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!
Tuesday, 8 March 2011
Friday, 12 November 2010
Easy Jam Tarts for BLW!
For those who haven't heard of it BLW stands for baby-led weaning which is what we've started doing with our daughter in the last month or so. Basically it involves skipping the purees involved in weaning and just letting your baby feed themselves. If you're interested in finding out more Gill Rapley has written a great book and the baby led weaning forum is full of useful advice.
But back to cooking...the point of baking for your baby is that you should avoid giving them sugar, hence all the experimentation recently! So here's a recipe which I made last night and proved very popular with the little teacup this morning. It's a very easy recipe to scale up or down as the quantities are the same.
Jam Tarts
Ingredients
100g butter
100g plain flour
100g wholemeal flour
a few tablespoons of cold water
a few tablespoons of sugar free jam (I used cherry St Dalfour)
Recipe
1. Combine the flours and rub in the butter until it resembles breadcrumbs.
2. Use a little water to form a dough. Wrap the dough in a plastic bag and chill in the fridge for half an hour or so.
3. Grease a patty tin and preheat the oven to gas mark 6 (200 degs C / 400 degs F).
4. Roll out the pastry and stamp out circles using a pastry cutter. If you fancy it also cut out the same number of stars to put on top.
5. Put the circles in the tin and top each with a few teaspoons of jam and a star (if using).
6. Bake in the oven for 15-20mins til lightly browned.
7. Leave to cool before eating.
And here's the results being enjoyed for breakfast!
But back to cooking...the point of baking for your baby is that you should avoid giving them sugar, hence all the experimentation recently! So here's a recipe which I made last night and proved very popular with the little teacup this morning. It's a very easy recipe to scale up or down as the quantities are the same.
Jam Tarts
Ingredients
100g butter
100g plain flour
100g wholemeal flour
a few tablespoons of cold water
a few tablespoons of sugar free jam (I used cherry St Dalfour)
Recipe
1. Combine the flours and rub in the butter until it resembles breadcrumbs.
2. Use a little water to form a dough. Wrap the dough in a plastic bag and chill in the fridge for half an hour or so.
3. Grease a patty tin and preheat the oven to gas mark 6 (200 degs C / 400 degs F).
4. Roll out the pastry and stamp out circles using a pastry cutter. If you fancy it also cut out the same number of stars to put on top.
5. Put the circles in the tin and top each with a few teaspoons of jam and a star (if using).
6. Bake in the oven for 15-20mins til lightly browned.
7. Leave to cool before eating.
And here's the results being enjoyed for breakfast!
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.
Wednesday, 27 October 2010
Fruit and Nut Slice
Over the weekend I made (and ate most of!) this lovely fruit and nut slice. It is very easy to make in between looking after my lovely little daughter and tastes excellent! I would describe it as somewhere between a flapjack, a cereal bar and one of those nice Rawr bars you can buy. It uses pear and apple spread to sweeten it, which looks disturbingly like marmite but doesn't taste like it! The recipe is from Jane Sen's "Healing Foods Cookbook" which also has some other nice sugar-free cookies and cakes... looking forward to trying them soon :-).
Fruit and Nut Slice
Ingredients
150g (5oz) raisins
150g (5oz) nuts (I used hazelnuts but any would do)
4tsp pear and apple spread (or other fruit concentrate)
85ml (3fl oz) sunflower oil
75g (3oz) oats
150g (5oz) plain flour
85ml (3 fl oz) water
Recipe
1. Grease a 7" flan case. Preheat oven to 190 degs C (gas 5 / 375 deg F).
2. Blend the dried fruit and nuts til finely chopped.
3. Mix all the ingredients together til well combined.
N.B. the recipe calls for everything to be added to the blender, mine wouldn't have coped with that so just mixing it in a bowl worked fine! I guess you'd have a smoother mix if you blended everything.
4. Pour/press the sticky dough into the flan case.
5. Cook for 30 mins or until browned.
6. Cut in case and leave to cool before serving.
Sorry no photos... it got eaten too quickly!
Fruit and Nut Slice
Ingredients
150g (5oz) raisins
150g (5oz) nuts (I used hazelnuts but any would do)
4tsp pear and apple spread (or other fruit concentrate)
85ml (3fl oz) sunflower oil
75g (3oz) oats
150g (5oz) plain flour
85ml (3 fl oz) water
Recipe
1. Grease a 7" flan case. Preheat oven to 190 degs C (gas 5 / 375 deg F).
2. Blend the dried fruit and nuts til finely chopped.
3. Mix all the ingredients together til well combined.
N.B. the recipe calls for everything to be added to the blender, mine wouldn't have coped with that so just mixing it in a bowl worked fine! I guess you'd have a smoother mix if you blended everything.
4. Pour/press the sticky dough into the flan case.
5. Cook for 30 mins or until browned.
6. Cut in case and leave to cool before serving.
Sorry no photos... it got eaten too quickly!
Sunday, 3 October 2010
Scones
Afternoon tea is a great English tradition and wouldn't be complete without some scones. I've never added sugar to mine, after all they are normally served with plenty of jam so why add even more sugar! And if you're feeling virtuous then you can stick with the sugar-free jams such as St. Dalfour or Meridian. I'm afraid we'd run out of sugar-free jam so I had to eat one with real apricot jam on, terrible! These also freeze really well and can be defrosted in a low oven so everyone thinks you just baked them!
Sultana Scones (makes approx 6 scones)
Ingredients
8 oz self-raising flour
1 1/2 oz butter
2 tbsp sultanas
1/4 pint milk
pinch of salt
Recipe
1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 7 (220 degs C / 425 degs F) and grease a baking tray.
2. Add the salt to the flour. Rub the butter into the flour.
3. Add the sultanas and mix to a soft dough with the milk.
4. Knead a little til smooth then roll out (approx 1" thick).
5. Cut out scones using a round cutter.
6. Put on baking tray and bake for 12-15 minutes til lightly brown.
Sultana Scones (makes approx 6 scones)
Ingredients
8 oz self-raising flour
1 1/2 oz butter
2 tbsp sultanas
1/4 pint milk
pinch of salt
Recipe
1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 7 (220 degs C / 425 degs F) and grease a baking tray.
2. Add the salt to the flour. Rub the butter into the flour.
3. Add the sultanas and mix to a soft dough with the milk.
4. Knead a little til smooth then roll out (approx 1" thick).
5. Cut out scones using a round cutter.
6. Put on baking tray and bake for 12-15 minutes til lightly brown.
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.
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