Gluten Free, Dairy Free cupcakes – as easy as 1, 2, 3

It’s amazing where your best recipes come from. This was my son’s maths homework. His male, non-cooking teacher sent home a recipe that was to be used to practice multiplication. He sent home the ingredients for 6 cupcakes, and asked students to make him 12 or 18 at a time. With my kids being on a gluten free diet, I substituted the self raising flour mix by Doves Farm. I also substituted the caster sugar for some coconut sugar I had just picked up from the organic shop (less processed = better for the soul). The recipe was already dairy free.

It’s one of the only cake batters I’ve made that does not contain milk or at least a liquid substitute, and I was convinced it was going to be rock hard – not so. Eggs are mighty little ingredients. Recipe below makes 6 cupcakes – but can easily be multiplied, as my son can vouch for.

Kiddies Corn Fritters

These have always a staple in our family. I think they started off as a breakfast item, but now they are one of the most frequently requested dinner veggies, and I always save some for the lunchbox the next day.

Considering we have switched to being gluten and dairy free, they've seen a little adjustment. I now use a gluten flour mix (Doves Farm self raising) and I replace cow's milk with camel milk (easy to buy here in Dubai, low in bad casein, and a creamier replica than soy or rice milk). The recipe tastes just as good either way.

Ingredients

• 2 eggs
• 1 x 340g tin of sweet corn (12 Oz)
• 3/4 cup self raising flour
• 1/2 cup milk 
• 1/2 cup frozen peas
• pinch salt
• pinch smoked paprika

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)

Bananaberry muffins

I'm not much of a baker. As you might be able to tell from the blog description, I abhor measuring and weighing and being pedantic - it's just not me. Added to that, in Dubai, bread is cheap. I can buy 10 perfect little iced cupcakes from Spinneys for 10 Dirhams - that's less than $3US. I couldn't even do shake and bake for that price. Added to that, I'm overweight and my husband is wheat intolerant, so even if I make something gorgeous, only the kids eat it - and they would prefer the Spinneys cupcakes. Why would I want to bake?

Two reasons - the first is that it makes us feel good. Baking is an old school activity, from way back in the day when Mother didn't work, because Mothers were mothers. They had time to bake, and their families expected it because there weren't any such things as Spinneys cupcakes. And when kids came home from school on the local horse and cart, they would run inside and eat Mother's delicious baked thingies and think she was the most wonderful thing in the world. Then they would eat liver and brussel sprouts for dinner. Baking makes us feel like accomplished domestic goddesses - we can do everything Granny did, and we can "Facebook"...