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.

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

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

Carrot Cookies

Still on a low sugar diet for the kiddies. The date cakes were such a success yesterday (all gone in 24 hours), I thought I might do a twist on the carrot cake. So here we go - carrot cookies, or "Carrotees" as they are called now.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup gluten free flour
• 1/2 cup wholemeal spelt flour
• 100g butter (melted)
• 1 carrot, finely grated (medium to large)
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 2 tbsp honey
• pinch salt

Date Cakes - healthier than ordinary cupcakes

You're going to see some changes in my recipes. I'm trying to cut sugar out of my youngest boy's diet. But for this sucrose monster, we'll start with baby steps. Considering he had absolutely no sugar all day, I think he did pretty well until he broke down at 4pm asking for cake. Don't let anyone tell you sugar is not a drug. Here's one for weaning him off. Technically it has no "sugar", but has natural sweetening from the dates, and just a smidgen of honey. As I said, baby steps - but it's still better than chocolate cupcakes...

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

Retro love - Prawn Cocktail

Some matches never get old. Tomatoes and basil, apples and cinnamon, fish and chips with lemon, red wine and cheese. Cold prawns with 1970s cocktail sauce. Mmmmm awesome.... Forthcoming - a particularly old-school, but not tired recipe. You might have a similar one in a frayed, 30 year old cookbook somewhere. Not new, old, done a thousand times and more. But here it is again.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups Prawns - cleaned, cooked, peeled and cooled. (you can buy them this way)
• 1 avocado
• 1 baby cos lettuce
• 1 lemon

     for the sauce:

• 2 egg yolks
• 1 tsp mustard (I use Dijon)
• 1 tbsp vinegar (I use white wine)
• 2/3 cup olive oil
• 2 tbsp cream, whisked to soft peaks
• dash tomato sauce
• dribble Worcestershire sauce
• Tabasco to taste
• salt and pepper to taste

Crunchy prawns with korma dipping sauce

Every once in a while, there is a dish from a restaurant that sticks with me. One evening, about 8 years ago in Melbourne, I dined with my husband at Circa at 'The Prince' in St Kilda. It was fairly soon after it had opened, and it was still well and truly in its hey-day, a food style-leader in Melbourne, and in fact Australia. That night, among other things, I had a prawn dish, with the most perfectly crisp and delicious casing - knaffe pastry. 

Just recently I purchased Suzanne Husseini's new cookbook, and what did I find in there? Prawns with knaffe pastry. Hers are with orange and lemon rind and stuffed with almonds, and they are amazing. Of course, I can't put her recipe here, so I brainstormed a little - I really enjoyed the sweetness of the almonds with the sweetness of the prawn flesh, and that got me thinking about korma.

Korma is a curry sauce that is made with a cream and nut base - either almonds or cashews. But as far as I'm concerned, the almonds just don't cut it for this sauce - cashews are far creamier. Most of the work is done in the blender, so it's super easy to cook.

Za'atar

Living in the Middle East is a dream for a spice lover. It is of course, smack in the middle of traditional spice trails, and the trading hub for all the fragrant and piquant treasures of this world. Baharat, Sumac, Saffron, Cardamom, Oud, Roses, Za'atar. The list goes on. A trip to the spice souk of Dubai is a must for any traveller  (not to buy spices - they are cheaper at the hypermarkets) to immerse oneself in the origins of this port. Dubai started as a trading town, and pearls, spices and gold were the objects of desire, and the Souks still bear hints of the traditional Middle East that has been lost everywhere else in this shiny city.

Za'atar is both Arabic for Thyme, and also the name of a spice blend that includes thyme, and usually marjoram, oregano, sesame, salt and sumac. Here, you can find it everywhere - in plastic packets on the supermarket shelves, in hessian sacks at the souks, on flat bread with melted cheese, in croissants, on the table next to the salt. It's a zingy, herbaceous mix that goes with almost everything - it can be added to a lamb stew, a fish marinade, a breakfast frittata, sprinkled on a pizza, but one of my favourites is simply on pastry, and oven baked for about 10 minutes - it makes a superb finger food, and is wonderful dipped in minted labneh (thick yogurt that tastes a little like tzatziki).

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.

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"...