Dairy/Soya/Gluten-free Chocolate, Black Cherry and Amaretto Tart

Dairy-free, Soya-free, Wheat/gluten-free

Serves: 8 people

Calories per serving: 530

 

 

I've wanted to have a go at gluten-free pastry for a while. Tarts are my favourite things to bake. I've been able to make good shortcrust pastry since I was a teenager, and now I'm a pro. I haven't had a "soggy bottom" for about ten years. :) I just love making pastry... getting my hands into the butter and flour, the feel of the "breadcrumbs" through my fingers, the rolling out, the satisfaction of getting the case lined properly. It's a joy. So yeh, the idea of a new challenge when it comes to pastry intrigued me.

 

I've also wanted to make a dairy-free chocolate tart for some time. It took me a long time to track down some dairy/soya-free chocolate in my price range, and once I did it was sitting in the fridge begging me to use it! The chocolate I got was Lindt's 85% cocoa dark chocolate, which states on the label "may contain milk and soya". So for those with a severe milk/soya allergy it may not be suitable, and you might have to fork out for guaranteed dairy/soya-free chocolate. This chocolate is obviously very dark indeed and gives the tart an almost bitter flavour, which I like, but it might not be to everyone's taste, and in that case you might want to use a dark chocolate with a lower cocoa ratio.

 

So I found a recipe for gluten-free shortcrust pastry online and went ahead with my first tart. But the pastry was so unbelievably crumbly. I had a nightmare rolling it out and getting it into the case! I also found it absorbed all the cherry liquid, leaving the filling a little dry too. So I tried again, this time adapting the recipe for myself, and adding an egg to bind it. It worked much better. I also doubled the amount of cherries and jam, and added even more Amaretto. The tart I've ended up with is a truly adult, indulgent tart which is strongly-flavoured and rich. It's scrummy! (And yes I am running out of adjectives!). So here's my recipe...

 

Ingredients:

 

Pastry:

• 200g brown rice flour
• 100g non-dairy, non-soya spread
• 50g caster sugar
• 50g ground almonds
• 1 medium egg (beaten)

 

Filling:

 

• 1x425g tin black cherries in light syrup
• 4 tbsp cherry jam
• 100g dark chocolate
• 75g non-dairy, non-soya spread
• 100g caster sugar
• 50g ground almonds
• 50g cocoa powder
• 3 medium eggs (beaten)
• 4 tbsp Amaretto liquer
 

Method:

 

Pastry:

 

• Place the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl. Add the spread and rub in until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. (You can also do this much quicker and easier in a food processor, but I really like doing it by hand).
• Add enough egg that the mixture starts coming together to form a dough. (My granny taught me to do this with a butter knife... just gently move the dough around with the knife until it starts to clog together. Don't add too much egg that it becomes sticky). If the mixture is too dry after you've added the whole egg, add a tiny bit of water. Bring the dough together to form a ball, wrap in clingfilm, and place in the fridge whilst you make the filling.

 

 

Filling:

 

• Preheat the oven to 190C, 170C fan, Gas Mark 5. Grease a 20cm pie dish.
• If the cherries have stones, remove them and set aside. Place the cherry jam in a small saucepan and add a little bit of the syrup from the cherries to thin it out a little. Heat until warm, stirring, then set aside.

 

• Place the dark chocolate into a glass bowl and heat over a pan over gently simmering boiling water to melt. (or use a microwave if you're brave enough (I always burn it!)). Set aside.
• In a large mixing bowl, cream the spread and sugar until light. Add the almonds, cocoa powder, dark chocolate, eggs and Amaretto and mix.
• Remove the pastry from the fridge and place into the pie dish. Spread it out into the dish using your fingertips until it fits the dish (I tried rolling it out the first time and it was so delicate I was wasting my time! This way is MUCH easier, and you get the pastry thick enough that it doesn't crack when baked!).

• Add the cherries to the tart, spreading them out, then pour over the cherry jam/syrup. Don't worry about there being too much liquid! The pastry will absorb most of it... you need the liquid!

• Pour the chocolate filling over the top and smooth out to completely cover the cherries.
• Bake in the oven for around 30 minutes. You want the filling to be set but still a little bit soft, and the pastry to be cooked.



Note: You should eat this tart as soon as possible after baking! The longer you leave it, the more liquid the pastry will absorb, leaving the filling somewhat dry. It's not a tart that keeps well.

Dairy/Soya/Gluten/Egg-free Coconut Rice Pudding with Caramelised Bananas

Dairy-free, Soya-free, Wheat/gluten-free, Egg-free, Nut-free

Serves: 8 people

Calories per serving: 460

I'm discovering that so many of my recipes come about through improvising with things I randomly pick up whilst out and about, or with things I have in the house that need using up. I guess that's the best way to create! This week it was pudding rice. I've never been moved to make rice pudding in my life, but this week I saw some pudding rice on special in the supermarket and just bought it, figuring I'd think of something to do with it. Then I have some bananas turning black on the sideboard and figure hey, why not make some rice pudding with coconut milk and stick some bananas in?! So that's what I did.

I wanted to make the pudding quite tropical flavoured... heavy with coconut and banana. I've never made rice pudding before, or caramel, but figured I could improvise with a few basic recipes to work from. As it turns out the pudding I made had far too much caramel to pudding, so I've tweaked the recipe a lot, doubling the amount of pudding and reducing the amount of caramel to make banana the more dominant flavour. But either way, it's yummy!

This rice pudding is very easy to make. I was amazed at just how simple to make it is. Caramel, on the other hand, is not so easy. As I say I've never made it before, so my partner (who used to be a chef) helped me out a lot with the timings and told me when it was ready to add the bananas. I almost burned it. So I'll take you through the steps in detail in this recipe so you can do it too without almost burning it. Of course the rice pudding is delicious all on it's own if you just want to make that and leave out the caramel!

Ingredients:

Pudding:

• 180g short-grain, pudding rice
• 1 litre coconut milk
• 120g caster sugar
• a large pinch of salt

Caramelised bananas:

• 100g caster sugar
• 100ml water
• 2 large ripe bananas

 

Method:

Pudding:

• Place the coconut milk, sugar and salt in a large saucepan and heat until simmering. Add the pudding rice, return to a gentle simmer, cover and cook for around 40 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the liquid is thick and the rice is soft. Add more liquid if the rice is still a little hard and all the liquid has been absorbed. (The liquid should be almost totally absorbed, kind of like a risotto).

Caramelised bananas:

• About 15 minutes before the rice is finished, place the sugar and water into a non-stick frying pan and heat gently. Preheat the oven to 180C, 160C fan, Gas Mark 4.

• The sugar/water mix will start to bubble. Don't stir it. Instead shake the pan a little every so often to stop the mixture from sticking. Continue to heat gently and the mixture will gradually start to darken. Whilst this is heating, cut the bananas into slices.
• The mixture will start to turn a golden brown colour. Watch closely. As soon as it turns a pale brown colour and starts to smell like caramel, remove from the heat and add the bananas. (If you take it too far the caramel will burn and be ruined).
• Cook the bananas in the caramel, off the heat, for about two minutes on each side.

• By now the rice pudding should be cooked. Place the caramelised bananas into a casserole dish and pour the pudding on top. Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes, until the rice pudding has formed a skin.

Dairy/Soya/Gluten/Egg-free Vanilla Sponge Cake With Caramel Buttercream Icing

Dairy-free, Soya-free, Wheat/gluten-free, Egg-free

Serves: 8 people

Calories per serving: 620

 

Okay so it's not the prettiest cake in the world, but I promise it tastes good!

When one of the readers of my blog set me the challenge to come up with a dairy/soya/gluten/egg-free cake that she could make for an upcoming birthday party I couldn't resist the challenge. I'd never made a gluten or egg-free cake and had no idea where to even start! And so began a week-long escapade of research, discussion and experimentation. 

I started out making small batches of cupcakes and experimenting with different egg-replacements (I couldn't get hold of any egg-replacer from my local health food store - they'd sold out). First I tried baking just a batch of gluten-free cupcakes to get a baseline. I used rice flour, gram flour and cornflour as the starch. They were nice. 

So then I tried my first egg-replacement... baking powder, oil and water. Yuck! They were HORRIBLE! Just tasted like baking powder. For my third batch I tried mashed potatoes. They rose ok but still tasted far too much like baking powder and they were very heavy and dense.

So I reached out to my readers for ideas, and someone suggested fizzy pop. So next I tried that. Fizzy pop and mashed potatoes. Bizarre! I also tried putting some ground almonds into the mix in replacement of some flour to try to give a better texture. They were ok, but a bit too crumbly. And there was a cornflour aftertaste that was just nasty. 

Fortunately the next day the cornflour aftertaste had gone, strangely, so I attempted a cake. But it was a disaster! It tasted horrible and just fell apart... it went in the bin.

By then I'd run out of ingredients and was waiting on some xanthum gum from eBay (which I was assured would help with the texture and cornflour flavour). I'd also been advised to try using ground linseeds instead of mashed potato. So a few days later I tried a slightly different mix of flours and almonds, added a bit more butter and sugar, more flavouring, xanthum gum, substituted the mashed potato with ground linseeds mixed with water, and tried one more batch of cupcakes. And they worked!!! Six attempts later I had a working recipe.

The following evening I doubled the mix and made a small cake. And it's delicious! It's still very delicate and a bit on the squishy side. I had a nightmare icing it! But it does hold together if you're very gentle with it. I wouldn't want to attempt to make it into a bigger cake, but it does hold together for a small cake.

So without further ado, here is my painfully (and expensively) constructed dairy/soya/gluten and egg-free recipe for sponge cake. 

Ingredients:

 

Cake:

• 150g non-dairy, non-soya spread
• 165g golden caster sugar
• 60g brown rice flour
• 20g gram flour
• 20g cornflour
• 1 1/2 tsp gluten-free baking powder
• 1/2 tsp xanthum gum 
• 50g ground almonds
• 1 1/2 tbsp ground linseeds mixed with 4 1/2 tbsp water until eggy
• 80ml lemonade
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

Buttercream:

• 110g non-dairy, non-soya spread
•  350g  icing sugar
•  1-2 tbsp almond milk
•  1 tsp caramel flavouring 

Decoration:

• About 300g of fondant icing
• Dairy/soya/gluten and egg-free decorations 

Method:

 

Cake:

• Preheat the oven to 180C, 160C fan, Gas Mark 4. Grease and line two small cake tins with greaseproof paper (I used 16cm tins). Make sure the greaseproof paper has been greased too so the cake doesn't stick to the paper.
• In a large mixing bowl, cream the spread and sugar until light and fluffy. It's important you get as much air as possible into this cake, so cream them until they are almost white!
• Add all the dry ingredients to the bowl and beat together. Then add the wet ingredients, leaving the lemonade until the last minute. Quickly beat together and then get them into the tins straight away! Bake in the oven for about 45 minutes, but check them after 40 by inserting a skewer into the centre of the cake. If it comes out clean, they're cooked.
• Leave the cakes to cool in the tins.

Buttercream:

• The crucial thing with this cake is not to mess about with the sponges too much! They're so delicate. So don't turn them out until they are completely cool and the  buttercream is made.
• In a mixing bowl, beat the spread until it is light and pale. Then add the icing sugar and beat. Add enough almond milk to make a loose spreading consistency (it needs to be quite loose so it doesn't destroy the delicate cake when it's being spread!). Then add the flavouring and mix. 
• Turn one sponge out and very carefully spread the buttercream on it. Then add the second layer and carefully spread the remaining buttercream all over the cake. Chill for at least 15 minutes before adding the fondant.

  
Decoration:

• Roll the fondant out as thinly as possible, dusting with icing sugar so it doesn't stick to the work surface or rolling pin, and lay over the cake. (Mess with it as little as possible!). Smooth using a fondant smoother, then return to the fridge. Decorate when the icing has set.