Wuthering Bites’ Gluten Free Stuffing.

Posted on November 26, 2012 by scarter

Ash sitting like a chicken

I never used to make homemade stuffing. When i used to eat gluten as a wee kid, i would buy the Paxo Boxes and create this sticky mush with my mum and cook it separately in a oven dish to go alongside the Turkey at Christmas. It was never an every-week thing. Just at Christmas.

Lately i have been thinking this is a shame. After attempting a couple of homemade recipes over the past week, it’s no harder than making a salsa. Just a bit of chopping and mixing. If you have a food processor there really is no excuse.

Stuffing can really add so many great flavours to a Chicken, but as Nigel Slater has mentioned in the past, you shouldn’t need to add anything to a Chicken before putting it in the oven. The meat cooks itself and the flavour is sometimes just as good as one greased in butter and oil. This stuffing just adds a bit of luxury.

Here is a stuffing recipe with the potential to be no gluten, no egg, no dairy, so i hope everyone can enjoy this at Christmas dinner, or indeed, for any Sunday Lunch roast.

Wuthering Bites’ Gluten Free Sage, Pork, Apple and Onion Stuffing.

Serves 4 for a Medium sized Chicken. Or 2 for a small Chicken with some extra on the side.

2 Slices of Gluten Free Bread (I used Genius White Sandwich loaf)*

½ a White Onion

4 Sage Leaves

2 Gluten Free Sausages taken out of their skins (I used Sainsbury’s Pork and Apple)* or 2 heaped tablespoons of GF Sausage meat.

Quarter of a medium sized Cox apple**

3 Teaspoons of Olive Oil

Sea Salt and Pepper

*For Egg Free, Dairy Free- check the type of Bread and Sausages/Sausagemeat you use.

**If using sausages without apple in already, use a half of an Apple instead of a quarter.

If you have a food processor this is rather easy, cut all the solid ingredients into reasonable sized chunks and blitz together.

Add the Olive Oil and pulse until it’s a good consistency, you don’t want this to be too dry or too runny so add tiny bits until you think it’s right.

Season well with salt and a little pepper. The salt will help your chicken skin go crispy!

You can roll these into balls and cook for 30mins on a 180 degree heat alongside your chicken, or do what I did and carefully tuck your fingers under the skin near the breast of a chicken or turkey slowly until you’ve formed a nice gap to put stuffing into. For chicken this should cook normally on a 180 degree heat for 60 or more dependent on size, check your guided times.

Back in the days when I didn’t have a food processor, I wouldn’t let it stop me! Simply commit to chopping everything as finely as possible and bring it together using your hands. In some ways it is a better idea to do it this way as you have more control over the texture.

Adapt if you wish and Enjoy :)

Pastr..easy

Posted on September 17, 2012 by scarter

Enemy Pastry Since knowing I had a gluten intolerance, I avoided pastry like the plague. It was never going to work. Damn gluten free pastry. Always collapsing, falling apart, breaking, burning, crumbling, singing Justin Beiber; you name it. So I … Continue reading →

Hometime

Posted on September 2, 2012 by scarter

Back from Spain. Holiday. I’d be lying if i told you i missed home. I miss the relaxed attitude, not being able to worry about the stress surrounding endless bills, laundry, ironing, washing up and work on Monday. It was all sun, sea, sangria and reading a book; my idea of heaven.

My book of choice was The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. After watching the film, even though the straight out comparison to Battle Royale once put me off (a brilliant book of the same kind of concept), it really is a great piece of work. I love those kinds of thriller novels that really take you away from reality. It made me cry, and noone’s ever done that since (HARRY POTTER SPOILER) JK Rowling killed off Dumbledore.

*Enter the do you know what really grinds my gears paragraph:*

Why are Spanish/European supermarkets so much better than ours?

The chicken looks clean, fresh, in simple packaging. They’ll be no confusion of weird stickers and thingymebobs everywhere. The cheese is plentiful (a whole aisle dedicated to Manchego, is what i like to see). The fruit actually makes me want to eat fruit, huge melons, papaya, sliced to take away. It really was lovely and aside from becoming a temporary alcoholic and cheeseaholic on holiday, i think i remained rather healthy.

They also had frozen gluten free puff pastry. Oh the frustration.

I came home to no Ash. :( She’s in the cattery till Monday, as they’re closed at the weekends. So i REALLY was a messy case of post holiday blues.

What does one do when one is depressed in England? They bake darling. They bake.

So i jolly well got on with it, went straight to thinking of a cosy Sunday afternoon pudding filling. Something that was truly very British in spirit i guess, to get me off my Spanish track. A cobbler of spiced Apple, peach and nuts with an almond crust. Healthy, filling, frugal and easy.

Warm and comforting, to keep you going throughout the working week after post holiday blues…

Spiced Apple, Peach and Walnut Cobbler

For the Crust – From Coco’s Roost Blog

165g Almond Flour

1/4 tsp Salt

1/4 tsp Baking Powder

62g Melted Ghee (or butter or flavourless oil of choice)

2 Tablespoons Honey

1 teaspoon of pure Vanilla Extract

Cinnamon for dusting

Filling

1 teaspoon Ground Ginger

I teaspoon Nutmeg

2 teaspoons Cinnamon

2 peaches, 3 Apples sliced (dependent on size, go for equal amounts)

2 tablespoons of melted Butter

3 tablespoons of honey

20g of roughly chopped nuts (I used Walnuts and flaked almonds, but pistachio’s or hazelnuts could be good)

1 Tablespoon of tapioca flour

Small sprinkling of brown sugar (for on top of the filling and on top of the pie)

To make the crust: Instructions edited and quoted from Coco’s Roost Blog

‘Preheat oven to 180c.

Mix dry ingredients in a bowl and mix the wet ingredients in a separate bowl.

Combine the wet into the dry bit by bit gently with a spoon until combined.

Lay down a piece of greaseproof baking paper and place your dough on top.

Place another piece of baking paper on top of dough and flatten in a disk shape with your hand.

Using a rolling pin roll out dough until it is wide enough to drape over a 9-inch pie dish.

Once rolled out place in fridge for 30 minutes.’

To make the filling:

Pop your sliced, peeled peaches and apples into the pie dish with the nuts. Coat them all with the honey, butter, spices, tapioca flour and sugar and leave to blend for about 15-20 minutes in the fridge until very cold. I find this extra coldness will make the pastry cook more evenly and will enable it to become more of a layer rather than seep up too much of the juice from the fruits when cooking.

Place the cold pastry over the pie filling by removing the first layer of baking paper and swiftly flipping onto the fruit. Don’t worry if it crumbles at all, this is what we have to deal with being gluten free, just patch things up as well as you can with your fingers. Sprinkle over some cinammon and sugar.

Cook for 15-20 mins, checking every 10 mins or so to ensure the crust doesn’t burn, as Coco says in her recipe, almond flour tends to brown quickly. A further 10 mins is needed with tin foil placed lightly over the top to prevent this from happening.

Serve with a heavy double cream or cold homemade vanilla ice cream.

Let’s get ready to crummbbble.

Posted on February 19, 2012 by scarter

sultana, apple, crumble, crisp, dessert, gluten, free, stewed, apples, sultanas, what to do with, what to make with, easy, simple, nutmeg

Apples and Sultanas

Sometimes you just don’t have a good cooking week. Mine happened this week. I got all the ingredients prepared for a lovely lentil pasty recipe which I was going to write up for a mid week blog after testing and I was sure that it would turn out perfectly. I made the mistake of putting too much quinoa flour into my pastry dough and it turned out to not come together as I’d hoped, more of a crumbly mess. So there I was, about to fold dough around my wonderful pasty filling I’d prepared earlier and it just collapsed and to quote Eddie Izzard ‘Like a flan in a cupboard’.
Ash looked at me demanding attention (an hours prep time is just too long to last without cuddles) so I sat down, made a cup of tea and felt perplexed at my failed attempt. As with most things, kittens can usually make you feel better.

My fiancé Rob text me and asked me what I’d made for him that was yummy today, and my heart sank-; this is how much I care about my cooking. I was so determined to get something done before he got home (and for own self belief). I immediately put together a crumble, without a recipe at hand, but a note pad incase I came up with something interesting for the blog. I also managed to get some last minute jam tarts in the oven too ☺

Sometimes you have to say to yourself, why make so much effort for something that tastes just as good as a crumble on a cold day?
Voila. Here is my –If everything else goes wrong, store cupboard Apple and Sultana crumble. Perhaps not an inspiring recipe but undeniably, a savior and essential to most of the British.

Apple and sultana crumble

Crumble

50g of plain gluten free flour

40g of gluten free rolled oats

50g of unsalted butter (and a knob extra for topping)

Pinch of nutmeg

Filling:

400g of cooking apples, cored-peeled and quartered.

2 tablespoons of Manuka honey

2 tablespoons of water.

Couple of handfuls of sultanas

4 Cloves

Tablespoon of caster sugar (optional)

Preheat your oven to 190 degrees Celsius.

Chop up your cold butter into cubes and rub this into the flour, oats and nutmeg until it forms a crumble. (I must add, that i am terribly lazy and that I’ve found a better crumble is actually made in a mixer or food processor as the butter is distributed evenly; but hey I like to stick to traditional methods, when I haven’t had a disaster previous.)

Pop the prepared apples into a saucepan with the honey, water, cloves and sultanas. Leave to stew for around 15 minutes on a medium to high heat. If you wish this to be slightly sweeter, and more of a caramel, add a tablespoon of caster sugar now.

Place the stewed apples into a pie or appropriate dish and top evenly with the crumble mixture.

Put dots of butter over the top of the crumble mixture to produce a golden finish.

Cook for 30-40 minutes dependent on how golden you like it.

Serve with cream, and more cream.

In a sea of honey.

Posted on January 29, 2012 by scarter

It’s Sunday again and no matter how much I have going on I can always manage to squeeze in a bit of baking during the day. Having Ash has meant that we’ve had an abundance of visitors scheduling in to see him and today was a busy one. I had an hour to make something and as usual, music (Kate Bush) and reading about food had inspired yet again.

Kate Bush is a massive inspiration to me, and not just because I like to listen to her music but in the way that when I listen to her gorgeous words, they appear as photographs in my mind. They play out stories that are so immensely creative and interesting, that at first you have no idea what she’s going on about- then you just, ‘get it’. Her music always comes together better with time. A bit like pastry really…

So that was my train of thought this morning. Kate bush and pastry, a winning combination I feel.

Her song ‘Sunset’ from Aerial begins with these beautiful lyrics.

‘Could be honeycomb
In a sea of honey
A sky of honey
Whose shadow, long and low
Is slipping out of wet clothes?
And changes into
The most beautiful
Iridescent blue’

Imagine a sea of honey? Mmm. Obviously that would be a mean feat of a task, so I opted for honey, apples and pastry.

‘In a sea of honey’ and apple tartlets

(with a dark, olive oil and buckwheat tart crust)

[Subtitution notes: For the pastry I would most likely subtitute the buckwheat for more of the gluten free flour blend, or brown rice flour. If you want to cut out some of the sugar in the filling, do replace with agave nectar or maple syrup.]

Dark Olive oil and buckwheat tart crust
Makes 4 tartlets

60g 1/2 + 2 tbsp all purpose gluten free flour blend (with x gum in)

60g 1/2 a cup of buckwheat flour

Teaspoon of cinnamon

80g butter
(15ml) 1 tbsp olive oil
(45ml ) 3 tbsp water
14g brown fine sugar
1/4 tsp salt

Honey and Apple filling

3 Green Apples

50g of brown sugar

Tablespoon of water

Teaspoon of cinnamon

4 dollops of honey

Vanilla extract

Crumble top

Some gluten free oats, sliced almonds and a bit of flour mixed into some caster sugar

Instructions:

In a medium saucepan, combine all tart ingredients except flour over low heat.

Cook for 15-20 minutes, allowing the mixture to simmer and cook, until butter mixture begins to brown slightly.

Pop in the dry ingredients all together at once and stir very quickly until all of the dough comes together while removing from the heat.

Take the dough out and let it cool for 5-10 minutes.

Press into the tart tin/tartlet tins you wish to use and pop in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to cool.

Preheat oven to 200c

Prick the bottom of the tartlets/tart all over with a fork.

Bake for 10 minutes and press down if the tart base puffs up.

Take the tarts out of the oven and set aside.

Make your apple filling. Core peel and cut the apples and place over a medium heat with the rest of the filling mixture.

Simmer until the mixture is glossy and the apples are soft.

Put the apple filling into the tart cases.

Top with the crumble and bake for 15 minutes more until brown.

Serve warm with mascarpone or double cream.

Wuthering Bites

Tag Archives: apple

Wuthering Bites’ Gluten Free Stuffing.

Wuthering Bites’ Gluten Free Sage, Pork, Apple and Onion Stuffing.

Pastr..easy

Hometime

Let’s get ready to crummbbble.

In a sea of honey.

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