BRB

Having some issues with too much stuff happening right now - will be back to regular posting soon!

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Gluten Free Friday: Link party!

I know, I'm a day late, but stuff has been happening and I can't find the measurements for the GFF recipe I am still to post, I'm sorry. So feast your eyes on these delightful gluten-free wares in the meantime!

Sweet Potato Fries from Gluten-Free Goddess

Fudge Mint Brownies from Gluten Free Diva

Custard Tarts from Canelle et Vanille

Cooking Basics: Poached Eggs (Attempt 1)

I deliberated about putting this under "cooking basics", because that implies that I am going to give you a recipe for a tried and tested dish (or what have you) that I always make. Not so much with poached eggs, as this was my first lesson in making them! Levi has made them for me a couple of times and this morning I decided he could make one, and I would make the next one. Five eggs later, I was eating one poached egg with my toast :(

On the upside, it was a delicious poached egg.

Does anyone have any poaching tips? I'm determined to get this right!

POACHED EGGS, ATTEMPT 1


1. Bring a saucepan full of water to the boil, and then lower the heat to a simmer

2. Crack an egg into a large spoon (or a 1/3 cup measure) and leave it there for a bit.

3. Using the handle of a wooden spoon, create a whirlpool in the water.

4. Gently lower the egg in and keep stirring to create the whirlpool - this is what binds the white bit to the yolk.

Gluten Free Friday: Chocolate Cake

Hi pumpkins! I am back from my Sydney/Melbourne adventures, which means more regular blogging. Huzzah! 

This is the cake I used for the Pokemon cake a few months ago. The recipe is from Gluten-Free Goddess, with some tweaks because I didn't have everything on hand (like organic light brown sugar swapped to regular brown sugar). I'm posting it on the good authority of the pantees that it actually tastes good - I had to leave the party early so I didn't actually get to eat any of it! 

FLOURLESS CHOCOLATE CAKE

450g dark chocolate

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

250g unsalted butter

2 tbsp cocoa powder

8 large eggs

1 tbsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Line a pan with greaseproof paper.

2. Melt the chocolate and mix with sugar until combined. Add the butter and cocoa powder and mix.

3. Add the eggs and vanilla, and mix until smooth and creamy.

4. Pour batter into pan and bake until cooked through (roughly 45min-1hr if I remember correctly).

Gluten Free Friday: Pancetta Baked Eggs

These are my favourite weekend breakfast food by far. I keep promising to have everybody over so I can make them (so far, I've only been having them at mum and dad's place), which hasn't yet happened but it will. I like long breakfast catch-ups.

You can also make vegetarian versions of these - instead of using pancetta, line the muffin tin with baking paper and place crumbled feta and sundried tomato in the bottom before cracking the egg over the top.

PANCETTA BAKED EGGS
Serves 4


4 eggs
8-12 strips of pancetta

1. If you have a non-stick muffin tray, ignore this step, but otherwise - lightly grease a muffin tray with olive oil (the spray kind works well)

2. Line the muffin tray with pancetta to make a "wrapper" for the egg.

3. Break the egg into the pancetta and bake at 220C for ten minutes.

Gluten Free Friday: Creme Brulee

HOW EXCITING, I've finally gotten around to doing a ~regular~ posting series, and even more exciting, its devoid of gluten!

(Don't hold your breath on the regularity, but I'll do my best)

I was hoarding a bunch of recipes to do gluten-free week and post a whole bunch of things, but then I thought, thats boring. There are so many delicious GF recipes around on the internet, I may as well share some with you (and the Uber-Blonde and Vigilante, both of whom are intolerant to gluten, KEEP UP WE'VE BEEN THROUGH THIS).

So because you need something decadent for your weekend, the opening dish is a good old Creme Brulee from everyone's favourite Pioneer Woman. If you head over to her blog, firstly it is incredible, but secondly, she has step-by-step pictures which make it seem a lot less daunting.

I had a nice bonding experience with Mum cooking this, because I bought her a kitchen torch for her birthday last year and it took her almost a year to use it (I think forwarding the recipe to her when it was published online may have been a subtle hint?). It was well worth it, though. Especially for this:

Me: "Ok, then she skims the foam off the top and eats it."

Mum: "Really?"

And then she tried it, and yea, it was delicious.

CREME BRULEE
Recipe from The Pioneer Woman

4 cups heavy cream
1 tbsp vanilla extract (or 1 whole vanilla bean, or 1 tbsp vanilla paste)
10 egg yolks
3/4 cups sugar
6 tbsp caster sugar


1. Preheat oven to 160C (325F).

2. Pour cream and vanilla into a saucepan and simmer over a medium-low heat.

3. Whip egg yolks and sugar in a separate bowl until thick and pale yellow.

4. Strain the cream using a fine strainer - I think we used muslin (fancy!)

5. Drizzle 1 cup of the cream into the egg yolks, whipping as you go. Slowly add the rest of the cream.

6. Place your baking dish (ideally ramekins, so I'll say that for the sake of convenience, but we cooked some in glass baking dishes) onto a rimmed baking tray. It needs to have a rim because once you've poured the custard mixture into the ramekins (do that now!), you need to pour water into the baking tray until it comes halfway up your ramekins.

7. Bake for 30 minutes, but make sure they do not brown on top. Allow to cool, cover with plastic wrap and chill for at least two to three hours.

8. Ready to serve? Excellent. This is the fun bit. Sprinkle 1 tbsp sugar over each ramekin (or equivalent - if you used two baking dishes, do 3tbsp each, use common sense). Then use the kitchen torch to burn the sugar to a nice, crisp layer on top. Serve immediately, and its fun if you crack the top with a spoon a la Amelie.