'Twas Brillig (part two)

The saga continues... The cupcakes which were made were a big cheat - yes, it is okay to cut corners where you can. These are the Macro brand vanilla cupcake mix which are, except for excessive vanilla, failsafe. Plus I knew they worked with egg replacer for our allergic guest. Two batches of these were made in different sized and coloured papers and with a few different coloured frostings (Hoppers natural colours) to give the illusion of more variety. You could also add some carob powder or golden syrup to some of them to give flavour variety without having to make separate batches of cake. They were also used as a party favour.

The cakes for taking home were placed in plastic tumblers which were bought from a cheap shop and then put into cellophane bags and tied with a ribbon.

There was also fairy bread with natural sprinkles - some was gluten free and some made with Baker's Delight bread. My friend brought the gluten-filled type and used cookie cutters to achieve the teapot and teacup shapes.

There were also gluten free bread-and-butterflies; these were made using my bread recipe that was sliced, spread with nuttelex and then cut with butterfly cookie cutters.

Pink milk was served as the main drink - a sugar syrup made from two cups of sugar and 2 cups of boiling water was made with vanilla essence and cochineal added. This was mixed into both rice milk and dairy milk and put into teapots on the table. You tend to need a bit more cochineal than you think and as it is diluted again into the milk.

The lolly table had most of the usual failsafe lollies, plus a few that I had made.

The last picture was a recipe I found for conversation hearts (does anyone remember these?). The recipe needed tweaking and in my rush I didn't measure or write anything down. So, unfortunately, a recipe for that will have to wait.

Activities were kept minimal. The kids played croquet and had a great time doing so. I had planned to have a caucus race, but the ground was uneven ad covered with lots of sticks, so I abandoned the idea as I didn't want any injuries. I tried to think of a way to paint roses red without getting paint on party clothes too. They could have coloured with pencils, but in the end they had too much fun playing amongst the trees, eating party food and playing croquet.

The birthday girl - Making the dress also filled a lot of my party prep time

There were party favours other than the cakes. I chose to keep these non-food items. There had been plenty of lollies and sweets consumed at the party, so I felt that the the kids  didn't really need to take more home. We had a variety of different Alice in Wonderland books that the kids received depending on their age. The older children got a paperback version of the stories, the younger ones got a few different colouring books, and the older boys who I knew would not be into these at all got a pack of jumbo playing cards. They also all got a bubble wand (I mean who doesn't like bubbles).

The wrapped book and bubble wands ready to be taken home.

I'll put the cake in it's very own post, in order to make it easier to find.

'Twas Brillig

Birthday, birthday, birthday, Christmas, birthday. That's how it goes in this family and all quite close together. This time of year is a test of my sanity and my stamina in the kitchen. Sometimes I think I'm going to fail the test, but I usually manage a flukey pass. The most recent birthday was no exception.

I have been mentally planning this birthday for quite some time, buying bits and pieces when I saw them and gathering ideas. Although in keeping with my standard form, most of the actual work is left until the last minute.

This party was as much about the decorations and setting as it was about the food and since I'm a bit over the top I wanted everything to be fabulous; it was passable. I didn't have as much time to set up as was really needed and, well if I let them, these things can just get bigger and bigger.

The lolly table

 

Cups laid out on the adult table

Unfortunately, due to the nature of gluten free food, a lot of food needs to be prepared as close to the party as possible, so the afternoon tea setting was really quite perfect. It also meant that everything was finger food and nothing needed to be heated which was very handy. There was also a child with an egg allergy, so most of the food needed to be egg free. Some allowances were made on our intolerances in order to keep things eggless.

The favourite food item of the day was the toadstools. They were made a few days before and are very easy. I used a small amount of dairy in them, but if you are able to eat eggs please use royal icing instead of the white melts.

Toadstools
Ingredients

• Marshmallows - standard sized, cylindrical.
• Marshmallows - larger domed.
• White melts (or royal icing)
• natural food colours

Method

1. Gently melt the white chocolate melts using the microwave on short bursts or a double boiler.
2. Spread a small amount of melted chocolate on the end of a cylindrical marshmallow and stick it to the middle of the flat side of the larger ones. You can use an ice cube tray or an egg carton to help you keep them straight while they set.
3. Add a small amount of colouring to chocolate and use a skewer or toothpick to make spots on the cap. 
4. Leave to set.

There were a variety of biscuits mostly my standard recipes that were presented differently. The iced biscuits were used with fondant so I could could make egg free biscuits and use the same topping. The egg free version was from Kersten's book and the recipe for the fondant was found on the Domestic Diva's blog. The fondant was coloured with Hoppers Natural colours and stamped with a clean stamp. If you like this idea, I would suggest you have separate stamps for craft and food so you don't get any contamination.

The Diva's Marshmallow Fondant Icing
Ingredients

• 600g icing sugar
• 225g marshmallows 
• 1 ½ tablespoons water 
• Extra icing sugar for rolling 

Method

1.  Place marshmallows and water into a microwave bowl and nuke for 30seconds on high.
2. Stir until smooth (cook for another 30 seconds of necessary)
3. Add icing sugar and stir until combined (I did it by hand)
4. If necessary add extra sugar until no longer sticky, but not so stiff as to be unrollable.
5. Wrap very tightly with cling wrap and rest until needed.
6. Can be made several days in advance, put wrapped fondant into a ziplock bag or airtight container to prevent any drying.    

Make sure you use a lightly oiled surface to roll the fondant. I thought that rolling it between baking paper would be enough. It wasn't. The tiniest amount of oil sprayed onto the paper made it so much easier. Cut the fondant using the same cutter you used on the biscuit and then press the stamp firmly into it (without completely squashing it) before laying on your biscuit that has been lightly spread with Vienna cream frosting.

I tried to use sprinkles to make patterns. Don't bother trying that. Aside from it being ridiculously time consuming they don't stick to the fondant.

You could use any natural colour you want for these to match your theme or use none at all. The white is very pretty and you can get a great decoration from the stamp alone.


The other biscuits were made using the melting moment dough.





Chess Board Cookies
Method

1. Take a quantity of melting moment dough. Halve it and add a tablespoon of carob to a portion of the dough. 
2. Use a lined swiss roll tin (or similar) and pressed and rolled half of the dough into it (I didn't use the full length of the tin).
3. Repeat this with the other portion of dough (making sure to use the same portion of tin as the previous piece). Then lay one on top of the other and freeze until very firm.
4.  Cut the dough into four, lengthways and lay two on top of each other making sure your colours are alternated and press them together gently (you will have two logs with four layers each). Freeze again.
5. Now cut lengthways slices about 1cm thick and stack them with alternating colours, four layers thick. Freeze again.
6. Cut slices crossways from the end and lay on a lined baking tray and bake for about 12mins at 160°C.
7. Cool on racks.

Walrus and Carpenter Oyster Biscuits

Method

1. Beat 2 Tablespoons of rice milk into one quantity of melting moment dough.
2. Fill a piping bag that has a large round tip fitted to it with the dough.
3. Roughly pipe the dough into tear drop/oyster shell shapes. Try not to make them too thick. Ridges, bumps and texture are desirable!
4. Bake at 160°C for about 12 mins or until cooked (this depends on the thickness of the dough)
5. Tinge some vienna cream icing pink with cochineal and pipe onto half of the biscuits. Place a Hoppers silver pearl on each and top with another biscuit.

Since this post is becoming a bit too long I'll split this between a few so that things don't get too hard to find.

See you in the next one!

Festive Preparations

I've never made any pretenses about my organisational skills. In fact I quite regularly go on about my extreme lack of them. So, I had a little heart attack when my co-contributors to "At the Failsafe Table" decided to have a Christmas edition this week. It's a truly great idea and I'm sure you would all like to be a bit prepared and maybe even have a trial run of what you would like to make. For me this week is last minute birthday party preparation for my daughter's 4th birthday - Christmas is not even on my radar until next week.

I have managed to fit something in this week though, so this year you get a Christmas recipe from me before Christmas instead of in March.

While I was deciding what to make I was thinking about all the different yummy foods that are usually eaten over the holidays and one of the things that came into my mind was those rolled pieces of pork that are stuffed with fruit and nuts and are sweet and moist with that naughty bit of crackling on the top. I have done a failsafe version of that. "How is that even possible?" you say. "Massive substitutions" I say; that and a bit of imagination.

Christmas Chicken Roll
Ingredients

• 2 large Chicken breast doubles
• failsafe oil

Stuffing

• 3 Tbsp ground raw cashews
• 1 pear, peeled, cored and diced smallish
• 2 shallots, finely sliced
• 1 Tbsp maple syrup
• 1/4 cup crumbs
• 1 tsp salt
• few sprigs parsley

Glaze

• 1 Tbsp Maple syrup
• 1 tsp whiskey (optional)
• 1 tsp failsafe oil
• 1/4 tsp salt

All tied up

Don't worry about being neat, just make sure it is tight.

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C and lightly oil a roasting tray.
2. Leave the cartilage that joins the breasts intact, but trim any other sinew or excess fat from the chicken.
3. Mix all the stuffing ingredients together in a bowl.
4. Lay out the breasts rough side up and spread one half of the first one with about a third of the stuffing. Lay the second piece so half of it covers the stuffing of the first. It's best if you do it with the thicker part covering the thinner of the first ("top and tailed") so it is not really thick at one end once it is rolled.
5. Spread all of the second breast double with the remaining stuffing and then roll carefully so the cross section is like two interlocking "C's". 
6. Tie it tightly with kitchen string and place into roasting dish.
7. Push any bits of stuffing that have fallen out back into the end of it.
8. Mix the glaze ingredients together and brush some over the chicken.
9. Bake for one and a half hours (or until cooked through - depends on the chicken size). Take it out at intervals and brush with more glaze.
10. When ready remove from oven and rest for 10 minutes, then remove string and slice.

Ready to be sliced

Variations

• Nut free - No problem, just leave them out and add a little more crumbs or substitute for chicknuts as they could add another bit of flavour.
• Salicylates - Apples would be nice instead of pears as would some herbs like sage or thyme.

Served with crispy herbed baked potatoes and steamed beans and cabbage  tossed with nuttelex, salt and sprinkled with crispy fried deli chicken.

We all enjoyed this, it really did remind me of the pork ones. Hubby said he would like to have more stuffing. It would be nice, but it would also make it trickier to roll.

Spring

So spring is here and nearly gone. I have been wanting to share this one for a while, but have had some really good recipes that I had to add first.

We celebrate a few extra holidays in our house. You may remember the pumpkin pie from our autumn feast or have seen pictures of our yule feast on my Facebook page. We celebrate the standard ones too, but really enjoy having the old school seasonal celebrations. They fit with the weather, with fresh food available at the time.

On the 22nd September it was the spring equinox, so we had our Ostara party. Or I guess you could call it easter or Eostre. So you get the theme - flowers, bunnies, eggs, butterflies - Spring things. And what better way to do it than a garden tea party. The table was set with all my china along with glass jars and cups with fresh flowers (these were the rather smelly kind, if you're smell sensitive use ones that are low fragrance).

 
No new recipes for this party, just reshaping some that I already have.

Flower and butterfly shaped biscuit wands made to the iced biscuit recipe or the gum free recipe.  These were decorated with white icing and natural sprinkles and coloured sugar. This is so basic to do, but something I forgot about for a long time. You know exactly what you are getting with these, and if you use homemade colours they can be completely failsafe.     

I used the gum free recipe for these biscuits

Coloured Sugar
Ingredients

• 3 Tbsp sugar
• A few drops natural colour of choice

Method

1. Place sugar and colour in a small container or ziplock bag.
2. Shake until the colour is evenly distributed through the sugar
3. Store in an airtight container.

Also made using the coloured sugar were rice crispy eggs. To shape them I use little plastic eggs, the kind you would normally put treats inside for Easter.

Rice crispy eggs

Rice Crispy Eggs  
Ingredients

• 4 cups crunchy puffed rice
• 200g white marshmallows
• 80g nuttelex
• Coloured sugar

Method

1. Place rice puffs into a large mixing bowl.
2. Slowly melt marshmallow and nuttelex in a saucepan over low heat. Stir continuously to stop it sticking and burning.
3. When it is relatively smooth pour over rice puffs and stir until well combined.
4. Lightly grease the inside of the eggs and pack the rice crispy mixture into both sides and squash them together.
5. When they have set gently ease them out of the eggs and dip one end in coloured sugar.

If you wanted to do these as something the  Easter bunny has left you can coat inside half the egg with the sugar and leave them in the egg to make it less messy.

My friend made vanilla cupcakes that had a split marshmallow on top to look like a flower and tea cup biscuits which were an Orgran thistle shortbread biscuit topped with a marshmallow, sprinkles and half a lifesaver (not failsafe, but similar could be made from royal icing) all stuck together with royal icing.

Meringue peeps, Teacup biscuits, quiche, scones and iced biscuits

Meringues were piped in the shape of peeps or little chicks. I tried adding a bit of saffron to them for colour, but the little that I used gave no real colour, but drastically changed the flavour... not something I would do again. You could also add little dots of icing or carob to make eyes.

There were also scones & jam, little chicken & mayonnaise wraps, mini quiches and pink vanilla milk (rice milk for mine, cow milk for the others) in teapots for the kids to drink. 

Wraps, quiche and flower cupcakes

The activities were loads of fun, the kids made birdfeeders by sticking birdseed to toilet rolls using flour  and water glue and took them home to hang in the garden.

My friend brought blank animal masks and the children decorated them with glitter, sequins, pompoms and textas.

Making masks

The grand finale was an egg hunt in the yard for plastic eggs with treats.

They all took home seedlings to plant; a bean, a purple cabbage and a decorative one. A great non-food idea for easter too, just make sure your seedlings are right for the season.

Now to prepare for the Summer Solstice!

L'addiction s'il vous plait

Apparently I have been in denial. Or maybe just underplaying it. It seems that I have an addiction. It was only last night as I added more photos to my Facebook page that I truly realised the extent of it.

Hi, my name is Trish and I am addicted to French Food.

 My favourite French band

There. I said it. It is out there now. 

I loved it before failsafe. Buttery croissants, coq au vin, boeuf bourguignon, baguettes with lashings of butter, tarte au fraise, crêpes, crème brûlée, cheese, wine and I'm getting quite worked up just thinking about it all (I may also be addicted to dairy looking at that list).

It seems only natural that I would be converting as much as I can to failsafe. It helps that a lot of it is easy to convert.

My latest attempt was soupe à l'oignon or as you would know it - French onion soup. Onion is out, but leek is in. Leeks are about as cheap as they get at this time of year. They aren't as big as they are at other times, but try to get the thicker ones so you get more bang for your buck.

Not the golden brown hue of its onion counterpart, but equally satisfying.

Soupe aux Poireaux  (leek soup) (Serves 8 as entree)

Ingredients

• Leek, halved lengthways, washed and sliced - Aim for about 1kg chopped which was 5 short fat leeks for me.
• 3 Tbsp failsafe oil (or nuttelex or ghee if tolerated)
• 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 1/3 cup rice flour (or other tolerated flour)
• 2 1/2 Litres of liquid (water or stock or whiskey. I used 1/2 cup whiskey, 1Tbsp stock concentrate and the rest water)
• Bread to serve.

Method

1. Heat the oil in a heavy based saucepan and add the leeks. Cook over a medium to low heat for about 30mins stirring occasionally until they start to caramelise.
2. Add the garlic and flour and stir for a few minutes.
3. Gradually add the liquid while stirring to ensure there are no floury lumps.
4. Cover the saucepan and simmer for about 25 mins.
5. Serve with slices of grilled garlic bread on top

Variations

• Salicylates - Use onions (duh), add a bay leaf and a few sprigs of thyme.
• Non Failsafe guests? Serve with slices of baguette that have been grilled with grated gruyere cheese on top.

 This was a brilliant starter for my Mum's birthday dinner of Boeuf à la Ficelle. The kids had garlic bread slices on top of theirs (I had a few pieces of gluten free garlic bread in the freezer) and the adults had the cheesy baguette option. It was enjoyed by all.

Highly Strung

Having people over for meals gives me the opportunity to try new things out, things that I wouldn't necessarily cook for just any old dinner.

My mum recently celebrated a milestone birthday and that seemed like a good reason to do something a little bit fancy. So I flicked through all my cook books searching for inspiration and came across a recipe in my French book that I have been wanting to try for ages. It is so incredibly close to failsafe to that few changes were needed and the end result was really quite special. The meat is cooked for a very short time, which suits the amine sensitive and the cut is so very tender when it is done. Unfortunately the cost of the cut will relegate it to "special occasion" status.

Boeuf à la Ficelle
(Beef on a string)

Ingredients

• Beef fillet (allow about 200g per adult, less for kids - I cooked for 5 adults and 2 kids and used 1.2kg)
• 6 cups liquid (this could be stock, water, whiskey or a combination - I used 1/2 cup whiskey and 3 tablespoons of vegetable stock concentrate with 5 1/2 cups of water). If you are cooking less meat you won't need as much liquid.
• 1 large swede, cut into batons (sticks)
• 1 celery stalk, cut into batons
• 2 large potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
• 1/4 cabbage, sliced
• 6 shallots, trimmed and cut into long lengths
• A few sprigs of parsley

Method

1. Trim the beef of any visible fat and sinew and cut into portions. Tie a length of cooking string around each piece so that it holds shape leaving enough string attached to lower the beef into the pot.
2. Pour the liquid into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Add the vegetables and parsley and cook at a medium boil for about 8 minutes or until the vegetables are tender. Remove the vegetables with a slotted spoon and keep warm. Discard the parsley and skim and fat or foam from the surface.
3. Season the beef with a little salt and lower into the boiling stock. Tie the string around the pot handle or to a wooden spoon resting across the top of the pot. Cook for 6mins for rare, 10 mins for medium rare, 15 mins for medium and 20 mins for well done (for those who can't bear the sight of pink in their meat).
4. Place each piece of meat on a plate or shallow bowl, add the cooked vegetables and ladle some of the broth over to serve.

Variations

• Salicylates - Add a carrot cut into batons with the other vegetables (moderate) and a bay leaf and 2 sprigs of thyme (very high).
• Amines - use beef stock for the liquid.

We didn't eat all the cooking liquid on the night, so I reserved it and froze it. Normally beef stock would be too high in amines to use, but as the beef was only cooked very briefly it make a nice, mild beef stock that I would happily use again.

This dish was so succulent and was happily devoured by failsafers and non-failsafers alike.

Sunday, Sunday

Breakfast is my favourite meal of the day. I'm not talking about rice bubbles, but something filling. Not something shoveled in as you are rushing out the door, but something a bit later, something that takes a little longer to make and is far more satisfying.

I like eggs and am incredibly grateful that we can eat them and all my favourite breakfasts have them and every now and then I can convince the less civilised people in the house to wait a little and have a decent breakfast. On Sunday that breakfast was Eggs Benedict. Well, almost. Since ham is on the "no go" list our eggs were a little on the naked side, but equally delicious. This is something you could make for guests. I've found since having children, that brunch is a really great time to get together with people. The kids are mostly happy and not tired, you have enough time to get it together in the morning and the kids haven't had a chance to trash any pre-visitor cleaning you've done. There is also the fact that failsafe breakfast food is not so different to non-failsafe breakfast food.

Eggs Benedict (naked)
Ingredients

• eggs - allow two per adult
• toast - whatever bread you tolerate
• Hollandaise Sauce

Hollandaise Sauce  
Serves 6
Ingredients

• 4 egg yolks
• 1 Tbsp citric lemon
• 180g nuttelex in smallish globs at room temperature

Method

1. Part fill a medium saucepan with water and bring to the boil. Lower the heat to barely a simmer and fit a bowl on the top so that the water doesn't touch the base of it.
2. Put egg yolks and citric lemon into the bowl and whisk (by hand or with electric beaters) until it is thick and pale.
3. Add the nuttelex a little at a time whisking continuously. Only add more when the previous piece is fully incorporated
4. When all the nuttelex is incorporated and the sauce is thick remove the bowl from the pan and set aside.

Poached Eggs
I found some brilliant instructions for perfect poached eggs on another blog, and since they were so beautifully done with fabulous photos I will just give you the link. Not Quite Nigella's Poached Eggs 101

To serve, place an egg on each slice of toast and top with sauce. Garnish with a little parsley.

Yes, I know. The day I plan to take photos my sauce flops. Still tastes fab, but lacks body. I added the nuttelex too quickly.

You could also serve with slices of deli chicken.

Variations:
Dairy - Use unsalted butter in the sauce.
Amines - Use salt cured ham or smoked salmon.

If you are serving this up for guests that don't have restrictions use slices of toasted baguette and ham or salmon for under the eggs. They probably wont notice the sauce isn't the real thing. I don't really like the taste of nuttelex and was worried it would taste terrible, but I happily devoured this sauce.

Nanna's Cake

My mum is really great about cooking for us when we go there and always making sure she has snacks or something for the kids. This is a cake she has made on several occasions. It is nice for afternoon tea and lovely for dessert. Last night she made a rice milk custard to pour over it too. Everyone likes it except for my daughter who is quite the fuss pot.

She adapted it from some recipe she had cut out of a magazine ages ago. The original recipe was for a Pineapple Streusel Cake, but it now contains pears.

One thing I like to try to do with this blog is have recipes that are good for Failsafe beginners or for people wanting to cook something for failsafe guests. So I try to have some things that don't require a large quantity of strange ingredients and things that will only be used once and the go bad in the pantry. This cake fits that bill very well.

Photos were taken on my phone, so please excuse the quality

Pear Streusel Cake
Ingredients

• 2/3 cup gluten free flour blend (like Orgran)
• 1 1/4 tsp baking powder (or use self raising flour)
• 100g nuttelex
• 1/3 cup caster sugar
• 2 eggs lightly beaten
• 5 tinned pear halves, chopped small and lightly crushed with a fork.

Struesel Topping

• 30g nuttelex
• 1/3 cup gluten free flour
• 1/4 cup caster sugar

Method 

1.  Preheat oven to 170˚C
2.  Lightly grease a 20cm round cake tin and line the base with baking paper
3. Beat flour, baking powder, nuttelex, sugar and eggs in a bowl with electric mixer until well combined.
4. Stir in pears
5. Spoon into tin
6. Make the streusel topping by rubbing the nuttelex into the flour until it resembles bread crumbs, then mix in the sugar.
7. Sprinkle the topping over the cake.
8. Bake for about 50 mins or until cooked when tested with a skewer.

Serve warm with custard or cold on it's own.

Leftovers also make a nice lunch box treat

Lucky Dip

I added a picture to my facebook page the other day that generated far more interest than I expected. Or maybe I should have expected it as a platter of failsafe, dairy, gluten and soy free dips is hard to come by. Yes there was the standard failsafe hommus, but there were three more there.

L-R Parsley pesto dip, caramelised leeks, Cashew cream cheese and hommus

Besides my intolerant son, there was another guest who is lactose intolerant, so the normal cheese platter and something else for the kids was not going to cut it. So I invented and hoped for the best. I still have some cheese left over, but these were demolished.

I bought one of those pesto dip thingys, so wanted to make a failsafe equivalent. Since the only herb available is parsley, that's the one I used. Parsley is still high in salicylates and it is only recommended to have a sprinkle. This is a little more than that, but with three other dips to have there is no need to pig out on that one alone. This recipe only makes a small quantity, as much as you can see in the picture, so that also makes it hard to go overboard.

Parsley Pesto Dip
Ingredients

• 3 Tbsp chopped parsley
• 1 long green part of shallot, chopped
• 2 Tbsp chick nuts (commercial roasted chick peas)
• 2 Tbsp failsafe oil
• 1/2 clove garlic, crushed
• 1 tsp citric "lemon" juice
• salt to taste

Method

1. Put all ingredients except salt into a mini food processor and blend until a nice dipping consistency.
2. Taste for salt - add a little at a time.

Caramelised leeks
(this makes a reasonable amount, but it keeps well and is nice with roast meats, on sandwiches or as a condiment for anything, really...)

Ingredients

•  1 large leek
• failsafe oil
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp brown sugar

Method

1. Remove harder green parts of leek and split the leek lengthways, make sure there is no dirt caught in it, rinsing if you need to. Slice finely.
2. Heat a medium frying pan over medium to low heat and add enough oil to coat the base. 
3. Add the leeks. Your pan may be very full at this point, don't bother changing pans, it won't stay this way for long.
4. As they start to heat sprinkle the salt over them to help draw out moisture.
5. Cook slowly stirring frequently
6. Add sugar and keep on stirring
7. They will be slowly reducing and turning a slightly golden colour (with a bit of a green tinge if you had a fair bit of pale green leek). Keep stirring occasionally, making sure they don't dry out and catch on the bottom. If they start to brown or dry out add a small quantity of water.
8. Once they are gold(ish) and look like a small pile of soggy string (this takes about an hour), they are done. They should be very sweet when you taste them.

Cashew Cream Cheese
There are a lot of recipes floating around the internet for raw cashew cheese, but not one of them is failsafe. They pretty much all contain nutritional yeast which is glutamates, not just a little bit of glutamates, but "you may as well be eating MSG" type glutamates. So that is out. What I have made is probably not even close to tasting like those ones, but it was incredibly good.  My son, who hates nuts, scoffed it and I've had to make more for the week.

The nuts require soaking, so a bit of forethought is needed. I've read that soaking doesn't increase the amine levels in the nuts, but there are a lot of cashews in this one, so moderation may be required for amine responders.

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cup raw cashews, covered with cold water and soaked overnight (or for a few hours if that works for you), drained and rinsed.
• 3 tsp citric "lemon" juice
• 1 tsp whiskey
• 1clove of garlic, crushed
• 1 1/2 tsp salt flakes (if you don't have these use a smaller amount of salt and add to taste at the end)
• 2 Tbsp rice milk (or water)
• 2 tsp chopped parsley and chives.

Method

1. Put all ingredients in a small food processor or blender and blend until smooth.
2. Taste for seasoning and adjust to taste.

This was particularly good on a cracker with the caramelised leeks.

This was particularly good on a cracker with the caramelised leeks.

I don't actually have a recipe of my own for hommus. I make it to taste every time, sometimes using canned chickpeas, sometimes dried ones. I usually make a huge batch and freeze it in smaller portions as we go through a lot of it. Next time I make it I'll write quantities down.

I served these dips with rice crackers, broken buckwheat crispbreads and mini cracker sized rice cakes. You could also use celery sticks which have been my son's vessel of choice for the cashew cheese this week.

What a Tart!

Visitors. They give me an opportunity to try something other than standard meals. To take a bit more time and make something fancier. I experiment on visitors. Mostly it goes well. Today went exceptionally well.

We always have nibblies with these guests and a main meal and dessert. We spend a lot of time eating, drinking and being merry. The sun was shining today and sunny winter days are the best for sitting out under our pergola. It's always far too hot in summer. So we enjoyed a lovely roast lamb lunch with lots of vegies and after a bit of bocce and some baseball we sat in the dimming light with hot drinks and a frangipane tart.

How can you have a failsafe frangipane tart?

Well that is what makes this recipe interesting. I suppose you could substitute cashew meal, but that is an awful lot of cashew and would contain too many amines. I chose to substitute quinoa flakes. I had read somewhere on the internet that some ingenious person had used them to make nut free french macaron. I tried that too and they worked pretty well, so why wouldn't they work for this tart?

Quinoa is not usually a flavour you expect in desserts and the first mouthful caught me a little off guard, but after that I was amazed at how good it tasted. The texture was pretty close to the real thing and my guests said they would not have known that it wasn't the real thing if I hadn't told them so.

For the tart shell I used the same recipe that I have used for everything so far (I'm sure I'll try a different recipe one day, but I had some in the freezer, so today was not that day)

Pear Frangipane Tart

Sweet shortcrust pastry

• 340g gluten free plain flour
• a small pinch of salt
• 150g nuttelex
• 90g icing sugar
• 2 eggs beaten

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180℃
2. Sift flour, salt and sugar into the bowl of a food processor add the nuttelex and pulse until the nuttelex is incorporated and you have something resembling bread crumbs.
3. Add the eggs with the motor running and process until a dough starts to form.
4. Tip out onto some cling wrap, knead into a ball, wrap and put in the fridge for at least an hour.
5. Roll the pastry between sheets of baking paper and line a 25cm loose based fluted tart tin trimming the edges. Place in the freezer for about half an hour.
6. Line with baking paper and fill with baking weights or dried beans or rice.
7. Bake for 10 minutes, then remove beads and paper and bake for a further 4 minutes or until the pastry is just cooked, but still pale.

Filling

• 140g quinoa flakes
• 150g icing sugar
• 25g plain GF flour (today we had whitewings)
• 150g nuttelex
• seeds from 1 inch piece of vanilla (optional)
• 3 eggs lightly beaten
• 5 pear halves (tinned in syrup)

Method

1. Place quinoa, icing sugar and flour into a food processor and blitz at high speed to get the quinoa a little finer. Remove and put into another bowl.
2. Put nuttelex and vanilla into the processor and mix on until combined. 
3. Add the quinoa mixture and process on a medium to low speed until well combined.
4. Slowly add eggs while the processor is still running and mix until it is well incorporated.
5. Pour mixture into tart shell and roughly smooth over with a spatula. 
6. Cut pears in half and gently press into frangipane.
7. Bake for approximately 45 mins. When cooked the frangipane will be puffed, golden and firm to touch.
8. Cool and dust with icing sugar to serve.

Just out of the oven

This was lovely by itself, but if you were inclined to make it, then a dairy free custard would go nicely. Or, if you are the dairy eating kind of person, a blob of whipped cream would also go down a treat.

Ready to eat.

Variations - Gluten - use wheat flour
                    Dairy - use butter instead of nuttelex
                    Salicylates - use any soft tolerated fruit eg. apricots, nectarine, blueberries
                   

Cake. Always.

I find more inspiration in sweets than real meals sometimes. I guess it is easy to make things tastier if there is sugar involved, and who doesn't like cake? Well at the moment my son is not a fan of cake, but he will happily eat this one. I used to make this one BFS (before Failsafe), but used different fruit. In it's original form it had gluten and dairy, but it was one of those fundamentally good recipes that you just know will work without them. Happily, it does not just 'work', it works fantastically!

It is based on a Donna Hay recipe and is brilliant for afternoon tea or you could serve it for dessert with a little custard.

Pear Cake
Ingredients

• 125g nuttelex
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla (I always use it, but I think it would be really good without it)
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups self raising gluten free flour, sifted (or plain flour with 3tsp baking powder).
• Tinned pear halves in syrup, drained and each cut into about 4 wedges  (depending on the size you will probably need 5 halves) You could also use very soft fresh pears.
• 1 Tbsp icing sugar

Ready to bake. Pear pieces aren't too large.

Method

1.  Preheat the oven to 160°C and line a 22cm round springform (or loose based) cake tin with baking paper.
2. Beat nuttelex, sugar and vanilla together until light.
3. Add the eggs and beat until well combined
4. Fold in the flour and scoop into the tin. You will need to spread it out a bit, it is quite a stiff mixture. Don't be fooled into thinking the tin is too big at this point, even though it doesn't take up much of the tin now, it will when it's done. I found this out the messy way.
5. Place the pears on the top however you think looks nice. Don't press them in and try not to have them too big. If they are too heavy they won't stay on the top of the cake. I also found this out the annoying way recently. It doesn't wreck the cake, but it is less pretty with the pears on the inside.
6. Bake for 1hr or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
7. Remove from the tin and dust with the icing sugar. It can be eaten warm or cold.

 Variations - Gluten - use wheat or spelt flour
                     Dairy- use butter
                     Salicylates - use nectarines, peaches or apricots. Any tolerated fruit should work as long  as it is soft.


This cake gets a really lovely crust on the outside and is quite heavy, but extremely delicious.