Flourless lime and coconut cake

This is officially the best cake in the world (according to me). Wheat free, grain free, dairy free, low in fat (but not in sugar - hey, you can't have it all), moist, finely textured, exotic, pretty, keeps well and is incredibly easy to make. AND it tastes like lemon meringue pie.


Ingredients

• 6 eggs
• 3 Tahitian limes, zested and juiced (about 100ml liquid)
• 1 cup caster sugar

• 1 ¼ cup ground almonds
 (200g)
• 1 cup finely desiccated coconut
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

• pinch salt

for the syrup

• ¼ cup grated jaggery (or raw sugar)
• ¼ cup water
• zest of one lime

Cardamom and pistachio custard tart

This is really so much easier than you would think. I'm not much of a pie maker, and yet, I managed to pull this off without a hitch. There's many steps, but all are very easy. Unfortunately it's a little deviation, in fact a large deviation from my usual gluten free and dairy free options - it's got all the baddies in there, sorry. But my reasoning is that it's an adult's taste, and so we'll only have it when all the kids are in bed and unable to see us sneaking in the naughty stuff.

Ingredients:

• shortcrust pastry (enough to line a flan tin. about 400g)
• 400ml milk
• 1 cinnamon quill
• pinch of saffron threads
• 8 cardamom pods (slightly crushed) 
• 4 small eggs (separated)
• 1 tbsp cornflour
• 1/2 cup caster sugar
• 1 1/3 cups whipping cream
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon powder
• 1/4 cup shelled pistachios
• 4 digestive biscuits
• 1/4 cup soft brown sugar
• 2 tbsp butter
• coarse salt to taste
• pomegranate seeds (optional)

Batheeth pies

Wow - haven't posted a recipe in ages. It's silly season again, that's why. Only time for silliness, nothing else. In the midst, I have been preparing some Christmas recipes for Ahlan Gourmet. They are a twist on the original, and bring a little of the Middle East into the traditional English recipes.

The first is Batheeth pies - a replacement to mince pies, which incidently I hate. I love looking at them, but they're so rich and unbalanced that I rarely find one I like. These however I have been eating by the dozen. Batheeth is something I was introduced to by a fellow food blogger -  La Mere Culinaire - at her own home (I wrote about the experience here - fab day, cooking with her mum.) It's a date and spice mix, with flour and ghee to bind. Very commonly seen on Emirati tables - it's very easy to make, and tastes great with a coffee (or gahwa)

Ingredients:

For the batheeth:

• 1 cup plain flour
• 1 ½ cups chopped dried dates
• 1 tsp ginger
• ½ tsp cloves
• ¼ cup good quality ghee
• 3 cardamom pods
• pinch salt

Caramel and Chestnut pie

Still in France, and finding it hard to stay gluten and dairy free. But the way I figure it, it's only the kids who are supposed to be on that diet, so I'm allowed to fall off the wagon for a month. I love the pastry available in the supermarket here - there are many kinds, brisée is a shortcrust pastry, and there are also some labeled as pizza pastry. I bought some gorgeous pre-made french puff pastry known here as feuillete. This utilises several ingredients that are easily found in french supermarkets, and now in many gourmet stores around the world. Even my local sells French feuillete by the roll and tinned chestnuts (marron).

Ingredients:

• 100g butter with salt crystals
  
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1 1/2 cups prepared chestnuts (can be bought like this in tins or vacuum packs)
• 1 sheet round feuillete pastry
• 1/2 cup cream
• 2 egg yolks
• more caster sugar for sprinkling

Cherry Frangipane

A trip to a provincial market is always inspiring, but the recent one I took to Tarascon, in the Bouche du Rhone departement was an eyeful of the grandest degree. I came home with a bundle of goodies, not the least, but the cheapest, being a half kilo of deep purple ripe cherries for the grand total of 1.41Euros. It was hard to look at them and not think of Frangipane. The recipe below sounds a little fiddly, but it's not really - its just a matter of getting the ingredients laid out.

Ingredients:

• 300ml and 100ml almond flour (meal)
• 1 1/2 cups gluten free flour
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 120g and 80g butter softened and chopped (or use dairy free margarine)
• 100ml plus 2 tbsp sugar
• pinch salt
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 eggs
• 300g cherries, halved and destoned
• 2 tbsp cassis jelly and a dash of champagne (optional)

Poached Pears

I usually avoid fruit desserts. They are naughty things pretending to be healthy. I'd much rather eat something healthy pretending to be naughty. Hence the drunken pears. They feel so naughty as you glug in the red wine, but we all know what happens to alcohol when you cook it down. Sure, there's a little added sugar, but if you leave the double cream off, then this cheeky little number isn't really that bad at all, especially compared to a fruit flan or pina colada. And as easy as whipping up a cocktail...

Ingredients

• 4 pears, peeled
• 1 cinnamon quill
• 1 star anise
• 250ml rich red wine (eg. Aussie Shiraz)
• 250ml water
• 1 tablespoon golden syrup (or brown sugar)

Instructions

1. plonk all in a pot with a lid, and bake in a 170℃ (340℉) for an hour, turning once.

Orange jellies

We're going on a time warp here - back to a time when I used to dream about these in the weeks of lead-up to my birthday party. My mum was fairly anti white-bread, definitely anti-sugar and not much of a baker, but she used to make these sunshine smiles with plain old oranges and a packet of tartrazine-fueled jello. As far as a kid's concerned, that's probably better than my all-natural, no colour, no preservative, low sugar version below. But, this is almost as easy, and healthy enough to pop in a school lunchbox for kids who otherwise refuse to eat fruit. And it's really all about that orange-peel grin in the aftermath anyway...

Ingredients:

• 6 oranges
• 10g packet gelatin
• 2 tbsp raw sugar
• water (about 200ml, depending on oranges)

Real Chocolate Chocolate Cake

Chocolate cake without melted chocolate? That's criminal. Here's my recipe for real chocolate chocolate cake.

Ingredients:

• 200g dark chocolate, chopped
• 200g butter, softened
• 1 cup castor sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
• 1/2 cup cream

For the fudge frosting:

• 150g chocolate
• 150g butter, softened
• 1 cup icing sugar, sifted

Gingerbread house

Now - the final of my one-post-per-day-till-Christmas session. I've been working on this on and off for the last few days. It's the first time I've done it, and the kids helped. We did a pretty good job as far as I'm concerned, and I dare you to defy the family Walton. 

I was particularly disappointed to see a gingerbread sleigh kit down at the local supermarket for $12.99 today, just as we were finishing.

Gingerbread Ingredients

• 250g butter (softened)
• 1 cup brown sugar (packed)
• 1 cup golden syrup
• 2 egg yolks
• 5 cups flour
• 2 tbsp ground ginger
• 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Soft Chocolate Truffles

Yesterday I put up the recipe for my white chocolate truffles, and you may have realised that it is fairly flexible. This is a deviation, with whole hazelnuts, and without half a cup of dry ingredients stirred through, which makes the chocolate more like a fudge in texture.

Ingredients:

1. 250g milk chocolate
2. 60ml cream
3. dash liqueur/flavouring (I used Amaretto)
4. 1/4 cup whole hazelnuts
5. 1/2 cup chocolate strands for dusting

White Chocolate Truffles

Truffles are the easiest sweets to make - the only cooking is melting chocolate, and they keep for a few weeks in the fridge. They're perfect for gifts, and you get to lick the bowl after rolling them out! This recipe is easily adaptable - I make different variants every year. This year I went tropical, with a mix of coconut, candied ginger and candied pineapple. Another family favourite is with flecks of finely grated lemon rind, coconut and a dash of Malibu liqueur.

Ingredients

• 250g White chocolate
• 60ml cream
• dash liqueur/flavouring (I used Limoncello)
• 1 cup finely textured ingredient (In my case, 1/4 cup mixed chopped candied ginger and pineapple, and 3/4 cup dessicated coconut)

Balaleet - An Emirati Breakfast

Noodles for breakfast? With fragrant spices and omelet morsels? Doesn't sound like the kind of thing you could just whip up every morning for breakfast? Well the Emiratis do - citizens of the United Arab Emirates. Maybe not every morning, but more than just sometimes they might prepare this traditional vermicelli noodle dish.

It sounds harder than it is - it's one of those no-measure things, and tastes good both hot and cold. I tasted it for the first time at the Cultural Breakfast in Dubai, and learned how to make it myself last week at La Mere Culinere's cooking session. This is my own slap-dash version.

Ingredients:

Apple Tea Cakes

Sometimes I like to tell myself that the junk I eat is good for me. This recipe, for example. It is good for me, because I halved the suggested amount of sugar (although I added a little maple syrup for flavour), I included apple (hence helping on the old 5 and 2 a day that often falls by the wayside), and I iced it sparingly. 

So it is true, that these are healthy, but only when you compare them to other cakes and desserts. Well some of them at least. Fortunately, they are also very, very easy to make. Just don't eat them for dinner, because then they should be classified as decidedly unhealthy.

Ingredients 

• 125g butter, softened
• 125g (1/2 cup) caster sugar
• 2 tblsp maple syrup
• 2 eggs
• 200ml buttermilk (or plain milk with a dash of lemon juice)
• 250g (2 cups) plain flour
• 3 tsp baking powder
• pinch salt (can leave out if you use salted butter)
• 1 apple, grated coarsely

• ground cinnamon mixed with caster sugar or fine brown sugar for dusting

No pain, no gain

I've always been more of a non-recipe cook. Don't get me wrong - I love cookbooks, but after years of working in restaurants alongside chefs - some great, some mediocre, I have realized that once you develop some basic knowledge, and learn to trust your taste buds, anyone is capable of inventing a recipe (implementing it is another matter!)

I am a great 'surprise chef'. I can walk into any kitchen and prepare a meal - often a great one, if I try, out of almost anything. You know how MacGyver used to make a nuclear warhead out of a ball point pen, two batteries, a paperclip and a piece of gum? That's me in the kitchen. The only thing that has held me up has been baking. It has always stood on a pedestal as the unmuckable cooking. Hard-core recipe stuff. I think it was several early failed attempts at pavlova and anzac biscuits that did it.

But what I've realised recently is that baking - particularly cakes - does not need to be as exact as I thought. Sure, there are things that MUST be included. Eggs to bind, oil or butter for moistness, some kind of raising agent for cakes, sugar for taste. The quantites are variable. More eggs for a dense cake, less for a crumbly one, more baking soda for fluffy scones, less for whoopie pies, more butter for brownies, less for banana bread. And do you know what, as long as you don't accidentally put in garlic powder instead of ginger, and you don't burn it, the sugar is ALWAYS going to make it taste good - no matter how chewy or crumbly it is.

Easy Baclava

I discovered a little about baclava while I was at the Al Samadi Bakery recently - the term "baclava" actually refers to the pastry, not the sweets. It's a super-soft mix that is flattenend, then has more layers of the same placed on top, and then is flattened again and again and again until you get a mille feuille style of multi-layered pastry. They then use this "baclava" to make sweets in hundreds of different ways. 

There is another wonderful style of pastry that abounded in the factory, and that was knafe (or kanafe) - pastry made up of hundreds of threads that can be pulled apart and moulded any which-way. Like Baclava, the pastry has given the dish its name, and if you type kanafe into a search engine, you will get hundreds of recipes for the wonderful arabic cheese-filled desert pie. 

And do you know the wonderful thing? We can buy both pastries in the freezer at the local supermarket (but baclava is better known as 'filo'). So here is how you make it the easy way: