Scallion Soda Bread (Gluten Free)

Happy St Patrick’s Day! or ‘Lá Fhéile Pádraig Sona Daoibh!’

So a traditional Irish recipe is in order I think.  This soda bread is gluten free (of course) and flavoured with spring onions, or scallions as I keep being corrected. I didn’t have any buttermilk for this recipe so I’ve made my own version combining yoghurt and milk which works just as well and may even be a bit thriftier.

If you are looking for other Irish food inspiration then you could try these delicious gluten free potato farls here, otherwise…

Ingredients:

• 1lb of Doves Gluten Free White Bread Flour
• 2 eggs, topped up to 12fl oz with half yoghurt and half whole milk
• 6 spring onions scallion, sliced finely
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1/2 oz of sugar
•  1 oz of bicarbonate soda
• 2 oz of butter

Method:

Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees (fan) and oil a baking tray.

Mix all the dry ingredients in a large bowl and rub in the butter. Add the spring onions and mix.   Whisk up the egg, yoghurt and milk mixture then stir into the dry ingredients.  Turn out the dough onto a well floured board, the mix will be quite sticky so be generous with your dusting.  Knead the mix for a couple of minutes then form in to a large ball and plop onto the oiled tray.  Cut a deep (over half way) cross through the centre, brush with milk and dust with flour.

Bake in the oven for about 30/40 minutes, until golden and hollow sounding when you knock its bottom.

Serve with butter, cheese and chutney for tea or toasted the next day for breakfast.

‘Tabhair dom an rud céanna mar atá ag an fhear ar an t-úrlar!’ – translations sourced here.

Potato Farls (Gluten Free)

Happy Valentines Day!  These farls or potato bread as it is referred to in our flat is a somewhat romantically inspired recipe as my partner is from Belfast and loves these as part of a traditional fry, unfortunately my lack of organisation ended up shoving a buttered one in his face before I deserted him for Brum today but the thought was there and he plans to cook himself a little fry with the leftovers later tonight.  I was also planning to be all sickly sweet and try to cut them into heart shapes but again due to time constraints I opted for the more traditional round and  wedges of farls, but it’s  not a bad idea to cut these into shapes as they are quite delicate and difficult to transfer and turn in one big round so I would in future, perhaps, do circles or cut into wedges or squares before cooking to save the faffing around with rolling pins and plates.  So in brief potato bread is my romantic gesture of the day – who said romance is dead?

Gluten Free Potato Farls

These are dead easy to whip up, I somehow managed to do these all whilst simultaneously packing bags for Brum, managing the screams of an excited toddler’s growing anticipation of grandma and grandpa arriving at the gates and leaving the biggest pile of washing up known to man for my dearest, I said it before but who was it who said romance was dead?

Right enough gabbling and onto the recipe…

Ingredients:

• 4 medium sized potatoes ( rough unpeeled weight was 650g if you want to be precise but I don’t think you need to bother with something like this)
• 3 big heaped dessert spoonfuls of plain gluten free flour ( I used Dove’s Farm)
• A big (I mean it) knob of butter and more for serving

Method:

Peel, then boil the spuds until tender and mash the living daylights out of them, season generously, whack in the butter and mix.  Stir in the flour then tip out onto a floured board.  Now it is quite hot still but this is where I pretend like I have asbestos fingers (I don’t) and then realise I don’t and ‘ow OWWW!’ my way through a little knead to makes sure all the flour is incorporated, clearly it would be much simpler and pain free to let the damn mash cool first but what’s a little pain on the route to potato bread pleasure hey?

score the farl shapes whilst cooking...

Put a heavy based frying pan on the hob and set to medium.  Grease the pan with a little oil and then get onto rolling.  Flour a rolling-pin and roll out into a roundish looking shape, then transfer carefully to the pan ( this is where you could lose half the farl so I recommend a plate or a rolling-pin to help with the manoeuver) if it falls apart don’t worry it is easily squished together or made into smaller pieces, it still tastes great so worry no more.  Fry for about 8 minutes a side until deep golden brown then serve amongst a selection of your finest fried breakfast finery, on their tod with lashings of butter, or with jam as I guzzled down this morning or all posh with a twirl of smoked salmon and a big blob of creme fraiche.

Banana, Cinnamon and Sultana Cakes (Gluten Free) and the Fairy Cake Revolution

This is becoming a bit of a regular slot on here, they are just so easy to make and each week I seem to have a new ingredient that needs eating or cooking with before it goes to waste so here we have it another use for those spotty bananas at the bottom of the bowl, or if you’re looking for an alternative try this or this.

I do kinda like the idea of championing these little cakes, they seem to have disappeared in the whole cupcake phenomenon that has swept the world, it’s like a little fairy cake revolution!  All hail the humble fairy cake, whipped up easily by everybody, without the need for half a tonne of butter cream icing and designer names and price tags.  So this my friends is a little shout out to my  fairy cakes, I still love you!

Makes about 20

Ingredients:

• 150g butter
• 100g sugar
• 150g gluten free self raising flour (I used Dove’s)
• 3 eggs
• 3 bananas, mashed
• A big handful of sultanas
• 1 heaped teaspoon of cinnamon

Method:

Pre heat the oven to 180 degrees (fan).  Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.  Beat in the eggs one by one. Add the mashed banana, sultanas and cinnamon and stir.  Mix in the flour and then spoon into cases, ab0ut 2/3rds full.

Bake for about 15 min or until golden and cooked through.  Leave to cool then share, spreading the word, the revolution is here, LONG LIVE THE FAIRY CAKE!!!

Cranberry, Chocolate and Clementine Fairy Cakes (Gluten Free)

I’ve basically nabbed the core recipe for fairy cakes from the side of the Dove’s Self Raising Flour pack here but I’ve added a bit of a twist by adding an ace little favour combination which was inspired by the dregs of my kitchen cupboard and fruit bowl.  I wasn’t sure this was going to work but it makes a pretty damn tasty batch of  moist, clementine scented cakes filled with morsels of dark chocolate and cranberry pieces.  These disappeared pretty sharpish in my office and will definitely be making a come back for any impromptu cake deserving sessions in the future, any old excuse will do.

Makes about 20 in bog standard fairy cake cases.

Ingredients:

• 150g butter
• 150g sugar
• 150g gluten free self raising flour (I used Dove’s)
• 1 small packet of dried cranberries
• 100g dark chocolate
• Juice and zest of 2 clementines

Method:

Pre heat the oven to 180 degrees.

 Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one by one, add the orange juice and zest, then the cranberries, chocolate and flour.  Spoon into cases, about half full.  Bake for about 15 min or until lightly golden and cooked through.

Once cooked leave to cool, then eat, share and stand back and be proud – Well that would be the safest advice but actually what you want to do is try one of these little bad boys warm from the oven when the chocolate is still all melty and delicious and tell yourself you deserve it and really you are just checking the quality right? Yeah? You know what I’m talking about.

Back to Fat Club….oh and some pretty (ish) pictures of food…

After nearly a year of blogging here at ‘What Isla Ate’ my once loose-fitting jeans have become quite uncomfortable and after trying (and giving up very rapidly) running, it’s not for me, I’ve decided to join Fat Club again.  I did it a couple of years ago when my daughter was about 1 and I lost a whopping 4 stone so I know it works if I stick to it.  However it does seem to make recipe conjuring a little more difficult.  But fear not dear readers, I shall endeavour to still post some yummy food and in the meantime I’m sure I have a couple of dishes knocked up in the last few weeks I haven’t posted yet. And with my birthday coming up there will have to be some little lapses in the diet regime in which I will gorge on delicious, naughty things and will have to report back.

Right this is rather boring isn’t it.  Anyway I have been using Instagram a lot lately, I love the vintage Polaroid style, it makes everything a little more romantic and wistfu.  So for a little something pretty to look at here is my food week (last couple of weeks) in instagram (btw I got this lovely idea, well stole it, from the lovely Rosalilium she puts up beautiful pictures of her week and I’m pretty addicted to having a nose so I hope she won’t mind me stealing the idea and making it a little more food focused):

This was a couple of weeks ago now but Tamatanga is in Nottingham, it's a great concept, sort of 'fast food' indian style in a Wagamama set up, we ordered the Thali with a choice of curries as well as the statutory veggie ones, rice, poppadom (and naan if you want) with a drink for a meal deal, well worth a visit...

Holiday activity, my little lady creaming the butter and sugar for a gluten free victoria sponge...

...the sponge layers out of the oven...

...viccy sponge, recipe courtesy of the Doves Farm flour packet (baking is a science you know!)...

Picnic in the sunshine the other day, the lovely victoria sponge, a quinoa, mackerel and mango salad and some fresh ripe raspberries and mango, mmm

Gorgeous fried onions for a feast of hot dogs in a gluten free baguette.

And finally doughnut peaches fresh from the market poaching in a honey vanilla syrup, an attempt at a healthy dessert, more to come!!

Right so bye bye for now, if perchance you’ve been a member of fat club before (you know the one I’m talking about, it involves points) then please suggest some recipes to keep me going and in the meantime I’ll get my healthy brain switched on and get thinking… x

 

Citrus Drizzle Fairy Cakes (Gluten Free)

Interesting day today, I’ve  been trawling round the charity shops of West Wickham and found a lovely set of teacups, a pretty plate, a kite, a set of glass bowls, a Polaroid camera and a couple of bargainous children’s books. Good day.  So to top it all off with a sparkle I (well I had a bit of help, elbow grease provided by P. Curtis, thankyou!) we made some very gorgeous and delectable fairy cakes.  Yes you heard me right, FAIRY cakes, not cupcakes (as lovely as they are) but good old fashioned fairy cakes, WITH sprinkles, mmm yeah.  These are moist, sweet and moreish little numbers that you would be proud to provide at a children’s party and even damn prouder to produce for grown ups even if you are having a glass of cider on the side(!).  I used the basic recipe from the side of the Doves Farm Gluten Free Self Raising Flour packet and adulterated it with zest, drizzle and sparkly bits.

Ingredients:

• 150g butter
• 150g sugar
• 3 eggs
• 150g Doves Farm Gluten Free Self Raising Flour
• Zest of 1 orange and 1 lemon
• 5 tablespoons of milk

For the drizzle:

• Juice of 1 orange and 1 lemon
• Icing sugar
• Zest of one lemon

Method:

Pre heat the oven to 200 degrees or 180 degrees (fan oven).

Cream the butter and sugar together until while and fluffy (if anyone asks if they can help at this point say yes and hand it over, this recipe is not hard but this is the most labour intensive part!).  Grate in the zest of the orange and lemon.  Beat in the eggs.  Add the flour and milk and mix together.  Spoon into paper cases (half full). Then bake for 10-15 min.

Whilst baking put together your drizzle.  Squeeze the juice of an orange and lemon into a bowl.  Add icing sugar until you have a double cream consistency syrup.  Zest a lemon in and stir. Taste and add more sugar or juice if necessary.

Once the cakes are baked spoon the drizzle on whilst warm (to allow it to soak in).  Sprinkle over the best sparkly bits you can find (there is no shame in hundreds and thousands) and serve.