I love rhubarb and as soon as I saw some at the market I brought some..... but then I couldn't think how to cook it without sugar! So I experimented a little and came up with this recipe which tastes really nice. Lovely on it's own or just added to your muesli for breakfast. The bicarb tip I found in a World War II cook book and it works! It does fizz rather a lot but don't let it put you off!
Stewed Rhubarb
Ingredients
Approx 600g Rhubarb (four large stalks)
10 Pitted dates
100 ml Apple juice
1 tsp Ground ginger
1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of soda
Recipe
1. Chop the rhubarb into approx 1 inch lengths and add to saucepan with apple juice and ground ginger.
2. Finely chop the dates and add to the pan.
3. Bring to a boil and then simmer gently until the rhubarb and dates have softened and disintegrated.
4. To neutralise the acidity (and reduce the need for sugar) stir in the bicarbonate of soda when the fruit is cooked. It will fizz a lot!
5. Eat hot or cold.
Showing posts with label dates. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dates. Show all posts
Monday, 21 March 2011
Tuesday, 8 March 2011
Yummy Sesame Spice Oatmeal Cookies
I made these lovely cookies yesterday for some mummies and babies to eat and they went down very well! The recipe is from an american book "Superimmunity for Kids" by Leo Galland and Dian Dincin Buchman which I recently brought.... after seeing all the recipes in the back I then went and brought some american measuring cups so I could make them easily!
Sesame Spice Oatmeal Cookies
Ingredients
1 cup / 8oz pitted dates
1 cup orange juice
1/4 cup butter, melted
3 cups rolled oats
1 cup wholemeal flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 cup raisins
1 cup sesame seeds
1/2 cup flaxseed (or walnut) oil
Recipe
1. Put the orange juice and dates in a saucepan over a low heat and leave to soften.
2. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl and add the sesame seeds and raisins.
3. Puree the date mixture with the melted butter and flax oil.
4. Add the pureed mixture to the dry ingredients and mix well.
5. Drop tablespoon size cookies on baking sheets and cook in the oven (350 deg F / Gas 4 / 180 deg C) for approx 15 mins til lightly browned.
6. Try and resist eating them when they come out of the oven!
Sesame Spice Oatmeal Cookies
Ingredients
1 cup / 8oz pitted dates
1 cup orange juice
1/4 cup butter, melted
3 cups rolled oats
1 cup wholemeal flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 cup raisins
1 cup sesame seeds
1/2 cup flaxseed (or walnut) oil
Recipe
1. Put the orange juice and dates in a saucepan over a low heat and leave to soften.
2. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl and add the sesame seeds and raisins.
3. Puree the date mixture with the melted butter and flax oil.
4. Add the pureed mixture to the dry ingredients and mix well.
5. Drop tablespoon size cookies on baking sheets and cook in the oven (350 deg F / Gas 4 / 180 deg C) for approx 15 mins til lightly browned.
6. Try and resist eating them when they come out of the oven!
Monday, 8 November 2010
Spiced Apple, Hazelnut and Date Loaf
We have a load of apples at the moment, from a neighbour's tree (thank you!), that needed something doing with them. We've frozen lots, stewed lots more and this cake was the first of the baking to start using them up! It's adapted (a lot!) from a recipe in a recent Sainsbury's magazine - the original has parsnips and apricots in, here's the recipe if you're interested. My version has apple, hazelnuts and dates in but still uses the original combination of spices and is really very easy to make.
Spiced Apple, Hazelnut and Date Loaf
Ingredients
150g plain flour
150g wholemeal spelt flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
10 cardamon pods, seeds removed and crushed
4 eggs, lightly beaten
75ml date syrup
70g pear and apple spread
50ml apple juice concentrate
100ml vegetable oil
2 apples, peeled, cored and roughly diced
100g chopped hazelnuts
100g chopped dried dates
Recipe
1. Preheat oven to 180 deg C (350 degs F / gas mark 4). Grease a 2lb loaf tin.
2. Mix the flours, baking powder, spices, eggs, date syrup, pear and apple spread, apple juice concentrate and oil together in a bowl.
3. Fold in the apple, hazelnuts and dates and transfer to the prepared tin.
4. Bake for an hour and a half until golden and risen and a skewer comes out clean.
5. Leave to cool in the tin then turn out.
Spiced Apple, Hazelnut and Date Loaf
Ingredients
150g plain flour
150g wholemeal spelt flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
10 cardamon pods, seeds removed and crushed
4 eggs, lightly beaten
75ml date syrup
70g pear and apple spread
50ml apple juice concentrate
100ml vegetable oil
2 apples, peeled, cored and roughly diced
100g chopped hazelnuts
100g chopped dried dates
Recipe
1. Preheat oven to 180 deg C (350 degs F / gas mark 4). Grease a 2lb loaf tin.
2. Mix the flours, baking powder, spices, eggs, date syrup, pear and apple spread, apple juice concentrate and oil together in a bowl.
3. Fold in the apple, hazelnuts and dates and transfer to the prepared tin.
4. Bake for an hour and a half until golden and risen and a skewer comes out clean.
5. Leave to cool in the tin then turn out.
Thursday, 28 October 2010
October Bake it! - Ginger Cake
I enjoy 'normal' baking too, i.e. with lots of sugar, and have been following a few blogs on the subject. There's so many out there but I do enjoy the blogs of the Great British Bake Off finalists, Miranda Gore Browne and the Pink Whisk. The Pink Whisk introduced me to the Bake It! club, recipes are posted each month and everyone has a go at the same recipe. So... I thought why not try and adapt a Bake It recipe to be free of refined sugar? The October recipe is Ginger Cake and here's my adaptation :-). It tastes good and looks just like the original really! The method is very similar, I just changed a few of the ingredients. The original recipe is here.
Ginger Cake
Ingredients
125g butter
80g granulated fruit sugar (I used Fruisana)
85g date syrup
85g apple and pear fruit spread
200ml milk
250g self raising flour
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
3 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs
a little sugar-free apricot jam
Recipe
1. Grease a 2lb loaf tin. Preheat the oven to 160 degs C (gas mark 3).
2. Melt the butter, fruit sugar, date syrup, fruit spread and milk in a saucepan. Leave to cool for five minutes.
3. Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl and add the melted ingredients.
4. Beat the eggs and add to the mixture. Stir well.
5. Pour into the prepared tin and cook for 45-50 mins til a skewer comes out clean.
6. Leave to cool in the tin for 15 minutes then remove to a cooling rack.
7. Brush with a little sugar-free apricot jam.
I'm afraid I then cheated a little as I wanted to ice the cake but haven't figured out how to make icing without icing sugar. So I made a ginger buttercream icing (using 40g butter, 100g icing sugar, 20g finely chopped stem ginger and 1tbsp milk) and decorated it using slices of stem ginger. Here's the result (after a few slices were already eaten!):
Ginger Cake
Ingredients
125g butter
80g granulated fruit sugar (I used Fruisana)
85g date syrup
85g apple and pear fruit spread
200ml milk
250g self raising flour
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
3 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs
a little sugar-free apricot jam
Recipe
1. Grease a 2lb loaf tin. Preheat the oven to 160 degs C (gas mark 3).
2. Melt the butter, fruit sugar, date syrup, fruit spread and milk in a saucepan. Leave to cool for five minutes.
3. Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl and add the melted ingredients.
4. Beat the eggs and add to the mixture. Stir well.
5. Pour into the prepared tin and cook for 45-50 mins til a skewer comes out clean.
6. Leave to cool in the tin for 15 minutes then remove to a cooling rack.
7. Brush with a little sugar-free apricot jam.
Friday, 1 October 2010
Chocolate Brownies
Today I thought I'd try out this recipe I found on the Vegetarian Society website. It sounded simple enough but I admit I was dubious that chocolate brownies could be made without sugar. However, I'm now convinced, they taste lovely! Quite sweet, although as a bit of a chocoholic I'd probably like them a bit more chocolatey. We had some for desert with some nice thick plain yoghurt and they were delicious.
Chocolate Brownies
Ingredients
8 oz\250g dates
4 oz\100g butter
1 egg, beaten
1 very ripe banana, mashed
2½ oz\60g wholemeal flour
2 tsp baking powder
4 tbsp cocoa powder
3 oz\110g walnuts, roughly chopped
1 tsp\5ml vanilla essence
Recipe
1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 4 (180°C / 350°F). Grease a square cake tin (about 18cm x 18cm/7" x 7").
2. Put the dates into a saucepan and add water to just cover them. Cook for 5-10 minutes or until softened. Puree the dates until smooth and allow to cool a little.
3. Cream together the dates and the butter/margarine while the dates are still warm, until light and fluffy.
4. Add the egg, the mashed banana and vanilla essence and mix well.
5. Sieve the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder and add to the mixture.
6. Fold in the walnuts and turn the mixture into the prepared tin.
7. Bake in the preheated oven for 30-35 minutes, or until the brownies feel fairly firm to the touch.
I used a 8" round tin as I didn't have a convenient sized square one. This took an additional 5 mins in the oven.
Chocolate Brownies
Ingredients
8 oz\250g dates
4 oz\100g butter
1 egg, beaten
1 very ripe banana, mashed
2½ oz\60g wholemeal flour
2 tsp baking powder
4 tbsp cocoa powder
3 oz\110g walnuts, roughly chopped
1 tsp\5ml vanilla essence
Recipe
1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 4 (180°C / 350°F). Grease a square cake tin (about 18cm x 18cm/7" x 7").
2. Put the dates into a saucepan and add water to just cover them. Cook for 5-10 minutes or until softened. Puree the dates until smooth and allow to cool a little.
3. Cream together the dates and the butter/margarine while the dates are still warm, until light and fluffy.
4. Add the egg, the mashed banana and vanilla essence and mix well.
5. Sieve the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder and add to the mixture.
6. Fold in the walnuts and turn the mixture into the prepared tin.
7. Bake in the preheated oven for 30-35 minutes, or until the brownies feel fairly firm to the touch.
I used a 8" round tin as I didn't have a convenient sized square one. This took an additional 5 mins in the oven.
Thursday, 12 August 2010
Roast Gammon
I guess we don't often realise how much sugar can be in savoury things too. For example, we had a gammon joint for cooking but a lot of recipes call for a sweet glaze. It does taste nice with a sweet glaze so I wanted to create a sugar-free one and here it is! The gammon tasted lovely so it's well worth it.
Roast Gammon
Ingredients
1 kg gammon
90 ml apple juice
60 ml date syrup (I used Meridian's)
1 tsp mustard
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sherry (or other alcohol)
Pinch cayenne pepper
Recipe
1. Put the gammon in a saucepan of cold water and bring to the boil. Simmer for half an hour (or fifteen minutes per lb if you have a different weight gammon).
2. Meanwhile put all the rest of the ingredients in a saucepan and simmer til reduced to approx one third.
3. Preheat oven to gas 9 (240 deg C / 475 deg F).
4. Carefully remove skin from gammon and coat with half of glaze mixture.
5. Put in oven and immediately reduce temperature to gas 4 (180 deg C/ 350 deg F). Roast for 35 mins (or ten mins per lb plus an additional 15 mins), basting half way through with rest of glaze and any juices from the meat.
6. Leave the gammon to rest, covered with foil, for fifteen minutes. Then serve.
Roast Gammon
Ingredients
1 kg gammon
90 ml apple juice
60 ml date syrup (I used Meridian's)
1 tsp mustard
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sherry (or other alcohol)
Pinch cayenne pepper
Recipe
1. Put the gammon in a saucepan of cold water and bring to the boil. Simmer for half an hour (or fifteen minutes per lb if you have a different weight gammon).
2. Meanwhile put all the rest of the ingredients in a saucepan and simmer til reduced to approx one third.
3. Preheat oven to gas 9 (240 deg C / 475 deg F).
4. Carefully remove skin from gammon and coat with half of glaze mixture.
5. Put in oven and immediately reduce temperature to gas 4 (180 deg C/ 350 deg F). Roast for 35 mins (or ten mins per lb plus an additional 15 mins), basting half way through with rest of glaze and any juices from the meat.
6. Leave the gammon to rest, covered with foil, for fifteen minutes. Then serve.
Thursday, 5 August 2010
Day two - cookies and cake!
Well, to keep us going I tried a couple of recipes on day two and I have to say they have both vanished pretty quickly now! So quickly that I'm afraid there are no photos but I'll try and remember next time...
Firstly some cookies, the original recipe was courtesy of this excellent blog but I have adapted it slightly. These tasted great! Slightly less sweet then perhaps we're used to but the jam and the fruit does make it quite sweet enough. I took the cookies round a friends house and no-one even realised they hadn't any sugar in! I also made another version with ground ginger, sultanas and spelt flour and these were good too.
Walnut and Sultana Cookies
Ingredients
1. Cream butter and jam together.
2. Add the egg and beat well.
3. Add the rest of the ingredients to make a sticky dough.
4. Spoon dollups of the mixture onto a baking sheet (I made twelve cookies) and flatten slightly with a fork.
5. Bake at gas mark 4 (180 deg C/ 350 deg F) for 15-20 mins til golden.
And I wanted something to take on a picnic to share. So I found this recipe for a fruit cake (from Rose Elliot's "New Complete Vegetarian" cookbook). This was really good too and surprisingly sweet, I don't think anyone would realise that it has no sugar in. I think it would make an excellent Christmas cake, perhaps with some pretty dried fruit put on the top before you cook it. The cake went down really well at the picnic and a couple of people asked for the recipe so it must have been good! The cake is also vegan.
Fruit Cake
Ingredients
1. Preheat oven to gas 3 (160 deg C / 325 deg F). Grease and line a 2lb loaf tin.
2. Chop dates and add to saucepan with the water. Cook over a low heat til soft. Then remove from heat and mash to break up.
3. Add all the remaining ingredients (except for the flaked almonds) and mix well. Spoon into the tin and sprinkle the flaked almonds on top.
4. Bake for 1 1/2 hours until a skewer inserted comes out clean.
5. Cool slightly in tin and then turn out onto cooling rack.
Firstly some cookies, the original recipe was courtesy of this excellent blog but I have adapted it slightly. These tasted great! Slightly less sweet then perhaps we're used to but the jam and the fruit does make it quite sweet enough. I took the cookies round a friends house and no-one even realised they hadn't any sugar in! I also made another version with ground ginger, sultanas and spelt flour and these were good too.
Walnut and Sultana Cookies
Ingredients
- 100 g butter
- 3 tbsp sugar free jam (I used St Dalfour apricot jam)
- 1 beaten egg
- 50 g ground almonds
- 50 g sultanas
- 30g chopped walnuts
- 100 g wholemeal flour
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp mixed spice
1. Cream butter and jam together.
2. Add the egg and beat well.
3. Add the rest of the ingredients to make a sticky dough.
4. Spoon dollups of the mixture onto a baking sheet (I made twelve cookies) and flatten slightly with a fork.
5. Bake at gas mark 4 (180 deg C/ 350 deg F) for 15-20 mins til golden.
And I wanted something to take on a picnic to share. So I found this recipe for a fruit cake (from Rose Elliot's "New Complete Vegetarian" cookbook). This was really good too and surprisingly sweet, I don't think anyone would realise that it has no sugar in. I think it would make an excellent Christmas cake, perhaps with some pretty dried fruit put on the top before you cook it. The cake went down really well at the picnic and a couple of people asked for the recipe so it must have been good! The cake is also vegan.
Fruit Cake
Ingredients
- 225 g dates
- 275 ml water
- 450 g mixed dried fruit (I used sultanas and apricots)
- 175 g plain wholemeal flour
- 3 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp mixed spice
- grated rind of one orange or lemon (I hadn't any so just used a dash of lemon juice!)
- 40 g ground almonds
- 4 tbsp orange juice (again, I hadn't any so used apple juice)
- a few flaked almonds
1. Preheat oven to gas 3 (160 deg C / 325 deg F). Grease and line a 2lb loaf tin.
2. Chop dates and add to saucepan with the water. Cook over a low heat til soft. Then remove from heat and mash to break up.
3. Add all the remaining ingredients (except for the flaked almonds) and mix well. Spoon into the tin and sprinkle the flaked almonds on top.
4. Bake for 1 1/2 hours until a skewer inserted comes out clean.
5. Cool slightly in tin and then turn out onto cooling rack.
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