Flourless Chocolate Cake

Whoops, I forgot to post this after the other Passover cake, so I may not have entirely retained the details. But really, a nut free, gluten free, chocolate cake. Rich, dense, moist--almost brownie like. What more is there to say?

Topped with whipped cream, it is a decadent treat for Passover or any time of year.

Quinoa Flour Cake with Kumquats

I made this for Passover, but I will have to try it for my gluten free cousins, because it was really good! The quinoa flour made the cake much lighter with a smaller crumb than the average nut flour based Passover cake. Plus the it lent the cake a nice nutty flavor without being overpoweringly nutty.

Cookies for Passover

The thing about baking for Passover is that it makes you think a bit more about what you are baking. But past thinking a bit harder when you choose your recipes, it doesn't really change things. Okay, yes, no flour unless it's matzo meal, but how hard is that? It's rather like keeping gluten-free (assuming you aren't using matzo meal). In fact the coconut macaroons and the chocolate walnut cookies are staples of my year round gluten-free repertoire. The third cookie, a nutty and floral macaron, will definitely be added to that repertoire--but more on it in a minute.

Quinoa with Cranberries and Pecans

I like quinoa. It's delicious, with its slightly nutty flavor. The texture is good. And it happens to be a berry (or something of that nature) and therefore fits almost any dietary requirements. Also, I can never get non boil in a bag rice to come out properly, but I've never had a problem with quinoa. Finally, I find it more versatile than other grains. It works nicely with basil, a bit of lemon zest, and pine nuts; or black olives with a bit of crumbled feta; or as a base for grilled vegetables and falafel. But it can also be more on the sweet side, as with this recipe. In this case, all I did was toss in dried cranberries and toasted, chopped pecan after the quinoa was cooked. It makes a great side for a protein like turkey--perhaps a healthy addition to Thanksgiving dinner?--or, cold, a hearty addition to a baby spinach salad.

I feel as though I rambled through this a bit, apologies--I'm tired but determined to get this posted!

Baked Lemon Tart with Really Easy Tart Crust~With Recipe

I prefer a lemon curd tart to a baked lemon tart, but every once in a while I like to mix things up. This recipe seemed worth trying. The filling was very lemon-y with a surprisingly creamy texture for a baked tart--sort of like lemon curd but lighter and a bit tangier.

Gluten-Free Battenberg Cake

I mentioned this a while ago. I told my cousin that, as her birthday present, I'd make her a birthday cake (it's so difficult to find good gluten free cakes that are fit for a birthday). Any cake you want, I said. She asked for the one type of cake I'd never even heard of: a Battenberg cake. Apparently it's a very common feature at afternoon tea. After some research I discovered that it's a less almond-y, checkerboard version of an Italian (or rather Italian-American) tricolor cake. They are traditionally pink and white, filled with a thin layer of apricot jam, and covered with untinted marzipan that is scored in a diamond pattern.

Gluten Free Desserts, Sightseeing, and my Dissertation

I stayed with my cousins for the last couple weeks of dissertation writing. I can't thank them enough for putting me up and putting up with me during such a stressful time. In an attempt to thank them, I baked quite a bit for them. Below follows a stream of consciousness post including some gluten free baking and some miscellaneous non-food photos.

 

Circus Cakes

I clearly have a mental block about posting these, seeing as I made them just about 2 years ago. They were for a Diabetes UK fundraiser. Yes, I know, cake for an event about diabetes... The event was for children with Type I diabetes and their families. And what kid, diabetic or not, doesn't want cake?

The challenge was twofold. First, I had to make at least some of the cake gluten free since type I diabetics are more likely to be ceoliac than the rest of the population (also the carbs in flour aren't great for the blood sugar.) Second, the cake had to be circus themed.

Chocolate and Pear Tart

My friend, Katy, had me over for dinner ages ago and made me this delicious chocolate pear tart from Martha Stewart. Turns out I have the recipe and, since it is gluten free, I figured I'd make it for the cousins. As when Katy made it, it was a hit!

Christmas Candy

Remember I mentioned that I made chocolates for Christmas in 2013? Probably not since it's been ages. But I finally remembered that I promised to tell you about the chocolates I made and miserably failed to uphold said promise, posting about only two of the half dozen candies I made. Sorry. To make up for it, I will finally tell you about the other four. All in this one post. From my least favorite (don't get me wrong I liked them all) to my favorite:

Passover Dessert

After such a lovely dinner it's hard to know how we had room for dessert. But we did. Unlike the dinner, the desserts were all gluten-free, not just unleavened. So everyone could eat everything. And everyone did.

Passover Dinner

For those of you who don't know, on Passover you can't eat any leavened food. This includes any food made with flour that isn't prepared in a special way to ensure that it doesn't rise at all (that's why matzo is perferated like a cars cracker). There's all sorts of other categories of things you can't eat--legumes, for example--but generally if I can stick to unleavened food for the whole holiday, I'm happy.

Chocolate Pudding Cake

This was another pre-Passover experiment in flourless chocolate cake baking. (I should point out that I have quite a few more traditional flourless chocolate cake recipes that I know work, but I've made most or all of them for my family at some point and I really want to try something new for the holiday.)

Chocolate Olive Oil Cake

I love olive oil cakes. Using oil, rather than butter, as the primary fat makes them remarkably light and, depending on the oil, smooth. Chiffon cakes are a good example; they use vegetable oil as the fat and, as a result, are light and silky as chiffon. I generally prefer olive oil to vegetable oil as it is healthier and I like the flavor more. But of course it is the flavor of olive oil that makes it hard to use in cakes--often you don't want to taste the fat and vegetable oil is virtually flavorless. Still there are times when the flavor from olive oil is just what you want. The olive oil cakes we made at school (and at the restaurant) are an example. But I like chocolate and none of these olive oil cakes I've learnt to make are chocolate cakes. Happily Nigella Lawson's new Italian-themed cookbook has a recipe for a chocolate olive oil cake!

Homemade Granola

Alices Tea Cup makes incredible homemade granola and the recipe is in their cookbook. I think there's something funky with the recipe as scaled down to home cook sizes, so I've tweaked it here and there and changed the baking method a bit. Overall though, it captures the spirit of their delicious, honey sweetened, oatty and nutty granola.

The Best of 2013

It's that time. The time to look back over the previous twelve months and see where you've been and what's happened in your life, both good and bad. For me 2013 is the year I started grad school. It's also the year I made a wedding (okay, anniversary) cake for a real couple, crafted a TARDIS out of chocolate cake, made hundreds of chocolates for the holidays, and so much more. So here's to 2013.

Christmas Day

I love Christmas in London! The city is beautiful, everyone seems to celebrate (even Jews like me!), and I have a delicious lunch with my family in Clapham. Jeff is an excellent cook and he made turkey, veg, roasted potatoes, bread sauce, and chestnut stuffing. Yum!

Thanksgivukkah

As I'm sure you heard, Thanksgiving and Hanukkah overlapped this year (on the 28th of November), a rare occurrence that (apparently) complicated things for American Jews who had to have celebrations two nights in a row. Since I'm currently studying in the UK, I had class on Thursday until 6:00pm, so no chance of a proper Thanksgiving regardless of the timing of Hanukkah. So we combined both celebrations and pushed them until Saturday so that our British family (who had to work Friday) could come over, enjoy the day, celebrate Hanukkah and, of course, eat lots of turkey.

Plated Dessert for the Jewish Holidays

I made this dessert (honey milk chocolate semifreddo on apple almond cake with caramel apple sauce, milk chocolate almond bark, marzipan and nougatine) for the Yom Kippur break-fast meal this year. Yom Kippur was in mid-September, but I guess with all the excitement of starting school, I forgot to post this.

The beautiful thing about this dessert is it could be for almost any Jewish holiday! I had been away from home for Rosh Hashanna so I decided to use the traditional flavors from that holiday--apple and honey--as inspiration for my dessert. Since some of my cousins can't eat gluten- the whole dessert is gluten free and is therefore suitable for Passover (obviously if you keep Kosher there are other considerations besides leavened goods and flour, but in my household that's pretty much the extent of Passover.)

Coconut Macaroon Sandwiches

These were AMAZING! I always love coconut macaroons and they just so happen to be gluten free. But it's not Passover and Pops (who loves my "coconut do-dads") wasn't around so I didn't want to make boring old plain coconut macaroons. I happened to have some left over plain buttercream lying around and decided to make macaroon sandwiches (inspired, of course, by traditional French macarons). Martha Stewart has a recipe in her Cookies cookbook for just such a thing. I used her proportions for the macaroon "dough" which was pretty much perfect for scooping and molding once chilled. They baked up beautifully and didn't fall apart at all (a problem I sometimes have with macaroons).