Garibaldi Biscuits

Due to their appearance Garibaldi biscuits have always been known as 'squashed fly' biscuits in my family but they taste much nicer than their name implies! Relatively simple to make too, if you can manage pastry then you'll manage these!

Garibaldi Biscuits
Ingredients
100 g plain flour (I used half plain, half wholemeal spelt)
50 g butter
1 tsp apple juice concentrate
a little water
a generous amount of currants

Recipe
1. Rub the butter into the flour until it resembles bread crumbs.
2. Add the apple juice concentrate and enough water to form a dough.
3. Chill the dough in the fridge for half an hour or so.
4. Divide the mixture into two. Roll one half out as thinly as possible in a rectangular shape and transfer to a greased baking sheet. (N.B. Use a baking sheet with no sides so that you can roll over it with the rolling pin.)
5. Sprinkle generous amounts of currants over the rolled out dough.
6. Roll out the second half of the dough to roughly the same size and thickness.
7. Using a pastry brush wet the edges of the dough on the baking sheet with water.
8. Place the second piece of dough on top of the first. Roll with a rolling pin until the currants are just showing through.
9. Score with a knife into rectangular pieces (but don't cut through).
10. Bake for fifteen minutes at gas mark 5 (375 deg F / 190 deg C) until golden brown.
11. Cool and then break along the score marks.

Sugar-free Jam - my first attempt!

A lot of the recipes call for use of sugar-free jam. I've been buying this but really I'd like to make my own. So after searching on the internet I found a few recipes and tried this one out. I have to say it was much quicker and easier than making 'normal' jam. The resulting jam wasn't as sweet as the shop brought sugar-free jams so I think next time I'd add more juice concentrate. I was lucky enough to find a lot of mirabelles (small, sweet, yellow plums) growing for free in the hedgerow so made the jam from these. However, I'm sure you could use any variety of sweet plums if you don't have mirabelles!

Sugar-Free Mirabelle Jam
Ingredients
900 g mirabelles (or other plums)
90 ml apple juice concentrate
120 ml liquid pectin (I used Certo)
Recipe
1.  Stone and chop fruit. Place in pan with apple juice concentrate.
2. Simmer for ten minutes.
3. Boil hard for ten minutes.
4. Add the liquid pectin and pot in sterilised jam jars.

Fruity Bread

We've been making our own bread for years now as it tastes so much nicer than the supermarket stuff! My hubby likes bread for breakfast and I'll have it occassionally too so this is a recipe I often make for our 'breakfast bread'. It's open to endless variation of the ingredients - different flours, fruit, nuts, spices, etc. A lot of recipes use sugar or honey to mix with the yeast and liquid but you don't really need it in my experience.

Cinnamon and Sultana Plait

Ingredients
500 g plain flour
500 g wholemeal flour
2 tsp salt
2 tsp quick yeast (I use Doves farm's one)
2 tsp cinnamon
lots of sultana's - as much as you fancy
1 egg
approx 500 ml of warm liquid (I use half water/half milk)

Recipe
1. Put all the dry ingredients in a bowl (including the yeast and sultanas).
2. Add the egg.
3. Begin to add the liquid, mixing well, until you have a soft, sticky dough that comes away from the bowl. You may need more or less liquid depending on your flour so don't just add all the liquid at once!
4. Knead well for 5-10 mins.
5. Cover with a damp cloth and leave to rise for approx two hours until doubled in size.
6. Grease a large baking sheet.
7. Knock back dough and knead for a few minutes.
8. Divide into three and form a long 'sausage' from each.
9. Put on baking tray and plait to form your bread. Dust with plain flour (if you wish).
10. Cover with a damp cloth and leave to rise for approx an hour.
11. Preheat oven to gas 6 (200 deg C / 400 deg F).
12. Bake loaf for approx 40 mins til crusty. If in doubt insert a skewer to check it's not still 'doughy' inside.

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.

Mmmm.. Chocolate cake!

Or, more specifically, sugar-free chocolate courgette cake! I know, it sounds a little strange but it is yummy! I adapted a recipe from Nigel Slater and it's a great way to use up courgette.

Chocolate Courgette Cake
Ingredients
200 g butter
4 tbsp sugar-free jam (I used apricot)
2 eggs
150 g courgette (approx one medium size one)
200 g plain flour
2 tbsp cocoa powder
pinch of salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla essence
60 g walnuts
80 g sultanas

Recipe
1. Preheat oven to gas mark 4 (180 deg C/ 350 deg F) and grease a 2 lb loaf tin.
2. Cream the butter and jam. Add the eggs.
3. Grate the courgette and squeeze the excess moisture out before adding to the mixture.
4. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well.
5. Put in prepared tin and bake for about an hour. (N.B. It seems to be a very moist cake but a skewer should come out clean when the cake is cooked.)

Picture to follow shortly...

More pickle!

Ok, some more pickle! Both me and my other half love bread and butter pickle. For those of you who haven't heard of it it's a pickle made from cucumbers and is for eating with bread and butter (not made from it!). It tastes especially good with some strong cheddar too. It normally contains sugar but having looked up a few recipes for pickling cucumbers I know that you can still preserve them without the sugar due to the vinegar and salt content. So I thought I'd use the normal recipe for it but omit the sugar. The recipe is courtesy of my mum this time!


Bread and Butter Pickle
Ingredients
1 large cucumber
1 red onion, sliced very thinly
1 green pepper, deseeded and cut into strips
1 1/2 tbsp coarse sea salt
300 ml white wine vinegar
50 ml apple juice concentrate (original recipe contains 275g caster sugar)
1 tbsp mustard seed
1 tsp celery seed or dill seed (I didn't have any so skipped this!)
5 cm stick of cinnamon
6 allspice berries
Pinch of cayenne pepper

Recipe
1. Peel cucumbers (if you wish) and slice thinly. Mix with onion, pepper and salt in a bowl.
2. Sit a plate on top of the bowl, weigh it down and leave in the fridge overnight.
3. Drain the vegetables and rinse under running water until they don't taste too salty.
4. Heat the vinegar, juice concentrate and spices and simmer for a few minutes.
5. Add the vegetables, stir once and bring to a bare simmer.
6. Put into hot, sterilised jars and put lids on.

Tastes better after maturing a while so leave it for a few weeks if you can! I haven't tried it yet but will soon as we have some nice cheddar in the fridge that would go perfectly....

Finally... some chocolate!

I wouldn't have thought it possible but this weekend we had chocolate moose for pudding! It was a rather unusual recipe and I was slightly dubious but it was very nice. It had a lovely smooth texture and did taste chocolatey. Nice time though I really have to use a much riper banana as you could taste that it wasn't that ripe! The recipe is vegan but we added a teaspoon of honey to make it a little sweeter (due to the aforementioned unripe banana!). Makes enough for two people

Chocolate Mousse
Ingredients
1 ripe avocado
1 ripe banana
1 tbsp cocoa powder
flavouring of choice - vanilla essence, grated orange rind, peppermint, etc

Recipe
1. Blend all ingredients together.
2. Serve and eat!

The recipe was from Star Khechara's "Holistic Beauty Book".