Baking with Baby - Flapjacks

Hurrah! Got home from my Monday mum's group, this morning, to find my latest acquisition poking through the letterbox - my new dairy free and gluten free cookbook. Although, as I often explain, I'm no 'Nigella' I was 'sold' this book the other day by an online review from 'Pig in the Kitchen.' 


'Pig' in case you don't know posts lots of yummy recipes online, which I honestly like the look of but have not been brave enough to try... yet! For now, I just follow her posts and drool!! However, I took a sneaky peak at 'The Intolerant Gourmet' online, at Amazon (having read Pig's review) and thought I might just give it a go - particularly as it contained a recipe I thought would suit even me!

'Easy peasy, lemon squeezy!' I thought, after ordering the book.' Even I can make flapjacks.' With that thought in mind, and not able to wait until the new book arrived, I grabbed my old faithful cookery book off the shelf and dug out the flapjack recipe. Yep! Everything I needed I had in the cupboard and there was stuff that Baby could do too - Baby LOVES cooking!

"Let me! Let me!" squeaked Baby, so we got out the baking tin and rubbed margarine round it. I put the oven on and got out the saucepan. Baby helped scoop out margarine (150g/6oz) and put it in the pan. Having set that on a gentle heat to melt, we weighed out the demerara sugar (150g/6oz) and we added it to the pan. Once the sugar and margarine had melted and been mixed together, we added the oats (200g/8oz - gluten free) and mixed them in too, with a wooden spoon. It really took no time at all. 'Wow! I thought, 'I'd forgotten quite how easy they are to make and pretty quick too!'

As we emptied the mixture into the pan, it really didn't look like it was going to cover the bottom of the tin and even if it did, it looked as though it would only make wafer thin flapjacks. I looked back at the recipe. The lovely pile of flapjacks pictured there looked nothing like those that we were making. 


Just then, I noted that the recipe actually said that for a moister flapjack, you should use half the amount of sugar and use golden syrup instead. 'Rats!' I thought, 'golden syrup would make it yummier and a moister flapjack would be much nicer!' At that point, I had my first brainwave! I decided to make a second batch with just golden syrup  (1 tablespoon = 1oz) and combine the two. That way the mixture in the tin would look more generous and we would have more to eat as well!

That done, we put the flapjacks in the oven and I set my new baking best friend (my kitchen timer) to the right time (30-35 minutes). My timer has made all the difference in the world to my cooking (along with my other new baking best friend which is my oven thermometer). Before I had these, my cakes came out very badly indeed - partly because our the temperature of our (inherited) oven doesn't seem to match with the thermostat and partly because I wasn't keeping a close enough eye on it. 

My new BFF

The only problem, was that I should have turned the oven down (to 180 degrees C/gas mark 4) earlier. I had put it on high as the oven takes so long to heat up and as a result my flapjacks came out looking  somewhat overdone. 'Oh dear!' I thought, 'I can't even cook flapjacks any more!' 


However, I consoled myself with the recollection that whenever my mother had a baking disaster, when we were kids, we had eaten it and enjoyed it anyway. 


It was then that I had my second brainwave of the afternoon - to pick off the most burnt looking bits and use the wedding anniversary chocolate from Hotel Chocolat.


Originally, this had been intended for a bit of romantic 'a deux' fruit dipping, but those plans had been rudely overturned by Baby. However, this was now melted and drizzled 'artistically' over the top of my flapjacks. Et voila! Not only did they look quite good (by now) they also tasted quite good too (even better the next day, I discovered). 

Et Voila! (Try and ignore the overdone bits!)

'Maybe I have the makings of a domestic goddess after all,' I thought. 'After all I bet Pippa Kendrick never drizzled chocolate over her flapjacks.' And indeed, I found (as I studied her book, with glee) she hadn't. However, as I perused her book a bit more, I realised that indeed I still have along way to go. 'Pippa,' I decided, 'you need fear nothing from me. I am far from being a gourmet of any description, never mind an intolerant one!'


Mind you, bet she's never come across Mrs Watkin's Yum Yum cake - more on that another day! In the meantime, there's a few intolerant recipes that I might have to try... rhubarb streusel looks yum and so do some certain chocolate brownies!

Simple Sausage Casserole

So tonight, despite all the heat we've been having, I found myself making flower shaped carrots for our sausage casserole. Yes, you heard me casserole! But it was that or Spaghetti Bolognese today, partly because I forgot to buy my special pasta, when I was out shopping today, but also because The Hub ordered our food the other day, and this is what was left in the fridge!

Flowery carrots

Oh, and if you're wondering about the flower shaped carrots - that's just a ploy to get Baby to eat them. It's a trick of my mother-in-law's invention. You draw a zester several times down the length of the carrot, creating grooves in the surface. When you cut through the carrot the flower shape can be seen. Sometimes flowery carrots work and sometimes they don't! Anyway, back to the casserole...

Our sausage casserole began with a Jamie Oliver recipe that I found in Sainbury's a few years ago. It was one of those 'Feed your family for a fiver' recipes. Of course you could only feed your family for a fiver if you bought some of your ingredients from their 'Basics' range, and, if I'm totally honest, it wasn't really enough to feed a family larger than three (in my humble opinion). Anyway, it was quite tasty and so I made it from time to time, just for me and The Hub - the leftovers were next day's lunch!

We've changed it slightly though - we took out the pepper and red onion and added tomato soup! It works though - you'll see!

One of the things I like about this dish, apart from the fact that it contains sausages (which I lurve) is that it is what I call a 'One Pot Wonder' - which basically boils down to everything being chucked into the same pot and less washing up - which suits me just fine!!


Ingredients:

3-4 carrots
3-4 sweet potatoes
1 courgette
dollop or two of olive oil
1 pack of sausages*
1 carton of tomato soup (ours was Covent Garden) or a jar of tomato pasta sauce.


Method:

1. Warm oven up to 200 degrees C.
2. Peel and chop carrots and sweet potatoes.
3. Put a couple of dollops of olive oil in a large oven dish.
4. Add Sweet potatoes, carrots and sausages.
5. Pour carton of tomato soup over the ingredients and stir in together.
6. Put in oven for 25 mins (of 45-50 in total).
7. Add courgette 20 minutes from the end.

Ta da!

*When food became more of a problem, for me, I felt my world close in around me somewhat, but, realising that some of my favourite recipes were still achievable made things a bit more bearable. Sausage casserole is just one of them - we simply make sure we use gluten free and dairy free sausages. The ones we consumed today, were Rankin's but there's quite a range out there that are suitable (not just the ones in the Free From section). They're usually the 'high end' ones, that are a little more expensive, but are made with a higher percentage of pork - which is always a plus as far as I'm concerned! We also like Heck.

Baking with Baby 2 - Banana Bread Muffins

A sample of our wares

Well, I've only got myself to blame, really. I should have stopped myself, this morning, when, as baby munched happily on her breakfast, I eyed the ageing bananas in the fruit bowl and stupidly uttered my thoughts aloud. "Those bananas are going off, I really ought to do something with them. Maybe we could make some banana bread." The Hub said, "Oooh! That sounds like a good idea." Baby immediately seized her opportunity, jumped on the bandwagon and that was it! It was all arranged. The Hub made his getaway and I was left to my fate!

I think I've mentioned this before, when we made Flapjacks - Baby LOVES baking!! Me, less so! Washing-up will be waiting for me at the end of a long, dark tunnel, fraught with potential for mishap, due to an over-eager Baby! But still, I have to do it. I've sweetened it for myself, by buying a few new baking accessories, I love my new measuring spoons (bargain from TKMaxx) but sadly, fancy new baking aides do not a baker make!!

First up was locating the recipe. I contemplated searching through Pippa Kendrick's new book, or her recipe blog, The Intolerant Gourmet, I love her stuff, because it's allergy friendly and looks (to a shaky baker, like me) 'do-able'. However, in the interests of saving time (Baby doesn't do patient) decided on a recipe I've tasted before. 

It's a recipe with good memories attached - we holidayed in a cottage in Devon with some friends the other September. These friends came armed with dairy free food and recipes, one of which was some rather delicious banana bread! I had the feeling it was a Nigella (our friend bakes a lot of Nigella's recipes) but not being able to locate it online, I printed off the recipe that our friend had sent me after our holiday.

Recipe out, we got stuck in. Baby was safely installed (incarcerated for minimum destruction?) in her highchair, with a bowl of bananas to mash (3 medium ones, just in case you're interested. The oven was switched on to 200 degrees to heat up (190 degrees, for those whoe ovens actually work) and I got on with measuring. 85g Pure Margarine, 340g of ... sugar. It's at this point, I realised that I didn't have the right sugar, but I had demerara, so demerara it had to be! Does it matter? I don't know!

Baby was bored of mashing bananas by now, so creaming sugar and marg together with a fork became her next job, whilst I finished mashing before rushing off to measure out the next  lot of ingredients. Hmm! The  next realisation was that I couldn't locate the proper vanilla essence. 'Did we use it up?' I wondered, as I surveyed my badly-in-need-of-sorting baking cupboard. I couldn't remember. Old bog standard would have to do.

My Matroyska Measuring Spoons

So, 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence, 3 teaspoons of baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda,  1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg (bought for my yet-to-be-cooked rice pudding) later, I realised my cupboard was sadly lacking - not just in the muscavado department, but also in the spice department - all spice and mixed spice this time. I decided to innovate. 


No idea if it was right, but I added 1 teaspoon of ginger and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon instead. Actually the ginger is kicking in as I write, so maybe I should cut down on the ginger to 1/4 teaspoon next time, and see if that works better. Or maybe I should just get the right ingredients!

More innovation was to follow - 1 teaspoon of salt seemed too much to me. Baby shouldn't have too much. I decided to halve it. I stuck to the flour though, well sort of - 340g Doves plain flour it should have been. Ho hum! Remember it next time!

I did remember our friend's advice about the bananas though - adding the mashed banana at the end. That's where I ran into difficulty - his recipe ends with, 'this usually makes enough to fill...' Oh! Looking at the amount in the bowl and my one remaining loaf tin (somehow I thought I had another older one somewhere) I decided more innovation was required - cue muffin cases! I guessed it was meant to be two loaves, so plumped on nine muffin cases, for roughly half the mixture.

Cases filled, there wasn't as much left as I thought, for the loaf tin, but it was too late by then! Inspecting my tin, I realised the instructions on how to prepare the tin had also been left out. No problem, I consulted Nigella, online. She greased and lined. So did I. 

All in the oven, it was timer time. Which was when I encountered my next problem - no baking time included in the instructions!! 'Next time,' I thought to myself, 'I'm going back to Pippa, from whom I know I'd get a full set of instructions!'

Our Banana Loaf

Quickly consulting Nigella, all her Banana Bread seemed to take about an hour! Hmm! Remembering previous encounters with muffins, I set my timer for 20 minutes (I'm sure I've heard somewhere that you should leave an oven for 15/20 minutes, when baking cakes, to make sure they don't sink). 


Twenty minutes seemed to do the trick for the Banana Bread muffins. I turned the loaf tin around and gave it another 5/10 minutes more, before that too seemed done. I pressed the tops and inserted a skewer (which came out clean) just to make sure. Hey presto! Job done!

Correction! Baby thought the job wasn't quite done - until she had tasted. That was her morning snack. Now, she doesn't often eat fruit (hence the aged bananas) so does that count as one of her five-a-day? I dunno!!


I'm getting the hang of this innovation thing, though. Having sampled our loaf, I'm coming back for more! And I'm considering adding walnuts next time. Hang on a minute! Next time??

Just in time for Baby's morning snack

Baking Tip Addendum: The loaf is a bit on the small side, maybe I should just chuck all the mixture in the loaf tin next time, bar maybe three muffins (for quality control purposes of course). 

Oral Allergy Addendum: I sometimes get reactions to raw banana (and other fruits too). The first muffin I ate (fresh out of the oven) affected my lips. The second one, eaten sometime later (they're only little, really) didn't, so take care if oral allergy syndrome is a problem for you too!

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Baking with Baby - Flapjacks