gluten free baking – Nic Wilson

These little beauties work really well in cupcakes as they hold their shape and pack a punch with tiny flavour bursts. They are a lovely plant to grow and thrive in a sheltered position as an edible alternative to box hedging. I’ve been growing Chilean Guava (Ugni molinae) for 3 years and have had harvests from year one (see my post on 6 Ways to Create and Ornamental and Productive Garden.) This year’s has been the most fruitful and harvesting these delicate red globes on the way home from school with the kids in October is a real joy. If Chilean Guavas are not available, these cupcakes are also good with blueberries, alpine strawberries or raisins.

Shiny jewels

Ingredients

3 eggs, weighed

An equal weight of butter

An equal weight of golden caster sugar

An equal weight of gluten free self raising flour (or ordinary flour)

A few drops of vanilla extract

Half a cup of Chilean Guavas

Ready to bake

Method

Crack the eggs and weigh them. Add to a mixer (or mix by hand). Weigh the flour, sugar and butter (softened) and add to mixer. Add the vanilla extract and mix all the ingredients together.

Split the mixture between 12 cupcake cakes and add the Chilean Guavas to the top of each cupcake. (As the mixture melts in the oven, the fruit sinks a little into the cake.)

Bake at 180ºc for 15 minutes or until firm to the touch.

Last week the courgettes were destined for savoury fare in my courgette and chilli cornbread. This week’s courgette production shows no let up, so I’ve been experimenting with sweet uses of courgettes. First I tried a courgette chocolate cake using a recipe from the Delemere Farm Goat’s Milk carton. It was meant to be avocado and chocolate, but ended up with grated courgettes in too (as with so many things in our house…) It tasted good, but I need to work on the moisture levels as it was a little dry – probably due to my substitution of gluten-free flour for ordinary flour.

First attempt at a sweet courgette recipe – the homemade blackcurrant jam between the layers of the cake worked particularly well

So then I embarked on an old favourite – tea bread, but substituting some of the dried fruits for grated courgette. This worked a treat – the loaf was moist with no distinct taste of courgette – just a general fruity deliciousness.

Courgette Tea Bread

Ingredients

300g mixed dried fruit

150g grated courgette

200ml cold tea

250g gluten free self-raising flour (or could use ordinary wholemeal self-raising flour)

170g soft brown sugar

30g melted butter

1 egg

Dried fruit and grated courgette soaking in the tea

Method

Soak the dried fruit and grated courgette in the tea for several hours or overnight. Add the flour, sugar, butter and egg to the soaked mixture and combine thoroughly.

Line a long loaf tin with greaseproof paper and pour cake mixture into the tin. Bake at 170ºc for 1-1.5 hours until the tea bread is firm to the touch.