apple cinnamon cup cakes, gluten free

I have just upped sticks and moved north away from family and friends to study.  In doing so, I have left behind the family home and swapped my shiny new (and almost perfect) kitchen for a rented and shared 2 bed back-to-back terrace with a 9'x5' kitchen.  Gone too are almost all my cookbooks, baking equipment and ingredients.  I have kept what I hoped was the right few bits, the bare minimum of working. multi-purpose items.  So far, I am not impressed with my selection!
On this damp, grey, very autumnal day I have just been exploring the 7 miles of walking tracks and trails that pass my front door. In one direction, a woodland trail to the city centre, my daily walk to uni. In the other, parkland and trails head north out of the city to the moors and farmland beyond.  Perfect for walking, running and lazing (come next summer).
Basking in a warm glow of self-congratulatory praise on this choice of location, I pulled out my baking kit with an urge to bake apple cake.   My pleasure at my selection of 'essential' items is not so warm.  But I have managed to knock these up after a quick trip to Waitrose (finally, one of those within walking distance too!).

These are super easy to make.  I used the blend of flour in the recipe simply because I have run out of rice flour, this blend does taste very nice but can equally be made with 110g each of rice flour + 110g buckwheat flour or 110g sorghum flour or 110g millet flour, or even another 110g rice flour - though this may be slightly gritty.  If you want to make these with wheat flour, use 220g Self Raising wheat flour with an additional 1.5tsp baking powder, and omit the xanthan gum.
The recipe made 18 cupcakes.

Ingredients

• 300g apples (either dessert or cooking apples are fine)
• 1.5 tsp ground cinnamon
• 80g dark muscavado sugar

• 120g rice flour
• 35g millet flour
• 35g sorghum flour
• 35g buckwheat flour
• 4.5 tsp baking powder
• 0.5 tsp xanthan gum

• 180g soft butter
• 180g light muscavado sugar
• 3 large eggs 
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Line muffin tins with cup cake liners and preheat the oven (fan) to 165°C.
2. Core and grate the apples (don't bother to peel them unless you really want to).
3. Mix the sugar and cinnamon together in a medium sized bowl then add the apple and combine thoroughly, before setting aside.
4. Sieve all the dry flour ingredients together and set aside.
5. Beat the butter and sugar together using a hand or stand mixer until they are soft, pale and creamy.
6. Add the vanilla extract and beat to blend thoroughly.
7. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating thoroughly before adding the next one.  If the mix begins to curdle add a tablespoon of the flour mix and beat again.
8. Now add the flour mix to the creamed mix and beat again until just combined.
9. Put a spoonful of cake batter into each cupcake liner spread and levelling the mix across the base of each liner, which should be just less than half full (I found a heaped dessertspoon worked for me).
10. Give the apple and sugar mix a good stir to mix the juices back in, then grab a teaspoon and put a heaped spoonful of mix on top of the cake batter in each liner.
11. Bake in the preheated oven for 15 mins, then rotate the tray(s) and bake for a further 5 minutes before removing from the oven.
12. Leave the cupcakes to cool for 5-10 minutes before removing from the trays and placing on a cooling rack until cold.
13. Dust with icing sugar once cold.
14. These cupcakes can be stored in the fridge for up to 3 days but can't be frozen (due to the fresh fruit).

gluten free pièce montée (Daring Bakers May 2010)

The May 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake. Cat challenged everyone to make a piece montée, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump’s Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri.

So, this month's Daring Baker challenge was to make a pièce montée or croquembouche.  This is an epic 3-D dessert of French and Italian origin and are served as wedding and baptism cakes in France.
A proper croquembouche (and mine is not quite) is a gravity defying pyramid of choux pastry puffs filled with sweet pastry cream and drizzled in caramel or maybe chocolate to provide some glue for construction purposes.  When I first figured out that the puffs were constructed around an inedible cone I was a bit disappointed, much the same as I when I (finally) realised that the 'celebration' cakes that languish in the windows of some bakeries are actually foam-filled moulds - Pah, humbug!
I decided that I wanted my version to be all edible though as a result, it is slightly less impressive than the architectural cone or cocktail stick versions.

The challenge recipe did not provide a gluten free alternative recipe so I used a recipe that I have been working on.

It isn't quite perfect or foolproof yet, so whilst the piped shapes puff up beautifully, they are not completely hollow inside.  Since I need to be able to fill the puffs with pastry cream, I cut a little hole out of the bottom of each puff and picked out the filling (which tends to sit on the bottom of the puff) then piped the filling in and replaced the bottom.














I used the suggested recipes for the sweet pastry cream which were chocolate and vanilla so filled half the choux pastry balls with each variety.  I like the element of surprise with different fillings, though last time I made this dessert with a raspberry mousse filling which was lovely too.

The most fun however, was in the decoration: spun sugar.  It was a damp day when I made the decoration which is not the best weather to be working with this delicate confection, you really need a dry tim environment, not Spring time (or any other time) in England.  I had to work fairly quickly to make the shapes then build the dessert and photograph it before the sugar softened.  I had no more than a couple of hours before the sugar began to soften and warp and the dessert began to gently collapse.  I got a bit carried away with the sugar spinning and made loads more than I needed.  Luckily the teen feels a need for empty calories (her definition) today so is crunching her way through it now!

And there we have it, a really fun daring baker challenge. I will publish the recipe once I have put the finishing touches to this gluten-free choux pastry recipe, then you should have a go at making one too.

vanilla ice cream recipe

I hesitate to say it, but I think that we may be slowly emerging from this long cold winter. Down here on the south coast, we have been taken aback by the volume and frequency of the snow, and I know even now it is too early to say it is past, merely that we may be over the worst!

The last burst of snow was heralded by the most rapid freeze I have ever experienced, it reminded me of a favourite film, The Ice Storm, and the creeping cracking ice grasping and enrobing everything in its' path. That Wednesday evening, wet rainy roads turned to sheet ice in a matter of minutes and our simple journey from one part of town to another became an epic adventure - sliding backwards down a hill, slipping off the road, into a wall and failing even to get over speed bump due to the lack of momentum and the severity of the ice. Having said all that you might think that our car was written off and we both ended up in neck braces, but no, all these manoeuvres were carried out gracefully at no more than 5 miles per hour, thankfully! The following day delivered an epic walk up iced hills to get to work, I fell over so many times on the way there, far too many times to count during a mere couple of miles walk!

I don't recollect ever spending a full winter sleeping in climbing socks, pj's, thermals and a fleece under a thick wool blanket and a down duvet. Crazy cold, or crazy susceptibility, at least. Whilst I haven't enjoyed the piercing cold it has, for some reason, awakened an interest in icecream. I have found myself thinking often about methods of making, ingredients and flavours. I have a list of recipes to try, but before I do, I thought that I would indulge in a flavour that I hope will be well received at home.

There seems to be a sudden fashion in our house for all things peanut butter related. My husband has always snacked on wholemeal toast with peanut butter and the teen could demolish boxes full of Reese's peanut butter cups given the chance, and I have recently become very fond of a bastardisation (or should I say adaptation?) of the Indonesian salad Gado Gado. This recipe isn't actually that far from the real mccoy, but most closely ressembles the gado gado salad that I remember feasting on at Rasa Sayang in Soho more than twenty years ago.  I am not sure how authentic that meal really was though it was definitely a great meal in wonderful company.  Isn't it funny how the memory of a good meal sticks with you, even down the years?

Anyway, back to peanuts. They have most recently made an appearance in a chocolate peanut ganache made to fill some not-too-good macarons I made. We decided not to fill them as, although tasty, they were not up to much visually. So with the choc peanut butter ganache on the worktop, I was at a loss for something to do with it. Not for long though, as my ice cream ponderings came flooding back.  I mixed up and churned a batch of vanilla ice cream, which in its' naked form is often ignored in our freezer.  However I split the mix in half and stirred half a batch of chocolate peanut ganache into half the ice cream before freezing.  I have managed to salvage a scraping to photograph whilst the plain vanilla has lingered untouched, so far.  I will crunch up the failed batch of chocolate macarons and stir them into this half batch, along with some crushed salted peanuts and grated Galaxy chocolate.  I know it won't be hanging round for long after that!

Vanilla ice cream

• 5 egg yolks
• 500g double cream
• 150g castor sugar
• 250g whole milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract (*please see foot note)
• a pinch of sea salt.

For a proper recipe and method, can I suggest that I have a look at David Lebovitz's blog and his vanilla ice cream recipe here.  My method is not ideal, indeed frankly, it is just lazy and it can easily go wrong!
Still, if you haven't heeded my warning, here is my method:

1. mix the egg yolks together with the vanilla extract in a 1 pint pyrex jug.
2. pour the cream, milk and sugar into a thick bottomed pan
3. heat the pan gently, stirring constantly until the sugar has dissolved, this will happen whilst the milk is finger-hot if you use castor sugar.
4. pour about 1/4 pint of the just-warm cream mixture into the jug whilst stirring the egg yolks briskly with a fork,  as long as the cream is cool the eggs should mix into the cream without cooking
5. whilst stirring the pan, pour the egg yolk mix back into the pan.
6. put the pan back on to the heat and continue to warm the cream mix over a low heat whilst stirring constantly but gently.
7. keep stirring gently as the cream heats up slowly towards boiling, spluttering a little.
8. let the cream simmer and continue to stir gently.  You should notice the cream thickening gradually,  don't stir too vigorously or else the mix can separate.
9. after 5 minutes take the pan off the heat.  now you want to stop the pan cooking and start cooling the custard down as soon as possible.  you can do this by putting the pan in a bowl filled with iced water, unless you are like me and never have enough room in your freezer for the quantities of ice required to do this efficiently.
10. the alternative is to fill your washing up bowl about 1/3 full with some cold water and place your pan into the cold water - don't let go of the handle until you are certain that the pan is not floating & make sure that tap is turned off.
11. the cold water will begin to cool the ice cream down, change the cold water periodically to speed up the cooling proces.  stir periodically to ensure a skin doesn't form (and to help it cool quicker).
12. on a cold-ish winter's day it took about 40 minutes for my custard to cool down.

If you summarise that, you warm your milk, cream and sugar, chuck a bit in your egg yolks and stir, pour the yolks into the main pan and stir constantly until the custard is thick.  Then cool by putting the pan in water.  Top tip - don't be an idiot and leave the tap running whilst the pan is in the water as you might end up with watery custard!

1. set up your icecream machine and pour the mixture in to churn as per the machine's instructions.
2. if you don't have an ice cream machine you can pour the cream mixture into a 1L freezer box and place in the freezer.  Take the ice cream out every 60 minutes, stir thoroughly then replace in the freezer.
3. whilst the ice cream is churning, take half a recipe of chocolate peanut ganache and warm very gently in a microwave or bain marie until just melted.
4. pour in 50g double cream to thin, then add this sauce to the ice cream in the last 5 minutes of churning (if you making this manually, pour the sauce in when the ice cream is quite thick, give a good stir to distribute it like a raspberry ripple icecream, then freeze for a final hour).
5. store the churned icecream in the freezer until ready for use.  take it out of the freezer 10-15 minutes before serving to allow it to soften up before serving.

I forget how easy it is to make a really top quality ice cream at home, most often because I don't have much room in the freezer to store it.  Admittedly our freezer is getting a little bit full now, 2 flavours of ice creams, 2 sorbets and tiramisu - the dessert bug has really bittten me, so watch out for more recipes soon!

*using vanilla extract - I don't want to be controversial, by all means use a vanilla pod but it does add an extra stage infusing the milk/cream before adding the sugar.  I use Nielsen Massey Madagascan vanilla extract and find it excellent in most desserts, especially in sweet cooked/baked products.