Showing posts with label bread. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bread. Show all posts

Saturday, 19 October 2013

Constant Cravings

I should warn you, this is a post about pregnancy. I tell you now so that you can move on to a different site, should this kind of thing not interest you. I promise that normal, gluten free food-y, service will be resumed very soon. In fact, scroll to the end of the post for a rather lovely stuffed onion recipe!

You might have noticed that I've not been blogging much over the past four months. June and July passed in a haze of long naps, spicy pickled onions, and Nutella, and before I knew it, it was August! September was unfortunately dominated by a Crohn's related infection that resulted in a trip to hospital, but all is well now. Our family and friends know our news and I thought I'd share it with you, too. After all, many of you have been on the journey to good health with me.

I'm 22 weeks pregnant. After three major surgeries, the removal of my large intestine and a decent chunk of small intestine, and nearly two decades of inflammation and ulceration in my abdomen, I wasn't even sure that was a possibility. Before I was diagnosed Coeliac, I lost so much weight that my periods stopped and didn't return for four years. One surgeon told me that Crohn's would have reduced my chances of conceiving, I saw gynaecologists who said, "maybe, maybe not" while all around me friend after friend popped out babies of their own. Advice ranged from, "just relax and it'll happen" to "I can give you the details of a good fertility clinic," but nothing helped.

I was starting to feel an affinity with Tian Tian, the panda at Edinburgh Zoo as certain family members became increasingly impatient over when (and if) a baby would ever arrive.

The funny thing is, that in spite of really quite wanting a baby, I was more concerned about being healthy enough to cope with a pregnancy and to look after myself and the resulting sprog afterwards. Fortunately, my Crohn's is in remission and, apart from various vitamin supplements and injections, I'm medication free. In fact, the timing couldn't be better, I've been off Humira for a year (it takes six months to clear your system and isn't recommended for pregnancy), my colectomy scars have had eighteen months to heal and I have the most energy I've had in a decade. Of course, that's not to say that I believe pregnancy will be easy, there are always risks. As scar tissue stretches and internal adhesions tear with this growing wee one, I've had all kinds of pain. I know that bowel obstructions and problems with the stoma are common for women like me, plus, there's the issue of not necessarily absorbing as many nutrients and water as people with entire, and fully functioning, digestive systems. 

I used to feel deep disappointment when pregnant friends confessed to not really having any interesting cravings, often demanding, "go home and eat a box of crayons for me!" One friend had cravings for tomato juice, while another confessed to eating bucketloads of daal. I've had rather unexpected cravings for onions. It doesn't matter what kind of onion, be it raw, pickled, roasted, fried or in soup, I'll eat it in vast quantities! This explains why, when the waitress at a restaurant told me that their soup of the day - French onion soup - wasn't gluten free, I got a bit tearful at the thought of missing out on onions. It turns out that onions are high in vitamin C, Folate, and Potassium so perhaps cravings aren't as strange as I first imagined.



Stuffed Onions
The memory of onion-soup-gate has me craving onions once again so here's an inside-out sage and onion stuffing recipe that's a brilliant side dish for your roast.

2 tsp rapeseed oil
50g stale gluten free bread (a slightly past-it Udi's bagel is particularly good here)
25g pancetta, cut into lardons
a few sage leaves, chopped
4 large-ish onions


  • Peel the onions and slice off the top and the root end off, leaving enough to hold the onion layers together. Drizzle with oil, season and pop into the oven at 180°C for 30 minutes.
  • Cut the stale bread into ½ cm cubes and put in a bowl.
  • Add the pancetta into lardons to the bowl with the chopped sage, salt and pepper. Stir together.
  • When the onions are soft, but still holding their shape, remove from the oven and scoop the middles out, leaving just the outer 2-3 layers.
  • Chop half of the inner parts of the onion and stir into the rest of the stuffing mix.
  • Fill the onion shells with stuffing, pack it quite tightly, and return to the oven for a further 30-40 minutes.


Tuesday, 19 March 2013

New Arrivals from Newburn Bakehouse by Warburtons


Yesterday, Warburton's gluten free bakery, Newburn Bakehouse, launched four new products. Baguettes, fruity muffins, a seeded loaf and (drum roll, please) wraps. That's right, the much longed-for and oft-fantasised wrap is now a gluten free reality! Or, at least, it's on a trial basis. These limited edition 3-packs of square, gluten free wraps are available in selected Tesco stores for you to buy and try. If you like them and want Warburton's to keep making them, you can vote to "Save Our Wrap' on Facebook or Twitter (using the hashtag #saveourwraps).


The wraps are soft with just a hint of sweetness and they taste really good. They're smaller than their wheaty equivalent (but, what's new there?) and they'll roll or fold well without breaking or cracking. You could easily top these to make a quick and easy pizza or use them in place of flatbreads, tortillas or pitta bread. They'd be great sliced and toasted with hummus, or wrapped around chicken and peppers as fajitas. Newburn Bakehouse even suggest folding one around a filling to make a toastie, something I would definitely try.   [UPDATE: The postcode checker doesn't appear to be working yet for the new products, check this list of stockists for a Tesco near you.}]

Sadly, there isn't a single stockist of the wraps within a thirty mile radius of my home, so it was fortunate that Newburn Bakehouse sent me one to try. If you want to find out where you can buy yours, head over to the Newburn Bakehouse website and enter your postcode. The rest of the new products are more widely available, so even if you can't find the wraps you will be able to buy the baguettes, seeded loaf and fruity muffins at a variety of stockists.


The addition to the range that's excited me most of all is the baguettes. Warmed in the oven, they're soft and fluffy on the inside with a crisp crust, just like my memory of french bread. You can eat them straight from the packet, they're still soft, but the crust is soft (and a little bit squeaky). Suddenly bruschetta, crostini and garlic bread are back on the menu. It's £2.29 for a pack of two baguettes, which I think is quite reasonable.


The seeded loaf is the same great quality as the other Newburn breads so it's soft, not crumbly and stays fresh for a good few days. As every Coeliac knows, adding fibre to your diet isn't easy and a bread packed with millet, linseed, sunflower and poppy seeds is always a bonus! On the opposite end of the scale, the fruity muffins are packed with golden syrup, so they're deliciously moist and sweet. Probably not a nutritious breakfast, but they're so tasty I think I'd probably justify one for elevenses. 


I'm very impressed with the new offerings from Warburtons, they seem to have listened to customers and have brought us products that fill a need. How many times have us GF-ers bemoaned the lack of a great sandwich wrap or soft baguette? Well done to Newburn Bakehouse for listening!

(Newburn Bakehouse very kindly sent me samples of all of the items above to taste. As always, I only review items I genuinely love.)

Wednesday, 6 June 2012

Quinoa Naan

It's Ratio Rally time again (where did last month go?!) and this time, we're making bread.  Karen over at Cooking Gluten-Free is hosting the challenge, so pop over there and see what everyone has been up to.

The ratio for bread is 5:3 - 5 parts flour : 3 parts water, plus yeast, salt and sugar.  My ratio turned out more like 1:1, since my chosen flour, quinoa, absorbed so much water!  Quinoa is a protein rich food and I have learned, through much experimenting, that the most successful gluten free bread recipes use a high-protein flour mix.



My history with yeast-risen bread is rather hit-or-miss so I tend to bake soda bread (besides, with breads like Fria Gluten Free out there, why put myself through the heartache of another flopped loaf?)  So, what to make for the Gluten-Free Ratio Rally?  I have been attempting to make decent roti for a while now, but since we're tackling flatbreads later on this year I decided to save that recipe...



Quinoa Naan Bread


225g quinoa flour
75g arrowroot starch
30g psyllium husk powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp golden caster sugar
1 sachet dried yeast
1 tbsp vegetable oil
300-350ml tepid water

  • Mix the quinoa flour, arrowroot, psyllium husk powder, salt, sugar and yeast in a bowl.  Add the oil and pour in about 250ml water and combine.  Add more water as required until you have a sticky dough. (It shouldn't be too firm, but still be malleable.)
  • Place the dough in an oiled bowl and cover with cling-film.  Leave for about 1 hour until the dough has increased in volume by about half.
  • Lightly oil a frying pan or skillet and place under a grill, turned up as high as it will go. (You'll probably want to open a window and switch on the extractor fan!)
  • Rub some vegetable oil on your hands to stop the dough from sticking to you.  Take cricket ball sized pieces of dough and flatten them as thin as you can get them without tearing.
  • Remove the frying pan from under the grill and place the dough in the pan and put back under the grill.  The dough will bubble and char as it cooks.
  • When the naan is cooked all the way through (it will lose the raw dough look and puff up) cover in a clean tea towel to keep warn while you cook the rest.

Here is some more bread-y inspiration for you:

Adina | Gluten Free Travelette  Seedy Sandwich Bread
Angela | Angela’s Kitchen  Our Family’s Basic Gluten Free Dairy Free Bread
Aunt Mae (aka ~Mrs. R) | Honey From Flinty Rocks  Chia Millet Bread
Brooke | B & the boy!  Buckwheat-Oat Bread

Charissa | Zest Bakery  Cherry Pecan Pot Bread, Gluten Free  
Claire | This Gluten-Free Life  German Vollkornbrot (Seeded Bread)
Erin | The Sensitive Epicure English Sandwich Bread (gluten-free & egg-free)   
Jenn | Jenn Cuisine  Gluten Free Boule
Jonathan | The Canary Files Gluten-Free, Vegan Mediterranean Soda Bread

Karen | Cooking Gluten Free!  Gluten Free Sandwich Bread/Gluten Free Naan
Meaghan | The Wicked Good Vegan  Vegan Gluten-Free Bread
Meg | Gluten-Free Boulangerie  Ciabatta (gluten-free, egg-free/vegan)
Monika | Chew on This!  amaranth skillet flatbreads, amaranth mini pita rounds
Morri | Meals with Morri No Knead Sun-dried Tomato & Basil Flatbread (yeast free/grain free) 

Pete & Kelli | No Gluten, No Problem  Gluten-Free Challah
Rachel / The Crispy Cook  Gluten Free Chickpea Sandwich Bread
TR | No One Likes Crumbley Cookies  Gluten Free White Bread
Tara | A Baking Life  Gluten-Free Sandwich Bread & Boule

Friday, 1 June 2012

Cucumber Sandwiches

Ok, so this isn't really a recipe for cucumber sandwiches, but if you have any street party or picnic planned for this (wonderfully long - thanks, Your Majesty!) weekend then you might want to try the soda bread recipe I've posted over on the Domestic Sluttery blog.


I have been meaning to share this go-to bread recipe for ages as it's a staple in my house, mainly due to my impatience at waiting for yeast raised bread to do it's thing!

Head over to Domestic Sluttery and have a peak at some of the other great Jubilee weekend ideas that the team have come up with, including these brilliant Jubilee choc pops and this incredibly rude bunting (not for the faint-hearted!).

Monday, 14 May 2012

Fria Gluten Free

The Holy Grail of gluten free bread is one that has a soft, but slightly chewy, texture and tastes like 'real' bread, not that generic, bland starchy flavour that many of the usual suspects have.  Oh, and one that doesn't disintegrate when you dip it in soup or a boiled egg.  Well, such a bread exists!  Fria Gluten Free have achieved, in my opinion, the ultimate in gluten free bread.

Fria products come pre-frozen so you can store then in your freezer and only defrost what you need, ideal if you are the only Coeliac in the village because you'll never have to contend with the age-old race to finish the bread before the mould gets it.


A couple of weeks ago, I received a huge box of goodies from Fria Gluten Free and I have been dutifully greedily working my way through the products ever since...

The breads I received were, Limpan, Vita and the award winning Grova, and all were outstanding.  All defrosted at room temperature within 30 minutes and made fantastic, soft sandwiches.  


Limpan is a light brown Swedish style loaf that has the most delicately sweet hint of orange that makes a great addition to the breakfast table.  Vita is a white bread that is better than any other white bread available, (and high fibre!) it is so soft that it seems a shame to toast it, but it does make brilliant toast, too.  Grova, winner in this year's bread category at the FreeFrom Food Awards, contains linseed and caraway seeds, so it's packed with flavour and has a texture that would fool any non-coeliac!


The Minibaguette and Grov Minibaguette are just like those part-baked baguettes you probably remember from your pre Coeliac days.  Warmed in the oven, the crust becomes crispy, combined with the fluffy insides, these are the best gluten free rolls I have tried yet.


If you fancy something sweet, Kladdkaka, the chocolate brownie cake, thoroughly deserved it's commendation in the FreeFrom Food Awards!  Oh, and thanks to Caroline from Sweetcheeks for recommending Kanelbulle, the delicious cinnamon buns.

You can buy Fria Gluten Free Products at:

Scandinavian Kitchen, 61 Great Titchfield Street, London W1W 7PP
TotallySwedish, 32 Crawford Street, London W1H 1LS
TotallySwedish, 66 Barnes High Street, London SW13 9LD
GFF Direct (delivered nationally) – www.gffdirect.co.uk
TotallySwedish (delivered nationally) – http://www.totallyswedish.com/en


Friday, 24 February 2012

FreeFrom Food Awards 2012

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away...

Ok, at the start of February; in London (It just feels an age ago, since the whole ileostomy/colectomy thing happened in the meantime.) I was lucky enough to be a judge for this year's FreeFrom Food Awards. Founded and run by Free From Foods Matter, the FreeFrom Food Awards are in their 5th year and celebrate those food producers who create product that are free from one or more of gluten, wheat, dairy, soya, egg, yeast or sugar.  

Coincidentally, I have been Coeliac for 5 years, so the FreeFrom Food Awards have been guiding me since the beginning of my journey!  I have bought products on the merit of being shortlisted in previous FreeFrom Food Awards and I look forward to the list being published each year, so it was a huge honour to be invited to take part in the judging process this year.

As the various judges arrived, I started to feel completely out of my depth; all the other judges were established food writers, journalists and bloggers with far more experience and influence than me.  Once the judging was underway, however, I started to relax and enjoy myself and Michelle was very warm and made me feel that my opinion was just as important as everyone else's.  I was excited to be involved with some really interesting categories, (bread, ready meals, desserts and beer) and made some very inspiring discoveries in the process.  Two of my favourite discoveries turned out to be from the same producer, Butterfly Snacks, who make the gluten free roti and gluten free spring rolls that I was thoroughly impressed by.  Also worth a mention, I think, are Dietary Specials tortelinni (filled gluten free pasta!) and The Food Resource's Fusilli al Funghi, both would make a quick and tasty lunch and are made with pasta with a decent bite to it.

The shortlist was published at the start of this week and you can view it on the FreeFrom Food Awards website  


I am very much looking forward to the awards ceremony on the 17th April and I will fill you in on all the winners then.


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Sunday, 27 March 2011

The Highs and Lows of Gluten Free Baking

For the past 10 days, I have been on a high dose of Prednisolone (corticosteriods), thanks to a flare-up of Crohn's Disease.  One major side effect of these tablets is a massive increase in my appetite.  Usually combined with extreme moodiness if I can't eat IMMEDIATELY!!  As a result, I have spent a considerable amount of time in my kitchen, baking and eating.

I decided I wanted to make bread rolls, so I experimented with rice flour and chestnut flour.  The resulting dough rose beautifully and smelled divine, but was so fragile that shaping the rolls was enough to knock all the air out of them and they didn't recover after a second proving.  However, as someone who loves her crusts (my Grandmother told me they'd give me curly hair, no luck yet) I still enjoyed the rather flat bread they produced!  I decided that these were "trencher" breads, used as plates in medieval times - they were really quite good for that purpose.  I feel a medieval banquet coming on!   I am new to chestnut flour and now I'm a fan.  It is slightly sweet and nutty, so is ideal for cakes and bread.
flat, but tasty!
A slightly more successful endeavour was the coffee-chocolate cakes I whipped up yesterday.  I was in the mood for coffee, the husband wanted chocolate... it seemed obvious.  Clearly, these are two flavours that work well together.  As I read about, and play with, gluten free baking, I have learned that while you can usually substitute regular flour weight-for-weight with gluten free flour when adapting recipes, you tend to require a little more liquid.

Mocha Cupcakes - makes 12
I topped mine with melted white chocolate.  It makes them look like little frothy coffees!


90g gluten free flour (I used Doves Farm Plain White Flour)
10g cocoa powder
1 tsp baking  powder
100g margarine
100g caster sugar
2 medium eggs
2 tsp instant coffee granules
60ml (4 tbsp) boiling water



  • Add the water into the coffee granules and stir well to dissolve, set aside to cool.
  • Cream together margarine and sugar.
  • Beat in eggs, then add cooled coffee.  If the mix starts to split, throw in a few spoonfuls of flour as you beat.
  • Combine flour, cocoa powder and baking powder.  Fold this into the rest.
  • Once mixed, pour into 12 cupcake cases and bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes.

Mocha Cupcakes, topped with white chocolate
Oh, by the way, my new thing this week was cooking with pigs' trotters! A little daunting to prepare, and not as much meat on the bones as I was hoping. I would buy extra next time.  Next on my to-try list I will be attempting Butteries (an Aberdonian bread roll with -as the name suggests- lots of butter!)

Wednesday, 16 March 2011

Best Thing Since...

As I threw another half-used package of freefrom bread in the bin - mouldy, after only a few days, I decided, enough was enough.  It was time to bite the bullet and try to bake my own gluten free bread.  I have tried before, and the results were usually dry, flat and heavy.  The most convincing packet mixes I used had a chemically smell to them, while the home-made efforts were only good for breadcrumbs.

I was buoyed by this post by Shauna on The Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef and promptly purchased flaxseed meal to try it out.  After a clean out of my baking cupboard revealed me to be out of most flours, yeast and baking powder, I paid a visit to the supermarket and stocked up (except, thanks to my currently sieve-like memory, I forgot yeast...)  So, I started off by making some muffins and cornbread (no yeast required) and incorporated the ground flaxseed in the recipes. Much success and celebration ensued.  After my delivery from Goodness Direct arrived, I was ready to have a shot at bread.

Really quite pleased with this!
Brown Rice, Quinoa and Buckwheat Loaf
(Inspired by a recipe by Shauna Ahern)
I'd advise you to read the blog post I've linked above, but the gist of it is that gluten free dough will start out far looser than gluten bread dough, but as it proves it thickens and become drier.  Once you accept that, you can relax into the process.  But, please, don't take my word for it - if you haven't already - read Gluten-Free Girl's blog.  This recipe is my adaptation of Shauna's.

25g Flaxseed meal
50ml boiling water
200g Brown rice flour
100g Quinoa flour
38g Buckwheat flour
65g Tapioca flour
47g Corn flour
300ml milk, at room temperature
5g salt
7g quick yeast
1tbsp honey
2 medium eggs
25ml cider vinegar
  • Pour the boiling water over the flaxseeds and stir until the mixture thickens (it will become the consistency of porridge.) Set aside to cool
  • Put all the flours, salt and yeast in a bowl.
  • Mix together 150ml of milk and honey and pour over the dry ingredients.  Beat (electric beaters are ideal) until it is all combined.
  • Whisk eggs into the vinegar and add to the mix, continue to beat until combined.
  • Add the flaxseed mixture and combine.  
  • Now gradually add the rest of the milk until you have a very soft dough (something you would be unable to handle)
  • Transfer dough to an oiled bowl, cover with cling film, leave in a warm place for 2 hours, to rise.
  • After the dough has risen, transfer it to a 1lb loaf tin and bake for 10 minutes at 230 degrees Celsius, then turn the temperature down to 180 C for the remaining 25 minutes.  
  • You know it's done when you can knock on the bottom of the loaf and it sounds hollow.
  • Tip out on to a cooling rack and leave to cool before slicing. Well, maybe just one slice while it's still hot!