A Happy Weekend!

So this weekend was the first weekend I have had had off in weeks (okay so I had to do my sunday morning baking order!)
I spent it eating lots of yummy food, seeing old friends, buying chilli plants and watching scary films!
My great friend Richard gave me a bottle of Kewra Water as a present and it is amazing! It's flavour is somewhere between  rose water and buttery vanilla essence! I can't wait to try it out in my cooking!
I also made a great Sunday lunch of cabbage leaves stuffed with herby sausage and leeks, carrot and kale in a creamy sauce with mashed potatoes and a thick tomato sauce! We finished it off with raspberry ice cream and a cinnamon whirl! It was soooo good!
I also found some great new vegan rice balls in M&S which are so yummy! They are a great lunch time snack with salad! I hope you all had a great weekend! X

Gluten Free Chocolate and Raspberry Muffins!

This recipe is so easy and makes light fluffy muffins every time! You can mix it up and do blueberry, blackberry, orange, lemon, any thing you like really! These are great for an afternoon treat or served with ice cream for a decadent dessert!

Ingredients: Makes 12 Small Muffins

2/3 Cup of Raspberries
1/3 Cup of Dark Chocolate Chips
1/3 Cup of  Sunflower Oil
2/3 Cup of Almond Milk
1/2 Cup of Golden Unrefined Caster Sugar
1 Cup of Gluten Free Self Raising Flour (Or plain GF flour with 1/2tsp of GF baking powder added)

Line a muffin tin with muffin cases and turn your oven on to 190c to preheat. In a bowl add the oil, milk and sugar together and mix well before adding the flour and stirring until it makes a smooth batter. Then add the chocolate chips and mix so they are well distributed amongst the batter. Finally add the raspberries and gently fold. Do this very carefully as not to burst all the raspberries and turn your batter bright pink! However it isn't a disaster if a few make a crimson ripple in your batter! Spoon the batter into your cases and fill about 2/3 full. Place in the oven for 20mins until puffed and golden and when a skewer inserted into the middle of a muffin comes out clean. Allow to cool and then serve! Enjoy! X

Chefs That Inspire Me: Kittee Bee Berns Of Cake Makers To The Stars

No inspiration chef series would be complete without Miss Kittee Bee Berns! Her amazing gluten free and vegan recipes astound me every time I take a peek at her beautiful blog! She is a very busy lady! As well as writing her Cake Makers To The Stars blog, she is a contributer to XGFX.org (a gluten free vegan resource site), a recipe zine writer (Papa Tofu, Paku Paku) and a fellow vegan MOFOer and organiser amongst other things! So if you are taking part in Vegan MOFO there is a good chance Kittee has had a hand in helping your blog be part of it! 

DBB: Hey Kittee! You're gluten free, vegan recipes always look and sound out of this world! Where do you get all your cooking inspiration from?

KBB: Well I'm just obsessed with food, so the inspiration comes from all over the place. I have a lot of friends who cook, my mom is also a whiz in the kitchen, plus I read magazines and listen to podcasts and I plow through cookbooks. I keep a huge pile by my bed at all times. I get a lot of ideas and information from the regular culinary world and then filter the information to help me me make better xgfx morsels!

DBB: You started off vegan and then found out that gluten was making you feel icky! What advice would you give to someone in the same situation? I know my mum felt pretty hopeless when she first found out she couldn't eat gluten any more!

KBB: There are so many great books coming out these days—specifically for xgfx diets, so I would definitely point someone in that direction, plus I think there's a ton of good resources over at xgfx.org. I think baking is the hardest, and there's definitely a learning curve there, so I'd just suggest finding some good recipes instead of trying to convert stuff right away. I think it's much easier to veganize a recipe than to de-glutenize a recipe, and I wouldn't recommend for a newbie to try to do both at the same time.

DBB: I have seen much evidence that you are keen crafter! What is your favourite things to make?  

KBB: I like to make so much stuff, but especially anything I can wear or use regularly around the house

(I am a big nester). I really enjoy sewing vintage or vintage inspired dresses, scalloped hemmed skirts and knitting sweaters is particularly appealing. Although I'm mostly a selfish crafter, I also enjoy making things for good friends.

DBB: What meal or dessert evokes a special memory for you and why?

KBB: Whenever I make a big Ethiopian feast for my partner Dazee, I can't help but remember doing the same thing the night before everyone in New Orleans was meant to evacuate due to impending Katrina. I'd made a ton of food without knowing the storm was coming, then begged my friends to please come pick up plates before they left town. It was really spooky and stressful, we were all stressed out and scared, but had tons of food. It was pretty weird.

DBB: What are three ingredients you couldn't live without?

KBB: Obviously, I could make do without these, but they would be wholly missed:  nutritional yeast, pasta and tomatoes! Oh! and I couldn't live without olive oil, either!!! So maybe nooch, evoo and tomatoes!


BB: I give you a bag containing these ingredients, rice noodles, kale, coriander (cilantro) butternut squash, chilli, pineapple, coconut cream, what would you make?

KBB: Can I add ingredients, or is that cheating?  If I can add, I'd make giant salad rolls.  I'd grill the squash and pineapple with a maple chilli glaze and stuff them with the noodles and a chiffonade of fresh kale into rice papers.  Then I'd make a peanut butter dipping sauce with the coconut cream and cilantro.

DBB: What is your favourite recipe book?

KBB: Oh, I have SO MANY!  I could never narrow it down to one.  My favourites this month are Miyoko Schinner's Artisan Vegan Cheese and Jennifer Katzinger's Gluten-Free Vegan Bread.  Both are amazing (the bread book is coming out the end of October).

DBB: What would be your perfect afternoon?

KBB: A beautiful sunny low stress day, a picnic with yummy xgfx goodies and cocktails, my friends and family and my dog being nice to everyone. And there would be a river with innertubes, too!

You can find out more about the fabulous Kittee Bee Berns and her yummy recipes here:

www.kitteekake.blogspot.com

www.xgfx.org
www.KitteeKake.storenvy.com

Gluten Free Pizza Dough Recipe

A few months ago I was experimenting with ingredients and came up with a great gluten free pizza base. My mum was coming over for lunch and as she is gluten free and hates cooking, so I thought I would make her something a bit more special. This recipe is just how to make the pizza dough base. I didn't think I really needed to tell you how to top it with tomato sauce, veggies and olives! So I have left that part out, so you can make your own favourite topping! This dough doesn't need any kneading just an hours rest to develop the flavours.

Ingredients:

2 Tsp of Dried Yeast
1/2 Tsp of Salt
1/3 Cup of Olive Oil
1/2 Cup of  Warm Water
2 Cups of Cooked Sweet Potato Mashed
3 Cups of Gluten Free Flour

In a bowl add the yeast, salt, olive oil, and warm water. Allow to stand for 10 minutes to activate the yeast. Then add the sweet potato, mix to combine. Then add the gluten free flour a cup at a time, you may not need to add all the flour as you are looking for a soft pliable dough that isn't sticky (you may find you need a little more flour if it is too sticky) but not dry and crumbly either. Leave in a warm place covered with a clean tea towel for an hour. It doesn't rise very much so don't worry! But in that hour the yeast will make the dough mature to help give it a true bready flavour! This isn't a roll-able dough because of the lack of wheat gluten, so half the dough and spread with your hands into a round pizza shape on a parchment covered baking tray. Then wet your hands and smooth the edges of your pizza. This will help you get a really smooth puffed edge on the finished pizza and helps it not to crack at the edges. Place your toppings on top and pop in the oven at 200c for 20mins or until it is golden at the edges and your toppings are cooked. Serve with a green salad!

Super Quick Tri-Colour Pasta with Tomato, Chive and Walnut Pesto!

This is such a quick meal but has so much flavour! It is an uncooked sauce that is heated when it hits the boiling hot pasta which is what helps make this meal so quick to make! It's just blitzed in the food processor and can be kept in the fridge for a couple of days, ready for when you need a quick pasta fix! In this recipe I use a tri-colour pasta but you can use just about any kind you have lurking in your cupboard!

Serves 4
Ingredients:

Enough Pasta to feed 4 (depends on appetite! Use 1 1/2 cups per person as a guide)
1 and a 1/2 Cups of Fresh Cherry Tomatoes
1/2 Cup of Walnuts
1 Cup of Fresh Washed Spinach
1/4 Cup of Fresh Chives
1 Large Garlic Clove
1/4 Cup of Fresh Parsley
2 Tbsp of Nutritional Yeast
1 Tbsp of Dark Miso Paste
1/4 Cup of Olive Oil
Squeeze of Lemon

Bring a pan of water to the boil and add your pasta. Cook to the packet instructions.

In a food processor, add the cherry tomatoes, walnuts, spinach, chives, garlic, parsley, nutritional yeast, miso, olive oil and lemon juice, blitz until a chunky pesto comes together.

Check for seasoning. When your pasta is cooked, drain and place back in the pan. Add the pesto and stir to coat everything in the fresh sauce!

 Serve immediately and mop up any left over sauce with fresh sour dough bread! Enjoy!

Magdalen Street Fair 2012

Today we had our pop up shop at the wonderful Magdalen Street Fair! It was very cold so we wrapped up warm and we were so glad it didn't rain! Thank you to everyone who came down and saw us! We had such a fun day! When I got back home the Deerly Beloved Oven went back on to make 70 small cakes and bakes for tomorrows Vintage Fair so excuse the small post, but I am very sleepy now! Here are a few snaps of today! Night y'all!

Tonight's baking, with naked cupcakes to ice in the morning! Night X

Coming Up This Weekend!

Tomorrow we will be at the wonderful Magdalen Street Celebration! We will have all of your favourite cakes and bakes including, Pecan Crumb Cake with Gingerbread Icing, Apple Rose Tarts, Vanilla and Rose Whoopie Pies, Classic Green Tea and Pistachio Whoopie Pies and Rosemary Chocolate Dipped Shortbread! Hope to see you there 10-4pm! Our Pop Up shop will be near Roys!

Pecan Crumb Cake with Gingerbread Icing! Vanilla and Rose Whoopie Pies! Apple Rose Tarts! Rosemary and Chocolate Dipped Shortbread! 

Pecan Crumb Cake with Gingerbread Icing!

Then on Sunday our cakes will be available at the wonderful The Vintage Fair at St Andrews Hall! As part of Biddy's pop up tea room we will be supplying our wonderful Apple Rose Tarts, Caramelised Onion Tomato and Rosemary Crumble Tarts and Chocolate and Rose Cupcakes! 12-5pm!

Have a great weekend!