar with extra liquid (coconut milk) would it still work?

The only way of knowing is to experiment and find out. Good lab practice usually entails replacing one thing at a time but ... :P

Experiment 1:
Replace self raising flour with gluten free self-raising flour. The gluten free self-raising flour (Dove's brand) has xanthum gum premixed in it.
Added 100g sugar instead of 300g to egg white
Added 50g stevia blend plus 2 tbls of maple syrup to egg yolks
Increase volume of coconut milk from 125ml to 300ml

The cake was rather fragile and broke apart when getting out of the tin

Cross-section of the cake it. Doesn't look too bad!
The result:
The cake did rise but was rather fragile and part of it fell apart when removing from the tin. Other than that it still looked and tasted like pandan cake even though it was slightly 'wetter' than usual (probably as a result of the extra coconut milk).

Experiment 2:
Same as the above except I added a tsp of xanthum gum and reduce the amt of coconut milk to 200ml!

Slightly better looking cake but still rather fragile

Cross section of the cake
The result:
The cake was still fragile but a bit more stable than previous. Taste wise I still preferred the one from the first experiment. Xanthum gum makes the mixture a bit too 'gummy' for my liking!

Conclusion:
It is possible to have a gluten free and low sugar version of the cake but you'll have to sacrifice the presentation so I think I'll save this version for my kids only. Guests at my house can have the Betty Saw version!

Thursday, 31 May 2012

The Pandan Project - Part 1

When you have lived overseas for a long time there will be some things that you will inadvertently miss about home ... family, friends and food that was once part and parcel of your life. One of these which I have often long for since I left home is the Pandan Chiffon Cake. You can get Pandan Chiffon Cakes in England but you have to go down to Chinatown in London and as I don't live anyway near London that's pretty much out of my reach. Yeah yeah I can take the train but that's going to cost a bit and as much as I miss Pandan Cake I'm not that desperate to spend so much money on train fares to satisfy my cravings ... honestly! :) Of course baking it is an option but ... I've never had luck with Chiffon Cakes and besides I couldn't find any Pandan Paste or Pandan Leaves (also known as screwpine leaves) down at the Chinese Supermarket in Sheffield. However through a stroke of luck I happened to discover that there was an asian store in Doncaster and so persuaded my hubby to go there one Saturday so that I could 'kaypo' (nose) around just to see what they stocked. I was in the shop out of curiousity and wasn't looking for anything in particular so it was an unexpected surprise that while browsing through some shelves I found the pandan paste! Yippee!

There is a SE Asian Cooking FB group which has loads of recipes and one of the members had posted a recipe of the 'Never Fail Pandan Cake Recipe' by Betty Saw. Having seen some of the successful attempts by the members of the group inspired me to have a go at making my own. Remembering all my failed attempts at chiffon cake baking I was skeptical if mine would turn out alright. But much to my surprise and delight it did! The recipe was truly a 'never fail'. ;)

First attempt at making Pandan Chiffon Cake

A slice of Pandan cake for D

 The Recipe

 

  • Ingredients
    7 large egg whites
    150 gm castor sugar
    ½ tsp cream of tartar
    7 egg yolks
    150 gm castor sugar

    Mixture A
    6 tbsp corn oil
    ¼ tsp cream of tartar
    2 tbsp pandan juice (or ½ tbsp pandan paste)
    1 tsp vanilla essence
    125 ml/½ cup thick coconut milk

    150 gm self-raising flour

    Procedure
    Whisk egg whites, sugar and cream of tartar in a electric mixer until stiff and mixture holds its shape.

    In a separate bowl, whisk egg yolks and sugar until light and creamy. Stir in Mixture A. Sift in self-raising flour and fold gently. Pour egg yolk mixture into egg white mixture and carefully mix gently and evenly.

    Pour into an ungreased 23 cm tube pan and bake in a moderate oven (175 C/340 F) for 45-50 minutes until lightly browned on surface. Remove from the oven and invert mould immediately. Allow to cool thoroughly before removing from pan.

The kids love this cake and I was glad to share a bit of 'Singapore' with them. D especially seem to have fallen in love with this lovely, soft and velvety green cake and kept asking me to make some more. Hmmmm ... I'll have to think about that!!!

Wednesday, 30 May 2012

Banana Chocolate Chip Bread (Egg Free, Gluten Free and Diary Free)

Had 3 ripe bananas left over from our weekend trip to Filey. Was think of making a gluten free banana cake when I came across this recipe. It looked easy and fuss free. Just the kind of recipe for a busy mum of two rascals! I modified it a little using whatever ingredients I had on hand. 

Just out of the oven

The brown bits are cacao nibs which give the bread a lovely nutty flavour

The Recipe


Ingredients
65g Stevia Blend
2 tbls Maple Syrup
70g Cashew Nut Butter
250g Plain Gluten Free Flour*
4 tsp Baking powder
1/4tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
1/4tsp salt
3 mashed bananas
5 tbls almond milk
20g cacao nibs
20g vegan dark chocolate (gluten and diary free)* -chopped into small pieces

Method
  1. Combine all the ingredients (except milk) and mix.
  2. Add milk and mix well.
  3. Grease loaf tin and bake in pre-heated oven at 180C for 45/50 mins or until a skewer comes out clean.
  4. Cool for 20/30 mins.

 *Dove's Farm Gluten Free Flour Blend, Kinnerton Luxury Dark Chocolate (nut free, dairy free, gluten free and egg free)

Chickpea Chocolate Cake

Who would have thought that the humble chickpea would make a great chocolate cakes? I certainly didn't. It most definitely isn't a usual ingredient that one would find in cakes! I was a bit of a skeptic when I first saw the recipe. I'm not exactly a fan of chickpeas but nevertheless decided to give it a go and I've been a convert ever since. And the best thing about it is that my kids absolutely LOVE it! Who would have thought that they would love chickpeas. It's such a novel way of getting some protein into my kids' diet.
This was the cake we had for our Easter tea.




The inside of the cake was nice and moist!
The kids enjoyed the cake so much that I decided to make another one for J's 2nd Birthday. Only this time I used vegan dark and white chocolate (by Organica) for the ganache so that it was totally diary free. It turned out really nice too!
J's birthday cake decorated with his favourite fruits

The Recipe

I got my inspiration from these websites: all recipes and chickpea recipes and adapted them to be more sugar and dairy free. 

Ingredients
460g chickpeas (drained weight)
4 eggs
1 tbsp vegetable oil
75g stevia blend (pure stevia extract blended with erythritol)
2 tbsp maple syrup
2g baking powder
20g ground almonds
20g cacao nibs
1 tsp almond extract
60g dark chocolate (G&B's 72% dark cooking chocolate)
120g milk chocolate (G&B's 37% milk cooking chocolate)

Ganache
250ml Coconut Cream (can also use Oat cream)
200g chocolate (30g milk chocolate, 110g dark chocolate, 60g cacao butter)
1 tsp almond extract (optional)
15g stevia (optional)
2 tbsp maple syrup (optional)

Method
  1. Heat oven to 170C. Lightly grease cake tin with oil.
  2. Blend chickpeas, eggs and oil until smooth. If the blender is big enough add the rest of the dry ingredients and blend. Otherwise pour the chickpea mixture into a mixing bowl and mix the rest of the dry ingredient. Melt the chocolate and add to mixture. Mix well.
  3. Pour the cake mixture into the tin and bake for about 40 mins or until skewer comes out clean. Cool cake before taking it out of tin.
  4. Prepare Ganache: Put the chocolate, almond extract, stevia and maple syrup into a bowl. Heat the cream and pour the hot mixture over the chocolate. Mix until it is smooth. Cool the mixture until it quite thick (thin enough to pour but thick enough not to be free flowing). Pour it over the cake mixture.

N.B
Maple syrup is optional. I only use it because it helps to mask the 'medicinal' taste of stevia which while not unpleasant just tastes weird if you're not used to it.
For the ganache it is not necessary to use a mixture of chocolate. I only use a mixture as I didn't have enough dark chocolate. And can leave out the stevia and maple syrup too. 

Tuesday, 29 May 2012

A new adventure

It's been a long while ... a very long while since I updated this blog. So many things have happened in between since I last penned that last post. For one thing D is now 3 going on 4, a child with pretty much a mind of his own. 

In the first two years D was a good eater, ate almost everything that was sat before him and yes even spicy singaporean food. However as he got older he has become more and more fussy though he still does like his curries! Last year he had a bad case of eczema which lasted for months! The creams which the doctors prescribed didn't help very much. So I started reading up on eczema and the more I read up about the subject convinced me that to keep his eczema under control we had to have a change in his diet. It seems that eczema can be triggered off by gluten, sugar and diary ... all the stuff which D loves. Changing D's diet wasn't going to be a problem the challenge would be getting him to eat it. 

I didn't want to deprive D of all the stuff he loves but there must be ways to make them healthier. So I started researching into healthier alternatives for gluten/wheat, sugar and diary and in the process I've discovered a whole new insight to cooking and baking. Being a trained chemist I relish the prospect and challenge of using unconventional ingredients in traditional recipes. It has certainly made my life and that of my family's very interesting. So hence I've decided to revive this blog so that I can document and share some of my crazy cooking adventures ...  who would have thought a former laboratory rat now turned into a kitchen rat! :)