2017 Moo Free Bake Off ~ Vegan & Gluten Free Chocolate Cake

Today I bring you a delicious cake that has taken me absolutely ages to perfect. There are so many different recipes out there on the net for all manner of free from foods and vegan cakes are no exception...Except, that every single one I looked at had a bunch of different flours, or a load of raw ingredients not to mention all the different types of foods or products that you have to go through to make a decent egg replacement.

I finally feel, after well over a year, I have found a recipe that whilst is still not as cheap to make as gluten and egg containing cake recipes, it works and is no where near as pricey as some of my previous experiments!

In this post I have used Moo Free baking chocolate drops which are available from all major supermarkets priced at £2.18 (Morrisons). I was sent my packets free of charge to participate in Moo Free's Bake Along which is a nod towards the wonderful Bake Off that I'm very glad is back! Moo Free chocolate is certified organic, GMO free and free from dairy, wheat, gluten, casein and soya making it ideal for my friends daughter's birthday!

RECIPE

Gluten & Dairy Free Jaffa Cake ~ Great Bloggers Bake Off 2016

Hello Cupcakes! The Great British Bake Off is finally back! Which also means the very many GBBO obsessed bloggers, including myself, are back to try and bake along with this years contestants and share our bakes with the ever lovely Jenny who is hosting her bakes and the bloggers link up at her blog Mummy Mishaps, so do check it out!

Delicious Free From Chocolate Pastry Roll

Two weeks ago The Great British Bake Off focused on pastry. I've seen lots of lovely tarts and vol-au-vents but didn't join in on this occasion, I had the time because I use a bought gluten free puff pastry and can make a gluten free shortcrust pastry, I guess I just lacked the motivation this week and I'm not very imaginative!

I did bake a pastry related item however but chose not to link it because my bake didn't match any of the challenges. This bake is super easy, it's a gluten and milk free chocolate pastry roll and was delicious.

Budget Gluten Free Pork, Apple and Stuffing Pie

This pie is something I wish I cooked ages ago!I had never heard of putting pork apple and stuffing together in a pie until a few years being more used to the traditional chicken or steak and kidney. I have made this pie so many times now but not baked it in a while so I thought why not? Now that I'm no longer a vegetarian I could give this a go and it's perfect for this weeks Great Bloggers Bake Off Challenge with Jenny,this week hosted by An Organised Mess

You will need (for 2 small bowls or 1 small dish)

• Shortcrust pastry either bought from a supermarket or use 80g Doves Farm plain flour and 3 tbsp dairy free butter plus some salt mixed together into crumbs with your fingertips then brought together with 1 egg and a little water into a ball

• 5 pork pieces (I bought a frozen bag which suited my food budget)

• Gluten free stuffing mix 

• Jar of apple sauce

First I defrosted my pork pieces then placed them in a pan with a small amount of oil. When they were cooked I used kitchen scissors to cut the pork into smaller chunks (can't be the only one with rubbish cutlery!?) I made my pastry as the pork kept warm and kept it to one side.

I added a jar of apple sauce to the pork then separated my half and the husbands for the stuffing which I sprinkled on top. I added some boiled water to mix the stuffing in with the pork and apple. When I make a bigger pie I do make my stuffing mix in a jug then pour on top but as these are small pies there really is no need

With the filling in the bowl I separated the pastry ball into 2 then rolled flat before covering both dishes, marking and brushing with milk (you can use an egg wash if you prefer) I used up my left over pastry by making pastry hearts!

The pies were cooked on 180 for 25 minutes and then had 5-10 minutes at 200 before being removed from the oven.

I was really pleased with how they turned out, the pork was really nice. 

Anyway, there's this weeks bake! I have a chocolate pasrty roll on the blog tomorrow which was supposed to go up last week but really didn't fit into any bake off categories; it's very tasty though so do check it out!

Cupcake Mumma

Free From Apple Crumble Cake

This week was free from week on the Bake Off. I actually struggled with this one (believe it or not!) There were sugar free cakes (okay, refined sugar free cakes!) gluten free breads and a dairy free ice cream cake. I'm having to try and go with the bake that would be the cheapest on our food budget and this week proved hard. I couldn't afford the alternatives for the sugar I always put in cakes. I tried honey but I thought, yuck! I shoved in the sugar and made a sponge instead!

So this week I went with gluten and dairy free sponge cake with a topping of gluten free oats and crumble mix.

Recipe

Free From Apple Crumble Cake

A gluten and dairy free sponge cake with apples and a crumble topping. Perfect for autumn! (And when you can't chose between cake and crumble!)

Ingredients

• 150g Dairy free spread
• 150g Caster sugar
• 1 tsp Vanilla essence
• 2 Eggs
• 150g Doves Farm Self Raising Flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• Doves Farm Plain Flour
• Gluten Free Oats
• Dairy free spread
• Apples (enough for your chosen dish)

Instructions

First make a sponge cake how you normally would by mixing all your ingredients together making sure there are no lumps

Pour the sponge mix into your chosen dish (I used a long dish for pies!)

Slice your apples and place them on top of the sponge mix

In another bowl, add some flour and butter. Using your hands, make a crumble. I didn't measure this bit, I just judged how big my dish was. Make sure there's not more spread than flour.

Scatter your crumble mix over the apples and sponge, covering entirely just like you would an ordinary apple crumble

I used 2 handfuls of gluten free oats and some more sugar on top of the crumble to give it that crunch.

Cook time: 35 mins at 180'C 

My Dairy Free Windtorte

So I decided to make life difficult for myself this week for The Great Bloggers Bake Off by baking a Spanische Windtorte for dessert week. I wasn't going to go near a dairy free creme brûlée no matter how much I wanted to and I didn't want to do the cheesecakes because finding a recipe was driving me nuts. Some how searching the recipes I could only really find the words 'raw', 'healthy', 'sin free', 'guilt free' am I the only person who doesn't give a fig about the guilt!? I felt like it! Besides, I baked a vegan and gluten free cheesecake in a previous Bake Off challenge so I was only left with the 1 option really!

Chickpea Bread Gluten and Dairy Free

This week is bread week on Great British Bake Off and I know for a fact that a few of those joining in were dreading bread week slightly whether they were a free from baker or not! I already knew which quick bread I was going to do and although it wasn't as great as the first time I baked it, the loaf was still incredibly moorish and even the children helped to devour it.

I found my bookmarked Chickpea Bread recipe from The Intolerant Gourmet and followed the instructions to the letter (always a good idea with a bread!) I love this recipe because it doesn't need a thousand different flours to make it which I can't afford. All you need is self raising flour (I use the Doves Farm brand) and Gram flour which can be bought from any good health food store. I also needed cider vinegar, I think if you can't have yeast you'll need to use sunflower oil? I'm sure you can find out more on Pippas post.

The loaf came out quite hard on the top which wasn't easy to cut through but had a delicious flavour. The center was delicious and perfectly soft, just like it should be. Always leave gluten free breads to cool because they can often look stodgy and undercooked when all they need is to be cooled properly. 

We ate the bread warm with lots of butter and enjoyed every last slice. Fancy trying chickpea bread? I think you should!

Cupcake Mumma

Gluten and Dairy Free Biscotti

Today I'm blogging the biscuit challenge from last weeks Bake Off. I wasn't too worried about biscuit week, I mean I don't make wonderful biscuits but they've always tasted nice and been fairly successful. This week I took the recipe from another website. I found that 2 eggs would've been better than 3 and that there was too much water for me because my dough was pretty wet and it should've been a lot drier than that.

Gluten & Dairy Free Madeira Cake

The Bake Off is back and that means so is The Great Bloggers Bake Off! Im a little apprehensive about adding my bakes this year because I've seen so many fellow bloggers bakes already this week and the standard is very high! Of course this is all good fun and it's lovely to be inspired to bake again. I have missed the link up because I've been busy and under the weather but I thought I'd share my cake week bake anyway. I'll probably miss a few link ups because i'm going on holiday too!

Last week we had the best (and in my opinion the easiest ) week: cake week. I decided to go with a gluten and dairy free Madeira cake which is the first cake I ever learnt to bake as a little girl in my mums orange kitchen. 

You Will Need

150g Butter (I use Stork or Vitalite)

150 g Caster Sugar

Generous amount of vanilla extract

3 Eggs

150g Doves Farm Gluten Free Self-Raising Flour

1/2 tsp gluten free baking powder

I mixed the butter and sugar together then added the eggs plus a little flour to stop the buttery lumps forming. I then added the flour mixing well. Lastly, Midge added the vanilla plus a little gluten free baking powder.

The overall look of the cake is very nice but if I lined the cake tin properly it would not have been so misshapen. Taste wise this cake was eaten in about 25 minutes so I'm taking that as a seal of approval! I was really happy with the inside, it was slightly fluffy but still firm which I like. It probably could've used 5 more minutes in the oven but I'm happy with my first bake.

This week is biscuit week which should be interesting depending on what I go with! Next week is bread week which I feel slightly less optimistic about! Are you joining in the Great Bloggers Bake Off 2015? Or are you baking along as and when you feel like it like i'll have to do until i'm back from holiday? Perhaps you've been inspired by the show, if so I'd love to see your bakes!

Cupcake Mumma

Great Bloggers Bake Off 2014: Cherry Cake (Free From)

The Great British Bake Off is back! That means The Great Bloggers Bake Off is back too! Hurrah! This week the challenge was very simply, cake. Mini cakes, cherry cake and um cake.

I went for a cherry cake. Not a Mary Berry cherry cake just a big standard cherry cake with some butter icing. Yum yum. Just like last year all bakes are Gluten free, Dairy free and Wheat free.

I simply took a normal recipe for a Madeira cake and bunged in 200g of glacé cherries. I baked until golden brown and clear when tested with a butter knife at 180 and left the cake to cool. I mixed up a whole box of icing sugar with vitilite butter, added pink food colouring and refrigerated until I needed it. The pesky cake must have still been a little hot despite having over an hour to cool because I noticed my icing sliding a bit. Oh well!

I decorated with fresh cherries and voila, a free from cherry cake! I'm very pleased with my first bake it tastes good but is a bit too heavy, I'd prefer it a lot more softer but it's not too bad. The cherries didn't all sink either so that's a win!

Are you watching the Bake Off? Why not get your bake on too?

Cupcake Mumma

Gluten Free Soda Bread

I got my recipe for this gluten free soda bread from here, the Doves Farm website which is packed full of useful free from recipes I can't wait to try. I didn't need to substitute anything for this recipe which is why I won't be publishing it on my blog. I did use some gluten free oats I had in the cupboard to roll my dough on before placing in the oven (this added something extra to my loaf) and also this is a white bread, the recipe I have linked to is a brown bread- but that's all!

I found this really easy to make, really quick to make too which is handy. Unfortunately, due to both children deciding to play up at the same time, my loaf was left in the oven a bit too much longer than necessary and was a bit harder than I would've liked! All in all, the method works, the ingredients work and I had a nice supper of a couple of slices smothered in dairy free butter. Yum!

I'm linking this up with Jenny and Helen for our Great Bloggers bake Off. For this recipe, Tesco very kindly sent me some gluten free strong white bread flour. Very handy- thanks Tesco!

Banana and mixed spiced cupcakes

As part of my bloggers bake off challenge with Helen and Jenny, I was recently sent some mixed spices from Steenbergs to help create a wonderfully smelling and tasting bake. I am not the hugest fan of mixed spices and I will admit to doing two batches after having a reaction to the spices on my first attempt! I made a plain batch for myself and a mixed spice batch for anyone who wanted them. Both taste very nice indeed and I am actually a bit gutted to not be able to eat the spiced banana cupcakes.

Whether you'll be using just banana or the mixed spice as well, I hope you enjoy this recipe.

You will need:

110g Doves Farm self raising flour

100g Light Brown sugar

110g dairy free butter or vegetable margerine

2 eggs

Tsp Baking powder

Tsp Vanilla essence

1tblsp golden syrup

2 mashed bananas (best when slightly over ripe)

1/2 tsp of Steenbergs mixed spice (less really is more with this wonderfully flavoured mix)

Method

Cream the butter and sugar together until smooth

Add both eggs one after the other and mix well

Add the flour, baking powder and mix together until you have a nice smooth batter

Next, add the syrup, spice mix, vanilla essence and the soft mashed banana

Mix all the ingredients together before scooping into cake cases and baking at 180 for 15-20 minutes (my oven is slower than most but this is a standard time for cupcakes)

Once the cakes are cooked, pop onto cooling racks. These cakes taste delicious slightly warm so don't feel the need to wait for them to go cold to enjoy (as if you needed me to tell you that)

I hope you enjoy!

CupcakeMumma

Vegetable and Sundried Tomato Pasty

Where I live, the Pasty is something very important. Now I can't remember the last time I actually ate a traditional Cornish pasty because it's been some time thanks to my stomach! I've spent so long trying to get my gluten free pastry right and finally I have found what I am happy with.

I'm going to share my recipe with you (which should make you a couple of pasties) as part of my baking journey with Jenny and Helen but you may like to change a few things to make it work for you. The one ingredient you must not leave out in my experience, is the egg!

First you'll need a selection of vegetables. I chose:

Potatoes, thinly sliced and chopped

Mushrooms, chopped

Onion, finely diced

Salt and pepper to season

Optional: 1 jar of Sun dried tomatoes of which I used about 4 large tomatoes. You could use anything that takes your fancy plus more/different vegetables.

For the pastry:

200g plain gluten free flour

100g stork* margarine

Pinch of salt

1 egg

Cold water (just have this in a jug and add as you need to get your pastry to the right consistency)

Pre heat oven to 200

If you have chopped your ingredients up nice and small you won't need to cook before placing in the pastry. If you prefer, cook your potatoes and slice or mash before popping on your pastry.

• Put the flour and butter into a large bowl.
• Use your hands to mix the butter into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs.
• Add the egg and mix in (using hands or a spoon if you like) then stir in the water and quickly bring the pastry together until it's a sticky dough (This pastry tends to absorb more water than 'normal' pastry so add a few more drops of water if necessary)
• I like to lightly dust some cling film and roll out my pastry using this method to avoid it sticking to my work surface and then breaking
• Once rolled, transfer your pastry to your chosen flat tin. Make a 'guideline' to separate the top half of your pasty from the bottom. You can now add your filling to the bottom half before gently folding the top half over to cover your filling
• Crimp (or 'press down if you're anything like me!) and make 2 small slits/holes in the top of the pastry before brushing with egg yolk. Bake the pasties until they are a lovely golden colour and by inserting a knife gently through the pastry to see if the vegetables are cooked through.

I hope you have some joy with this gluten free pastry. It can take a little patience and a lot of practice but you should see some (and taste some!) good results. *I'd like to thank Stork for providing me with a pack of their very tasty vegetable margarine which seems to have made all the difference to my pastry baking.

Cupcake Mumma

Dark Chocolate Cake - Free From

I can't believe this week was the final of the Great British Bake Off but it was and so it brings me to my bake for the week: a single tier wedding cake.

The final saw 3 hopefuls battle it out to win the Bake Off title and one of these battles included a three tier wedding cake. Now, going for three tiers in this challenge would be wasteful on so many levels which is why I decided to stick with the theme but be sensible with the amount. Here's what I came up with:

A dark chocolate chip sponge cake which is, as usual, both gluten and dairy free.

This sponge is completely straight forward in that you use:

• 6oz doves farm self raising flour
• 6oz Caster sugar
• 6oz soft dairy free butter
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 3-4 tablespoons coco powder
• 1 packet of dark chocolate chips

I added all my ingredients together and stirred until I had a good, runny consistency. I placed my cake in two separate, greased sandwich tins for 20 minutes on 180 degrees.

To decorate, I used most of a packet of fondant icing to include my attempt at two little bird cake toppers! I used white icing to finish off the bottom of the cake and write 'Mr & Mrs' sadly not in the best handwriting I've ever done on a cake but it's not bad.

I've really enjoyed joining in with Jenny and Helen and I think there may be more baking on my horizon! I'll leave you with a photo of the cake after it got 'Little A'd!'

CupcakeMumma

Gluten & Dairy Free Carrot & Raisin Cake

This week I bring you a delicious gluten and dairy free carrot and raisin cake for week 8 of the Great Bloggers Bake Off with Jenny and Helen. It's not a novelty cake but it is a free from cake with a vegetable in!!

I wasn't sure I'd like this cake to be honest but it was SO GOOD! If you'd like to bake this cake then the recipe is below. Enjoy!

Ingredients

175g light muscovado sugar

175ml sunflower oil (I was caught out and used vegetable oil but luckily it was fine!)

3 large eggs

140g grated carrots (about 3 medium)

100g raisins

grated zest of 1 large orange

175g self-raising flour

1tsp bicarbonate of soda

1tsp ground cinnamon

Method

• Preheat the oven to 180C and line your cake tin
• Tip the sugar into a large mixing bowl, pour in the oil and add the eggs. Mix a little then stir in the grated carrots, raisins and orange rind.
• Mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda and spices. Stir all the ingredients but dont over mix. It should be runny but all nicely blended together.
• Pour the mix into your tin and bake for 40- 45 minutes, until it feels firm and springy when you press it in the centre.
• After the cake is cooled you can mix together some icing sugar and water to make a thick icing to drizzle over the top and sides.

CupcakeMumma

Gluten & Dairy Free Custard Filled Choux Buns

It's week seven of our Great Bloggers Bake Off challenge with Jenny and Helen and it's one I have been dreading. Gluten free and sweet pastry don't exactly fill me with confidence. Suet is hard to come by and doesn't really appeal to me. I wanted to perfect profiteroles but it just wasn't happening so this week I've gone for a dairy and gluten free choux pastry, which on the second attempt was a lot more successful. They didn't rise as much but I've just discovered my oven door doesn't close properly so that's not great!

Because of the rise (or lack of) and my stubbornness to not let this challenge defeat me, I used a dairy free custard piped onto the flatter side of the bun and sandwiched the two sides together. I then melted and drizzled dairy free orange flavour chocolate on the top of the buns. Oh my they oozed and tasted delicious. On this occasion I don't mind the buns not looking great because they were so nice and very moreish too

(I had 3!)

I give you: Gluten and Dairy Free Custard Choux Buns:

Ingredients

75g Doves Farm White Bread Flour

½tsp Caster Sugar

50g Dairy free Butter

150ml Cold Water

2 Eggs

Carton of dairy free custard

150g Cooking Chocolate

3tbsp Golden Syrup

Method

Sift the flour & sugar into a bowl.

Melt the butter in a saucepan, add water and bring to the boil.

Remove from the heat and quickly add the flour from the bowl into the water. Beat well to form a soft dough using an electric beater (or wooden spoon)

Beat in the eggs to form a smooth, shiny paste.

Put a teaspoonful of the paste onto oiled baking trays or pipe them on.

Bake your buns in a pre heated oven for 20/25 minutes at 200 degrees

Cool on a wire rack . When cold, pipe custard into the flat side and sandwich together with another half.

Gently melt together the chocolate and syrup, stirring to make a smooth sauce and

drizzle the sauce over your Choux pastry buns and DEVOUR!

CupcakeMumma

Gluten and Dairy Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

This week for the Great Bloggers Bake Off I've gone for chocolate crisp cookies. These are basically cookies that are smaller, more cake like and they bake  a little crisp on top to give you that crunch when you eat.

Anyway, here is my delicious chocolatey bake for biscuit week:

You will need:
Pre heat your oven to 180
80g butter
100g chocolate
1egg
1/4 tsp baking soda
2 tbsp coco powder
125g caster sugar
150g doves farm plain flour

• Melt chocolate and butter together
• Put all dry ingredients into a separate bowl- include the egg here too
• Add mixed chocolate and butter to your bowl.
• Mix until you have a soft dough
• Pop in fridge until you can manage to roll your dough into little balls
• Roll the dough balls into some icing sugar before popping onto a lined baking tray.

Make sure you have rolled the dough fairly small and that they are well spaced. Bake for about 15-20 minutes. If your bake does turn out like an over sized cookie, just grab a cutter and make cute crispy shapes- work quickly though before it hardens on the outside!

I hope you enjoy! I'm once again linking up with the lovely Jenny and Helen and their Great Bloggers Bake Off!

CupcakeMumma

Gluten Free Petit Fours- Great Bloggers Bake Off!

Wow, so already it is week 3 of the Great Bloggers Bake Off. This was really hard for me. I didn't want to chance making dairy free floating islands (or more like I couldn't be bothered) and either the prep was too long or I had to buy extra things in (normally online!) to make the perfect and scrummy trifle. There's no messing with a trifle but it can be done both gluten and dairy free with some planning and patience- neither of which I've had this week.

I was about to give up when I thought going simple was better than not doing anything at all. So for week 3 I give you gluten and dairy free Chocolate Chip and Hazelnut Petit Fours!

To make the cake:

110g butte- I use Vitalite
110g caster sugar
2 Eggs
110g self raising flour - Doves Farm
25g Cocoa Powder
1tsp vanilla essence
1/2 tsp baking powder
1tbsp soya milk
Dairy free chocolate buttons/chips/crushed up chocolate bar

You simply mix all your ingredients together in the above order and pour the mixture into a baking tin. I used a small rectangular one as I wanted small squares. Bake at 180C (pre heated) and leave for 20 minutes.

Tip: Make sure your tin is greased AND lined and  don't open the oven door too early as your cake may sink!

After baking, allow your cake to cool before cutting it into small squares, as many as you can manage and decorate with some chocolate sauce or icing. Sprinkle a few hazelnuts on top and you have yourself a delightfully simple but yummy little chocolate cake! And I'm making it count!!

Do head on over to all the baking fun with Helen and Jenny! I'm off to look at some more tasty bakes and get ready for next weeks challenge!

CupcakeMumma