This recipe is inspired by the cakes that would have been eaten on VE Day.  Communities would have saved up their rations and shared them with their neighbours in order that a food-filled celebration could take place.  Though the years following VE Day would mean austerity for all, the street parties that took place on this day were at least for this one day, filled with food, love and laughter.

Eggs had been rationed so much that they couldn’t be used, so I’ve done the same here.  This cake is easily made vegan by replacing the butter with a vegan alternative and plant-based milk is also very easily substituted.  I would suggest oat.

I made a video of the making of this cake which I have included below.  Enjoy.  Make the cake, don't worry that it doesn't look pretty - it's not meant to, just celebrate VE Day and don't forget all those we lost during WWII.

MAKES 1 x 20cm SPONGE
PREP TIME: 10 minutes
COOKING & COOLING TIME: 1 hour


INGREDIENTS:

For the sponge:
110g sugar (caster or granulated will work here)
​50g soft unsalted butter
½ tsp vanilla extract
125g gluten free plain flour
15g cornflour
100ml whole milk
½ tbsp apple cider vinegar (or use white wine vinegar if you don’t have cider)
15ml hot water
1 tea bag (I use earl grey, but English Breakfast will work too)
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp xanthan gum/psyillium husk

For the icing:
200g icing sugar, sieved (sorry)
Lemon juice (fresh or plastic whichever you have)
Small cup of black Tea (whichever you used in the sponge)


METHOD:

• Preheat the oven to 160/140 fan/gas 3
• Grease and line a 20cm round cake tin
• Make the tea using the 15ml hot water and the tea bag.  Leave to steep for about 5 minutes before squeezing out and disposing of the tea bag and allow to cool.
• Mix the tea into the milk and stir in the vinegar.  Set aside
• Combine together the flour, xanthan and raising agents together in a small bowl
• In a large bowl, beat the sugar and the butter together until they are light and fluffy.  This can be done in a freestanding mixer using the paddle attachment, using a hand-held electric whisk or just using a plain old wooden spoon and some elbow grease!
• Add the vanilla extract, allow to combine, then scrape down the sides of the bowl
• Alternately add dry and wet ingredients into your butter & sugar starting with dry and ending with dry.  Ensure everything is really well mixed.  If using a freestanding mixer, periodically scrape down the sides to help with this.
• Pour your batter into the prepared cake tin and bake for 30-40 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean
• Leave to cool in the tin for a few minutes before turning out onto a wire rack
• Whilst the cake is cooling, prepare your icing - you want the cake to still be a little warm when you pour this over
• Mix together the sifted sugar, lemon juice and tea until you have a smooth pouring consistency, a little thicker than double cream.  Add the liquid bit by bit.  You’ll probably need about 2 tbsps in total, and you can use as much or as little of each liquid as you like.  Half and half works best in my opinion, but if you like it more lemony, use more lemon juice!
• Pour and spread this over the cake, allowing it to drip down the sides if it wants to.  It doesn’t need to be neat
• Allow the cake to cool completely and the icing to set (think lemon drizzle cake icing) before serving

​Stay Hep, Cats!

A long while ago, before I became gluten-free, before I met my OH and opened a restaurant, I had a very small kitchen in Surrey and made cookery videos.  I think it's definitely something I will start doing again, though the set up can be a little onerous at times.  Especially when the best place to film is your dining room and therefore you have to get everything set up on the dining table etc. - not ideal!  Anyway, I digress.  I used to make these cute little cinnamon biscuits (which are very popular in the US) quite regularly as they are not only super easy to make, they are utterly fantastic with a good cup of coffee (or cuppa joe to quote our American friends).  I made a video of the making of these, and thought I would provide the gluten-free recipe here, as the video shows a "regular" version.  I've made these very recently, as, whilst we are in lockdown, having time to really indulge in a little Hygge / Fika is definitely something I'm really loving.

Makes 12-15

INGREDIENTS:
150g gluten free plain flour, or any GF flour of your choice
1/2 tsp gluten free baking powder
1/4 tsp xanthan gum
100g caster sugar
1 egg
1 tbsp coffee mate (I know, weird, right!  This can be omitted if you don't have it, but it adds a lovely creaminess to the cookies)
30g butter, melted & cooled
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

FOR THE COATING:
1tbsp caster sugar
1/2 tbsp ground cinnamon


METHOD:

• Pre-heat the oven to 180/160 fan/gas 4
• Line 2 x baking sheets with parchment 
• Sift (sorry, I know it's a bore, but it makes for a super light doodle) the flour, baking powder, xanthan gum, coffee mate and cinnamon together

• Stir in the sugar
• In a separate bowl or jug, whisk together the egg and butter

• Pour this into the dry ingredients, stir together with a wooden spoon (or whatever implement you fancy), then work it together with your hands to form a dough

• Once in a ball, chill this mixture for 15 minutes
• Whilst the dough is chilling, mix together your coating ingredients

• Roll a heaped spoonful of the mixture into a ball (it will be a little crumbly because it's chilled, just work it a little and it'll come together, I promise, but the chilling part is really important), then coat in your lovely sugary cinnamon mixture

• Place on a baking tray and push down just a smidge

• Bake for 10-15 minutes, then leave to cool on the trays for 10 minutes before popping them on a wire rack to cool completely
• Savour with a cup of your favourite tea or coffee!

Change up the spices if you fancy it - ginger works a treat, as does mixed spice!

​Stay Hep, Cats!

A while ago I posted a recipe for Cinnamon Buns, and, although it was a pretty good recipe then, I've been trying to create one that was closer to the rolls I remember from before I was gluten free.  Now, whilst these still aren't quite the same, they are a pretty decent take.  Using gluten free flour with as high a protein content as you can is key here - it's why bread flour makes such great bread; it has a high protein content and when it's wheat based, it, of course, produces a lot of gluten.  We can't replicate that with GF flours, but we can give our bakes a lot more structure by using these sorts of flours.  I use pea flour in this recipe combined with rice- and corn flours, but you could use quinoa flour, oat flour or amaranth flour if you have them.  I would recommend adding a little rice flour if you use one of these more savoury style flours to ensure your cinnamon buns have the right level of sweetness.

I will also try to add a short how-to style video to my YouTube and IGTV channels for these (if I can figure out how to make them work!)

CINNAMON BUNS

For the Dough:
180ml warm milk
7g sachet of instant yeast
65g granulated sugar
2 eggs (room temp)
50g unsalted butter (melted)
375-450g flour (depending on the flour used).  I used a mixture of 250g pea flour, 125g rice flour & 75g cornflour
½ tsp fine salt
1 tsp xanthan gum or psyllium husk (whatever you have)

For the Filling:
140g brown sugar
1 ½ tbsp ground cinnamon
50g very soft unsalted butter

For the Icing:
150g icing sugar
2tbsp warm water

METHOD:

• Warm the milk.  About 1 minute in the microwave, or on the stove until it reaches about 40-45 degrees
• Add to the bowl of a free-standing mixer or a large mixing bowl.  Sprinkle over the yeast and leave for a few moments
• Add the sugar, eggs and butter and mix well until combined

These are a great Easter-time treat, or just a treat in general, as right now I think we need all the treats we can get!

Happy Baking!

Stay Hep, Cats!

You know you're a gluten-free baker of a certain age when just a few of your storecupboard staples are coconut flour, coconut syrup and cacao nib.  I worry I'm becoming one of those "Posho" type chefs we are taught to despise, but the problem is, if you're gluten-free, you have to find different flours to work with in order to make recipes work.  I, of course, want to make gluten-free cake accessible to everyone, and all the ingredients I use are easy to obtain (and hopefully not too cost prohibitive) but there are some times when only coconut flour will do!

​So this recipe, borne out of a need to use up 3 rather sad rapidly darkening bananas and a love of banana bread of Brobdingnagian proportions, was created.  I am also currently utterly obsessed with this Bali Nutra coconut syrup which adds an almost caramel treacliness to the finished loaf.  This recipe marries together flavours you might be more familiar with in a cocktail, but I think they work here so perfectly.  A dense and satisfying loaf cake which is both subtly sweet and enticingly nutty.  Whilst I am not a vegan, I have provided vegan substitutes below as this recipe is too delicious not to share with everyone.  It's like I always say... "let them all eat cake"!


INGREDIENTS
4 tbsp coconut oil, melted
1 egg (or the equivalent of egg replacer)
50ml coconut syrup (I used Bali Nutra)
4 tbsp natural yoghurt or dairy-free yoghurt
3 ripe bananas, mashed
150g coconut flour
165g gluten-free plain flour
1 tsp gluten-free baking powder
15g cocoa powder (I used Food Thoughts)
100g coconut sugar
50g dark chocolate chips (check the chocolate you are using is suitable for vegans if you are making this vegan)
10g cacao nib
3 tbsp coffee, cooled
Pinch free-flowing salt

METHOD

1. Preheat the oven to 190c/170c fan/gas 5
2. Grease (with coconut oil) and line a 900g/2lb loaf tin
3. Whisk together the egg (or egg replacement), coconut oil, coconut syrup, 50g of coconut sugar, banana and coffee together in a large bowl
4. In another bowl, mix together the flours, baking powder and salt
5. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet and stir well to combine.
6. Add in the remaining 50g of coconut sugar, the chocolate chips and cacao nib and fold through
7. Pour and scrape into your prepared loaf tin and bake for 30 minutes.
8. After 30 minutes cover the top with foil then bake for a further 30 minutes until the loaf is cooked through.  Remove to a wire rack for 20 minutes, then turn out to cool completely.
9. Eat this slathered in salty butter or dairy-free spread and drizzled with a little more coconut syrup.  Or just as it is (it is anything but plain) with a steaming cup of your favourite coffee.

Stay Hep, Cats!

NB: This is a stock photo, as I annoyingly didn't have time to photograph this loaf before it was consumed by a horde of hungry BBQ-goers

After a slightly boozy chat about brownies with some of my favourite foodie friends a little while ago, I spent ages thinking about how versatile these gooey traybakes are.  So simple to make and incredibly satisfying to eat, the humble brownie really is what I would deem a superfood!  


As if to solidify my thoughts on how truly fantastic they are, a few days ago my sister sent several photos to our family WhatsApp group of her children making brownies, and this then inspired my dad to have a go himself.  He wanted a recipe that he could try that he knew I could eat so he sent me a text to ask if I had a recipe.  "Of course I have a recipe!" was my immediate response, and proceeded to send it over to him.  I realised at that moment that while I have posted a video on my YouTube channel of me making these delicious dense delights, I hadn't actually posted the recipe here!  How could I be so silly!?

So, here it is, in its full chocolatey glory...

Makes 16-20

Ingredients:
150g unsalted butter
150g dark muscovado sugar (or 75g each of light muscovado and dark brown sugar)
150g golden caster sugar
75g Food Thoughts cocoa powder
125g gluten free plain flour
25g raspberry powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
¼ tsp xanthan gum
4 eggs
75g chopped chocolate of your choice (dark or milk preferably)
75g chopped hazelnuts (or any nut of your choice)
*you can also add dried fruit, and use caster sugar instead of the dark sugars if this is all you have*


Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 190c/170c fan/gas 5 and line a 25cm square cake tine with foil
2. Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over a gentle heat
3. Once melted add the sugar stirring to help it combine
4. Sift together the cocoa powder, flour, bicarbonate of soda, xanthan gum, raspberry powder and a pinch of salt and stir into the melted butter and sugar mixture
5. Remove from the heat then thoroughly mix in the eggs – do this one at a time to ensure they are fully combined
6. Stir in the chopped chocolate and nuts – make sure they are evenly distributed – then pour and scrape the brownie batter into your prepared cake tin
7. Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until the top starts to look dry and cracked but the insides are still wobbly and gooey
8. Transfer to a wire rack and allow to cool for about 10 minutes before turning out and slicing into brownie squares.  You can dust them lightly with a mixture of icing sugar and raspberry powder before slicing if you so desire

Stay Hep, Cats!

I like old stuff.  I'm a vintage girl and constantly inspired by things from the past.  The inspiration behind these crackle cookies is, not surprisingly, Black Forest Gateau.  Whilst I am not going to lie to you and say that eating these cookies is like eating a Black Forest Gateau, they do, for me, conjure up the same sense of nostalgia.  The dried cherries give these little nuggets a delicious sourness which works so well against the heady hit of chocolate.  They are not overly sweet, but with their prettily pink dusting of cherry powder, they have just enough to indulge your sweet tooth.

I use Food Thoughts products as I believe they give a superior flavour, however, feel free to use whatever you have in your store cupboard.


RECIPE
Makes 24
Total time to make: 30 minutes


INGREDIENTS

• 150g gluten-free plain flour
• 30g Food Thoughts cacao powder
• 30g Food Thoughts cocoa powder
• 30g Coffee Mate
• 1 tsp gluten-free baking powder
• 1/2 tsp xanthan gum
• 1 tbsp cherry powder, plus extra for dusting
• 200g golden caster sugar
• 25g Food Thoughts cacao nib
• 2 eggs
• 60g butter, melted and cooled
• 40g dried cherries, soaked overnight in 1 tbsp Kirsch
• 30g icing sugar (for dusting)

METHOD

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180c/160c fan/gas 4 and line 2 large baking trays with baking paper
2. Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, cacao powder, baking powder, xanthan gum, Coffee Mate and cherry powder together
3. Stir the sugar, cacao nibs and dried cherries through the flour mixture
4. Whisk the eggs and butter together, then pour this into the dry ingredients.  Stir together using a wooden spoon, then work with your hands to bring it together into a ball.
5. Roll about a dessertspoon full of the mixture into a ball, then roll in icing sugar and place on your prepared baking tray
6. Continue in this way until you have used all the mixture
7. Bake for 10-14 minutes, remove from the oven and leave to cool on the tray for about 10 minutes then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.  If you are unsure if they are cooked or not, give them a little nudge; if they slide they are cooked and can be removed.  If they don't budge or your finger leaves an impression in the cookie, you will need to leave them in for another 3-5 minutes.
8. Once cooled, dust them with cherry powder then eat, greedily.

Stay Hep, Cats!

Easter for me is about treats.  Hot cross buns slathered with butter, cake and Easter eggs, and more chocolate than you can shake a stick at.

​When I started thinking about what I wanted to make for my Easter treat this year, gluten-free hot cross buns were up there, but I really wanted to encompass everything I love about Easter into one delicious treat, which is where this recipe came from.

​These cupcakes are beautifully chocolatey with a gorgeous hit of hot cross bun spice.  Topped with vanilla buttercream and some candied peel they really do scream Easter.

You can watch the video of me making them here.

Give them a go, and let me know how you get on!

Stay Hep, Cats!

First of all, I must point out that the image here is not one of mine.  I made these cinnamon buns and they were scoffed before I could photograph them!

I wanted, therefore, to create my own gluten-free version of these Norwegian treats.  I love the recipe I have created, but like everything I do, they will continue to be a work in progress, so if I do find that I hone this recipe further, I will, of course, post an update for you all.  But, in the meantime, please give these delicious cinnamon-scented delights a go and let me know how you get on!  


RECIPE
For The Dough

• 7g fast action yeast
• 150ml warm water
• 100g caster sugar
• 400g gluten-free plain flour
• 1 tbsp gluten-free baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp xanthan gum
• 1 tbsp cider vinegar
• 175g unsalted butter
• 1 egg, plus another for glazing

For The Filling

• 75g very soft unsalted butter
• 75g caster sugar
• 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon

METHOD

1. Mix the yeast into the warm water and set aside
2. Melt the butter, allow to cool slightly, then add to the yeast and water.  Stir, then add the sugar, egg and vinegar whisking well to combine (and to ensure the egg does not scramble in the warm mixture)
3. Measure the dry ingredients into a large bowl, add in the yeast mixture slowly, beating well, ensuring everything is mixed.  The dough should be sticky-ish at this point
4. Cover the bowl with clingfilm and leave in a warm place to prove for about an hour
5. Check it after this time and if it bounces back when poked it is ready.  If not, leave it to prove for another 10-30 minutes.  It is important it is kept warm throughout.
6. Whilst you're waiting for the dough to prove, make the filling by beating all the filling ingredients together until you have a smooth mixture
7. Grease and line a 20cm tin and pre-heat the oven to 200c/180c fan/gas mark 6
8. Cut a third of the dough, and roll it out to fit the bottom of your tin using a dusting of gluten-free plain flour on your board and rolling pin.  It doesn't need to be perfect, you can stretch it to fit as needed, but be careful here, the dough will be fragile.
9. Roll out the rest of the dough to about 20-30cm square (or as big as you can get it), it helps to roll it between two pieces of parchment paper or clingfilm, then spread with the buttery cinnamon filling, taking it as close to the edges as you can.
10. Roll up the dough from the long edge, then slice into 6cm rounds, placing them swirly side up into the dough-lined tin
11. Leave to prove for 15 minutes
12. Brush with beaten egg, then bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown and cooked through
13. Remove to a wire rack until cool enough to handle, then pull off a bun and eat, heartily

I was published again this month in Vintage Life magazine, and while it's an utter thrill to see my articles and recipes in print, this time around I'm rather disappointed (and it's not the first time...)  The article I wrote has been shortened without me being asked first and the recipe sadly has been misprinted.  I am therefore providing both the full article (Read that here) and recipe here.  I hope you enjoy it!​

INGREDIENTS
Makes 25

Sponge:
200g gluten-free self-raising flour
25g cornflour
225g soft unsalted butter
225g caster sugar
1 large lemon, zest only
4 eggs
1-2 tsp lemon extract

Buttercream:
250g soft unsalted butter
200g icing sugar, sieved

(Optional) Marzipan:
3 tbsp apricot jam
200g ready-made marzipan

Icing & decoration:
1kg white fondant icing
150ml water
Food colouring of your choice (I would suggest yellow)
1-2 tsp Lemon extract
100g dark chocolate

METHOD:

• Pre-heat the oven to 160/140 fan/gas 3.  Grease and line a 20cm square tin with 2 strips of baking paper.
• For the sponge, mix together the flour and cornflour in a small bowl and set aside.  In another bowl or in the bowl of a freestanding mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, mix in the lemon extract, then add in the eggs one at a time with a spoonful of the flour mixture in between each.  Once fully combined, fold through the lemon zest then pour and scrape into your prepared tin and bake for 25 - 40 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.