Halloween and Gluten and Dairy Free Pumpkin and Cocnut slice with Lemoncream.

 

Happy Halloween everyone. It has most certainly been a fun filled couple of days around here. The house has been everything but calm over the last couple of days, the kids have been running wild with excitement of going trick or treating and going by the continued excitement, I think they've had heaps of fun. We decorated the house and I also made some last minute bunting (I sense a pattern emerging here!). Ma gave me a fat quarter of some really sweet Halloween fabric when I saw her over the summer, so I thought I would put it to good use. I had an Eureka moment when I was going through my stash trying to make the bunting big enough, and now the bunting can double up as Autumnal bunting too, with the reverse in pretty autumnal colours.

For this weeks bake I figured I might as well use the pumpkin flesh from the pumpkins I carved with the kids and attempt a pumpkin cake/slice. I have made pumpkin cake before, but to be honest, I have never been that big a fan. I love Pumpkin pie, but for some reason the pumpkin cakes, or muffins I have attempted in the past have never been a success. So how was I going to do it?

Well I drew inspiration from The Gluten-Free Goddess and Pippa Kendrick and figured that if I applied a similar approach to the cakes I have baked from these two fabulous gluten-free experts, then the result should surely be a success. So I set off and with a little guess pouring here and there, which to be honest was fun, a bit like making pretend cake in little Es's kitchen. The exciting bit was not really knowing how it was all going to turn out, but the end result is amazing!!! The coconut flavour is really lovely and I think I might try and add a little more Coconut flour instead of the all purpose flour next time. The recipe is gluten and dairy free and to be honest I don't know how it will work with gluten, but it's always worth a try. All the gluten hungry folk who ate it want the recipe, so I reckon it is worth a try.

 

So here is the recipe for my Pumpkin and Coconut Slice with Lemon Cream. I will add that this is the first attempt at this, so I am sure there is plenty of opportunity for doing a little tweaking  here and there, but with all the feedback I have had over this cake, I think it is fare to say, you won't be disappointed.

Ingredients
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/2 ground almonds
1 cup Gluten Free Doves all purpose flour, or similar
1 1/2 cup soft light brown sugar
1tsp baking powder
1tsp baking soda
1tsp xanthum gum
2tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2tsp fine seasalt
1/4-1/2tsp of ground nutmeg, or freshly grated if you prefer a strong nutmeg flavour
2 large eggs beaten
1 cup of pumpkin puree
1/2 cup of coconut oil softened
2tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup almond milk
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Lemon Cream Icing
100g Pure Sunflower or Olive Spread, or something similar
300g of Sifted Icing Sugar
Zest of one Lemon


Instructions

1.Preheat the oven to 180C.
2. Line and butter a 9 inch square baking tin, or anything similar, with baking paper and Pure Dairy free spread.
3. Mix all the dry ingredients together in an electric mixer or by hand for a minute or so and then make a well in the middle of the mixture.
4. Pour in the beaten eggs, pumpkin puree, softened coconut oil, vanilla extract and then mix for a couple of minutes until the mixture is fully mixed. It will now look a bit like peanut butter, so this is where I just poured in some almond milk, which I suspect was around 1/2 cup of almond milk, you can make this with normal milk if you like. Just keep adding a little milk if the mixture is still looking far too dry. This mixture wont be very soft, but it needs to slide off into the baking tin with a little help and NOT look like it is glued to the bowl.
5. Stir in the walnuts
6. Put mixture into your baking tin.
7. Bake for around 20- 25 minutes, this will depend on your oven, but start checking from 20 minutes onwards.
8. Now make the Lemon Cream. Soften the pure sunflower spread a little then sieve in your icing sugar and mix.
9. Grate the zest of one lemon or more if you prefer a very lemony taste, I think I might do one and a half next time, but one is really delicious so if in doubt start with one. Then add the zest to your butter and sugar mixture.
10. Leave your cake to cool completely before you ice it and once iced you can cut it into slices, which makes for easy eating and the ideal thing to put on your Halloween party table or any other for that matter.

This cake will be delicious all year round, but I love the fact that I just used the flesh of the pumpkins I carved for Halloween without letting any go to waste. For any of you wanting to bake this, please let me know how you get on and also give some feedback on what worked better for you. I will most definitely be making this again, so if there are any tweaks I will let you know.

I was hoping to find time to change the Friday Bake to Weekly Bake, but unfortunately that will have to wait until next week, but if any of you have done a spot of baking this week and fancy linking in, please do so at the bottom of this post at any point during the week. Hopefully I have also sorted out the link problem from last week as the lovely Anne from Marmalade and Catmint tried to link in her very delicious looking 'Sticky Treacle and Ginger Lime Cake', so if you didn't see this last week, do pop over to her lovely blog to have a look at this recipe.

I don't know about you, but we are fairly exhausted after this weeks spooky excitement, so we have a very quiet weekend in stall. There will however be a trip out for our very first Bonfire night as a family, as it is the first year I THINK my health will allow, so I am really excited about it. I just hope that the rain gives us a little clearing as it won't be much fun in the wet and cold. So what do you all have planned this weekend???

This weekend I am really looking forward to finishing Andrea Levy's Never Far From Nowhere, I really enjoy Andrea's books, and even though this isn't as good as Small Island or Long Song, I am thoroughly enjoying it. I love this time of year where we can light the fire and enjoy some relaxing time with the family, reading, playing or getting completely lost in Downton or Strictly. Oh Life is good. Wishing you all a very enjoyable and relaxing weekend.

Warm Wishes

Hannapat

xoxo

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Friday Bake - Marmalade Tea Loaf

Is it just me or does time seem to go so much faster the older you get?! Is it because we try to pack more in or is it simply because we have so much more to do?? Or is it that as we get older we start to love life just a little more and we want to get the very most out of it?? What are your views on this?

Today is the last day of the school holidays so I have had my little helpers in the kitchen and credit where credit is due these two worked up a storm, well yes a storm of dust and mess shall I say, but not without some rather terrific results, but before I start going into the messy details, I just quickly wanted to give you a glimpse of this wonderful book, which to be honest I thought would act as the perfect antidote for knowing that we are all feeling a little blue that yet another wonderful series of the Great British Bake Off has come to an end, boohoo! Well done Frances, I was super chuffed that she won, she is super talented.

 

This  book is a wonderful compilation  of recipes from the ten home bakers that took part in the GBBO of the Summer of 2010. The book is divided into seven sections, 'Biscuits and Teatime treats, Bread, Tarts and Flans, Pies, Cakes, Puddings and Fancy Pastries', so there is something here for everyone from bread to Coffee and Walnut Cake and oh my Lemon Meringue just to name but a few. I also really like the styling in this book as it has a lovely vintage vibe to it and I think there is something lovely about recreating some of those wonderful GBBO bakes.

Today with small hands around, we opted for something really simple that we could throw in a bowl, mix and pop in the oven. Firstly we made  'Mark's Sticky Marmalade Tea Loaf', which is made with flour (in my case gluten free), butter (or pure olive spread), ground ginger, sugar, mixed nuts, eggs and marmalade. Little J mixed it all in for us, then some fingers attacked it before it got put in a loaf tin and popped in the oven. I love finding recipes like this, they are hassle free and so easy to pull together and I think we all need a little book for last minute cakes, this will most certainly be in mine.

 

 



 

 

It bakes in the oven for one and a quarter hour, which gave the kids time to make some chocolate chip cookies. Now back in the day my little guilty pleasure most certainly was to indulge in those delicious and giant white chocolate cookies that only Sainsbury's can get right in my opinion, well whether they inspired these or vice versa, these 'Jumbles' are the bizz. I am not sure whether it was the promise of white chocolate, but there was control, precision and complete concentration in a tremendous team effort to get it all made on their own from scratch. J read the recipe and assisted Es with the numbers when they got a bit 'big', there were no quarrels about who was stirring or adding what, it was a smooth and slick operation and at the end there were two very proud kids ready to pop their dollops in the oven.

 

 

 

So how did it all turn out, well all in all it has been a rather enjoyable and rather fabulous Friday Baking day.

Some marmalade was added on after the bake as instructed, just to make it 'bittersweet' and having sampled it I can confess that the flavours work really well together. I love the flavour and texture of the mixed nuts, I used hazels, wallnuts and peacans, but you can use whatever you like. What makes this a rather special tea loaf is the contrast between the ginger and bitter orange. I am most certainly NOT a marmalade fan per se, I wouldn't choose to put it on toast or anything like that, but I have discovered over the years, that I do really like it in cake. Now if you are not a fan, I also think this cake would be delicious without adding the marmalade to the top and only adding some to the cake mix, but to be honest it is all a matter of taste. All in all a very enjoyable tea loaf.

As for the 'Jumbles', the feedback was complete silence for all of two minutes before the begging started for the next, but unfortunately they will have to wait till tomorrow for that. Full bellies = happy kids= fifteen minutes for Ma to enjoy a cup of Rooibos and a slice of delicious tea loaf.

 

This week has signalled the start of the 'Christmas' countdown so to speak. I've ordered our turkey, yeah I know!! and then today I received my monthly Country Living magazine, and with it was a rather marvellous treat, A five week festive guide to help you to stay organised in time for Christmas. I am most certainly a list gal, I like a plan, as much as like things to be rather impulsive at times, but for Christmas I like to feel organised. For me there is just too much going on with school nativities and social gatherings to feel flustered and really by the time schools close I want us all to get into the Christmas zone, therefore relax and unwind. So this little booklet will undoubtedly be put to good use and I love the fact that it comes with some rather lovely recipes as well.

 

 

 

  

This weekend will be a fairly quiet one for us, I will try and get to the Treacle market on Sunday and I still have bulbs to get in the ground thanks to all this rain we've been having, but I haven't been feeling to clever this week, so we will just to have to see how the wind blows, speaking of which, apparently we are in for a big storm this Sunday in England and Wales with forecasted winds of around 80mph. I truly hope that it is nothing devastating. What do you all have planned for this weekend??

 

Thank you for all your sweet comments about the arm warmers, you are all very lovely and hopefully at some point I will try and put the pattern on my blog for you to use, but it wont be till December. Just a quick note on the Friday bake before I go and prepare our tea, if any of you would like to link in your bake(s) at any point in the week, please feel free to do so. I have named it Friday Bake largely because that is the day I bake, but I know that some of you would like to link, but the day just doesn't work, so please just link it in at any point during the week there are no rules here. The idea really is just for people to get some inspiration and recipes and there is really nothing more to it. Maybe I should call it Weekly Bake, what do you think? I will give this some thought. For now it preparing our tea for tonight, which will be Chilli. I have recently started to add some chorizo in the pot and oh my what a lovely flavour it adds. 

 

Wishing you all a very enjoyable weekend.

Warm Wishes

Hannapat

xoxo

 

 



Friday Bake - Banana and choc chip muffins

Today has been the start of the school holiday for us and seeing that today is bake day the kids wanted to get their hands and  erm yes the kitchen dirty!. We always aim to be as frugal as possible and use up everything without much waste and bananas are always welcomed when it comes to baking in our house. We all love banana bread/cake/muffins, and the kids were more than happy to make banana and choc chip muffins today. We have tried and tested quite a few recipes over the years to achieve a good muffin, and going on the kids reactions today, these might very well have surpassed them all. Yes, you've guessed it we yet again referred to our latest compilation of recipes, the simply wonderful Simply Baking from the National Trust, which I have mentioned a fair bit over the last two weeks and it is  fast becoming a firm favourite with us all as is their Complete Country Cookbook, so if you want to grab yourself a bargain head off to WHSmiths and grab both these wonderful National Trust books for a tenner.

 

These two monkeys did it all on their own with a little guidance here and there. It is a super quick recipe to throw together and the end results are pretty good, so I am told. This weeks bake was the full dairy and gluten monty and to be honest I think my waistline is rather grateful.

 

This Wednesday we celebrated our 8 year wedding anniversary for which I did a simple, but wonderful 'Old Fashioned Chicken Pie', from the Country Cookbook. We had a meal as a family, like we do every night, but it was special, because eight years down the line our love has grown beyond anything we could possibly ever have imagined and I feel so incredibly blessed to have found my soul mate, my best friend, the love of my life and the most amazing father to our children. We didn't want to celebrate without the kids as they are now part of the bond and that makes it even more special. I filled a jug with the last of our blooms from the garden and I even had a very small drop of wine, something I very rarely do these days and it sure was fun.

 

 

 

This morning the kids had their hair cut and we enjoyed a lovely lunch out and then spent the rest of the afternoon doing a little drawing and playing. It's so lovely to have them home and I think they are loving staying in their pj's and being able to unwind.

 

 

 
This fab parcel arrived today and I can't wait to start working up a few projects from this lovely new yarn. Unfortunately I haven't done much hooking or stitching this week and suspect this pattern will continue till after the school holidays. For now it is reserving energy to spend with the kids.

 

Our weekend is looking rather busy, but in a good way, spending time with some friends and a few birthday parties for the kids. What do you all have planned this weekend?? Thank you for all your lovely comments on my fairy and also a warm welcome to my new followers.

Warm Wishes

Hannapat

xoxo

Friday Bake - Sweet honey cake and some pretty strawberry pincushions

Hello lovelies. It has been a super duper busy week here with soooo much going on so both mind and body is really pleased that it is Friday. This week I wanted to bake something from this new book that I bought for a bargain last week. This National Trust book is crammed full of wonderful recipes, but my first choice was 'Buckland Abbey's Honey Cake'. I have never made honey cake before and to be honest I don't know why as I have always fancied the idea. I love honey and have many wonderful memories as a child eating fresh honey on fresh bread, yum!

Fortunately, I have also found the recipe on line, so you can use this link to get started right away. It is a REALLY easy cake to make and I can tell you that the entire cake was scoffed in record braking time. I have never quite seen anything like it in our house. The kids LOVED it and the visitors that dropped in all enjoyed it, so I think it is fair to say, it is a winner and will be made again VERY soon. The added mixed spice makes it the perfect cake for this time of the year, not only is it comforting, but also sends wonderful aroma's of honey and mixed spice wafting through the house.

 

 

I loved the shape and colour that the honey made, such a pretty flower. I adapted the cake to suit my be gluten and dairy free 'weirdness' (as my friends would say) by using Doves Gluten Free self raising flour and Pure Sunflower spread.

 

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 It is pretty much a case of throw and go and within minutes your cake will be ready to go in the oven.

Unfortunately there aren't many pics of the afters as it literally got scoffed in two shakes of a lambs tail. Always a good sign! Well there was a very blurred effort to grab a snap of the last piece going.

Earlier this week I met with three very close and special friends to celebrate a birthday and also to celebrate the fact that we could have our first lunch out without kids. It was a wonderful afternoon where we laughed, cried and just loved being in each others company. As a present I bought my friend Sarah Moore's Vintage Home book and for anyone interested in this book go and grab yourself a bargain as I have just seen it for sale for a great deal less at The Works, bad timing or what?!, grrr. Anyways to go with the book I made her one of my Scandi style tea towels and also a pretty little pincushion.

Recently I have been so inspired by all the pretty strawberry pincushions that are being swapped around blogland, that I just had to make some. They are so easy to make and for reference I used the instructions from one of my favourite ladies on YouTube 'The Gourmet Quilter', here is the link. I didn't follow it to the letter as I had an idea of what I wanted, but she is amazing and I just love here laid back attitude to sewing and quilting in general and I always find her tutorials really helpful.

 

This week I also harvested the last of our vegetables from our patch, meet bill and blob (sorry couldn't resist :-)).

 

 

This week I have done very little in way of crocheting or embroidery, I have largely worked on finishing off custom orders that was collected yesterday, but some of them involved a little crochet edging, so also joining in today with Chrissie and Marianne with their Crochet-A-Long, oops a day late sorry.

  

Before I go, a big and warm welcome my new readers, it is so lovely that you have decided to stop by and I look forward to getting to know you a little better. Also thank you to each and every one of you who leave such lovely comments and sorry that I haven't replied to any of them of late. I am finding it difficult to get around all your lovely blogs and also leaving messages here. I am sure life will resume a slightly less busy schedule after my stall at the end of November. I hope you all have a great weekend and I will pop in on Sunday with a little stitching.

Warm Wishes

Hannapat

xoxo