Gluten Free Chocolate Cherry Ripe Cake

As you know from previous posts, I have recently joined twitter and made a whole new array of friends, fellow food bloggers. One of the lovely food bloggers, LeDelicieux made a wonderful cherry ripe cake!

It was recently my one year wedding anniversary and I wanted to make something special for my husband, aka Poppa Smurf! The challenge I had was to adapt this marvellous recipe to gluten free, which is becoming easier as I cook more and get to know textures and tastes and the overall appearance!

Gluten free baking isn't always a success and often takes many attempts to get the various dishes right! Often cakes flop, pastries fall apart, biscuits crumble. It's about not giving up! Its about giving it that second or third go, adjusting the ingredients, adding a bit more flour, a different blend, more butter, eggs etc. My advice is persevere, home cooking is much tastier than packet mix or frozen food! When you get the gluten free recipe right, your own cooking, you and your friends and family won't be able to tell the difference between gf and gluten filled food. Bread is the only exception, but pretty much everything else you can make to taste like the original gluten recipe you based it from!

Back to the special Cherry Ripe recipe, derived from the marvellous Delicieux, fantastic food blogger, the link to her site is here http , a must look at! ://www.ledelicieux.com

I wanted to bake the cake in a heart shaped tin, very romantic! Unfortunately I could only find 4 small heart tins, thus I had heaps of mixture left over! What to do???? I quickly decided to get the muffin tins and Xmas cup cake holders out! I was amazed by how much mixture this cake made!I had about 24 large cupcakes that the mixture made! I made these all at the same time, they took roughly 30 minutes to cook, just keep on checking with a skewer!

This recipe is something that you don't try cooking when you don't have much time, with preparation, cooking, cooling, making the butter cream filling, cutting the cakes, filling them and making the ganache, finally coating the cakes with the ganache, decorating with a cherry ripe or fresh cherries, you are looking at 2-3 hours in total! But very well worth it, with the first mouthful, your efforts will be rewarded!

Without further ado here is the adapted:

GF Cherry Ripe Cake (thanks Delicieux for the wonderful cake!)

Ingredients:
Cake:
Butter for greasing pans
1/2 cup gf cornflour
1/2 cup arrowroot flour
3/4 cup rice flour
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup good quality cocoa (I used Cadburys)
2 teaspoons of bicarbonate soda (baking soda)
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 3/4 cups of Coconut milk (1 large tin was enough)
1/2 cup olive oil (original recipe calls for vegetable oil but I only had olive oil,I think for gf olive is the best)
2 extra large eggs at room temperature (this is important, it can really affect the cake!)
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1/4 cup cherry liqueur (I used Continental cherry liqueur, whatever cherry flavoured liqueur or brandy you can find)
200g glace cherries (a packet), finally chopped
1 cup of shredded coconut

Cherry Coconut Butter cream:
125g room temperature butter cut into cubes
1 cup of icing sugar
200g glace cherries, finely chopped
1/4 cup shredded coconut
2 teaspoons of cherry liqueur (or a small slug)
Red food colouring (optional, I used it and it looked great, just a few drops!)

Chocolate Ganache:
1 cup of non thickened cream
300g dark chocolate chopped
1 tablespoon of cherry liqueur (optional)

Method:
1.start with the cake I used muffin tins, you will need at least 24, with maybe a second batch! Best thing about muffin tins is you use cupcake holders, so you don't have to worry about greasing tins! Preheat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius (350degress Fahrenheit)
2. Sift the flours, cocoa,bicarbonate soda, baking powder and salt. Place in an electric mixer with a paddle attachment, add the sugar and mix on low speed until it's mixed through.
3.In another bowl, whisk the eggs, coconut milk, oil and cherry liqueur. With the mixer on low speed slowly add these ingredients to the dry ingredients until mixed through.
4. With mixer on low add the coconut and cherries until just combined.
5. Pour batter into muffin tins, or to make a big cake use 2 20cm tins (my advice is cupcakes/muffins are the best size, due to the sweetness and richness of this cake)and bake for between 20-30 minutes if using muffins, check regularly with skewer as they cook quicker than a larger cake. It's cooked when the skewer comes out clean.
6.Cool in the pan for 30 minutes or more, even put in fridge or freezer to make then easier to cut in half!
7. For the cherry butter cream mix butter and icing sugar until light and fluffy. Add the food colouring and mix well. Add glace cherries, coconut and cherry liqueur, mix to combine.
8.For the chocolate ganache, use a double saucepan, the larger one filled with a bit of water and place broken chocolate, cream over low heat until melted, add liqueur, set aside until the chocolate thickens and reaches room temperature.
9. Cut cupcakes in half and fill with Butter cream, place the other half of the muffin on tip of the other half. Using 2 tablespoons pour chocolate ganache completely over the cakes, letting it run slowly down the sides.
10. Decorate with cherry ripes, fresh or glace cherries. I used a cherry ripe cut into very small pieces, 1 on each cupcake/muffin.

Note: to overseas readers Cherry Ripes are an Australian chocolate, they taste exactly like this cake! Very yummy! A great Christmas gift, anniversary or special occasion! A guaranteed hit!

Thanks again to Jennifer at LeDelicieux, a great food blogger, for making the original version of this amazing cake and for allowing me to post my modified gluten few version, for all people to enjoy. This is definitely a recipe that you can't tell is gluten free and is gobbled up by all!

Enjoy and let me know how you go! Don't forget the great competition at Delicieux to win 1 of 4 $100 vouchers from the best restaurants in Australia, only  hours to go and the other amazing competition to win 6 bottles of Fresita Strawberry flavoured wine, definitely enter!

Remember you can follow me on twitter @MMOAGFL, dint forget you can like my page on Facebook and don't just read, follow, even privately via email (you get each new blog post or recipe sent directly to your own email account),

A big thankyou

Just a quick post to say a big thankyou to ledelicieux for winning the DeBortlio wine price! It made my day! For those of you who have read my accident post, you are aware of my injuries. These lovely bottles of wine are going to the amazing friends and family, my support network who have helped me get through this hard time, driving me around, listening, being a shoulder to cry on! I also want to give a big shout out to the chefs and staff at Tahmoor Inn, we had dinner there tonight, the chef made a gf sauce for me, they came out to tell me there was batter on the chips, so I had veggies! It made for a great dining experience and also proves it doesn't matter how fancy the restaurant is, it's about the willingness and knowledge of the chef to help you out! I had a similar experience at Camden Bowling Club, the chef was very accomodating and kept on coming and checking I could eat certain things! Brilliant service and a place where you are guaranteed to have a gf meal and know with confidence that you won't have a reaction! Keep an eye out on this blog for a delicious gf cherry ripe cake recipe! Don't forget to follow me or get the blog posts by email, you can follow me on twitter too @MMOAGFL! Thanks again LeDelicieux and DeBortlio for giving me a wonderful prize! Xxx

Gf fruit n nut health bars!

One of the problems I find with being a coeliac is the lack of variety of snacks! I know there are some delicious biscuits and yummy chips, but when you are trying to be healthy and keep an eye on your weight, they aren't the most ideal snacks.

Also I love baking, obviously, as I wouldn't have started a food blog! But I have a habit of making delicious, sweet tasting treats! I end up eating way too much of this food! Again not so good for the waste line, particularly as my injuries very much limit my ability to exercise and burn off the calories I have digested.

So I set out to make a healthy snack bar, like a muesli bar, something that I can eat, without worrying too much on the calories. My first attempt was based on the popcorn pudding recipe that features on the deserts page, this was tasty but not a success for what I was after (I think the milk had something to do with it!).

My second attempt was a few days ago, inspired to create something delicious and healthy for my new readers and followers on twitter (which has been a large success, and given me amazing contacts!), I flicked through my gf cookbooks for inspiration.

What I created was based on a recipe from The Gluten Free Bible, but I made a few changes. Firstly the original recipe asked for a block of dark chocolate to be swirled across the top, sounds very delicious but didn't quite meeting the healthy treat I was aiming for.

To give the bars a bit extra flavour I added some golden syrup, which was the best decision, it really blended well with the rice flakes, chopped walnuts and cut up raisins, sultanas and dates, I also added some coconut! The only thing that I would change next time is the amount of butter. The original recipe, which I was using as a base called for 1/2 cup melted butter, it made the bars taste delicious and almost had the cornflake patty like taste that my gran used to make as a child, but it also gave it that buttery bottom, on each bar. So instead of 1/2 cup of butter, particularly if like me, your aim is for a healthy treat I would add 1/4 cup of butter, with the golden syrup it should still blend in quite well! I also cut the bars after they were set into long rectangles, you could also cut in half again and they would make great lunch box treats, which would look the same as all the other kids bars, but gluten free!

Without further ado here is the recipe,

GF Fruit & Nut Healthy Bars

Ingredients:

3 cups of crushed gf riceflakes or gf cornflakes (whatever is in the cupboard)
2/3 cups finely chopped dried fruit (I used sultanas, raisins and dates, that's what was in my cupboard, you could also use apricots, apples or cranberries, whatever is in your cupboard, if you have to buy something the remainder will get eaten)
2-3 tablespoons of finely chopped almonds (or other non salted nuts you have in your cupboard)
1/3 cup desiccated coconut (my addition)
1/3 cup icing sugar
1/3 cup melted butter
1 tablespoon of golden syrup (be generous, let it overflow a bit!)

Method:

Crush riceflakes or corn flakes (I put them in a bowl and used the back of the spoon, it worked quite well, don't blend as you don't want it too fine). Mix in finely chopped nuts fruit, nuts, icing sugar, coconut, melted butter and golden syrup, mix well.

Line a slice tray with baking paper and place mixture into the tray, use the back of a wooden spoon, to ensure that it is all flat and even.

Place bars in the fridge until set. Once set, cut bars into long rectangular shapes, then cut in half. This makes it easier for lunch box treats. Store in tray or airtight container in the fridge, depends how quickly they get devoured!

Note; if you are making these for your child to take to school, ensure that it is not a peanut free school, just ask their class teacher. If this is the case and your child can eat nuts, save them for afternoon tea treats! However if your child is allergic to nuts, simply add some pumpkin or sesame seeds to bulk it up, the same amount as the nuts. If you want to use the whole 1/2 cup of butter, these would also make great treats in patty or cup cake liners, refridgerate after putting them in their liners, for Christmas you could always use the Christmas cupcake liners! Let me know how it goes!

Also don't forget about the amazing competition at delicieux http://www.ledelicieux.com/ , the food blogger is running, you can win fantastic bottles of De Bortlio wines, it's also packaged in amazing Bohemia art boxes! Makes for great Christmas gifts!

I'm also on twitter you can follow me @MMOAGFL, don't forget the Facebook page and click on like it if you enjoy the blog! It's fantastic to read my blog and it is amazing to follow, if you don't have a gmail account, you can get my posts directly by email, fuss free, no searching straight to your inbox!

Enjoy
xxxx