More yummy cakes!

I'm a little bit cake obsessed at the moment (always?!) 

I love cake, chocolate cake, plain sponges, Christmas cake, apple cake - the list is endless. I want you to know that I selflessly test each and every recipe before I put it up and the whole family likes to give it a taste-test too! So I was a little disappointed when the cake my girls called 'the best cake EVER' wasn't actually one of my own.

OK I did bake it but it wasn't one of my recipes, it was a packet mix.

In general I don't like packet mixes. In my opinion you are just paying a whole lot of money for someone else to do the weighing for you and that's a job I think I'm actually quite good at, well I'd have to be, I'm a trained chemist (think laboratory not pharmacy) and used to have a job which involved selling high end balances. However I'm not so narrow minded not to realise that packet mixes do have their up sides, they are good if you are in a rush or if they contain an essential ingredient that you'd rather not have to buy in larger quantities. This second factor can really work in your favour if you are suddenly having to cater for an allergy that you don't normally have to worry about. If your family are more than happy eating gluten you probably don't want or need a box full of gluten free flours you are never going to use again. So for you lucky people a packet mix is possibly ideal when my family or someone equally intolerant comes to stay!

So where did this yummy packet cake mix come from? My local garden centre! I know, I went in there for some Christmas bulbs and suddenly I'm buying cake mix!! To be fair most garden centres have diversified in order to bring in more business and frankly my local one is so diversified it can be hard to find a really plant in the indoors bit. Next to the 'bird food' bit they have this lovely little bit selling dried fruits, nuts and dragées (which as far as I can tell is just a posh word for sweet). This section has it's self diversified and now has teas and a small range of gluten free foods (yippee!).

I was delighted when I picked this little packet up to read that I wasn't allergic to any of the ingredients. In fact I think this was possibly one of the most inclusive packets I have ever read! It was Gluten, Wheat, Dairy, Corn and Soya free and promised that it could be make with vegan margarine and egg replacement powder if so wished! In fact there were 3 similar mixes there, the girls rather predictably chose the chocolate flavour, so we added it to our basket and went home.

It was very quick and easy to do, though I was grateful my electric whisk was such high quality, I had been tempted to hand whisk to save on the washing up and that would never had worked, so thick was the mixture. Anyway we melted our butter, beat the eggs and whisked it all together, popped it in the lined tin and settled down to lick the bowl clean. 

Just so you know, as soon as I'd taken this shot she threw the bowl on the floor so she could see the photo. I now have one Mason Cash bowl less in my collection, luckily unconditional love means you can forgive your child for doing this. Delicious cake also helps to heal the pain.

By the time I'd cleaned up the mess the cake was more or less cooked (it said 25 minutes on gas mark 3 if you were doing it in one tin, in my opinion 35 minutes would have worked better, though I took it out at 30 and it sank a little).

It was very yummy.  "The best cake ever" apparently. A beautiful texture, so soft and moist and not a hint of grittiness or bitterness you can get with gluten free flours. 

Bet you'd like to know who made it wouldn't you? ME! No, I baked it. Glebe Farm made the mix. And it's not the only one they do. So far we've tried the carrot cake, to which I gave top marks (I even preferred it to the chocolate cake!)

And we've also got a ginger cake to make next.

Sadly this is all the mixes my local garden centre stock and I've not been able to find anyone else nearby who has them. I say 'sadly' because they have lots more to try including a scone mix. Luckily they have an on-line shop though with £5.99 p+p you might want to order quite a few in one go (though you don't have to limit yourself to the cake mixes they have many other things to buy).

Who is it suitable for?

Vegetarians, vegans, gluten intolerant and Coeliac, dairy intolerant, those with an egg allergy. Most people in fact.

Who is it not suitable for?

Those on a reducing diet (well it is cake!) and anyone sensitive to potatoes or sugar.

So there you go, a huge well done to Rebecca Rayner and her family for producing such scrumptious stuff !  By the way I don't know them, I've never met them and they are not paying me for this. I'm just letting you know about it because I like to share delicious inclusive food with you!

Chocolate cake inclusive style!!

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Just to prove I can do baking without the need to use diary or non-dairy margarine I thought I'd share the recipe I use for my chocolate cakes. 

The recipe originally came from my brilliant and talented cook of a sister-in-law as 'Never-fail Chocolate Cake'. It might have been 'never-fail' with wheat flour but let me tell you this has taken a fair bit of tweaking to get into a gluten-free cake that does rise and doesn't fall apart. It's my understanding that the original recipe comes from America and that explains why all the measurements are in cups and teaspoons. No weighing out? Suits me!! There's also no need to sieve the flour which is also a bonus.

Who's it suitable for?

Well it's egg free, it's nut free, it's yeast free, it's wheat free, it's vegetarian and also vegan and it's coeliac friendly. It's not high fibre but the high levels of cocoa may not be suitable for all sufferers of IBS and Crohns, best to check. And it does contain high levels of sugar and fat (oil) so it's not suitable for those on a reducing diet.

Ingredients:

3 Cups sugar, granulated will do but Castor works better.
3 Cups gluten free flour*

1/4 C cocoa powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons  sodium bicarbonate
1 Cup vegetable oil (Rape oil)
2 Cup cold water (from the fridge if possible)
1 1/2 teaspoons white (distilled) vinegar
3 teaspoons vanilla essence

*A word about the flour, the 'all purpose' blends I tried did not do well, although I suspect a 'bread blend' would. I use 2 cups rice flour, one cup maize starch (in the UK some, but NOT all 'cornflours' are maize starch). I also add 1 level teaspoon of xanthan gum powder. 

Rape oil - I've tried other oils, it did NOT go well, even sunflower oil was a bit off and olive oil was awful. Obviously I wont touch coconut oil with a barge pole because of the allergies but I do wonder if that wouldn't be a good flavour (though you will have to use warm water and reduce the sugar), I'd be interested to hear how you get on if anyone tries it.

Cocoa powder - take care which one you chose as many brands try to sneak wheat and milk in there. I use Green and Blacks Cocoa powder because it's organic and Fairtrade and most importantly it tastes nice!

Method

Pre-heat your oven to 175C or gas mark 3 to 4.

Get your cake tin ready. I tray bake this in a 9x13 inch tin but you could put it in two 8inch round sandwich tins. I always line the tins with greaseproof and grease the paper as well because as I've said before gluten free cakes stick and this inhibits rising.

Mix all dry ingredients well in large bowl, you don't need to sieve but do make sure they are well mixed, I just swizz it around with my hand whisk.  

In a separate jug mix all the liquids (I say mix, leave it one second and the oil will float to the top, it doesn't matter!)

Now remember that time is of the essence for the next bit so move with haste but not with speed or your cake wont rise. Add all liquids to dry mixture and mix thoroughly, mix it well but DO NOT beat.

Pour it quickly into the tins and slam it into the middle of your oven.

Bake for 40 minutes for 2 round tins, or 60 minutes for the large rectangular tin. You want the cake to 'bounce back' in the middle when it is ready, don’t over bake as it gets very bitter and don't open the oven in the first three quarters of the cooking time as a constant temperature is crucial to rising.

I'll be honest and say that this mix doesn't make the greatest fairy cakes, cup cakes or muffins, this is mostly because it doesn't support the weight of icing very well. However the large tray bake can cope with chocolate frosting and buttons on and because it is so large is super for kids parties.

So looking back at the previous post, how does this cake rise when it has just has oil and not solid fat? It's the sodium bicarbonate, reacting with the vinegar to produce nice little bubbles of carbon dioxide gas which will lift your cake up. You want to keep the reaction very slow until it gets cooking, hence using cold water from the refrigerator, once it starts getting hot the reaction goes full pelt but by then your cake is turning solid and the bubbles get stuck stopping your cake from being a solid lump. If you've got the chemistry all right all the vinegar eats up all the sodium bicarb, your cake is 'neutral' and delicious! If your cake does taste a little 'funny' try being more accurate with the measuring of the vinegar and bicarb or using a little less, also watch out that you haven't over baked it as burnt gluten-free flour is bitter. 

Over all this is the simplest cake I have ever made (now I've got the recipe sorted). It is so quick I can go from walking in the kitchen door to 'cake-in-the-oven-and-all-washed-up' in 15 minutes giving me at least three quarters of an hour to get on with other stuff before I have to take it out of the oven and fight the rest of the family off until it's cool enough to eat!

Hope you like it too. xxx

UPDATE!

It turns out that scaled down this works great as a microwave in the mug cake recipe.

1/4 of a cup of rice flour
1/4 of a cup of sugar
1 tablespoon of (diary and gluten free) coco-powder
a pinch of gluten free baking powder
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon of oil
3 tablespoons of water
1 drip of vinegar (do not trust yourself to pour this out of the bottle, pop some on a spoon and from there add one drip!)

Add all the dry ingredients to the mug and mix, add all the wet ingredients, mix and pop in a microwave for about 2 minutes (mines a 700W, if yours is more powerful reduce the cooking time). And hey-presto one cake!! Eat from the mug while still warm, maybe add a blob of cream!

"Here Comes the Science" or "Where is that vegan christmas cake recipe?"

A few posts ago I promised you I'd work out a vegan version of my Christmas Cake recipe. I've been trying, really I have, but in fact I haven't got even close to baking a trial run and here's why - I can't find a vegan shortening (baking fat) that I'm not allergic to. 

Trust me, I've tried. I've stood in various supermarkets reading the back of all the dairy-free margarines and fats, I've tried health food shops, pestered vegan experts, heck I even went across to the other side of a neighbouring city to pick the brains behind a wholefood warehouse and still no luck, every one of them seems to contain either coconut oil or palm oil or both. For the packets that just said 'vegetable oil' I've taken a note of the customer helpline and either phoned or emailed them to see what the fat might be. Most of the brands I've contacted have been very helpful only a couple declined to tell me if their products actually contained coconut or palm but even then they did tell me that "it is not suitable to your dietary needs".

When I come across a problem such as this I like to ponder on the science of it before I come up with an answer, if there is one. Sometimes I'm sure the word 'science' runs through me as surely as the words through a stick of rock. In fact science is my rock. So here is my theory......

First off you need to understand that different fats have different melting points, in fact a high melting point is pretty much the definition of a fat because if it's already melted at room temperature we tend to call it an oil. For example, sunflower oil turns from a solid into a liquid (melts) at about -17ºC where as butter melts at 35ºC, in fact the only natural vegetable oils which are still solid at room temperature are coconut and palm (though both melt at about 25ºC so your room better not be too hot!)

So could we alter any natural plant fats to make them melt at a higher temperature? Yes, we can take them through a process called hydrogenation, where hydrogen gas is forced through the oil under very high pressure. This adds hydrogen atoms to the fat molecules making them in effect heavier and so have a higher melting point. (I know it's actually more complex than this but I'm trying to avoid an A-level chemistry lesson here).  Furthermore it has the added advantage of stopping the fat from going off (rancid) so it stays fresher for longer. So why don't we see hydrogenated fats on supermarket shelves? Well you used to see a lot of it, then in the 1990's scientists began to notice that the more hydrogenated fat a person consumed the higher their cholesterol was. This is NOT a good thing, higher cholesterol of this type has been linked to weight gain, heart disease and diabetes. Most food companies are therefor trying to reduce the amount of hydrogenated fat in their products (sometimes they needed a little pressure from the government to do it though).

OK, so if I can't get a room temperature fat that works then how about using an oil? Lets look at what the fat does in baking. Fat carries flavour, it tenderises, it makes the food feel nice in our mouth and it gives that quintessential element called 'crumb'. But most of all we need fat in baking to help trap the air bubbles that stop our cakes being like 'dwarf-bread', more weapon than food. 
When we whisk the butter and add sugar the purpose of our whisking is to trap air. This is why you need the butter gently softened but not melting, in fact better to start with the butter too cold and keep whisking until it goes 'plastic' and starts to hold air than risk it completely melting under the heat of the beaters. Use an oil and it just wont trap any air, so swapping the butter for sunflower oil just isn't going to work and if you are going to use coconut or palm to do the job you'd better be cooking in a cool room (remember it melts at about 25ºC).

So to put it plainly I can't get a vegan alternative to butter that I'm not allergic to because unless you get something that's hydrogenated (and I think we are all agreed that that would be very bad for our health) it's going to contain either coconut or palm and much as I love you and cooking I'm not prepared to spend days in a darkened room suffering for it!

IF you really want to make a vegan version of my Christmas Cake here's what I suggest; replace the eggs with egg replacement powder which you can get from some pharmacies and plenty of health food shops then replace the butter with vegetable shortening (not vegetable margarine which wont trap enough air and contain too much water), if you've never used that before I suggest you look for Trex which is easily available in most supermarkets and can be used as a direct replacement (do not reduce the fat by 10% as it suggests on the packet, it is working as shortening not margarine). And don't forget to keep the room cold while you are whisking.

Fear not though, I can and do bake vegan cakes on a regular basis without the need for a diary-free margarine, I will treat you to the recipe for the chocolate one shortly.

So as one customer service agent said to me recently "thank you for your understanding". xxx

Mincemeat

This is the ideal recipe to follow the Christmas cake because if you are anything like me you have tonnes of dried fruit left over at this point (not to mention a fair bit of brandy).

It is vegan, vegetarian, nut free, gluten free and utterly delicious!

Ingredients

• 225g Bramley or other cooking apples, peeled and coarsely grated
• 125g candied peel, chopped
• 225g sultanas
• 225g raisins
• 225g currants
• 175g soft brown sugar
• 1 tsp mixed spice
• 1 orange, zest and juice (get an un-waxed organic one if you can)
• 150ml Brandy 
• 50ml Cointreau

It's almost laughable that I try to give you quantities for this because to be honest it is literally all the remains of my dried fruit plus a few extras. Make this recipe your own, tinker with it, change the proportions of Cointreau and brandy, add some ginger or some cranberries, anything goes!

Just put all the ingredients in a large bowl and mix well. Sterilise your jars (to be honest I use kiln jars straight out of the hottest wash on the dishwasher) then bung it up and leave it for a year. It is that simple.

You will notice the lack of suet or vegetable shortening this is simply because I have not been able to find one without palm in. I don't see the point of messing around with butter because a) I'm not sure it would keep as long and b) it tastes great just as it is. This is possibly because the fruit is already covered in plenty of sunflower oil (notice I didn't wash the fruit this time!)

Word of warning though, it is highly alcoholic, don't let drivers eat it raw and for kids always cook it on a high temperature and never leave them alone with a spoon and an open jar, big mistake...........