Christmas biscuits (vegan and gluten free)

Christmas is in less than a month. The lightnings are up in the streets, the Christmas market open for business and the cold put an end to my Sunday walk and led me to my kitchen for a hot chocolate... where I found the need to bake some biscuits to go with :)

Searching for a vegan biscuits recipe, I found a link to the excellent blog of Marie Laforet and her delicious vegan recipes. I just had to change the flour to make it gluten free and there we go...

Ingredients

100 g of cane sugar
100 g of ground hazelnuts
150 g of gluten free flour
1/2 to 1 tsp of Christmas spice mix
2 tbsp of vegetable oil
3 tbsp of margarine
2 tbsp of dairy-free milk (almond for me)

Directions

Combine all the dry ingredients. Add the oil and margarine. Combine with your fingertips to obtain a crumbly mix.

At last add the almond milk and quickly knead the dough. 

Lay the dough on a floured board with a rolling pin (use greaseproof paper if the dough is too sticky). Cut out shapes with a cookie cutter and transfer them on baking sheets (leave some space between them so they don't stick together during the bake). Use the remaining dough to form another ball and start the process again.

Bake for about 15 minutes in an oven preheated to 150°C, The edges of the biscuits should be golden.

Leave to cool down for a bit, the biscuits will become crunchy. Enjoy! 

Breakfast cookies (vegan and gluten free)

On a rainy day, nothing's better than baking at home. I didn't have much left in my cupboards and I wanted something quick to make and to bake, so I looked for a cookies recipe, preferably vegan as I'm trying to avoid eggs for a while. I found Amélie's lovely blog, adapted the recipe with what I had and the result is brilliant! I'll definitely use the recipe again. So here is my adapted recipe:

For about 10 cookies

The base:

- 110 g of gluten free flour (I used 100 g of whole rice flour + 10 g of kokkoh cream)
- 1/2 tsp of GF baking powder
- 70 g of brown sugar (next time I'll try with a bit less sugar)
- 30 g of margarine
- 40 g of almond butter
- 25 g of rice milk

Add whatever you like in, I put:
- cinnamon
- buckwheat flakes
- raisins
- candied fruits
- coconut flakes

Instructions

Cream the margarine and almond butter with the sugar. Add the milk. Then add the flour, baking powder and cinnamon. To finish, add everything else. Easy :)
On a tray lined with greaseproof paper, form the cookie balls, flatten them with your hand.
Cook for about 10 minutes. The cookies should still be soft when you take them out. Leave them to cool down for a few minutes and enjoy!

Almond milk chocolate pudding

One of the downsides of eating dairy-free is that you can't have all those little treats for dessert, you know the ones you conveniently find in everyone's fridge, ready to be grabbed as soon as the main course is over! Usually I don't mind having a fruit for dessert (maybe followed by a chocolate bar), but sometimes I really miss those treats! And as I don't eat soy, I can't even make do with soy puddings.

So when I found this recipe on Scally's blog I thought it was high time to try and make the dairy free treats I longued for. It's very easy to make and super-quick, plus it's a good way to use egg yolks when you need the whites for another recipe (e.g. macaroons). And on top of that they are truly delicious, I will definitely make them again (soon and on a regular basis!).

Ingredients (for 4 pots)

3 egg yolks

25g of sugar

25 cl of almond milk

1 leveled tbsp of almond butter (optional, but it adds creaminess to the pudding)

125 g of dark chocolate (not too bitter) 

Directions

1/ Melt the chocolate in a bowl. Keep aside.

2/  In a pan, heat up the almond milk and almond butter on medium heat until the milk starts to boil. 

3/ In the meantime, wheap the egg yolks and the sugar together. When the milk has started to boil, pour on the egg and sugar mixture little by little while whisking at the same time. Put everything back in the pan on low heat and keep whisking until the mixture has thickened.

4/ Fold the thickened mixture in the melted chocolate with a spatula, a little at a time. Pour in pudding ramequins and store in the fridge for at least 4 hours. Patiently wait until they set :)

Enjoy their light & creamy texture :)

Lemon tart + apple tart (gluten & dairy free)

I was really busy with my moving back to France and didn't take the time to update my blog. But I have been doing some baking, as always, and even got an amazing Kitchen Aid for my 30th birthday, so hopefully I'm back on track and so this blog should go on!

I wanted to perfect my gluten-free sweet pastry, as the recipes I tried before were ok but not amazing, and I think I've come close to what I wanted to achieve, so here it is, the sweet pastry that won't make you regret the glutenful one! And because summer fruits are not quite arrived on the markets, I thought I'd rather get started with a lemon tart (before trying strawberry, peach and plum tarts in the next few months!). I tried Valérie Cupillard's lemon tart recipe, and although it was very different from the one I used to use, it turned out pretty good, sharp but sweet as I like :) And because I had extra pastry left, I baked some mini apple tarts as well ;)

Sweet pastry recipe

- 200 g of whole rice flour
- 90 g of margarine
- 60 g of whole cane sugar
- 60 g of ground almonds
- 1 egg
- zest of a lemon

Combine all the ingredients in a food processor. It should form a soft doughy ball (you can add margarine if it looks too dry/flour if it looks too wet).
Roll out the dough on a floured surface (or between 2 sheets of greaseproof paper, that's my trick) and lay the pastry in a big tart tin or several small ones.
Prick all over and cook for 10 minutes on 180°C (oven has to be preheated).
In the meantime, prepare the filling...

Option n°1 : Lemon filling

- juice of 2 large lemons + zest of a lemon (you would have used the first zest for the sweet pastry)

- 2 eggs

- 4-6 tbsp of cane sugar (depending on how sharp you want it to be)

- 2 tbsp of  pre-cooked rice flour (I used kokkoh instead, which is a mix of rice, quinoa and azuki flours)

Blend all the ingredients together to get a smooth texture. Pour on the pastry base and put back in the oven for another 10 to 15 minutes.

Option n°2: Apple filling

- some fruit compote (my mum gave me a lovely apple & quince compote so I used some of it)

- 2 apples finely sliced

- 1 tsp of sugar

- 1 tsp of cinnamon

Spread the compote on the pastry base. place the apple slices on top of it, and sprinkle a little bit of sugar and cinnamon on them. Cook for another 15 minutes.

Enjoy!!!! :)

Iced oranges

I was looking for a light dessert to finish our New Year's Eve dinner and came across this recipe in one of my mum's magazines. It seemed pretty easy, with only 3 ingredients and no need for an ice cream maker (some kind of food processor is required though). I have always loved iced oranges but had never thought of making them before. Now I wonder why since it is so easy to make and so delicious to eat! It will surely become a winter classic :)

Ingredients

- 6 oranges

- 50 g of icing sugar (sieved)

- 1 egg white

Directions

1/ Cut the top of the oranges and scoop out the flesh. Put the empty shells (bottom and top) in the freezer.

2/ Squeeze the flesh of the oranges and sieve to keep only the juice. Place the juice in some freezing bags (they should stay fairly thin) and lay the bags flat in the freezer for at least 4 hours (overnight is good). 

3/ When the juice is frozen, take it out of the bags and pour in a food processor with the icing sugar. Blend until you get a granita texture. Add the egg white and blend again. Fill the oranges shells with the preparation and close with the tops. Put back in the freezer for a few hours.

4/ Take out of the freezer 15 minutes before eating. Enjoy!

Bûche de Noël - GF/DF Christmas log

The French traditional Christmas cake is called "bûche de Noël" which means "Christmas log" and consists in a cake roll often filled with buttercream. My grandmother used to make a really sickly one and as kids we all loved it very much! Not being a big fan of buttercream nowadays (and I can't have real butter anyway!), I tried to make a lighter filling and went for a chestnut mousse instead. But feel free to use a buttercream filling to make it more traditional.

I used Valérie Cupillard's recipe for the sponge cake and it turned out wonderfully light and soft, I would definitely use it again.

I was so focused on eating the cake that I forgot to take a picture of the inside...

Ingredients

For the cake roll
4 eggs separated
100 g of caster sugar
60 g of brown rice flour

For the filling
150 g of chestnut puree
2 egg whites

For the ganache icing
100 g of dark chocolate
10 cl of almond cream

Directions

1/ Separate the eggs. Beat the egg yolks with the caster sugar until the colour gets lighter. Add the rice flour.

Whip the egg whites into firm peaks. Fold in the yolk mix delicately.

Spread on a big rectangular tin or an oven tray lined with greaseproof paper. The mixture should be about 1 cm thick.

2/ Bake for 10 min in the oven preheated on 180°, then lower the temperature to 150°C and leave the cake in 5 more minutes. The top of the cake should be barely golden.

(Mine got golden very quickly so I lowered the temperature after 5 minutes only and covered with foil, then left a bit longer than stated in the oven. So watch carefully!)

3/ Take the cake out of the tin and roll while hot. See on this link how to roll the cake in a moist towel, it will explain much better than what I can do! Leave to cool down.

4/ Make the chestnut mousse: whip the egg whites into firm peaks, fold in the chestnut puree.

When the cake has cooled down, unroll carefully, spread the chestnut mousse all over, and roll again. Place in the fridge for a few hours (overnight if possible).

5/ Make the chocolate ganache: melt the chocolate, add the almond cream and stir well.

Spread the ganache on the log with a spatula once it has cooled down a bit and decorate as you like! (if only I had some icing sugar to dust some snow on it...)

Merry belated Christmas!!!

Christmas almond biscuits

Ok, I'm a bit late for Christmas, but I couldn't find the time to bake these amazing biscuits earlier, and I really missed their orangy taste. Plus I had some organic oranges in the cupboard, so I had to make good use of them :)

I discovered this recipe years ago on Camille's lovely blog and as it's naturally gluten and dairy free, it's still one of my Christmas classics. I was a bit lazy today and skipped the icing (and it's sweet enough anyway!) but here is the complete recipe.

Ingredients

For 30-40 biscuits:
300g of ground almonds
250g of sugar
2 egg whites
zest of 1 organic orange

For the icing:
150g of icing sugar
1 egg white

Directions

1/ Combine ground almonds, sugar and orange zest.

2/ Beat egg whites into soft peaks, fold in the almond mix to get a soft dough. If it is sticky, add a bit of sugar.

3/ Spread the dough with a rolling pin. (It's easier if you place the dough between 2 sheets of greaseproof paper.) It must be about 5 mm thin. Form little stars, moons, etc. with a cookie cutter and put them on a baking tray.

4/ Cook for 10 to 15 min in the oven preheated to 150°C. The biscuits must stay soft and barely golden, they will harden when cooling down.

5/ Prepare the icing: beat the egg white into stiff peaks, fold in the icing sugar. Dip the top of the biscuits in the icing and let them dry out on a baking shelf. They will smooth and dry overnight at room temperature.