Chinese Coconut Jelly

I know, I know...

I've told you a million times how much we love Yum Cha/ Dim Sum

Is it the noise, the energy and hustle of the staff, the mystery of the unknown as each little lid reveals another morsel of yumminess, the chance to try so many dishes at one sitting...pure greed? I just don't know, but we keep coming back again and again, and I keep trying my darndest to re-create the dishes at home in a gluten free environment so I can safely eat just as many of these exotic delicacies as the rest of the family


Coconut Jelly is actually BigJ's favourite Asian dessert. He's not a huge fan of mango or tapioca pearls, but he really loves this. Littlej loves Mango Pudding, and I adore 'Snowballs', the coconut covered steamed rice flour dumplings filled with bean paste or custard
As the weather grudgingly warms up here in Canberra, we're once again turning our backs on the heavier meals and desserts of Winter and thinking of fresher, lighter flavours. What then, could be nicer than a bit of tropical sweetness reminding us that Summer is on its way?


Dim Sum Coconut Jelly

1 lt Coconut Milk or 2 large tins (@440mls) plus topped up with water if necessary
1/2 cup Castor Sugar
4 tsp Gelatine Powder
big pinch Salt



 Pop everything into a saucepan and heat gently until the sugar and gelatine dissolves- don't bring it to the boil or simmer

Pour it into a square or rectangular container to a depth that will allow you to cut it into nice cubes

Cover and refrigerate until set

You'll know when it's set as it should pull away from the sides of the container cleanly- remember this should be a firm set jelly

Flip out onto a clean board

Then cut into nice neat cubes- of course any that aren't quite perfect will have to be deliciously disposed of, purely in the name of quality control of course :)

Light, refreshing, not too sweet and slips down effortlessly- just what you need after a big meal!

So Dear Readers, do you like a sweet ending to your meal, and what's your favourite Asian style dessert?


Check out my other Gluten Free Dim Sum/Yum Cha recipes:
Gluten Free Dumplings
Steamed Coconut Buns
Stuffed Eggplant
Steamed Pork Buns- Char Siu Bao
Thai Pearl Dumplings
Mango Pudding
Spring Rolls





 

Anzac Apple Crumble

It's past the Winter Solstice- the shortest day of the year


This means that the weather gets colder, the snow on the mountains creeps lower, and it's definitely time for comfort food


Apples have been a ridiculous price lately, only 99c per Kilo, so when I staggered in with about 5 kilos the other day MiddleC and littlej both screamed "Apple Crumble!" After a brief negotiation over who would peel that many apples, I agreed

I always use coconut in my crumble recipe, I think it adds a lot of crunch and texture, and the addition of gf oats really does make it taste like a traditional Anzac Biscuit recipe. So despite it being July instead of April 25th, here we have one of my Family's Comfort Food Favourites- Anzac Apple Crumble!


Yummy Topping Ingredients

Anzac Apple Crumble

Whole heap of Apples
1 cup gf Oats
1 cup shredded Coconut
1/2 cup gf Flour
1/2 cup Sugar
1/2 cup melted Butter
1/4 cup Golden Syrup
big pinch Salt



Peel and chop your apples into nice big chunks. If you chop them too small they'll just break down into mushiness

Pop them into a fairly shallow greased dish

Mix together everything else

The best way to do this is to use your hands and squish, squish, squish away

Pat the crumble topping evenly over the apples- make sure it's not too loose but fairly nice and compact

Bake at 170*C for between 45 mins and an hour, or until the topping is nicely browned and cooked through and the apples are softened inside

Let the crumble sit for about 15minutes or so to set the topping

Dish up lovely big spoonfuls and serve with lots of lovely lactose free cream, ice cream or custard

Gorgeous crunchy topping, soft juicy apples, softly smooth cream.... yummo!

So Dear Readers, do you have a Family Favourite dessert, and how are you keeping warm this Winter?




 

Spring Violets

Hello my Lovelies- I'm back!

I missed you, I really, truly did, but I'm back now Nearly-Good-As-New and ready to get into the blogging groove.
It was a bit hectic there for a while with medical bits and pieces, with the worse part being that while I was in the Operating Room having surgery, BigJ was down in the Emergency Room with a ruptured disc in his back. The hospital certainly got a double whammy from our family that day! It's just as well that we've got such wonderful girls as MiddleC and littlej did a great job helping us, and littlej didn't even mind staying home from school to play Nurse for a while :)
Thank you all for your kind thoughts and well wishes, especially Lorraine, Celia, Charlie, and Tania who cheered me up so much and made my day with their emails and phone calls xox



Anyway, today's recipe is Violet Meringue

It's still Spring, and despite the bizarre Mid-Summer temperatures hitting so early, I have had some gorgeous little violets shyly peeping through the greenery in my kitchen garden. I've mentioned before that I just love floral flavours and violet is one that is so soft and subtle that it matches well with the light, billowy clouds of meringue that remind me of Spring skies and warm weather

Basic Meringue

My basic rule of thumb recipe for meringues, is for every 1 Egg White to use 1/4 cup of Castor Sugar
I also add a tiny splash of white vinegar for acid to strengthen the protein and a good pinch of gf cornflour to prevent any weeping- just in case there are a few stray sugar crystals

You can also add a small amount of liquid flavouring- for this 2 egg white quantity I used 1 tablespoon, and some colour as well. Just make sure that they aren't oil based or the mixture won't whip. (The oil based essence you can see here, I added carefully after beating and quickly marbled through just before baking)
I also used some gorgeous candied violets to add extra yumminess and a bit of texture on top

Make sure your egg whites are nice and clean without any specks of yolk, or they won't whisk. Your bowl and beaters need to be spotless too

Whisk the whites until they froth, then add in the sugar, vinegar and cornflour

Then beat until thick, white and glossy

Add in your violet flavouring syrup and mix through

I mixed the paste colour and violet oil together in a little bowl so it would distribute well

Placed some on the mixture

Then folded it through for a marbled effect

Dollop nice, generous piles of the mixture on baking sheets

Sprinkle with candied violets

Then bake in a 120*C oven for half an hour until the outside is nice and crispy, then turn the oven off and let them cool down inside it to dry out without humidity

I know the photos are a bit different, but I started this post pre-op and have finished it post-op, so a new batch of yummies were required. I should have been clever enough to check my first photos to make them match...but I wasn't :( oops!

Nice and crispy on the outside, with a softer, fluffy middle tasting so beautifully of violets and Spring time- Yummo

So Dear Readers, what's your favourite taste of Spring and who looks after you when you're sick?

Sublime Honey Sorbet

Have you heard of Capilano Honey?


Capilano Honey is the market leader of honey in Australia, packing premium quality honey produced by Australian beekeepers. They are a fantastic Australian company that have been having a bit of a tough time lately.

Last week there was a fire in one of the sheds at their main site in Brisbane, and earlier last month Capilano co-founder, Tim Smith sadly passed away.

Tim and his brother Bert began the business around Brisbane back in 1953, and the business name Capilano comes from the Capilano district in Canada where Tim met his wife Jill when he was stationed there in WW2  and later proposed to her on the Capilano Bridge- how romantic!

Happily there is still some great stuff going on at Capilano, where they have recently launched their first Australian Certified Organic Honey.
Capilano's normal premium blend is pure natural honey from Australian hives, but consumer and professional demand for Organic goods has led to the Australian Organic Certification for this delicious product.


When I first heard about this honey, I thought about my parents farm on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, which is also certified organic. Knowing  how tricky that is to maintain, I wondered,  how on earth do you track thousands of bees each and every day to know where they fly off to?
Well, apparently all hives must be organic, and only exposed to natural environments including the exclusion of all pesticides for pest management and crops, within 5km of surrounding land. The native flora the honey is extracted from, right down to the diet of the bees themselves needs to be certified organic as well. You must be pretty dedicated to take on that job!

I was lucky enough to be sent a lovely bottle of delcious organic honey to play with, and wanted to come up with a recipe that would show off it's flavour as well as using it's great health benefits to shake off my lingering Winter flu/lurgy.

I didn't want to actually 'cook' with the honey as heating it can destroy some of it's health giving properties, which are quite antibacterial, and Capilano purposly doesn't pasteurise the honey either as it just isn't necesary with such a great natural product.


Through my flu-ridden fog, somehow I came up with Honey Sorbet.

Perfect! It would show off all the fantastic qualities of the honey, only used 3 ingredients, was delicious, easy, and nice and soothing to swallow. Win Win for me!

200 ml Capilano Organic Honey
50 ml-ish Liquid Glucose
500 ml Water

Honey is just perfect for sweetness and flavour, you need extra for a frozen dessert. The glucose is to keep the ice crystals nice and small. You also need as much air incorporated into the mix as possible for a lovely smooth end result

For a few tips on making great sorbet, check out this earlier post :
http://intolerantchef.blogspot.com.au/2011/11/seasonal-cheer.html





Put the glucose and water into a saucepan and heat until just boiling, stirring now and then to melt the glucose

Let it cool, but while still fairly warm, stir in the honey, and keep mixing until it's totally dissolved

Pour into a shallow container and chill throughly

Churn the lovely liquid mixture in an icecream machine- I used my Kenwood IceCream Bowl Attatchment-  or pull your bowl out of the freezer and whisk from time to time as it's setting to avoid large ice crystals forming and to keep it fluffy and light

Look how gorgeous this is!

Serve your sublime Honey Sorbet as a lovely light dessert- secure in the knowlege that it's fat free, delicious, organic, and good for you. Guilt free eating at it's best!

So Dear Readers, are you more inclined to buy a product if it's certified Organic?






Disclosure: Honey was gifted by the lovely people at Capilano. Thanks guys!


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Slice Of Heaven

In the hope of encouraging an early Spring, I'm sticking with my botanical theme today and creating light-as-air Angel Food Cakes flavoured with Jasmine.

The air outside my window is full of the scent of Daphne at the moment, and in a few weeks it will be heavy with the smell of blossoms competing with fresh cut lawn on the weekends. It will be a couple of months until my jasmine blooms, but if I close my eyes and eat one of these little cakes, I can imagine myself away from frost and freak snow showers and basking in the sunlight of Spring.

I collect weird and wonderful flavour bases, I've recently acquired this lovely Monin syrup in some great flavours like violet, jasmine and cucumber, and I found this great concentrate at an Indian Supermarket. Perfect for my baking needs

Angel Food Cake isn't one I've ever actually tried to make before, or one I've actually ever eaten before, but the name is so lovely and the idea of a fat free-gluten free-dairy free cake was just too hard to pass up, I would really be doing us all a favour by taste testing this recipe- wouldn't I? I thought so, so I will!

I did learn some lessons along the way that will make my next attempt at heavenly snacking a bit easier: don't use fancy-pantsy cake tins just because they look cute, it's the same with shoes- sometimes function over form actually is important; don't forget the flavouring ingredient until after you have mixed the cakes- it's not as easy to re mix without losing air bubbliness as you might think; don't infuse stain inducing berries on your favourite blouse just because you think it would make a pretty backdrop for your photo and you don't have anything else those colours to use.

Words of wisdom People


The recipe for today actually comes from a ratio

I got this recipe from Michael Ruhlman's aptly named cookbook- Ratio. 'The simple codes behind the craft of everyday cooking' 
It breaks down a variety of recipes into their simplest form, a ratio that works every time if you just follow a few simple rules. It's so handy, and much easier to remember than a full recipe when you're in a hurry and don't have time to muck about finding a full recipe.

Angel Food Cake= 3 parts egg white: 3 parts sugar: 1 part flour (in this case, gluten free of course)

The only other ingredients needed are a dash of flavouring essence, a pinch of salt and a few drops of lemon juice to help stabilise the whites when beating. Easy Peasy

Instead of whole eggs today I used just egg whites, available at Woolies etc. in the refrigerated section. Much handier for these type of recipes that don't need the yolks

Divide the sugar in half, then mix one half into the flour and mix together

Now the tricky bit.... beat the egg whites on medium then add the salt, lemon juice and flavour essence. Once the mixture is opaque, start to drizzle in the half measure of sugar

According to Ruhlman, 'the egg white and sugar mixture should not be whipped feverishly; it should be whipped on medium to medium-high in order to prevent over mixing. If it's whipped to hard and becomes to stiff, it won't rise properly. There's a point in the mixing when it's white and fluffy but still pourable, and then a few moments later it's just stiff enough that it won't quite pour but neither is it so stiff that it holds a stiff peak'
Got all that?

Sift the rest of the sugar and the flour over the egg whites, then gently fold it in

Pour into your un-greased pan. The traditional pan is a tall straight sided tin with a central core that leaves a hole in the middle of the cake. The centre tube means the batter can raise from the middle as well as the sides and allows a larger surrounding edge for the cake to stick to as it rises.

As I didn't have a proper Angel Food cake tin, and wanted individual sized ones anyway, I  used some pretty little heart shapes that were just to intricate with all the ridges on the sides. Next time I'll use my straight sided individual push-up tins with a removable base, or even cupcake pans, they should work much better

I baked these little lovelies for 20 minutes at 180*, or until a skewer comes out nice and clean when stuck in the middle of one of the cakies

After baking, the cake pan should be inverted while cooling to prevent the cake from falling in on itself, then left until completely cooled down so the sugar-protein network can completely set. The purpose built cake tins have little feet on the rims so that the cooked cake actually hangs from the base of the pan as it cools.

One of the little lovelies. Just stuck a little at the sides, but I promise you it will still taste good!

Angel Food Cakes are usually served with syrup and fruit, like berries or a coulis. I really tried to to come up with a fruit that I thought would compliment the jasmine flavour.... pear? nectarine? blackberry! I don't find blackberries as assertive as raspberries or even strawberries, but love their sweet earthiness and thought they would match up well.

So pretty and ready to fill:




















I macerated some frozen blackberries in the jasmine syrup while the cakes cooled, then filled up the centre of the hearts with the fruits while letting the juices dribble down and soak into the cakes- Yummo!

Such a nice cake indeed! A real cross between a meringue and sponge cake- so light and airy, not too sweet at all.
How can you resist this? Gluten free, dairy free, fat free.... Guilt free!!!

So Dear Readers, what is your favourite type of cake, and do you have any good tips for removing blackberry stains?
















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