How long it's been

Xmas 2011 brought out the cook in me.

And with thanks to "Sharing Sweet Secrets, Gluten & Wheat Free" by Pamela Moriarty, I can now get back to making a mean Tiramisu.
Recipe on page 35 - Savoiardi (Sponge Fingers) made with Namaste Gluten free flour (biscuit - type) as the Gluten free plain flour in the recipe and of course cooked at high altitude for 15 mins (max!) as compared to the 25 mins Pamela suggests... close to sea level.
Enjoy

Blatant Advertising Calgary GF-friendly coffee shop.

Not that nothing has been happening.  But it's been a busy time. That's why this is the first blog entry for 6 months....
Here is some news though. Today we had a wonderfully relaxed end of the school year morning coffee-time (though the kids had iced tea), at this lovely coffee shop in Inglewood.
I hope they get good publicity from the Calgary branch of the celiac association, but if not here is my two penneth-worth.
I didn't know it was a GF friendly place, but asked if by chance they had any GF snack to go with the iced teas and morning coffee. And they 'do' the GF patisserie's (Cochrane) lemon and coffee cakes... (that is lemon cake to have with a coffee and likewise cinnamon cake, not a lemon with coffee flavour cake  no, that would just be strange) so even the non-celiacs amongst us had one of those each. Young man decided the cinnamon was better than the lemon for him... smart kid, I am a devotee of the cinammon myself.
We chatted away the rest of the morning and soon needed lunch. They did Al a toasted sandwich and Boccocini salad (my mistake not to ask them to leave off the pesto (she is allergic to pine nuts too). No problem at all to make a new one up for her.  We felt relaxed the whole time - the staff encouraged us to enjoy our stay and we did.

On leaving we were told that if we let them know ahead the chef will prepare something even more special - amazingly kind.  I know that Nectar Desserts is Delicious and just  Down the road... (and they also want to help Celiacs)  but we will  certainly be giving the Dream Cafe our business again, especially if lunch is involved.

Aliya's birthday tea.

"I like it, I really like it... " or something like that was what Al said when she tasted the cake. Dan had a second piece - the rest of us held back! Dan is 17 and you know how much 17 year old lads can eat. It was a nice addition to Al's special birthday tea of sweet corn, lemon grass and coconut soup, followed by rice wraps... fairly healthy I guess. Now bring on the cake!

Aliya's 13

Thank you Lauren. You are making a difference to people's lives in Calgary and around the world.
Aliya was 13 at 6 minutes past midnight this morning. And her cake came from Lauren's blog.
I will try to post what Aliya thought about it.

Profiteroles

I managed to photograph the last three before they were eaten. Obviously they are the smallest three!

Just before Aliya was diagnosed I had discovered frozen choux pastry blobs with or without the chocolate filling, frozen in bakery section of Safeway. Aliya loves them. So, although she said to Dr Machida that the only thing she missed was French Bread, I knew there was another secret desire.

This weekend I mastered Gluten Free profiteroles, using only an easy substitute of white rice, tapioca and potato starches for the wheat flour. Not forgetting the Xanthan gum.

I am very happy to have solved GF choux pastry, as another wonderful recipe involves broccoli and mushrooms... a savoury use of choux that is very nice for a dinner party... more on that at a later date.I think choux pastry is a little more sensitive to altitude than anything else I have baked here in Calgary, so a little more experimentation is needed to produce 5star blobs for release to the general public.

Sorry back to the dreadful yellow light.

This fruitcake has solved a problem that was looming up for Xmas.

Our family likes Xmas cake... English version. I think the children like the icing more than the cake but it is the tradition that counts.

So what to do about it in GF terms. Well, try some fruit cakes to see what will work best.

First I tried a Dundee cake substituting GF flour (Potato Starch, tapioca starch and Rice flour)

Unfortunately it turned out "Tolerable" but too dry for my liking.

Jan had the answer... she suggested using a boiled fruit recipe instead and what this actually meant chemically is that there were all the same molecules in the cake with 8fl oz of H2O molecules as well. This couldn't be better.... I don't think she will mind me posting her recipe as she is just like that! -generous to a fault, if such a condition is possible.

Jan's School Fruit Cake

4 oz butter

12 oz dried fruit

2 tsp mixed spice

1/2 tsp bicarb of soda

7 oz brown sugar (the darker the better I think, oh, and I used less)

8 fl oz boiling water

Boil all these ingredients for 5 minutes (of course I boiled it for longer - being the forgetful type)

Cool for 5 mins (or longer!)

9 oz flour *

pinch salt

3/4 tsp Xanthan gum (which I have learnt is the outer cell wall of some organism or other so really a vegan shouldn't be using it at all!)

2 eggs

1 tsp baking powder

Mix all the dry ingredients together very well, as is normal for GF cooking

Then mix in all the above ingredients into the wet ones

*the Flour mix that I use is in the ratio of 3:2 :1 Brown rice flour, Potato starch, Tapioca Starch

Those Ginger biscuits (101 uses)

Here we have wonderful Breyers real vanilla ice cream resting on a bed of crumbed ginger biscuits (GF of course) with a fresh raspberry coulis (with a hint of lemon). This is a trial run for a recipe I am planning for Yuletide dinner.... See later blog entry.