Fagiolotto

      4 hearty or 6 dainty portions

A creamy pea risotto is one of my favourite summer treats, but it does tend to spike my blood sugar and takes a good deal of stirring. By replacing the rice with white beans, you get all the creaminess without the simple starch that can mess up your blood sugar, it's super quick and makes a wonderful meal for your gut microbes too! I love Bold Bean Co organic white beans for this, but it works with any cooked cannellini beans, flageolet beans, borlotti or haricot beans. Ideally use a can or jar and include the bean broth to make things even creamier. Use good quality frozen peas for the freshest flavour.

800g frozen peas

2 medium brown skin or white skinned onions

Olive oil

25g butter (or olive oil)

Zest of a lemon

2 medium courgettes (or 2 large calabrese stalks, or a mixture)

A large jar of white beans (700g or 500g drained weight)

15g dill fronds or fresh mint leaves

Put the peas into a bowl and cover with boiling water from the kettle. Use plenty of water, so that the peas defrost. As soon as they are defrosted, refresh them by draining the hot water away through a sieve and covering in cold water. Set aside for a moment.

Finely dice the onion. Cover the base of a largish saucepan with olive oil and throw in the butter, add the onion and a few pinches of salt and sweat until sweet and translucent.

While the onion cooks, finely dice the courgettes or lightly peeled calabrese stalks – slice lengthways, pile up a couple of slices and slice along the length again into strips before cutting crossways into small dice. The smaller your dice, the more risotto-like the texture will be. Take a moment over this if you have the time. If using calabrese stalks, add them to the onions and sweat for 5 minutes more. The courgette dice only need a minute, so leave them until later.

Drain the peas and add half to a blender with a splosh of the bean stock from the jar, or water if the bean stock is too thick – not too much though or you will end up with soup and not puree. Add a couple of pinches of salt and blitz the peas to a velvety smooth puree, only adding water or bean stock if the mixture is too thick. It wants to be the texture of a slightly sloppy hummus.

Add the lemon zest and courgette to the onions and sweat for a minute then add the peas and beans and just heat through, don't allow to boil or bubble as the peas will overcook.

Add the pea puree and finely chop the dill or mint, adding 2/3 of this at the very last minute. Stir and taste for seasoning, adding salt and maybe some lemon juice if the flavour needs brightening.

Serve right away scattered with the remaining herbs, an optional zesting of lemon and/or grated parmesan if you like. It doesn't keep its colour once you add lemon, so if you want to keep any over, add lemon at the table not to the pot.

Black rice and beans with sweet roast roots

Serves 4

This deeply savoury dish of soft black beans and plump black rice is way more than the sum of its parts. Black rice, or riso nerone is packed with deep purple pigments that have powerful antioxidant properties and prebiotic gut health benefits. The dish has layers of subtle spice flavours, roasty bits and a sort of soothing succulence that I long for when I need a comforting bowl of food to snuggle up with when the weather is foul. Your gut microbes will find it equally tantalising as it boasts a good range of different prebiotics, anti-inflammatory aromatics and diverse ingredients – diversity is the key to a robust gut microbiome!

2 red onions

3 sticks of celery

4 cloves of garlic (or use garlic oil)

4  tablespoons of olive oil

3 tsp zattar (or 2 tsp thyme + 1 tsp sesame seeds)

3 tsp fennel seeds

salt

1 kilo squash (butternut, crown prince, harlequin etc)

2 tsp yellow mustard seeds

2 tsp nigella seeds

2 kilos of carrots or a mixture of roots

3 tsp cumin seeds

200g short grain black rice soaked for 1-2 hours (or short grain brown or red rice)

1 lemon

240g cooked black beans (120g dried or a 400g can)

600ml bone broth or vegetable stock or water

20g flat leaf parsley

80g feta cheese or labneh or coconut yogurt

Preheat the oven to 180ºC

Dice the onions and celery and finely chop 3 cloves of garlic. Gently heat a tablespoon of olive oil and add the onions, celery and garlic to the pan with the zattar and fennel seeds and a good pinch of salt. Sauté gently for about 15 minutes until the onions are soft, sweet and translucent.

While the onions soften, deseed and slice the squash into chip sized wedges – peel only if it has a very tough skin. Put the squash into a mixing bowl, drizzle with a tablespoon of olive oil and turn it over to coat. Tip onto a baking sheet, sprinkle with some sea salt and the mustard and nigella seeds. Repeat with the carrots (or other roots), scrubbed and cut in half or quarters lengthways according to the size of the root. Aim for fat chip size and use a couple of tablespoons of olive oil to coat them before tipping out and sprinkling with a little salt and the cumin seeds. Roast for about 45-60 minutes until tender and just catching on the edges. Keep warm until the rice is ready.

Drain the rice and add to the soft onions with the black beans and the zest of half a lemon. Stir and pour in the broth, stock or water (or use the liquid from the can of beans topped up with water) bring to the boil, cover and simmer gently until the liquid is all absorbed and the rice is plump and cooked. Do not stir at all while it cooks.

Finely chop together the flat leaved parsley, a garlic clove and the rest of the lemon zest with a pinch of sea salt to make gremolata – or just garnish with chopped parsley. Serve the rice in bowls, with the squash, cherry tomatoes on top and gremolata sprinkled over. Crumble the feta or dot labneh over the whole thing and dig in.

*In the summer I substitute cherry tomatoes and aubergine for the roots and squash.

Bashed cucumber salad

Bashing a cucumber might seem like a crazy thing to do to such a watery vegetable that is prized for crispness! Won’t it turn to mush? However, bashing doesn’t actually reduce the crispness of cucumber, instead it allows the flesh to absorb the flavour of a dressing and produces soft edged pieces that are much more enjoyable to eat than square edged cut pieces. Try it – wielding a rolling pin is always fun. The crisper your cucumber is to start with the better this salad will be, so those ridge cucumbers that you have to peel are perfect but a standard soft skin cucumber will work just fine.

Two peeled ridge cucumbers or one smooth skinned cucumber

2 hefty pinches sea salt

A drop of honey or pinch of sugar (optional)

A lime (or a tablespoon of Japanese rice vinegar)

A handful of coriander leaf

Hold one end of the cucumber and bash it firmly and evenly all the way along and around the entire circumference. Turn it round and do the same thing with the other half. The cucumber should break apart on several places, so use your hands to tear it open at the natural breaks and turn the pieces flesh side down, giving them a few more bashes until they break into chunks or long pieces. Be firm enough that some pieces jump off the board and you get cucumber seeds everywhere. This is not a job for the timid!

Use a sharp knife to cut the larger cucumber pieces diagonally across into lozenge shapes and put the pieces and seeds into a mixing bowl with the juice of a lime, salt and honey or sugar if using. Turn everything over with your hands. Taste for salt and sharpness, adding more salt or sugar/honey if you think it needs it. Roughly chop the coriander leaf and add to the salad, serve right away it doesn’t keep.

Umami cucumber

In place of salt, use a tablespoon of tamari, swap the lime juice for a tablespoon of Japanese rice vinegar and use a teaspoon of honey or sugar. Coriander leaf works fine here too, but I prefer a good pinch of mild chilli flakes and a teaspoon of toasted sesame seeds.

Kimchi cucumber

Is there anything that kimchi doesn’t improve? Whether you make your own, or buy it from a store, the sweet and sour, punchy, garlicky flavours of kimchi sit beautifully alongside clean, cool cucumber. Simply chop a handful sized amount of kimchi roughly and stir it through the bashed cucumber, or umami cucumber above. Toasted sesame seeds and even a drizzle of toasted sesame oil are totally delicious here too.

Mojo Rojo sauce

Makes about 300g

This deliciously fragrant, sweet and lightly spicy sauce is a good stand in for mayonnaise or ketchup in any meal. Although you can make it with fresh peppers, it’s perfect when peppers are out of season, or when you simply don’t have time to roast, de-seed and skin any (which is most of the time for me). I like to eat this with steamed mussels as they do in the Canaries (mejillones al vapor con mojo rojo), spreading a dollop of mojo rojo on my plate and dipping each mussel into the sauce using the shell as a pair of tiny tongs.

1 tsp whole cumin seed

2 tsp coriander seed

1 onion – red or brown skinned

Pinch of salt

½-1 tsp mild chilli flakes (Aleppo pepper or pul biber Turkish chilli flakes)

3 tablespoons olive oil (or garlic infused oil)

1 clove of garlic finely chopped

150g preserved piquillo peppers

Lemon juice to taste

Toast the cumin and coriander seeds in a dry frying pan until they start to smell delicious and toasty and then tip out onto a chopping board and crush them to a coarse powder with a rolling pin or grind in a pestle and mortar.

Finely dice the onion and sauté very gently with the salt, cumin, coriander seed and chilli in the olive oil until the onion is deeply caramelised – about 15-20 minutes in an uncrowded pan.

Add the garlic to the pan (if using) and continue to cook for another minute or so, stirring constantly until the garlic smells sweet.

Put the onion mixture and any oil/spices into a blender with the peppers and blend until velvety smooth. Taste for salt and lemon juice and add as much as needed. Scrape into a jar, refrigerate and use within 5 days.

Griddled baby courgettes with oregano butter

Courgettes are at their very best when they are the size of your index finger. If you grow them yourself, you have to be very quick to catch them before they swell into marrows! But happily you can buy them fairly widely and if not then this recipe works equally well with spring onions, french beans/fine beans, or asparagus. If you don't have oregano growing in your garden, then you may struggle to find it fresh in the supermarket and you can substitute marjoram, dill, tarragon, lovage, savoury or fennel fronds.

Serves 2 as a side

a big handful of baby courgettes (about 200-250g)

2 sprigs of fresh oregano

20g salted butter (or a tablespoon of olive/avocado oil + pinch of salt)

salt

Heat the griddle pan until it is hot enough to sizzle when you flick water over the surface. Slice the courgettes in half lengthways and place cut side down on the griddle pan - in batches if need be. Griddle both sides until they have char marks.

While the courgettes are cooking, strip the leaves and any flowers from the oregano and finely chop. Melt the butter and pour into the serving bowl with the oregano - stir together. Add the hot griddled courgettes, season with salt, turn to coat completely in the herby butter and serve right away. Add lemon wedges if you like, although I prefer just salty butter and oregano.

Toasted almond frangipane

Enough for an 8”/20cm tart

Frangipane is a great thing to have in your back pocket for teatime tarts, topping mince pies and making financiers – just add seasonal fruit. This version is made from toasted flaked almonds – or toasted blanched almonds – which gives the frangipane a rich, macaroon flavour and is good if you haven’t got any ground almonds to hand.

130g toasted flaked almonds or toasted blanched almonds

100g light muscovado sugar (or 70g light muscovado/30g caster sugar for a crisper crust)

40g potato starch or cornstarch (cornflour uk)

1 heaped tsp baking powder

2 good pinches salt

2 medium eggs (100g)

1 tsp vanilla extract (or a few drops of almond extract)

60g soft butter (or vegan block)

In a high-speed blender, blitz the almonds, sugar, starch and baking powder, scraping down if there are still some coarse bits. Add the salt and vanilla and crack the eggs into the blender and blitz again until smooth, again scraping down if need be.

Scrape the nut mixture onto the soft butter in a mixing bowl. If it’s hot where you are, don’t have the butter too soft as it will become oily. Using a whisk and some muscle, or an electric whisk – or a stand mixer, beat the mixture until light, fluffy and slightly glossy.

Pour into your fruit compote filled, blind baked tart case – or drop pieces of fruit into the frangipane and bake for around 35 minutes (depending on how deep your tart case is) at 160ºC until risen, light gold and a cake tester comes out clean. I sometimes underbake mine to get a gooey layer underneath the cake, but that is very much personal choice and depends on how much wet fruit is underneath.

Probiotic dilly gooseberries

It’s great to find a way of preserving a glut of gooseberries that doesn’t involve sugar. Dessert gooseberries are too sweet for this recipe, so save them for snacking and sweet dishes. You can also do this with just ripe blackcurrants (not fully ripe or they will burst), damsons and sloes to make a sort of tart olive replacement or alternative to preserved lemon. Dill is unexpectedly good with gooseberries. Eat these with oily fish on toast, alongside cheese or roast meat, toss them into grain salads, stir fries and bean dishes - anywhere that you want a clean sour kick.

1 tsp fennel seeds (or caraway seeds or dill seeds)

300g gooseberries

20g sea salt

5g sugar (optional, but sours the pickle more quickly)

500g filtered or mineral water

small bunch of fresh dill herb

2-3 blackcurrant, gooseberry or vine leaves (optional, helps keep things crisp) or a cabbage leaf.

a 1 litre preserving jar without rubber seal

1 beach stone or small glass jar to use as a follower

 Wash your hands with soap and water and make sure everything is clean but not sanitised – particularly not with anything antibacterial. Wash your preserving jar in hot soapy water and rinse well with cold water. Put the seeds into the jar.

Wash the gooseberries in cold water and discard any that are soft. Make the brine by mixing the salt and sugar into the water and stir until it has dissolved. If your gooseberries are unripe, prick each berry a couple of times with a skewer or large needle, no need if they are ripe.

Pour the gooseberries and dill herb into the jar and cover with the leaves. Pour the brine over the gooseberries until they are completely submerged and the brine is at least 3cm above them. Wedge a weight on top of the leaves, making sure that everything is submerged.

Close up the jar and leave to ferment at room temperature (18-22ºC) for about 5-6 days. If you have a jar with a rubber seal then you will need to keep a beady eye on the pickle to make sure that you don’t get a build up of gas in the jar. after 48 hours, press on the rubber seal and if you hear any hissing, gently release the clip, but do not allow the jar to flip open. Bubbles will rise in the jar and you will release any excess pressure. Do this once a day for the next couple of days. With a screw cap jar, you might need to twist the lid of the jar a little to release gas after 2-3 days or if you hear hissing. After 3-4 days the gooseberries will start to look a duller yellowy colour and the brine will turn a little cloudy. Taste them after 5 days to see if they are mellow enough – the brine should taste sour, not just salty. If you like you can give them a few more days to sour fully. When they are ready, transfer to smaller jars making sure everything is submerged under the brine and refrigerate. Eat them within 3 months to enjoy them at their best, but they will be food safe for at least a year provided they are kept cool and under brine. 

Griddled courgette with salsa verde (Low FODMAP)

Serves 4

Courgettes can be a little bland on their own, but their mildness is a perfect foil for a punchy sauce like salsa verde or pesto. Griddling brings a smoky sweetness to complement the salty-sour herb dressing and makes this dish a great accompaniment for roast meat, fish or even a plate of scrambled eggs. Herbs are packed with minerals and antioxidants, and the salsa verde stimulates the digestive process, so it’s worth making extra sauce to add to other meals. Use garlic plus oil if you don’t need to eat low FODMAP - recipe for garlic oil follows the main recipe.

3 medium courgettes

a small bunch of flat leaf parsley

half a bunch of mint

a small bunch of basil

1 tablespoon of salted capers (well rinsed)

2 anchovies

1 tsp of Dijon mustard

2-3 tsp of red wine vinegar (or lemon juice)

black pepper

100ml garlic oil *see recipe

Scrub the courgettes and peel into long, wide strips with a vegetable peeler. Put a griddle pan over a high heat and griddle the strips on one side, one layer at a time until you can see the char marks coming through on the edges, use tongs to transfer the cooked courgette to a mixing bowl and repeat with another layer of strips. If you don’t have a griddle pan, try cooking the strips under a really hot grill, just until they wilt – you won’t have the char marks or flavour though.

To make the salsa verde, pick the leaves from the parsley, mint and basil and put into a blender with the capers, anchovies, mustard, wine vinegar, lots of black pepper and ¾ of the garlic oil. Process in bursts, scraping down until you have a coarse, loose paste. Add more garlic oil or vinegar if you think it needs it. Alternatively, chop everything very finely on a board and then mix with the vinegar and garlic oil in a bowl or pestle and mortar. Combine the salsa verde with the courgettes while still warm and serve straight away. 

Garlic oil

The FODMAPs in garlic can present real problems for some people as they are much higher than in other members of the onion family. The fructans in garlic can be rendered more digestible by long slow cooking, so this is one method of reducing the side effects of garlic – although it won’t do anything for your garlic breath, in order to neutralise that eat something raw containing parsley, apple, pear or celeriac. Your ultimate goal should be to improve your gut health to a point where garlic does not present any problems, but in the meantime, this garlic oil gives the flavour of raw garlic to salad dressings and dips without the pain.

6 cloves of garlic

150ml olive oil

lidded jar

Take the papery skins off the garlic, slice thinly and pop into the jar with the olive oil. Leave to macerate for at least an hour, but ideally 6-8 hours before straining out the garlic through a small sieve. Refrigerate the oil if not using within the next 24 hours and use within a week.

Almond Shortbreads

Buttery, subtly nutty and just crumbly enough, these almond shortbreads are simplicity itself, both to source the ingredients for and to make. No chilling necessary if you don’t have time, just mix, roll, cut and bake, filling the house with warm vanilla and the promise of an excellent partner for your next cup of tea. House sales, visits to grandma and that smug feeling of having filled the cookie jar with something vaguely virtuous, but secretly very moreish - all optional.

x x x

Almond shortbread        

makes about 20

These simple shortbreads are short, buttery and everything a shortbread biscuit should be but with the extra nuttiness that ground almonds bring to the party. If plain is not your thing, add chocolate chips, chunks of stem ginger, citrus zest, extracts or spices according to your whim.

1 tsp yogurt

½ tsp vanilla extract (optional)

¼ tsp psyllium husks

70g soft salted butter

40g caster sugar

85g Doves white gluten free flour (or a similar xanthan gum free all purpose mix)

30g cornstarch (or potato starch)

50g ground almonds (almond flour USA)

¼ tsp fine salt

Mix yogurt, vanilla and psyllium husks and set aside for a moment. Beat butter and sugar together until slightly lighter in colour and then beat in the psyllium mixture. Sieve in Doves flour, cornstarch, ground almonds and salt and work the flour into the butter mixture to form a firmish dough.

Dust the work surface with Doves flour. Squash the dough into a rectangle (a bench scraper is useful here) and then roll out to a thickness of about 1cm, maintaining nice square edges on your rectangle by bashing them back into place with your bench scraper or rolling pin. Cut into 10-20 pieces depending on how large you want your shortbreads to be – they don’t expand much. Prick each biscuit decoratively with a fork or skewer and then if you have time, chill for 10 minutes in the freezer or longer in the fridge (until firm) before baking.

Bake on a parchment covered tray for about 24-25 mins at 160ºC/320ºF fan, until firm and just tinged with gold. They will crisp up on cooling but should feel firm when you take them out of the oven. Wait for 5 minutes before moving them to a cooling rack and store in an airtight tin in a hiding place for up to a week.

Dairy free shortbread

In place of soft butter, use vegan baking margarine such as Vegan Block or Flora Plant Butter (it must have a low water content). Or if you would prefer to use coconut oil, melt 40g coconut oil and allow to return to room temperature. When the coconut oil is cold (not fridge cold), beat in 30g of chilled high fat coconut yogurt. The coconut oil and yogurt should solidify a bit to form something that has the texture of whipped butter. In place of dairy yogurt to mix the psyllium, use a dairy free yogurt – any kind will do. Add a few drops of Japanese rice vinegar if you like - to add buttery flavour and balance the coconut. Chill the dough a little before rolling if it is soft or sticky, but don’t chill so it is firm or it will crumble.

Sourdough Knäckebröd - gluten free

If you make sourdough then you’ll be looking for something to use up the inevitable sourdough discard. Try these snappy, umami rich seeded crackers. Add a 1/4 tsp of baking soda (bicarb) to make something a little more open textured.

Sourdough knäckebröd

Makes 2 trays of crackers

These simple crackers are worth feeding your starter for and the sourer the better in my opinion, so you can use that jar of old discard that has been sitting at the back of the fridge giving you an accusing look every time you’re rootling around for the mustard. The sourer your starter discard, the more of a marmite-ish cheesy note you’ll get in the crackers – the good kind of cheese, not the old socks kind. Try teff in place of some of the buckwheat for a darker rye like flavour and any number of seeds make a delicious counterpoint to the umami crunch of the cracker.

To make these with yeast instead, simply use 3g of dried yeast, an extra 15g of Doves Farm flour, another 30g of buckwheat flour and an extra 55g of milk, water or cream.

100g gluten free sourdough discard

80g buckwheat flour

40g Doves Farm white gf flour (or equal parts rice/potato/tapioca)

30g finely ground linseed (flax) – ideally freshly home ground

50g milk or water or cream

4 tsp olive oil (or melted butter)

2 tsp honey (or 50/50 molasses and honey)

1 tsp sea salt

4 heaped tsp sesame seeds

2 tsp caraway seeds

Preheat the oven to 150°C fan/300ºF

Mix everything together to form a sticky dough and set aside at room temperature for a few hours to prove or stick in the fridge for 24 hours.

To roll out the crackers, split the dough in two and roll out each piece on a well dusted work surface. Use a bench scraper to make sure that nothing sticks underneath and re-dust if it starts to get sticky. Roll out to as thinly as you can – thinner crackers are more snappy and if they are too thick, you’ll struggle to crunch through them once baked. Sprinkle with more seeds and a little salt if you like and roll over with the pin to press them into the surface. Prick all over with a fork, as much as you can without shredding the dough – this pricking helps with the texture of the crackers. Use a pizza cutter to cut the dough into cracker shapes or by pressing down with a sharp knife, rather than dragging it across the dough. Or just break into shards once baked. Lay the crackers on a baking tray – lined with a silicone mat if you like. Repeat with the rest of the dough.

Bake for about 25-30 minutes until completely crisp, turning over half way through cooking – if there is any flex in the centre when you press, put them back in the oven again. Transfer to a cooling rack after 10 minutes. Store in an airtight box for up to 3 weeks.

Plant based gluten free Hot Cross Buns!

If you’re looking for the all butter, milk & egg version of this recipe, then scroll down the page and keep going until you get to the hot cross buns. For anyone looking for a plant based recipe. you’ve found it!

Hot Cross Buns (vegan)  

makes 6

*Disclaimer* This is a relatively untested recipe that I have adjusted from a full dairy and egg based recipe. It may need many tweaks. You are a guineapig and pioneer and I look forward to your feedback!

Easter definitely calls for some tender, cinnamon scented, currant studded buns with a sticky glaze. These are best eaten almost straight out of the oven whilst still warm, but they make great toast the next day with lots of nut butter or a slick of coconut cream and some frozen berry jam, or even a section of Easter egg if you’ve got any left!  Add the zest of an orange or some ground cardamom if you’d like to ramp up the flavour a bit. Use psyllium husk powder, or grind the husk very finely in a coffee grinder or high-speed blender – you could try xanthan gum instead, you’d probably need between 1-1 ½  tsp.

For the buns

70g potato starch

70g tapioca starch

50g buckwheat flour (or oat flour)

30g quinoa flour (or sorghum or millet flour)

1-2 tsp ground cinnamon

3g fine salt

225g dairy free milk or 125g canned coconut milk + 100g water

25g vegan butter or 20g coconut oil or olive oil

20g sugar

1 tsp cider vinegar

15g ground linseed

13g psyllium husks

3g fast acting yeast

50g currants (or raisins/sultanas)

30g chopped candied peel

For the cross

15g potato starch (or a white gf mix)

10g buckwheat flour (or oat flour, sorghum flour, millet flour or a white gf mix)

Big pinch of psyllium husk

25-35g water

For the glaze

50g white sugar (or a few tablespoons of marmalade or apricot jam)

In a mixing bowl, whisk together starches, flours, cinnamon and salt

In a small saucepan warm the dairy free milk (or coconut milk & water), vegan butter/oil, sugar and vinegar together until the butter/coconut oil melts and then divide between two bowls. Into one bowl of warm milk, stir in the ground linseed and psyllium husk, whisk well and leave to cool a little. When the other bowl of milk has cooled to lukewarm (about 30-35ºC), whisk in the yeast and set aside for 15 minutes to bloom.

When the yeast has bloomed and the psyllium has gelled, pour both into the dry ingredients. Beat vigorously until a smooth, sticky dough forms. Squidge it with your hands if there are any lumps at all, or put into a stand mixer with a paddle attachment and leave to run for a few minutes. Stir in the currants and peel and scrape the dough into a lightly oiled bowl to prove. Cover and leave in a warm place (30ºC is ideal) to prove for 30 minutes.

While the dough proves, make the cross. Mix together the cross ingredients, adding enough milk or water to make a smooth, pipeable paste – it will stiffen up a little as it sits. Scrape into a piping bag with a narrow tip and set aside.

Also make the glaze while you wait. Heat the sugar with 25g of water until the sugar dissolves and set the syrup aside. Alternatively sieve out the bits from some marmalade or apricot jam and let it down to a glaze consistency with a little boiling water. The glaze keeps the buns fresh for longer.

When the dough has proved, tip it onto an oiled surface and knead it until it is smooth again, if it feels super sticky then add 5g of extra linseed and knead until it is less sticky. It will be a sticky dough, so if you are not used to gluten free doughs, bear this in mind. A bench scraper can make the whole thing less messy. Keep your hands and surface oiled.

Cut into 6 evenly sized pieces. Form each piece into a round bun shape before placing it onto a greased tray – or use a silicone mat. Repeat with the other pieces, placing each bun only about 2cm away from the others so that they rise up together and touch – this will help prevent them flattening out too much. Cover lightly with a cloth and leave to prove again in a warm place for about an hour or so, until they look puffy – longer if your house is cool.

Preheat the oven to 220ºC fan (or 240ºC without fan) and place a tray in the bottom of the oven and a pizza stone in the centre of the oven if you have one. Make crosses on the buns by piping all across one line of buns and then across the other way. Place the buns in the oven and throw some water on the tray in the bottom to create steam – or give three bursts of steam, timed about 4 minutes apart if you have a steam oven. Bake for about 20 minutes, until the buns are well browned and firm.

Leave the buns on the tray while you brush them generously with the glaze. As soon as they are cool enough to handle, tuck in! They won’t keep much beyond 24 hours, but are great toasted or made into a bread pudding.

A simple chocolate cake that might change your life

Now that might seem like a bold claim when there are many chocolate cakes out there and pretty much all of them are good - I mean, what’s not to love? It’s chocolate right! In cake form! What makes this cake different for the gluten freebies among us is that it’s simple, involves ingredients that you don’t need to send away for and employs a little trick called pre-gelatinisation, that turns gritty, short rice flour into something soft and moist. It’s not a super rich cake, because I like to lay almost as much butter ganache on top as the cake will hold - to me, this is the correct ratio of cake to frosting. I don’t like overly sweet things, so I make my frosting with 55% plain chocolate and lots of butter stirred in at the end - which is as rich as you like and just sweet enough to feel wonderfully treaty. If you like things on the sweeter side, go for milk chocolate, which makes a properly kids-birthday-cake fudge frosting - hell, throw in some smarties while you’re at it and open up the dress up box. Your inner child may just need tending today.

There are options with this cake - a dairy free version, vegan version, richer version and a sourdough discard version - just choose whichever one you like and then show up at the River Cottage Instagram account on Saturday 23rd May at 11am British Summer Time (10am UTC) for a live-streamed bake-along. As always, I will be answering your gluten free baking questions and soaking up the good community vibes that you guys give out abundantly.

Luscious chocolate cake

The secret to the soft fudgy interior of this cake is precooking the rice flour with boiling water to get rid of any grittiness. The result is deeply chocolatey but not so rich that you can’t slather chocolate fudge frosting on top. You can make it egg free by using a flax egg, but it will be gooier and will need another 10-15 minutes baking.

120g rice flour (white will make a softer lighter sponge and brown a slightly heartier one)

125g milk or dairy free mylk

55g diced butter (or 45g olive oil or coconut oil or finely chopped cocoa butter)

200g light muscovado sugar (or caster sugar or coconut sugar)

40g cocoa powder

12g baking powder

½ tsp psyllium husk powder (or 2 tsp ground linseed/flaxseed/chia seed)

4g sea salt

1 tsp vanilla extract (or zest of an orange/2 tsp ground cardamom/2 tsp powdered rose petals (see my instagram highlight or the River Cottage Instagram stories for instructions on how to make rose powder)

1 large egg (or 1 ½ tablespoons ground linseed and 3 tablespoons mylk – for a gooier cake)

 Line a 23cm cake tin with baking parchment – or bake this as a sheet cake in a square pan.

Put the rice flour into a heat proof bowl and warm the milk on a low heat while you boil the kettle, Set a jug on the scales, zero the weight and when the milk comes almost to the boil, pour it into the jug. Top up to 250g with boiling water and right away pour over the rice flour, vigorously whisking to a smooth paste. Add the butter and leave it to melt while you get on with the rest.

Sieve the muscovado sugar into another mixing bowl (I always think I don’t need to sieve muscovado and I always do) and then sieve in the cocoa, baking powder, psyllium husk and salt. Scrape in the warm rice mixture, add the vanilla and egg and whisk again until completely smooth and glossy.

Pour the batter into the lined tray and set aside while the oven heats up to 180ºC/350ºF fan (200ºC/400ºF without fan). This wait allows the baking powder to start to act and the batter to hydrate properly. Bake for about 40 minutes until firm and springy and a toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely before frosting (or don’t quite cool because you’re in a hurry to eat it and the frosting will just slide off into your mouth and soak into the top layer of the cake in a gloriously gooey way – either way, it’s good) or eat warm like a pudding with whipped cream and ganache spooned decadently over the top.

*Richer chocolate cake*

Not rich enough for you? Want to go for a butter coma? Then adjust the ratio of liquid to butter in favour of the rich stuff. The crumb will be slightly denser and more brownie like if you do this. Follow the basic recipe above but use 80g of butter (65g of non-dairy fat – see above) and make up the weight of hot milk with boiling water to 225g. 

*Sourdough discard chocolate cake*

If you have a sourdough starter then you’re always looking for ways to use up the discard as it feels not only wasteful but slightly uncaring to pour any of your carefully tended baby down the sink. Once you’ve made crackers and crumpets with it, putting some in a cake is the next vehicle for it’s umami sourness.

Follow the recipe above but use only 75g of rice flour and top up the hot milk on the scales to 190g. Add 105g of sourdough discard with the egg (or flax egg). Proceed with the recipe as before.

Chocolate fudge frosting

This is essentially a rich chocolate ganache with lots of butter stirred into it. The texture is somewhere between ganache and buttercream, with the chocolate intensity of the former but lacking the tongue curling sweetness of the latter. The secret is to allow cream and chocolate to come to exactly the same temperature as the chocolate melts, if you start stirring too soon, or whisk the butter, the whole thing can split. You can make it with dark chocolate or half and half if you’d like something more deeply flavoured. Enough to generously top a 23cm cake

150g milk chocolate 

80g double cream 

50g salted butter – softened (add a small pinch of salt if you use unsalted butter)

You will need a pan and bowl that fit together to make a bain-marie for this recipe. Put enough hot water in the pan so that it gives off lots of warmth but doesn’t actually touch the bottom of the bowl. Set the water to boil.

Chop the chocolate and put into the heat proof bowl with the cream. Turn off the heat and allow the cream and chocolate to get to know each other for about 15 minutes. Push any firm bits of chocolate under the surface of the cream periodically and then stir gently once everything has melted – just until combined.

Add the butter to the chocolate mixture in chunks and when it is all in, stir it a couple of times to mix. Allow the butter to melt for a few minutes more and then gently fold until everything is smooth again with no streaks. Set aside until needed. If the butter doesn’t quite blend into the chocolate, don’t worry, just stir the mixture every 20 minutes or so as it cools and when the mixture starts to firm up the butter will blend in just fine.

You can use this frosting as a soft fudgy ganache or whip it once it has cooled to room temperature for a lusciously smooth truffle buttercream which is much lighter in colour. If you whip your frosting, you must do this just before you pile it on the cake, or it can seize and won’t be spreadable anymore. Anything leftover can be stored in the fridge but needs to come to room temperature before it can be used.

* Dark chocolate fudge frosting*

Swap the milk chocolate for dark chocolate – nothing darker than 70% cocoa content or it will split. For 50-60% cocoa content you can just follow the recipe above, but for 70%, reduce the chocolate weight to 140g and add a dessertspoonful of golden syrup to the cream when you melt the chocolate.

* Dairy free frosting*

Use 55% cocoa content chocolate and canned coconut milk in place of cream. Use 40g of coconut oil in place of butter. This frosting will have a more liquid texture than the butter frosting until it has cooled, so make it well in advance. If you need to hasten chilling in order to make it spreadable or whip it, then put the bowl into a larger bowl of cool water and stir with a spatula constantly until it starts to thicken up.

Arancini

In advance of my Saturday afternoon cook along on Instagram I’m publishing the recipes we’ll be using here. The original recipe is in my book River Cottage Gluten Free, but I’ve made some adaptions for plant based diets, so you’ll find options for a full dairy version and plant based version below, with a pesto recipe that you can use, or go with store bought if that’s what you have.

We’ll be doing our cook along at 5pm British Summer Time (4pm UTC) on Saturday May 9th. If you’re making along with me, have your risotto ready made and cooled and your pesto ready (frozen if you’re doing the plant based version) I’ll show you how to form, breadcrumb and fry your arancini and answer your questions along the way!

Arancini    

makes 18-20 small or 14-15 larger 

These crisp coated, cheese and pesto filled balls of rice are supposedly just a cute way of using up yesterday’s risotto. However, it is definitely worth cooking up a batch of short grain rice in some plain stock if you don’t have leftovers. Feel free to improvise your own fillings but choose something strongly flavoured and include a piece of cheese that melts to get the classic oozing centre. I like to fry them because it does make for the crispest crust, but you can bake them too for a less decadent, but no less delicious version. 

250g risotto rice (or about 700g leftover risotto)

1 litre chicken or vegetable broth

100g grated parmesan or pecorino or other strong cheese

6-7tsp basil pesto (see recipe)

50g mozzarella or any melty cheese

100g any gluten free flour

2 eggs

140g fine gluten free breadcrumbs

500g fat for frying 

Bring stock to the boil in a saucepan, add saffron if using and then the rice. Bring back to the boil and then turn down and simmer gently until the rice is cooked and all the stock is absorbed. Stir in parmesan, check for seasoning and add salt if needed. Spread out on a plate and put in the fridge to chill completely. Alternatively, just use leftover risotto.

When the rice is chilled, you can make arancini. Pinch up a small apricot sized piece of rice and roll into a ball. Poke your finger into the ball and using a finger and thumb, make the ball into a little pinch pot with sides of an even thickness. Don’t go too thin or your pot will crack when you fill it.

Spoon in about 1/3 of a teaspoon of pesto and a thumbnail sized piece of mozzarella to fill the cavity. Pinch off another small piece of rice, flatten it and use this to patch the top of the pot and make the ball round again. Roll very gently and pop on a plate while you finish the rest of the mixture in the same way. 

Get three bowls ready for coating the arancini. In the first put flour, in the second beaten egg and in the third, breadcrumbs.

Dip each rice ball first into flour to coat completely, then quickly, but thoroughly coat with egg. Finally, drop into the breadcrumbs and use a teaspoon to sprinkle crumbs over it and jiggle the bowl a bit, until you can pick it up to check the crumb coating is even. Set aside and repeat with the rest of the balls. They can now be chilled for up to 24 hours before you fry them. Don’t leave them any longer though because they contain cooked rice.

To fry, simply heat your fat in a deep-sided saucepan until a small cube of bread browns in a minute. Deep fry the arancini in batches, turning to make sure that they are evenly browned, if the fat doesn’t completely cover them. They are done when the crumbs are evenly golden brown.

Drain on kitchen paper and keep warm while you cook the rest.

Arancini (plant based)      

makes 15

These crisp coated, pesto filled balls of rice are supposedly just a cute way of using up yesterday’s risotto. However, it is definitely worth cooking up a batch of short grain rice in some plain stock if you don’t have leftovers. Feel free to improvise your own fillings but choose something strongly flavoured and freeze in little balls as I do the pesto to get that classic oozing centre. I like to fry them because it does make for the crispest crust, but you can bake them too for a less decadent, but no less delicious version. 

About 15tsp basil pesto (see recipe)

1 onion

Olive oil

250g risotto rice (or about 700g leftover risotto)

1 litre vegetable broth

Sea salt

2-4 tsp of nutritional yeast

2 tablespoons of ground linseed (flax) + 60-80ml of warm water

100g any gluten free flour

140g fine gluten free breadcrumbs

500g fat for frying 

Make your pesto or mix some olive oil into store bought pesto to make it a little looser. Put scant teaspoonfuls on a parchment lined tray and put into the freezer to go completely hard.

Make the risotto while the pesto freezes. Coat the bottom of a frying pan with olive oil, finely dice the onion, add to the pan and gently sweat until soft and sweet – about 20 minutes. Add the rice to the pan, stir to coat with oil and then add the stock. Bring back to the boil and then turn down and simmer gently, stirring often until the rice is cooked and all the stock is absorbed. Check for seasoning and add salt and nutritional yeast to taste. Spread out on a plate and put in the fridge to chill completely. Alternatively, just use leftover risotto.

Mix together your ground linseed (flax) and warm water and set aside. You want this to have the texture of beaten egg, so when you come back to it later, you might need to add a little water to it.

When the rice is chilled, you can make arancini. Pinch up a small apricot sized piece of rice and roll into a ball. Poke your finger into the ball and using a finger and thumb, make the ball into a little pinch pot with sides of an even thickness. Don’t go too thin or your pot will crack when you fill it.

Poke a frozen piece of pesto into the cavity, pinch off another small piece of rice, flatten it and use this to patch the top of the pot and make the ball round again. Roll very gently and pop on a plate while you finish the rest of the mixture in the same way. I tend to get a few pesto pieces out of the freezer at a time, so that they don’t go completely soft before I can use them. You can roll all the rice into balls first to make this bit quicker. If your risotto is not as sticky as you would like, stir a little tapioca starch or other starch in, to firm it up and make it more sticky.

Get three bowls ready for coating the arancini. In the first put flour, in the second the linseed/flax mixture and in the third, breadcrumbs.

Dip each rice ball first into flour to coat completely, then quickly, but thoroughly coat with egg. Finally, drop into the breadcrumbs and use a teaspoon to sprinkle crumbs over it and jiggle the bowl a bit, until you can pick it up to check the crumb coating is even. Set aside and repeat with the rest of the balls. They can now be chilled for up to 24 hours before you fry them. Don’t leave them any longer though because they contain cooked rice.

To fry, simply heat your fat in a deep-sided saucepan until a small cube of bread browns in a minute. Deep fry the arancini in batches, turning to make sure that they are evenly browned, if the fat doesn’t completely cover them. They are done when the crumbs are evenly golden brown.

Drain on kitchen paper and keep warm while you cook the rest. Eat the day you fry them and make sure that your rice is not more than 48 hours old from the first time you cooked it up as risotto.

Pesto 

Pesto Genovese is always made with basil, parmesan and pine nuts, but it’s possible to make pesto with any combination of dark leaves, hard cheese (or not) and nuts for a huge variety of different flavours. The flavour of the leaf and good olive oil should be dominant, rather than garlic or cheese. If you want to make this dairy free, just swap out the cheese for a little sauerkraut and some nutritional yeast, or just leave it out. If you do leave out the cheese, you’ll need more salt and acidity to compensate.

60g pine nuts or walnuts or cashews or hazelnuts

 ½ - 1 clove of garlic

pinch of salt (more if you have left out cheese)

30g parmesan or pecorino finely grated (or replace with 10g nuts, 20g sauerkraut and 5-10g nutritional yeast)

60g basil leaves (or a mixture of wild garlic, rocket and basil)

80ml olive oil

a squeeze of lemon juice or a little rice vinegar     

If you’re using pinenuts or cashews, use these raw, for other nuts, toast gently in a dry frying pan over a medium heat for about 10-15 minutes until they smell delicious. Be careful not to let them burn. Tip onto a plate and allow to cool.

Mash the garlic to a paste with the flat of a knife on a chopping board and put into a mortar with the nuts, crushing them a little. If you are using rocket, chop it finely and add this and the other herbs to the mortar a bit at a time with a slosh of olive oil, grinding and adding more leaves and oil as the leaves break down. If you’re using sauerkraut in place of cheese, add this too and smoosh it down. When the mixture looks the right texture, stir in the pecorino (or nutritional yeast) and taste for salt and acidity. As pecorino is less acidic than parmesan, if the flavour needs brightening, add some lemon juice or vinegar.

If you like, all of this can be done with a stick blender or in a food processor. You’ll get a more homogenous texture, but it will take a fraction of the time!

Scrape into a jar and cover with olive oil to keep out the air. It should keep for several weeks as long as everything is below the oil.

Blackberry Frangipane Tart (recipe from River Cottage Gluten Free)

In advance of my Instagram Bake-along at 11am on Saturday 25th April I’m posting the recipe for my favourite frangipane tart here, so that you can gather ingredients and bake along with me if you like. I’ve posted my original shortcrust recipe followed by the frangipane tart recipe. Substitutes for egg free frangipane, dairy and egg free frangipane and nut free frangipane below the tart recipe. I look forward to seeing you on Instagram!

Sweet Shortcrust Pastry

The secret to great pastry is to keep everything cold and use only your fingers – not your palms, when rubbing in fat. You don’t have to worry about overdeveloping gluten here, but you don’t want to melt the fat into the flour and end up with a greasy lump. It might seem like an awful lot of ingredients, but the finished pastry is short, nutty, buttery and delicious! 

80g rice flour (or oat flour, maize flour or millet flour)

90g sorghum flour (or buckwheat, chestnut, tigernut or teff flour)

50g tapioca starch (or arrowroot powder, or potato starch or cornstarch)

70g ground almonds (or ground hazelnuts, ground sunflower seeds or oat flour)

50g sugar

2-3 pinches of sea salt

3 tsp ground linseed (or 6 tsp for egg free version)

1 tsp psyllium husk powder

100g cold salted butter (or vegan butter or 80g coconut or olive oil)

1 large egg (beaten)

3-4 tablespoons of cold water (5-7 for egg free version)

Mix flours, ground almonds, sugar, salt, psyllium husk & linseed together in a mixing bowl. 

Cut butter into chunks and rub into the flour with just the tips of your fingers, until it resembles rough breadcrumbs – don’t go too far with it, so that it looks like sand. If you have warm hands, put them into cold water before you start, or do this part in a food processor.

Stir in beaten egg with a fork (leave out if using extra linseed).

Sprinkle in some water using your hands and stir the mixture with your hand in a claw shape. Add enough water in small amounts until the crumbs start to form clumps by themselves as you stir them. Try to avoid kneading the dough or squishing it together too much, just stir the crumbs with your fingers to encourage them to absorb the water. You will need to make the dough wetter than for a standard wheat dough as the flours and linseed will take up slightly more water than wheat flour. The texture you’re after is soft putty rather than firm dough.

Knead briefly on a floured surface and gently to bring together into a ball. Flatten to about 2 inches thick, wrap in parchment or put in an airtight container and chill for 20-30 minutes until firm enough to roll out.

If it seems at all crumbly when you come back to it after chilling simply crumble it into lumps and add a few more teaspoons of water before re-kneading. You’ll get the hang of how much water to add after you’ve made a couple of batches. Err on the side of too wet rather than too dry and your pastry will hold together better.

Blackberry Frangipane Tart

One of the few domestic things my mum did was to make blackberry jam. Armed with carrier bags, we set out to forage with hearts full of possibility, delighted at the prospect of some free fruit. Later, all scratches and purple fingers, we would watch our mum perform some kitchen alchemy as jars sprang from nowhere to be filled with hot jam, the colour of a summer night. The jammy blackberry compote that complements frangipane so beautifully is a salute to my mother – a dab hand with a blackberry. 

Tart

½ quantity sweet shortcrust pastry

20g flaked almonds – to sprinkle

Frangipane

100g very soft salted butter (or 50g coconut oil or melted cocoa butter + 50g dairy free yogurt)

100g light muscovado sugar

2 large eggs

100g ground almonds 

40g potato starch (or cornstarch)

1 heaped tsp gluten free baking powder

Fruit Filling

250g blackberries (or other berries, rhubarb, peaches or plums)

40g sugar – or to taste

zest of a lemon (optional)

2 tsp cornflour blended with 1 tbsp water

Make the filling first. Put berries, lemon zest and sugar into a small pan and cook until the juices have run and started to reduce a little – 10 minutes or so. Stir cornflour into a tablespoon of cold water and add it to the pan on the heat, stirring constantly until it has thickened. Set aside to cool.

Roll pastry into a circle on a floured surface – or between two sheets of floured parchment or silicone mats if you struggle to handle it. Use the rolling pin to help you drape it over a well buttered flan case. 

Gently press pastry into the flan case, patch any holes, prick base with a fork and slice off any excess with a knife, chill for about 10-15 minutes in the freezer (25-30 mins in the fridge) until the butter is firm again. Place a large circle of parcment in the case with some baking beans and blind bake at 180ºC fan/200ºC no fan (355ºF fan/390ºF no fan) for 15 minutes. Take out the baking beans and put back in the oven for another 5 minutes. Set aside to cool a little.

To make the frangipane topping, put everything in a bowl and beat until light, smooth and fluffy. Cream butter and sugar together first if the butter is not super soft.

Spoon fruit filling over the blind baked pastry case. Spoon frangipane over the fruit, level the top and sprinkle with flaked almonds.

Bake for 35-45 minutes at 160ºC fan/180ºC no fan (320ºF fan/355ºF no fan), until the frangipane is cooked. Test the frangipane with a skewer and when no wet crumbs come out, it’s done.

Serve warm or cold with lashings of double cream.

Frangipane – gluten and egg free

Enough for an 8”/20cm tart

This frangipane is definitely denser than one made with eggs and needs more cooking, but the crust becomes moreishly chewy and the centre is wonderfully moist.

25g ground golden linseed

1 tsp lemon juice or vinegar

1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)

85g soft salted butter 

100g light muscovado sugar

100g ground almonds 

50g potato starch 

1 tsp ground psyllium husk

2 tsp baking powder

Mix together ground linseed, lemon juice and vanilla with 125g water and set aside for a few minutes to form a gel.

Beat butter and sugar together briefly.

Sift ground almonds, potato starch, psyllium and baking powder into the bowl, add the linseed mixture and beat well until lighter in colour, smooth and fluffy.

Use straight away as per your recipe. Bake for 35-40 minutes at 160ºC until firm and a skewer comes clean

Frangipane – gluten, egg and dairy free

Enough for an 8”/20cm tart

This frangipane is definitely denser than one made with eggs and needs more cooking, but the crust becomes moreishly chewy and the centre is wonderfully moist. Don’t forget the salt or leave out the acid as these are important to balance the lack of eggs and dairy.

25g ground golden linseed

2 tsp lemon juice or vinegar

1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)

60g coconut oil or olive oil (or equal parts coconut oil/olive oil/cocoa butter)

100g light muscovado sugar

100g ground almonds 

50g potato starch 

1 tsp ground psyllium husk

2 tsp baking powder

2 good pinches salt

Mix together ground linseed, lemon juice and vanilla with 120g water and set aside for a few minutes to form a gel.

Beat coconut oil and sugar together briefly – the coconut oil must be at room temperature.

Sift ground almonds, potato starch, psyllium, baking powder and salt into the bowl and beat well until lighter in colour, smooth and fluffy.

Use straight away as per your recipe. Bake for 35-40 minutes at 160ºC until firm and a skewer comes clean.

Frangipane – nut and gluten free

This frangipane has a delicious flavour from sunflower seeds, but they don’t overpower. You could also use pumpkin or sesame seeds (black sesame is lovely) – but they have much stronger, grassier and bitter flavours, that require thought when deciding what to pair with the frangipane. You need a coffee grinder with blades to grind up the seeds, coconut & oats.

40g sunflower seeds

20g rice flour

20g gluten free porridge oats

20g desiccated coconut

40g potato starch

100g softened salted butter 

100g light muscovado sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 organic eggs

1 tsp baking powder

First grind the sunflower seeds with the rice flour, until the texture of finely ground almonds. Repeat with oats and coconut – don’t overload the grinder. 

Put the ground seeds, oats & coconut into a mixing bowl with the rest of the ingredients and beat well until light, smooth and fluffy.

Use as per your recipe. Bake for 25-35 minutes 160°C until the frangipane is cooked. Test the frangipane with a skewer and when no wet crumbs come out, it’s done.

Serve warm or cool with lashings of double cream.

Coffee genoise with a butter ganache

A genoise sponge is a perfect vehicle for all manner of gooey, luscious fillings. In fact the cake demands to be slathered in decadence as it is a light dry thing on its own, full of air and delicacy. You can bake this cake in two sandwich tins or make a Yule log by baking it in a Swiss roll tin. For a Yule log, I tend to bake mine in a large Swiss roll tin and then bake some in a smaller square tin so I can have a branch on my stump. Cooking time for a Swiss roll will be shorter, probably about 15-18 minutes - depending on how thick you made it. As with any recipe, just keep checking - but don’t go opening the oven door too early lest your cake fall in the chill draft. If you don’t have real coffee or a coffee grinder then you can use instant espresso powder - not quite the same flavour though, or leave out and make the chocolate version.

The butter ganache is essentially a ganache with lots of butter melted into it that can be whipped up like the most luxurious buttercream ever, or left as a fudgy milk chocolate ganache. The key to getting this right is patience - if it senses that you’re impatient it will split, just like your cat when you even think about taking it to the vet.

For a dairy free version, try using Coyo yogurt or chilled and whipped coconut cream for the filling and my dairy free ganache (below) for the coating - it’s not as soft as the butter ganache, but still very delicious. You can also make a beautiful frosting with a buttercream texture from blitzed avocado and melted chocolate or cocoa and maple syrup - not seasonal, but hey it’s Christmas!

I often add a crown of cookie shards, or chocolate bark shards with some piped butter ganache stars, and maybe a handful of toasted hazelnuts although chocolate curls are also cake shop perfect.

Coffee genoise

60g unsalted butter (or 50g coconut oil or cocoa butter)

6 large eggs (330g out of the shell) room temperature

200g caster sugar

160g buckwheat flour (or 100g buckwheat plus 60g cocoa for a chocolate version)

1 tablespoon real coffee blitzed in a coffee grinder with 1 tablespoon of caster sugar (optional)

Line two 23cm sandwich tins with parchment and preheat the oven to 175ºC

Melt the butter and set aside. Set up a Bain Marie over a gentle flame and stir the eggs and caster sugar with a balloon whisk until they warm up a little - but don’t over heat or they will scramble. Tip egg mixture into a stand mixer with a whisk attachment and whip on high speed for about 5-6 minutes until tripled in volume and the mixture leaves a rope that doesn’t dissolve into the rest. Scrape the meringue into a wider bowl for folding. Fold the flour into the fluff a third at a time, sifting it over the whole surface and then folding to avoid the meringue falling.

Warm the butter a little and scoop a few spoonfuls of meringue into the butter, beat until completely emulsified and then pour the buttery batter carefully over the meringue mixture. Fold until just incorporated, keeping the meringue batter light and airy.

Divide between the two tins and bake for about 20 minutes until the cake has risen and settled and a cake tester comes out clean. Cool completely in the tins and then unmould and slice each cake in half so that you have four layers.

Brush each layer generously with coffee syrup (recipe below) and sandwich with vanilla mascarpone cream. If you’ve made the chocolate version, for this I like to go Black Forrest and cook up some frozen black cherries, add a bit of bourbon, use the juice from this to brush the cake and add the cherries in the layers. Cover with a crumb coat of the butter ganache, chill and finish the cake with a top coat of ganache once it has thickened - or whip the ganache with a balloon whisk until it goes light and fluffy - like the most deliciously smooth and rich chocolate butter cream you ever ate.

Coffee Syrup

make a teacup of strong coffee and sweeten it to taste. Bring to a simmer and stir just until the sugar has dissolved. Add some Kahlua if you like. Cool and use as directed above.

Mascarpone cream

2-3 tablespoons of icing sugar

300g double cream

200g mascarpone

2 tsp vanilla extract or hazelnut/coffee liqueur

Dissolve the sugar in the cream, add the mascarpone and vanilla/liqueur and beat with a balloon whisk until smooth and thick. Use as directed above.

Butter ganache

150g milk chocolate - finely chopped

50g dark chocolate - finely chopped

160g double cream

pinch of sea salt

85g softened unsalted butter

In a bain marie, very gently melt the chocolate and cream together with a pinch of salt. Avoid stirring until everything is completely melted, just push the chocolate down under the surface of the cream. When melted, stir the mixture with a folding motion until everything is smooth. Put the bowl back over the Bain Marie - you may not even need to turn on the heat - and add the butter. Push the butter under the surface of the chocolate and leave to melt. When completely melted, use he same folding motion to gently stir until everything is smooth and glossy. Be patient - ganache this rich needs a touch of zen. Use the ganache as it is to spread a very thin ( and ugly) crumb coat on the filled cake, chill for 10-15 minutes until set and then cover with whipped or unwhipped ganache when the ganache has cooled and started to set a bit (put a piece of lightly buttered parchment on top while it cools). If you are whipping it, do this just before you use it, or it will sieze and become unspreadable.

Dairy free ganache

I give slightly less of this as it is not as good for piping, so this is just enough to cover the cake.

200g plain chocolate (50-55% cocoa solids, no higher) finely chopped

150g coconut cream

1 tablespoon coconut oil

Put everything into a bain marie and allow to gently melt, pushing the chocolate under the surface of the coconut cream, but not stirring. When everything is melted, use a folding motion to bring the ganache together, stirring gently until it is completely smooth. Allow to cool to room temperature and use to crumb coat the cake, then either allow to cool until it is thicker (takes much longer than cream ganache) or cheat by putting it into the fridge for a few minutes, stirring and repeating until it is the texture you want. Don’t leave in the fridge or it will go solid. If you like, you can whip it until it becomes thicker for a truffle frosting. Do this just before you plan to use it or it will seize and become unspreadable.

Almond, Pear and Ginger Cake

Naturally sweet liquorice root helps reduce the amount of sugar needed in this tender, ginger scented cake, while buckwheat and ground almonds provide fibre that helps to stabilize blood sugar levels. Liquorice root is said to reduce sugar cravings and can be used by the body to make adrenal hormones, making this cake a perfect treat if you need to support your pancreas. In summer, replace the pear with a couple of figs and the ginger with a teaspoon of anise seeds and a tablespoon of cinnamon, for a very Mediterranean version.

130g buckwheat flour

100g ground almonds (or other ground nuts or ground sunflower or pumpkin seeds for nut free)

15g (2 tablespoons) liquorice root powder 

1 tablespoon ground ginger

14g (1 tablespoon) baking powder

220g soft salted butter (or 150g coconut oil + a heaped tablespoon of coconut yogurt)

150g dark muscovado sugar or coconut sugar

3 eggs (160-170g)

100g chocolate chunks or chips

120g yogurt (sheep or goat or low-fat coconut will work too)

1 ripe pear

Preheat the oven to 160ºC with fan or 180ºC without fan. Line a 20cm cake tin with baking parchment.

Whisk together the flour, ground almonds, liquorice powder, ginger and baking powder and set aside.

Beat butter and sugar together until lighter in colour and fluffy. Beat in an egg and then 1/3 of the flour mixture, repeating with the rest of the eggs and flour mixture until everything is incorporated. Beat in the chocolate and yogurt and scrape into the cake tin. Halve and core the pear with a teaspoon and cut into 8 pieces. Place the pear on top of the cake mixture in a pattern that makes you happy. Bake for about 45-60 minutes until firm and springy and a cake tester comes out clean. Cool completely on a rack in the tin and then unmould.

Serve with strained yogurt or whipped cream.

Gluten Free Panforte

Panforte is a dense, sweet, richly fruity Italian Christmas treat from Siena eaten in small slivers with a glass of festive booze. Due to a generous amount of honey, panforte has a wonderful chewiness that reminds me of the fig sweets I used to eat as a child - these were simply a fat dried fig torn along it’s edge and stuffed full of nuts and maybe a little hunk of dark chocolate. The bitterness of walnuts, cocoa and peel (or at least zest) are essential to take the edge off all that sweetness, but you could also add a little bite with sour cherries or cranberries in place of part of the weight of figs or use coffee liqueur in place of brandy. If you’d like a more chocolatey version, just reduce the buckwheat and increase the cocoa and add some chunks of dark chocolate to the mix. Make it now and stash away for Christmas Eve, when you’re settling down with the presents all wrapped and a delicious sense of anticipation. You’ll feel very grown up and continental.

250g blanched almonds


100g walnuts


150g buckwheat flour

2 tbsp cocoa powder


1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp ground white pepper


½ tsp cardamom seeds, ground 

100g soft dried figs (or dried figs soaked in a little water for an hour)

175g whole candied orange peel


150g light muscovado sugar


150g runny honey


50ml brandy, sherry or marsala

Edible rice paper to line the tin & icing sugar, to serve

Heat the oven to 200ºC fan (or 220ºC without fan). Line the bottom and sides of a 23cm cake tin with a removable base (ideally springform) with parchment and then rice paper on the side that will touch the cake. 

Put the nuts on a baking tray and roast for five minutes, then allow to cool slightly, turning the oven down to 160ºC fan (or 180ºC without fan). Tip just under half the nuts into a food processor and grind into a loose rubble, then very roughly chop the rest. Tip into the mixing bowl with the buckwheat flour, cocoa, baking powder and spices and whisk to combine.

Roughly chop the figs and the peel, add to the bowl and stir well.

Put a small pan on the scales, weigh both sugar and honey into it and stir in the alcohol. Gently heat while stirring just until it starts to bubble - be very careful that you don’t let any splash over the edge as the alcohol is flammable. Immediately stir into the other ingredients until well combined, then scrape into the prepared tin and press down with wet hands. Bake for about 30 minutes until a little risen and just firm, then allow to cool before turning out and trimming the rice paper. It will keep for at least a month in an airtight tin. Dredge with icing sugar before you serve it.

Cuajada and peaches in Bilbao

I was thrilled to have the chance to attend the 50 Best Restaurants event in Bilbao earlier this summer. The town was buzzing with excitement and food was being celebrated wherever we looked. Pintxos are the tapas of northern Spain – morsels of roast pepper, glistening jamon and an incredible variety of seafood come perched atop a chunk of bread, skewered through to hold everything in place. In bars across town the pintxos gleam like arrays of delicious gems, just waiting for you to step in, order a cool glass of local txakoli wine and pop one into your mouth. 

Of course, there was one major problem for me – all the bread! I watched the rest of our group pointing and munching and enjoyed my own breadless plates of sweet, nutty, jamon iberico de belota (jamon from free range iberico pigs that are fed on acorns) and piquillo peppers. There was even a trip to the Mercado de la Ribera in the old town where the pintxos came on gluten free bread – I was touched, but the bread was so awful I just ate the yummy toppings instead. So, I enjoyed the atmosphere of pintxos rather than the ease of drifting from bar to bar until your stomach tells you it’s full.

I loved the sense of place in food that I got from both the Basque people I met and the chefs who spoke at the Miele 50 Best Talks in San Sebastian. No exotic produce is flown in and everywhere there is evidence of the pride that people take in the incredibly verdant land and sea that surround them. Seafood of all sorts, local meat, sheep cheese and luscious fruits at the peak of their ripeness are all given respect because they represent the bounty of the Basque country (Euskal herria in Euskara). Although we didn’t have a kitchen, I loved visiting the greengrocers around town to feast my eyes on pale, thin skinned sweet onions, gnarly tomatoes and tiny blushing apricots – picking up a punnet of fruit while I imagined what I would do with all those brightly coloured vegetables.                 

In place of pintxos excitement, I looked forward to my breakfast every morning at our delightfully old-fashioned hotel. Beside the tempting array of summer fruit, marcona almonds and other sprinkles was a tray of little clay pots, full of something called cuajada. I can’t tolerate cow’s milk, but sheep milk is the perfect alternative and at home I often start the day with some sheep kefir. In northern Spain, you’re almost as likely to come across sheep cheese as cow cheese and I found when I picked up one of these little pots that cuajada is simply curdled sheep milk (cuajada means curdled in Castilian). Traditionally eaten as a dessert with walnuts and honey, sometimes people take the breakfast route like me and eat cuajada with fresh fruit. Cuajada is a little like junket, for anyone old enough to remember it! Mild, soft and without the sourness of yogurt, the sweet creaminess of sheep milk shines in cuajada, allowing fragrant flat peaches (paraguyos) and white fleshed nectarines to sing alongside. A sprinkle of deeply toasty almonds, crushed linseed and squishy raisins made my first meal of the day one to remember.

When I got home I bought some rennet and found that making cuajada is about the simplest thing in the world. So here’s a recipe. You can make it with cow or goat milk, but I would search out some sheep milk (try the Sheep Milk Company) for that authentic Bilbao experience. If you’re going to keep the cuajada for longer than a couple of days then I would sterilise your jars in a hot wash in the dishwasher (over 60ºC) or wash in hot soapy water and dry in the oven at 140ºC – this takes about 10-15 minutes. Invest in a food thermometer too, so that you can get exactly the right temperature – this helps if you’re making yogurt too. I plan to write a post about making yogurt in my oven soon as it’s so easy and requires no extra gadgets to clutter up my work surface!

If you’re looking for some kitchen inspiration, I can absolutely recommend Miele. Their products are beautiful, precise, reliable and last for years. I’m delighted to be a contributor to the Miele website Der Kern, where you can find my exclusive recipe for a simple gluten free baguette. Pour yourself of cup of tea while your cuajada sets and head over for a browse.

Cuajada

If you like, you can add a little sugar and vanilla or a pinch of cinnamon to your cuajada. Add about 1-2 tablespoons of sugar and ½-1 tsp of vanilla extract.

1 litre sheep milk

18 drops vegetarian rennet (for animal rennet follow instructions on the bottle for dosing)

8 small jars, sterilised as above – at least 125ml capacity

Heat the milk very gently to 32ºC (this will feel slightly cooler than body temperature) and pour into a clean jug. Add flavouring and sweetener if using and stir to dissolve.

Measure the rennet into a tablespoon and stir into the milk all at once – I’ve found that the droppers on rennet bottles can be hit and miss and you don’t want the milk to curdle before it’s in the jar.

Pour evenly into the jars, put the lids on and place carefully in the fridge. In a couple of hours they will be chilled and set.

Cuajada will keep for about a week in the fridge.

Wellbeing starts on the inside

I'll be speaking at the Mind Body Spirit festival at the NEC on November 3rd about the gut-brain connection and looking in more depth at the systems and processes at work deep in our bellies and at how we can positively influence our moods, impulses and immunity by improving our microbial health. For more information, follow this link

We all know that our emotions can affect our gut, from nervous butterflies in the tummy to total loss of appetite or ravenous cravings when you’re upset about something. Much less is known about the effect of poor gut health on our emotional wellbeing, but studies now show that resident microbes in our guts, levels of systemic inflammation and what we eat, can have a profound effect on our moods, hormone levels, our appetites and weight. Even if you don’t have any gut symptoms, if you suffer with sleep issues, hormonal balance, weight control, depression, impulse control, skin conditions, allergies, autoimmune issues or repeat infections then chances are your gut microbiome is out of whack and could do with a little care to get it back on track. We are all individuals, so rather than popping a pill to fix your gut, you need to think more holistically and look at yourself as an entire ecosystem that needs support from all angles. As well as including more fermented food in your diet to top up your microbes, try these five simple ways to set your microbiome in the right direction and you should soon be enjoying the benefits.

Prebiotics

Eat the food your microbes love to eat! This is called prebiotic food and you’ll find it mostly in the plant kingdom, in foods that contain soluble fibre. Try to include more of the following foods to keep your microbes happy and well fed: apples, beetroot, onions, leeks, garlic, broccoli, cabbage, kale, artichokes (both kinds), asparagus, plums, pulses, celeriac, radishes and linseed. If you find that prebiotic food makes you a little windy, start with small amounts and increase as your microbes adjust to your new diet.

Antioxidants

An imbalance of gut microbes can lead to inflammation caused by pro-inflammatory microbes. Systemic inflammation can also be caused by stress, alcohol and medications and can make the lining of the gut irritable and over reactive. It’s a vicious cycle that you need to break by soothing your body from the inside, on a cellular level. Brightly coloured and darkly coloured plant foods contain pigments that are anti-inflammatory, so eat these as often as you can; berries, black rice, beetroot, sea buckthorn, acerola cherry, spirulina, dark green leaves, red peppers, buckwheat, seaweed and citrus peels have some great anti-inflammatory properties. 

Soothing fats

The protective fats found in butter, coconut, olive oil, avocado, chicken, seeds and nuts are particularly soothing for the gut, helping to reduce inflammation. Your microbes also enjoy these fats too and you’ll find that many plant nutrients are difficult or even impossible to absorb without them. So, dress your salads with cold pressed oils, butter your steamed greens, sprinkle ground linseed on your breakfast and drizzle tahini on your toast. 

Restorative broths

meat or fish stock cooked slowly for 6-24 hours is called bone broth, because of the connective tissues and minerals that are dissolved into the cooking liquid during the long, slow simmer. The result is full of easily absorbable colloidal minerals and amino acids that help repair and protect the mucosa of the gut and stimulate digestive juices. Make hot or cold soups, stews, risottos or just drink a warming mugful with a pinch of salt before bed as the magnesium in contains will make you sleepy. Vegetarians can make vegetable broths with seaweed added off the heat and include medicine foods such as slippery elm, aloe juice and psyllium husk in their diet.

Foraging and hanging with animals

You can forage for wild food even in the middle of a city and one of the benefits (apart from free food) is that you expand your microbiome by coming into contact with a greater range of microbes. The same can be said for those who have pets who go outside, or any contact with animals whether it’s petting a horse, or saying hello to dogs in the park. These little micro exposures to different microbes teach our immune system to be more tolerant and increase the chances of microbial diversity in our gut, on our skin and in our home environment. Sign up for a foraging course, buy a wild food book or just go pick some blackberries and say hello to as many animals as you can along the way. 

Hot Cross Buns - Gluten Free!

I've been asked for a hot cross bun recipe so often recently, that I just had to come up with something before the Good Friday deadline came around. Almost at the last minute, I've managed it. There are a few stages to these sticky, tender buns, but none of them are onerous, just put the radio on, dance about the kitchen a bit and pray for sunny weather.

Hot Cross Buns         makes 12

Easter definitely calls for some tender, cinnamon scented, currant studded buns with a sticky glaze. These are best eaten almost straight out of the oven whilst still warm, but they make great toast the next day with lots of butter, or a section of Easter egg if you’ve got any left!  Add the zest of an orange or some ground cardamom if you’d like to ramp up the flavour a bit. Use psyllium husk powder, or grind the husk very finely in a coffee grinder or high speed blender – you could try xanthan gum instead, you’d probably need between 1-2 tsp.

For the buns

140g potato starch

140g tapioca starch

100g buckwheat flour (or teff or oat flour)

60g quinoa flour (or sorghum flour)

3-4 tsp ground cinnamon

26g psyllium husk powder

6g fast acting yeast

350g milk

50g butter

6g sea salt

40g sugar

2 whole eggs and 2 egg whites

100g currants (or raisins/sultanas)

60g chopped candied peel

For the cross

30g potato starch

20g buckwheat flour (or sorghum/teff/oat/rice/millet flour)

40-50g milk or water

For the glaze

40g sugar (or a couple of tablespoons of marmalade)

In a mixing bowl, whisk together starches, flours, psyllium and yeast.

In a small saucepan warm the milk, butter, salt and sugar together until the butter melts and pour into a jug to cool a little. When it’s cooled to pleasantly warm (about 40ºC/104ºF), whisk in the eggs and egg whites and pour into the dry ingredients. Whisk vigorously until a smooth, sticky dough forms. Squidge it with your hands if there are any lumps at all, or put into a stand mixer with a paddle attachment and leave to run for a few minutes. Stir in the currants and peel and scrape the dough into a lightly oiled bowl to prove. Cover and leave in a warm place (30ºC is ideal) to prove for 30 minutes.

While the dough proves, make the cross. Mix together the cross ingredients, adding enough milk or water to make a smooth, pipeable paste – it will stiffen up a little as it sits. Scrape into a piping bag and set aside.

Make the glaze too while you wait. Heat the sugar with 20g of water until the sugar dissolves and set the syrup aside. Alternatively sieve out the bits from some marmalade or apricot jam and let it down to a glaze consistency with a little boiling water.

When the dough has proved, tip it out of the bowl onto an oiled surface, knead the knock the gas out and cut into 12 evenly sized pieces. With lightly oiled hands and on an lightly oiled surface, roll each piece into a sphere before placing it onto a greased tray – or use a silicone mat. Repeat with the other pieces, placing each bun only about 2cm away from the others so that they rise up together and touch – this will help prevent them flattening out too much. Cover lightly with a cloth and leave to prove again in a warm place for about an hour or so, until they look puffy – longer if your house is cool.

Preheat the oven to 220ºC fan (or 240ºC without fan) and place a tray in the bottom of the oven. Pipe crosses on the buns by piping all across one line of buns and then across the other way. Place the buns in the oven and throw some water on the tray in the bottom to create steam – or give three bursts of steam, timed about 4 minutes apart if you have a steam oven. Bake for 10 minutes and then reduce the temperature to 200ºC (220ºC without fan), until the buns are well browned and firm.

Leave the buns on the tray while you brush them generously with the glaze. As soon as they are cool enough to handle, tuck in!

I’m so happy that you would like to bake gluten free, but remind you that the recipe and accompanying image are not to be reproduced in any form without the express permission of the copyright holder Naomi Devlin.